11/01/06 ALICE IN BUSHLAND: Madison writer comes out of the rabbit hole with answers in hand

ALICE IN BUSHLAND: Madison writer comes out of the rabbit hole with answers in hand

By ALLISON PHILLIPS

Clarion Arts & Culture Editor

As George W’s reign ends its tyrannical rule, many who have been riding the wake of political satire for relief have ceased to care. We shake our heads at the mention of yet another folly. Looking back at the mess and comprehending what has been done and what changes will have to be made is a larger task than most of us are willing to manage. To help political burnouts get a humorous outlook again, Madison writer Peggy Wireman has released a satirical riot of a book that takes a critical look at the administration’s actions through the eyes of a classic character, Alice in Wonderland.

Written in script form, Alice walks through the world of Bushland where George Bush is king and rules with his sidekicks Rummy the Mad Hatter and Humpty Dumpty Rove. Alice innocently asks questions to which "compassionate" King Bush gives sly replies. When Alice first meets King George, she questions why the Congress is unable to stop King Bush’s attempts to classify government information and stop anyone from leaking information to the press. To which sneaky King Bush replies, "We’ll claim executive privilege. If they are Democrats we can easily spread misinformation about them to discredit them. We’ll do that to Republicans who oppose us, too. Don’t you remember how brave I looked when I flew onto that Navy carrier and announced ‘Mission Accomplished?’" A confused Alice reflects the American conscience on that infamous day as she asks, "What mission was accomplished?"

Wireman hits many of the main issues and how they affect the American public. She outlines the main points of the war in Iraq, job creation, Bush’s connection to Kenneth Lay, the health effects of pollution and cuts to Medicare benefits. Alice lobs questions at the many characters she meets, and is answered with underlying truth and double-speak. At the end of each chapter, Wireman lists cold hard facts on the topics discussed, reminding the reader how Bush’s policy making will affect education, wages, the environment and foreign policy long after he is out of office.

Wireman is concerned that students are not fully aware of the effects the current administration’s policymaking. Our student body is unique in that we educate many low-income students, single mothers, minorities and those that have been left behind in our educational system. Wireman points out the widening gap between business owners and wage-earners: "Under Bush, corporate after-tax profits have risen to an all-time high while compensation for working people has reached a 40-year low." Cuts to educational grants will directly affect MATC students and new restrictions on overtime pay will affect many students coming out of our nursing and law enforcement programs. She is concerned for women’s reproductive rights and believes that in the next five years it could become impossible for any woman who is not married to receive birth control.

In an interview, she states many of her concerns:

AP: Part of this book was written before the second election. What is your opinion on the outcome of the 2002 election?

PW: I was very disappointed, I was shocked by some of the Republican campaign techniques. I had been shocked when I wrote the book. I’ve been around political things for a very long time and I’ve worked in Washington both in the bureaucracy, and I was a congressional fellow for a year up on the hill. I have been a newspaper reporter of the State Legislator. So I’m not real surprised about a lot of things. I was shocked by the techniques that had been used against Max Cleland. This was a senator that was defeated by posting his picture along that of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden as being not hard enough on terrorism. This was because he had voted against the provision of setting up the new security department, which Bush had initially opposed until he was pushed by the Democrats to do it. He voted against the provision because he wanted more protections for civil servants. The reason he wanted protection for civil servants is it’s the only way you can be sure that people are not going to give false recommendations on national security based on what their bosses want because they’re afraid of losing jobs. We have seen this problem with getting factual information in connection with the Iraq war.

AP: What kind of problems, can you give specifics?

PW: There were many people who knew before the Iraq war that it was likely to move into a civil war. As a matter of fact, Tammy Baldwin had a hearing (in Madison) a week before the war began, and most people stood up and said how pleased they were to come and voice their opinion. I had called a friend of mine, who’s the chief planner in Baghdad before Saddam came in, the night before and he suggested that this was likely to happen. So I went and testified because this was something I had not heard in the newspapers or on the TV. So I stood up and said, "Tammy, I’m not happy to be here, I’m going skiing tomorrow morning and I would rather be packing, but this is a piece of information I think perhaps people don’t have." In fact, many people had that piece of information. But it was the people that didn’t listen to them at the top.

AP: Why do you think they didn’t listen to them?

PW: I think they didn’t listen to them because they had their own agenda. There were people in the administration who had wanted to invade Iraq since the ’90s.

AP: Why do you think George W’s "diamond in the rough" image has lasted so long? Why is his ignorance being ignored?

PW: I don’t think it’s being ignored. I think the polls indicate that. Well, first of all I think many people are not politically aware. I think many people have the mistaken idea that everybody does it. It is not true everybody does it. Everybody does take campaign contributions. Not everybody cheats on them. I was actually in Washington during Watergate and it was very interesting because people outside in the rest of the country tended to think, well, everybody does it. But people in Washington were actually shocked because they knew what Nixon had done went beyond the bounds of just political maneuvering. When he used the instruments of power to remain in power you tend to be like a South American dictatorship. And I see some parallels right now. If you have records of telephone calls one of the things you can use them for is to make lists for which voters to call. Because … if you have the email lists, you know who’s contacting conservative email and who’s contacting liberal emails. You know who’s a member of a church, who’s not a member of a church. It is invaluable to any campaign. Since we don’t know what’s happening, we have no way of knowing who has used the information.

AP: So do you think that it is being used as a technique for campaigning?

PW: Well, it certainly could be. But I think it leads really to a broader question. And the broader question is, and this goes back to the book, the second chapter of the book is King Bush’s song in which King Bush sings a song from Gilbert and Sullivan which is about Lord Chancellor who is claiming to be above the law. "And I, my lord, embody the law" and Bush is claiming right down the line that he is above the law. He can wire tap without following the rules of wiretapping. He has just gotten legislation saying he is not responsible for torture that went on under his administration.

AP: Do you think that the conservative right is making an attempt to restructure the gender roles that have changed so much in the last 50 to 100 years?

PW: I think that you’re correct that some of this is a backlash against the shifts in women’s roles that took place in the ’70s and later. I think that a lot of it is that backlash. I think that some of it has been a very concentrated and deliberate effort by the far right to put forth their own, personal religious views on society. I think that many people have gone along with it partly with a feeling of insecurity because since the ’70s the biggest shift has been the increasing split in wages between the workers and their bosses. And the far right has been financed largely by business people who want to keep wages low.

Wireman’s book is available at local bookstores and her website is Aliceinbushland.com.