The Civil War in which more Americans died is then any other war, is presented as a war to free the slaves, not primarily between two economic systems that both used their working classes as cannon fodder in a bloody war that they would not gain from. Seldom mentioned is the fact that those in control of the federal government easily traded African Americans to another hundred years of semi slavery Jim Crow laws in order to advance their commercial interests by ending reconstruction. Only hinted at is the fact that the Mexican and Spanish American Wars were purely expansionist wars of the elite and the politicians and press they controlled.
The violence and exploitation of labor by capital is given passing mention at best. Little is said about women and children working 16 hour days in mills, factories and other places because they were easier to intimidate and force into compliance. Men employed in mines, logging, railroad and canal building were often geographically isolated. This made them dependent on the company for everything necessary to live including housing and food if not through direct provision, through the use of company script for pay. Seldom told is it that most farmers were sharecroppers, tenant farmers or in perpetual debt to merchants who both sold seed and bought crops. The sole purpose of most government policy was expand markets and to maintain a labor surplus to pit one man in need of a job against another. Lack of regulation (now sought by business) caused financial panics and depressions in 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1919, and 1929.
Unions, agricultural populists, and socialist movements led by everyday people fought great battles against the forces of wealth and power only to be absented from history. These movements especially strong between 1890 and the beginning of WWII were based in WCWMs finding their own voice. The Peoples Party, the International Workers of the World, the Socialist anti-war movement against WWI, were all peoples movements centered on WCWMs banding with other groups crossing traditional differences to stand up against an oppressive, exploitive form of corporate and political capitalism supporting the county's elite. These were the moments in history when there was true vision on the part of working people to understand who their common enemy was and effectively counter it.
For that many paid the prices of jail, deportation and even death. The economic elite used desperate immigrant and minority scabs, thugs and at times the law and the military against union organizers, pacifists and protestors. Patriotic fervor was routinely aroused to divert attention or crush internal dissent. Especially vicious was the destruction of the Socialists and the Wobblies during WWI (undeniably a battle of colonial powers) and the use of anti-communism during the cold war to crush any anti-capitalist dissent.
Democrats: Pragmatic Populists
The Democratic Party only had any real interest in WCWMs when populist movements threatened their place in the two party system. In most cases, Democrats joined Republicans or acted on their own to divide and defeat these movements. When the pressure for change became too volatile, the Democrats incorporated enough of the populist demands to split movements or mollify calls for equity. The Roosevelts were the two presidents who understood the need for reform to cool the demands of the working classes and prevent a total rebellion against Capitalism. Teddy's modest constraints on monopolies and FDR's response to the great depression, were means to prevent open rebellion against corporate capitalism by desperate working people. Their forced adoption of some principles also bonded the populist socialist policies to the Democratic Party Image in spite of the discomfort of party leaders.
The period where WCWM came closest to some kind of secure status was after WWII. Coming home as heroes, needed by an expanding industrial base, unified by their common military experience, industry grew, unions grew, prosperity grew. Companies were willing to give because they thought that growth was unending, and union recognition stabilized the economic environment.
During the cold war Democrats and Republicans alike used McCarthyism and other forms of repression to coerce liberals to shun not only communism but socialism as well. Both parties invested in expansion of the military industrial complex and morphed into a like minded, pro-business, centrist governing cycle. Culturally WCWMs were presented as the mainstay of cultural and economic stability, reflected by Ward Cleaver, "Father Knows Best" and Ozzie Nelson. VFW groups, volunteer fire departments, financial prosperity, growing consumerism quieted the home front.
The two factors that threatened this 60s Nirvana were: 1) the call for working people to sacrifice their sons in a war of aggression in Viet Nam and; 2) the fact that minorities (blacks, women, Hispanics, certainly gays) did not share in either the status or prosperity. The opportunity for wider solidarity and class splintering were born of the same seed.
