political satire

So... our writing group's exercise this week was a brief experiment in political satire. Having never undertaken such a thing before, I was a little intimidated. Here's what I came up with:

President announces need for job creation, starts handing out tweezers

Detriot, MI—With communities around the country feeling the pinch from a sluggish economy, President Obama today outlined his new job-creation strategy to a crowd of former automakers.

“We’re going to create jobs whether we need them or not,” Obama said. “So what if technology has made it possible for one person to do the labor of ten? People still need to be working.”

His speech drew cheers from a generally supportive crowd. Jim Jenkins, 43, had travelled from Lansing to hear the president’s ambitious plan. “I can’t find a job and neither can my brother,” Jenkins said. “We’re both out everyday applying for every opening in the paper, along with about a hundred other people.”

Jenkins said he now spends his days playing with his 18-month old son. He’s also started a small vegetable garden in his backyard and occasionally paints landscapes or reads poetry to pass the time.

“I’m just wasting my time, when I really need to be doing something important—working.”

“It doesn’t matter what we do,” agreed Pim Patel, a 23-year old recent college graduate. “I mean, I need a job. I got to pay my bills and stuff.” Patel was hired just out of school by a telecommunications company, but the development of cutting-edge computer software made his job obsolete—along with the jobs of about 40 others. Patel claims to spend his days now taking care of his mother, who has Alzheimer’s, and cooking meals from scratch. He’s also taken up the guitar.

“I used to just buy us food that someone else made on the way home from work,” Patel said. “And I paid a nurse to come sit with Mom while I was gone. But no more—all that was taken away from me when the economy took a dive.”

“Certain technological advances have made some kinds of labor more efficient, easier, and more affordable for both consumers and manufacturers,” observed University of Michigan business professor Charley Stanley. “But at what cost? People don’t have anything to do from 8am to 5pm every day. No one’s counting their hours or punching a clock.”

“All you people have is free time,” Obama said, rallying the crowd at the end of his speech. “That’s not good for anyone. That’s why I’m starting—right now—this sand-relocation program (SRP).”

Obama offered few details about his administration’s proposal. According to a source close to the president, the SRP would offer an hourly wage to one person per family. This person would receive a set of giant tweezers, with which he or she can move individual grains of sand from an already-established pile of sand to a different place, thereby creating a new pile of sand. When every grain has been moved, the worker can then begin moving the pile to a new place, and so on, for at least 40 hours a week.

“Job creation is our number-one goal,” Obama vowed. “It doesn’t matter whether the work is meaningful or necessary—it just matters that you’re working.” The president’s plan has received wide bipartisan support and an SRP bill is expected to gain easy approval in both houses of Congress before the end of the month.