Gettelfinger was speaking to a group of kids at the Elizabeth Hanford-Dole Elementary School. He had been invited to speak by the district superintendent in a show of solidarity with area employer Cleveland Freightliner, a truck manufacturer at which the UAW has a local (#3520).

“When push comes to shove, we always back our members. Our inestimable track record conclusively proves it.” Gettelfinger told the children.

Gettelfinger was compelled to defend the UAW in response to questioning from a first-grader. Six-year-old Amber Leigh Castle asked Gettelfinger why the UAW International office had not stepped in to defend the “Cleveland Five.”

The Cleveland Five¹ are a group of five members of the 11-member Local 3520 Bargaining Committee. The Bargaining Committee called a strike on 3 April 2007, authorized by the local’s rank-and-file on 17 March. The workers’ contract with Cleveland Freightliner expired on 1 April, and negotiations over a new deal were not going well.

The International UAW, however, did not sanction the strike (though a strike action was legal since the contract had expired). Instead, the International UAW began putting pressure on the workers as soon as 1 April to accept a partially completed deal. The local Bargaining Committee refused, feeling the fragmentary deal too favorable to the company, and believing an entire deal should be hammered out before submitting it to members for a vote.

The president of Local 3520 (himself a worker at Cleveland Freightliner) was not a member of the Bargaining Committee, as union rules prohibit this. But at about quarter to midnight before the planned strike, he sent a phone tree message to workers telling them to report to work, killing the strike. He also notified Cleveland Freightliner management as well as UAW Region 8 Director Gary Casteel.

The International UAW backed the strike killing, fired all 11 workers on the Bargaining Committee, forced through a deal, and rehired six of the 11 Bargaining Committee members who apologized for their actions.

The Cleveland Five are the five remaining members of the Bargaining Committee.

“Mr. Gettelfinger,” Castle asked, “those five workers were defending workers’ rights, the company fired them, and you applauded. Why?”

“That’s not true, little girl,” Gettelfinger responded. “We would never do such a thing. Remember that guy who cut his own arm off with a pocket knife in order to save his own life?² The UAW is just like that guy. Only we’re tougher than he is, because we didn’t need hemostats to stop the bleeding.”

“But Mr. Gettelfinger, the UAW has been selling out its members right and left, cutting deals with U.S. automobile manufacturers that Detroit just loves. If the UAW is so committed to workers’ rights, why do your members think they need to organize themselves within their own union?”³

“Such efforts are misguided,” Gettelfinger said. “The workers know we represent them exceedingly well. And any suggestion that top union brass are just members of the coordinator class⁴ like corporate management is just poppycock.”

Castle then asked, “But why did one of the Five say the structure of the UAW needed to change or else the working class will basically be obliterated?⁵ That sounds to me like a call for a revolution — replacing existing institutions with new ones that foster humane values instead of trampling them. Shouldn’t the UAW be calling for revolution instead of merely acceding to the corporate dictates of market-based capitalism?”

Upon asking this question, Castle was tazed⁶ and sent to Guantanamo Bay.

1. See the Cleveland Five’s website.
2. See, for example.
3. See Soldiers of Solidarity.
4. For a brief explanation of the term “coordinator class.”
5. Ronald Whiteside didn’t use the word “obliterated,” but he did say the structure of the UAW has to change.
6. See, for example, You tube.

The Women’s Studies Association (WSA), formed by Dr. Gordon Solie, identifies its mission as “helping people — all people, every one of us — to better understand women, their place in society, and what they could and should be.”

Solie is Professor of History, Psychology, and Sociology at Harvard University. He has three Ph.D.’s (one in each discipline) and has been a long-time champion of women’s rights.

“It’s important that every single human being in this society devotes at least some of his time to understanding the effect our society has on women, and what we all can do to improve their situation,” Solie said.

WSA’s Board of Directors consists of many well-known and prominent persons including Benjamin J. Hunnicut, William Gannon, Oliver W. Douglas, Dwayne F. Schneider, David Crabtree, and Larry H. Summers.

Solie, who also serves as WSA President and CEO, said “We have assembled the best and brightest talent, and with it we will provide critical papers, hold seminars and conferences, and create e-mail lists designed to foster greater understanding of women’s issues in the United States.”

Solie says he got the idea for the WSA from the Working Class Studies Association (WCSA). “If you look at the WCSA’a organizational make-up, they are ideally suited to understanding working-class life in America. We have used their work as a model in an effort to do the same with women’s issues.”

WSA Vice President Terrance Taylor concurs: “There is a crying need in this country for an organization of devoted people like ourselves to help improve conditions for women.”

American Association for Women (AAW) President Jill Sandee welcomed the WSA onto the revolutionary-left scene of radical activism: “Any effort to raise consciousness of these important issues can only result on positive outcomes.”

Speaking via telephone from her winter home in Barbados, Sandee did however caution that she “hopes the WSA won’t cut into AAW’s own fundraising.”

Some people were hostile to the WSA’s efforts, however. Speaking from her Swiss chalet, well-known pundit Ann Coulter said, “Why is something like this even necessary? The United States is already a meritocracy. It can be tweaked, perhaps, but not improved. So why try?”

WSA Treasurer Richard Morton said he understood the criticism, but he felt that “People haven’t done enough. We must do more. That’s why we hope people will support this effort to help women.”

WSA Secretary Thomas Rich said all people are welcome to join the WSA and help the WSA’s efforts. Rich said people could purchase yearly memberships in the WSA for as little as $20.

“Just think,” Rich said, “for the cost of a cup of coffee, you can help a woman. We hope every member of humankind will avail himself of this important opportunity by calling the number on our website.”

