<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: On the Unpopularity of Leftish TV shows....</title></head><body> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br> This is characteristic of political humor: it needs a defenseless<br> victim. "Left" humor of the Eisenhower era had to go along with the<br> major ideological tool of that administration: the pretense that<br> Eisenhower was stupid. Hence the love of so many on this list of<br> equating capitalist policy with stupidity. Whether or not Bush is<br> personally not very bright is totally irrelevant. His administration is<br> bright enough. The archetype of all humor based on Bush's alleged<br> stupidity is the joke about "Bushonics" -- the real (whether intended or<br> not) target of that being Ebonics: mockery of which in turn simply<br> repeats the contempt of three or four thousand years for stupid<br> peasants, etc.<br> <br> If someone can devise a left humor that does _not_ put down any<br> individual person as stupid, incompetent, clumsy, fat, clumsy, blind,<br> deaf, dumb, etc., he/she might have something. _Might_.</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Carrol</blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>It is characteristic of far more than humor.  Two days ago a Tom Paine article at http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6329/view/print</div> <div>had the title BLIND, MUTE, DEAF AND DUMB</div> <div><br></div> <div>It found its way to mediatalk, a group which focuses on disaiblity in the media, and I noticed that today the title has been changed to "<font face="Arial" size="-4" color="#003399"><b>Just When We Need Them Most</b></font><font face="Arial" color="#000000"> </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="-4" color="#990000"><b>The Thinning Ranks Of American Reporters Around The Globe</b></font><font face="Arial" color="#000000">"</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">It is a drag to have to be reactionary -- as in having to constantly complain about the language used to caste institutions, people, you name it in a derogatory light by using disability metaphors. It is old, boring and we are sick of it.</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br></font></div> <div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">Marta</font></div> <div><br></div> <x-sigsep><pre>-- </pre></x-sigsep> <div>Marta Russell<br> Los Angeles, CA<br> http://www.disweb.org</div> </body> </html>