"Why Ain't the Tee Party on the Ballot?"

 For some of us retirees, November is the time we earn our play money.  For years I have hired on in my town to assist with the duties of supervising the election process.  It's paid for my fun when I leave Northern New York's winter for a few months for the white sands of New Mexico. 
    In all my years of standing by the voting machines, there has never been as much confusion in my town as this year.  First was helping people get used to the "scan" method of voting. Voting started at 6 a.m. and it was  6:12 a.m. that the delay began with people lined up out the door. "It just doesn't seem like I voted when there's no levers," more than one lady complained and then there was "How the hell do I know if that thing really worked?  Them computer hackers could get in there and change my vote."
    The real mass confusion came regarding the "Tea Party".  It was so bad, I'm thinking of not working at the election next year and like other sensible retirees, sending in my absentee ballot from New Mexico.  A burly fella burst back to the registration table from the voting area.
      "I don't see no Tea Party on there, just Damn Democrats and Rotten Republicans.  Why ain't the Tea Party on the ballot?"
     "Oh, the Tea Party is not an official party, it's....more of a movement," I tried to explain.
      He looked at me like I was the senile one.  "Don't you watch the news?  It's been on TV for months about the Tea party.  I wanna vote the Tea party line."
      I tried again to explain what the tea party was, which was difficult to do because I don't truly understand what it is except that it exploits the anger of the hard working American for the purposes of the rich. 
    "Well, I ain't votin' then," he said and slammed out the door.
     He was the first of many who had misunderstood that the Tea Party was not actually a separate party.  However most of the others voted for someone, even if they didn't know who was for tea and who was not.  "They all lie.  I just close my eyes and pick one," one lady said.
     At the end of the longest 16 hours I ever worked, I thought back to the founders of our nation and their fears of the havoc that voting by the ignorant would bring.  The original restrictions that senators not be elected directly by the people almost sounded right to me.  We are a democracy, but we need to be an informed democracy.  And by informed I don't mean watching the yelping "news" commenentators.  There's still something called NEWSpapers out there which still do their best to explore real issues and the candidates views on them. 

      I'm afraid that when Americans find out that the tea party has pulled the tea bags over their eyes, and that it is really about serving the interests of the the rich who are funding a lot of the nasty lie filled advertisements for their candidates, there will be a real revolution.  Hell has not fury like an American duped.

Gagging on Tea

 "It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time in looking for the sacred Emperor in the low-class tea shops."  -  Ernest Bramah - The Wallet of Kai Lung

     I had drunk tea for forty years, enjoying every sip of every type imaginable, but when the movement founded by liars, funded by billionaires seeking backing from the vulnerable angry American People, I suddenly lost my taste for tea. 
     While watching a morning news program showing clips of Sarah Palin and the so called " Tea Party Express"  I suddenly started choking on my breakfast tea.  How could this nasty woman be associated with tea?  Her lies about 'death panel' provisions of the health care bill frightened everyone of us over 60 until some of us took the time to learn the truth.  She's made millions as a "tea party" icon but no one seems to notice, or care too much.  She is like fingernails on a blackboard, she is like the girl bully in middle school that my neice complains about.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.  
     She besmerched the good name of tea to the point where the beverage tasted like poison to me every time I tried to drink it.   It was like she placed some kind of curse on tea.  So bitter.  I was heart broken to give up my wonderful tea drinking habit and turn to coffee or soda instead.  No matter how many times I tried to drink it after that fateful morning, I always spit it out. 
    Then one day, it occurred to me, if Sarah Palin had made me hate tea, then perhaps someone with real power, someone with integrity and true purpose for bettering the condition of the American people could make me love it again.  Eleanor Roosevelt.  Only she could break the curse on tea that Sarah Palin and her like had wrought.
     Eleanor's tea drinking habits were well known in her day.  At her home in Hyde Park, New York, she had held real tea parties with everyone from world leaders to hobos off the street.  I just knew I needed to make a pilgrimage to her home in Hyde Park, New York to break the tea curse that sent me into gagging fits everytime I even smelled a pot brewing. 
     As soon as I stepped out of the car into the peaceful atmosphere of Mrs. Roosevelt's home at Valkill, I knew I had been right.  There was a positive vibe in the air, a spirit of goodness.  Eleanor had been a true champion of human rights, gracious, giving and self-less. 
     I bought some tea and a little blue teapot in the little giftshop at Valkill.  I took it home, brewed it and drank it down, with each sip my taste buds revived and tea was once again my favorite beverage.     Thank you, Eleanor, for reassociating tea with strength and courage and goodness.

  

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it."
                                                    - Eleanor Roosevelt