Help! Serpent! Help! Socialist!

After Alice is through getting advice from the Caterpillar, who told her that if she eats one side of the mushroom she will grow taller, and if she eats the other side it will make her grow shorter, she decides to try it out. Once she takes a bite, however, her neck suddenly she grows far taller than she expected and shoots up right through a tree, where she meets the Pigeon who has a nest in the tree. The Pigeon is paranoid, scared and very loud.

`And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!'

`But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice. `I'm a--I'm a--'

`Well! WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon. `I can see you're trying to invent something!'

`I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.

`A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. `I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never ONE with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it. I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'

`I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.'

`I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'

It's a frustrating situation for Alice, as she tries desperately to convince the paranoid Pigeon who is screaming at her, that she really isn't a horrible monster as the Pigeon thinks she is. Sound familiar? It should.

There is a fairly large group of people in this country who are paranoid, scared and very loud; they are called the Tea Party. Instead of screaming "SERPENT!" these people scream "SOCIALIST!" or "COMMUNIST!" or "FOREIGNER!" and no matter how hard the rest of try to convince them that our President IS indeed an American citizen and that he NOT a socialist, fascist or a communist, they can't hear us over their own noise. It is incredibly frustrating that these people are so paranoid and gullible.

Enter the Tea Party movement. From what I've observed, these are undereducated, ignorant people who are being told that their way of life and their country is being threatened by a communist president who wasn't even born in the U.S.A. He's going to take your freedom of speech and freedom of religion away. He's going to take your guns away. He's going to kill your parents and grandparents when they are too old to be of any use. This is SERIOUS! Panic ensues. Paranoia becomes out right fear, fear becomes hysteria. Thanks to people like Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Dick Army and all of the talking heads on Fox News Channel pouring fuel on the fire, these people get defensive and then they become dangerous. (And no, I am not blaming them for the AZ shootings.)

With the Tea Party, as with the Pigeon, all of this hysteria stems directly from their own ignorance, yet they claim to be the victim in all of it. There is no convincing them that all of these things they fear are lies and propaganda..."No! I saw it on the NEWS!" As we nod our heads and try to explain that Fox News isn't actually news, and that we are not communists, they get defensive...`Well! WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon. `I can see you're trying to invent something!' Now WE are the socialists. It's all a trick! WE are trying to take away their freedom! WE are trying to take away their guns. There is no other logical explanation as to why we don't agree with them...why we aren't afraid, like they are...why we are supporting a socialist! Suddenly, the hysteria returns, as does the noise! There is no rhyme. No reason. No point in attempting to enlighten anyone. It's too late now. They have been told over and over and over again to believe these things. Rallies, Internet, Fox News, (headline, ticker, interviews...notice how all the statements are EXACTLY the same?) fellow Tea Party patriots. If you tell a group of undereducated and paranoid people,, the same thing over and over and over again, verbatim, they will eventually believe it to be true.

Yes, we are serpents. President Obama is a serpent. Anyone who doesn't agree with you MUST be a serpent!

`I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.'

`I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'

Yes. We know.

The Jolly Caucus Race

If anyone remembers the caucus race, you will recall Alice, after creating an ocean with her giant tears, ends up lost at sea and then washes up on the shore to find the Dodo character commanding a group of lesser characters running around in circles in an attempt to get dry. The catch is, no matter how much they run in circles, the waves always soak them again, thereby making their attempts to dry off futile. Alice is baffled by this process..."No one can EVER get dry THIS way!" Dodo (high up on his pedestal) responds: "Nonsense! Why I'm as dry as a bone already!" Alice: "Yes but..." SPLASH. As the ones running in circles are singing a song.

Forward, backward, inward, outward
Come and join the chase
Nothing could be drier
Than a jolly caucus race

Backward, forward, outward, inward
Bottom to the top
Never a beginning,
There can never be a stop

To skipping, hopping, tripping fancy free and gay
Started it tomorrow
But will finish yesterday

'Round and 'round and 'round we go
Until forevermore
For once we were behind
But now we find we are be-

Forward, backward, inward, outward
Come and join the chase
Nothing could be drier
Than a jolly caucus race!

