This week, the coffee klatch moved its discussion group to the Gorham House of Pizza, where Lucius Flatley introduced the Crimean War in order to illustrate class warfare in the United States today.

Occurring just prior to the Civil War, the Crimean War gave birth to military changes, but more important, it uncovered a dangerous social and economic flaw in England – a flaw that is rapidly metastasizing today in America.

By 1850, the brain dead Ottoman Empire was ready to collapse and Russia wanted some tasty portions. England and France feared that Russia was going to acquire too large a piece of the Turkish pie, so they turned their ploughshares into swords. The technical results of this atrociously managed war were mixed: the military developed rifled gun barrels. Henry Bessemer blew air into molten iron and – voila! – the first steel truly suitable for railroad rails was born. Naval mining was invented. Modern nursing practices (think Florence Nightingale), anesthetics, plaster casts and enhanced amputation improved medicine.

There were other results. The vivid comparison in battle between free men and slave-conscripts meant that 23 million serfs were soon to be freed in Russia – a world rebuke to American slavery. Russian war debts triggered the sale of Alaska, which was to provide the United States with beaucoup grizzly bears – and Sarah Palin. It was the first war to be photographed and, thanks to the telegraph, the first war to be reported on scene, which exposed the sad state of the British military. Think “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” It became obvious that the failures of the British military in that war were directly attributable to the British class system.

And so the group discussion came to the ballooning class differences in the present-day United States.

First there was the country’s near-death experience of the Great Depression, brought on by an unfair tax structure and rabid capitalist excesses. The tax (and wealth) reforms by a Democratic Congress and president reduced class differences through World War II and its immediate aftermath, but soon weakened. Then came the Reagan Revolution – and Katy bar the door! In the last 30 years, the share of the rich has accelerated beyond Daddy Warbucks’ fondest dream.

Today the richest 1 percent of the population control 35 percent of the nation’s disposable wealth, while the bottom 90 percent make do with only 27 percent. During the presidency of George Bush, two-thirds of all income growth in the United States went to the top 1 percent, raising the share of the top 5 percent to more than half of all wealth today. Shortly before Reagan took office, CEOs were making 50 times the average worker; today, they are making more than 500 times as much.

Distracted by such problems as Social Security, death panels, national debt, gun control, Iraq, “nanny state,” illegal immigrants, al Qaeda, welfare queens, high gas prices, public employee unions, and lately, “Christian values” plus “intelligent design” – the public fails to realize that the very rich are quietly raiding the national till.

If one group is allowed to pay less than its fair share of taxes, ipso facto, it is discrimination by class. When the Republican speaker of the house claims a tax increase on the super-rich to be class warfare, he tacitly admits that wealth and class share DNA. The fact is: A class war does exist today in the United States, and the tax structure is its enabler. Even though tax rates today are lower than any time since 1930, not a single leading Republican is willing to tax the uber-rich anywhere near the rate workers are hit. Further, the Republican core thinkers (read, Tea Party) actually take a pledge to not consider any taxes whatsoever.

The selection of an office holder falls between the imperfect and the less than perfect. Often, positions are blurred. But, in the case of wealth distribution, no matter what else they represent, the two major political parties speak for different sides of the tax question. Until the system is equalized and the rich are exposed as the moneychangers in the temple that they really are, Maine has no business sending any Republican whatsoever to Washington.

Devil’s Dictionary Quote

Riches: The savings of many in the hands of a few.

Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Gorham. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.