The message of satire…

Good morning, Netizens…

In today’s David Horsey cartoon in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer online newspaper, Horsey asks a question that perhaps may infuriate some while it is hoped will perhaps engender some awareness of the question, ‘What is McCain’s message?’, perhaps even get some responses that are thought-provoking rather than accusatory.

I admit freely and openly that for over decades I have been what is termed a “news junkie”, simply because I read and watch news as a normal course of operation of nearly every waking hour of every day that passes by. Excepting recently .

Suddenly there are more half-truths, outright fabrications, hysteria and rumor-mongering going on in politics than I ever recall in my life, and it is coming from both parties, Democrat and Republican alike. Some advocates once naively promised us that the Internet was to become a source of knowledge and learning, but in this Presidential election, the Internet is more like a hysterical hotbed of hostility and half-baked, unverifiable information that always seems to have an edge quite similar to an old-fashioned straight razor after a thorough stropping.

Most recently, the general overtones in some areas of the country have turned past mean-spirited and just plain nasty, racist and ugly and suddenly in American history it seems we have lost the ability to laugh at our own selves without becoming targets of whatever political side seems to feel oppressed by anyone holding an opinion based upon mirth or irreverence.

When viewed through the microscope of American satire, people such as David Horsey, I can think of no two people in American life who are more deserving of close examination that Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin.

What is satire, one may ask. According to the Wikipedia, “In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.”

Satire defined

I personally do not care which party platform you support. If you have lost the ability to acknowledge the humor in either candidate, regardless of your affiliation, you have begun the descent into a mirthless, humorless sea filled with angry monsters at every turn. Thus you will miss the truly important questions being asked, such as What is McCain’s message?

Dave