A Practical Policy

“No! No! No! I am not a killer!” screamed the President of the USA, and this time he woke up, staggered out of bed, stumbled out of the bedroom to the nearest TV. He brought up the People’s Hour President’s 24/7 reality channel and saw himself fully guised as the Grim Reaper, scythe in hand, staring at the TV. He hoisted the scythe and slashed at the TV, knocking it off the stand. He raised the scythe with both arms above his head and screamed for all the world to witness, “I am not a killer!” Two aides burst through the door. One grappled the scythe from his hands, the other body-locked the President and carried him back into his bedroom and shut the door.

Nevertheless the 24/7 reality show continued onscreen from the bedroom. “No! No! No!” screamed the President. “The American way of life is not deadly! We are good people! We value life! We make the world a better place to be! Our military is stationed and active all over the globe to do good for everyone! It’s even cost effective! We get oil, copper, gold for our efforts! Even fruit! And spices! And we export bang-up Hollywood films for the entertainment of all! Our mighty corporations not only reap wealth from the world, they sow it too! Why just look at…just look at…no, not Central America…uh…let’s see…not South America so much either…or Africa…uh…well…just look at Japan! See, the US shares the wealth! The Japanese have money too! And they are not even white like us! So we are not racist! Why, the Japanese are Honorary Whites! Oh, cash is good!”

At which point a secret service agent calmly walked in the room and tranquilized President Reaper of the USA. “This will help you sleep, Sir,” said the agent and drove the needle in.

QUACK! QUACK!!!!! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!!!!!

Suddenly a real, or seemingly real, duck appeared in the bedroom and drove its webbed claws into the agent’s eyes, spinning him and sending him stumbling and driving him blindly from the bedroom.

QUACK! QUACK!!!!! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!!!!!

At which point the President begins to lose his mind

“I am not the Grim Reaper!” screamed the President of the USA.

“Oh, but you are,” said the revolutionary duck. “Why don’t we prove it? Pick a spot on Earth, any spot. Oh, hey, I know. How about we head off to the Af-Pak conquest? Let’s see how that is working out for everyone.”

The 24/7 reality show screen flashed and dazzled. Suddenly President Reaper and the People’s duck appeared from out of a flash fade-from-black stepping across the mountainous border of Iraq into Afghanistan, where they were met by the regional commander, General McDuck.

“Commander-in-Chief.” General McDuck saluted.

“Commander General.” President Reaper met the General’s salute with one of his own. He used the gleaming platinum blade of his scythe.

Suddenly the General duck turned into a Grim Reaper himself. He held a bayonet instead of a scythe, and saluted now with his own blade. Then President Reaper and General Reaper clicked blades formally.

President Grim asked, “What’s the prognosis for the patient, General Reaper?”

“Terminal, sir. Quite terminal. Take the checkpoints. Where we’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed some. To my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force, Sir. To my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it.”

“The slaughter has been great, has it, General? Here in Afghanistan.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“Imagine some occupying Afghani force making this kind of slaughter of Americans in, you know, Iowa. Or Maine. Or Texas. If they ever had the power to manage it, to come after our oil and our oil pipelines.”

“We would nuke them, Sir.”

“That is correct, General Reaper.”

“Just imagine.”

“Imagine.”

“Never in America.”

“Never.”

“Except for 9-11. That is why we are here, Sir.”

“Er, well, you see, General, ahh…”

“I mean, in addition to the oil, Sir. Don’t think I’m as naive as our PR, President Reaper, Sir. Speaking privately here, from myself General Reaper to yourself President Reaper. 9-11 sure is a great cover for securing Afghani oil pipelines.”

“We need oil, General. We need oil to fuel the planes that bomb the people to secure the oil to fuel the planes to bomb away. You see what I mean, General Reaper.”

“Indeed, President Reaper. I direct what you mean. Bombs ahoy! Oil abroad! Lock and Load! Drill, Baby, Drill!”

The President Reaper of the USA staggered toward his Oval Office desk in the White House, then fell to his knees. “What have I become?!”

“President Reaper, President Reaper!” The People’s Duck tried to help Grim up. But to no avail. After all, the People’s Duck was a mere cartoon image. Only the President was real.

“I’m a killer!”

“President Reaper! President Reaper! The show must go on!” cried the Duck.

“No! Kill it! Kill it now! Kill them all!”

“All of whom!”

“All of them! All of the killers!”

“But, Grim, Sir, you don’t mean, you can’t-”

“I do, I mean kill them now. Kill them all.”

