Zinn gives the name “guards” to a keystone group of people in the class system; the employed working (middle) class of slightly privileged people. The guards include include anyone from soldiers, police, teachers, doctors, Lawers, all the way down to garbage men, and hospitality workers. Zinn says that these people create a “buffer” in the class system and lay somewhere between the upper and lower classes. They can be considered a keystone in the system because if the guards stop obeying, the system as a whole will collapse. Zinn then goes on to compare the class guards to the actual guards in the Attica prison riot. He states that when the establishment (government) gives its guards rewards not to be fooled because they would have no issue
