Up the Republic

Can't help but think of the Tea Party today while reading the late Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." I'm up to the "Robber Barons and Rebels" chapter, which talks of the Populist movement of the 1880s and 1890s.

Strikes swept the country — railroad workers, miners, steel mill crews, women factory workers — while the Farmers Alliance "showed sympathy with the growing labor movement," Zinn says.

He discusses the economic collapse of 1893, which puts our current economic disaster to shame, but which gave national impetus to the People's (populist) party. By the time of the 1896 presidential election, however, the Democratic Party had engulfed the Populists.

" ... where a threatening mass movement developed, the two-party system stood ready to send out one of its columns to surround that movement and drain it of vitality," Zinn says.

My point: news stories today report that Tea Party demonstrators are using signs that were printed by the Republican Party. The GOP is surrounding the Tea Party. So long, suckers.

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Reno newspaper story today quotes a Republican candidate for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's seat as referring to the "Democrat" party.

If it's Democrat rather than Democratic, shouldn't her party be called the Republic Party?

Of course, republics are rarely democracies. On the other hand, the GOP's masters don't want democracy anyway. Which brings us right back to robber barons.

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The quest for power

So ... another batch of pervert Roman Catholic priests, this time in Germany.

The men who maintain the rule of celibacy cannot understand the power of the human sex drive. Not that perverts are acting out of an actual sex drive; they use sex as a weapon to hurt the weak and make themselves feel strong.

But any priest who can live celibate, untroubled, cannot grasp the need for physical release that sexual activity brings. It's like a deaf person's understanding of Bach or Lennon-McCartney, intellectual but not visceral.

Celibacy was forced on the priesthood, not that long ago, in an effort — mostly successful — to maintain power, imposed by men filled with hate, envy and lust. Get a man by the package and he's yours forever. Like frakking him without actually touching him.

Jesus Christ would not recognize any of today's "Christian" churches.

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Twilight hours reading twisted history with the Beckster

Dear Rachel Maddow: I'm so glad that you "love" daylight saving time. It's just that there is a horrid trade-off for your evening revels. Millions of school children must roll out of bed, dress, eat and travel to school in pre-dawn darkness.

How about this: Ignore what the clock says and do your evening thang according to where the sun is. Leave the rest of us alone. You're a big TV star, lady. Own your life.

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Dear Glenn Beck: Thanks for the warning about social justice and economic justice being code words used by the Nazis and Communists.

One problem, though ... the Nazis lost the fighting war, and the Communists (even China's communism is mutating) lost the economic war. Their philosophies went bye-bye. Game over.

Did you go to school in Texas?

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Dear Texas State Board of Education: Congrats on the victory that will let you rewrite the history taught to Texas students ... history with an ultraconservative, Christian slant.

One problem for your brainwashing program: The Internet. Heard of it? Used to be that students had no access to alternative points of view, on any subject. Nowadays, the Web overflows with info, facts, and balance. E-books, cable TV ... there are a zillion outlets for actual facts.

Only the most stupid of Texas children will never learn what the rest of the world already knows.

Ignorance can be fixed; stupid is forever.

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