Naderian Revolution

Ralph Nader is back, and the "consumer advocate" says he's no spoiler. In a telephone interview, Nader said he is motivated to make a third-party run because no one else is addressing the corporate dominance in Washington. He called for a "Jeffersonian revolution" that would rein in the Pentagon, provide health insurance for all Americans and generate a "living wage" for all workers.

-------Lol. Here we go again - the founding father icon emulation. Jeffersonian revolution. Does that trigger a sense of the good old days when folks were free and prosperous and had rights and everything, before Bush? Lol.

"Provide health insurance for all Americans" - yessiree make sure the government (you) pays for that - because we sure don't want the corporatocracy to dip into their profits and provide benefits to workers.

"Living wage" - just like Thomas Jefferson and buddies provided a living wage for their workers - also known as slavery. Hey, I know, we can call it a Sallary Hemmings wage.

"Rein in the Pentagon" - that's Jeffersonian? Did Jefferson rein in the war department before or after he dispatched the Navy to the Mediterranean to take care of those Muslim Pirates ... sing it! from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli ...

Progressives promote the idea Jefferson was a champion of religious tolerance in this piece on Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) - Ellison desirous of a photo-op with his hand on the Koran that Thomas Jefferson owned. Jefferson had pushed a Religious Freedom bill and possessed a Koran - therefore he must have been tolerant. First of all, Jefferson studied the Koran in order to better understand his enemy and kick their ass - the Barbary pirates.

As for championing religious freedom, the Jefferson quote from ThinkProgress "... proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him..."

Considering white folks have spent 200 years making excuses for guys like Jefferson for being slaveholders, e.g. these great men were personally against slavery and were victims of their era yada yada. I guess freeing their slaves would look radical to their neighbors? Therefore "religious freedom" could mean anything - just as they were against slavery but owned slaves.

The religious freedom of good ol' boy Jefferson could merely have meant tolerance for the differences between an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian, a Baptist and a Lutheran.

Come on Bubba, these "founding fathers" were a group of wealthy land owning white men writing dogma/doctrine beneficial only to wealthy landowning white men. They had no intention of giving equality or tolerance to slaves or Indians, Muslims or Mexicans or any non-Christian religion practiced by same.

The founding fathers were exactly what we have now - a nation owned and operated by a few white men - and they didn't care how many dead slaves, Mexicans, and native Americans died in the process. These men were not creating a grand experiment for freedom of the expendable masses - they were laying the cornerstone of a new Empire. Every politician since only has to mention this 1776 men's club and the masses cheer as if they're members.

Did you know Ben Franklin, the media mogul of his time, used his newspapers to publish propaganda, particularly the French and Indian War? (Remember the US was still England's property.)

Ben's gazette newspapers, to make sure the House of Burgesses members truly understood the implications of the French/Indian threat, printed the horrors of what awaited the English if the French and Indians were not stopped:

"Think you see the Infant torn from the unavailing Struggles of the distracted Mother, the Daughters ravished before the Eyes of their wretched Parents; and then, with Cruelty and insult, butcherd and scalped. Suppose the horrid Scene compleated, and the whole Family, Man, Wife, and Children (as they were) murdered and scalped . . . and then torn in Pieces, and in Part devoured by wild Beasts, for whom they were left a Prey by their more brutal Enemies."

Some sources say Franklin wrote the propaganda but I think descendants have edited most of that idea out of history.

Oh, while we're at it - did you know the father of our country, George Washington, who reportedly despised slavery, even though he kept his slaves and when he died bequeathed them to his wife, so as not to break up families he said, and that she could free them upon her death. Big-hearted George also never failed to issue a bounty when some of his slaves escaped. Here GW offers a description and reward for return of his property - Peros, Jack, Neptune, and Cupid. George says Neptune and Cupid ... "The two last of these Negroes were bought from an African Ship in August 1759, and talk very broken and unintelligible English."

Washington eventually owned 300+ slaves, but I guess he loathed losing a slave more than slavery itself.

Most historians adamantly deny Washington had slave children but it didn't stop George's stepson, Jackie Custis, who had a child with his mother Martha's mulatto half-sister ... incest with Auntie, incest with grandpa's daughter, but you know... it was a different time and era.

But back to Nader. Go home Ralph, you're just another name dropping metrosexual botoxed old man shouting about revolution. The people need a Sandino, a Malcolm, a Gandhi - not another empty party suit stuffed with a white chairman of the board.