The new congress has been installed and the loonies are officially in power. There will be plenty of opportunities to laugh with Jon Stewart and weep with John Boehner over the next two years – but fact is we are continuing on a headlong trip to Bananarepublistan.
One early warning came two weeks ago when Boehner and (Eric) Cantor (no they are not lawyers or tailors, but rather the GOP House leaders), spokespeople for less government intrusion in our lives, decided that they could and should determine what we could and could not view in our nation’s publicly-supported museums. Seems that the Museum of American Art – part of the Smithsonian – installed an exhibit of art produced by gay and lesbian artists who included an eleven SECOND segment of a video of ants crawling over a crucifix. Cantor, A Jew, in a burst of ecumenism, denounced it as a sacrilege and Boehner became Big Brother incarnate and ordered it removed or risk reduced funding. The Smithsonian, in an act of classic bureaucratic cowardice, removed the offending video, the curator   resigned on principle, the video got picked up and played around the clock by museums around the country, including Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and the nation’s troglodytes felt a measure of power over liberal, elite museum goers. The irony of small government Republicans telling us what we can and cannot view is lost on the fools who are leading us to Bananarepublistan; they want to control us in every way possible while starving us of any benefits. We are in for it in more ways than most of us realize.
None of this should surprise us – the guardians of our culture are always out there to protect us from our own desires, wishes and tastes. Who better to protect us from our own taste than an emotionally unstable hick from Ohio who responds to the dictates of the nutty ramblings of William Doherty of the Catholic League who initiated the complaint? Doherty is an overpaid loudmouth who reveres Mel Gibson’s homoerotic, anti-Semitic Passion of Christ movie while freaking out over 11 seconds of ants crawling over a crucifix. We can also remember Attorney General Ashcroft placing a drape over Liberty’s breast.
In a small but telling event during this same period, the elementary schools in Rockport Massachusetts refused an offer of free copies of an award-winning children’s book for each child because the book referred to a donkey who did not like books as a “jackass”. Recognizing that we must protect the young from evil – a jackass is a jackass, whether a donkey of a superintendent of schools, and there is no way around it. Reminded me of a day on the beach at Rockport with one of the Mackenzie Brothers and his 12 month old daughter who was romping on the beach with – alas- no bathing attire. The Rockport police arrived in full police regalia and ordered immediate covering of the child. Mackenzie (not sure which one it was) had recently returned from Munich where people of all ages were free to take clothes off so had a bit of a fit.
Big Brother is here to protect us from our base desires and tastes, and someone actually voted him in.