Scratch Tells A Fairy Tale
by Fred Whitehead
Once upon a time there was a land named Gingrichia
which has lasted now for five hundred years.
It is a strange name which had never been heard of
before the tale I am going to tell you...
It had a weird and terrible past
but I'll tell you about that later.
Gingrichia is a large country up on what used to be Earth
but is now Capitalia or sometimes, Free Enterprisia
and this takes up all of the surface of the planet...
Gingrichia is surrounded by barbed wire fence fifty feet high
and no one except businessmen can go in or out;
the government pays them to do whatever they like.
They get this money by taxing the few poor people left.
Some don't have any money at all, because they slave
their whole lives working big cotton plantations in the South.
Everyone who originally came from Ethiopia is there
along with the people from far southern Gingrichia
which was once known as Mexico.
The schools are very peculiar, because the students
spend all their time praying and reading the Bible;
consequently, no one exfcept a privileged few
knows anything about science or agriculture.
Those few spend all their time in front of computers
entering money amounts which they get from the cotton fields
and factories entirely run by big machines.
The main thing Gingrichians do in their spare time
is worship a box in a corner of their living rooms.
This box tells them everything they know or need to know.
If it does not come from the box, it does not exist.
In fact, for the whole time of Gingrichia's being a country,
they have worshipped this box which they call Television.
They gazed at the box until the land was renamed Televisionia.
Far back in time, way before anyone can remember,
this land was known as the United States of America.
A few foolish men made a bad war against a king
and started the country as a republic; to be know
as a Republican was an honor at that time.
These foolish men believed in things like freedom of speech
due process of law, and the separation of church and state.
Some of them, like citizens Jefferson and Paine
are down among us here now, but they spend most of their time
thinking about olden times, and don't have much to say.
The U. S. A. had much promise as a nation, but after awhile
it became corrupt as they all do, and it began to come apart.
I don't have time to tell you everything that happened in its
history, which lasted just over two hundred years.
It finally went through a terrible Depressio
when many people were out of work, without a place to live,
and the farms blew away onn the wind
This brought in a leader named St. F.D.R., who saved the land
and everyone loved him for saving their lives too.
Ever afterward, his follwers were known as Eff-dee-arrians.
They ruled the country for many years,
but at last they grew old and feeble and watery-eyed,
and a small but very mean group of bandits around the court
noticed how weak they were, and began to plot.
For eight years, they took over the court under St. Ronald,
but he too grew old and had to be led away.
The leader of the small group was later to be
St. Newt, the founder of the new country.
The last of the Eff-dee-arrians, St. William,
was very promising when he came to the throne,
but he soon proved to be weak as well.
St. Newt watched all this, and studied how to
take over the government. Suddenly one day St. Newt realized
that the best way was to take over their religion.
So he started talking to the people in the middle of the night
on their Televisions, and the people began to listen and believe.
The followers of St. William, known as the Clintonites,
were very mad about this, but they didn't know what to do
and just ran around every day wringing their hands and wailing.
They asked the old Eff-dee-arrians what to do
but they didn't know either and died of shame and grief.
Finally, one year they had an election, and because everyone
watched Television and believed what they saw on it,
St.Newt came to power, and the Newtonians
greatly rejoiced. One of St. Newt's faithful followers
named St. Rush, or maybe St. Mush (the text is obscure)
had gone on Television and brought in many believers.
Believing is what everyone now did, instead of thinking,
so St. Newt's plan worked.
There were some other supporters of St. Newt,
notably St. Robert of Doleria, in the middle of Televisionia
where there had once been many farms and people
but finally there were only a few big corporate farms
who helped St. Robert by regularly givinng him a lot of money
and he gave them money back in return.
Another supporter of the Newtonians was St. Patyrick
who was also on television almost night and day
with news and music and talk shows and many people
beheld him, and listened and believed every word he said.
Most of his followers spent their time marching around
in parades and singing 'Onward Christian Soldeirs'
and burning down women's health clinics.
The very first thing St. Newt did when he took over the throne
was to stop giving any money to poor people
and to send many to work in the cotton plantations.
Anyone who wouldn't do it soon starved to death.
The few who resisted were called drug dealers
and shot down like mad dogs by the Special Forces.
Those not shot as addicts were taken out at midnight,
called heretics, and burned at the stake amid much rejoicing.
Bulldozers went into the cities and tore down the hovels
where the poor used to live, and the middle classes moved in,
building townhouses and churches and shopping malls.
The children of the poor were taken away from their parents
because so few of them went to church
or becuase they didn't know who their father was.
This was in spite of the fact that many children of the rich
didn't know who their real father was either.
In hiding, a few remaining Clintonites hated Newt for this
but more thought he was just giving the poor 'tough love.'
The Newtonians decided to honor St. Newt
by renaming the whole country.
So that was the beginning of Gingrichia.
[Editor's note: This continues a series of poems, in which the Devil responds to various
contemporary issues and themes.]
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