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A modest proposal to the president


Dear Mr President,

In the light of recent criminal and counter-criminal events let me be so bold as to make a modest proposal to you and to the American people.

We have all been sickened by what has been happening in our freedom-loving country over the last few weeks and I think that so far we’ve looked at things from the wrong end of the stick.

All very well to do our defacing and vandalizing of prot-fascists from our country’s controversial past but where does that get you in the end? A jail sentence or at best a hefty fine. Let us start from the top down by making laws rather than breaking laws. I know we’re all waiting tensely to see if the new bill is going to get through the senate but like with all laws there will probably be endless delays and amendments before it sees the light of day – if it ever does.

Why not just simply in the meantime do a bit of name-changing in our country? I think there’s no doubt we should start at the top here and that means changing the name of our capital city- Washingto DC. This may seem controversial at best to some of my fellow Americans and repugnant to maybe more but we have to see the facts in all their true colors.

At the time of his death, George Washington owned about 120 slaves for his personal use. Many more were available at Mount Vernon who did not personally belong to him. Many of Washington’s slaves tried to escape from bondage. His personal assistant, Christopher Sheels was a slave and he tried to escape also but was unsuccessful.

All American school kids know that Washington felt bad about slavery and in his will he emancipated his slaves. Even so this was a hypocritical act. He was prepared to abuse, manipulate and exploit his slaves while he lived and this type of behavior is not what a modern democratic American can respect.

So I propose changing the name of our capital city from Washington to Luther King. This will make all people – regardless of race color or creed – know where our true loyalites lie today. It will demonstrate that we Americans sympathize with a martyr who stood for all those insufficient funds that we are still impatiently waiting for in the modern world.

When we have made this name change we can proceed to other matters not least removing Washington’s sculpture from Mount Rushmore and replacing it with the head of Obama – more as a symbol of how life in our country has triumphantly changed despite the horrors of recent days rather than with any political motives in the light of the upcoming presidential elections.

Whatever about Mount Rushmore let us at least have a name change for our great capital city.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yours truly,

Jonathan Orwell


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Book: Shattered Sighs