SLOW LEARNERS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

The Republicans are slow learners, cherishing their own past mistakes. Not only are they slow learners, they're also look like a gang of cranky old men and women, scowling, pinched, and bitter, fearing that life has passed them by.

Indeed, life has passed them by, at least American political life. While members of Congress, both representatives and senators, don't reflect the ethnic riches of American life, the Republicans have the ethnic cast of about 1850. Along with their ethnic limitations, they have ceased to represent the wide spectrum of American economic interests, having sold themselves out to the corporate-think of Wall Street, big oil, big insurance, and big banks.

Having become a regional Southern party with a few mountain outposts, they are quite willing to let Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania sink into economic and industrial decay. In their zeal to favor the rich, they favor reduced wages and corporate welfare.

In addition to these self-imposed limitations, they have now come out squarely against education, gutting educational funding both statewide and in Washington, becoming the party of ignorance. Mean-spirited, they love to slash programs that educate and offer health care to the poor and needy.

The Republicans aren't for anything at all. The phrase "the opposition party" in their hands is now "the obstruction party." As the party of obstruction, they are facing the question of their slow death. There may be a death watch for Republicans in Phoenix and Washington.

As the phrase goes, "they just don't get it."