Papier-Mache Bush Head Fells Hundreds

[ed. - today's Satire Clearance spoilage-dock special is this London report I wrote in November, on assignment for LGF.]

London -- A massive antiwar march against visiting US President George W. Bush turned grisly Thursday after demonstrators lost control of a giant papier-mache effigy of the president's head, setting off a gruesome chain reaction that left Trafalgar Square strewn about with hundreds of dazed peace activists, journalists, and thousands of abandoned, half-burnt swastika-and-stripes flags. Although no fatalities were reported, British public health officials estimated upwards of 1500 protesters were awaiting treatment at local hospitals for minor injuries and mange. The head was not injured.

"We hope to see to the victims sometime next February," said National Health Service Spokeswoman Bindy Cheesenham. "Staff on holiday in Majorca, and all that."

The incident sparked an outcry from a number of international human rights organizations, and demands that Downing Street extradite the head to the International Court of Justice for war crime prosecution.

"The diabolical, lawless pantomime head attacked without warning and without a proper United Nations resolution," complained Rowen Coxthorpton of the Chiselhurst Campaign For The Prevention of Global Unpleasantness. "This needs to be brought to the attention of The Hague, right off."

Home Secretary David Blunkett said that his department was coordinating a "vigorous investigation" with Scotland Yard, but stopped short of acceding to an international tribunal.

"Her Majesty's courts are well equipped to handle this crisis," said Blunkett. "And, as The Hague court is currently on holiday in Ibiza, I am quite confident that the British public would prefer its justice not be dispensed by barristers in Speedos."

Public officials here had been braced for an outbreak of violence since the Monday arrival of Bush for an official state visit with Queen Elizabeth, marking the first such visit by a US president since Woodrow Wilson. While Bush maintains a strong relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Iraq war has made him an object of particular scorn among the British antiwar movement.

Rhetoric preceding Bush's arrival was markedly harsh in some quarters of the British press. The BBC had run a 24 hour grainy tape loop of Bush interspersed with sizzling electric chairs, nooses and rollerskating chimpanzees. Polly Toynbee of the Guardian called it "an arrogant affront by a semi-literate murderous freak from the bowels of Imperial Disneyland-land," while Robert Fisk of the Independent decried the "wretched insanity of a nation that would fete a babbling cowboy psychopath, while adorable leaders like Kim Jong-Il, Mugabe and Fidel spend the night at home and queenless."

After his arrival in London, more alarm was expressed by elected officials. Scottish Labor MP George Galloway declared himself so disgusted by the spectre of Bush's visit that he threatened to "resign my post and live in exile in one of my Syrian palaces." Announcing a new £50 citywide dog waste tariff, London Mayor Ken Livingston added that he considered Bush "to be the single biggest threat to the survival of the human race in all of history, whose bloody record of genocidal crimes have easily surpassed Hitler, Genghis Khan, Caligula, and Jerry Ford combined," and vowed to immolate himself "on the odd chance the petrol fumes and excruciating pain will somehow free my haunted, Bush-tormented mind."

Other members of the British intellectual establishment were less diplomatic.

British playwright Harold Pinter panned Bush as "an arrogant subhuman spastic baboon, whom I would happily volunteer to slowly torture in nasty animal experiments," while British poet laureate Andrew Motion took a full page advertisement in the Tuesday Times of London calling for "tumbly fizzy snipers/ happy happy die die." Hundreds of British bien pensants from the popular rock group Radiohead to the Teletubbies signed a petition calling for the temporary suspension of Britain's stringent gun control laws.

Against such a backdrop, it was widely feared that Thursday's street protests would turn violent. Metropolitan Police posted over 5000 riot troops along the march route, prompting complaints of excessive security presence. Police spokesmen defended the show of force as a preventative measure to avoid a repeat of the April rampage by marchers from the British Antiviolence Pacifist Coalition that resulted in 600 casualties and razed 15 synagogues.

