# Its Been A Long Time Gone Since Long Time Gone By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2025-02-20 David Crosby’s song "Long Time Gone" was released in 1969, which was fifty-five years ago. It’s safe to say that a long time has passed since then. In the song, Crosby wrote, “Speak out; speak out against the madness; speak your mind, yeah; that is, if you still can and if you still dare.” The echo of this plea reverberates today. We must speak out against the madness. Our government has become a plutocracy that no longer represents the interests of most Americans. Reactionaries are redefining work, which undermines the recently gained ability to work remotely. Everywhere, the working class is facing stagnant wages, precarious employment, and minimal protections. There is a lack of solidarity within the working class, resulting in little hope for challenging the unified goals of the plutocracy. Societies experience an ebb and flow; what is called for varies with time and context. Marx noted that, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Crosby wrote "Long Time Gone" in response to the tragedies of late 1960s America. We are now seeing its farcical repetition with Trump, MAGA, and DOGE. We need to speak out against this madness while we still can and while we still dare. To the extent that support for MAGA was driven by the frustration stemming from a government that does not represent the interests of “average” Americans, that anger is justified. Our democracy is representative in name only. Or perhaps more accurately, it is representative only of the interests of the plutocracy. However, what is worse than a nonrepresentative government is a nonfunctional, nonrepresentative one. We are moving from bad to worse. Speak out against the madness. #### Related Items [[Plutocracy]] [[Solidarity]] [[Representation]] [[Class]] [[Speech]]