Mr Clemens would have MOCKED the TeaBaggers.

[UTUSN]

So there was no relief from the TeaBagger crisis of absurdity and escape via the rest of the hundreds of idiot box channels was not possible, nothing on. It’s only for background noise, but still has to be QUALITY background noise.

So one of the public affairs channels was featuring some wingnut religious circus, with some guy strumming the geetaur while bouncy people swayed in their seats.

This recalled Mark TWAIN’s Innocents Abroad, where he described the long sea voyage, with Sunday services and a patriotic holiday being observed. There had been storms and other kinds of trauma, and I expected 19th century Americans to have been much like what the TeaBaggers of today aspire to: Jingoistic, fundamentalist Xtian, and provincial.

But, no: What TWAIN described was almost everybody present all right, but not small-minded. They sang and danced, but TWAIN made it clear that they joked their way through the motions of the hymns and the rituals and winked at the hokeyness.

While TWAIN depicted the SAWYER/FINN vision of American innocence that the TeaBaggers lust for, his vision of American innocence was real, and TWAIN was a modern, world citizen. The Teabaggers can only lust for a past they never really knew and certainly won’t regain.

[UTUSN]

1. Him being Mr "Mark TWAIN" in case anybody missed it. n/t