As it ever has been…
“Year by year the cost of living increases, and wages, if they move at all, move laggingly, and after desperate and embittered strife. Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive.
The [first world] war has taught them the possibilities of propaganda; it has accustomed them to the idea of enormous campaigns which sway the minds of millions and make them pliable to any purpose.
American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them from doing the people’s will and protecting the people’s interests; it was the exploiter entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political democracy.”
– Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check, 1919
