The Present Situation Is Most Like Which Period of History?

the theft of lands by the wealthy, the use of the military for expansionism that benefits the wealthy, the rule by the wealthy overiding the rule of the people...

Hayes stole the election in 1876, not the 1880's.

Interesting fact about that stolen election. Florida was one of the states involved in the theft.

Yes, my friends, we're in the Gilded Age right now. With thieves that make Jay Gould and company look like amateurs.

I'll fix the poll.

:toast:

Reichstag Fire was to Hitler, no question. Although there are plenty of similarities with the 1880's America as well.

Clark made that comparison during a New Hampshire Public Radio interview (I bought the CD from them immediately - it was on a show called "The Exchange"). Absolutely flawed me. He went on to talk about the attempt to steal the 2000 Election among other things.

I don't think the country has been as divided since then,but it seems to be approaching that today.

and Bush said, "let 'em eat cake, those welfare bastards".

Combination of misplaced moralism (Prohibition) and unfettered greed led to Great Depression.

The "roaring 20's" (for a few at the expense of the many) ushered in the Great Depression of the 30's. If we continue down the path we are on now as a country (and have been for almost three decades now) another economic collapse is inevitable. Consumerism doesn't work without consumers.

The bubble burst in 2000 is nothing compared to what's coming.
since then the market has risen in value, but not like gold which has risen 40% in the last eighteen months, The euro has gained 30% against the dollar replacing it as the premier currency. When the market and gold both go up there is big trouble brewing. 9/11 was only a primer, the real Reichstag event will be much bigger , is coming soon , and moves will be made to crush all dissent. Buffet and Soros aren't wrong when it comes to money matters.

If you listen to the GOP platform, it's beeen tried. And it almost resulted in a revolution.

most of the above?

while were at it..

...with some of the Vietnam era mixed in as well.

I think that both the 50 BCE and the 1933 scenarios are valid

It mirrors the period from approximately 1900 to approxiamtely 1935 which included the Teapot Dome scandal and the collapse of Unsull's empire. In fact some of the very Wall Street firms that benefitted from fascism during that era such as Sullivan and Cromwell and Morgan Bank are still around in newer incarnations. During this period the uprising that created Panama (completely manufactured by Wall Street so they could sell and build the Panama Canal a purchase they made for 12 million and sold to the US gov for 40 million pre-construction) occurred as well.

but I was trying to invoke the parallel between that era of robber barons and crony capitalism that Twain called the Gilded Age, which I believe continued into the period you're describing, and the present one. My brush may be painting too broad a stroke, but I think of that whole era between Reconstruction and the New Deal as a morass made by the less democratic, more beholden aspects of Republicanism.

with the stolen election than it had to do with other players controlling policy...the specific dates I narrowed it down to was the highlights of Mark "Dollar" Hanna's career....that would be Rove's mentor as a historian..he has stated, in fact, in the past that he idolized Hanna.

Hanna's most infamous quote: In politics two things are important; money, and I forgot what the second one was (paraphrase)

:)

The Western Empire, embroiled in wars that drained the Imperial treasury, corrupted the government and placed civil control in the hands of the military, destabilised the balance of power, and ultimately acheived nothing save to usher in the Dark Ages. 1930's Germany comes a close second.

one of our very worse presidents, James Polk, gave Lincoln the opportunity to deliver some of his best speeches, against the war with Mexico - I've seen those speeches quoted a number of times here.

Coupled with a bit of Vietnam c. 1965.

think Charlemagne.

Julie

I read all you smarty pantses talking about the Roman empire and different emperors and so on. Do any of you have any books to recommend? I want to read a book about Greece and Rome and what there is to learn about it.

"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Good place to start. Public domain, etexts available in various places. Do a search for author "Edward Gibbon" on Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org

guess he couldn't write about Caligula's excesses in his own language.

It's very, very well written, focussing not just on Cicero but on the whole political scene at the end of the Republic.

Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club is a brilliant look at the intellectual life of the US between the Civil War and World War I. It's a bit dense (meaning thick with ideas, not just "thick") in places, but the stories of the people who held those ideas--Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jane Addams, John Dewey, etc.--are fascinating.

American Aurora by Richard Rosenfeld is an unorthodox history of the period right after Washington's second term, which was one of the most factional periods in the whole nation's history. It tells the story of Benjamin Bache, Ben Franklin's grandson, the editor of the American Aurora newspaper out of Philadelphia which took the side of the "French party"--Jefferson's radical Democratic-Republicans--against Adams' monarchistic Federalists.

n/t

but it's worse because humans are capable of so much more now

when people were so miserably divided.

McKinley was on the verge of turning America into a fascist state. Seriously. If McKinley hadn't picked TR as his VP, or if McKinley hadn't died, we would have turned into full-on oligopoly by 1900 or 1905. Mark Hannah had a plan for America that was totally scuppered by the fact that TR became president. TR was kind of like McCain. He was a RW'er with a conscience who saw the big picture of oligopoly, and was too much of a patriot to let that happen to America.

At the time, it was probably a sad lesson. All those Democrats tried to fight back against fascism, and couldn't do it. The successful fighter had to come from within the Republican party. (I'm sure the Republican party is always looking for the flip side of this -- the Democrat who's really a Republican who wants to destroy the Democratic party from within.)

Fortunately, 1932 proved that a Democrat could fight fascism from the left, and do it much more successfully. FDR was able to win 4 terms battling fascsim. TR was kicked out on his ass by his own party for obstructing their bigger plans.

I was thinking of the days of the British Empire where they were clearly the number one power, but also were clearly overstretched and on their way down.

Maybe Rome would be an example here too. Maybe around 300 ad.

I'd say 4th and 5th century CE, when the Roman Empire was in the process of being taken over by the Church. Maybe * believes he's Constantinus, turning the "godless" America into "one nation under God".