At the end-of-year board meeting for ScrooMoCo, Chairman Scrooge delivered the yearly financial projections. “We’ve slashed our workforce and are earning record profits this year!”

A great cheer arose from the board.

Suddenly, the room fell into darkness and the ghostly apparition of an older man in a suit, covered in chains, appeared above the long conference table.

“My God, that’s our dead founding partner, Jacob Marley!” Scrooge cried.

“ScrooMoCo Board members,” the spirit moaned. “You’re all greedy bastards who’ve caused great economic imbalance in the world and caused terrible needless pain to the masses. When you die, you will suffer the same fate as me if you don’t repent and stop your heinous actions now. These are the chains I forged in life and believe me, they freakin’ clash with my Gucci and make getting spa treatments a bitch.”

Several board members gasped.

“You will be visited by three spirits tonight. Heed their warning or you will suffer fashion humiliation for all eternity!”

Marley vanished and the lights returned.

Chairman Scrooge snorted. “Cratchit, call maintenance and get the electrical fixed PRONTO.”

Bob Cratchit, his secretary, winced. “ But we fired the maintenance staff and outsourced the work to India.”

“Then you do it!”

The overhead lights flickered. A great crash of thunder made all the board members jump. Standing on the conference table before them was Bing Crosby.

“Hello Board Members, I’m the spirit of Christmas Past and this number goes out to all you greedy robber barons,” he announced and then broke out singing I’m Dreaming of a Rich, White and Male Christmas.

The board members clapped. “Do Swinging on a Star!”

“No, I’m here to show you how it used to be, before all you mega-corporations took over the Earth. Behold, the past!” Bing pointed to the wall behind the table.

A large movie screen appeared showing black and white footage of American factory workers on assembly lines. A happy family of six eating at a backyard barbecue. A doctor making a house call. Kids walking into shining new schools. A young couple buying their first house. A stay-at-home mother working in her kitchen of gleaming appliances.

“My doctor still makes house calls,” a board member huffed.

“Yes, and my children attend schools just like that one. Nothing has changed.”

Bing shook his head. “That used to be the life for 99% of our population. Not the 1% it is today.”

“It’s their fault for being poor,” sneered a board member.

“I give up. And now, I’d like to introduce that man-about-town, that haunting spirit you’ll all come to know and love, the Ghost of Christmas Present. Take it away, President Barack Obama.”

Bing disappeared and in his place stood Obama.

The board members screamed in fear. “A Democrat!”

“But he’s not dead,” one argued.

“Hey folks, easy does it. I’m just trying to get re-elected and this seemed like a great way to get my message across to you since none of you pay attention to what I say anymore.” He gestured to the back wall. “Behold, the present!”

A succession of film clips depicted gigantic crowds of protesters in Madrid, London, New York and Oakland. A close-up on the signs revealed the messages: We are the 99%. Corporations Must Atone. Tax the 1%. Make Jobs Not War on Middle Class and Working Poor. The images shifted to a school kid reading a torn book and sitting at a broken desk next to a bucket catching a leak in a dingy classroom. Hungry children and mothers standing in long lines at soup kitchens. Thousands of unemployed crowding job fairs. A row of boarded-up houses with brown lawns and foreclosure signs. A homeless encampment under a freeway.

“Glad I’m not poor,” commented a board member.

“Hear, hear.”

“Me, too,” said Obama. “But if we don’t change things and right now, there isn’t going to be any rich people because the poor will rise up and kill us all. Didn’t you guys study history? Remember Marie Antoinette? While you guys sip Cristal with me, people are starving out there. People can’t afford health care, homes or educations. Over the past fifteen years, you bastards have taken ALL the money. You weren’t satisfied with an extra 50% or even 75% more money than your workers, you had to give yourselves 298% raises while they only got 4%. You blew it. And your iPods and Prozac and beer and NFL championships aren’t distracting them anymore. They’re onto our game.”

A board member yawned. “I’m sorry, did you just say something? I wasn’t listening.”

“Forget it. Here’s your final spirit visitor for the day, the Ghost of Christmas Future.”

Obama vanished and a sweet little Mexican girl in pigtails and a pink dress stood on the table.

All the members shrieked in terror. “An illegal immigrant!”

The little girl nodded. “You should be afraid. Shortly, I’m going to be the majority. And you’re totally screwing me over right now. Behold, the future!”

A post-Apocalyptic landscape appeared onscreen. Mansions burned in the background. In the foreground, well-dressed people ran from pitchfork-wielding crowds. The camera panned over a burnt and cracked sign: Town of Atherton.

The board members gasped, horror-struck.

“Act now or soon it will be too late,” the little girl said and vanished.

The screen disappeared and the lights came on.

Scrooge frowned. “Wow. That was frightening.” He rubbed his chin. “So should we pay our fair share of taxes, hire more people, stop outsourcing, help rebuild America’s infrastructure, improve our education system, overhaul our healthcare system and hold big banks accountable for their crimes?”

Silence fell over the room.

One board member held up his hand. “How about we give ourselves big raises and take the rest of the money now while we still can?”

Scrooge’s eyes lit up. “All those in favor?”

“Aye!” the board members replied in unison.

Bob Cratchit muttered under his breath, “Goosed again.”

©2011, Janet Periat

JIM LEHRER: Senator Obama, can you outline your approach to solving the current financial disaster?

OBAMA: This country’s been gutted like a trout by rich corporate robbers and the morons in the White House. John McCain is so stupid, he thinks that running this country exactly the way George Bush is will solve all our problems.

