16 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • NOVEMBER 2019
POINT OF VIEW
INCOME INEQUALITY TIME FOR CHANGE
By ROBERT BUONASPINA
Long Island Activists steering
committee member
I believe we are currently living
through a second Gilded Age. It began
officially with the election of Ronald
Reagan in 1980 and has continued
through both Republican and Democratic
administrations to the present.
As both U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren have stressed, the
system is rigged and the richest 1 percent
of Americans and other wealthy
donors have been controlling our political
processes. But living during a
Gilded Age is nothing new to us.
More than a century ago in the 1880s,
America saw the first Gilded Age,
when the robber barons preyed on
the masses. That era was ended in
large part by the Progressive Era. So
much good came from those "woke"
at that time in the world of reporting,
writing, and advocacy.
Substantial reforms were passed
from the creation of the primary
system, the development of the
initiative process — for citizen-written
laws, and the referendum process
— for citizens to vote on ballot
measures that could also become
law.
Police and fire departments were
created by people arguing for a
safer society. Building codes were
passed. Job safely measures enacted.
Large trusts like John D. Rockefeller's
Standard Oil were broken up
by the U.S. Supreme Court because
they had too much power and had
abused the trust of the people in the
process.
Thus from the perspective of the
masses — the 99 percenters of the
day — this was a fairly healthy time
period for positive change. What we
need today is a second Progressive
Era, bigger and bolder than the first,
to right so much wrong that has
creeped into our politics.
The current woke among us need to
push back the political, social, and
economic pendulum firmly toward
serving the needs of the majority of
Americans. We need a return to a
liberal-progressive America that
values people over profit first.
Bernie would be a great leader in
that effort and so would Warren.
Fighting the right fight would place
our economy on a much firmer and
secure footing to create a vibrant
future America. The status quo and
current political reality is not a sustainable
one.
“The status quo and current political reality
is not a sustainable one.”
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