"car-ol n
1 . a joyful religious song or hymn, especially a Christmas song celebrating Christmas
2. a dance in a circle, or the music accompanying it (archaic )
--Encarta World English Dictionary
Ebenezer Scrooge, Teapublican from Down There, tallied his books for 2010 with a self-satisfied smile. It had been a good year, a very good year. His disinformation business, funded by the Brothers Koch and popularized by his old pal Rupert Murdoch's propaganda outlets had succeeded in convincing an increasingly docile electorate of many false things. That the world was not warming and those who said it was were dreaded socialists; that health care for all was really a liberal government takeover that would lead to--he licked his oversized lips--"death panels"; that increased regulation of the oil and food industries was further evidence of the government's unwarranted intrusion into their lives and profits; and that lowering taxes for the rich--including himself, of course--was as important to the maintenance of democracy as slop was to the maintenance of pigs. Oink! He smiled. Yes, this had been a very good year!
But his greatest accomplishments--he could hardly contain his glee!--were the victories in midterm elections, what that pompous Black fellow who got blamed for everything that was Bush's fault rightly called a "shellacking." A shellacking indeed! His propped-up candidates had made substantial gains in Congress, which promised to pay grand dividends to his business and legislative interests in 2011 and 2012. He had bought and paid for the services of men and women who could be easily manipulated into just about anything, given that he owned their souls as well as their votes and political futures.
There would be--he and Rupert would see to it--notable media spectacles that would so delight and distract citizens from the real work of governing. He could hardly wait to hear Rand Paul, for example, call for the Repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act while a Black man served as president! How perfectly ironic! Or watch as Haley Barbour, that fat revisionist of civil rights history from Mississippi, begins his presidential run in May by openly appealing only to conservative white voters, via a speech on "The Fair and Balanced Truth about Race in America." The speech would be written for him, polished for him, by Clarence Thomas, his toady wife, and of course the Hoover Institute lackey, Thomas Sowell. Michele Bachmann would be readied for a run for the Senate, where she would be free to use her evangelical Christian "Left Behind" base to encourage Israel to nuke Iran, thus fueling the hype over "end of time" signs that was always good for the weapons trade. His weapons trade.
That would be only the beginning. Scrooge smiled, his artificially whitened teeth and John Boehner tan reflecting back handsomely, or so he thought, from his 24-carot gilded mirror. He admired his substantial girth as a sign of continuing personal prosperity, and his impeccable hand-made Saville Row suit, that "business expense" that he would have deducted if, in fact, he actually paid any taxes. Which he didn't. His friends in Congress made sure of that. He denounced attempts for charity at this time of year. "Are there no poorhouses for the unemployed?" he sang aloud, purposefully out of tune. He snorted. "Let them eat cake."
He had even grander plans for America's disinformation future. There would be no further extensions of unemployment insurance, because, after all, he had already seen to it that politicians and pundits had successfully planted the idea that our economic woes were mostly their fault. Of course it was! The lazy unemployed, sucking the milk of sustenance each and every from the public trough, drained our resources without adding anything to the portfolios of those good citizens who profited from Wall Street. Which was to say the only people who really mattered to Scrooge's burgeoning real estate and banking business interests, his various offshore tax shelters, and of course the oldest of cons: the corporate ponzi schemes.
Nor would there be further coddling of health care reformers but instead a mediated call for cuts to the newly minted legislation in order to pay down the deficit, a plan that had already worked in Arizona where they actually had death panels. He farted, truly pleased with himself.
And, of course, there would be no tolerance for the so-called "Dream Act" that would provide so-called "innocent children" with not only paths to citizenship, but to educational opportunities on the ever-shrinking public dollar. Who needs immigrants to become citizens? Polls had shown they weren't likely to become Republicans or Tea Party members. They were best kept hidden as they had always been kept hidden, as quiet and obedient wage slaves to those fine white Republican people in the Sunbelt who needed them to continue as underpaid gardeners, house cleaners, carpenters, road workers, and nannies.
He went to bed and, conscience clear as a skull of crystal-head vodka, he immediately fell into a deep and snoreful sleep.
It didn't last long. Scrooge found himself rudely awakened by an age-mottled hand strangely familiar to him. Was it the greedy paw of his old political partner, John McCain? But no, that was not possible. McCain had died running for the presidency!
Scrooge had seen to it that his old friend was paired with a rogue woman less prepared for a prime time vice presidential debate than anyone since "Who am I? Why am I here?
Admiral Stockwell and as offensive to a Katie Curic audience as anyone since Iranian president Ahmadinejad . Sarah Palin's "plainfolks" style, her wholly media manufactured sex appeal (red CFM pumps and naughty librarian glasses are good for erotic tv), her claims to shooting wild animals out of helicopters, and her general lack of available intelligence made middle-aged, overweight white men who work in boring offices salivate, and the fact that she claimed to be a "God-fearing soccer Mom" only added other clueless Midwestern women and evangelicals into her flock.
She would be back in 2012, Scrooge would see to it. She would lose, of course, but that was the point of her candidacy, just as it had been with the screwing of his old pal John McCain. Nothing fuels conservative backlash, or fear, or racism, like a good presidential loss, particularly to someone from an elite, possibly foreign, and decidedly arrogant minority. It's better for business in the long run.
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