{"id":6127,"date":"2011-10-15T00:33:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-15T07:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/15\/a-history-lesson-on-the-1\/"},"modified":"2011-10-15T00:33:37","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T07:33:37","slug":"a-history-lesson-on-the-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/15\/a-history-lesson-on-the-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A History Lesson on the 1%"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout American history, the 1% and the politicians they own have been there.  We did not always call them Republicans.  In fact, when the Republican party was initially founded, they were the progressive party, and Democrats represented the 1%.  Nevertheless, the attitudes expressed by these people has remained unchanged over the years, as this article by Mike Lux demonstrates.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"15Hamilton\"…conservatives throughout our history have always echoed each other on these subjects no matter what the era. Here\u2019s a sampling:<\/font><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Written in 1776 by a pro-British Anglican Bishop: \u201cIf I must be enslaved let it be by a King at least, and not by a parcel of upstart lawless Committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/span> <\/li>\n
  2. In the 1790s, friend of the big New York bankers of his day Alexander Hamilton was at a dinner party, and yelled at a pro-democracy advocate: \u201cYour people, sir \u2013 your people is a great beast.\u201d An ally of Hamilton\u2019s wrote: \u201cA democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of natural history. Its omens are always sinister. \u2026 It is always on trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy<\/strong>. No wise man but discerns its imperfections, no good man but shudders at its miseries. No honest man but proclaims its frauds, and no brave man but draws his sword against its farce.\u201d<\/font><\/span> <\/li>\n
  3. In the 1830s, conservative hero John C. Calhoun (who first forged the bond between the idea of states\u2019 rights and conservative politics) wrote: \u201cThe will of the majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatible with liberty<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/span> <\/li>\n
  4. In the post-Civil War era, where the right-wing philosophy of Social Darwinism reigned supreme, conservatives were distressed about the idea of poor and working people voting and then taking from the rich. Charles Adams wrote, \u201cUniversal suffrage can only mean in plain English, the government of ignorance and vice \u2013 it means a European, and especially Celtic, proletariat on the Atlantic Coast; an African proletariat on the shores of the Gulf, and a Chinese proletariat on the Pacific.<\/strong>\u201d And his contemporary Francis Parkman added, \u201cThere is probably no sweeter experience in the world than that of a penniless laborer \u2026 when he learns that by casting his vote in the right way, he can strip the rich merchant \u2026 of a portion of his gains.\u201d<\/font><\/span> <\/li>\n
  5. These anti-democratic sentiments certainly did not cease in the modern era \u2014 all you have to do is look at all the Republican efforts to deny the right to vote to so many citizens to understand that. And their fears of demonstrators are vivid. Look at this quote, which certainly reflected the views of people in power like Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, from conservative author Samuel Huntington in a report he wrote in the 1970s: \u201cSome of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy. … A democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups.<\/strong>\u201d<\/font><\/span> <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    From the anti-American Revolution Tories of the 1770s to the Glenn Beck\/Eric Cantor conservatives of today, conservatives always have been on the side of the wealthiest and most powerful in society, and always have been absolutely panic stricken when people get out in the streets to protest the abuses of the rest of us by the economic elites<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Inserted from <Crooks and Liars<\/a>><\/p>\n

    There have been two periods in the last hundred years where millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals have run the show.  The first was the Roaring Twenties.  Unregulated excessive greed brought us the Great Depression.  The second began in 1980, the Republican Revolution, and unregulated excessive greed brought us the Republican Recession.  We stand at a crossroads in history.  The first step in restoring America must be to remove the party that most fully represents the interests of the 1%, the Republicans.  Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Throughout American history, the 1% and the politicians they own have been there.  We did not always call them Republicans.  In fact, when the Republican party was initially founded, they were the progressive party, and Democrats represented the 1%.  Nevertheless, the attitudes expressed by these people has remained unchanged over the years, as this article […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}