Republicans in Tennessee are on the verge of legalizing political corruption.

Legislation is moving along in the state government that will allow corporations to directly contribute to politicians - something that is currently illegal. Corporations CAN funnel money through political action committees - and - thanks to Citizens United last year - they can throw unlimited amounts of cash into electioneering like television and radio ads - but it’s always been illegal for corporations to give money DIRECTLY to politicians.

There’s always been this wall in place between corporations and politicians - and Tennessee is about to blow that wall up. This is just the latest salvo in the race to the bottom - the race to see which state will be first to be wholly owned by big money interests. And this race to the bottom has a long history.

After the Civil War and the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870’s - for the first time in America’s history - a “landed gentry” rose up of people who in today’s dollars were our country's first billionaires. And they made their fortunes by playing dirty - building up monopolies and trusts - sabotaging the competition - and buying off politicians to get favorable treatment in Washington, DC. Look up the presidential administration of Ulysses S. Grant - one of the most corrupted White Houses in history thanks to the billionaires. This is what was known as the Gilded Age in American history.

And it’s no coincidence that the rise of the billionaires coincided with the dying off of the previous generation of Americans that had fought against British billionaires and the East India Tea Company when our nation was founded. Thomas Jefferson worried about corporate power - but he was confident that since America was born out of rebellion against the world’s largest corporation - the East India Tea Company - that an anti-corporate spirit would be engrained into the American culture. And it was…until he and the rest of his generation died off - and then, sure enough corporations would rise up in America with economic and political clout that rivaled what the East India Tea Company held generations earlier.

But it wouldn’t be long before the billionaires wore out their welcome in America - and the working class - tired of being screwed over - rose up. And in 1885 - Democrat Grover Cleveland moved into the White House with a plan to end the Gilded Age of billionaires and political corruption. In his 1888 State of the Union - Cleveland said:

“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling for in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

Again - this was coming out of the mouth of the sitting President of the United in his annual, Constitutionally-mandated report to Congress on the State of the Nation - saying that the “iron heel” of corporations are trampling the working people. Can you imagine if President Obama said something like that today?? Grover Cleveland's words would not fall on deaf ears .

Soon - that corporate iron heel would be broken up by a tidal wave of state and federal laws making trusts and monopolies illegal - like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act - and by 1892 - the Gilded Age was winding down with nearly every state in the country putting laws on the books to break up corporate trusts - most notably Ohio, home of Senator Sherman, who proposed the Sherman Act, and coincidentally home of John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Trust. But these billionaires would not back down. They figured if the current politicians didn't want to be their friends - then they would buy new politicians who would want to be. And they did - until 1907 - when Teddy Roosevelt passed the Tilman Act that made it illegal for ANY corporation to make ANY contribution to ANY politician.

But in the 100 years after the Tilman act was passed - Republican presidents and some Democrats would water it down so much that today - a state like Tennessee will soon pass a law that says the exact opposite - that ANY corporation can make ANY contribution to ANY politician.

Similarly - those states that had passed anti-trust laws in the 1890's - would soon give in under the pressure of corporate power.

After Ohio kicked Rockefeller out - he moved his trust to New Jersey - the first state to adopt Wild West-like rules on corporations - giving them free reign to conduct any sort of business they would like.

And Delaware soon followed - passing laws that would give corporations the easiest ride of any other state in the union. And, sure enough, today more than 50% of all US publicly-traded companies - and 63% of Fortune 500 companies - call Delaware home.

And that's pretty much where it stood, until Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Act in 1982, and George Bush put John Roberts on the Supreme Court. Because of these two guys, we've entered another Gilded Age in America - and with the latest move by Tennessee to legalize the wholesale purchase of our politicians by corporations - look for other states to follow suit just to prove that they can be more favorable to big business.

The iron heel of corporate power has descended once again on to the throats of the working class.

Unless we wake up an do something about it soon.

That's The Big Picture.