Image by Limbic via Flickr
Taking their cue from the Occupy Wall Street protest, America’s wealthiest 200 families, numbering some 25,000 people in all, and underwritten by the Koch Brothers, and The Committee to Keep Wall Street Working for the Wealthy, have built 1,000 custom-made chauffeured sleeper coaches, and will be embarking on a motorized caravan to Detroit, Michigan in order to protest against the poor.
The air-conditioned climate-controlled coaches, which were manufactured in China (in 2 weeks) to each family’s height, weight, and dietary specifications, come equipped with 3 bathrooms, and 3 shower rooms, all with solar-powered electricity and hot water, fully reclining leather sleeping seats, a bar, a restaurant manned by 2 chefs, Wi-Fi, satellite TV, a mini-gym with free weights, 2 stationary bicycles and 2 treadmills, a doctor, a nurse, a dentist, and his nurse, a butler, a housekeeper, and a hot-line to Eric Cantor. “We see no reason for the poor to exist at all in this country, and we’re going to try our level best to bring this problem of their using up our valuable oxygen into the light,” said one patriarch who wished to remain anonymous. “After all,” he continued, “When you come right down to it they are not the class of people one wishes to come in contact with even when they are doing the lawn.”
Said another, also wishing to remain anonymous, “That these wretches are allowed to live only serves as a blight on our country’s sterling name and reputation.” He added. “Besides, we only have enough soup and apples to go around…what right do these people have to take the Consommé en Gelee out of my children’s tureens?” Said a Chanel– clad matron, “When you give these people a hand-out you only encourage them to keep on existing for yet another day…what’s the point in that?” The protesters, who will not leave their coaches to protest, will instead merely have their servants hold up signs designed for them by an unnamed Taiwanese graphics house.
Such slogans as; Poverty is a Personal affront to Me, Why Go on in Such Misery, Why Should I Have to Look at You, and, If I Were You I would Kill Myself, will be on display.
*With full credit to Brian McFadden’s political cartoon strip titled “Occupy Poor Street,” which appeared in the Sunday Oct. 9th edition of The New York Times.
© tony powers and Barking in the Dark, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to tony powers and Barking in the Dark, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Barking In The Dark 
This made me smile through my gritted teeth. “Poverty is a Personal affront to Me” … somebody looked right at me just the other day and said that. Or maybe it was my Spidey sense picking it up.
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Posted by Sparks In Shadow | October 17, 2011, 6:15 amthanks for the gritted teeth smile (i think)…so much for the “richest country” on the planet eh? continue…
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Posted by barkinginthedark | October 17, 2011, 4:26 pmA Modest Proposal for Modern Times
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Posted by Dorian Dale | October 14, 2011, 10:39 amthanx for reading, and commenting Dorian. continue…
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Posted by barkinginthedark | October 14, 2011, 3:40 pmI was wondering when you would comment on this event !
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Posted by An Embarrassment of Freedom | October 10, 2011, 9:48 pmdidn’t have internet access for a few days….did so asap. thanx for reading it, and for commenting, hope ur contest writing is going well.. continue…
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Posted by barkinginthedark | October 11, 2011, 7:11 pmI still expect to see you being interviewed on Stewart or Colbert on a topic such as this…or maybe leading the 99% cause! I’ve been reading about this, watching videos etc…there must be a really good music film in your bag of tricks for this. The whole thing has a ” the time has come” avante gard bluesy feel, like Godot showed up finally…… Wrote my last piece (sensitive topic) as free verse and turned it into prose leaving the sequence as it was with good results. Contest due date is Oct 31 but my goal is to write short prose every night. (Bought new dictionaries, grammar texts, Chekhov Stories, Ray Bradbury etc!!!!) Ablaze with enthusiasm here!(Thanks for the encouragement Tony.)
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Posted by An Embarrassment of Freedom | October 11, 2011, 10:40 pmlet it fly…just spit it out…burn…don’t censor yourself ’til the rewrite…then, after sitting with it you’ll admit what you did is right for the tone of the piece – or not… in your gut.
Beckett said he could have torn any of his plays into little pieces, thrown them up in the air, and however they came down, and however he picked them up, and in whatever new order they’d be in, they’d still be okay. write on Liz, continue…
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Posted by barkinginthedark | October 12, 2011, 1:31 amNIce.
I checked with Aaron Brown, scion of the Detroit Browns (one of the 200 families). He was going to make the trip but in the event has hired his gardener Jose to do so in his place. Aaron says that everyone is doing this because when the weather turns cold, the gardeners “spend a lot of time just goofing off.”
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Posted by joem18b | October 10, 2011, 8:32 pmlast i heard the Browns were going to the rally in their jet. thanx for the witty comment…and for reading. continue…
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Posted by barkinginthedark | October 10, 2011, 8:56 pm