Reply #36: Read your history friend, and you will see that everything old [View All]

[MadHound]

Is new again.

The First Gilded Age came about because of the intertwining of corporate and political power. The government ceded a lot of it's power to corporations, and for the most part, was entirely beholden to corporations. Then as now, it was political donations that fueled government corruption. It finally got to the point that it mattered not which political party was in power, both parties were beholden to the same corporate interests, and put those interests before the will and the needs of the people. This is the age of the robber barons, child labor, the laisse faire marketplace where a person's life didn't matter, just so long as the line kept moving. The disparity in income between the rich and the rest of us was so great that it was only surpassed in the Clinton years, when the Second Gilded Age started. The end of the First Gilded Age was predictable, it was the Great Depression.

With the Democrats working hand in hand in hand with the Republicans and the great corporations, the ordinary person was completely shut out of the any meaningful way to change things. Yes, you could vote, but what did your vote matter when the person you voted into office answered to the same corporate whip as the person you just voted out? People saw this for what it was, and started organizing. They organized around labor unions, such as the Wobblies(IWW) and third party political organizations such as the Socialists. Through the hard work, strikes, and ever growing popularity of these outside the mainstream groups, concessions were finally forced out of the government/corporate power structure, concessions that we still enjoy to this day, such as the minimum wage, forty hour work week, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, among many others.

Yet all of this is in danger of slipping away because once again the government comprised of the same two major political parties has made unholy alliance with the corporate powers in this country. And while one can bang your head against the wall forever trying to force change and reform from within, unless you've got serious money, you're not going to be heard. Thus it is again time for the commom folks to join hands and work from outside the mainstream power structure in order to force real change in this country. Otherwise, as we have seen happening for the past twelve years, corporations will eventually force the common folks into virtual slavery, in this the land of the free.

I would suggest that if you're interested in these matters that you read two books, "Peoples History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, and "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips. I've included Amazon links upthread for your convience.