Getting Over the Joke

Remember that time between 1995 and 2008 when these funny guys kept making the most black, but hilarious jokes about the f*cked-up state of our world and we just couldn’t stop laughing? And, like, each one was funnier than the next because things kept getting more f*cked up and we couldn’t catch our breath to save our lives. And how at first the laughter was all we could do to keep from crying and then later how we just got so used to laughing that it started to seem normal and we forgot that the shittiness used to make us want to cry….

Well that time is over.

Thank you Onion Newspaper. Thank you, John Stewart. Thank you, Stephen Colbert. Your satire has now awakened probably everyone in America capable of realizing it to the fact that the state of politics in our nation, our world, even, is one of the below:

A) Insane
B) Corrupt
C) Idiotic
D) Evil

Now everyone smart enough to “get it” can be proud of getting the joke. We all get the joke. WE GET THE JOKE. We get the joke. We get the joke. We get it. We get it. We get it.

Satire serves a purpose. It reveals to a distracted or misled populace the hypocrisy of its leaders. This is an important thing in a democracy because satire is not an end in and of itself. It serves to inspire informed action. To laugh at the hypocrisy is not the end goal of satire. If it were the end goal of satire, then satire would want to make sure there was lots of hypocrisy going around so that it could stay in business, right? Satire’s end purpose, like the end purpose of a teacher or a therapist is to not be needed.

Satire goes like this: 1) Hypocrisy is revealed 2) People act on new awareness 3) Hypocrisy is diminished. Satire does not go like this: 1) Hypocrisy is revealed 2) People laugh 3) People and satirists wait for more hypocrisy so they can laugh again. Unfortunately, the latter sequence is how it’s been going for the past 15 or so years.

John Stewart’s show works like a pressure valve. He allows smart, liberal people like himself to release a portion of the frustration they feel about American politics by giving them a good laugh. We watch, we get to shake our heads, feel smart cause we got the joke and be in on the coffee talk at work the next day. John Stewart and the Onion and Stephen Colbert have actually become more important to their viewers/readers than the politics they report on. They’ve milked political corruption for entertainment value and in the process achieved an incredible switcheroo in the consciousness of many Americans. Politics becomes the raw material for the end goal: satire. Just as a therapist may have an angry child beat up on a plastic doll, so clips of our leaders on these shows become dolls: stupid, inanimate targets for our aggression. We see them beaten up on and we feel better. We do not act.

George Bush is not a doll. He is a real person and he is running our real country. Unlike, a doll, he is behind the deaths of 4,000 Americans and many more Iraqis. Unlike a doll, he is pushing for oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. Unlike a doll, he has appointed Supreme Court Judges who will be in power until they die. Unlike a doll, he has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Unlike a doll, he has installed an education initiative that is suppressing the creativity of teachers and students alike. Unlike a doll, he is allowing the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains. Unlike a doll, he is infringing on the Bill of Rights.

If you are a voting American citizen, it is time to stop laughing. Global warming, war, poor education, privatization of health care, the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay…funny? And I ask that question, the ridiculousness of over-seriousness full in my head, yet warring with myself to stay sober. There are things that are not funny. I want to have children one day. There’s nothing funny to me about being afraid to do so. The fact that we have sat on our couches and laughed at these things for so long is hard to believe. Maybe there was laughing gas in the air, maybe we were just scared. To everything, there is a season. Now is the season for sobriety and action.

Despite what inspirational election campaigns may suggest, no leader is going to “save” America without the public asking for it. If we continue to be idle, decisions will be made based on what is best for those who are speaking up which right now are the corporations. It would be great if what was best for the corporations was also best for the people. But in the past decade, it’s been borne out that that is too often not the case.

I believe that people get as much freedom as they ask for. I think Americans do want freedom, but we’ve gotten lazy about it. The comfort of our wealth has softened us into complacency. A Russian friend of mine and I were playing card games one time. I had a great hand and felt sure I would win. Toward the end, after it was too late, I realized he was cheating and I was going to lose. He smiled and said, “Don’t think that just because you’re winning, your opponent isn’t cheating.” Maybe it was our naivete that had us Americans laughing for so long. Like, it was so unbelievable that we could be losing, we had to laugh – surely it wouldn’t last. People often laugh as a means of denial in response to shock. But shock dissipates and reality remains. There are forces dragging this country into a bad place and it’s time to take action to pull it back up.