Al Sharpton, Republican...
Caught Reverend Al on TV the other night, talking about the danger to scoeity caused by gansta rap. Al is now on a crusade to get the FCC and the record companies to clean up their respective acts.

The catalyst for this new agenda was a shooting outside ofradio station where two gangs of rival rappers were booked on the same show. They were obviously booked together in order to create some kind of incident, and thus, more interesting radio. Al objected, vehemently, and is now set to use the power of market forces to hammer the genie back into the bottle.

Al Sharpton suggesting that a market regulate itself? How did that happen?

What Al suggests, simply, is that the companies that promote the violence for the sake of a dollar, be attacked from within. Instead of having the government do something, or resorting to his usual tactic of starting a riot, the Rev now suggests that the "community" become shareholders. Shareholders have power. When shareholders are upset with the corporation, they can use their ownership to force changes --- they have a voice in how the company conducts business. Makes perfect sense.

It also brings up an interesting point very often overlooked by liberals and their fellow travelers int his day and age: we're now, for better or worse, a shareholder society. Millions of us have 401(k)'s, IRA's, own shares in mutual funds, own stocks, bonds and annuities. The numbers of black Americans with the above has been increasing for over a decade. These, by the way, are the very blacks that would never vote for Al Sharpton --- they actually own something they'd like to keep.

So Al changes his tune, yet again. He takes up a conservative issue (i.e. the dreadful morals, message and activities of some rap artists) and applies a conservative remedy: use the marketplace to clean the industry up.

Yep, every day we get more republicans in this country. Although most of ours have better haircuts.