8 Ways America's Headed Back to the Robber-Baron Era

[Brewman_Jax]

http://www.alternet.org/story/156111/8_w...baron_era/

From the article:

Quote:Over the past 40 years, corporations and politicians have rolled back many of the gains made by working and middle-class people over the previous century. We have the highest level of income inequality in 90 years, both private and public sector unions are under a concerted attack, and federal and state governments intend to cut deficits by slashing services to the poor.

We are recreating the Gilded Age, the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when corporations ruled this nation, buying politicians, using violence against unions, and engaging in open corruption. During the Gilded Age, many Americans lived in stark poverty, in crowded tenement housing, without safe workplaces, and lacked any safety net to help lift them out of hard times.

With Republicans more committed than ever to repealing every economic gain the working-class has achieved in the last century and the Democrats seemingly unable to resist, we need to understand the Gilded Age to see what conservatives are trying to do to this nation. Here are 8 ways our corporations, politicians and courts are trying to recreate the Gilded Age.

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Holy reruns, Batman! Those acts of the 19th-Century robber barons included union busting, open purchase of elections, and voter repression. They were a lot more blatant in those days because most of those actions were not technically illegal. Looks familiar, doesn't it?

The excesses of the 19th-Century robber barons brought about the labor and liberal movements. Looks like another popular movement is needed to blunt the power of the 21st-Century version of the robber barons, Big Biz.

[jaxx]

Good article. I'm glad to see the 'panics' being shown. This is where regulation came from, the corrupt ways the $$$ screwed the country.....and the right says we don't need regulation.

[Hekate]

Thanks for the article. I've been saying this since the Bush-Cheney cabal started turning back the clock on a century of food and drug regulations. Yeah, this is the new Gilded Age, on steroids. The Robber Barons have returned.

[SeattleGirl]

(07-03-2012 09:49 PM)Hekate Wrote:  Thanks for the article. I've been saying this since the Bush-Cheney cabal started turning back the clock on a century of food and drug regulations. Yeah, this is the new Gilded Age, on steroids. The Robber Barons have returned.

Same here, Hekate. And the thing is, they think once they have established their "kingdom" it will always be there. "Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it."