News Cycle of Terror
(A short, one-act play)
<Scene: A classroom at an undisclosed location. E, M, and C2 are seated at desks along with an attractive, multi-cultural woman who is sitting next to C2, but is eerily motionless.>
E: What are we doing here?
<M shrugs as if he doesn’t know why either. Dick Cheney enters the classroom.>
Cheney: You are here because, as members of the new media, you need to learn your places in the news cycle of terror.
C2: Our places in the what?
Cheney: You’re C2, right?
C2: It’s “C-squared.”
Cheney: Shut up you liberal ninny and pay attention.
<E, M, and C2 squirm uncomfortably in their desks. Cheney picks up a piece of chalk at the blackboard and writes out the key steps as he lectures.>
Cheney: OK, the first step is having a terrorist attack, or attempt, occur. Regardless if the attack is prevented the story will be prominent. For the next 48 to 72 hours, the media will dig for relevant facts about the attempt or attack. As the facts come out, it is up to you to put the spin machine into effect.
M: What if I prefer to hang dry my laundry?
Cheney <crushes the piece of chalk he is holding into powder>: The political and media spin machine is you, moron.
M: Sorry.
Cheney <picking up a new piece of chalk>: Now on one side of media, you’ll have the “conservative” press. If, like now, the President is a Democrat, they’ll push how the donkeys are weak on national security. Regardless of if it is true or not, many people believe that Republicans are better suited to national defense. This will put the liberal press and the Democrats on the defensive and bring them in line to summon the will to take further steps to ensure national security. <Cheney looks behind him.> What the heck are you doing?
E <sketching in a notepad>: Drawing. It’s what I do. Can you turn to the left a little? I’m trying to get a caricature of you started.
Cheney: There’s no drawing in this class and I’ll never turn left. If there’s something valuable that direction, I’ll go 270 degrees to the right.
<E sets his pencil down and starts drumming his fingers on the desk.>
Cheney: Don’t do that either or I’ll have you waterboarded so hard your parents will think they’re drowning.
<E stops drumming his fingers.>
Cheney: Anyway, the step of attacking the Democrats isn’t necessary when a proper president is in office. The media can go straight to how the attack was or wasn’t prevented and what extra steps may be needed either to stop such a thing from occurring ever again, or, to have caught the person sooner. At this point, the media’s job is to trot out a number of wonks, I mean, experts, to point what flaws may be evident and how they can be exploited and posit new, incremental infringements, they can’t be too big, just a step at a time as the situation allows, to civil liberties.
C2 <to the multicultural woman>: So, what are you doing after we’re finished with Cranky McCurmudgeon’s diatribe here?
<The woman doesn’t move or respond.>
Cheney: Don’t talk to her!
C2 <taps the woman on the shoulder>: Hey, it’s kind of rude to…
Woman <interrupting C2 in a boisterous manner, C2 falls out of his chair startled by the sudden movement and vindictive tone>: The liberal agenda is responsible for the lax governmental security standards and will lead to the downfall of this country!
<The woman returns to her motionless posture.>
M <to C2>: Wow, you sure know how to push a woman’s buttons.
E: Nice one, stud.
C2: What was that?
Cheney: It is a Fox News feminine robot. They’re programmed cheerleaders we stick on all the pundits’ shows to make their programs appear more diverse. This lecture serves as a software upgrade for them. Now get back in your seat, stop pushing her buttons, shut up, and pay attention.
<C2 returns to his seat.>
Cheney: Now, once these extra security proposals are out in the wind, the news stations will start conducting polls on their palatability to the populace to see how far we can go with new security measures at that time. In addition, we’ll release stories about the possibilities of unnamed, unseen, unverified threats, which have no way of being disputed because they are so vague. The polls and threat stories will be accompanied by more commentary from the wonks <ahem> experts who will state things like, “Only people who have something to hide would be opposed to measures to ensure the continued existence of someone’s life,” and other well worn phrases about the sanctity of a single life and liberty.
C2: Why the stories about unnamed threats?
Cheney: Because life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not possible unless people are scared to death.
M: Where does liberty come in when you’re trying to lessen it?
Cheney: Thank you for the example of an opposition question.
M: That wasn’t an example that was actually a…
Cheney <interrupting and ignoring M’s statement>: When someone asks that, you say that no liberty is possible without sacrifice and tell them that a true patriot understands the necessary sacrifices needed to ensure liberty.
E: Like armed service?
Cheney: More like servitude regardless of profession.
C2: But it seems like the current standards are only insufficient due to human ineptitude. Like, how does an 8-year-old not get through airport security without being frisked, but some guy with explosives strapped to his taint, with a one-way ticket, who is on the watch list, and whose dad warned the embassy about him, get all the way to freakin’ Detroit?
E: And what is with the threat color system? If things get really bad, are we going to go to threat level paisley? Why don’t you streamline the processes you have, apply some common sense to them, and go on that way before adding new ways to invade my privacy?
Cheney: Do you have something to hide?
M: That’s not the point. None of us have anything to hide, but that doesn’t mean I want you tapping my phone, performing a full body scan, preventing me from being able to take a leak the last hour of a flight, knowing what books I’m reading, or anything else just because you won’t find anything. Just because I’m not a criminal doesn’t mean I want you messing around in things that are none of your business.
E: Yeah. The system you have now has shown it can be effective when you caught that guy in Colorado who is alleged to have been scheming in New York.
Cheney: That’s another important lesson, any successes must be subjected to partisan hackery so that they all seem like no-wins, and any flaws in the methods must be touched upon, which can lead to further, minor, security measures.
C2: Man, screw this; you’re not even in power anymore. All this stuff is supposed to be changed, right?
Cheney: Oh, really? <Cheney pulls out a two-way radio> Your turn.
<Enter Barack Obama. C2’s jaw hits the floor, M looks perplexed, E is nonplussed.>
Obama: Well…that was what…I promised…during my historic…campaign of hope…and change.
M: And now?
Obama: That was before…I knew of the sweet…delectable taste…of the power…of being President of the United States of America. Also…I do not want my party…to be seen as weak…in matters of national security…at this…critical juncture…in our great nation’s history.
E <to C2>: Told ya’.
C2 <getting up and heading for the door>: I’m getting out of here.
Cheney: You are not leaving until you fear the terrorist enemy and agree to join us.
C2: Forget you, you Emperor Palapatine wanna be.
E: Yeah, this is crap. We’re not going to be part of your game.
M: Amen to that.
<E and M get up to leave.>
Cheney: Then we have no choice.
<Cheney unbuttons his suit coat to revel an explosive vest underneath. Obama dons an orange hunting vest and pulls a shotgun out of a secret compartment in the chalkboard.>
Cheney: Come give grandpa a hug you pansies.
E=MC2: AHHHHH!
<E=MC2 start to run out of the room. Dick Cheney starts to run after them, but stops after two steps and clutches his chest.>
Cheney: Gah, my robotic heart…Obama…stop them.
<Obama tries to fire at E=MC2, but pulls the trigger too soon and only hits the ceiling. E=MC2 escape unharmed, but needing new underpants.>
Cheney <gasping for breath>: Damn it, you shoot worse than you bowl.
Obama: Maybe next time…I’ll do the running…and you do the shooting.
Cheney: Aren’t we trying to avoid our media-driven stereotypes?
- E=MC2
