By William Blum
January 5th, 2018
2018 is going to be a fun fun year. And to better prepare yourself for all the merrymaking here is a calendar of some of the more delightful things to look forward to.
February 16: The United States bans entry to the country of all people except white Christian and Jewish citizens of Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel.
February 18: Congress passes a law that requires all new citizens to submit an essay – in excellent English – about how brilliant Donald J. Trump is, how devoted they are to him, what a huge success he’s been, how he’s going to make America great again, and how modest a man he is.
March 1: The Mueller Investigation announces the discovery of a citizen of Vladivostok, Russia who on July 16, 2016 wrote an email to his cousin in Baltimore expressing his dismay at all the violence that had been unleashed in the Middle East following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, which, he wrote, was instigated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Such interference in an American election will not be tolerated”, declared Mueller’s office.
March 6: The government of El Salvador is overthrown in a coup. The United States blames Russia.
March 15: Members of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi parties, which hold several high positions in the US-supported government, goose-step through the center of Kiev in full German Storm Trooper uniforms, carrying giant swastika flags, shouting “Heil Hitler”, and singing the Horst Wessel song. When left-wingers attempt to block them police intervene to arrest the left-wingers. Not a word of this appears in any American mainstream media. President Trump tweets “there are lots of bad people on both sides”.
March 26: The government of Paraguay is overthrown in a coup. The United States blames Russia.
April 1: Trump declares that the United States has never invaded another country nor has ever overthrown a foreign government. He adds that this is not an April Fools Day joke.
April 15: The government of Egypt is overthrown in a coup. The United States blames Russia.
April 28: A new Harvard study concludes that .00001 percent of the American population now possesses 99.999 percent of all financial assets.
May 10: Texas executes a 16-year-old girl for having an abortion.
May 12: The Republican Party calls for giving fetuses the vote.
June 3: US demands that Iran destroy all planes and bombs in their country, all pistols and rifles, all knives over 2 inches, and all baseball bats.
July 1: Vice President Pence is accused by nine women of having sexually abused them. A week-long nationwide protest demands that he resign. He finally does. President Trump appoints Harvey Weinstein to replace him.
July 14: Saudi Arabia executes for blasphemy 105 men by firing squad, and 42 by beheading, and subjects 60 others to 100 lashes each. The next day Trump angrily denounces “the communist government of Venezuela” for arresting six protesters.
August 15: Chelsea Manning is assassinated by a man named Oswald Harvey.
August 18: Oswald Harvey, while in solitary confinement and guarded round the clock by 200 policemen, is killed by a man named Ruby Jackson.
August 26: Ruby Jackson suddenly dies of a rare Asian disease heretofore unknown in the Western Hemisphere.
September 3: The Labor Department announces that Labor Day will become a celebration of America’s gratitude to its corporations, a day dedicated to the memory of J.P. Morgan and Pinkerton strike breakers killed in the line of duty.
September 6: Congress passes a law requiring that all persons arrested in anti-war demonstrations must be sterilized. President Trump says it is “a huge law”. Congressional Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi votes for the law but declares that she has misgivings because there’s no provision for a right of appeal.
September 8: Military junta overthrows President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Washington decries the loss of democracy.
September 10: US recognizes the new Venezuelan military junta, offers it 50 jet fighters and 100 tanks.
September 12: Revolution breaks out in Venezuela endangering the military junta; 40,000 American marines land in Caracas to quell the uprising.
September 20: The Supreme Court rules that police may search anyone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that the person has pockets.
September 21: Two subway trains collide in Manhattan. The United States demands that Moscow explain why there was a Russian citizen in each of the trains.
October 1: The Democratic Party changes its name to the Republican Lite Party, and announces the opening of a joint bank account with the Republican Party so that corporate lobbyists need to make out only one check.
October 11: The Justice Department announces that six people have been arrested in New York in connection with a plan to bomb the United Nations, the Empire State Building, the Times Square subway station, Madison Square Garden, and Lincoln Center.
October 12: Charges are dropped against four of “The New York Six” when it is determined that they are FBI agents.
October 19: Cops the world over form a new association, Policemen’s International Governing Society. PIGS announces that its first goal will be to mount a campaign against the notion that a person is innocent until proven guilty, in those countries where the quaint notion still dwells.
October 22: The draft is reinstated for males and females, ages 16 to 45. Those who are missing a limb or are blind can apply for non-combat roles.
November 6: The turnout for the US presidential election is 9.6%. The voting ballots are all imprinted: “From one person, one vote, to one dollar, one vote.” The winner is “None of the above”.
November 10: ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, General Electric, General Motors, AT&T, Ford, and IBM merge to form “Free Enterprise, Inc.”
November 16: Free Enterprise, Inc. seeks to purchase Guatemala and Haiti. Citigroup refuses to sell.
November 18: Free Enterprise, Inc. purchases Citigroup.
November 25: The air in Los Angeles reaches so bad a pollution level that the rich begin to hire undocumented workers to breathe for them.
December 7: Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump engage in a debate at the United Nations on which of the two is more popular and beloved at home and around the world, whether American Exceptionalism beats North Korean Exceptionalism, and who has the bigger penis.
December 10: Trump fires his entire cabinet, the heads of all government agencies, and his wife. “I gave them all millions of dollars,” he declares, “but none of them gave me respect or loyalty. What a bunch of losers! Sad!”
December 14: Dick Cheney announces from his hospital bed that the United States has finally discovered caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – “So all those doubters can now just go ‘F’ themselves.” The former vice-president, however, refuses to provide any details of the find because, he says, to do so might reveal intelligence sources or methods.
So … best wishes for the new year to all my dear readers in the United States and around the world.
And may your name never appear on a Homeland Security “No-fly list”.
May your labor movement not be supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, nor your country’s elections.
May your country never experience a NATO or US humanitarian intervention, liberation, or involuntary suicide.
May the depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and napalm which fall upon your land be as harmless or non-existent as the Pentagon says they are.
May you not fall sick while in the United States without health insurance.
May you not desire to go to an American university while being less than rich.
May you re-discover what the poor in 18th century France discovered, that rich people’s heads can be mechanically separated from their shoulders if they don’t listen to reason.
