We know the fanatics' goal - they told us

We should have listened then.

Maya Angelou wisely said "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

We should have been paying attention when, years ago, the fanatics were openly declaring what they wanted, who they were and are, and we either ignored it or dismissed it as hyperbole.

We shouldn’t have. Because they showed us, they told us directly. As evidence of that, I present a letter-to-the-editor I wrote in response to a column by George Will, at the time regarded as the embodiment of a conservative intellectual.

The date of the letter, let it be noted, was January 3, 1995 - 28 years ago.

To George Will (column, January 2) goes the honor of being called an honest man. Cutting through the nonsense of Newt and company, he opens the heart of his cohorts’ agenda: “‘Back to 1900,’” he says, “is a serviceable summation of the conservatives’ goal.”

“Back to 1900.” Back to a time before legal labor unions or effective anti-monopoly laws, a time of child labor and twelve-hour work days. Back to a time before consumer or environmental protection laws, before regulations requiring safe working conditions, a time when being killed at work was a major cause of death. A time before Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment or disability insurance.

“Back to 1900.” Back to when poor people were considered genetic defectives who deserved their condition. Back before civil or voting rights laws, when wives were chattel, blacks were either “good n*****s” who got called “boy” or “uppity n*****s” who risked being lynched, racism (against Irish, Italians, and others as well as blacks) was institutionalized, sexism the norm, and gays and lesbians, as far as “polite society” was concerned, didn’t exist.

Back, in short, to a time when the elite were in their mansions and the rest of us were expected to know out places, live lives of servitude without complaint, and then die without making a fuss. “Back to 1900” is indeed “a serviceable summation” of the right wing’s goal, which is to undo a century of progress toward economic and social justice in order to benefit their morally stunted lives.

And if anyone thinks I’m too harsh, remember that Will’s “summation” was offered as a moderate alternative to Christopher DeMuth of the American Enterprise Institute, who proposed we “go back to the Articles of Confederation and start over.” One wonders what, given the chance, they’d do with the Bill of Rights.

Were I to write that letter today, I might use some different examples, but there is only one thing I would change: the last sentence. Because we no longer have to wonder. We know.