THIRTY YEARS OF "PROGRESS"

This is from Bitter Harvest Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus: Murder in the Heartland by James Corcoran. This was written in the eighties but the poison described in the book has slowly been allowed to infect the Republican Party. They did seize control of the party but not the country. So far at least since these idiots just can’t shut up.

“Duke’s victory in Louisiana was the first fruit born of a new strategy endorsed by the so called Christian Patriot win of the extremist movement, said Lynora Williams, executive director for the Center for Democratic Renewal. According to Williams, the new strategy was first proposed in 1987 by, among others, A. Jay Lowry, publisher of the Clinton, Arkansas, based Justice Times, a monthly newsletter that claims to be “The Original Voice of the Second American Revolution!!”

“It is true that many are attempting to drop out of the system by getting rid of bank accounts, drivers’ licenses, rescinding social security numbers, and denying jurisdiction in the courts,” wrote Lowry in the December 1987 issued of the Justice Times. “But, the election process is the game that is played. It is time to unite! Not under a third party banner which has proven so many time to be a failure, but to take over one of the major parties. Some say it should be the Republican Party.”

Williams said one reason the Republican Party was selected is because of its twenty year long “Southern Strategy,” which publicly pandered to racism”  Corcoran then spends a paragraph or so naming conservative members of the party George Hansen of Idaho and state senators from Washington and Idaho Jack Metcalf and Wayne Stump. Hansen was prosecuted in the middle eighties for failing to properly disclose financial information. All three had reached out to the so called Christian Patriot Movement.

Metcalf also spent much of his time criss crossing the country attacking the Federal Reserve system. A letter from Stump was widely circulated by various groups. Titled “To Whom it May Concern” he attacked the fourteenth amendment claiming that the freed slaves were a different class of citizens than the white citizens of the constitution before the first ten amendments were attached. Funny these folks never seem to realize that without those amendments their beloved constitution would probably have never been ratified in the first place. And then was the guy in Alaska last year who claimed that women didn't qualify as full citizens for pretty much the same reason. We weren't voting citizens when the constitution was ratified. 

Fortunately, while the different groups did come together over the years to form the far right base of the Republican Party and the Tea Party they’ve never managed to find a charismatic candidate to rally behind. Of course charisma isn’t everything, look how close Romney came to winning.

In the meantime the party continues to shoot itself in both feet.