Solie stressed there was nothing sexist about the WSA’s mission, its organizational structure, or its actions. “We’ve copied the WCSA down to the minutest detail. There’s nothing at all even remotely classist about a group of coordinator-class folks utilizing a coordinatorist organizational structure to deal with working-class issues.

“So how can it possibly be sexist to have a group of men concerning themselves with women’s issues in a framework that assumes women’s second-class status?”

“We hope this will once and for all lay to rest all the untoward claims made by the ignorant that sexism still exists in the United States,” said the group’s statement. “It is quite clear to us, as learned and well-educated specialists, that all remaining differences between men and women are due totally, completely, and utterly to the unalterable influence of man’s genetic material.”

The report was hailed across all sectors of society for the definitiveness of its conclusions and the rigorousness of its approach.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “The sky is blue, the grass is green, the Earth is round, two plus two equals four, the Sun rises in the East, sugar and spice, snips and snails, men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, “Giving my daughter away will be the greatest honor my life.” When it was pointed out to Romney that he does not have a daughter, he said without blinking, “I’ll adopt one.”

First Lady Laura Bush said, “While the Taliban’s methods are extreme, we certainly understand and appreciate the good place they’re coming from.”

Democratic presidential candidate and current front-runner Hillary Clinton vowed, “I will defend the right to abortion up to the point that it starts costing me votes.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, “Women, the working class, children — what’s the difference?”

In their findings, the panel of distinguished experts noted that research like the Human Genome Project had proved conclusively that male and female behavioral differences were hard-wired into our DNA.

“For example,” said the report, “we have unassailable and iron-clad proof that women change their names upon marriage — and men like it that way — because of genetic compulsions. It turns out that Genesis 3:16 isn’t that far off after all!

“But the important thing to note,” the report said, “is that this is all genetic. The role of socialization plays absolutely no part here. Peer pressure does not exist — certainly not for adults — and society never rewards or punishes people based on their behavioral conformity or lack thereof. We have proved all this just like a mathematician proves a theorem.”

It was difficult to find any one who disagreed with the report’s findings. Even liberal anti-war activists conceded privately that they liked women better who were “pretty, young, thin, and white.”

One notable exception was the well-known and highly-respected thinker and scholar Ann Coulter. Coulter blasted the report for what she called its “excessive liberal bias.”

“This report is a sham,” she said. “It did not call for foot-binding. It did not call for the repeal of the viciously man-hating ‘rule of thumb’ — Crissake, a man has the God-given right to use a Louisville Slugger on his old lady if he wants! And it totally ignored the strong arguments in favor of bringing back the dowry.

“This report was obviously written by a bunch of soy-eating vegans who comb burrs out of their fourteen-inch beards while walking barefoot through flower gardens, picking azaleas to sell at airports for cash to buy pot with.”

A spokesman for the panel responded to Coulter’s comments by saying, “While we don’t disagree with the thrust of Miss Coulter’s sentiments, we must point out that until a new Innocent III ascends to the papacy we will, sadly, be somewhat constrained.”

Leading Democratic defenders of women’s rights have already moved to codify at least some of the report’s findings. The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the senator was going to introduce legislation offering tax breaks to women who purchase burkas.

President Bush has threatened to veto Reid’s legislation, however, unless it includes a provision to repeal the capital gains tax for husbands whose wives don’t work. Reid is expected to accede to the White House’s request.

In addition, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has suggested a unique new way to bolster a U.S. economy currently threatened by a bursting housing bubble he helped create: “If beer companies were allowed to run ads with naked girls wrestling in an inflatable pool filled with baby oil, with the winner getting the right to use a beer-bottle dildo on the loser, then beer sales would increase one thousand percent, thus saving the US economy forever and all-time!”

Liberal anti-war activists pledged to include Greenspan’s idea as part of their platform since, “What we’re doing now’s not working too well.”

The panel’s findings are expected to provide a major boost to gender relations, increasing the already high level of security and self-worth felt by the majority of American women.

“Some small minds might think we’re rolling back the clock,” said the report. “But time is a circle, and by moving backward we move forward. It’s so obvious, even a little girl can understand it.”

Herman Conrad, Emeritus Professor of Political Activism and Radical Social Change at Princeton University, said, “The mere suggestion that money should even be any sort of issue for rank-and-file street activists to consider is just so much balderdash.”

Conrad, holder of the eminently prestigious Thomas Woodrow Wilson Liberally Enlightened Endowed Chair in the Humanities, was responding to claims made yesterday by a long-time activist, who had suggested that monetary issues might occasionally affect an organization’s politics.

“That’s just so much bunk,” said Conrad. “Mature political organizations know how to raise money from available sources and put it to the best possible use, irrespective of whatever their donors’ wishes might be.”

Pip Kurtz, who has been an anti-war activist since the 60s, said yesterday that, “I think sometimes we on the left pay insufficient attention to money — who controls it once we get it, and perhaps even more importantly who we get it from in the first place.”

“That is absolutely the stupidest, most ridiculous, asinine thing I have ever heard,” said Conrad. “I’ve been a tenured professor at this distinguished university for 37 years. I’m authored 17 books, written hundreds of articles, and given thousands of talks across this great land of ours. And I have never seen even a modicum of evidence to suggest that where the left gets its money from plays even the slightest role in anything it does.”

Other activists weighed in. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-level national coordinator with the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) said, “Kurtz is entitled to his opinion, but he’s simply wrong. Where we get our money from has never impacted a single decision that we’ve made.” AEP’s conversation with this coordinator was cut short due to an incoming phone call to UFPJ from Nancy Pelosi.

Also speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-level editor & publisher at the periodical The Nation said, “It’s frankly inconceivable to me how any one could think issues related to funding are even worth discussing. The topic isn’t taboo — it’s childish bordering on embryonic.” This editor & publisher assured AEP that The Nation’s rejection of Participatory Economics-themed articles was completely incidental.