“But you, Sir President, are the Grim Reaper yourself, the Killer-in-Chief.”

“I resign. I hereby resign the office, this Presidency, as of now. I resign forthwith,  whatever it takes. I am no longer the President of the United Snakes! I mean States!”

“You can’t do that, Sir.”

“Why not? I’m the President. I can do damn near anything I want.”

“This is only a dream, Sir.”

The 24/7 reality show screen flashed and dazzled. Suddenly President Reaper and the People’s duck appeared in the White House bedroom. President Grim slumbered beside his wife, the First Lady Reaper. His Scythe hung on the wall near the head of the bed. The People’s duck roosted in a corner on a dresser, its beak tucked into its wing.

Must the show go on?

Not necessarily.

But tonight it would.

The People’s Hour Hones Its Tactics

Shortly after the People’s Hour put the Revolutionary duck forever onscreen to correct and spar with the President duck of the USA, the revolutionary group decided it ought to better visually distinguish between the two waddlers.

The humble but lively image of the duck fit the popular movement more than it did the owner ruler of much of the world, no?

What more appropriate image then, to better fit the President of the USA, the most powerful figure on a planet ravaged by inequality and violence, often of the USA’s own making – noted by Amnesty International and other progressive organizations. What better image than the cartoon duck to represent the President of the USA in official capacity and function?

The People’s Hour considered many avatars. It first dismissed the image of Hitler for being overused and just flat ugly; it dismissed the image of a greedy overstuffed pig for being ultimately too soft; it dismissed the image of a caricatured mad military General for not getting at all the incredible violence wreaked by the USA, that most powerful state.

The People’s Hour selected instead, as the most appropriate avatar of the militant business state that was the USA: the Grim Reaper.

Henceforth, the orange cartoon revolutionary duck waddled around with the tall black cloaked Grim Reaper – variously known as President Grim, Hail to the Reaper! the Commander-in-Reaping, simply Grim, the Reaper, or President Reaper – complete with bleached skull, black and gold teeth, empty eye sockets, and a titanium scythe. Such was the revolutionary people’s image of the President of the United States of America. The people’s duck accompanied President Grim the Reaper everywhere, ducking and dodging Grim’s scythe as the President turned suddenly or brandished his professional tool while speaking. Quack! Quack!

On more than one occasion the people’s duck lost a few feathers, it must be said, tail feathers when too slow in the jumping, but nothing that could even momentarily deter the plucky orange avatar of the revolutionary people.

In Which The President Duck Goes Viral

There came a fateful day in the course of the Peoples’ Hour revolution avatared by the orange cartoon duck, when history as it was once known arrived at an ignominious end. The duck ended it.

From many ends are great beginnings sprung, and so it was for the Peoples’ Hour revolution.

On that fateful day, the President of the United States of America gotducked, and the US Presidency was born again into a richly deserved prison of a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week reality show titled: 24/7, The Chronicles of the President Duck.

The unstoppable and invisible People’s Hour cameras followed the President Duck everywhere at all times and broadcast live everything he did and said, with few exceptions. No bathroom or bedroom audio or video, unless the President began to conduct business by phone or in person. Then tasteful audio-video shots were broadcast live.

Not only was the President Duck of the USA subject to 24/7 live broadcast, but so too were hundreds of thousands of officials and executives the world over. By far, however, the most widely watched People’s Hour reality show was that of the most powerful person on Earth, the President Duck of the USA.

All these high-powered Big Money reality show stars appeared naked in their own skin but with an orange duck bill on their face through which they talked and ate and kissed, and thick duck feathers around their genitals and chests, plus a blooming plume of a duck tail. A few stray orange duck feathers sprouted from their otherwise bare skin. All sported glowing orange duck feet. Otherwise the individuals were recognizable as their former selves. They continued to age. Several died immediately from heart attacks and strokes upon seeing their omnipresent duckified image on computer and TV. A small minority immediately retired, and when some continued to engage in Big Money activity they were immediately reducked. At which point most of these bailouts went off to live their lives in retirement and seclusion.

Major police and military operations, environmental crises, financial calamities, and other high powered moments caused the reality channels of different officials to spike periodically. However, far and away the greatest continuous duckified reality show star remained the President Duck of the United States of America.

The People’s Hour invincible cameras not only followed him everywhere all the time, the People Hours spokesduck perpetually accompanied the President Duck, not only onscreen but as a living breathing hologram by the President Duck.

The Peoples’ Hour Duck (PH Duck) incessantly talked at, with, or over the President Duck (P Duck). They engaged in many dialogues, frequent arguments, and no little bit of comedy, satire, drama, and philosophy.

“The damned Duck will not leave me alone!” cried the President Duck one day to no one in particular.

“On the contrary,” replied the PH Duck, “I would be more than happy to see you and all the other executives and officials go your merry way, if only you would get your gunboats and boots, your Big Money handcuffs off our backs, off our necks, if only you would stop destroying our habitat and nests. Deal?”

“We do what we can,” said the President Duck.

“To destroy us, yes.”

“‘No, for the betterment of all.”

“Like hell you do.”

“What can I say? We try.”

“It’s what you do that matters. Look at the state of the world. It’s a disaster.”

“That’s life, the world we know.”

“The world Big Money made, you should know. Time to unmake it. Or do you like being held prisoner to the eye of the People’s Hour.”

The President duck put his hands to his head and screamed. “You’re not even a duck! You’re just a hologram! I don’t have to listen to you!” The President duck turned his back on the hologram.

“Oh, really?” said the People’s Hour hologram duck sliding around in front of the President. “Well hear this –”

QUACK! QUACK QUACK QUACK! QUACK!!! QUACK!!! QUACK!!!!!!!

TV viewers all across the globe heard a dull thwacking as the revolutionary duck recently returned from the Gulf Oil Blowout continued to spit gob after glob of oil tar at the blackened camera lens.

Finally the duck choked out a final gob of crude. It picked up between its wings a bottled cleaning solvent and sprayed it on the camera lens. The oil goo slowly began to streak and dissolve and drip, a toxic mess, into a bucket beneath the camera.

Viewers next watched the oil drenched duck set aside the bottle and use a series of detergent-dipped cloths to clean the camera lens. The duck wore a special respiratory mask to protect itself from toxic oil fumes. The duck dropped used cloths one by one into the bucket before it dried the lens with a clean cloth and snapped the bucket lid shut.

The duck removed the mask. It spat out the specially sealed bag once full of oil tar balls that it had collected from the gulf to launch the attack against the camera lens.

Viewers watched now as the duck pointed its tarred wingtip at the camera.

“Don’t push the duck. Don’t push the duck beyond its natural bounds. Or the duck will strike back.”

At which point, a stupendous flock of ducks swooped into view holding towels and cleanser between their webbed feet.  These oil-free ducks swarmed the oil-coated duck to wash and dry it until every feather glistened in light fluff.

And then the ducks all at once turned to the camera and screeched and screamed. The lens shattered. The orange ducks burst into brilliant fractals, and their wail pierced the world.

Whereupon The Duck Returns From The Gulf Oil Blowout

The Duck appeared on all the TV screens in all the world drenched in black goo.

“My finned and feathered friends in the Gulf of Mexico south of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and west of Florida are not doing so well these days.” The duck explained how there has long been oil tar on the beaches from Texas to Trinidad and beyond because these oil eruptions happen all the time, though usually at somewhat less catastrophic scale.

“‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’ cry the American lunatics. They don’t care about us poor ducks,” said the duck. ”‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’ chant silently to themselves the politicos in both dominant parties, as they silently pocket the oil industry lobbyist cash for their bought and paid for by Big Money elections.”

Said the duck, “Like a good friend of mine tells it, ‘You drill, you spill,’ you know. Solar energy is the way to go. You nationalize the energy companies and run them more safely and more fairly, and you use the profits to develop green solar energy, so you drill less and you spill less, and maybe one day you don’t have to drill at all. And the same for mining. Like another good friend of mine says, ‘You mine, you die. You mine, you dine with death.’ We ducks should nationalize the mines to run them more safely and fairly and use the profits to develop the good jobs of green solar energy. Like yet another friend of mine likes to say,” the duck jabbed its oil soaked wingtip as high into the air as it could, “‘You go green, you go good,’ and that’s a future worth working for. Or do you wish to see me forever caked, crushed, and poisoned in oil slime? and cast out of creeks destroyed by mountaintop removal mining? Give us poor ducks a break, why don’t you? The workers of the world would benefit so. And the people of the planet. What have we done to deserve your black plague, your black death, your bubonic oil and coal dug from the belly of the beast, and drilled from the rump of the devil. You can take your shit and shove it, you foul Destroyers Incorporated, you hideous hellions of the dank hole, you treacherous tyrants of the trademark.”

The duck pucked up its beak and spit out a giant blob of oil tar that splatted against the camera lens and cast all the screens upon the globe into utter dark.