By Steve Fraser
Library book
So whereas the other three books; Coming Apart, Boom,Bust, Exodus and Our Kids tell what happened and why, this book attempts.to explain why there was so little.outrage at this latest capitalist crime spree.
Finance moves west and the populist movement begins.
Henty Demarest Lloyd says the Republican party isnall used up. "The Republican party took the black man off the auction block, but it has put the white man on the auction block of the money power."
There's a book that just came.out called "To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party." I remember seeing that title and thinking yes this party once stood for something. You made men free. What do you stand for now?
101 In 1896 the People's Party disolved. "Millions flooded back into the Democratic party. William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech brought them in by the truckload.
1896 McKinley wins. The populists are beat down. Frederick Turner pronounces the frontier closed. A new millennium is upon us. The 1890 census spells it all out.
112 Find out more about the "Paris Commune"
113 Here's the "Great Uprising of 1877"
115 At the time of the Great Uprising a Pittssburgh paper writes. The laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, will not take up arms to put down their brethren." Contrast this with the rich dick who said "I could pay half the working class ro exterminate the other half." Maybe not sir. Maybe we will cohere.
118 Major unrest between the forces of capital and labor contnued. The 1886 Haymarket Square. What did the communist savages want? An 8hr work day.
119 The movement towardss an 8hr work day became known as the great upheaval.
122 "The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor... [was] part trade union, part guild [and] part political protest...Like.the Populist movement... [it was] an alternate social universe of reading rooms, newspapers, lecture societies and clubs."
124 May 1, 1886 is the first May Day. Though not first celebrated until the following year "to honor the executed anarchists." May Day is "still celebrated now in most parts of the world except in the United States where it began."
128 It was Jay Gould in 1886 who said that about hiring.labor as quoted above.
131 Tomkins Square, Haymarket Square, these are the temples of Labor. And the most honored rallying cry of them all Homestead!
133 Shortly after Homestead Frick is Shot by Andrew Berkman. People who screwed over their fellow man in that day always had to worry about this possibilty. Nowadays "Neutron Jack" can safely go on TV and.brag anout his abuse of the working class to thundering applause. Wasnt always that way. Is this how democracy ends? To thundering applause?
134 Pullman 1894!
137 Coxie's Army
138 Ludlow! These arenthe historical bastions of labor.
139 1905 'The Wobblies"
145 "The past is mot dead, it's not even past." William Faulkner
146 "On the shoals of roast beef and apple pie socialistic Utopias of every sort are sent.to their doom. There is a new nook out this week that claims it's our ability to buy stuff (consumerism) that keeps us from rioting today. Even though it sucks we can still buy a new Iphone and be happy.
Even Carnegie pictured hiself a.working class hero by founding working mens libraries. Course he then made it, with his union busting and insistence on the 12hr work day, so the.working man would never have time.to use them.
196 The picture looked great in America in 1970. The rising tide was lifting all boats for sure and it lifted the poors higher. "The bottom fifth of the population saw its income raise by 116%." And thentop fifth got 85%. There was plenty to go round.
235 "Between the years of 2000 and 2011 17 American manufacturers closed each day.
272 The blasts the myth that ruthlessness is necessary to promote proper "shareholder value". The author reminds us that this shareholder value is a brand new.concept in the corporation and that in most cases after ruthlessness and treachery to boost the corporations bottom line, in many cases the stock price declines.
284 Ahh were firmly in the 80's now. It was heady times with everyman an investor and the day of the day trader. Newpapers, tv pop culture itself revolved around the next tale of Wall Street riches just waiting.to be plucked. "The apotheosis... [of this era] was when Ivan Boesky addressed the graduating class in Berkeley 1986." The speech about greed being good was the basis.for the character of Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, that was being written at this time, and would come out the following year.
287 And n with Reagan's splendidly opulent Inaugural ball, suddenly being rich becamemthe new black. The message was everywhere, from Lifestyles of the Rich amd Famous to fawing magazine coverage of these fabulously rich new society. It was morning again in America and we in the unmonied class were waiting.to be trickled upon. And boy did we ever get trickled on.
301 So our says its a 'vanishing act" that todays rich do, at least those that want to be elected. Watching the uberrich John kery and George bush dress and actmlike.good old boys in that election was good.comic opera. This hiding out in plain site "contributes to self erasure as a ruling class: the final nonconfrontation." Not really sure i buy this argument.
303 Consumerism and a.feeling of choice, though false, is what keeps us quiescent says the author. A new book comkng out called Cool: has the same premise.
309 So how do you continue to feed your consumerism habit with no money? You charge it. Debt most times leads to those long nightsmof.feeling guilty and possible bankruptcy. But not.to feel yoo bad the author reminds us that the.most indebted of us ie our "financial institutions walk away from their debts passing them on to the public treasury, without a qualm.
213 Theres a fine line here about consumerism. The children of the greatest generation shunned the consumerist nature and the need to acquire and conform. I, at the tail end of the boom, did not feel that way. Of.course those hippies were taken up later in the craze as anyone whose tried to buy tickets to Fleetwood Mac ($300 yeah right) will tell you. That group spends money now.
Yes independent contractors. The corps like that, easier to throw stuff away.
341 In 2012 union membership was at 6.6, the end of an era.
351 A new auto worker today bring home what his grandfather did in 1946, and glad to get. "All this was met with barley a whisper of discontent."
384 Good point here. The word parasitism in the first Gilded age meant the rich. In this one it means the poor. Still not sure how we got there though.
Mario Procaccino coined the term 'limosine liberal" in a Mayoral race against John Lindsay.
385 A 'tenther" is a person who quotes the tenth amendment at you, which reserves for the states all powers not expressly granted to the feds
393 Oh this has to be wrong. "The homosexual population earns 10-26% less than heterosexuals." Ive never met a poor gay guy yet.
Books:
Henry.George progress and Poverty
Edward Bellamy Looking Backward
Henry Demarest Lloyd Wealth Against Commonwealth
William Dean Howells A Hazard of New Fortunes
1982 Barry Bluestone The Deindustrializarion of America
Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition for the Twenty-First Century
By George Gilder
Cool: How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World
Essays
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