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Andy Borowitz writes for the online edition of The New Yorker magazine. Read one of his columns below (they are all like this one) and tell me what you think would become of him with the tentacles of the Cybercrime Bill, if, with a Vincentian passport around his neck, still living in the US, instead of “Trump” he wrote this way about you know who.
Paul Manafort is a real person. At the time he was Trump’s campaign manager but is now its chairman. Can you imagine what would become of a Vincentian Borowitz, a second time, if, instead of “Paul Manafort,” he wrote this way about Manfort’s Vincentian equivalent. Oh vey.
The column below followed The Donald’s wife plagiarising Michelle Obama but said she did not. Then, well maybe; then perhaps a little bit; then, well, yes, she did. Then admitted, much to Donald J’s chagrin, that she was a Michelle fan. In between all of that and having said that she wrote her own speech, as the truth of the plagiarising started to unfold, Trump’s team switched the blame on a speechwriter. The wife lied.
This is The New Yorker column.
TRUMP SUCCEEDS IN DELIVERING SPEECH NO ONE WILL WANT TO PLAGIARIsE
By Andy Borowitz , JULY 22, 2016
CLEVELAND (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump was jubilant Thursday night after accomplishing his goal of delivering a speech that no one will ever want to plagiarize, Trump aides confirmed.
According to his staff, Trump and his speechwriters had been working overtime during the week to create a tirade that was sufficiently bloated, unhinged, and terrifying to discourage potential plagiarists from reusing excerpts in the future.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, said that, right until the hour the candidate took the stage, the billionaire’s writing team was scrubbing the speech of any marginally coherent passages that might prove tempting to plagiarists.
“There was one sentence toward the beginning that had traces of humanity and rational thought,” Manafort said. “Fortunately, we caught it in time.”
Watching from backstage on Thursday night, Manafort and the speechwriters erupted into a flurry of high-fives when it became clear that the speech was the rambling, demented mess they had worked so hard to create. “From the moment Mr. Trump started shrieking and his entire head turned red, we knew we had nailed it,” he said.
Harland Dorrinson, a leading plagiarism expert, shared the campaign’s assessment that the final draft of Trump’s seventy-minute rant was too repellent to entice even the least discerning plagiarist.
“I can’t see anyone lifting anything from that speech unless he wanted to sound totally batshit crazy,” he said.
Submitted by Patrick Ferrari
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I keep thinking that there has to be some important reason for Trump’s appearance on the US political scene. Needless to say, I don’t know what it is but there has to be something useful in all this for the American people, even for the rest of the world perhaps.
Regardless of his faults, Trump is badly needed in US politics. What is the alternative…? Hillary! The Clintons are even more corrupt that the Bush family. Look up all the dead bodies!
Someone who highlights the problems of those who have been disadvantaged by globalization and the increasing inequality in American society (and of many other capitalist societies, including that of the UK) is needed. That is not the same thing as saying that Donald Trump is needed.
The problem with Trump is that (a) he too has profited from globalization at the expense of many people, and (b) that he has articulated no realistic remedy for this problem. He talks about bringing back jobs to the US. How he will do that without raising the costs of the goods that are now produced in such low cost centers as Central America and East Asia – and thus antagonizing American shoppers – is anybody’s guess. And he will deport 4 million illegal Mexican migrants – thus imperiling many agricultural producers, hotels, hospitals etc, that depend on (again) low cost migrants for low skilled jobs that Americans do not want. And he will blocking the migration of Muslims – which might be against the First Amendment to the Constitution (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof) And yes, he says that he wants the ban until Homeland Security “works out what the hell is going on”. However Trump himself seems to have no clue as to what is going on. American immigration officials already conduct extensive inquiries before anyone in granted asylum. And people who who are not migrants can also commit atrocities – like Timothy McVeigh, who blew up that federal building in Oklahoma City, killing over a hundred people.
