When did we take the wrong turn?

When did it happen that a bunch of very rich people started to decide over our lives. When did a few companies decided to fuck us all over with the crap of food they are selling to us? When did greed took over common sense? When did corporations took over the real power of the government, no matter who is the first man/woman of the country?

:hi:

smilin...

:hi:

:toast:

It was coming, but went into high gear with St. Ronnie Raygun.

And that was made possible, maybe inevitable, the night of June 5-6, 1968.

I've always wondered why so many voters never have doubts about putting self-proclaimed 'government haters' into high office; but then have the stones to be shocked by the consequences...

it came in with the inauguration of st. ronnie
We've been going down hill every since

live the lifestyles of the rich and famous. When we decided that Americans don't do menial work or trade jobs and that we needed to have it all and have it now. When we bought the idea that we could get rich quick by gambling on stocks rather than slowly through pensions or savings. When we swallowed the notion that business aka the customer is always right so you lay it all down for the employer on the altar of the great god of capitalism. When we sold our souls for pottage.

This has been a fight from the very beginning.

The inflation of the 60's resulted in a lot of practices that moved us to the DLC turning its back on American labor. Since then it's been an ugly slide away from the democracy that had survived two centuries of assault by business.

I think you know what this means.

At that moment, the nosedive began. We're still in it. For this reason, I consider Reagan our worst president ever, certainly the worst in my lifetime (I'm 61). The casually evil bush and cheney merely continued and deepened the pattern that St. Ronald set in stone.

Government contracts in the Civil War.

Followed by Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific in 1886.

Or, if pressed, one could take it back to the British East India Company in colonial days.

Reagan was the first to make it okay to demonize government and demonize liberals (the unspeakable "L word"). Reagan policies led to a widening gap between rich and poor. Union busting and the offshoring of jobs took off (and continue today). The rest is history.

To me that was the symbolic beginning of the age of greed.
And when you look at it it is a fitting symbole....liberty is now defined as golden.

And I don't even like Shakespeare, dammit!

... to protect the few (them) from the many (the poor, non-white, non-male, etc etc)

Business and Elites more power.

This is not to bash the DLC. But we must and they must
understand how they contributed. I do not believe they
had "evil" intentions. Forming the DLC appears to have
been a move to compete with the Republicans for the up the
scale voter. Reagan had made changes which favorer the
Business and Elites, and upper incomes. They honestly
believed that many of these voters would buy into the
Democratic Party. There are rich Democrats. The DLC
seemed to believe they could get some moderate Republicans
and Republican Leaning Independents. I do believe they
thought or intended to push back on Republicans.

However, As Reagans policies gave Business more and more
power, the Republicans moved farther and farther right
Instead of the Holding the Line in the Center between
the parties, the Democrats moved Right following the Republicans.

I am not bashing DLC or Blue Dogs. They have gotten caught
up and now they are often indebted to same Corporate Masters
as the Republicans. Who does this leave to look out for
the Working Class and Poor.

I think it was the Early Dynasty Egyptian pharaohs who really figured out how to control the masses and exploit them for their own benefit. We've been building pyramids for rich people ever since.

What is happening in this country right now is nothing new. It just feels different, because it is US that is being affected, not people in history books. Maybe when we stop building pyramids for rich people, things will finally change!

This country was founded by corporations. Don't let the scratchy lace collars fool you. They'd be wearing Armani these days.

The whole history of this country is also a timeline of the development and growth of capitalism.

It began very, very early.

The rise of a powerful and wealthy merchant class in Venice, and after in Tudor England and the Netherlands. See: Royal chartered companies like the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company, the Duke of York's Royal Africa Company, commercial colonies like Virginia and New Amsterdam, the rise of imperialism in the name of trade routes and wars fought for commercial concessions--for instance,one of the concessions given in the treaty ending the War of the Spanish Succession was a thirty-year contract to supply slaves to Spanish possessions in North America; the British Crown surrendered the rights to the South Sea Company, which collapsed in a stock bubble in 1720. The roots of this go back all the way to the rise of the commercial class as a separate and distinct entity, and in the pursuit of profit; if you want to fix a date for it it would probably be the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century with the development of the first stock exchange in London where shares in the joint stock companies of the day were publicly traded.

just the latest phase.