Conrad suggested that “money-obsessed” activists should instead “take a look in the mirror.”

“We need to do a better job reaching out,” said Conrad. “We need to reach potential supporters in their homes and in their workplaces. It doesn’t matter which — whether they’re at home on their tennis court or playing their grand piano, or at work in their medical offices and law offices. Over a martini, over cognac — it doesn’t matter. We must reach these people!”

In his original statement, Kurtz said that perhaps a better strategy would be to craft a movement more congenial to working-class people and more reliant on funding from working people. “My experiences tell me working people are completely ready for radical change. But that’s just it — it has to be radical change. Working people have zero interest in whether or not a Democrat wins the White House in 2008. They know full well that whether the next president is Hillary, Rudy, or whoever, their lives won’t change. And as long as they know their lives won’t change, they won’t really give a damn what we do, much less contribute their time or money to it.”

“Obviously, Kurtz rode the short bus to school,” Conrad retorted. “The people we need to reach drive Acuras and Beemers — not pickup trucks with Dale Jr. stickers on them.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Communist Party said, “We agree with Kurtz, and we’re trying to reach working people. The key to victory lies in Lenin’s concept of ‘one-man management.’ The working class must submit itself to the iron-fisted discipline of a tiny group of visionary leaders. Only a hierarchical Leninist structure can win anything in the United States.”

Hearing of this in a follow-up interview, Kurtz shook his head: “No, no, no. That’s totally wrong. Working people already deal with that for 40 hours a week — more with compulsory overtime. Vertical decision-making structures and classist job definitions are the last thing we need. Anything remotely like Marxism-Leninism is doomed to failure.”

Professor Conrad was incredulous: “Does Kurtz not realize that the working class watches auto racing, football, baseball, and professional wrestling? Is he not aware of the fact that they eat at McDonalds? Does he not know they like cars and guns? I tell you, we can’t work with these people!”

“Well, ignoring the fact that not ALL working people are in to cars and guns,” Pip Kurtz said, “maybe Herman Conrad should swim up out of his darkness, take a breath of salty air, and open his heart to diversity. What a boring world it would be if we all ate at Panera Bread.”

Regardless of the immediate future of the U.S. left, it seems clear that a change is brewing on the horizon.

Dr. Ira M. Brandenburg, lead author of the study, said, “None of us had any idea about this. We all just assumed that the people who cleaned the urinals and emptied the trash cans in this building were brainless saps who thought the world was just like what they saw when they watched professional wrestling.”

Billy Villner, Ph.D., M.D., Esq., C.P.A., R.N., M.S.N.B.C, concurred: “I just thought you had to tip them well.”

For decades, scientists have debated the working-class brain: Is it more resembling Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon? New evidence, however, suggests working people have the same potential for growth — and the same need for creative work — as doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers.

“Frankly, that’s bullshit,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Working people can’t find their asses with both hands, a flashlight, a friend’s hands, and a map. That’s why I’m AFL-CIO president and they’re not..”

Change-to-Win leader Andy Stern agreed: “Look, if God wanted working people to have a say in anything, He’d have given them Participatory Economics. There’s a reason we live in a capitalist society.”

Stern’s secretary was mumbling something about people’s noses being perfectly designed to accommodate a pair of glasses, but Stern had placed duct tape over her mouth and tied her arms to her chair. This reporter was informed she would be released as soon as I got the hell out of Stern’s office.

Dr. Brandenburg said, “It is our belief that human beings might perhaps suffer mildly deleterious effects if forced to labor in workplaces where they’re nothing more than tools.

“Fortunately,” he added, “we live in the United States, where this sort of thing has gone the way of the dodo bird.” Brandenburg patted the American-flag pin on his lapel as he spoke.

Mel V. Lee, head of the liberal advocacy group All Human Beings Are People (AHBAP), said, “I simply can’t agree with the Laureates’ findings. Do these scientists not understand that working people like to watch sports? How can anyone who watches NASCAR or the WWF be considered human? Shame on Dr. Brandenburg.”

Villner said, “We recognize working people have crude, vile tastes. Believe me, none of us like them either. If it weren’t for Panera Bread, where could we take our children to eat on Saturday afternoons?

“Having said that, we categorically reject Lee’s contention that workers aren’t human. Apes? Yes. Non-human? No.

“Sub-human? Maybe.”

What will come of the study remains to be seen. All media outlets — from Fox News to CNN to PBS and NPR — have refused to give it any coverage. Instead, they continue to infer that working people are potential security risks and a threat to the Homeland.

Dr. Brandenburg is hopeful, however: “Look, I’m not proposing anything as radical as saying working people should have any kind of say over their labors or how us important people’s society is run. Perish the thought.

“I do think though that it would be useful if we were to pat them on the head once in a while and tell them we are fond of them.”

It is a sentiment with which people from Mel V. Lee to Former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles should be able to concur.

Bush said, “It’s very important to every person in America that we continue to minimize the true costs of the Iraq War. Mr. Sloboda has done important work in this regard, by giving us tolerable Iraqi casualty figures to promote, instead of the Godless crap you see in the Lancet or Opinion Business Research. Every single one of the American people owes Mr. Sloboda a debt of gratitude, which is why I’m awarding him this medal.”

In October 2004, the British medical journal Lancet published a study in which lead author Les Roberts estimated 100,000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of the Western military presence there. In October 2006, Roberts and the Lancet updated the estimate to 655,000.

In September 2007, Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency based in London, estimated 1.2 million excess Iraqi deaths. This estimate was based on a random survey of around 1500 Iraqi adults, who were asked how many in their household had died as a result of violence instead of natural causes.

By comparison, in September 2004, IBC estimated around 13,000 Iraqi deaths. In October 2006, IBC estimated around 48,000 deaths. As of August 2007, IBC’s estimate was around 74,000 deaths. IBC collects their data by counting the number of Iraqi civilian deaths reported by media outlets.