The problem with Donald Trump is that he panders to the lowest common denominator in the disaffected, encourages anger and resentment on which he thrives, without offering workable solutions. “We are going to build a wall and the Mexicans will pay for it” is hardly a realistic solution. Nor is trying to bring back all low paid jobs, unless he is prepared to raise the cost of living; and also to infuriate all those producers and manufacturers who probably finance many election campaigns of members of Congress, and who will therefore lobby against such moves.
What America needs is (i) a system of unemployment insurance that will cushion, for a period, the financial situation of those who lose low skilled jobs to globalization, (ii) adequate retraining facilities to enable such people to move up the skills ladder, (iii) in the long term a radical revamping of the education system to provide the skills that are now, and will be in the future, in high demand. For recruitment to many such jobs American high tech firms now have to rely on migrants with special work visas that at present levels do not meet full demand.
The jobs that will be expanding in the future will not be the low skilled, relatively well-paid jobs with attached health insurance and assured retirement benefits, all protected by tough Unions. Such jobs were the norm during a relatively short period of rapid economic growth after the end of the Second World War and up to the 1960s and 70s. Those jobs will be done either by machines or by low paid workers overseas. The people who design and maintain the machines will be the ones to benefit. But that requires more mathematical, scientific and technological expertise, not the ability to put A into B and tighten a bolt. Even some of the skills that were in demand are no longer used. have you noticed that no one now takes shorthand notes again? We now record everything on neat little electronic devices. We can all even take pictures of everything around us on our ubiquitous smart phones. Three decades ago we needed a photographer with camera and tripod. And to get your passport you no longer need to go to a photographer then get someone to certify that the likeness is indeed you. The passport official takes your picture right there and then on another digital device. And all kinds of biometric information can be recorded in a document like a passport.
Now, Patrick, you’re not being fair. That is the US. We are an independent country (albeit there are only 116,000 of us compared with 300+ million if them) and we don’t have to do what they do. To besides, they have a constitution with a first amendment that states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
We ain’t got that.
And when we drafted a constitution that removed the Queen as head of state “so that she could no longer interfere in our affairs” (True – I heard that one in a radio broadcast. And even in TnT I was told that Vincentians voted against the new constitution because we didn’t want to remove the Queen as head of state) allyou vote against the new constitution. Now don’t raise irrelevant issues like the fact that we wanted term limits for our PM and fixed dates for elections, or entrenched rights which were removed from the final draft.
So of course we now need a Cyber crime law to protect our children from child pornography (that’s called a non sequitur, but never mind that). And to protect those of us who don’t like what others say about us. And yes, we do already have laws against slander and libel, But if you can prove that what you said about me was TRUE I can’t get you to back down. But now all I’ve got to do is prove I’ve been hurt or offended by what you said. And who can say the I wasn’t hurt or offended just because what you said was true? We are all going to be even BETTER than the US, because we will be protected from all the gossip, true or not, that offends us. So there!
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and satirist. He isn’t a David Brooks or David Ignatius, noted and well respected political reporters. This is like going after Candyman for a skit.
Observer87 surely that is exactly the point of the article. The legislation does not say that if you are a “noted and well respected” reporter then you can be prosecuted for publishing on the internet something that offends or hurts another person. ANYONE, including a satirist (indeed satirists, by the very nature of their craft, could be high on the list of possible prosecutions) or a Candyman can prosecuted. For that matter so could the writers of such popular calypsos as “Ah ‘fraid Karl”, “Captain the ship is sinking”, “Panama” (in all of which the person to whom the lyrics referred was perfectly obvious) if the “victims” proclaim their hurt. The problem with the legislation in its current form is that it is extremely subjective and open to abuse. And don’t tell me that we are all, as Mark Antony described Caesar’s killers, “honourable men” who would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER abuse such legal provisions. Moreover, laws that we enact with imprecise and/or subjective provisions, have a way of coming back to haunt those who enact them at some future date.