"Is Oklahoma trying to become a Third World country?"
"This is Channel 99 BlabberCast News at Nine with your trendy Dual News AnchorTalkers Mike Shallo and Cindy Ayrhead. For deep background on tonight's sensationalistic Sweeps Week lead story we go to our GroupScoop Reporting Team Deep Background Analyst Max Prober."
"Mark and Candy, back in 2005 the Malaysian government was afraid that foreign workers were taking jobs away from Malays so they forced 380,000 mostly poor Indonesian immigrants to leave the country. But it turned out that Malaysian citizens refused to work any job that involved the D factor: dangerous, dirty, dusty, and difficult. The Malaysian economy ground to a halt, and a few months later the government was begging the Indonesians to come back. This was all documented at the time by the International Herald Tribune and The Independent of London."
"C'mon, Mack, nobody reads those foreign newspapers. Besides, what does all this have to do with Oklahoma? Sandy?"
"It's Cindy, Mick. And it seems that the Sooner State is following in the footsteps of that Third World Asian country. In 2007 Oklahoma passed some of the harshest immigration laws in the land. It's like they're trying to make illegal immigration illegal. It became a felony for anyone to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant. That means any bus or taxi driver, car-pooler, drivers of pickup trucks full of yard workers, teachers, doctors, landlords, and church pastors could go to jail for the felonies of transporting and harboring. And of course, employers can be penalized for hiring illegal workers. It's been estimated that 25,000 undocumented workers had fled the state by last October. Now here's our GroupScoop Reporting Team Financial Correspondent, Greg Kravits."
"That's Financial Correspondent Grant Kreddit, Kathy, and I'm talking with Levy Revanu of the State Economics Board. Have these new laws had the desired effect on the state employment picture?"
"Well, Craig, new housing starts are in the toilet, highway construction has ground to a halt, grocery and clothing stores that catered to immigrants are laying people off, dollar stores are closing, and tax revenues are down nearly 30 percent."
"But state citizens are snapping up those jobs, right?"
"Who do you think Oklahomans are - Indonesians? They won't work those D jobs."
"This is GroupScoop Correspondent Buffy Sue Whiteface. I'm here at the Panhandle Palace Resort Hotel talking with the vacationing Hollidae family. Having fun, folks?"
"Ain't no way! This whole huge place only got three cleaning women. We can't get new towels or soap or those little liquor bottles. We can't get our beds made up and the pool hasn't been cleaned in three weeks and - "
" - and we went next door to the Georgia Cracker Barrel Restaurant to eat. The dinnerware wasn't washed good and half the tables weren't bussed."
"We shouldn't have come here. Our libertarian friends back home in Iowa warned us about this but, you know, who ever listens to libertarians when they start spouting off about economics?"
"Yeah, guess this is what those libertarians meant when they talked about these new immigration laws having ... what was it ... unintended consequences."
"This is Roving GroupScoop Correspondent Cameron Closeup reporting from the Oklahoma Minutemen headquarters. The Oklahoma Minutemen have just announced that they're sending a contingent of volunteers down to the border area to help stop undocumented immigrants from gaining illegal entry into our land."
"This is Mike Shallo back at the studio. So you're saying that the Oklahoma chapter of the national Minutemen Project will be patrolling the Rio Grande for Mexicans illegally entering the country?"
"No no, Mork. They're going down to Oklahoma's southern border to stop Texas Bubbas from swimming across the Red River and taking jobs away from our good taxpaying Okies!"
"And that's our report from Oklanesia."
More of Garry Reed's writing can be found at (http://www.freecannon.com).
