(PU) Barack Hussein Obama, newly elected President of the People’s Republic of America, today announced his choice of William Ayers, a former leader of the 70s militant antiwar group, the Weather Underground, for U.S. Secretary of Defense. The appointment allays concerns of many peace movement progressives who had feared that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, overseer of the military surge in Iraq, would be asked to stay on.
“Man, oh, man — socialism has finally come to America!” sobbed Mr. Ayers, when reached by telephone. “I’ve waited so long — now I’ll show them who’s washed up!”
Mr. Ayers was referring to attacks by John McCain’s presidential campaign, which alleged that Barack Obama harbored some sort of nefarious, anti-American ties to the 63-year-old Ayers, whose organization in the 1970s bombed government sites and staged confrontational rallies to stop America’s war in Vietnam. As Mr. McCain became more desperate for support, his insinuations of an Ayers conspiracy became increasingly common. The final presidential debate contains a McCain reference to Mr. Ayers as a “washed-up terrorist.”
Bill Ayers is, in fact, an elementary education theorist who has spent his last few decades above ground, infiltrating the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar. In 1997, he won Chicago’s Citizen of the Year award for his work on a public school reform project. Today, he says his past activism would make him the perfect advisor to the President in matters of “armed struggle.”
History, however, may prove that some Republican suspicions were correct. Bursting with post-election glee, Mr. Ayers revealed that he has indeed been advising Barack Obama all along, even in such matters as his election night appearance. “Who do you think told Michelle to dress the whole family in red and black?” asked Mr. Ayers. “Way to subliminally convey our radical egalitarian, anarcho-communist values!” Mr. Ayers says he looks forward to implementing further “right-on” changes.
“Comrade Obama and I share a common dream,” continued Mr. Ayers. “We agree the only way to achieve true human dignity and justice is by securing the United States as an iron-fisted, free-love liberated zone. To that end, I shall recommend starting our administration off with a series of small property bombings — of our own military-industrial complex.”
Such a project would, according to Mr. Ayers, effectively end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and prevent further encroachments into Pakistan. “First, we bring the boys and girls home,” explained Mr. Ayers. “Then we order them to blow up Lockheed Martin, Blackwater, Raytheon, AIG — all the major military contractors and implicated multinationals. Finally, we get them to organize the masses so that, together, we turn these corporate/military installations into daycare centers, food coops, legal clinics. Whoa, let’s not forget the Capitol Building — that would make a great birthing center.”
Ever “unrepentant,” Mr. Ayers added, “I feel we can’t do enough.”
President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney have not returned phone calls for several days. Anonymous sources close to the President-elect say that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are among several officials from the outgoing administration who are being held incommunicado at socialist labor camps, newly constructed for “the real washed-up terrorists.”
Experts are unable to predict how long it will take to accomplish the “People’s liberation” of the U.S. defense infrastructure. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who may well be positioning himself for a role in the new administration, cheerfully conjectured: “We could be in this for years.”
Reached by email, past presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton, who denies rumors of her own ambitions for an Obama Cabinet post, nevertheless supported the Ayers appointment. “Let’s remember that Barack Obama is the first African-American to be elected President,” wrote Ms. Clinton, whose current Senate webpage photo shows her sporting an attractive blue headband with matching fringed poncho. “No way is Barack going to play the Establishment game and pull the same imperialist crap — that would be so lame. Peace Out. ;)”
Everyone in the so-called “red” states who voted for McCain was unavailable for comment. However, the rest of America appears audacious enough to hope for real change.
“I want to be able to tell my kids that everybody’s equal, war is bad, and the Earth should be saved — without them thinking I’m some whacked-out, post-hippie depressive,” said Minerva Blaustein, 58, kindergarten teacher in Astoria, Queens. “I need to know that things are getting better.”
Nineteen-year-old Ricky Sandoval of Brooklyn agrees. “Baby, I could enlist, get my degree, and still be able to stay home and protect my country from its own war economy,” said Sandoval. “Because, now that Obama’s won, the LAST thing this country would do is forget about the deaths we’ve already caused and send more troops to the Middle East — right? The last thing?“
Details at 11:00. On the Weather channel.
Susie Day lives in New York City where she writes a humor column for feminist and gay publications. She has also written on U.S. political prisoners and labor issues and thinks her girlfriend, Laura Whitehorn, is hot stuff. Can’t get enough of Susie? Read other pieces by Susie Day in MRZine: Susie Day, “Fugitive Offers Reward for Rumsfeld’s Capture” (22 July 2005); “Street Life of a Mad Activist” (28 July 2005); “Waiting for Karl Rove” (9 August 2005); “A Child’s Primer of Intelligent Design” (24 August 2005); “The Flood This Time” (19 September 2005); “Things That Rise Up in the Night: A Howl-oween Treat” (18 October 2005); “President Salutes Anonymous Red-Baiter” (14 November 2005); “Conspicuous Consumption of a Mad Activist” (11 December 2005); “2006: The Year in Horrorscopes” (9 January 2006); “Visiting Herman” (7 February 2006); “Savior Self” (6 March 2006); “Pinko Plague Panics President” (4 April 2006); “Seymour Hersh and the American Brain” (2 May 2006); “Identity, Class, and Bite Me, David Horowitz” (30 May 2006); “Bugging Hillary” (19 June 2006); “Back in the USSA” (24 July 2006); “News from the Back of the Front” (21 August 2006); “Barbie at the Barricades” (20 September 2006); “How to Stay Out of Gitmo” (18 October 2006); “Ted Haggard and the Church of the Down-Low” (13 November 2006); “Police Gun Down Another Rich White Man” (11 December 2006); “Consuming Karl” (6 February 2007); “Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran” (6 March 2007); “Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts” (2 April 2007); “Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson” (30 April 2007); “U.S. Troops Out of . . . ME” (30 May 2007); “Killer Lesbians Mauled by Killer Court, Media Wolf Pack” (27 June 2006); “Apartheid Americana” (23 July 2007); “Peace Movement Overthrows Government, Cheney Dies” (20 August 2007); “Honey, I Shrank the Military (Or, Who Put the ‘Pet’ in ‘Petraeus’?)” (21 September 2007); “Poppin’ Fresh Declares Martial Law” (13 November 2007); “Miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue: Santa Confirmed as FBI Head” (10 December 2007); “Croakin’ on Hudson” (7 January 2008); “Our Blob in the White House” (4 February 2008); “The Revolution Will Not Be Workshopped” (3 March 2008); “Ask Ms. Liberty: Advice for the War-Torn” (1 April 2008); “Gone with the ‘W'” (27 May 2008); “Sex sans the City (A Post-Marxist Preview)” (23 June 2008); “Jesse Helms and the Theater of the Depraved” (27 July 2008); “Pre-Election Attack of the Pro-Life Killer Fetus!” (15 September 2008); and “The Mad Activist’s Declaration of Codependence” (13 October 2008).
|
| Print