"A republic, if you can keep it"

With all apologies to Benjamin Franklin, we're losing it.

When Old Ben, the sage of Philadelphia, came out of the meetings designed to put together a constitution and a system of government for the brand-new United States in 1787, someone asked him what sort of government it would be.

"A republic, if you can keep it," Franklin answered.

Well, Ben, it's almost gone.

Thomas Frank, whose amazing books "One Market Under God" and "What's the Matter With Kansas" have chronicled so much of what's happening in America over the last 25 years, has come out with a book that's even scarier than those two.

"The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule" describes what has been happening for the last 30 years or so as the Reaganauts, the Gingrichites and the Bushmen have taken over Washington. Frank tells us how they've hollowed out government departments, failed to enforce regulations or collect fines from corporations and just basically put foxes in charge of all our henhouses.

It's as good an explanation as any of how we have been sliding farther and farther down the slippery slope toward oligarchy since the mid 1970s, and how it's extremely difficult to imagine getting back so much of what we've lost.

What are some of the cornerstones of a true republic, one in which the weak are protected from the strong?

I would guess that an educated electorate is the first one, and anyone who doesn't think people are getting stupider over the last 30 years isn't paying attention. What kind of America is it where 65 percent of adults don't read books, and a good chunk of the ones who do read only pulp fiction and political polemics?

An independent media serving as a check on corruption is another. The independent, non-corporate media is all but gone. All that's left is five or six big companies more concerned with their stock prices and balance sheets than covering the news.

Real religious values matter too, and too many of our people have either lost their values or fallen for those who say either than the apocalypse is coming or that Jesus wants them to be rich. Whatever happened to being our brother's keeper?

Nope, we've slid so far and yielded so much that it probably will take some sort of revolution to get it back.

Quite frankly, I'm not expecting one -- at least till "American Idol" is canceled.