A little economic and art history lesson combined, as an intellectual alternative to football, institutionalized gluttony, and glorified shopping greed promoted under the guise of Christian capitalism.
Mitt's on R-money represented the policies of those who would accelerate the redistribution aka class warfare that extracts money from the 99% and relocates it to the 1%. This is evidenced by the grotesque excessive compensation without corresponding merit or accomplishment, that has been paid to the 'C-class' (CEOs CFOs COOs etc.) and other executives in contrast to increased labor productivity that has gone unrewarded, replaced with stagnating or declining compensation. Add in taxation and other policies which create an unequal playing field, and billionaires who try to buy elections, effectively owning politicians at all levels of government. Add in the vulture capitalism of political wannabes like Mitt Romney, and you have a recipe for a repetition of an era of our history that was exemplified by destructive and destabilizing boom and bust cycles, brutal attempts at union busting, and the conspicuous consumption of a few in contrast to the widespread and increasing impoverishment of the majority, in place of the American Dream and the possibility for upward mobility.
Also associated with the era were rampant swindles that eventually gave rise to the term we now know as a Ponzi scheme in the 1920s, named for Charles Ponzi, although similar scams and swindles using the same blueprint occurred in the era between the Civil War and WW II. American financial regulation arose to curb the excesses and outright swindles of the era that contributed tremendously to the financial collapse that resulted in the Great Depression. Those who seek a new gilded age want to abolish such regulation in the name of being 'business friendly', a euphemism for unfettered class warfare. Those who want to avert such disasters consistently seek regulation that keeps business honest, maintains a fair and equitable even playing field for competition, and tend to protect equally the consumer, the investor, and the small innovator from corporate greed, unfair practices and unfair competition.
In this Gilded Age as it was called, a term coined by Mark Twain to represent gaudy wealth as represented by gold leaf and gold plate, overlaying the social problems rotting underneath, an illustrator who worked mainly in pen and ink became internationally famous, Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl(s), a series of iconic illustrations over several decades of American women who were both beautiful and intelligent, idealized among other things, for marrying into European aristocracy. Real life examples of these beautiful women of wealth include the mother of Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Randolph Churchill (nee Jeanette Jerome) and the model for my blogging icon, Virginie Gautreau (nee Avegno) who posed for famous artists, including the portrait of Madame X by expat American painter John Singer Sargent.
I recognized the illustration in the image below as a particularly well-known Gibson illustration, circa 1900. Now women have the right to vote, and while still paid less than men, we have more opportunity to aspire to success than we did in the Gibson Girl era -- although the right wing war on women would send us back to those bad old days where all women could aspire to was to be the arm candy / trophy wife of powerful and wealthy men, not powerful in their own right. I am truly thankful as a woman that I will not ever have to say 'President Romney' OR Vice President Ryan.
Mitt's on R-money represented the policies of those who would accelerate the redistribution aka class warfare that extracts money from the 99% and relocates it to the 1%. This is evidenced by the grotesque excessive compensation without corresponding merit or accomplishment, that has been paid to the 'C-class' (CEOs CFOs COOs etc.) and other executives in contrast to increased labor productivity that has gone unrewarded, replaced with stagnating or declining compensation. Add in taxation and other policies which create an unequal playing field, and billionaires who try to buy elections, effectively owning politicians at all levels of government. Add in the vulture capitalism of political wannabes like Mitt Romney, and you have a recipe for a repetition of an era of our history that was exemplified by destructive and destabilizing boom and bust cycles, brutal attempts at union busting, and the conspicuous consumption of a few in contrast to the widespread and increasing impoverishment of the majority, in place of the American Dream and the possibility for upward mobility.
Also associated with the era were rampant swindles that eventually gave rise to the term we now know as a Ponzi scheme in the 1920s, named for Charles Ponzi, although similar scams and swindles using the same blueprint occurred in the era between the Civil War and WW II. American financial regulation arose to curb the excesses and outright swindles of the era that contributed tremendously to the financial collapse that resulted in the Great Depression. Those who seek a new gilded age want to abolish such regulation in the name of being 'business friendly', a euphemism for unfettered class warfare. Those who want to avert such disasters consistently seek regulation that keeps business honest, maintains a fair and equitable even playing field for competition, and tend to protect equally the consumer, the investor, and the small innovator from corporate greed, unfair practices and unfair competition.
In this Gilded Age as it was called, a term coined by Mark Twain to represent gaudy wealth as represented by gold leaf and gold plate, overlaying the social problems rotting underneath, an illustrator who worked mainly in pen and ink became internationally famous, Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl(s), a series of iconic illustrations over several decades of American women who were both beautiful and intelligent, idealized among other things, for marrying into European aristocracy. Real life examples of these beautiful women of wealth include the mother of Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Randolph Churchill (nee Jeanette Jerome) and the model for my blogging icon, Virginie Gautreau (nee Avegno) who posed for famous artists, including the portrait of Madame X by expat American painter John Singer Sargent.
I recognized the illustration in the image below as a particularly well-known Gibson illustration, circa 1900. Now women have the right to vote, and while still paid less than men, we have more opportunity to aspire to success than we did in the Gibson Girl era -- although the right wing war on women would send us back to those bad old days where all women could aspire to was to be the arm candy / trophy wife of powerful and wealthy men, not powerful in their own right. I am truly thankful as a woman that I will not ever have to say 'President Romney' OR Vice President Ryan.
No comments:
Post a Comment