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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