7 Signs America Has Regressed Back To the Harsh, Cruel 19th Century

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/7-signs-america-has-regressed-back-harsh-cruel-19th-century



***SNIP


1. Wall Street can “send your man around to see my man” again.

***SNIP

White House visitor logs, which are woefully incomplete, show that Wall Street’s top dogs were frequent guests, especially at the height of the bank bailout. Despite massive fraud and tens of billions in fines and settlements, not one senior banker has been indicted for the crimes which brought down the economy.

***SNIP

2. Workers aren’t unionized.

The horrors of working life during the Industrial Revolution led to the rise of the American union, beginning in the year 1860. The US State Department estimates that 3 percent of the workforce belonged to a union by the close of the 19th century. That number rose to roughly 7 percent by 1930, and to more than one worker in four by 1954.

***SNIP

3. Our rights end at the workplace door.

Our individual rights are being steadily eroded in the workplace. As employment lawyer Mark Trapp told Business Week, “the freedom to speak your mind doesn’t really exist in the workplace.” A series of court cases has shown that Americans can be fired for expressing political opinions outside their place of employment, too, on social media like Twitter or Facebook.


***SNIP

4. They’re advocating child labor again.

What’s the matter with kids today? According to a number of conservatives, they’re not being put to work in factories and farms. Child labor, one of the moral blights of 19th-century America, is increasingly popular on the right again.

[KG]

1. AutoalternetDURec

[B Calm]

2. Globalists have screwed up everything. Try to form a union

in the work place today and they just close up shop, and move operations overseas for cheap labor. With no tariffs, what's stopping them?

[fasttense]

3. The crap I've read here for the last several days about how robotics and technology

has replaced labor really fails to take into account the huge amount of labor performed in sweat shops all over the world. Try making a sweater or dress with just technology. Try cleaning up your toilet, bath or counter tops with technology.

Human labor is still very heavily used. It's just more rare here in the US because they have moved most of the factories to 3rd world sweat shops Americans don't have to look at. Yet we get to buy 3rd world sweat shops, prison or child labor products at 1st world prices. What would happen if we didn't allow this crap into our markets. I'm sure there are thousand of Americans who would gladly take back those markets stolen by foreign corporations.

[DebJ]

4. Everyone should read this book. You'd be amazed.

http://www.amazon.com/1877-Americas-Year-Living-Violently/dp/159558708X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380886105&sr=1-1&keywords=1877

Looks like Groundhog Day in America, beginning with the financial market collapse and how it was precipitated:
by unscrupulous bankers.

The book says it is 400 pages on Amazon, but about half of that is notes and references,
so not a very long read, and for sure, a stunning one.

[Corruption Inc]

5. I'll add one: people are ecstatic because corrupt health insurance is only $440 a month

Thank the 1%er era of corruption thieves for allowing us peons access to doctors and meds for the measly monthly cost of a brand new Mercedes Benz, LOL.

[marmar]

6. k/r

[malaise]

7. K & R

Since the Soviet Union collapsed the 1%ers and their owned politicians have no reasons to fool anyone about 'democracy'. Never forget Citycorp's Plutocratic document.

[xchrom]

8. +1