No Preacher Presidency this year. Santorum is out.

The big news yesterday was that Rick Santorum has suspended his presidential campaign.  After great deliberation, spurred on by the realization that he never had a chance at it anyway, he has cancelled his campaign plans and most of his public appearances.  As with every concession speech, Santorum says he's not giving up the fight.  There's more to come. The fight for freedom, except for women, children, the poor, the jobless and the heathens, goes on.

Yesterday, on the same day he stepped down from the podium, he stepped up to the pulpit for a scheduled appearance with James Dobson at his latest "Focus on the Family" smack-down.  I'm not surprised.  Just as George W. Bush's wishful true calling wasn't really as President of the United States but as baseball commissioner, Rick Santorum's true calling is as Grand Fundamental Firekeeper.

Being president would have been a feather in his tri-corner cap, but it's probably just as well it didn't happen.  If he had been chosen, he surely would have found himself governing an entire country full of surly sinners, most of whom would likely balk at having to practice his peculiar brand of holy paternalism.  It would be a full-time job, just keeping those ingrates under control.

Odds are his first priority would have been to hammer away at our constitution (a document almost as vague and open to interpretation as a certain Holy Book), attempting to turn the "dem" in democracy into a "theo" forevermore, or until the next secular coup, or until the world went up in flames, whichever came first.  But there are only so many hours in the day, and even if the West Wing had been turned into the Right Wing, there are demands on a nation's president that are. . .well, let's just put it out there. . .purely secular.

Santorum's rise to second place in the Republican primaries, based on nothing more than a series of sermons outlining some truly archaic and increasingly out-of-touch religious beliefs, caused real consternation in some circles expecting the more traditional, run-of-the-mill, I'll-promise-you-anything-if-you'll-vote-for-me campaign.  

The man was a tiger when it came to social crime and punishment, and he wasn't afraid to snarl his disapproval at whole segments of the population who might, for example, use artificial birth control. Or who might think for even a minute there could be some wisdom in separating government from the church.  But it turns out there were whole segments of primary voters who were looking for answers to questions about our economy, our environment, our crumbling infrastructure, our place in foreign affairs.  They were questions Rick Santorum either couldn't or wouldn't answer.  It was as if he didn't know or care what office he was running for.  The sermon was the thing and he was reaching crowds in the millions. 

Now that part, milked to the extreme, is over, but I predict we haven't seen the last of Mr. Santorum.  He'll take his Faith and Values show on the road and crowds will follow.  At every turn, when religion and government collide, Rick will be there.   But he will not be president of the United States.

Praise be.
  

Sign at Rose City Park Church, Oregon

May Day: Workers of the World, Hang in There

In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:

•Workingmen to Arms!

•War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.

•The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE.

•One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!

•MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.        IWW, The Brief Origins of May Day         

Okay, so that's the kind of thing that gives Socialists a bad name.  In the name of civility and good manners we've moved on to less violent (but probably less effective) ways of getting our message across.  The larger point here, though, is that since the 19th century, workers of the world have embraced May Day as the day to honor the sacrifices of the laboring classes.

In 1958, despite Joe McCarthy's earlier best efforts,  the Cold War Commies and Socialists were still purportedly climbing out from under every rock in every little burg in the US.  The VFW saw trouble in those May Day celebrations and foiled those plotters by renaming it "Loyalty Day".  Congress made it official and Ike actually signed it into law, but now, apart from a few VFW chapters and a few small towns, Loyalty Day is pretty much forgotten. (Not that loyalty isn't important, mind you. It is.  My loyalty to labor knows no bounds.)

But despite their best efforts, May Day demonstrations in America are still going strong.  Much of it centers on the controversial Arizona  "Show your Papers" law today, as hundreds of thousands in cities and towns all across the country are scheduled to march in solidarity against immigration and worker abuses. 

But even as I write this James Dobson, formerly of Focus on the Family, is leading  May Day, a Cry to God for a Nation in Distress on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Dobson and others, including Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association,  are calling it a "day of repentance and remembrance",  addressing "The greatest moral crisis since the Civil War", which seems to include abortion, Obamacare, Obama in general, and the scary notion that there are more "Socialists" than Republicans running Congress these days.

The Liberty Council will be there, as well.  They wouldn't want to pass up a chance to sell  their membership cards:

Oy. . .

May Day means different things to different people.  On the islands of Hawaii, May Day is Lei Day, a refreshingly apolitical approach to that first day in May.  Here's a little respite from the cares of the day:

So.  May our efforts this May Day and every day forward bring peace and equity to those who break their backs struggling to build this nation.  Solidarity until the sun ceases to shine or until worker equity is a reality.  Whichever comes first.


Ramona