Governor Rustbelt Balances a Budget

No, I’m not getting elected to anything anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t practiced an acceptance speech or two. Here’s a speech I’ve been working on in front of the mirror all morning where I’ve just been elected Governor of some cash-strapped midwestern state.

‘Sisters and brothers, comrades and friends, citizens all:

We are facing tough times. The rich are hoarding their money, the federal government is engaged in war after imperialist war abroad, our infrastructure is collapsing, the right-wing is assaulting the very notion of a society with attacks on every manifestation of collective right, of collective good. For thirty years a racist ‘war on drugs’ has destroyed whole communities of color, placing millions in prison and millions more into a ‘justice system’ where there is no justice and costing us billions of needed dollars. Immigrants are hounded and exploited. Industry has collapsed as the capitalists have packed off to better profit margins elsewhere. Workers are denigrated and blamed for the crisis; solidarity is a dirty word. The last of our unions are under determined assault.

No more!

As of tonight these emergency decrees are in place:

Tonight we begin to tax the rich, and we are going to tax them right out of existence. ‘Oh shit’, I hear as the champagne flutes drop to the carpet and every Mercedes engine in the state starts turning over. But that knock on the door? Those are our Teamster friends arriving at your house for an inventory of your ill-begotten gains, and no, I wouldn’t resist them. Any capitalist attempting to move money or property out of the state will have such properties immediately and unconditionally forfeited. It belongs to the people now. And we know where everything is hidden too, all of those immigrants you’ve hired to clean your lawn and were invisible to you, not even offered a glass of water to, over the years? Yeah, they’re all right here and do they have some stories to tell! In fact, they’ll be the folks sitting in judgment over you at the trials beginning next week. If I were you I’d start practicing your sincerest apologies.

The ‘War on Drugs’ is over. Kaput, finis, done. Instead of spending billions criminalizing poverty we will spend those billions getting people out of poverty. Recreational use of drugs is your business, addictions will be treated as a health issue and the prisons will be immediately be emptied of all drug offenders. To celebrate the end of the war on drugs all next week the Governor’s Mansion will be hosting the Blunt Olympics; come one, come all!

Oh, and private health care, that obscene profiteering over our neighbor’s distress? That’s over too. And here’s the kicker- it saves us money! Public health care which prioritizes healthy living is way less expensive than treating disease and illness after the fact. Instead of pouring billions into the pockets of executives, shareholders and redundant administration those billions will now be used, shocking I know, to help people! Neighborhood clinics will start opening this weekend around the state with the help of our good friends in the Cuban Ministry of Health who will be advising on the transition.

The state’s National Guard now deployed to a half-dozen places around the world in an imperial adventure will be coming home immediately. The daughters and sons of our state will no longer be put in harms way for the Military Industrial Complex (all such industries now being forever banned in the state) or the interests of Empire. Those wishing to volunteer for internationalist missions will be trained and sent to help our brothers and sisters around the globe suffering under the yoke of said Empire. Our first mission will be to Palestine in the campaign against the apartheid wall.

And finally, I, Governor Rustbelt am dissolving the State House and Senate, the office of Governor and the constitution of the state, the whole unnecessary bureaucracy. Every school, neighborhood and workplace will elect delegates to establish a new way of doing things, one designed with the interests of the majority in mind and not the parasitic few. And you Teabaggers shouting right now and getting on your knees to pray to your god for deliverance? Tough shit. Cause trouble and you’re in trouble. You’ve had your way for far too long and look at the mess we’re in.

Just one final thing; at every entrance to the state the banner ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ be hung. OK, that’s about it. This was the first and last address from Governor Rustbelt, we don’t need governors anyway.’