Was it just a coincidence? A case of life imitating art? A very subtle attempt at self-parody? Or did that Tea Party gathering on the Washington Mall this past weekend bear an eerie resemblance to the tea party in Alice In Wonderland?
The March Hare in Carroll’s book, who presided over a tea party on the other side of the looking glass, was of course quite mad. Glenn Beck, who presided over doings in Washington, is mad as well — though not in the same sense as the March Hare. Beck is mad in the sense of being angry. He’s mad as hell that his country has been stolen by people using the oldest trick in the democratic (small ‘d’ here) book — getting more votes than their opponents in the previous election.
Along with the March Hare, the two other tea party guests Alice met in Wonderland were a Hatter (also mad, but perhaps with more cause in that hats were once manufactured using mercury), and a Dormouse, a sleepy beast whose role at these events was mostly to ditto what the other regulars said and pose questions on things he felt strongly about but for which he had no ready answers. The prime example of this Dormousian Speak was a tale, never quite consummated, about people who could survive exclusively on treacle. A tale which inclined the sensible Alice to note that “they couldn’t have done that, you know, they’d have been ill.”
Topping off this social event down a rabbit hole was a brief guest appearance by the Queen of Hearts, a lady fond of saying “Off with his head!” in response to almost everything. The resemblance to one of the featured speakers at the Washington Tea Party, a lady fond of verbally decapitating most anyone whose ideas she dislikes, was hard to miss.
Hare, Hater and Dormouse spent their days not only prattling gibberish but engaging in strange behavior of other kinds. The last time Alice caught sight of them before moving on to other curious sights during her visit, for example, the Hare and Hatter “were trying to put Dormouse into the teapot” — getting someone subject to half thought out and self-destructive actions fully Tea Partied, as it were.
Feeling a bit like Alice coming back from the other side of the looking glass after watching events on the Washington Mall this past weekend, I would offer the following advice to Tea Party leaders. Consider changing the name of your movement, lest others’ are reminded of rabbit hole thinking and behavior. Or failing that, get folks on the Texas School Board to eliminate Lewis Carroll from approved school reading lists.
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