Focus on the majority

Fred Clarke has a brilliant look at the recent Tennessee Tea Party demand:

The Tennessee Tea Party has some demands for changing the education curriculum in their state:

No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the ... majority.

So, OK, then. No more looking at history through the lens of "minority experience." Time to focus on "the majority."

No more of this obsession with kings and nobles -- put the focus where it belongs, on the serfs and the peasants who made up the vast and overwhelming majority of the population.

Set aside the generals and conquerors and put the focus on their victims -- the foot soldiers and the civilians who make up the majority in any war.

Forget this preoccupation with the minority experience of the wealthy plantation owners. History should be taught with an emphasis on the much larger number of people who were treated as non-people and -- thanks to minority-rule in the Involuntary Volunteer State -- were raped, beaten, kidnapped and tortured with impunity.

Who knew the tea partiers were such big fans of Howard Zinn?

They aren't, of course; they're just too gutless to say what they really mean by "minority" and "majority".