Said Bush, “The biggest fear big people like myself have is that the U.S. public will successfully organize a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism – the system that sustains and enriches suits like myself. Now, us important people never know what’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Will it be health care? New Orleans? Global warming? Or maybe Iraq?

“But thanks to God-fearing, freedom-loving Americans like John Sloboda, we can make Iraq seem like nothing more than a family spat.”

John Sloboda is British.

Leading Democrats were completely livid upon hearing today’s announcement by Bush. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “This is totally outrageous. Who does Bush think he is? He can’t award a Congressional Medal of Honor to someone who’s never served in the U.S. military. God I hope the House impeaches Bush!”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Up to now, I’ve told [House Judiciary Committee Chairman] John Conyers to back off Bush – it would be bad politics to impeach Bush now when we’re so close to getting Hillary in the White House. But this latest move by Bush has me very concerned. Therefore, beginning immediately, I am going to instruct Chairman Conyers to form a committee to take Bush’s impeachment under advisement.

“If that doesn’t scare Bush,” Pelosi added, “nothing will.”

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said, “This almost makes me mad enough to leave the Democratic party. But hell, if I haven’t left by now, then by God, I’m never going to.”

Sloboda was grateful upon hearing news of the award: “Frankly, anything that keeps the spotlight on me and off of those gutter trolls over at Media Lens is a good thing. I’m happy to do my part to help the Western war effort – the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions be damned! Hell, who’s going to hang any of us?”

Media Lens is a small British media-watch project run by David Cromwell and David Edwards. They have done extensive work detailing British media’s preference for IBC’s lower Iraqi-death estimates over the higher estimates of the Lancet or ORB.

When asked about Media Lens’s work, Bush said, “I was going to hit them the same time as Al Jazeera, but Tony Blair talked me out of it.”

Sloboda said, “Certainly, the U.S. and Britain have made mistakes in Iraq. Western foreign policy is always just a series of mistakes, random errors, or confusions. It’s never systematic, rational policy made by powerful rich men who know what they want and don’t care how many people they have to kill in order to get it. And it is never a war crime. Anyone who tells you differently is a whack-job.” Sloboda then left his office for the remainder of the day; his nose kept knocking his flat-panel computer monitor over, making it impossible for him to work.

Bush said, “My favorite thing about Sloboda is that he’s a scientist. His work is scientifically sound – not like that hack Les Roberts. What does Roberts know? Does Roberts drive a cab or something by day, and pretend to do science by night while taking correspondence courses? Who does Roberts think he is anyway?”

Roberts is an epidemiologist at Columbia University, with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Sloboda is an academician whose field is music psychology.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Administration official said the White House hoped to be able to convince Sloboda to start an “Iran Body Count” website within the next few months: “Not that, um, we’re going to need it or anything, you know. I mean, we just want to have it just in case, that’s all.”

The next few months could be critical for the Bush administration. With his poll numbers sagging, Bush may hope that a little music psychology to soothe the “great beast” (Alexander Hamilton’s description of the U.S. population) might be just what the President ordered.

Workers at the Harris Auto Parts plant, who are members of CIO Local #5551212, said they were tired of their union’s lack of action or even acknowledgement of their concerns and decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We’d said for a long time now that we wanted this — that we wanted to do something,” said Karen Jameson, one of the strike leaders. “But our concerns fell on deaf ears at the union. So we decided to stand up and fight for ourselves instead.”

Union recrimination was bitter and immediate. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said, “These workers did not honor their contract. The highest priority for workers must always be to honor their contract. It doesn’t matter if the contract specifies you walk naked into a cyanide chamber and take deep breaths. If it’s in the contract, you do it.”

Change-To-Win leader Andy Stern concurred: “Everyone knows my personal feelings about John Sweeney. I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on him if he were on fire. But in this case, he’s right. Not only that, but these workers broke the law. The living standards of the U.S. working class — or any other country’s working class for that matter — have no standing in the face of legal requirements.” Stern was throwing darts with AFL-CIO flights at a map of Venezuela as he spoke.

When it was pointed out to Stern that virtually all gains ever won by workers or anyone else were usually won by extra-legal means, Stern responded, “We’re not talking about the past. We’re talking about the present. And in the present, Sweeney and I are important people who run major labor organizations, and men like he and I have decided that this how it will be. If U.S. workers can’t understand that, they should move to China.”

Jameson said, “This attitude on the part of union managers like Stern and Sweeney has been the problem all along. They wear suits, sit behind desks, and neither know nor care about what goes on on the shop floor.”

Sweeney begged to differ: “I often wear a polo shirt to the office.”

County officials were horrified by developments at the Harris plant. The local government even went so far as to bring a guillotine to the workers’ picket line, chopping melons with Post-It notes attached that said, “Strike Leader.”

At one point, police had arrested Jameson and placed her head in the guillotine, citing national security requirements. But a group of community residents and church activists successfully prevented her execution and dismantled the device.

“This is barbaric,” said the Rev. Sarah Powers, pastor of the Ottumwa Episcopalian Church. “How can we claim to be bringing democracy to the Middle East when workers here at home toil in corporations, which are tyrannical institutions and totally unaccountable to the public.”

“Nonsense,” said Harris President and CEO Carl Mettlekamp. “I’ve been associated with this corporation for 20 years, and it doesn’t feel at all tyrannical to me.”

Washington politicians had strong feelings on the workers’ strike. Democratic presidential candidate and current front-runner Hillary Clinton said, “If this kind of thing happens when I’m president, I’ll raze the factory with the employees still inside. Viruses like this cannot be allowed to spread.”

