moneypolitics & government

The plague of lolz

March Madness concludes, an event handled something like an outbreak of typhus in workplaces across the country; treated with quarantine and let to run its course. Recent racial tensions notwithstanding, it culminated in a charmingly integrated riot. But if it weren’t the parade of paid amateurs in their skivvies, it would be some other diversion; perhaps the buttons on our shirts or better, the buttons on Kim K’s shirt. Are the flags still at half-staff? Must be for Whitney, national treasure that she was. It couldn’t be that there are caskets burdened with the bits of American soldiers pouring into New Jersey as they have never been lowered for that yet. There is a drought across the nation. It is a drought not of water, though that, too. What we thirst for, seek and find absent in every dusty bucket on every rusted hook is seriousness for the serious matters; sobriety in the face of sobering events. We desperadoes are a small and vilified minority. Instead of frank discourse we meet the mouthpieces of vested interests or free-lance mouthpieces without portfolio who, on speculation, ape the paid press agents. For any who question the state of affairs, whether it is the public debt or private vice there is one ready rejoinder with all the insight and subtlety of a vuvuzela; lol.

A bit of pretentious jargon for the semi-literate, you know what it means; laughs out loud. Yes, the one thing that sets us apes above other critters, humor, has been weaponized. This is no modern phenomenon but it has taken a peculiarly perverted turn. Cicero stood nearly alone against the blood-soaked whoremonger, Marc Antony and while Antony had his legions and fierce temper, Cicero had only his tongue to employ at close quarters and his pen for effective fire at range. Antony, the gold-plated bandit, got the worst of it. One could even say Cicero was triumphant as he forced Antony to hang Cicero’s head in the Senate by that spear of a tongue and nail those delicate hands to the door. With that everyone knew the Senate was closed for business, while open for charades. This was what Antony did NOT want. Advantage Cicero. But while the old knight certainly dished out insult and obloquy it was not simple mockery, rather a calling to proper accounts.

Like so many other conventions of antiquity, the rules of civility versus mockery have been intentionally upended for tactical reasons. You hear of Alinsky, friend of Lucifer and at least philosophical antecedent to Obamaism. His Rules for Radicals explicitly favored mockery, derision, even sexualized and racially antagonistic assault for tactical reasons. He hoped to drive all decent people from politics in disgust, nearly a Mission Accomplished. And by politics he did not mean merely the high offices or offices at all. Alinskyism is to be applied across the board. Enemies on the Right, clearly are most constantly targeted but also are uncertain allies; mostly those with principled stands from yesterweek that are now inconvenient. If there can be anyone to the Left of the Progressive in office there is a slight readjustment of the sights. Instead of those parties being attacked it is the daft notion that there is legitimate connection to the more palatable actors. Observing that the President alternately embraces and then denies policies and people from the ghetto, draws fire. It is government by denunciation; no innovation there. The Soviet Script is what we have, the one taken to its logical conclusion in North Korea where, as we know, it is not confined to the ruling class but turns the life of everyone under its sway into hell. To be damned or a tormentor are the only choices.

Is there so much danger in unthinking and insincere laughter? Oh, you betcha. The laugh precedes the attack of the monkey horde. It is a quick banishment at the least, even when superficially kindly. Oh, honey. You just don’t understand, this fifteen percent we are taking from your check, it’s for your own good…. or someone’s anyhow. And you will hardly miss it! You are either child or invalid, honest laborer though you be. Your puerile complaints only warrant lolz.

But recall that some plagues fall on all houses, Pharoah’s not incidentally. There has been a turn of the worm. Setting: Chambers of the Supreme Court. Players? You know except for the poor fool tasked with the monologue. Verilli is his name and he showed up at a comedy thinking it was drama. The result made Keystone Kops look like Othello. Each “argument” was transparent, self-contradictory, tautological and thin. The Solicitor General, Verilli, was the object of open, spontaneous and quite sincere laughter. The availability of THREE friendly refs did not help much even when they took his foul shots for him. As we know, Kagan sat in Verilli’s seat as SG moments ago. Indeed she was the architect of his case! But even with the active intervention of her and Sotomayor and the recently treasonous Ginsberg, Team O could not put a point on the board. They have come to the Final Four in golf cleats and with cricket bats, tearing up the floor and cracking a few heads but only exposing the reality of their preparations to a gaping audience.  And no, swapping out Clement for Verilli  did not help.

