The wrong road, retrodden

Many US news-sites, and a small mess of blog-artists, are fretting over the current phenomenon of the Tea Party movement. Fruit-cakes fully included.

Its insanities were adequately dissected in last week's Doonesbury strips:


There must be some intelligence in that little black wafer, for it transcends mere coincidence that Day Two of the Great British Election Campaign, the bedside iPod's sparrow's fart shuffled up a neat piece of déjà vu:

Oh, we're meetin' at the courthouse at eight o'clock tonight --
You just walk in the door and take the first turn to the right.
Be careful when you get there, we hate to be bereft,
But we're taking down the names of everybody turning left.

Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society,
Here to save our country from a communistic plot.
Join the John Birch Society, help us fill the ranks
To get this movement started we need lots of tools and cranks.

That's from the Chad Mitchell Trio's live album, At the Bitter End, all the way back in March, 1962. It's on YouTube, but as a text-only karaoke version.

The real rib-cracker in that lyric comes just before the final reprise:

Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the Right.

Which, of course, here, there and anywhere is what really matters.

As always, in any political faction, your opponents are in front of you.

Your political enemies are behind him, marking your back for the sharpened stiletto.

View, if one must, the chain-jerkings of ConHome, and their internecine frotting over the last hemi-demi-semi-quavering of Tory policy on Europe, the less than enthusiastic noises of approval for "Dave", and the constant fear of back-sliding. Any mild dissent marks the accursed troll.

Anything short of a Tory landslide on Election Night (which simply ain't gonna happen) will open the floodgates of recrimination.

A tea-party is the last thing to expect. Sphere: Related Content