Advise for Democrats

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Larry Wood (Globe, March 9) defended our progressive tax structure and spoke out against extreme forms of inequality.

Having such beliefs, however, may have more in common with Christianity and the American political mainstream than it does with socialism.

Democrats are as close to being socialists as Republicans are to being fascists, and when one party obtains a great deal of power, it leans in either direction. Yet leaning is not the same as becoming, and moderates plan to keep it that way.

Some Republican activists use words like "socialism" not in a serious attempt to compare and contrast economic systems but as labels in an attempt to discredit and demonize. When Democrats use the labels of their political rivals, it gives those rivals a little grin.

This has happened recently when even liberals accepted the assertion that prayer has been "taken out of school."

Obviously this is different than the actual state of affairs when our Constitution ensures that all citizens can pray without the direction of the state.

Political mass suggestion driven through mass media channels has the capability to change language and how people view the world (if we let it). Citizens can only see through the haze by going against the run of the political propaganda mills and practicing the independence that such machines desperately seek to dissuade.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_080031124