Repost: Nothing changes. Unless we make it.

Still true.

A copy of some of my early writing came to me as a gift in the mail today.

As I began to read the one posted below, I thought “This is good! Am I really that brilliant?”

Unfortunately, the answer was “no.” The article begins with a long quote from the People’s Party of America written in 1890.

The quote is just as pertinent today. Maybe more so.

The conditions which surround us best justify
our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a
nation brought to the verge of moral, political,
and material ruin. Corruption dominates the
ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress,
and touches even the ermine of the bench. The
people are demoralized; most of the States
have been compelled to isolate the voters at
the polling places to prevent universal
intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are
largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion
silenced, business prostrated, homes covered
with mortgages, labor impoverished’ and the
land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.
The urban workmen are denied the right to
organize for self-protection, imported
pauperized labor beats down their wages, a
hireling standing army, unrecognized by our
laws, is established to shoot them down, and
they are rapidly degenerating into European
conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are
boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a
few, unprecedented in the history of mankind;
and the possessors of those, in turn, despise
the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes – tramps and
millionaires.
-From the People’s Party of America platform1890s. (Also known as the Populist
Movement.)
Unfortunately, this is the common tale of too
many stripped of any parent-child relationship
by a seemingly corrupt court. The
court creates a pauper, enslaved to enriching
the collaterals, the lawyers, therapists and
monitors appointed by the court. The rulers
are acting upon the threat of force. They act
under the color of law, but not under the laws
this once great nation was built upon. – Laura Lynn Hammett 2009