Planning The Tea Party

"Hey! Let's have us a tea party!' Mad Hatter cried during his daily meeting before his broadcast on Fox News.

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! " Jabberwock chortled in his joy. "then, we can gyre and gimble in the wabe!"

"Yes! Yes! Let's! That's a marvelous idea!" enthused Cheshire Cat. "Whatever shall we call it then?"

"Why not have it on tax day, April 15th?" replied Mad Hatter. "Then we can call it the 'Tax Day Tea Party'. We should even go out on a limb and invite Alice too of course."

"Nay,nay," said Caterpillar. "she is but a moderate person and not what we could consider as a conservative. She doesn't fit with our agenda at all - in fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out she voted for Obama in the last election."

"I totally agree." said Cheshire Cat. "The last time I invited her here, last election, she left no doubt what she thought about us.

"`But I don't want to go among mad people,' she said.

`Oh, you can't help that,' I said: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. `You must be,' I said, `or you wouldn't have come here.' "

"I don't care about that now!" said Mad Hatter. "We must take the chance. Our party will have no credibility at all if we don't invite everyone - even the moderates. We must be grassroots!"

"Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!'' shouted Jabberwock.

"Quiet you blathering idiot!" sneered Mad Hatter. "Shut your damned pie hole! Else folks will think everyone in our group is as mad as me, or worse, you."

But then White Rabbit quietly intoned, "Yes, Quite. But, that's despite the fact we all are. We just can't let on is all. We must show that we in our party are all as normal as Alice or they'll never take us serious again. I think we've worn out that 'Fear Factor' thingy by now. No one is taking us serious anymore after that last election blowout. We gotta invite Alice and everyone else. We need a new gimmick!"

"Oh, come to my arms, my beamish boy! " exclaimed Jabberwock. "Exactlyish we mimsy are, burbling as we do! Terrierist! WMD's! Yellowcake! Al Qaeda! Praise the Lord!"

"Quiet, I've told you Jabberwock!' ordered Mad Hatter disgustedly. "Or, I'll have security escort you from the building!"

"Now, look here everyone. I'm the official leader and spokesman for this Party." the rotund cigar smoking beasty went on. " I'm the one who sets the rules and the policies while you're out all galumping around. Let's just get down to business, shall we? We can have everyone bring their own tea bags to this party. That will show the country and that socialist Obama how dead serious we are. I think tea bags are a very serious symbol, reminding everyone of the Boston Tea Party and how our patriots took back the country then, and took their own guns and installed our Christian God and Capitalism in our great country.

"Yeah," said Caterpillar. "Obama wants to destroy capitalism by raising taxes on the highest income Americans all the way up to about 10 percent less than under Reagan. If that's not socialism, I don't know what is! And, all that malarky about him going to Christian church all his life is just a smokescreen. Oh yes, he's devilish clever he is. He's planned his attack since the time he was six years old. He just wants to worm his way in so he can make Islam the official state religion for everyone!"

As Jabberwock could never remain silent for long, he now shouted out excitedly. "All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe! Terrierist! Terrierist!"

But now studiously ignoring Jabberwock, Mad Hatter continued. "Yes, all completely true Caterpillar. And Cheshire Cat, I think you should be in charge of organizing things. You should work behind the scenes and make it look and seem the tea party is a grassroots thing. That way, everyone will get the idea that conservative Republicans are still mainstream, no matter how mad and bizarre our politics have grown."

"Quite, quite." said Cheshire Cat, pleased with the responsibility. After all, playing second fiddle to Mad Hatter wasn't the most rewarding thing in the world, even if he did have his own broadcast show. This was his chance to really get his teeth into something meaty and maybe make himself stand out from the crowd.

But Caterpillar was troubled. "Whatever shall we do with all those tea bags which are sure to be turned in? We can't afford to be seen as littering if they're thrown on the ground or whatever."

"Hey! I know!" Cheshire Cat broke in. "We can mail them all to Obama. Then he'll be stuck with tons of the damned things and have a huge problem with what to do with them. That will make him look bad for sure. I know that should work better than attacking his dog Bo in the press did."

At this point White Rabbit interjected, his bald head glistening in the harsh overhead lighting: "You're all dreaming." he said. Obama is way too smart for you for that to have a chance. He'll just pack 'em up and ship them off somewhere as part of a 'African Stimulus Bill', or find a cure for AIDS with them or something. He's a wily devil I tell you, and not at all like our dear White Queen now back down there in Crawford, Texas twiddling his thumbs."

