Our Precious Essence
November 2001
Atlanta, Georgia — Concerns over a large-scale biological attack increased today with the release of a report by a congressional panel on the readiness of the national health care system. Speaking at the offices of the Centers for Disease Control, panel director Dr. Maryam Williamson told reporters that the nation's health care system would be "woefully unprepared to cope with a widespread emergency involving a biological weapon such as anthrax or smallpox. It would also be unprepared if you needed to get a shoulder x-ray and were not a millionaire."
The panel, which had been convened since the week after the World Trade Center attack, had set 40 different criteria for preparedness and reported that the health care system would fail on all of them. The criteria included the possibility of a poisoned water supply in a major metropolitan area, as well as a seasonal outbreak of the flu or a really bad ingrown toenail.
The problem stems from "serious organizational deficiencies in our national 'health care system,'" said Williamson, holding up her fingers and making quote signs as she said "health care system." She explained American health care to the many foreign reporters present: In contrast to the "single-payer system" found in many industrialized countries, Williamson characterized our system as an "absent-payer system." In the U.S., she said, individuals must find an employer willing to offer them health insurance, or "be left to malinger in the streets like so many Iraqi children."
Later in the day, Christopher Taft, spokesman for the National Association of Health Maintenance Organizations, called Williamson's comments "irresponsible" and suggested that she may be connected to the Communist Party. He declined to comment on rumors that the members of the NAHMO had recently drafted a biological warfare triage plan that separates infected populations into those who can pay, those who can pay with difficulty, and those who cannot pay.
The congressional panel's 70-page report offers two possible solutions for the problems it describes: That the U.S. government move its citizens to Canada, or, alternately, to Germany.
Washington, D.C. — As the war in Afghanistan enters its second month, the Pentagon plans to continue airdrops of food aid to starving Afghans, and to begin dropping landmines as well. The humanitarian gesture of airborne food drops into a landmine-stricken countryside has been an unmitigated propaganda success for the U.S., said Pentagon spokesman Gerald Balmes. But it has also had the unintended consequence of reducing minefield density, causing a "tactical discontinuity" that would require an abrupt change in military strategy. Future drops will contain a mixed payload of food and landmines, said Balmes, to offset this "limb-based landmine clearance." To discourage the efforts of Taliban mine-clearers, these mines will be concealed in yellow plastic envelopes stamped with the words "U.S. Aid Food Package."
Geneva, Switzerland — Calling the Afghan refugee situation "the beginnings of a humanitarian and economic disaster", World Trade Organization spokesman Hens Bjakksen called upon the global community to help ship Afghan refugees to light-industrial centers around the world, such as Saipan, Mexico City, and the Philippines. In those labor markets, said Bjakksen, the currently unemployed refugees would drive wages lower, thus stimulating economic development. "Pushing wages down boosts the GNP; creates the middle-class; and cures all your boils, lesions, and ailments," he said. And once the Taliban is defeated and the Afghan refugees return home, Bjakksen said that there is no doubt that their experiences working in sweatshops will leave them "eager to embrace modern capitalism, with no resentment whatsoever of the benevolent policies of the industrialized West." He then referred reporters to the WTO's 600-page position paper on the subject, which none of them read.
Washington, D.C. — The push for a national missile defense system moved forward today, as President Bush signed an executive order authorizing research into the technology. Citing the current mood of national concern, Bush said that "Americans will feel much safer when they can no longer be attacked by a large airborne missile from a hostile nation, such as the U.S.S.R., or, say, the Ottoman Empire." Bush also authorized research into large stone structures to be erected around major cities; in theory, these "walls" should offer shelter for peasants in the event of invasion by barbarian hordes. In related news, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced further military research into Extremely Long Trench-Based Warfare, or ELTBW: "We believe that this strategy will be well-suited for the conflicts of the future, which will take place in open fields between massive waves of light infantry."