The Mudflats

Wondering what to get that fringe right-wing conservative kid on your Christmas list this year? They’ve got all the realistic plastic guns. They’ve got the Corporate version of Monopoly. But I bet they don’t have THIS!

Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country! spoofs on leading Democrats, President and adoring media.

A new children’s book which is expected to be released later this month is sure to ruffle more than a few feathers on the left. Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country!, written by author Katharine DeBrecht, takes to task leading members of Congress, the President and a fawning media on wealth redistribution, czars and a skyrocketing national debt.

(Stroking chin) Now who was the first president to have a “Czar?”  Oh, that’s right.  It was that lefty Richard Nixon.  And the first Drug Czar?  That bastion of liberal thought Ronald Reagan.  And skyrocketing national debt?  OK, let’s look at the gross federal debt as a percentage of the GDP for the last 30 years…just for giggles.

Jimmy Carter (D)  -3.2%
Ronald Reagan (R) +11.3%
Ronald Reagan (R) +9.2%
George H.W. Bush (R) +13.1%
Bill Clinton (D) -0.6%
Bill Clinton (D) -8.2%
George W. Bush (R) +6.9%
George W. Bush (R) +11.7%

I believe that’s what you call a “pattern.”

The sequel to the bestselling Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! continues the story of two boys who open up a lemonade stand only to have the stand seized by the government. Determined to succeed, the boys open up a swingset business, but their plan goes awry when a cast of characters resembling the politicians du jour – including a sweaty and sputtering Congressman Fwank and a tiara-donning Speaker Queenosie – force the boys to sell swingsets to kids who cannot afford them.

Follow Tommy and Lou as they struggle to keep their swing set business afloat despite 246 czars, onerous regulations and sky-high taxes in these troubling times.  Will Tommy and Lou finally decide to join the other kids on the corner in standing up for freedom or will they continue to fear being vilified by the press and demeaned by Marxus Obundus (“the One”)?

Wow. Just, wow.  Hopefully we’ll learn in the next volume how all the swingset manufacture jobs get outsourced to child laborers working for pennies an hour in China, and Tommy and Lou make a bazillion dollars on our bad trade/tarriff policies and don’t have to pay taxes, and leave all the kids on the corner with their signs who haven’t figured out yet that they’re cheering for the end of government and the takeover by corporations.

DeBrecht says she wrote the book for several reasons. “When public schools no longer teach children about the founding of our nation and spend most of the time discussing the plight of polar bears or creating chants to idolize the President something is terribly wrong.” DeBrecht explains. “There should be something out there for parents to teach their children the values of hard work, individual responsibility, and freedom, and the importance of defending these when they are under attack.”

Why just today my kids confirmed that they spent most of their day, not doing math or language arts, but discussing polar bears and chanting O-Ba-Ma! O-Ba-Ma!

Adult and child humor throughout the text and colorful illustrations are a plus, adds DeBrecht. “It’s a fun and entertaining way for parents to sit down with their children and teach them the importance of standing up for liberty and the American Dream.” Humor is not only an effective teaching tool, according to DeBrecht, it can be a stress-reliever as well, she says. “Instead of screaming at the television, why not laugh a little?”

Or try screaming at a book instead.  The website provides us with sample pages so that we may peruse them, and be swept away with how hilariously funny they are, and imagine how we might sit with our young children and really get into a family-style “teachable moment” with the little tykes.

Here, I’ll tell you what. Let’s do a little role playing.  I’ll be the Mom, and you be the little kid and I’ll tuck you in for a nice bedtime story, while we read the sample pages together. (I plump your pillow and smooth down the sheets before I tuck you in) This’ll be great.  OK, scoot over, so I can sit down. Ready? Here we go.

“But we can’t just give these [swingsets] away,” Lou told the radicals. “We have to sell them so we can pay the people who work for us.”
“Watercress sandwiches!” Senator Dudd thumbed through his thick address book.
“I know some very nice loan companies that will loan money to commoners to buy swingsets. They make some sweetheart deals, let me tell you,” he stroked the lapel of his expensive suit.
Tommy and Lou knew how long they saved and hard they worked for their swingset and did not feel right about selling swingsets to people who could not afford them. But, under the radicals’ new law, they were forced to do so anyway.

Wow. Kind of reminds you of the credit card companies that give out those cards to people who can’t pay them back so they can keep them in a downward spiral of interest payments. Or like the sub-prime mortgage fiasco where people were talked into buying homes they couldn’t afford. Yeah…all that deregulation and lack of oversight really got us into hot water.  So what we need is more deregulation and less government oversight, right?

You look a little dizzy. Do you want another chapter? OK, just one more.

But then something strange happened. A very smart-looking radical appeared on TV. “Now is the time for hope and change.” Marxus Obundus looked left and right, back and forth. How amazing he was! People swooned, TV reporters fell in love, and drive-thrus were more pleasant! So many people came from miles to hear his voice, they decided to construct a temple in which for him to speak.

Ah! That would be the set on the stage when he delivered the speech at the convention in Denver. It had all those evil, hubristic, god-like Greek columns…you know, like the ones on all the buildings in Washington D.C.!

“I’ll never have to work again!” a citizen at the temple gleamed “He’ll pay for my gas, my …

You interrupt hesitantly. “Gleamed? Did she say “a citizen of the temple ‘gleamed?’” I double check. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

I continue:

“He’ll pay for my gas, my house and my cheeseburgers! I can sit and watch Dr. Phrill all day!”

“The tingle up my leg just confirms he is a savior!” a TV host proclaimed.

Columnists Kathleen Snarker and Peggy Nowsham girlishly dusted off their diaries, giggling with glee.

“Did she say ‘girlishly dusted off their diaries’” you ask?

“Yes, she did indeed,” I gleam.

“And Mom, what does the ‘tingle up his leg’ mean?”

“OK, bedtime for you young man/lady!”  I quickly shut the book and turn out the light.

And so ends our little role playing exercise.

And if one of these achingly painful books is not enough for your l’il neocon, you might enjoy other titles by the same author:

Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed! - described as “a witty alternative to the usual liberal fare.”

Help! Mom! Hollywood’s in My Hamper! - in which you and your child can discuss and condemn “gay cowboy movies.”

And the one that started it all, Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity! - “Young readers will love following along with the lively story while singing the ridiculous (but very politically correct) new lyrics for The First Noel.”

And if you needed any more convincing, here’s an endorsement from Grover Norquist!

“Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed” combines an ingenious story with hilarious illustrations to teach kide [sic] about the value of hard work and the threat that taxed [sic] pose to the American Dream.”- Grover Norquest [sic], president, Americans for Tax Reform

Sweet dreams.