Mockery

The problem with most political jokes is that the get elected.

- Will Rogers

Highly centralized regimes place a premium on creating and maintaining an image of competence.  Mussolini made the trains run on time, and all that.  Of course, most aren't very competent, and therein can lie the seeds of their downfall.  Most dangerous to these regimes is laughter, directed at them.

People are resilient, and humor is a universal outlet when things get bad.  Oftentimes the worse things get, the more people rely on humor.  This happens even in the most unexpected places, like Hitler's Third Reich, where political jokes became a high form of mockery:



Stalin's USSR, too - even with the Gulags:



Remember, these were all jokes told by the citizens of those countries at the time.  This can be devastating when picked up and amplified by an adversary.  The most recent example (and in fact one of the most effective) was Ronald Reagan, poking fun at the Soviet Union using the jokes of the USSR's own people against it:



The difference between pretense and performance simply begs for a pin to puncture the balloon.  And so to today, and our own leadership.  It's fair to say that never before in the Republic's history has a candidate for president made such outlandishly over the top promises, amplified by a sycophantish media:

 

It all begs for a pin, to prick the bubble on conceit.  Laughter, as it turns out, can kick the halo aside, especially when it starts from a commonly held belief about the target:

Obama was leaving the country club golf course when he was accosted by an armed robber who demanded, "Give me all of your money!"

Barack haughtily replied, "Do you know who I am? Let me be clear - I'm the President of the United States!"

The robber thought for a minute, and then said, "OK, then give me all MY money."

I'd like to humbly propose a meme, one of mockery of The Won on TheOne'sday (err, Wednesday).  A regular day in our little corner of Al Gore's series of tubes, devoted to pricking the balloon of conceit with laughter.  I'll even try out my Photoshop with Obama as Moses, turning back Global Warming by parting the Red Sea ("This is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal.")

The Soviet people started it.  One day, a political figure stepped up to amplify it, and suddenly the walls came tumbling down.  Let's lay the groundwork for that day.

Ridicule is Man's most potent weapon.

- Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals