and it was dutifully reported by the Associated Press:
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http://www.chippewa.com/articles/2004/03/21/news/news5.txt>
but what the Associated Press didn't report and current Republicans care to ignore or forget about is this (as reported by the Madison Capital Times):
"No doubt Gov. Tommy Thompson, Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen and most other prominent Wisconsin Republicans of this day would prefer not to be reminded of the fact that their party was founded by a bunch of socialists with links to Karl Marx and a determination to advance the most revolutionary ideas of their time.
<snip>
On March 20, 1854, a Fourierite socialist named Alvan Bovay had grown so angered with the failure of the existing political parties to demand the immediate freeing of all slaves that he called a meeting at Ripon's Little White Schoolhouse to form a new party. Most of those present were Fourierites, and they chose the name ``Republican'' because it was, in Bovay's words, ``suggestive of equality.''
The new party adopted a platform that pledged it to seek equality not just for slaves, but for all workers. . . . .The Republicans sought as well to promote women's rights, defend immigrants, advance trade union organizing, limit the amount of land that any individual could own and forbid corporate monopolies. The intent of the new party, its founders said, was nothing less than to join ``the old battle -- not yet over -- between the rights of the toiling many and the special privileges of the aristocratic few.''"
go here for the rest of the story:
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http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:1998:03:18:224968:Editorial>
The party of equality has morphed into the party of inequality.