Donald Rumsfeld, the United States Secretary of Defense, surprisingly had little to say about the affair. “Well, I tried to explain to them that their taro sweet bread is so tasty that they don’t really need to build a military base to get Americans to buy it. Maybe a clever marketing strategy might be more effective. I even gave them a few slogans, like ‘Hello! It’s taro!’ and ’Brush your teeth before bed, especially if you ate some delicious Filipino taro sweet bread’ but they didn’t really go for it. Cultural differences, I guess, eh? Ha ha!” joked the secretary.Many Filipino-American organizations are arguing in favor of the military base. “Out of 187 countries in the world, America has military bases in about 100. So really, the least America can do is accommodate for 30 of the Philippines most secretive and highly trained armed personnel,” argued Owen Guerrero, head of Filipinos for Equality, “America has always used their military power to force open foreign markets. I mean, there were CIA sponsored coups of Socialists in Chile and El Salvador. So why can‘t Filipinos do the same?”
To this point, Rumsfeld responded that the only reason America had to use military might was because most American products were, and still are, “crap”. “I mean, America makes junk like Charleston Chew and Chicken in a Biscuit. What else could we do but force people to buy it? " explained Rumsfeld, "But believe you me, people will be lining up for miles to get just a crust of that sweet bread, with or without armed men forcing them to. Trust me on that.”
Protests by various community groups have begun in Minneapolis namely because of the challenging aesthetics of the base. Due to the top secret nature of the military operations on the base, the Filipino government has designed a 300 foot tall, half mile by half mile, solid windowless cement building to be built on the land. Yesterday, community members planned a rally in front of the military-base-in-progress, protesting its imposing facade.
“It’s gonna look like a friggin’ IKEA in the middle of the city,“ complained Joe McDougal, a local resident, “except that I can’t get any of those delicious Swedish meatballs here.” McDougal, then r
emembering the pungent flavor of those moist sauce-covered meat spheres, began aggressively screaming “Meatballs! Meatballs!” at which the rest of the crowd started chanting, “Either this building falls, or we get Swedish Meatballs!” Thirty minutes later, in efforts to placate the rowdy crowd, local police officers brought the protesters plates of dry Italian meatballs which, after one bite, they began violently flinging at police cars.Despite the protests, the Filipino government has no intention of slowing down the construction of their U.S. military base. In fact, they have plans to build more bases in San Bernardino, CA and Sugarland, TX. The Minneapolis base is scheduled to be completed by December, just in time to force Americans to purchase Filipino sweet bread and coconut monkeys as holiday gifts for family and friends.
