Tea time?

Gordon Robinson, Contributor

Under siege from the Republican's loony-bin (calling itself the 'Tea Party') who dominated United States mid-term elections handing the GOP the House majority, Democrats have panicked.

Although it more resembles Wonderland's mad afternoon gathering (starring Sarah Palin as 'Alice'), this party's name is a cockeyed tribute to 1773's Boston rebellion against taxation without representation. Tea Party supporters' (derisively called 'tea-baggers') motto 'We want our country back' begs the question: who took it? Apparently, the culprit's a black president - an aberration that musn't recur. Democrats blame Obama, who promised change but delivered compromise, for tea-baggers' bravado and temporary success. Americans are united in one conclusion - it's Barack's fault.

Initial GOP welcome cooled as it became clear that the tea-baggers' radical agenda could prove hostile to traditional Republicans. Tea Party guru Palin (emerging, to Republican old-boy network's distress, as a viable candidate for 2012's presidential nomination), has threatened the GOP with extinction if it doesn't toe the Tea Party line. What began as conservative opposition to Obama's stimulus bill (signed in an environment of increasing unemployment), has mushroomed into savage anti-Obama crusades filled with racist invective and anarchist views.

It's often brainless, contradictory philosophy is exposed by supporters' confusion regarding its platform. "I don't really understand it, but I like what they stand for," says supporter Terry Rushing, 63. "They support everything I'm looking for - lower taxes, less government. ... All the good things..." (with, no doubt, Medicare card/social-security number safely in his hip pocket). Let's see if Terry takes a principled stand for "less government" by refusing these benefits.

Sharron Angle, Nevada's Tea Party senatorial hopeful, threatened "second-amendment remedies" if Congress "keeps going the way it is". She recommended these "second-amendment remedies" be first used to "take out" her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. US Constitution's second-amendment guarantees citizens' right to bear arms, so this was an unambiguous threat of armed insurrection if tea-baggers lost. Apparently, a coup d'état is an acceptable solution if the problem's a black man in a white house. Americans voters overwhelmingly rejected her extreme rhetoric.

Lunatics and reasoning

Lunatics rarely respond to reason. They crave attention. Ignoring decades-old warnings from brilliant Irish lyricist, Raymond O'Sullivan (o/c Gilbert), American media have paid tea-baggers too much attention.

"There is too much attention

paid to people who believe

that the world we live in

really isn't round.

Yes there's too much attention

paid to people just like me

who'll confess their only aim in life

is down"

Recently, at a political rally for Tea Partier Rand Paul, a supporter stomped on a female protester's head. Where's this movement going?

"There is too much attention

paid to him who shot at he

and to how he got away

but didn't quite.

Yes there's too much attention

so much so that we'll believe

he's not guilty of the crime which he's

being tried.

So forgive me when I tell you

I ain't got no place to go.

I ain't got no-one to talk to.

Got no one left to say hello."

Tea-baggers don't believe in separation of Church and State (which they maintain isn't in their Constitution), and seem to want a Christian theocracy. Since Democrats appear reluctant to brawl, they could take a leaf from French primers on waging war against terrorist theocracies without actually coming to blows. Had President Bush not been so dismissive of France after 9/11, reports akin to the following satirical reproduction might've soon appeared in Le Monde:

"The ground war in Afghanistan escalated yesterday when the Allies revealed plans to airdrop a platoon of crack French existentialist philosophers into the country to destroy the morale of Taliban zealots by proving that God doesn't exist.

"Elements from the feared Jean-Paul Sartre Brigade, or 'Black Berets', will be parachuted into combat zones to spread doubt, despondency and existential anaemia among the enemy. Hardened by numerous intellectual battles fought during long occupation of Paris's Left Bank, their first action will be to establish several pavement cafés at strategic points near the front lines. There they'll drink coffee and talk animatedly about life's absurd nature and man's isolation in the universe.

"Humanitarian agencies were quick to condemn the operation as inhumane, arguing that the effects of passive smoking from the Frenchmen's endless Gitanes could wreak a terrible toll on civilians in the area."

Barack shouldn't waste time responding to the lunatic fringe or even treating them seriously. They'll soon implode on their own impossible rhetoric. Trust me, two years of tea-baggers in the House will guarantee his 2012 re-election.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.