A Planet for the President: The Political Satire to End All Political Satrires

By Alistair Beaton

Book Overview

It is the near future and things are not going well for the President of the United States. He wants Americans to be adored by everyone but half the planet seems to be in a permanent state of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0752865668
• ISBN13: 9780752865669
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Orion Publishing
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.7" x 1.0" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

No Planet Left for Anyone

A little hard to get into, but well worth the effort. Very toungue-in-cheek satire of a contemporary American president who was a buffoon and listened to his "advisors". I won't give away the plot, but it was different and well done. It was not hard to imagine this president with George Bush's face and voice. Not hard at all. Found this link today to an alternative news site that I frequent...yes, I wear a tin foil hat. [...]

Side-splittingly funny, and terrifying at the same time. In other words: great satire.

Overview: A political satire concerning the fictional U.S. President, Fletcher J. Fletcher and his administration's decision to wipe out all non-Americans in the world in order to stave off an impending ecological disaster and preserve the American way of life. Points of Interest: First of all, let me say this book is hilarious. I mean laugh out loud, slap your knee, snot flying out of your nose funny. It is a scathing political satire mixed with a heavy dose of black humor. The idea is that the American President, Fletcher J. Fletcher is warned of a coming ecological disaster by a political advisor. He is told that if every human being on Earth lived a lifestyle similar to the average American, we would need over 15 Earths to provide for the current population. The President is also told that it is only a matter of time before the Earth's reserves are run through and chaos and famine ensues. He is warned that if he does nothing, he will be remembered as the President that ruined the world, which would not look good in history books. In order to circumvent the disaster President Fletcher is advised to find a way to lower the environmental strain American's place on the environment. President Fletcher dismisses the idea as preposterous. Telling Americans to consume less would kill his approval rating. His administration composed of imbeciles, incompetents, and self-serving opportunists propose the idea of killing off the rest of the world, allowing for more elbow room for Americans. The monstrous idea is rationalized as being the only viable solution to the coming crisis while maintaining the American way of life. It is also suggested that the President and his cabinet could use the incident to win a third term in office. The book then rolls out the details of how this genocide will be accomplished, and somehow makes the entire thing hilarious as good satire does. That is why satire is so effective. It makes terrible topics palatable by coating them in humor. This book does just that as it brings the reader to the books horrifying but outrageously funny conclusion. Fletcher J. Fletcher is a thinly veiled George W. Bush. His fictional cabinet represents neocon ideals in their aggressive policies, imperialism, need for fear to unify the country and its America first agenda, which in the case of the book is taken to an extreme. A few gems in this comparison are incidents such as President Fletcher taking time to "be with his God" when he actually drinks bourbon and then prays for a third term in office. Another occurs when the President asks his born again Christian Secretary of Defense if they should invade a small, possibly terrorist state and the Secretary responds, WWJD (what would Jesus do)? The President asks what Jesus would do and the Secretary replies, "Jesus would go in hard!" which is a criticism of the obvious hypocrisy of Bush's administration that appeals to the religious right, claiming to be inspired by and modeled after Jesus' lif

A funny and horrifying political satire

Ritchie J Richie, President of the USA, has a problem - the environment. It is becoming harder and harder to ignore a growing list of environmental issues and he doesn't want his legacy to be the president who killed the last wild American bald eagle. However, he doesn't see what he can do about the issue (except what he's doing - ignore it) until one of his advisors comes up with a plan that will solve all the environmental problems and leave the USA as the literal ruler of the planet. This is a thinly disguised satire on the current Washington administration - of politicians whose ONLY concern is to get re-elected and who are so beholden to large private corporations to keep in power that they will think the unthinkable because to them the rest of the world holds little value. This book is in turns funny and horrifying because in a weird, insane way, the solution proposed in this book is not so different from what other political leaders around the globe have tried in the past - just on a larger scale. If you enjoy a well written political satire then this is a book you should read.

hilarious,sad but true

i couldnt put this political satire down, so consequently my partner also suffered from the-bed-shook-too-much-from-uncontrollable-laughs, unfortunately it was my turn when it was his turn to read it. the way mr beaton threaded together different character's pov on the same event was brilliant, but when i looked deeper into what he had written it was frightening to realise those events derived from the truth. They were what i heard and watched everyday on the news, and what's worse is i still hear and see them on tv/internet on a hourly basis. the events were too true that it was sad to see what the consequences might be if the world continues in the way the book had suggested or actually how we live already . maybe all governments that were mentioned in the book should get a copy?!

More than just an hilarious political satire

This is one screamingly funny book. My wife complained, regularly, that she could not get to sleep because the bed was shaking so much! A fictional American president - Fletcher J Fletcher - with a strong resemblance to someone you might know, is getting tired of being told "something must be done" about the environment. The book opens in the White House with a policy wonk called Boyd telling the meeting that if everyone had the same standard of living as the Vice President "We would need 15.2 planet Earths to support everyone". Told that not everyone could have the VP's lifestyle, Boyd then tells the meeting that if everyone on the planet were to have the lifestyle of the average American, the world would need 5.6 acres per person. Boyd then tries to alert all and sundry to the facts on sustainability, and makes the mistake of using them to point out that the world population has reached 6.2 billion, and that the President should " take measures to reduce the eco-footprint of the average American citizen." Not surprisingly, the President is unimprssed with this line of policy, and tries to close the meeting. However, the Defence Secretary dares to argue with Fletcher,and persuades everyone that they DO want to explore this policy a bit further, indeed he has a quick solution to the world's problems: "Getting rid of a lot of people very quickly." To cut a very long story short, events persuade President Fletcher to buy into this policy. To implement it they have to do three things: first off, they get a Brit scientist who knows how to re-create the Spanish flu virus (1918) which is to be delivered round the globe by the US Air Force. Second, they have to persuade the rest of the world that the visiting American jets are doing a world-wide pollution survey for the UN. Third, they need a vaccine so that no American gets the flu. Naturally, there are problems along the way. The Prime Minister of Canada gets a document headed "Elliminating Canada" which he claims must have come from President Fletcher because of the spelling mistake! At the end of a short phone call, Fletcher decides that Canada is not going to be an exception after all. Worse, Vince - whose job is to brief the President on questions such as: what's the capital of Nigeria? - has decided to become the whistleblower. And, having met Brit Prime Minister James Halstead, he decides to go to England and brief the PM on what's about to take place. The idea is that Halstead will use his influence with the President to stop the whole show. Bad move. Halstead thinks its all a good idea, as long as the Brits can have the vaccine as well. He should get so lucky! The plan goes ahead as scheduled, but there's a problem with the vaccine. ... ...