"Oh, you just had to bring him up!" Mad Hatter cried, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Oh how I miss him sitting there in the White House, clueless as he was. He was a dumb son of a bitch all right, but by God, he was OUR dumb son of a bitch!"

"And, we must never, ever lose sight of our sacred Republican creed." Mad Hatter bawled: "Gold, Guns and God!"

'Amens' where shouted as loud chorus of sincere agreement ran around the meeting room and everyone wiped their eyes.

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves!" shouted Jabberwock as he took his vorpal sword in hand and left whiffling through the tulgey wood.


(My sincere apoligies to Lewis Carroll for my shameless twisting of his wonderful prose in The Mad Hatter's Tea Party.)

"Towards a More Perfect Fascist State"

‘Muchrakers’ is the term used for those looking through garbage for dirt on others. Generally, muckrakers are looked down upon by others in the news media. But, sometimes a muckraker does turn up something of real importance. Several of the more seedy Washington, DC area newspaper reporters employ others to literally look through the garbage bins of prominent personages in the hopes of turning up an important nugget of importance.

Suppose such a find appeared today in print in one of the more ‘yellow’ yellowsheets found around the city.? A muckraker strikes pure gold hunting through cans of rubbish left for pickup outside the Karl Rove residence. Rove is normally very careful about leaving incriminating written evidence lying around so the find was a surprise. Speculation is that perhaps Rove was distracted by the possibility of molesting a teenage boy or some other similar neocon joy. Nonetheless there it was, scrawled in longhand on yellow legal paper. We quote it here in it’s imagined entirety (spelling & syntax corrected of course!) :

“Towards a More Perfect Fascist State:

I. Convince the masses - any means that works. (First, you must get your man in office!).

A. Use any group that is easily convinced - like rednecks, simpleminded, militia groups, gun owners associations, etc.

B. Get the religious crazies working for you.
(Reward groups with taxpayer grants, educational funding, etc.)

II. Use fear. Fear is a great weapon. It causes people to stop thinking rationally. If you can convince people there’s something to be afraid of and you can ‘protect’ them, you are 3/4 of the way home.

A. A common threat is good.

B. Fabricate information to introduce fear. It is helpful to ‘doctor’ intelligence information if it doesn’t fit your view.

C. Shout down opposition - slam anyone who tries to get the actual truth out.

III. Use dirty tricks.

A. Blame the opposition for exactly what you are doing yourself.
(Example: say they are in control of the media!)

B. Use malicious propaganda. The truth won’t matter when you’ve won.
(See control the media below)

C. Fabricate outrageous stories about the opposition. (See the ‘truth doesn’t matter above)

D. Employ personal attacks on any opposition possible - these need not be based on fact as rumor and insinuation are often as good and sometimes even better.

E. Control the blogosphere for your side. Set up multiple ‘dummy’ sites staffed and controlled by your own operatives.

F. (For 'frig 'em!) - masquerade as the other side playing dirty tricks back on your side - insuring that they are found out of course! (This is a great, time proven tactic!)

IV. Gain control the media.

A. Encourage consolidation of media outlets under a few large companies under your control. (Not a big deal if you are in a position to dispense legislative favors!)

B. Control the media with threats against individuals - imprisonment if need be.
(Order actual imprisonment when needed - hold victim incommunicado, identity as ‘terrorist threat’, etc. This has the distinct advantage of silencing that entity.)

C. Encourage large corporations to pressure the media on your behalf.
(Use tax breaks, grants as rewards when needed. It's only taxpayers’ money after all)

D. Introduce misinformation to support your view whenever possible. Use your controlled blogosphere freely. Be lavish with the funding for this as it will pay off handsomely.

V. Guarantee continuity or your side.

A. “Dumb down” the constituency by reducing funds for public schools.
(Works hand in hand with funding religious crazies who will be promoting for your side!)

B. Control the vote counting apparatus.
(If called to account, throw up smoke screens, lay blame, excuses, etc., but importantly, accept zero responsibility. It helps to have a controllable court system!)

C. Cover up any unpleasant news for your side.

D. Blow out of proportion anything against the opposition possible. Manufacture bad news for the opposition if none available.

D. Claim the reverse of fact - i.e., ‘black is white’ tactics.

E. Constantly reiterate the threats to ‘public’ & ‘National Security’.
(Create out of whole clothe when needed)

Properly employed, the tactics above will guarantee success for your Fascist programs - even to the point of the 'huddled masses' cheering for your side!