Catsup As A Vegetable: how quickly they forget

Broadway is currently running a scaled-down revival of Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music.” I saw the original production with Glynis Johns who could not sing and Hermione Gingold, who also could not sing. But they could act!

The current version uses an audience-packing trend of placing a big Hollywood star in the cast. It sells seats and nobody seems to care if the acting is good or not. But, since I have not seen the current version, I will not make a judgement.

One of the most interesting songs is called, “Remember.” It deals with former and present lovers trying to remember events in their relationship. Invariably, things are incorrectly recalled. There is a line in the song which caught my attention: “you acquiesced and the rest is a blank.” The song ends with “I think it was you.”

The Tea Partyers are currently running rampant with their conservative bantering. They dislike everything that is going on in America. They even managed to scare enough people to supply Massachusetts with a Republican senator. Yes, blue Massachusetts! They seem to be able to blame the current administration with everything wrong in the economy, the wars, the banking industry, and don’t forget those impending “death panels.” And many people are believing every word.

Thomas Frank, the eloquent author and historian, was a recent guest of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. In the discussion, Mr. Frank argued, rather convincingly, that the resurgence of the Republican Party and their politics is due to the fact that “Americans have forgotten what their country looked like under conservative rule, ‘That's the disease of our time...that sort of instant forgetting.’ "

All of us have the tendency, like the quintet in the Sondheim musical, to romanticize the past. Even the most recent past. But let’s go back a bit. I recall a calendar that I was given during the Reagan years. Each day of the year had a quote from Mr. Reagan. Many were amazing in their naivete. “Facts are stupid things.” “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” “You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.“ "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles." "Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources." "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice." He also felt that unemployment was a choice.

Reagan’s disconnect with the common man was legendary. Remember, this the administration that attempted to classify catsup as a vegetable in order to have a balanced lunch program in our public schools. Save those packets son, times are bad.

In his economic programs, Mr. Reagan promised to curb governmental spending but instead increased it by 68% over the Carter administration. His tax cuts actually cost the less-affluent more.

Yet, Mr. Reagan is a hallowed, populist president. And obviously an expert at stagecraft.

We move forward and remember the first decade of the new century - The Bush Years. The Tea Party group and most Republicans see it as a time of greatness. Look at the record: the handling of Katrina, the move into a war without a reason to do so, their record on the environment, world diplomacy, climate change, and yes, the economy. How quickly people forget. Bush 43 said in December of 2008, "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." He also said, “I'm the master of low expectations.” "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." I must have missed that calendar.

So, the Tea Partyers will gather at the Opryland Hotel for a big convention shortly. It is sold out. Will they come up with a valid plan for the economy or merely rant about it? Do they wish to solve the healthcare crisis in our country or are they unconcerned because they are not among the 30 million uninsured? Don’t they worry that a well-oiled healthcare lobby has spent record money to attempt to defeat any proposal? Isn't a light going on somewhere between the ears?

The March Hare, speaking to Alice at another famous tea party said, “you could at least make polite conversation.” I have low expectations of this based upon the history of the movement.

So, in the midst of this hysterical backlash, will we repeat the past cycles where people acquiesced and through “instant forgetfulness, “the rest is a blank?”

What is that music I hear?

“Quick send in the clowns. Don’t bother, they’re here!”