Reply #5: We are moving backwards, to a lot of horrible stuff....

[Yellow Horse]

...late 19th / early 20th century we had the robber barons, rich beyond imagination at the expense of workers making pennies a day and dying in dangerous and unhealthy mines, mills, etc. Middle class, if it existed, was small and rather powerless. There was a great extreme -- wealth and poverty.

Through the struggles of the labor movement, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Civil Rights movements (for race, sex, sexual orientation, etc) things did change -- but now we really are heading the other way. The middle class is shrinking; our economy is in grave danger while the richest make salaries and profits that would make last century's robber barons look like paupers.

The over-blown cost of politictal campaigns mean corporations and the ultra-wealthy decide who gets into office and even who gets to run -- and this at lower and lower levels of government. Half a billion has been pumped into this primary; and a lot of that has been sucked away from other causes like good government groups, election integrity organizations, and other watchdogs that desperately need support to hang on.

A President McCain is, IMHO, a real possibility if not already a done deal. Why? This protracted Dem primary (again sucking the money and lifeblood out of a lot of other movements because people just aren't donating to organizations above like they usually do); the GOP's full-frontal assualt on the right to register and vote by minorities, seniors, and others who trend Democratic (the GOPs are stealing votes before they are ever cast -- again!); and the fact that the GOP very well can and will steal it outright with the electronic voting machines if they can't win it fair and square and all their other "steals" aren't enough.)