A Holiday Fantasy: If I Were Emperor of the USA

By John Grant

It’s that time of the year again. Ho. Ho. Ho. There’s the urge to celebrate the Winter Solstice (AKA Christmas) with family and friends. It’s also time for end-of-the-year assessments concerning the absurdities of life in a fading empire in denial.

To a responsible American leftist who feels as American as apple pie, the absurdities can be especially pronounced this time of year, given the socially-progressive politics people like me advocate is on the mat and the ref is counting. The pie is getting smaller. And the Social Darwinists are fat and getting hungrier ever day.

In this spirit of Holiday absurdity and frustration, I’m cutting loose. I’m going to just pretend I’m the most ruthless Emperor ever to sit in the cockpit of state of this absurd 21st Century Imperium I'm calling The Corporate and Imperial States of America -- C.I.S.A. for short. I sit on a throne made by a homeless designer out of a dozen broken parts from a dozen pieces of thrift shop furniture. A line of correspondents waits to ask me a question. (We’ve cut off Fox News until they learn better how to grovel for access in this new regime.) The correspondent from MSNBC asks the first question. In fact, it’s the only question we’ve allowed this afternoon:

“What are the first ten things you’re going to do?”

1) First we will be releasing Bradley/Chelsea Manning and dropping any legal actions against Julian Assange. We are announcing an amnesty program for Edward Snowden, who will, if he accepts, become a consultant as part of a major re-vamping of the entire US intelligence system. Yes, heads will have to roll. Like they say, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. While we don’t want to throw anybody’s baby out with the bathwater, we may have to throw somebody’s baby out -- for the good of the larger whole. It will not be without some bumps, and my newly formed People’s Guard is ready to monopolize on any violence that breaks out. We support the Second Amendment, and all over the country we are establishing and training chapters of a well-armed militia known as the Smedley Butler Brigades made up of disgruntled unionists, the unemployed and the homeless. These are things that have to be done. We are not allowing change to be quashed any longer. The status quo ends here.

2) The most powerful purely symbolic thing we can do as a nation is, after holding it at virtual gunpoint for over 100 years, we will be relinquishing any and all ownership rights to our military base at Guantanamo, Cuba. We will move all prisoners to a well-designed prison in Oklahoma. Absent any significant criminal evidence, captives will be released on an expedited basis. Most important, we will no longer hold Cuban territory illegally.

1. Tomorrow, we will be eliminating the Affordable Care Act...

For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new uncompromising four-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/2074