2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Are you old enough to remember real Dem's? [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)These were the good old days, and hasn't everything sucked since then.
When the foundation of the argument is totally hosed, everything that comes from it isn't worth a tinker's damn.
Anyone who thought that corporate power didn't influence political life in the happy-happy seventies (never mind much, MUCH earlier) is pipe dreaming. That influence goes back to WW1 and earlier. Do you seriously think Brown and Root were engaged in civic good works, and they only influenced the White House during the Vietnam War because they were nice guys? And Bebe Rebozo? He was just a friendly old guy with a nice beach house?
The difference between then and now? We've got the internet, and it's easier to gripe about it. We've also got more laws to flout about corporate influence--the cash comes through in other ways (no work jobs for relatives, stock tips, etc.) and not in manila envelopes.