> 'oben und unten' is used when you want to avoid such dirty words as
> 'Arbeiterklasse' (working class) oder 'Bourgeoisie', which clearly a have
> marxist conotation. Thus your English translation inerting 'classes' is
> bending the stick a little bit.
Good point. I stand corrected.
> 'Soziale Gerechtigkeit' does not sound revolutionary at all in German. More
> or less anyone would agree that their should be some justice in society.
> Politically it is a very vague concept. So I dont think, in this repect
> there is so much difference between America and Europe.
Hmm, I'd still beg to differ, because there's an implied egalitarianism there which has been totally lost in the US. It's because of our money-corrupted legal system; everyone is suing everyone else, all the time, and the notion of courtroom drama is just another cable TV genre. This is very, very different from Europe, where disputes are still mostly handled mostly by collective agencies (employers, employees, etc.). The only place where the US has this is maybe in its civil rights/religious discourse, which make this direct appeal to a revolutionary conscience. Also, hasn't Gerechtigkeit taken over the airwaves in Deutschland? The word seems to have a buzz over there right now, wie die Amerikaner sagen.
-- Dennis