Additional energy fueled this dynamic because of the large numbers of young men and women from the working class, who for the first time had access to higher education (the draft helped this process). Many of these children from union homes brought with them the awareness of the class struggle, a history of fighting for their rights and had a desire to gain the skills to enter and change the power structure. The resulting concentration of young working class idealists caused an even larger demand for financial and social equality. The civil rights, anti-war and women's movement brought these grievances to the fore front and challenged the supremacy in the social-economic spectrum of the power structure and its front man the WCWM.
The monumental opposition to the war in Viet Nam and move back to the left poised the greatest threat to the power structure since the populist and union movements between the 1890's and WWII. But history was not lost upon the elites, they once again used racism, misogyny, and smear tactics to deny substantial change in the overall system.
One Continual Oxbow Incident, Unfortunately Without the Suicide
Once again, the historical fear of emasculation was raised to separate WCWMs from their natural class allies. Feminism, the upwardly mobile yuppies, blacks entering the system for the first time were all used to stoke these fears amongst WCWMs. This was even more evident in the black community where black women were given hiring preference over black men. This happened because of traditional fears of black men as well as affirmative action programs that tended to give double credit for hiring a "woman" who was a "minority of color".
The result was that black men were further emasculated culturally and banished economically from the system. The irony was these same black men excluded from the legal economy, were exploited again by Republicans for participating in the only economy they weren't excluded from. They served double duty, raising the fear of crime and going on a prison building spree that gave WCWMs a financial job stake in keeping them imprisoned. In the process the prison system was privatized allowing lower wages and benefits to the WCWMs who ended up with the guard jobs.
The Right wing elite who had exploited WCWMs as cannon fodder during Viet Nam now did so again exploiting the displacement and disorientation of veterans when they returned home to a stagnant economy and a cloud of suspicion about their mental state and service. Republicans were quick to revise history and blame leftist elites as the reason the U.S. lost the war. In actuality, as pointed out by Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States", it was a widespread recognition of the failed corporate militarism by the working class that hastened the end of another war of aggression not the elites who generally supported the war to the very end.
The bitter taste of the Viet Nam war, Watergate, a period of stagflation under Carter left the public with a taste of disillusionment for politics in general. The result was a falling voter participation and more activists splintering into single issue politics and going the route of traditional lobbying. This made the Democratic party even more dependent on the coalition of minorities, women and traditional union members that was able to maintain control of congress if not the Presidency. Class economic issues of WCWMs became secondary.
The violence and exploitation of labor by capital is given passing mention at best. Little is said about women and children working 16 hour days in mills, factories and other places because they were easier to intimidate and force into compliance. Men employed in mines, logging, railroad and canal building were often geographically isolated. This made them dependent on the company for everything necessary to live including housing and food if not through direct provision, through the use of company script for pay. Seldom told is it that most farmers were sharecroppers, tenant farmers or in perpetual debt to merchants who both sold seed and bought crops. The sole purpose of most government policy was expand markets and to maintain a labor surplus to pit one man in need of a job against another. Lack of regulation (now sought by business) caused financial panics and depressions in 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1919, and 1929.
Unions, agricultural populists, and socialist movements led by everyday people fought great battles against the forces of wealth and power only to be absented from history. These movements especially strong between 1890 and the beginning of WWII were based in WCWMs finding their own voice. The Peoples Party, the International Workers of the World, the Socialist anti-war movement against WWI, were all peoples movements centered on WCWMs banding with other groups crossing traditional differences to stand up against an oppressive, exploitive form of corporate and political capitalism supporting the county's elite. These were the moments in history when there was true vision on the part of working people to understand who their common enemy was and effectively counter it.
For that many paid the prices of jail, deportation and even death. The economic elite used desperate immigrant and minority scabs, thugs and at times the law and the military against union organizers, pacifists and protestors. Patriotic fervor was routinely aroused to divert attention or crush internal dissent. Especially vicious was the destruction of the Socialists and the Wobblies during WWI (undeniably a battle of colonial powers) and the use of anti-communism during the cold war to crush any anti-capitalist dissent.
