The Oldest War

 In ancient Rome, during"Republican" days, before the Empire, Rome was often very divided. And it was, most decidedly, a Class division.

And the two classes were known by names:

1) They were the Plebians, AKA the lower classes and/or Working class. Although you could be a very wealthy Merchant you were still a Plebian.

2) The Patricians. AKA the Nobility. Although you could be very poor, and lost your land minimum, and still be in the Patrician class, although without your membership in the Senate, by virtue of having been born into the correct families. Like the Gens Julii, or the Gens Cornelii, etc.

And throughout the history of Republican Rome there was a series of greater and lesser conflicts between the classes.

The Patricians had all the Political and Religious power and the Plebians wanted to have some Political and Religious power.

I am convinced that the overthrow of the last King of Rome was the Patricians getting rid of a check on their power as the Kings, always Foreigners, made their Power Base among the Plebians as a counter weight to the Patricians.

The last King of Rome, Lucious Tarqinius Superbus, AKA Tarquin the Proud, I believe was overthrown in a Power Grab by the Patrician Class to have sole power in Rome to better be able to ravage the city of all of it's assets.

Which they proceeded to do. From 509 BC until 494 BC when the Plebians, having tried many other things, resorted to what is called The Plebian Withdrawal. Would be known today as a Nation Wide Strike.

And what that meant was all of the Plebian class withdrew from the city. They went out into the countryside and left the Patricians to themselves. The workers were not there to work. The Army was immobilized as no one was joining. (It was a citizen army recruited new every year during the campaign season.) The city came to a standstill.

It worked. And what was born out of this was The Plebian Assembly and the Tribune of the Plebs. It's modern descendents are The House of Commons and The House of Representatives.

Over the next centuries were many battles back and forth. Some of them Political back and forth. Some of them actual battles. Riot, usually pushed and financed by the Patricians, using retired Gladiators in many cases, became a part of Roman Life.

In the years between 130 and 120 BC the wealthy Plebians Tiberius Gracchus and younger brother Gaius Gracchus were, at different times, Tribune of the Plebs. They both, in their terms, tried to legislate some land reforms to take the exploitation of Public Lands away from the Patricians and give plots to individual Farmers. It would have been good for the State in the short and long run.

Each of the Brothers Gracchi were killed by Mob Violence created and financed by the Patricians who stood to lose out financially if this passed.

And extreme violence entered the Political Arena to never leave again until the rise of Gaius Octavious Caesar, AKA Caesar Augustus.

It never truly left Roman Politics during Empire either. And riot became a fact of life for the lower classes who sought to disrupt Noble Power.

And class warfare has been in force throughout European history since.

Throughout European history class warfare has been between the wealthy landowning class and the peasant land working class.

Over time the power shifted, slowly and painfully with many stops and back steps, from the upper classes to the lower classes.

And today the battle is between the inherited wealth of the merchant princes and the blue collar workers who they employ.

And it got really ramped up in America in the late 1680's and early 1690's. That was when the Slave Owning Planter Class in the Colony of Virginia began to notice that the White Working Class people of the colony had begun to see that they had a lot more in common with the Black Slave Class than they had with the white planter class.

And the wealthy planter class, AKA the Aristocrats, began to be very afraid.

So they created a distraction for the white working class to separate them from the black slave class.

They took an already existing Racism and Weaponized it and put it on Steroids. And created the extremely virulent Racism that still exists in America today.

And it still divides people of color and white people, who have much more in common with each other than not, from each other.

Which totally keeps white working class people from noticing how much the White Industrialists are fleecing them. Of money, of dignity, of freedom, of hope.

Because they distracted with "Culture War" issues that actually have no bearing on their lives, abortion and immigration and sexual orientation, most especially convincing christians that they are under attack.

All of these things are designed to distract YOU from the fact that the Wealthy in America have been fighting a Class War from the beginning. And they keep trying, and succeeding, to divide us along other lines so that we do not Unite against them.

And until we stop buying into the wedge issues that divide us and start fighting the already existing Class War we are doomed.

Doomed to work more for less. Doomed to be able to provide less for our children and grand children. Doomed to die of disease and addiction. Doomed to be less that we could be.

So wake up folks. Turn off your TV and Computer. Go have a conversation with that neighbor that you have been taught to hate. Find common ground. There is plenty to find.

And wake up to the fact that you have been manipulated your entire life by a well oiled and financed machine.

You have so much to gain and so very little left to lose.