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said, “Razing the facility is going too far. Those productive assets are too valuable. Putting arsenic in their drinking water is a far superior plan.”

Local media vilified the strikers. Each night, Ottumwa ABC affiliate KTVO-TV opened its six o’clock news program with Photoshopped images of Karen Jameson dismembering live kittens with kitchen implements. In response, community activists and their supporters occupied the station’s lobby demanding honest news coverage.

“The behavior of media at all levels in this country is outrageous,” said Powers. “Whether it’s The New York Times, Fox News, or National Public Radio reporting on Iraq — or local outlets’ racist fixation on petty crimes committed by nonwhites — it’s always the same thing: Defend the system, defend the system, defend the system. It was the same thing here, as they did nothing but lambaste the workers and defend capitalist prerogatives.”

Powers said she was going to begin organizing a national movement to engage in direct action against corporate media at all levels: “We’re not just going to call, e-mail, and fax mainstream media outlets — though we are going to be doing some of this. We’re going to organize massive nonviolent demonstrations, occupations, and takeovers of their offices. Let’s see how NBC News reports the story when 15,000 people show up outside Rockefeller Center to demand honest coverage of GE’s involvement in the nuclear industry.” (General Electric has been the parent company of NBC since 1986.)

Jameson said she found the road ahead exciting: “Everybody’s ready for massive change. Classism, sexism, racism, authoritarianism — we can deal with all these things and create a much better world in the process. Our 30-hour week at 40-hours pay is the first step, but it won’t be the last.”

A San Francisco-based company, Ur Research and High Orbital Technologies (which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol URHOT) is working on a new device that is catching serious attention across the pond. Ur President Bill Carter explains: “For all cities, the honor of hosting the Olympics brings with it a heavy responsibility: Clean up the community to make the Games safe and enjoyable for the whole family.”

Carter says that his company expects to be on the market with their invention just in time for its use by London officials before the 2012 Summer Olympics.

According to Ur spokespeople, the basic concept is simple. Thanks to the millions of dollars in research money provided by the U.S. government over the past several years, biotech firms have succeeded in mapping the human genome.

What Ur scientists have discovered is that homelessness causes a change in the 9th gene on the 11th chromosome. This change, which is always present in people who are homeless and never present in people with homes, can be detected with a high-frequency electronic pulse.

Using this fact has allowed Ur to develop a prototype device, shaped like an ordinary flashlight. This device reads the 11th chromosome to see if the genetic change is present. Upon detection of the change, the device (which the company calls the Ur Microelectronic Orbital Mixer, or URMOM) emits high-energy gamma particles which rearrange the target’s electrons at the high-orbital subatomic level, vaporizing the target.

“Finally, a solution to the problem of homeless that is easy and painless,” said Carter. “No longer will it be necessary to send heavily-armed police into dangerous neighborhoods to sweep away the terrorizing vagrants who blight the landscape. Now even a meter maid can clear the streets in her spare time.”

Liberal homeless advocates were deeply troubled by news of the invention, however. Said one, “This is horrible! Absolutely reprehensible and barbaric! I’m the Director of an organization that runs government-funded soup kitchens. But this device guarantees they’ll close us down. Then what will I do?”

A liberal children’s rights activist also expressed her concern: “Look, every Wednesday I take my son Worthington to Starbucks for a Tall Hazelnut Latte. What if he gets caught in this contraption’s ray? Will it stunt his growth? It is very difficult for a short man to get elected to the United States Senate, especially as a Democrat!”

Ur spokespeople deflected these concerns: “The device is no more harmful than such common items as eggs, milk, wheat, soy, or peanuts.”

British officials are thrilled by the new invention. London Mayor Ken Livingstone said, “We’ve already had one P.R. disaster drive a Prime Minister from office. We don’t need police repression to create another disaster. We want the 2012 Games to be a magical experience for all the valued people of this society.”

Ur President Bill Carter promises exactly that.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff issued a statement today condemning a recent policy change at the NBC affiliate in North Platte, Nebraska. “By their actions, they are endangering the liberty of every man, woman, and child in the Free World,” said Chertoff. “The United States won a great victory over Godless Communism, and the actions of KNOP-TV in attempting to roll back that momentous triumph of the Forces of Freedom must not be allowed to stand.”

KNOP-TV meteorologist Tara Moore explains the change: “The concept of ‘relative humidity’ does not actually tell anyone how much moisture is in the air. To communicate that information, which is what most people actually care about, you must tell them what the dew point is. So after educating our viewers as what each concept means and how to interpret them, we simply scrapped the relative humidity and now no longer even bother to report it.”

That’s what Chertoff and many others — including Bill O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and Hillary Clinton — are upset about. “It is not the job nor the responsibility of media outlets to be educating anyone about anything,” says O’Reilly. “When people really need to know something, we’ll tell them.”

Buchanan agrees: “Look, the most patriotic thing people can do is shut up and go to the mall. When you start filling people’s heads with ridiculous notions like accurate communication of information, you’ve started down a slippery slope that can only lead to the end of free-market capitalism.”

Duke said, “I think if you look more deeply here, you’re going to find a plot by the Negroid race to take over the world.”

Democratic presidential candidate and current front-runner Hillary Clinton said, “I am all for people knowing everything they need to know. But it’s not up to some pathetic group of straw-chewing farmers at a podunk television station in the middle of BFE to be deciding what their fellow Deliverance extras need to know. Has anyone at that station ever bothered to take the company tractor into an actual city? Do these rubes out in flyover country even realize that the Earth is not flat, life does not form by spontaneous generation, Jack Daniels is not a sleep-aid for children, and Andy Griffith was not actually one of the Founding Fathers? Instead of nuking Iran, maybe we should start with Lincoln County, Nebraska.”

