Mission Statement: Tea Party, Revised, Etc.

Robert Bly once wrote a poem entitled “Those Being Eaten By America” in which he concluded: “the world will soon break up into small colonies of the saved.” In Bly’s vision salvation came by turning one’s back on predatory capitalism. In the poem, big industry was devouring its workers–it literally ate them alive. 

Bly’s poem was written in the dark days of the Viet Nam War and it’s reactionary impulses felt just fine to me when I was 18. Now, contemplating the extremism of the “Tea Party” I see Bly captured an omnipresent aspect of our nation’s psyche–which is to say, when things get hard there’s always a faction that wants to secede. This is old news but what the TP is proving is that Democracy stands in the way of a preferred and sentimental vision of frontier anarchy. Here is a succinct list of what the Tea Party folks believe:

1. We don’t require doctors. All we need is an occasional dentist who can patch you up when you’ve been shot. If things are worse than this, well, you’re supposed to die–that’s God’s will. (BTW, the dentist won’t mind if you pay him with a chicken.)
2. Children need only be educated until the third grade. Then they can go to work picking beans–surely, once we kick all the Mexicans out of the country, this will again be possible. 
3. Since everyone already has a gun we don’t require police. Those who have the most money have their own militias. Might makes right.    
4. Belief in God is the only necessary diploma–regardless of the enterprise. “God told me how to build this bridge–he also said that no gay people can drive on it.”
5. We no longer need higher education. Let’s face it, college just complicates things with its insistence on science and history.
6. We can toss out environmental regulations of any kind. After all, they are not mentioned in the Bible.   
7. We don’t need an economy–we have sufficient stockpiles of ammunition and dried beans in our bomb cellars. 
8. Elderly people, cripples, colored folks, etc. can just leave. Or…or…

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto