American Social Movements: From Slavery to the 2008 Financial Crisis

In early America, there

are moral questions around religion,

alcohol, and

most importantly, slavery. In the industrial timeline, there

are questions about

workers' rights. Who

actually benefits from progress?

We are going to stand in the

ranks of the strikers.

And in our timeline after

1964, Woodstock, Vietnam

protests, counterculture,

women's lib, the

peaceful protests of the

civil rights movement,

questioning trust in authority.

When will you be satisfied?

Who gets left

out? Change happens, but just

incrementally.

A struggle for humankind.

Only the kind that the

system can accommodate without breaking.

In the unraveling,

people start to see the system as

fundamentally

broken.

No justice, no peace!

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear-

Questions turn to open distrust

Government is not the

solution to our problem.

Government is the problem

In early America,

now slavery

isn't just a moral issue.

It's an irreconcilable

failure at the heart of the system.

No union, slave owners.

In the industrial timeline, labor becomes,

again, about the failure of the

system.

For the soul of man-

There are strikes, violent protests

The National Guard is plainly attempting to quell the riots

Unions, and the

rising threat of communism.

And in our timeline, the same thing.

Civil rights talk transforms into a message

that the system is fundamentally

broken.

Fuck the police, coming straight from the underground

Beating of Rodney King.

Returns a not guilty verdict.

Objections to the Vietnam War

have now expanded

into a broad distrust of

America's role in the world to begin with.

The worst terrorist in the world, the United States.

The picture of America as

prosperous, equal, morally

confident,

that picture is broken.

9/11 happens.

Iraq fails, and the 2008 financial

crisis devastates the economy.

A record number of home foreclosures.

And now we enter

the crisis,

the place where we all live