The Democratic Party only had any real interest in WCWMs when populist movements threatened their place in the two party system. In most cases, Democrats joined Republicans or acted on their own to divide and defeat these movements. When the pressure for change became too volatile, the Democrats incorporated enough of the populist demands to split movements or mollify calls for equity. The Roosevelts were the two presidents who understood the need for reform to cool the demands of the working classes and prevent a total rebellion against Capitalism. Teddy's modest constraints on monopolies and FDR's response to the great depression, were means to prevent open rebellion against corporate capitalism by desperate working people. Their forced adoption of some principles also bonded the populist socialist policies to the Democratic Party Image in spite of the discomfort of party leaders.
The period where WCWM came closest to some kind of secure status was after WWII. Coming home as heroes, needed by an expanding industrial base, unified by their common military experience, industry grew, unions grew, prosperity grew. Companies were willing to give because they thought that growth was unending, and union recognition stabilized the economic environment.
During the cold war Democrats and Republicans alike used McCarthyism and other forms of repression to coerce liberals to shun not only communism but socialism as well. Both parties invested in expansion of the military industrial complex and morphed into a like minded, pro-business, centrist governing cycle. Culturally WCWMs were presented as the mainstay of cultural and economic stability, reflected by Ward Cleaver, "Father Knows Best" and Ozzie Nelson. VFW groups, volunteer fire departments, financial prosperity, growing consumerism quieted the home front.
The two factors that threatened this 60s Nirvana were: 1) the call for working people to sacrifice their sons in a war of aggression in Viet Nam and; 2) the fact that minorities (blacks, women, Hispanics, certainly gays) did not share in either the status or prosperity. The opportunity for wider solidarity and class splintering were born of the same seed.
Additional energy fueled this dynamic because of the large numbers of young men and women from the working class, who for the first time had access to higher education (the draft helped this process). Many of these children from union homes brought with them the awareness of the class struggle, a history of fighting for their rights and had a desire to gain the skills to enter and change the power structure. The resulting concentration of young working class idealists caused an even larger demand for financial and social equality. The civil rights, anti-war and women's movement brought these grievances to the fore front and challenged the supremacy in the social-economic spectrum of the power structure and its front man the WCWM.
The monumental opposition to the war in Viet Nam and move back to the left poised the greatest threat to the power structure since the populist and union movements between the 1890's and WWII. But history was not lost upon the elites, they once again used racism, misogyny, and smear tactics to deny substantial change in the overall system.
One Continual Oxbow Incident, Unfortunately Without the Suicide
Once again, the historical fear of emasculation was raised to separate WCWMs from their natural class allies. Feminism, the upwardly mobile yuppies, blacks entering the system for the first time were all used to stoke these fears amongst WCWMs. This was even more evident in the black community where black women were given hiring preference over black men. This happened because of traditional fears of black men as well as affirmative action programs that tended to give double credit for hiring a "woman" who was a "minority of color".
The result was that black men were further emasculated culturally and banished economically from the system. The irony was these same black men excluded from the legal economy, were exploited again by Republicans for participating in the only economy they weren't excluded from. They served double duty, raising the fear of crime and going on a prison building spree that gave WCWMs a financial job stake in keeping them imprisoned. In the process the prison system was privatized allowing lower wages and benefits to the WCWMs who ended up with the guard jobs.
The Right wing elite who had exploited WCWMs as cannon fodder during Viet Nam now did so again exploiting the displacement and disorientation of veterans when they returned home to a stagnant economy and a cloud of suspicion about their mental state and service. Republicans were quick to revise history and blame leftist elites as the reason the U.S. lost the war. In actuality, as pointed out by Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States", it was a widespread recognition of the failed corporate militarism by the working class that hastened the end of another war of aggression not the elites who generally supported the war to the very end.
The bitter taste of the Viet Nam war, Watergate, a period of stagflation under Carter left the public with a taste of disillusionment for politics in general. The result was a falling voter participation and more activists splintering into single issue politics and going the route of traditional lobbying. This made the Democratic party even more dependent on the coalition of minorities, women and traditional union members that was able to maintain control of congress if not the Presidency. Class economic issues of WCWMs became secondary.
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