As evidenced by \u201cGrimm,\u201d \u201cOnce Upon a Time,\u201d and GOP talking points on the economy, fantasy is back on TV in a big way! And the lines are blurring like Rick Perry\u2019s vision at a New Hampshire fundraising dinner: \u201cOnce Upon A Time\u201d features a beautiful, evil queen vexed by her children, like Sarah Palin; while \u201cGrimm\u201d has a wolf who struggles to repress his true self (Marcus Bachmann), and a crusader for justice who\u2019s the only one capable of seeing evil, which must be how Michael Moore sometimes feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both shows are great fun if you miss the fairy tales you grew up with even as you realized that not all princes are charming and snow is sometimes yellow. But being Republican means never having to let go of your fantasies in the face of reality. They still believe in fairy tale tropes like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MAGIC BEANS: In their heroic attempt to balance the budget, conservatives are trying to convince desperate Americans to trade everything they have\u2014Social Security, health care, improved infrastructure, affordable education, food, water and kittens\u2014in exchange for continued tax cuts for the wealthy<\/a> that will make the economy grow like a mighty beanstalk! You can wish upon stars, fairy godmothers, talking fish, or a unicorn\u2019s magic testicles, but this isn\u2019t and never has been true. Despite record debt and a top tax rate of 91%<\/a>, America\u2019s post-World War II economy boomed for decades; by the 1960s, under a top rate of 70%, we enjoyed the longest uninterrupted economic expansion in our history<\/a> while real income grew 50%. More recently, President Clinton raised taxes and the economy surged along with his libido, while a decade later President Bush lowered taxes\u2014twice\u2014and our economy experienced the weakest expansion in a century<\/a>.<\/em> In short, hang on to your cow; those beans will just give you gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n GIANT KILLERS: These are the shining knights appointed to protect the kingdom from the lumbering scourge of giant unemployment\u2014\u201cJob Creators,\u201d if we can only shield them in turn from the dark curses of taxes, regulations, unions, pensions, minimum wages, health insurance, environmental protection and other evil spells. Already benefiting from lower costs<\/a>, frozen wages<\/a>, and historically low taxes<\/a>, U.S. business productivity<\/a>, growth, and profits<\/a> are all up. But instead of creating jobs or slaying giants, our most successful corporations continue to eliminate jobs<\/em><\/a>, dodge taxes<\/a>, and accept government stimulus<\/a> while hoarding record sums of cash<\/a>\u2014citing \u201cuncertainty\u201d about the future, although the future seems as clear as \u201chappily ever after\u201d when it comes time to hand out bonuses and exorbitant CEO compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ROYAL BALLS: Okay, this one is real! I\u2019m referring of course to the giant testicles of our ruling plutocracy. King Midas learned a valuable lesson when everyone he loved turned to gold at his touch. If the Koch Brothers could enrich themselves by destroying ordinary people, they would. In fact they have, accumulating a worth of $50 billion dollars (an increase of 800% since 2004<\/a>), partly by speculating on energy, which drove up the price of oil for everyone else. Huzzah! Collectively, rich conservatives spend hundreds of millions of dollars of their windfall profits to fund and elect conservative candidates<\/a> to ensure the continuation of legislation that will further enrich them. The don\u2019t-hate-me-because-I\u2019m-rich agenda<\/a> includes deregulation, low wages, decimating collective bargaining\u2026 and let\u2019s not forget lower taxes, because when you make $7 billion dollars in a year, you just can\u2019t afford a return to a pre-Bush tax cuts era where you\u2019d have to pay an additional 4% to support the democracy that made it possible for you to thrive. Fairy tales are supposed to have happy endings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, has the clock struck midnight in America and you\u2019re about to find yourself inside a rotten pumpkin with broken glass in your foot? Maybe not, but here\u2019s a bad omen: when the curse in \u201cOnce Upon A Time\u201d sends its fairy tale characters to \u201csome place horrible,\u201d it turns out to be here<\/em>\u2014America in 2011. On the plus side, it\u2019s a place where bounty hunters are beautiful and kids love books\u2026 so maybe some dreams do come true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As evidenced by \u201cGrimm,\u201d \u201cOnce Upon a Time,\u201d and GOP talking points on the economy, fantasy is back on TV in a big way! And the lines are blurring like Rick Perry\u2019s vision at a New Hampshire fundraising dinner: \u201cOnce Upon A Time\u201d features a beautiful, evil queen vexed by her children, like Sarah Palin; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eatthepoor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}