Response to Repohl's "South Bronx to South Bay: Adventures in Wonderland"

"When I say a word, it means exactly what I choose it to mean. Nothing more and nothing less." -- Humpty Dumpty, "Alice in Wonderland"

Mr. Repohl's extensive literary allusion a la "Alice in Wonderland" satirising the Congressional debt-ceiling debate is fantastic in two ways:

1) Fantastic in its clever interpolation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale with current political events. I especially enjoyed his characterization of President Obama as the "neutered Dormouse, asleep on the table." Without a doubt, the current chief executive has been asleep at the wheel, careening this nation toward disaster. Like an emasculated Queen of Hearts, Obama keeps shouting "Off with his head!" at every passing politician, both from current and previous administrations, while thinking of six or seven impossible ways to revive the economy, which he has made slowly moribund with his left-leaning interventions.

2) Fantastic also for its ruinous interpretation of the current Congress, particularly the Tea Party movement.

In the whimsical spirit of his lengthy send-up of Congress, including the maddening "Tea Party," I would like to apply some scrutiny to the implications made by the author.

He characterizes the stalwart efforts of fiscal conservatives in Congress as "self-absorption dissolving into pettiness." Since when have we denounced Congressmen voting the will of their constituents as "self-absorption"? The Tea Party caucus is forcing this government to face an issue which up to now has been roundly ignored and passed over--the outrageous debt and annual deficits eating away at our present and impoverishing our future.

The writer then disdainfully derides Congressional negotiations thus: "The so-called “debates” endlessly swirling around the debt-ceiling issue were goofier than the conversation at the Hatter’s party."

Once again, it would appear that liberal interests, including this author, are more inclined to see this nation spend money the way the Mad Hatter and company celebrate "Un-birthdays". This is both unconscionable and unacceptable.

Then he writes: "And all the while, the economy sputters, the poor and sick are pushed from the table while the fat lick up the butter. "

If this country cannot control cost, the poor and the sick won't even have a table to sit at, let alone scraps to pick at. This writer, like many who defend the larger role of government, still seem to think of the national budget like the cake Alice served to the Lion and the Unicorn: serve first, then it will cut itself. Sheer madness, to say the least.

And as for “The common good”, those words as meaningless as a stanza from “Jabberwocky." Like the scrambled and bewildered Humpty-Dumpty, the writer seems content to let words mean what they will, yet fails to communicate the fact that the "common good" for this country will be undone once and for all if we insist on providing for the "common good" of the poor, sick, elderly, unemployed, young, or those schooled in dependence to the state.