McCAIN: (red-faced and shaking) See? He’s an elitist! He thinks he’s better than you! Are you honestly going to vote for a black man? Especially one who thinks he’s more important and smarter than you!? Not only is he black, he’s a Muslim-loving, gun-hating, baby-killing machine! Why do you think there’s such a close resemblance to his name and Osama Bin Laden’s? They are the same person! Have you ever noticed how dark Osama Bin Laden is, or should I call him, Obama Bin Laden?

OBAMA: (glowering at McCAIN) John, you f**kin’ crazy old man, shut the f**k up. You belong in a nursing home, not the Oval Office. I mean, look at you, I’m worried you won’t live long enough to complete this debate.

McCAIN: (purple-faced) I’m experienced, not old! I’ve been there! I’ve done it all!

OBAMA: I am so sick of your crap. You’ve changed your mind so much and been so many different people in the past months, we’re gonna have to start calling you Senator Sybil. I think if someone said they’d trade you the presidency for your wife, you’d take the deal.

McCAIN calms, narrows eyes, rubs chin. Appears to be thinking. Coming alive, he glares at OBAMA.

McCAIN: Oh, Christ, you take the graft too, don’t give me that crap. I’m not the only whore in the Capitol. You’d bend over for ten grand just like I would.

OBAMA: Sure, I suck the same corporate genitalia as you do, but goddamn it, at least I know when to make concessions between what the corporations want and what I give them. It’s like you rich old white men know your days are numbered so you’re looting the place and leaving nothing for us. You took all the money from the middle class—the only idiots without the lawyer power to fight our Byzantine tax structure. Instead of bleeding them slowly, you freakin’ popped their aortas and let all the blood out. AND you ruined it for the rest of us by stealing so obviously your theft could be seen from space. Oh, and by the way, tell your oil buddies, the next time they stage an invasion of another country, make sure they know the history of the place BEFORE they invade. You guys weren’t just greedy, you were more ignorant than a graduate from one of our underfunded public schools.

McCAIN: (eyes unfocussed, gesturing wildly) Look here, you, I paid my dues. You owe me this presidency. I suffered seven f**king years of torture for this country. And you idiots abandoned me and made the mission I suffered for irrelevant. I want payback! You owe me winning in Iraq and you owe me this presidency! It’s mine, you hear me, MINE!!!

OBAMA: (shaking head) John you need therapy, not the presidency.

McCAIN’s head spins around on his shoulders, foam appears on the corners of his mouth.

McCAIN: You’re a pussy! You’re going to get us all killed! Al Qaida is going to kill us all! We need to bomb Iran! You don’t understand! The Russians are going to kill us! The North Koreans are going to kill us! We need to get them before they get us! We need to bomb the hell out of Iraq, then Iran, then Russia, then North Korea! Bomb them, I tell you, bomb them or we’ll never be safe!

OBAMA: (frowning) Now you’re channeling the spirit of Dick Cheney. We don’t need a therapist, we need an exorcist.

LEHRER: Shut the f**k up the both of you. Goddamn, did you even hear my question, Senator Obama? And Senator McCain, put in your damned hearing aids. Hell, you two are so stuck in your rhetoric, you don’t even listen anymore. Let me make myself a bit clearer. How the hell are you going to solve this goddamned financial crisis?

OBAMA: Damn, are all old white men this bitchy? Is this a side effect of Viagra? Look, I don’t know how the hell I’m going to solve this problem, no one does, okay? We’re all bought by the same jerks that just took all the money and created all these scams! We can’t afford to piss them off or we’ll never get the money to pay for the advertising that wins us elections! I mean, this system is hosed. It would take years to untie this financial knot. All we can do is throw some more money at the problem and hope it goes away. What? What do you want to me to say? I’ll sprinkle some fairy dust over the problem and sixty years of greed and corruption will automatically disappear? No. They won’t. We‘re screwed right now and I think everyone knows it.

McCAIN: I can solve the problem! We bomb Iraq! We win in Iraq! Then we bomb Russia! Yeah, Russia! I long for the good old days of the Cold War. Nothing is more fun than hating those f**king commies! We should have kept bombing Viet Nam until nothing was left! They tortured me for seven years! I was in—

OBAMA and McCAIN: —prison for seven years!

LEHRER: That’s enough out of the both of you. Please don’t excite him this much, Senator Obama, his heart can’t take it. While an onstage heart attack would be great for the ratings, we’d have to go off script and that gets messy. Okay, Senator McCain, other than bombing the world, how do you intend to fix the current financial situation?

McCAIN: We bomb Iraq! We win in Iraq! That will boost morale! When I was with General Petraeus, over there in Iraq, I saw how—

LEHRER: I didn’t ask about Iraq, you idiot, I want to know how you’re going to fix the economy.

McCAIN: (calms immediately, seems stunned) The economy is sound. Well, not really. God, I don’t know how to fix the goddamned thing any more than my BLACK opponent does. But I don’t care about that. (waves arms wildly with a crazy look in his eye) I want to win in Iraq! We have to! You owe me! This country owes me!

LEHRER: I’d let you rebut, Senator Obama, but it’s clear you don’t know how to fix the economy, either. Well, folks, God help us all on the economy because neither of these guys has a clue how to fix it. As for me, I wish something could be done about the corruption of our system before we become a Third World country. But by the tone and content of tonight’s debate, that won’t be happening anytime soon. Good night and good luck.

©2008, Janet Periat