Word: proletariat
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...place to begin is the fact that ours was a college student's protest, and not, as I remember claiming at the time, the action of a vanguard of the urban proletariat and Third World peasants. We were born in the most powerful country on earth in its history and grew up entirely within the post-War economic boom. Life came so smoothly, so almost without incident, that almost no memories remain, no signposts to draw the boundaries. In the 1960s we came of age in the nation's best, or at least its elite, colleges. Most of us never...
Wealthier students can ride this tide with the upwardly mobile; others may find it harder to keep apace as the Square begins to flirt in earnest with chi-chi consumerism. I hear there's still an army surplus store at Central Square where, coincidentally, you can also find the proletariat fast food Cambridge opposes. At least at McDonald's two dollars can buy you dinner, not just a sugar rush...
...there are nine rigid castes in the U.S. They range from the out-of-sight rich living off capital in grand seclusion, to the destitute, who are also well hidden. In between are various levels of uppers, middles and "proles," Shaw's and Orwell's abbreviation of proletariat, now Fussell's gleefully derogatory term for blue-collar workers...
...another channel, Leon Trotsky visits New York City in 1917 to rouse the American proletariat. Burgess tells this story in the form of a libretto for a Broadway musical, complete with lyrics. Trotsky falls for Olga, a hardheaded party worker, while his wife cavorts with a wealthy socialist. Four hearts beat as one until the revolutionary's son is reported missing. Trotsky's life is changed forever when he is reunited with the boy, and the songs turn as sentimental as the story. At the finale, the hero chants, "Family's first,/ Love is completeness,/ Power...
...This is an epithet dreamed up by the Shah and later propagated by Khomeini and company. To answer your question, we must first establish what Marxism is. If it is dialectic materialism and historical determinism and, by later additions, the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is certainly not the Mujahedin's Islam. If dedication to social justice is Marxism, then the Mujahedin are Marxists. If opposition to class privilege and exploitation is Marxism, then the Mujahedin are Marxists. Of course, in this case, you have to say that Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammad were Marxists...