To the shock of some and the delight of many others, President Obama has called for public executions of the Wall Street CEOs whose “extreme avarice and irresponsibility have taken to the world to the brink of economic disaster”.

“These people have gone beyond moral depravity, beyond criminality, into the realm of treason against their own country and the community of nations,” the President said.  “We have a death penalty in place for traditional forms of treason — it ought to be applied equally to those whose selfishness and greed have led them to place the security of the whole world in jeopardy.”

Obama has proposed setting up special tribunals to try the accused under military law, with a greatly abbreviated appeals procedure.  “Justice in these cases needs to be swift, untempered with mercy, and pursued publicly,” the President said, “with nationally televised executions, so that all Americans, young and old, can contemplate the consequences of sociopathic behavior by those entrusted with the financial well-being of the nation.”

Obama has directed the Attorney General to study the feasibility of conducting the executions on Wall Street, in front of the New York Stock Exchange building, so that they will become part of the history of that fabled center of American and world finance.

“Let them die,” Mr. Obama said, “staring at piles of cash representing their executive bonuses for the years in which they were conducting their transgressions — taking one last look at the money for which they sold their honor and integrity as human beings and as citizens of a great republic.”

The ACLU, which initially expressed skepticism about the Constitutionality of Obama's proposal, has formally withdrawn its objections.  “Some actions,” said an ACLU spokesman, “transcend the issue of civil liberties.”

Meanwhile, the National Council Of Churches, an ecumenical organization representing a wide range of Christian denominations in America, issued the following statement on behalf of all its members: