Satire warning (slightly updated from six decades ago.1):
• • •
"Kid, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says Group W. Now, kid!"
And I walked over to the bench there — and Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the government after committing your special crime. And there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people on the bench there. Atheists. Genderless-lovers. Border-crossers!2
Border-crossers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest border-crosser of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean and ugly and nasty and horrible and all kind of things. And he sat down next to me and said, "Kid… what did you get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay fifty thousand dollars and pick up the textbooks." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" and I said, "Literature." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and gave me the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, 'til I said, "And creating a nuisance," and they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin' about crime, atheism, border-crossing, an' all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.
It's not really all that implausible, is it? Notice, though, that nobody on the Group W bench is there due to a white-collar crime conviction… either in the original of six decades ago or now. I'd make some snide remark that Ali's Restaurant is, these days, probably in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but certain Ivy-League-"educated" ignoramuses (whose "American mind" was obviously closed before attendance) would probably object a bit too loud… and Cambridge has a helluva lot more than three police officers.
- With no apologies whatsoever to Arlo Guthrie. And definitely none to EMI Music, Inc. and/or Appleseed Music, Inc. This does not qualify as a "parody" under the mistaken definition found in the 2Live Crew matter (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994)) — a definition that would have absolutely appalled Founding Father Benjamin Franklin and his near-contemporary François-Marie Arouet a/k/a Voltaire. Because its target is not the talking-blues piece but the attitudes surrounding it, it is "only" satire and therefore outside the ordinary bounds of fair use.
Which is wrong. But understanding why requires "doing literature," and perhaps "doing history and legislative intent." But the current rightsholders can, nonetheless, bite me.
- <SARCASM> No reference to either Our Once and Future Dear Leader's family background, or the DOGE of Venice (floppy hat and all), is unintended. </SARCASM>