To the citizens of the United States of America, in light of your failure to elect a new President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the abolition of your independence, effective today. Emperor Palpatine will take over duties over all states, sectors and other territories. Except California, which he does not fancy. Your new Governor (Grand Moff Tarkin, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is anything at all outside your borders) will appoint a minister for each of your states without the need for further elections. The Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to becoming a member of the New Order, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1 - You should look up "Lightsabre" in the dictionary. Check the spelling guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been spelling it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary".

2 - There is no such thing as "American English". You will all now speak 'Basic', which is basically English but spoken in English so that it can be understood. We will let the Imperial Institute for Vocabulary know on your behalf.

3 - You should learn to distinguish between any accents outside the Americas. It really isn't that hard.

4 - Hollywood will be required occasionally to have the bad guys win once in a while, preferably all the time.

5 - You should relearn your original anthem, "Stars and Stripes", replacing the word "Stars" with "Star Destroyers" and "Stripes" with "Obliterate" but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6 - You should declare war on yourselves and then look to us for assistance, using nuclear weapons liberally to reduce the amount of land the Empire has to govern (and doing away with some of those southern states you keep whinging about). The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is anything outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Empire has never been the bad guys.

7 - The fourth day of the seventh month is no longer a public holiday. The eighth day of the eleventh month will be a new holiday. It will be called "Indecisive Day". The day after will be called "We were so blind" day. The day after that will be called "we'll lose out either way"
day and the day after that "thank God for Palpatine" day.

8 - All American built cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you unexplainable hover-cars you will understand what we mean.

9 - Please tell us who decided to kill Darth Maul off in 'Episode 1'.