Memory Hole #3

COLD NEWS #3

Commentarian: “Pain + time equals humor.” 

Lenny Bruce

            To paraphrase Jane Fonda, it's just as important to laugh at your opponents as it is to argue. That is the essence of a winning strategy when it comes to confronting the narrative laid down by Regressives.

            As a Southerner born and raised, I've lived among racist white guys most of my life and they have no sense of humor, except, ironically enough “black humor.” “Haters” don't laugh, except with a Bushian smirk and caustic Rovian edge. This is a natural but self-destructive vent for people who are neither self-aware nor self-effacing. Their hatred eats them up, not just because they need to feel superior over “the others” but because they have a blind lock-step narrative blotting out the voice of their own “better angels.”

            Now Regressives are very good at declaring war against anything they don't like: communists, drugs, abortion, liberals, unions, public education and women,but their galvanizing narrative, meant to “rally their base,” lacks the human touch—in other words they are all stick no carrot. In the 21^st century, they're only speaking the language of the 23%-ers, the Cheney wing of the Regressive Party.

            Progressives have always had the edge when it comes to funny. Regressives have Dennis Miller, the Ted Nugent of comedy. We've got a  vast array of humorists, male and female, a people's army of words versus a narrative of fear. This is our strength, we can laugh at ourselves. They can't, or their mask of authority will crack.

            I believe Saint Colbert is our most potent weapon. He is the guy who put the photon torpedo into the Bush Death Star. He went into the teeth of the industrial media's 9/ll narrative, turned it inside out and captured it. Saint Cobert be praised! He introduced word substitutes like “truthiness” into the modern lexicon. As a personal note, I'm trying to invent “piratize,” “Regresssives” and “commentarian” as my own word substitutes, no small task there.

            To those of us brought up on “1984” and Orwell's newspeak, we know that the stark language of authority is designed to limit. With a reduced language the proles could not revolt because there was no word for revolution. Talk about controlling the narrative, Big Bro had control over the dictionary and the media. Today's industrial media mirrors old school Stalinist language control enhanced by 21^st century technology.

            Slang produces new words, ultimately producing the language of tribes, cliques, ethnic minorities, and interest groups, also enhanced by the social media, which is inventing words at a faster rate than the “dictionary” can absorb them.

            To the Progressives, follow in the footsteps of Saint Colbert, and create your own narrative, using your own language. Remember the words of George W. Bush, “a mind is a terrible thing to lose.” Unless you lose it while laughing.