A spokesman for the Institute for Weather Accuracy (IWA) said, “Actually, if you think about it, their change does make some sense. If you offer a man who is dying of thirst a container of water that is, say, 50% full, how much water are you offering him? It depends on the size of the container. If the container is a whiskey shot glass, you’re giving him half an ounce of water. It the container is a 55-gallon drum, you’re giving him over 27 gallons of water.

“‘Relative humidity’ and ‘dew point’ work the same way. ‘Relative humidity’ doesn’t tell you the size of the container — only what percentage of the container has moisture. But ‘dew point’ tells you exactly how much moisture is contained in the air.”

“Communism, communism, communism, communism!” said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. “I always thought Stalin’s use of mass murder purges and sending people to gulags in Siberia was heavy-handed and too likely to incite serious public resistance to be of much value for American elites to use to control the population here at home, but I’m now starting to re-think that position. Maybe a healthy dose of brutal Stalinist control is just what this country needs to get its underclass under control. They’re clearly getting a little too uppity for their own good.”

Expanding on the IWA’s statement, KNOP-TV meteorologist Moore explained, “The air temperature is the size of the container. In cold weather, say 20° Fahrenheit, the air can’t hold much moisture. So if the relative humidity is 50% and the air temperature is 20°, then the dew point is about 9°. On the other hand, if the air temperature is really hot, say 95°, and the relative humidity is 50%, then the dew point is about 77°.

“In each of these examples, the relative humidity is 50%. But the differing air temperature gives us different dew point values. The reason a relative humidity of 50% is unbearable in summer yet quite mild in winter is because summer air can hold a lot more moisture than winter air can. Just for purposes of comparison, in tropical rainforests, you typically get dew points in the upper 70s. Here in the U.S., in our most oppressive summer months, we commonly have dew points in the low 70s. Even dew points in the upper 60s generally feel pretty uncomfortable for most folks, though.”

Speaking from his home in Houston, Texas, former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay said, “This is exactly why we have Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. It’s we waterboard terrorists, and torture people by their genitals. It’s why we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s why we passed the PATRIOT Act, and why we give all that money and military hardware to Israel. This country is so out of control right now, we should seriously think about dropping bombs on it and starting over. The population is nothing but a bunch of cockroaches who need to be exterminated if they’re going to start using their brains for anything other than memorizing the Pledge of Allegiance. If ever there were a country in need of a new Hitler, it’s the United States. By God, he’d know how to deal with these scumbags.”

Moore said, “We didn’t just foist this on people. We explained to our viewers what we had in mind, and we worked very hard to make sure they understood the concepts before we instituted the changes. People were given ample opportunities to make comments during the process. We set up a blog on our website, and took telephone comments from folks who don’t yet have internet access. We tried to make sure people were comfortable and engaged in the process, because we felt that’s the essence of democracy. There were a few people who objected all the way to the end, but the majority of our viewers supported the change. And only once we had majority support did we effect the change.”

The Federal Communications Commission has, however, begun proceedings to shut KNOP-TV down. NBC, with whom KNOP-TV is affiliated, recently announced that the little North Platte station would most likely be dropped as a network affiliate sometime within the next few weeks. And even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he thought the station’s actions demonstrated “poor judgment” and set a “bad precedent” because of their “fundamentally anti-democratic thrust.”

“It is intolerable to allow the kinds of actions in the Free West that we rightly find reprehensible when occurring in totalitarian dictatorships like Chavez’s fascist Venezuela,” said Brown.

At this point, it is unknown what the outcome in North Platte will be. While the community has responded positively to the change, KNOP-TV station owner Hoak Media has indicated it will roll the modification back. In a press release, Hoak said that, “We plan to eliminate any mention of ‘dew point’ from any of our broadcasts, and return to reporting only ‘relative humidity’ within the next few days. We apologize for offending everyone, and we regret that this has become a story at all. We love the United States, and we know everyone else does too.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source within Hoak’s operation said that KNOP-TV meteorologist Tara Moore is expected to be quietly “reassigned” within a matter of days. Ultimately, he expects her to be fired, then blacklisted. “I hope her husband has a good job, their house payment is low, and their kids don’t eat much, because she’s never working in media ever again,” he said.

Experts say community action will have absolutely no impact here, so people are advised to stay at home and do nothing. Except watch TV.

“Factory workers had their greatest influence, and were able to extract their most substantial concessions from government, during the Great Depression, in the years before they were organized into unions. Their power during the depression was not rooted in organization, but in disruption.”

With this in mind, WAR’s report says that, “Given the current weak state of labor, perhaps one of the keys to re-igniting it lies in a strategy of what might be termed ‘organized disruption.’ If business needs smooth running and no disruptions, and if such smoothness in their operations gives them little to no reason to address any of our concerns, then perhaps the right way forward for us lies, at least in part, on a strategy of organizing ourselves in ways that would allow us to disrupt the normal operations of our workplaces at will.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued a scathing denunciation of the report. “That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard in my life. Those ungrateful bastards are forgetting everything we’ve done for them. Just look at all the things we’ve won for them! We’ve won … we’ve won … dammit, we’ve won a lot!”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, “This is fascism, plain and simple. These workers want us to take the union off Old Glory and replace it with a swastika.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “These workers are evil. They hobnob with the devil. They all have 666’s tattooed on the backs of their heads. If you go into their homes, you’ll find altars where they sacrifice babies. I’ve even got video footage of one of them kicking his dog.”

Democratic president candidate and Illinois senator Barack Obama said, “Ending slavery was the right thing to do. But freeing blacks only to turn around and make slaves out of the rich isn’t progress.”

The workers tried to indicate they were not looking to make slaves out of anyone, but rather to create a society where no one was a slave of anyone else. “An honest look at the US capitalist economy would, we think, call it by its rightful name: wage slavery.”

