The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Rec'd by Keith Olbermann:
But for the big picture about the Right Wing’s desire to take a dollar out of everybody’s pocket, one hour, one day, one pocket at a time, I refer you to this wonderful essay from earlier this week by Marty Kaplan at TruthOut which not only correctly identifies Wisconsin as the start of the attack on – well, on practically everybody – and as the augur for a long-dreamed of societal rollback – but also does so by invoking one of the great touchstone moments of early television history, the Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” masterpiece, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.”


The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

Tuesday 22 February 2011

by: Marty Kaplan | t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed


The power has gone out in a typical American town. Wait -- it's not just the electricity. The phones don't work, either. Portable radios are dead. Cars won't start.

snip//

The monsters aren't Wisconsin's public employees whose right to collective bargaining has helped their families lead middle-class lives, and who have repeatedly declared their willingness to return to the table and negotiate a shared sacrifice. The monsters are on Wall Street, where state pension funds were sunk into toxic sub-prime mortgage-backed securities. The monsters are on K Street, where lobbyists are fighting financial industry oversight. The monsters are the politicians who are using Wisconsin's deficit as a pretext to demonize public employees and bust their unions.

If you look at the budget that House Republicans just passed, if you listen to the "so be it" language of their leadership, you'd think that the federal deficit is caused by the very people who who've been suffering the most in this recession.

But the monsters aren't low-income pregnant women and mothers who can't afford adequate nutrition for their families; or sick Americans who can't find health insurance to cover them; or blue-collar workers who want to retire at an age when there's still some life left in their bodies; or students who can't afford college without Pell Grants; or people who think their government's job includes preventing their air and water from poisoning them.

Sitting on the hilltop, watching Americans turn one another into bogeymen, evading scrutiny and responsibility, are the real sources of our distress.

more...

http://www.truth-out.org/the-monsters-are-due-maple-street67972

the episode when it first aired and I've watched it a number of times when the Syfi Channel does their Twilight Zone marathon.

episode of Twilight Zone!

but it has been taught in Florida (middle or high, I can't remember) for years.

If I were to review this play in one sentence, I'd use Pogo's "We have met the enemy, and he is us."