"Humor has to have some cruelty in it to be any good. Thus, right-wingers have the freedom to make fun of poor people, sick people, women, gays, blacks, Native Americans, and everything else. All we let ourselves do is make fun of people in power."
I don't know about that. I'm not sure that humor has to have cruelty in it: "Did he say blessed are the cheesemakers?"....but it helps if it's funny. Terry Jones (I think that's who) has written some completely hillarious (and true) stuff about the war on Iraq and Bush's justifications.
I think the "left" fails to be funny because:
--it's impossible to be funny when you're self-righteous --humor requires creativity and there's plenty of sheepfulness on the left --humor requires a bit of relaxation, which is hard to come by if you're plugged into unrelenting activism and public displays of distress.
"First you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries, bend your head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!!!"
I think humor is a great weapon -- for one thing, it makes the powerful look stupid and incompetent, which they largely are. Harping on the fact that they're evil and all-powerful only serves to scare people and to aggrandize the "evil-doers." Think about it: Bush and his cronies would much rather be hated than laughed at.
DOW 36,000? No, DOW 536,789!!!
...to humor!
Joanna
If you can't say FUCK, you can't say FUCK THE GOVERNMENT. (Lenny Bruce)