Speaking via telephone from her home in Hampstead, England, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “Rubbish. These workers don’t know anything at all about economics. When it comes to market-based capitalism, there is no alternative.”

The workers noted that, “We don’t have all the answers, but one idea that seems promising to us is Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel’s Participatory Economics. We particularly like Albert & Hahnel’s understanding and acknowledgement of the fact that any economy that leaves our bosses lording over us and making all the decisions themselves isn’t one that truly liberates us.”

Responding to the report, a coalition of doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, accountants, architects, and university professors calling themselves Intellectuals for a Bright Future said, “Small minds, small ideas. No other comment is required.”

Still, the US government isn’t taking any chances. Upon release of the report, the entire US military apparatus in Iraq and Afghanistan was immediately withdrawn and returned stateside. The approximately 160,000 US soldiers and 130,000 mercenaries, or contractors, immediately attacked WAR’s Washington office — a small efficiency apartment with no air conditioning and a constantly-running toilet.

While the US military was unable to achieve its objectives in the Middle East, they did succeed in stopping the toilet.

Leaders of health insurance companies have reacted quite favorably to the news. “The bill that Congress is now considering is long overdue. It will add tremendous value to our health care system by streamlining it and making it more competitive. There is no sense in which this bill represents anything other than a win-win for both the provider as well as the consumer,” said Ron Williams, Chairman and CEO of Aetna, Inc.

Political leaders of both parties seem equally enthusiastic. “True choice will now be introduced into the system,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“Once again, we see that the market lights the way to true freedom,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Democratic presidential candidate and current front-runner Hillary Clinton also indicated her strong support. “This country needs a health care overhaul to help get control of spiraling costs. This bill is definitely part of any feasible solution.”

Some liberal health care activists were less enthusiastic, however. Said one, “There are 47 million people in the United States without health insurance. While we understand the need for this legislation, there is a very real danger that those 47 million will begin to make common cause with the millions who currently have insurance and are dissatisfied. Their joint efforts could begin to threaten things we hold even more dear, like the entire system which sustains and enriches all of us.”

“That’s such utter crap,” said Mike McCallister, President and CEO of Humana, Inc. “If America stands for anything, she stands for freedom. If we can’t increase that freedom for all of us, then we must rethink exactly what it is we stand for at all.”

Humana’s stock shot up 1000 points on news of the proposed legislation.

The Bush Administration is pushing hard for Congress to pass the bill. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said, “Look, we’ve got tens of thousands of Iraqi veterans coming home with various physical, and especially mental, ailments. This legislation could be exactly what the doctor ordered to save the country from bankruptcy.”

The American Medical Association has, however, expressed some concern over the bill. AMA President Dr. Ronald M. Davis said, “You know, if you really think this thing through, if this bill becomes law, it means that no one with an ‘existing condition’ will need to waste their time going to the doctor, since their insurance company will just deny the claim anyway. So sick people will stop going to the doctor at all, leaving only well people to go. But who goes to the doctor when they’re well? I mean, this bill could put doctors out of business.”

Informed of Dr. Davis’s comments, Aetna Chairman and CEO Ron Williams said, “Wow, he’s pretty smart. You’d think he’d gone to med school or something.”

In fact, the bill’s supporters openly acknowledge that one of its selling points in so-called “red state” America is its ability to play on what they call working-class anger toward “arrogant members of the medical profession.”

The legal profession is not nearly as cool toward the bill as the AMA. The American Bar Association says it expects to have a field day contesting “existing” versus “non-existing” conditions.

Said an ABA spokesman, “You can’t prove a negative. If I say, ‘Prove there’s no tooth fairy,’ you can’t. If I say, ‘Prove this man didn’t have syphilis until after you denied his claim,’ you can’t do that either. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make any sense. Christ, this is exactly the kind of thing we go to law school for!”

Other industries are closely monitoring the bill’s progress. Wal-Mart says the bill could set a valuable precedent in the operation of their business. A spokeswoman for the giant retailer said, “Do you have any idea how much money we lose every day from people bringing back items to return? A similar law applied to the retail sector could allow us to deny returns for products with ‘existing defects.’”

The mere mention of this fact by Wal-Mart caused the company’s stock to shoot up eight billion points in afternoon trading.

Said Humana’s McCallister, “All Americans need to realize that we’re all in this together. We’re one big family. This legislation will forge even closer ties between all of us, and make our family even stronger and richer than ever.”

McCallister and the rest of the insurance industry are banking on it.

As a result of today’s discovery, Congressional leaders confirmed today in a hastily-called news conference that they had lined up sufficient support from both sides of the aisle to eliminate all benefits payments to Social Security and Medicare recipients. The FICA and Medicare payroll taxes will remain in place and the funds used instead for immediate Martian oil drilling projects and shipment of the crude to Earth.

The bill is expected to sail through Congress, and President Bush has already indicated he will sign it. “This will guarantee security for America and the world for thousands of years,” said Bush.

“Clearly, the need for this money to go toward an immediate program of Martian oil retrieval far outweighs any other uses it may have,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“This is the most exciting development we could ever have imagined,” said Democratic presidential candidate and front runner Hillary Clinton. “This will ensure not only the sovereignty and security of the U.S. for generations to come, but of the world as well.”

“God is clearly smiling on the United States,” said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“There’s simply no way we can finance oil drilling on Mars, and Social Security too,” said expected Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. “Eliminating those programs in favor of oil recovery is clearly in the best interests of the American people.”

Several Congressional Democrats, speaking off the record, said however that the proposed legislation did not go far enough and that school lunches, tax breaks for the blind, and disability payments for quadriplegics should all be eliminated as well.

