So I've been following recently the debate that's been going on between Digby and Jamelle Bouie over whether it's really wise to use hyperbole and over-the-top mockery to thrash your political opponents. As you can imagine, I largely side with Digby on this matter and find constructions like this from Bouie to be particularly annoying:
Unlike myself, Moulitsas isn't a journalist, and his job isn't to be an honest broker for ideas; no, it's to rally progressives and score points against conservatives.
Bouie seems to me like the sort of person, to use the phrase of an old acquaintance, who would have been extremely upset that the wicked John Swift would suggest eating all those Irish babies.
Using hyperbole and outlandish mockery to skewer one's political opponents is a wonderful human tradition that extends back centuries. Not only is it a terrific way to blow off steam, but if done smartly it also garners attention by making your opponents convulse into fits of rage. Newt Gingrich understands this better than any other political figure -- he'll say stuff that he knows is outrageous and untrue simply to capture media attention and to push the conversation further to the right. Instead of coming out and saying, "I disapprove of Obama's plan to open up exchanges where people can get government-subsidized health insurance," he says something along the lines of "Barack Hussein Obama's secular socialist machine and its government takeover of health care post a greater threat to the United States than Hitler ever did." While liberals will all shriek and hem and haw about Gingrich's ridiculous rhetoric, the media will report it as, "Liberals deny that Obamacare is worse than the Nazis."
The idea is that you should always be whacking your opponent in the face with something that will force them to respond in a defensive manner. Markos understands this very well which is why his blog has been such a huge success in mobilizing people and money to elect progressive candidates over the past decade. The liberal establishment, best exemplified by Bouie's quote above, thinks that we only need to be "honest brokers for ideas" in order to win over the American public. Sorry but that ain't so.
That said!
I also think that in order to use hyperbole and caricature successfully, you have to also do it intelligently. If you're looking for a no-so-smart way of thrashing your opposition, look no further than this example cited by Bob Somerby today. This is Ed Schultz doing absolutely everything you don't want to do when you go on offense:
Beck’s rally, I’m telling you, folks, was no big shakes. It is not going to have any impact on the midterms. It’s what’s in our hearts and what we want to do to save this country is what it’s all about. Thousands of his followers—let me say it again so they don’t have to edit the tape: They were old, white, angry Americans who can’t stand the fact that there’s a black guy in the White House.
Let us count the ways that this is a really dumb and obnoxious thing to say:
- First, Schultz uses the words "old" and "white" as derogatory adjectives. Fellow liberals, this is a very silly way of trying to go after your opposition. In the first place, we liberals generally defend things like Social Security and Medicare, which are both designed to help old people, most of which are old white people. What's the point of expressing contempt for the people you're trying to help? Also, old white people vote in very large numbers. Do you really want to hand the vote of old white people to the GOP by calling them racists? And yes I know Schultz doesn't think every old white person is a racist. But why, then, use the terms "old" and "white" like they're slurs?
- Second, Schultz attacks people who are less powerful than he is. This is a major no-no for any major pundit or political figure. It allows demagogic jackasses like Beck and Palin to go on air and say, 'See? Ed Schultz thinks that if you're old and white you must hate black people!' Make no mistake, Republicans positively love it when a progressive lashes out at old, white people. They also love it when we call other people "rednecks," "trailer trash," and other terms intended to disparage blue-collar white people. Again, these are the people we're supposed to be helping out. They are unlikely to ever support us if we think they're all inbred hicks.
Now, I've made my share of yokel jokes about Confederate Yankee in the past so I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. But I've come to the conclusion that it's just not cool to use derogatory terms that are intended as insults to working-class people, no matter their race.
Now before you accuse me of being a Jamelle Bouie-style softy, let me say that I believe wholeheartedly in going after your opposition and whacking them as hard as you can. But it's something that has to be done by going after the elites within the Tea Party movement rather than individual protesters.
September 03, 2010 05:00 PM
Next time you have dinner guests over, make them a little nervous with this new apron splattered with what may or may not be glimmering silver unicorn blood! From Raptor Bandit Industries! (It is me. I am Raptor Bandit Industries) Also you may recall the SPACE FIGHT print I’ve been taking around to conventions this year. Well it’s now available to the general public who uses internet to buy things.
Don’t y’all forget I’m going to be at The Small Press Expo for my first time next weekend! Anthony will be there too! There’s actually such an amazing collection of many of my favorite artists, cartoonists, and generally just people that this is a show that I would personally go to whether I was exhibiting or not. I hope to see you there.
Finally a quick personal note. I know I’ve been doing a lot more sales pitches and things lately, whether for new TopatoCo products or for original art for the comic. And I just wanted to say thank you to anybody who’s made a purchase to help support Anthony and I make this comic. I don’t sell as many t-shirts as I did before you know… THE ECONOMY, but quite honestly it’s still pretty amazing that Anthony and I can make our livings off of giving free comics away. So thank you very much to anybody who’s bought a book, t-shirt, print or whatever from us. (Or multiple items! Shoutout to the dude who dropped $70 on our stuff while drunk one night.) We really appreciate it.
-Christopher
September 03, 2010 04:48 PM
It’s the High Birthday Season here at Wo’C, so we’ve got to grab all the gusto, and cram in all the Coulter we can! (Fig.1: Skeletor prepares for a night of festive line dancing at one of Snake Mountain’s many fine, Country & Western-themed bars and discotheques.)
Today our September-born luminary is longtime fellow Crapper AnnPW, proprietrix of the delightful blog, Beginning to Wonder. Visit it, and Prepare to Ponder!