In somber open court neither Justices or witnesses could help but laugh out loud! This isn’t quite unprecedented, a term we had best get intimate with, but it is fairly close. Could there be a shift in the wind that turns the lolz against their masters? In the press room, certainly laughter has long time precedent but so does the reflexive credulity with which those pressies receive any pronouncement from their favorite President ever! But precedent isn’t everything. A bored 1%er actually asked Press Sec Jay Carney to explain Joe Bidens’s assertion that Obama taking out Osama was the greatest event of the last 500 years. Preemptive hilarity buried the sad-sack Carney before he could taste the churn in his stomach. But it’s not his fault. He is sent out to defend the indefensible no less than Virelli or Clement or even Kagan when she presses her own briefs from behind the bench. It is all absurdity and nothing more. Laugh out loud at these clowns. Laugh out loud at their supporters.

Any comic will tell you, people want to laugh but are afraid. This also is a large element of the Alinsky strategies. Laugh first, laugh loudest and never cease; this is the gambit arrayed against you. You have seen it a thousand times. The laugh is deployed much like The Hand; as a barrier, a trench. A wall. But it’s fake. Genuine laughter shatters it all to hell once it gets started and you polite, friendly little farmers and ranch-hands out there should know, it’s already begun. Alright, watching Carney explain Biden might be Comedy Gold but it’s just too easy, isn’t it? Biden, pitched as some sort of elder statesmen in ’08 is well known as the stupidest man in public office; a high bar. But on more substantive issues the Plague of lolz has also struck at Carney’s podium. Last September there was a nasty outbreak on the subject of the President’s “jobs program”. The question alarmingly implies that it has been a bit of a bust. Carney rises to the occasion but even his friendliest of audiences rises back in guffaws.

That is bad news indeed. Not only are the pressies the most gullible of demographics; the most passionate of believers in Hope and Change, they are also vital cogs in the Obama Machine. The cogs are missing teeth. Returning to Obamacare, reliable Leftie and less reliable legal critic, Jeff Toobin, contemporaneously declared the Obamacare oral exam a “trainwreck”, modifying that the next day to “planewreck”. And he laughed, oh yes he did, that rat, at the hapless government attorneys face-planting as they defended legal precepts that HE had published with approbations just weeks ago. If Toobin is the mouth of Obama-friendly legal trends, and he is, he has just turned on his comrades and joined the other side of the dodge-ball field. This rodent knows a losing team when he is on one. Well, after halftime.

So the friendly arbiters are laughing. The contract retainers are laughing. The public is laughing. The Court is laughing. What could be worse? Only that now even their enemies are laughing. Behold the rehabilitation of Sarah Palin. SARAH PALIN! NBC employed her in a bit of interoffice politics to spite Katie Couric making this a media civil war that has done gone nukular! It’s the Scorched Earth Doctrine with Palin in the rubble smirking that smirk they hate so much. If that isn’t an infectious bit of drollery you must actually BE Katie Couric. But Palin has been benched for years, what else you got? We have also a certain Paul Ryan, the designated boogie man on maters fiscal and medical since Boner has been too accommodating to play that role. You may remember that Ryan was the fellow unsubtley portrayed as throwing granny over a cliff in her wheelchair, another example of Alinksytuned humor. Well, looks like the hoot is on the other foot. The denunciations of Ryan are the same… maybe worse, but now as the mood of the room has changed, it is Ryan who chortles.

And there is one last bit of bad news from the Humor Front. For years now, from the beginning, there is one institution that has been at least neutral, contrary to their habits, inclinations and personal interests. That would be the Pros, the mercenaries… the paid comedians. As showbiz types they are mostly liberal and mostly loyal to Obama if not the Democrats overall. Oopsie. The target is just too big and the rewards too great. Obama has now been officially thrown in the tank with all other Presidents preceding him. This development is unprecedented, at least for him, and as with his machinations in the Supreme Court, he seems to have never considered things might turn against him and has no contingency. Dana Carvey turns his fire not on Obama in particular but neither does he give him quarter. That’s enough. That’s plenty. No messiah, certainly no political messiah, can survive as just another dope like Reagan or W, can he?

I hope you laughed at that one.

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Obama.

Obama who?

President Obama!

lol

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2 Responses to “The plague of lolz”

  1. Hahahahahhahaha….((giggle)) ((gulp)) It feels good to laugh again!

  2. Yeah, get used to it.

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