Non-English Protests Across Nation Perplex Lawmakers
"What the hell do you want?" pleads President Bush
Widespread protests across the United States entered their third week as tens of thousands of apparently disenfranchised people continued to take to the streets from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles. Whatever message the protestors have been meaning to get across has been marred by their failure to use the English language, the common means of communication used by approximately 300 million Americans.
The government, usually quick to respond to the grievances of English-speaking protestors, has been at a loss as to how to address the issue that is apparently upsetting these people, whatever it may be. While several theories have emerged seeking to explain this behavior, some of them extremely far-fetched, the most commonly accepted and logical explanation is that they want to be taught English. Should this be the case, it would be a shock to both the nation’s educators and residents alike, who have been teaching and/or speaking English since the founding of the country.
It is still unclear whether or not the protestors can speak, read, write, or even understand English, but this has not stopped a number of politicians on both local and national levels from making impassioned pleas for the use of a common language. In a nationally televised address, President Bush said, “I can tell you’re all upset over something, and I want to help, but there’s nothing I can do so long as you keep speaking this gibberish.” The President later appeared to lose his composure, exclaiming exasperated, “Please, for the love of God, just tell us what the hell it is you want!”
In the face of the incredulity of the protestors, government officials have turned to other means to obtain some sort of meaning from what appears to be quite a big deal for a large number of people who don’t speak English. Linguistic scholars from across the United States have struggled to pin down the seeming nonsense to a regional dialect, but have reported that all regions in America speak English, which rules out whatever the demonstrators seem to be speaking. According to a senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, NSA codebreakers have been working day and night for the past two weeks in an effort to decipher any meaning from the utterly foreign messages with little success.
Despite their inability to understand the demonstrators, lawmakers vowed to keep trying. “We obviously try to make a good faith effort to at least comprehend the problems people have with how we do our job,” explained Michael Chertoff, director of Homeland Security. “However, if they keep this shit up for much longer, we’ll just have to deport them all.”