This Date in History:
1260 – The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Palestine, thanks to their mukluks.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: during the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time. Washington Irving later immortalized the battle in a short story published in the Massachusetts Federalist, entitled, A Bridge Called Vagina.
1783 – American Revolutionary War: the war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain. Benjamin Franklin quietly commemorates the occasion by catching syphilis.
1803 – English scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements, and to confuse his enemies when making out his grocery lists.
1967 – Dagen H in Sweden: traffic changes from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight. The Archbishop of Uppsala, Primate of the Church of Sweden declares, “We’re Lutherans — this is about as big as our miracles get.”
Now let’s check out non-evil Ann’s horoscope and see what the cosmos has in store for her this year!
Luckily for you, the closest aspect in your Solar Return chart is a harmonious trine between Venus and Pluto.
It’s good they get along, because it’s hard for an armless woman to discipline a dog; she usually has to get down on her knees, a rolled up newspaper gripped in her teeth, and swipe at the dog with her whole head.
This could be a year when you fall in love, and this could be with a person
Mannequins are less likely to cheat or borrow money, but hey, to each his own.
Both the Sun and Mercury oppose Uranus.
They’re just jealous.
Your creativity is stimulated this year, but so is your excitability and your need for freedom!
But please don’t join a Glenn Beck rally. Uranus will thank you.
As well, the Sun and Mercury form a pleasing sextile to Jupiter.
I believe this means you’ll be immortalized in a naughty mosaic.
Mars in square to Pluto around the time of your birthday this year suggests that you possess powerful, transformative energy, and much will depend on how you handle it. Channeled positively, you could move mountains when it comes to moving your projects ahead. If mishandled, however, you could be argumentative, stressed, and hell-bent on having your way!
Although if you combine the two, and transform into a woman hell-bent on having her own way who just happens to be so powerful she can move a mountain, then you could become a world-conquering supervillain! We suggest you practice saying, “You will kneel before me, Son of Jor-El” into the mirror 30 minutes each day, just in case Mars and Pluto aren’t completely bullshitting you.
Saturn asks you to be responsible, hard working, dutiful, and serious. Neptune, on the other hand, places a veil over your eyes, and seduces you into believing what you want to believe rather than what really is.
Personally, I’d go with Neptune, but agree on a safe word first.
And that’s it from the stars this year. And from all of us, have a great day, Ann!
September 03, 2010 04:43 PM
Imagine that your name is Nathan Nabors and that you live in the sunny climes of Orlando, Florida. Imagine further that, back when Google announced its own Android phone and called it the Nexus One, you realized that your Orlando-based life would only be complete with the purchase of this shiny new gadget.
So you bought one, paying the full unlocked price of $563.38 from Google's online store. And, because you already had service with AT&T, you dropped a cool $230 to break that contract. Grand total: $793.38, and that doesn't even include a month-to-month service plan from T-Mobile.
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September 03, 2010 04:27 PM
A while back on Act Casual, we featured a little title called Grow Cube, by developer “On” at EyeMaze. The game was simple to play: Click the ten boxes in an order of your choosing, and observe the results and how your selections interplay with your previous selections. Rather simple, but fun in its own way. It’s a pretty straightforwardly casual title.
Now we bring you a new game, also by On: Grow Valley. In many ways, it’s the same game: Click the seven buttons in the order of your choosing. Watch as the results unfold. Try again with a new order. The mechanics aren’t very complicated, but the interplay between each of the seven options is interesting and the feedback can be fun to observe. You could sit down with a notepad and some free time to figure out the optimal order if you’d like, I suppose.
And at this point, given that description, you might be wondering why I’d feature this at all. It’s not just that this is a nice refinement on the Grow series, mere quantum leap though it may be. So here it is: On has added a more intelligible theme to the possible actions in this and the most recent predecessor, Grow Island. Namely, the new idea isn’t just wacky actions interacting, but now themed actions based on a university curriculum in science and engineering. Previous ones were fun, but a bit too “wacky” for me, in a way that conjured feelings of cat-hair mustaches. And Grow Valley’s refinement of that theme actually makes you think about the possibilities in specialized departments working together, rather than making you think about whether the pot and the bricks will somehow work together to make your Grow Tower even taller.
If you do come up with the optimal solution or another interesting combination (There's at least one Easter egg.), let us know! We could discuss whether it seems a worthwhile model of a curriculum, and whether the dynamic between options makes sense to you.
Why you should play this: The Grow series is growing up, becoming more than a fun time waster and now encouraging players to think about how groups can work together. Sure, this isn’t a new theme—especially not in the context of Japanese media—but it’s a respectable theme and a nice step forward for the series.
IndieCade Side note: Be sure to check out the recently released list of the 32 IndieCade 2010 Finalists. You may notice a few familiar titles!
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September 03, 2010 04:16 PM
WASHINGTON - Due to the poor economy, Congress voted today to rename Labor Day. This year it will be called "Sex Day."
September 03, 2010 04:16 PM
On her blog, Mackenzie Morgan reports on efforts to increase the number of women speakers at Ohio LinuxFest. Due to the outreach, the number of women speakers went from five of 31 last year to 14 of 38 this year. "Recognising the various concerns women speakers can face, we tried to specifically address potential issues in the email sent to women-focused mailing lists. Some of these known issues include lack of confidence in new speakers, not being clear what the intended audience is, or the "imposter syndrome," where someone doesn't recognize that they are qualified to speak on a topic. The woman to woman dialog made the difference.".
September 03, 2010 04:03 PM
