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I’ve already, in Parts 1 & 2, done my rant about Republicans holding hostage unemployment payments, demanding the nation first borrow 700 billion dollars to give an extra tax break to the Rich (beyond the normal tax break which everyone, including them, get). I’ve generally kept my Monday postings rant-free, so, if you want the rants (or, merely see the cartoons that went with them), click here.

Above, from1846 in Our Own Times, is Tremendous Sacrifice!, by legendary British cartoonist, George Cruikshank. From a scan of its November 1893 reprinting, in the British periodical, Picture Magazine. Depicted is a clothing store - “Cheap Shop” — filled with customers remarking on the goods, “I cannot imagine how they can possibly be made for the price.” In the store’s backroom, we precisely how, with workers marching into a grinder, goods and profits (but not the workers) emerging from the machinery. One worker says on their way towards the end, “I understand that it is impossible to get a living at this work!” To which another worker replies, “So I have heard. Nevertheless, we must try!”

The Picture Magazine caption laments how fifty years later, Cruikshank’s satire on the sweat shop system was still in 1893, just as appropriate. Today, 160+ years later, it still rings true, albeit that current corporations have moved the sweat shop jobs overseas (awaiting the days American wages fall to that of the Third World).

Doug Wheeler

financial reform Christmas Comics