Such fears appeared unfounded early Thursday as the protest began without incident. Tour coaches bearing peace activists from as far as Drywall, Manwich and Phylter-on-Marlboro arrived in Trafalgar Square for a planned march to Buckingham Palace. While crowd estimates fell significantly short of the anticipated 100,000, the throng was bolstered by the attendance of some 15,000 BBC journalists.

The crowd was exhorted by American filmmaker Michael Moore, whose "America: Land of Fat, Greedy Morons" British lecture tour has been greeted by sold out houses at £150 per ticket. Saying he "wanted to give a gift back to the English public," Moore unveiled the caricature Bush effigy that would soon turn the tables on the protesters. At 18 feet tall, it was believed to be among the five largest Bush head effigies constructed in Europe since June.

According to eyewitnesses, the cause of Thursday's incident appears to have been a banana peel.

"We were also gathering to protesting GMO foods, so that leaves us few options with respect to lunch," said march participant Cassandra Filthridge, a member of the Glumwich Vegans For an American-Free Future. "Bananas are eco-friendly, high in potassium and are 100% American corporate-free thanks to EU import guidelines."

What many did not know is that the seemingly innocent banana is also housed within a potential indiscriminate killer.

As discarded banana peels amassed along the march route, a four-man crew piloting the enormous Bush head began to lose footing. Eyewitness accounts say that thousands of gallons of catsup-based simulated protest blood may have contributed to poor traction, and billows of marijuana smoke from the effigy's nostrils suggested to some that impairment may have played a roll in the ensuing mayhem. Sliding helplessly toward the Nelson monument, the crew, one by one, abandoned their control posts while the gigantic head rolled toward the phalanx of unsuspecting marchers.

A national television audience watched in horror as the abandoned Bush head gathered momentum, becoming a fearsome snowball of fury that tore through banners and left hundreds of dazed activists and crushed cardboard tanks in its wake. One man -- later identified as Rupert Dorkington of Flemsea -- gamely attempted to stop the head but became lodged in its gigantic caricature ear and his legs became wildly flailing projectiles.

As the head gathered steam, thousands of protesters ran for safety but many stood their ground. Thousand began to chant "we are here/ to smash the state/ because their dole checques/ are always late" in a futile attempt to stop its advance.

"No matter how loudly we screamed, it wouldn't change course," sobbed Fiona Dimwick, a student marcher from the University of Stratocaster.

The unstoppable rolling menace continued flattening members of dozens of peace organizations marching along the Pall Mall, including Midlands Fedayeen United, Cornwich Stalinist League, and the Finsbury Park Mosque Chemistry Club. It finally came to rest after hitting an unsuspecting Michael Moore, but the resulting energy transfer sent Moore hurtling in a riot of flying donuts.

Today's mayhem was another setback for the struggling British antiwar movement, coming on the heels of a recent Guardian poll showing an overwhelming majority of Britons harboring positive attitudes towards the United States, with strong majorities favoring both the military invasion of Iraq and the Bush state visit.

March organizer Gavin Martin-Llewys of the Patrice Lumumba Anarcho-Syndicalist Red Front of Luton said the British peace movement would not be daunted by the experience.

"I say to you today, great git cowboy Fuhrer Bushitler and your oil bandit Halliburton buckaroo wanker crony puppet masters: the peace community will not be cowed by you or your fascist papier-mache doppelgangers," he said, visibly shaken.

As of this morning, the gigantic Bush head was being held in Police custody while officials decide its fate. A Downing Street source speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Blair government was planning to make an official gift of the head to Texas governor Rick Perry.

"I think it is the appropriate and obvious decision," he said. "Because everything's big in Texas."

Comments

[flyingspacemonkey]

If only it were true.....

[Ronin]

You always were the greatest. Just for fun, why don't you repost that review of the Broadway hit, "Straight".

[Jim T.]

Awesome! You sometimes drive me sane.

[Noel]

You are on a roll, Hawk. A Hawk-roll? Great stuff!