Amazing news just in from Daily Kos. The Glenn Beck/Fox/Armey/Billionaire Boy’s Conservative Club sponsored Tea Bag Brigades (TM, and patent pending) have gone over to Tom Paine. The evidence is in the link below. See and believe, as Beck introduces Tom Paine himself. Paine, as expected, gives a stirring speech.

Annotating Glenn Beck’s "Thomas Paine"
by Jed Lewison
Sun Apr 12, 2009
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/12/719358/-Annotating-Glenn-Becks-Thomas-Paine

As you can see, Tom Paine was a brilliant man, far far ahead of his time. From Paine’s own mouth, you will see and hear for yourself that he foresaw Bakersfield CA, cell phones, i-pods, widescreen TVs, the 9/11 attacks, Becks 9/12 movement, Pearl Harbor, trucks, automobiles, freeways, and honking of horns to indicate support for popular causes.

Amazing.

It would be foolish not to consider such a far sighted man’s proposals. Therefore I hope we can join with the Tea Bag Brigades to discuss cooperation to advocate for Paine’s visionary proposals for social reform. Some of them will be very useful in supplementing President Obama’s and the Democratic Congressional Leadership’s stimulus, which most economists now consider inadequate.

Thomas Paine was very concerned about large concentrations of wealth oppressing the common people and preventing them from actually using their political freedom to better themselves. In his day it was landed and inherited wealth, but in our day I am sure his concern would extend to the vast financial power of retained corporate earnings. So I think we can all agree to work on an update of his proposals for public funding of poor relief, a well-funded and adequate public education for all, retirement pensions, start-up funds for young adults, each family with a new baby, new marriages, funerals for paupers and travelers, and public works projects for the unemployed.

Apparently Tom was too busy and did not have time to update these ideas since he first published them 200 years ago. But, of course, who would have understood? He had to write in simpler language that people of his time could comprehend. We have a lot of work to do — together!

We’ll have to fight hard to pass the legislation needed to wrench the idle wealth from plutocracy and obtain the public funds for these new public projects, which will include an inheritance tax that will be quite large on the very wealthy and is sure to meet strong opposition in Congress and amongst the favored elites holding power.

Here they are in Tom Paine’s own words:

Secondly, Provision for two hundred and fifty thousand poor families.

Thirdly, Education for one million and thirty thousand children.

Fourthly, Comfortable provision for one hundred and forty thousand
aged persons.

Fifthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.

Sixthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for twenty thousand
marriages.

Seventhly, Allowance of twenty thousand pounds for the funeral
expenses of persons travelling for work, and dying at a distance from
their friends.

Eighthly, Employment, at all times, for the casual poor in the cities
of London and Westminster.

Rights of Man
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/twtp210.txt

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

Agrarian Justice
http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/agjst.html

Second, we need to meet to propose legislation to remove the dangerous remnants of the mixing of church and state. No person can be truly free, and true religion will always be a debased tool of entrenched and oppressive power, until these rotten and decayed remnants are removed. Good old Tom Paine showed the way, and together, we can complete the task:

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

The Age of Reason
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/twtp410.txt

So, everyone party hardy for a day or so in celebration. But you need to sober up quick because we have a lot of work to do and our task will be difficult, even with the new and gratefully received support from the Fox pundits and the enlightened patriots of the Tea Bag Brigades.