Some environmental groups have expressed concern over the effects of burning even more fossil fuel on the Earth’s delicate environment. There is not believed to be any truth to a report, unconfirmed at press time, that several leaders of the environmental movement in the U.S. had been arrested and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Ben Heart, founder of the advocacy group Not Mars Too and suspected by the U.S. State Department of being a member of Al-Qaeda said that, “I realize no one is living on Mars yet, but given what we’ve already done to one planet, is it absolutely essential that we do it to another?”

“Who cares?” said Clinton. “We’re talking about oil here.”

A retired military analyst says the discovery of Martian oil could finally give the U.S. the freedom to use appropriate force in Iraq. “We need to bomb the entire goddamn Middle East,” says Col. Dick P. Blood (Ret). “We don’t need their oil anymore anyway.”

Other voices in Washington were urging restraint. “Let’s just bomb the parts of the Middle East with no oil, and distribute anthrax blankets to the rest of the dirty bastards,” said a liberal peace activist.

There was, however, one sector of the economy in strong opposition to the soon-to-be-official Martian drilling project. The Nuclear Energy Institute issued a press release saying in part that, “The burning of oil is not only unclean, it is morally wrong.” They also say the U.S. should immediately convert all automobiles to run on Uranium.

The Martian oil reclamation project is going ahead though, and reportedly Halliburton has already been issued the first no-bid contract for extraction. The company’s stock shot up one million points on the rumor.

“This is a momentous occasion,” said Bush. “Now we not only own the world, but the universe too.” NASA now hopes to find oil on Venus within the next few years, and missions to Mercury, Neptune, and Pluto are already being planned. There’s also talk of exploring the system around Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our own Sun at a scant 4 light-years away.

“No distance or expense is too great when oil is involved and cash-strapped taxpayers are footing the bill,” said Pelosi.

“Slavery was so much more efficient and cost-effective that we would be remiss as a nation if we did not seriously consider returning to it,” the report says. “Given the challenges now facing the United States, the drain on resources and the stumbling economy, it seems obvious to us that at least a partial return to the policies of the late 18th and early 19th centuries is in the best interests of Americans.”

Neither the White House nor anyone in Congress had any immediate reaction to the report. However, one very prominent Senate Democrat from a populous Northeastern state did say off the record that, “I don’t think there’s any question that everyone agrees with the general thrust of the report. The problem lies in its implementation. Ultimately, it may take a nuclear attack on Iran to toughen Americans up enough so they’ll have the stomach to make obvious, needed changes.”

Liberal peace activists were incensed by the report’s recommendations, however. Said one, “It’s so ludicrous. The idea that chattel slavery is cheaper than wage slavery is just stupid. These idiot capitalists have been living so high on the hog for so long that they’ve forgotten just how good they have it right now. Yes, they need to tweak the system. But a major overhaul of the kind they’re suggesting will just cost them more in the long run than it will save them. Morons.”

The report did acknowledge that, “Many will question the wisdom of what we are suggesting. But it’s important for everyone to remember that this is about more than just economics. With the Iraq War spinning out of control and unrest here at home on the increase, this is also about ideology. We’ve got to get this country back under control before it’s too late.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the consortium’s deliberative body revealed that, “There were proposals made by some who wanted to introduce the old Chinese practice of foot-binding here in the U.S. to help roll back the awful problems posed by feminism.” These proposals were narrowly defeated. However, a proposal to introduce stoning of unmarried women who are sexually active did find its way into an appendix of the report.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chinese President Hu Jintao, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who are all meeting this week in Beijing on unrelated business, issued a joint statement expressing their strong approval for the consortium’s report. “When a country like the United States takes so strong a lead in returning the world to a place of great sanity, it is the responsibility of world leaders such as ourselves to stand up and express our unwavering gratitude and support.”

One leading labor activist said however that the report did not go far enough. “White men’s wages have been in decline for decades. It’s not enough to just deal with the Negroes. You’ve got to deal with Hispanics and Orientals, too. This report isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Nonetheless, with such a powerful coalition pushing these ideas, the report’s supporters like their chances. Said one, “We’re building a time machine, the likes of which neither H.G. Wells nor Stephen Hawking could construct.”

Time will tell if he is right.

Giantel’s CEO, German-born G.I. Luvkash, explains: “For too long, the public has labored under the inefficiencies of a woefully outdated oxygen distribution system, more reminiscent of Soviet communism than of the rights of all people to breathe.”

But this new deal changes all that, says Luvkash. Instead of the currently existing freedom-crushing public monopoly over air distribution, Giantel has secured the rights to remove oxygen from the air and bottle it for public consumption.

Giantel promises to keep the price of oxygen under two dollars a bottle, ensuring all consumers access to their daily-recommended allowance of the life-sustaining gas. But some environmental activists and consumers’ rights groups aren’t convinced.

“Past inefficiencies in our government’s air distribution are no justification for a system which has yet to prove it can supply oxygen to all who need it,” explains Dudley Rollover, Chairman and CEO of the liberal advocacy group Air First!

Giantel says it has worked out all the kinks, however, and promises that any excess profits it makes will be used to provide oxygen to third-world residents at reduced rates. “No one should suffocate just because their country’s government refuses to do legitimate business with the U.S.,” says Luvkash.

“In the end, we may never know just how exciting this development will turn out to be unless we try,” says Ina Sukup, Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard. “But this has the potential to revolutionize the way we all synthesize ATP in the U.S.”

Experts hope this latest phase in “environmental reclamation” won’t turn out like last year’s anti-death vaccine introduced by Texas-based Grimly Company. Then, activists were incensed that Grimly had priced the vaccine at $10 million (Canadian) per dose, putting the life-giving miracle drug out of reach for ordinary millionaires.

Luvkash says Giantel has learned from Grimly mistakes. “Our business model will allow us to turn oxygen into the oil of the 21st century. The potential for growth here is enormous.”

It is a statement with which virtually all of Wall Street concurs.