If this sounds like a familiar conundrum, IT IS. GOP big-wigs are on the pedestal (especially now that Boehner is Speaker of the House, they strut around like self-proclaimed rock stars!), doing their best to convince "We the People", Senate and House Democrats AND the president that if we just continue to run in circles, like they command us to, THEY will make good on their promises. We saw this happen at the end of 2010 with the dreaded tax cuts for the top 2%. If you don't want unemployed Americans to lose their homes and cars and food and what have you, you must first meet our demands.

As Alice tries to question Dodo about his tactics, she gets another splash and is swept into the caucus race, against her will, but is on the ground being trampled by the others who ARE running. Dodo says "You'll never get dry that way! Have to run with the others!"

Is this hitting home yet? My point is this; so long as we keep running in circles, we NEVER will get dry. We will just keep running and running until we push Dodo off his pedestal! Given that so many Americans are satisfied running in circles, chances are dizziness and death will come before a revolution will. Until then, the furious five, (Refer to picture above.) will obstruct law making, spout off GOP talking points at "news" organizations who are willing to listen and absorb, (so they can spout it off to their ignorant viewers), and generally drive the entire country and everyone inside the government INSANE with confusion over WHAT they want!

"Forward, backward, inward, outward, here we go again. No one ever loses and no one can ever win."

~AR & TO~

An 'Alice In Wonderland' Budget Process

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) is getting a strong whiff off the pungent, piping hot Republican Tea being served up fresh by the golden (bronze? orange?) oldies in the House and calling the crazy like it is.

On Thursday, newly-minted old House Speaker, weeper and giant gavel fetishist, John Boehner (R-Ohio) came out and said in response to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's estimate that repealing health care would add $1.5 trillian to the estimate this: "CBO is entitled to their opinion, but they're locked within constraints of the 1974 Budget Act" (source)

Welch responded in a statement to the Huffington Post: "It's incredibly ominous that they are waving away the CBO opinion. That's catastrophic for any opportunity to maintain budget discipline. If anybody can make up their own numbers, you literally institutionalize an 'Alice In Wonderland' budget process. It is beyond reckless and irresponsible."

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone: "so I ca'n't take more."

"You mean you ca'n't take less," said the Hatter. "It's very easy to take more than nothing."

~TO

Clean Cup! Clean Cup! Move Down!!

The GOP provides a lot of frustration as well as comedic material, and almost always can be linked, somehow, with Wonderland. With the GOP majority in the House, and the gaining of a few seats in the Senate, chances are, not a lot will get accomplished this year. Even so, the GOP provides us with entertainment that just gets more and more amusing.

Of course, the Tea Party movement would come to mind before anything else, however, we had been playing this Wonderland game before the Tea Party introduced itself. It was a gift when they started making all that noise.

The Tea Party: It's true that The American Tea Party Movement is similar to the Mad Hatter and March Hare's tea party, wild absurdity and absolute nonsense. However, when I think of the Tea Party leaders and their followers, I am reminded of The Lion and the Unicorn, fighting for the crown.

`Who are at it again?' she ventured to ask.

`Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,' said the King.

`Fighting for the crown?'

`Yes, to be sure,' said the King: `and the best of the joke is, that it's my crown all the while! Let's run and see them.' And they trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the old song: --

`The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown:
The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town.
Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.'

`Does -- the one -- that wins -- get the crown?' she asked, as well as she could, for the run was putting her quite out of breath.

`Dear me, no!' said the King. `What an idea!'

What an idea indeed! The king knows that no one can win the fight for the crown, as the crown belongs to HIM, and yet, he still enjoys watching them fight for it. The leaders of the Tea Party Movement are getting their followers all amped up and promising them great things, but in reality, it's false hope. What they are being promised will always be out of reach, as it's complete nonsense, but it provides some entertainment for the Tea Party leaders. Get them riled up and tell them to make a lot of noise and cause a lot of distraction while we sit by and munch on hay.

I imagine, someday, we will be able to link the Tea Party to The Walrus and The Carpenter, asking the oysters to follow them, because there are great things to be had if they do! Then, of course, the Walrus devours the oysters, leaving only empty shells. Right now, however, it's just an ongoing battle that stirs things up but has no end in sight. So be it. Until next time. AR & TO