Class Warfare - It's a SNAP

Class Warfare is jargon that was originally associated with Das Kapital, Karl Marx’s epic analysis of economic history.  In it, he identified players – lords, serfs, bourgeoisie, proletarians, capitalists and others in a seemingly endless cycle (actually – his  cycle ended at Communism) of destruction and reformation, as humankind’s primitive responses evolved toward perfection. 

Marx had ideas that stuck.  Though the ideas are quaint or discredited today, their stamp is indelible and their power remains through the words they left behind.  Class warfare is the idea of eternal conflict between haves and have-nots.   In our current folklore, Marx has nothing meaningful to say and any argument can be debased if one can characterize it as being tainted  - somehow - by such monstrous thoughtcrime as exampled by ideas of Socialism or Class Warfare.

Interestingly, while wealthy President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was constructing the New Deal, he was accused by the small, privileged – er – class of holders of great inherited wealth as being a “traitor to his class.”  Ever since then, whenever a voice calls for what amounts to progressive taxation – having the rich pay more – these same critics accuse the maker of invoking Class Warfare, trying to drive a wedge artificially between parts of the actually harmoniously unified whole of American society.

Recently  billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg lambasted opponent mayoral candidate, Bill de Blasio for running a “class-warfare and racist” campaign.  President Obama is frequently accused of raising up class warfare to promote his agenda as in this September 17 article in Forbes:

The President claims that income inequality is fraying our social fabric.  In truth, it is government policies, especially our economic policies, which are tearing us apart.  One such culprit is our federal income tax system, which in some sense pits the portion of society that doesn’t pay income taxes against those that do.

…  In recent years, that division has become more and more public and is encouraged by this President’s class warfare and his phony talk about income inequality. 

The House just passed the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013. It still has to go to the Senate.  It proposes to slash $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.  As reported by NEA:

Millions of Americans ... would go hungry without this program, nearly half of whom are children. It would also undermine the enrollment of low-income children in school meal programs, and 210,000 children would lose access to nutritious meals at school.

“Class Warfare”, by the rich against the most vulnerable sector of the society, in this case is an understatement.  This is the nuclear option used against a tribe armed with wooden spoons.  Food stamp recipients are 45% children, 20% disabled and 7.5% elderly (72.5% totaled).

Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan are the primary architects of the bill.  Cantor says the bill is about fairness:

“And we’re going to bring a bill forward … that actually says about food stamps, we want the people who need those food stamp benefits to get them. But you know what? It’s an issue of fairness. If they are able- bodied people who can work, they ought to do that in order to receive a government benefit. That’s the proposal we are bringing forward.”

In this case a label of Class Warfare is a little too academic and bland.  If you want to use a more closely congruent literary allusion in your language, slaughter of the lambs would be better.