THE FOX TV NETWORK plans a "Tribute to America" for the 17 hours of programming directly preceding its Super Bowl XXXVI pre-pre-game show. It will air not one minute too soon. The yard displays of my neighbors notwithstanding, I haven’t seen a good Tribute to America since the last time I went to the convenience store.
FOX hasn’t announced all the details of its tribute, but I’m hoping to see at least some of the following features.
A Star-Spangled Salute to Pretzels — America’s Most Implausible Alibi!
Workers of the World Unite — and Toil Your Tails Off for America! A look at a Chinese sweatshop, running at full capacity turning out American flags, American-flag pins, American-flag decals, American-flag wiggly car-window idols, American-flag doormats, American-flag paper plates, American-flag T-shirts, American-flag dog leashes, American-flag flagpoles, and so on.
Godfather 2002 — a celebration of the reintroduction of Batista-style prisons in Cuba. Like our court-appointed president says, "Geneva Convention? Who wants to go to go to Wisconsin in January for a business meeting?"
America, Land of Opportunity for the Ethically Bereft — A Salute to Access and Influence. No matter how scurrilous your intentions, when you meet with the vice-president for nefarious purposes, you do so in utter anonymity. As the segment airs, a list of all the times Dick Cheney has refused to discuss his fabled energy-policy meetings crawls across the screen.
A Super Sunday Salute to Racial Profiling! The New Jersey State Police could go out with a FOX crew and demonstrate its time-honored method of determining who is up to no good. Then again, FOX could just use any of several thousand hours of outtakes from its own show, Cops.
Disfranchisement Zones — America Tries To Go to the Polls. This country has no qualms about killing people it deems undemocratic, but the USA itself is nothing more than a corporate oligarchy that limits ballot access to all but a pre-approved few. After the elections, if the fixers are still unhappy, they subvert the results and negate what little choice there was. FOX could go to Florida and interview elderly Jews who were tricked into voting for an Axis apologist. Then they could speak with African-Americans about the government treachery they faced on Election Day 2000. Of course, the soundtrack must be lost so that interviewees’ comments go unheard.
FOX SHOULD ALSO take a look at American superiority in several overlooked areas.
• We’re number one in imprisoning our own people! Two million incarcerated and growing! And remember, our prisoners work cheaper than the Chinese, so this gives the Chinese incentive to keep their flag prices low!
• We’re number one in imperviousness — 14 percent of Americans can’t find the United States on a map. And they don’t need to, since there is never any need for Americans to consider this country’s place in the world. This country’s place in the world is anywhere we want it to be.
• When it comes to gluttony, uno is our numero. Super Sunday is the perfect day to feature Consume! Consume! Consume! America, Land of Boundless Appetite! Where else could you find a thriving market for fattening non-fat foods, soft drinks served in containers large enough to bathe in, and restaurants that entice us with signs that say try a slice of our fried cheesecake? We, of course, head out for a whole one, using three gallons of gas to drive six blocks across flat, dry roads alone in an SUV larger than Delaware. We’ve got more, we’ve had more, and we want more because we’re Americans!
• America leads packs, it doesn’t join them! FOX could use time-lapse photography to show a poor American family grow sick and die for lack of nationalized health care. This would demonstrate American primacy in the art of funneling health-care dollars to corrupt insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It would also demonstrate our unswerving refusal to provide our people with the type of care available to citizens of every other industrialized nation in the world.
DURING THE PRE-GAME show, FOX should twice return to its Tribute to America.
Airing first should be a game show called The Conglomeration Chamber. FOX could pull a sensational stunt and lock Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of its News Corporation parent company, in its "Chamber" with AOL/Time Warner/ExxonMobil/Chevy/CITGO/Ford/AT&T/MCI/Sony chief Steve Case. By halftime, whichever one has absorbed the other will be declared the winner.
Running second? The Big Finish: rent Enron Field in Houston and fill it with bilked Enron investors. Have an honor guard of Enron employees march onto the field in formation and spell out various keywords like despair and ponzi scheme.
At sunset, the employees and stockholders could head for the parking lot and start a bonfire fueled with Enron stock certificates and pension plans. The conflagration will be visible from as far away as Washington, DC, where Attorney General Ashcroft will respond by setting fire to all the copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights his minions have rounded up during the past several weeks. The final gesture in this salute-by-fire will be made by Ken Lay himself, who will torch the entire island of Grand Cayman by igniting shredded Enron documents using nothing more than a common kitchen match and a few hundred thousand gallons of virgin Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil.
If the New England Patriots and St. Louis Rams can outdo that, we’ll be in for a hell of a game!
Political satirist Barry Crimmins performs this Saturday night at the Community Church of Boston. For information, log on to www.barrycrimmins.com.
