Columnist – John Sammon
Listen to what Tea Party members say when they say they want their country back. What they really mean is they want the U.S. to be like Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show, the fictional Mayberry, a rural southern town in North Carolina.

The town is always peaceful except for the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts), or the half-wit gas station attendant Gomer played by Jim Nabors. Interestingly, in a recent retrospective of the show, Nabors said people thought Gomer was dumb, but Gomer was really smart and just seemed dumb.

An interesting theory. How intelligent can Gomer really be if he continually and for no apparent reason drawls out in a thick southern accent “Sha-zaam?”

He can’t be too brilliant.

Neither is the village barber Floyd, who is either dyslexic or stoned on speed.

Guber isn’t any better, with his oxy-moronic-bad-English greeting of “hey Andy!”

Or the town drunk Otis, who arrives and locks himself in his jail cell every night (substance abuse can be fun).

Andy himself has been single for so many years and has never married his eternal girl friend Helen Crump, one might suspect he’s a closet gay stud with a badge. Maybe he and Barney are getting it on. A little badge action, huh?

In addition to Elmer T. Bass, a shotgun wielding hillbilly, one might also be led to the belief that too much inbreeding among closely-related Caucasian relatives had produced a village of idiots.

Wait a minute. Is this is a real southern town, Mayberry? Where are the blacks? Where are the African Americans? After all, it’s in the Rural South. We have to assume they’ve all been driven out of town years before or lynched.

This is what Teabaggers mean when they say “we want our country back.” They want Mayberry, a 1940s-style town, without a single African American, no diversity, a peaceful place, where you know all your neighbors and everything about them, where it’s safe to leave doors unlocked at night, cars too.

Where the biggest thing that happens is Aunt Bee bringing the apple pie to the table, where little Opie (Ron Howard) plays with his pal Johnnie Paul, where children run free without supervision, where no crimes occur.

Because there are no African Americans?

The Andy Griffith Show continues to this day in reruns. It was undoubtedly a comedy success with a huge devoted audience that never missed a single episode. It won the Emmy several years running and is widely regarded as one of the television’s truly great comedies. Even when Don Knotts departed the show because his brilliant portrayal of Deputy Fife had made him a star and the quality of the show declined (the humor to be supplied by the characters Howard and Guber), and even after Griffith departed, it kept a loyal audience.

Despite its success there is something sick about the Andy Griffith Show. The years it was made during the 1960s saw assassinations, race riots, cities burning, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, yet Mayberry remained, a tiny oasis of the past, free of all troubles.

I would not have expected the show’s producers in 1967 to make the show “relevant,” but portraying rural southern life in a sanitized way without any of the accompanying ugliness the area was noted for, race hate, ignorance, or poverty, seems somehow to be a longing that is based on what was wrong.

The ultimate irony of the show is that its producers didn’t dare make fun of stereotypical blacks as Amos and Andy had, but mocked the only safe group left to mock, white trash hillbillies. Other shows like the Beverly Hillbillies did the same.

The further irony is that Teabaggers want the very type of America the show mocks, a bunch of ignorant white hicks.

I know it’s supposed to be funny, but I also know that this Norman Rockwell fairy tale portrait is the kind of America the Teabaggers want, an America free of the disturbing, unsettling sight of people who look different, or who act different.

The Andy Griffith Show was immensely popular because it offered a false vision of the kind of country many Americans still want.

This is what the Tea Party wants. This is their America. Mayberry. But they aren’t as funny as Knotts was.

They won’t admit it.

References:

1. Tea Party/Republican Racism.

2. Playlist: Republican | Tea-Party Racism

I make no secret that I would like to see marijuana legalized, the magical herb is safe and therapeutic. But I am vehemently opposed to drugs like crack and heroin that wreak havoc on individuals and costs society untold billions in health care and crime-related expenses.

Drug dealers are the scum of the earth, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Recently the mother of Bristol Palin’s boyfriend was arrested for allegedly trafficking in oxycontin – commonly known as the “hillbilly heroin.”

“An investigator and the Alaska State Troopers’ union say political interference delayed the drug arrest of the mother of the boyfriend of Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol.” — The New York Times

Was Sherry Johnston’s arrest delayed until after the election? Perhaps a more pertinent question would be: Why isn’t John McCain being castigated for doing a horrible job of vetting Sarah Palin?

Sherry Johnston isn’t just the mother of Bristol Palin’s boyfriend, she’s also a friend of Bible-toting Sarah Palin. You are known by the friends you keep and Sarah Palin is a buddy of drug dealer.

I can imagine the screaming headlines if it were discovered that President-elect Barack Obama had a friend who was a drug dealer. We would never hear the end of it, and it would be an albatross around Obama’s neck for his whole term in office.

This story shouldn’t be buried in the back pages of newspapers, it deserves above-the-fold coverage. The press must be vigilant so that the corrupt political establishment in Alaska doesn’t merely slap Johnston on the wrist. The media must also tie this story in with John McCain’s reckless selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

We came uncomfortably close to having the White House resemble the Beverly Hillbillies household. I can imagine Bristol Palin and her redneck husband sneaking out the window of their bedroom to attend a rave, and President Palin and her drug-dealing pal discussing the merits of oxycontin in the Rose Garden.

To those of you who think I’m being unfair to Palin, do I need to remind you how she condemned Obama for his associations with Rev Wright and Ayers?

Palin supporters let’s examine Matthew &: 1,2: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

——————————————————————–

(Sung to the ballad of, The Beverly Hillbillies)

Come and listen to my story about a woman named Sarah,

A former unknown mayor, based on Alaska terra,

And then one day she was shootin’ at a moose,

And up through the mail come an offer to choose,

From Big John McCain that is, for vice president, national stage, riches.

Well the first thing you know, Sarah’s a media star,

The kin folk said, Sarah, smear them Democrats with tar,

Said destiny is the place you ought to be,

So she loaded up the Humvee, and moved to D.C.

Washington that is, bureaucrats, nincompoops.

Well Sarah took it on herself, to wield the holy axe,

To denigrate them liberal traitors, through baseless mean attacks,

And though it was clear, she didn’t have a clue,

She filled up all her air time, with mindless ballyhoo.

The fact it didn’t work, and she got voted down,

Didn’t change her stance, as an unqualified clown,

And when John McCain, had to concede the race,

Sarah wanted equal time, to satisfy her place,

In history that is, presidential libraries, legacies.

She’s gonna run again, you know it in your heart,

Despite the wide perception, she’s everything but smart,

She’ll spend the party money, on clothing luxury,

Until once again she’s proven, a gigantic lia-bil-ity,

To the party that is, as long as there’s liberal socialist traitors to smear,

And small countries to threaten.

So now it’s time to say, goodbye to Sarah and her kin,

And she would like to thank her voters, for dropping ballots in,

You’re all invited back in four years, for more of this agony,

To have a heapin’ helpin’ of her chi-can-ery,

Political that is, nonsensical banter, twisted facts.

Put up your feet. Try on some new expensive shoes you bought. Sit a spell. Ya’all come back now Sarah, ya’ hear?

Copyright 2008 Sammonsays.

   By:

   Columnist – John Sammon