We're not funny enough

[Alpharetta]

I think I know a reason Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. It’s because he wasn’t funny enough.

Somehow, back in the 60’s and 70’s, we thought if we laughed at the stupid-ass things conservatives did, everybody would catch on how stupid they were.

It worked for a while. We had Jimmy Buffet putting the gay-hater Anita Bryant back in her place. We had George Carlin poking fun at government censorship. We had Rowan and Martin poking fun at Johnson and Nixon. We had Hunter S. Thompson and Garry Trudeau.

The hypocrisy of the right was obvious. The moralizing right-wingers kept getting busted. Jimmy Swaggart caught with a whore. John Towers with alcohol. Tammy Faye with diamond dog collars. We laughed and laughed and prevented the worst of them from taking over.

But it wasn’t enough. Somehow the hard right just got harder and more hateful. On the airwaves they found their own humor in hate, laughing at prison rape, drug addiction, homosexuality, peace, vegetarianism, compassion, and poverty. They made hate acceptable. Archie Bunker was transformed from a pitiful caricature of a rightwing idiot to a model of rightwing patriotism.

Somehow, the left wing humor just wasn’t funny enough to stop the onslaught. Sure we could laugh at Bush and Rush for their hypocrisy at condemning drug abuse, but nobody got the joke any more. The rightwing outrage carried the day. It was a coalition of hypocrisy and they flooded the airwaves with Clinton got a blowjob, Hillary is Hitlery, ha ha ha.

Survivors of the Holocaust say humor was their defense. We can learn something from that. But humor didn’t open the gates of Treblinka and Dachau. Oppression does not yield to humor or shame. Hopefully our surviving humorists will remember that and not take themselves too seriously.

And get back to work, dammit. I need a laugh!

[nostamj]

1. hey! I do my best......

I'M FOR SALE or, "The Ballad of Jeff Gannon"
(to the tune of "Love For Sale" with profound apologies to Cole Porter)

FOR A WHITE HOUSE PASS ON MY BULLDOG NECK
I'LL IGNORE THE FACTS, LET THEM GO UNCHECKED
IT'S A BIZ I'VE BEEN IN BEFORE...
I'VE SOLD MY ASS

TRUE MY MAN DATE WORK WAS TOUGH ON THE KNEES
SO I ASKED: CAN I BE A JOURNALIST PLEASE?
WHEN MY JOHN GAVE ME HIS SMIRK...
I WENT TO WORK...

SPIN FOR SALE
RHAPSODIZING BUSH SPIN FOR SALE
SPIN THAT SELLS YOUR LATEST LIES
SPIN STRAIGHT FROM MY MANLY THIGHS
I'M FOR SALE

BUY MY PRIDE
IF YOU SEEK DISTRACTION, I'M YOUR GUIDE
ON THE FLOOR AND START TO BARK
JUST IMPRESSIONS, NOT A MARK
I'M FOR SALE

LET THE LIBRULS FLING THEIR POOP
IN THEIR LOSER WAYS
IT WON'T GET THEM IN THE LOOP
LIKE MY BOYTOY DAYS

IF YOU PAY YOUR WHORE ENOUGH
THEY'LL DELIVER FLUFF OR ROUGH
ONLINE, ON CUE
EVERY WORD IS UNTRUE

I'M FOR SALE
MILITARY TOUGH STUFF FOR SALE
AND WHEN SCOTTY CALLED MY NAME
WE'D JUST WINK AND PLAY THE GAME
I'M FOR SALE
I'M FOR SALE
I'M FOR SALE.....

[Hoping4Change]

2. Great post. Have you checked out swiftreport?Amazing satire.

Its a must see.


http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/2005/02/christo_in_craw.html

:bounce:

[American Tragedy]

3. Ah, don't forget Herblock, Levine, and the other great cartoonists

They can have magnificent impact. For years, Nixon complained that he could never erase the public persona engendered by the infamous Herblock image of him emerging from the sewers to terrorize political opponents.

I don't know what's happening in this country now. For the past four years, I've felt like a normal individual trapped in an insane asylum surrounded by catatonics and paranoid schizophrenics. This site has been one of the few outlets for me as one of the sane, and the other members of the reality-based community.

[ChairOne]

4. But seriously - vegetarianism IS funny! lol /eom

[kittenpants]

5. the Daily Show keeps me sane by acknowledging how ridiculous

this administration is... I have to either laugh or cry & I'd rather laugh at 11:00 at night.

[senseandsensibility]

6. You have to be intelligent to get humor

especially sarcasm and parody. The people who listen to Rush and Hannity are not bright. And we haven't figured out a way to reach them. It needs to be very direct and fact based, true, and aggressive. Ridicule should also be used.

[kittenpants]

7. maybe we could hit bush in the groin with a football--that might get them

[senseandsensibility]

8. It couldn't

be any less effective than what we ARE doing!:9

[nostamj]

9. you know the commercial where the idiot skies off his roof

and crashes onto a truck?

it always makes me think of *'s foreign policy skills.