A SHORT HISTORY OF RIGHT WING DESTRUCTION PART 3

After the Civil War ended, the United States entered a period that has been called the Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age saw technical progress and expansion of U. S. territory and influence.  It also saw the development of the some of the great fortunes that still exist today.  Men like Andrew Carnegie and J. D. Rockefeller built financial empires.  They were largely free from governmental restraint.

Things were not so pleasant for working class people.  There was no social safety net in those days except for what could be provided by churches and private charities.  It wasn't only African-Americans who suffered discrimination.  Newly-arrived immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and other countries faced discrimination.

We saw completion of great railroads, largely with federal government help.  It was the equivalent in some ways of government research that developed the Internet and other technologies in our day.

There was movement toward giving women the right to vote.  It was resisted strenuously by the reactionary forces of the time.

As the century turned, we had a war with Spain.  The war was justified because of an apparent attack on the United States battleship "Maine" in Havana Harbor.  The Fox News of the day was probably William Randolph Hearst, a practitioner of "yellow journalism."  Hearst pounded the drums for a war with Spain.  The Spanish-American war may  have been the equivalent of George W. Bush's trumped up reasons for attacking  Iraq.

More to come