General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJust for some context for how abuse by the wealthy elites was dealt with in the past, skim through
"The Gangs of New York".
In New York in the mid-19th century, people were actually starving while wealthy businessmen guarded their warehouses filled with flour and grain and the prices skyrocketed. After pleas and marches failed to influence the capitalists to release some of their stores to save lives, angry mobs assembled, overpowered the guards and broke into the food stores. But, they did not stop with that.
They marched to the mansions of the wealthy, broke into them, carried away furniture and silverware and clothing---anything of value---and then burned the big houses after hanging their owners from lamp posts.
Of course, nothing even remotely like this could happen today, right?
Bluethroughu
(5,096 posts)Enter stage left
(3,389 posts)cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)The military did not reach the city until the second day of rioting, by which time the mobs had ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground.[9] The area's demographics changed as a result of the riot. Many black residents left Manhattan permanently with many moving to Brooklyn. By 1865, the black population had fallen below 11,000 for the first time since 1820.
West of Broadway, below Twenty-sixth, all was quiet at 9 o'clock last night. A crowd was at the corner of Seventh avenue and Twenty-seventh Street at that time. This was the scene of the hanging of a negro in the morning, and another at 6 o'clock in the evening. The body of the one hung in the morning presented a shocking appearance at the Station-House. His fingers and toes had been sliced off, and there was scarcely an inch of his flesh which was not gashed. Late in the afternoon, a negro was dragged out of his house in West Twenty-seventh street, beaten down on the sidewalk, pounded in a horrible manner, and then hanged to a tree.[23]
The most reliable estimates indicate at least 2,000 people were injured. Herbert Asbury, the author of the 1928 book Gangs of New York, upon which the 2002 film was based, puts the figure much higher, at 2,000 killed and 8,000 wounded,[25] a number that some dispute.[26] Total property damage was about $15 million (equivalent to $16.7 million $83.7 million in 2019[27]).[25][28] The city treasury later indemnified one-quarter of the amount.
JustAnotherGen
(31,688 posts)Reality check.
They went after poor black people.
Archae
(46,262 posts)So the reality of this riot was FAR different than the Hollywood portrayal.
As posted just above my post.
VarryOn
(2,343 posts)Be defined
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,452 posts)We could do that,without the violence.
Obscene wealth is incompatible with democracy and the concept of freedom.
I hope the wealthy are made to pay up soon someday.
Farmer-Rick
(10,072 posts)"The war revenue debate would be fought on Roosevelts terms not on whether to tax the rich, but on how much. And, in the end, that how much would turn out to be quite a great deal. By the wars end, Americas wealthy would be paying taxes on income over $200,000 at a 94 percent statutory rate."
https://flaglerlive.com/26685/gc-fdr-and-taxes/
Then Tax all their wealth like we tax property. That would be more than enough to give us all Medicare.
flotsam2
(162 posts)Which continued for over 150 years were similar. While the potato crop that fed the poor failed for 3 consecutive years, "The historian Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 18451849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland "as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation".[110] While in addition to the maize imports, four times as much wheat was imported into Ireland at the height of the famine as exported, much of the imported wheat was used as livestock feed" WIKI Keep in mind poor Irish had few cattle-the imported wheat fed English owned cows while 2 million starved... So Ireland was depopulated by 20% and warred against the wealthier classes for not days but well over a century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)