We need to use ridicule as a weapon....

[kentuck]

And there is plenty of fodder. The Repubs have been very effective at ridiculing the "liberals". However, there is a great amount of ridiculousness in that Party- enough to last a lifetime. However, we tend to point it out in a very serious manner. We should mock it and laugh at them - rather than attempt to persuade people of damage they are doing. I don't know if we are capable but I think it might be more effective?

For example, Bush was walking around with his fly open but it was so small nobody could see anything...:)

[Somawas]

1. Humor, yes; ridicule, no.

People do not like being ridiculed. Al Franken suggested using more humor in his book Lies. I agree with that.

[ret5hd]

5. i think that is SOME of the point...

and some of those who particularly dislike being ridiculed may change their ridiculous behaviour.

[SomthingsGotaGive]

6. lol

"People do not like being ridiculed"

Of course they don't, thats the point.

I agree with ridicule. Most people just follow the leader and right now those leaders are the repug bullies. We are the smart, quite types always plotting never acting.

Well ridicule is what shakes the bully and makes him lash out.

We want to expose these extremists for what they are and if in doing so we can embolden the followers to fight back against the bullies then even better.

Worst case....you'll enrage a repug and get a bloody nose.

Well worth it if you ask me.

[library_max]

9. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

For the time being, there's no more point in being unified than there is in being serious or responsible. Since we're shut out in the cold, we might as well take advantage of the fact. We ought to attack the establishment Republicans from as many angles as possible, and ridicule is an effective angle.

Most effective would be to ridicule high government officials when they say or do something pompous or stupid that nearly everyone can laugh at. The trick is to be opportunistic and pick on things that people of all political stripes think are funny. What helps here is that we don't have to be fair or responsible at all.

Some of us could also ridicule the knuckle-dragging Bush voter (remember Archie Bunker?). Will they love us for it? No. But we aren't going to win them over anyway, and we might possibly succeed in making at least some of them feel ashamed of themselves.

And again, there's plenty of room for kinder and gentler progressivism, and even for serious fact-based progressivism (talk about unpopular viewpoints!). But if we've got a latter-day Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl in the audience, let 'er rip!

[MsAnthropy]

2. That will just make us "elitists" since they're too dumb to get the jokes

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

3. Jon Stewart is a great start in capturing the hypocrisy

I think part of the problem is that conservative media outlets (Fox, Rush, etc) have found a way to "kill the messengers" before they even deliver a message. They ridicule someone as a "liberal", "nut case radical" etc. before they even let the message be heard. Their listeners have already dismissed whatever content before it hits their ears.

Can the Democrats hire some topnotch, ivy league media and PR consultants? I think they need to start chipping away at the Republican hypocrisy slowly and methodically...don't wait until 6 months before elections to bombard people with TV ads.

[dubyaD40web]

4. Nothing shuts up a repig faster than laughing at him

And I mean a good hearty laugh whenever they say something ridiculous. There is really nothing they can say, and no way for them to respond when you just laugh at them, and if they try to get all serious and argue their point, laugh even harder. This is especially effective in a crowd (like at a bar, for instance).

They can't even really get pissed off about it, because then they really look like an ass, and you can just laugh even harder. It's effective, and it's fun. It's about damn time we start having fun at their expense.

[SomthingsGotaGive]

8. exactly !!

And well worth a bloody nose.

[chaumont58]

7. Dems got to learn to use any thing, period.

Nothing should be off the table. They need to learn that if an ad, or comment make repukes uncomformtable, continue, use it more often. In Colorado, a 527 had an ad against Marilyn Musgrave(sp?) that had repukes fuming. Instead of embracing it, some Dems apologized. Christ on a crutch. Dems have an enemy(repukes) that would deny their(dems) the right to exist. A decorated combat veteran, John Kerry, ran against a chickenhawk, and we got the Swift Boat Liars. Name one repuke that didn't support the Swift Boat Liars, even Bob Dole did. John McCain, that darling of the beltway whores, was silent.
Dems have to realize that they are in an Eastern Front type struggle with the repukes. Take no prisoners and kill the wounded. For the Dems that don't want to dirty their hands, I suggest they go to military funerals, and tell the dead how they refused to get down in the gutter. The dead will certainly appreciate that.

[Patiod]

10. Whew! Smokin' !!!

I'm with you 100%. Please -- "people don't like being ridiculed". Bah. Too bad. As long as we're not stereotyping ("all Christians are evil" "All red-staters are toothless, inbread, stupid hillbillies") and keep focused on their hypocrisy, greed and horrible ideas ("eliminate employee health insurance deductions to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy") I say ridicule away.

[kentuck]

13. If Kerry had made an ad ridiculing Bush's champagne Guard service...

and threw in a photo of John O'Neil in the Oval Office with Richard Nixon, that would have been the last we would have heard from the Swift Boat people.

[roseBudd]

11. I agree and here is why

From
Cheney Speaks to the Reptile Brain
by Thom Hartmann

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0817-13.htm

When Dick Cheney recently took John Kerry's comment about sensitivity in the war on terror out of context and spun it for his audiences, he was performing a psychologically masterful bit manipulation of all three brains. Only ridicule with a subtext of fear has this power.

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive," Cheney said, firing first the thinking brain ("too many wars") and then the limbic brain ("for our wishes"). And then he went for the reptile brain: "...but not one of them was won by being sensitive."

The comment brought an instant response of laughter - an emotional and involuntary response, as Freud pointed out, that's the result of the neocortex thinking it's moving logically along in one direction (a discussion of too many wars) and then suddenly getting derailed ("but not one of them was won by being sensitive") from that thought. This sudden derailment - known among comedians as the "punch line" - causes the thinking brain to be momentarily confused and triggers a response known as laughter that comes involuntarily from the limbic mammalian brain. (This is why comedy almost always involves misdirection, like in the old Red Skelton classic, "I just flew in from Chicago...and, boy, are my arms tired!")

But then, in a brilliant coup de grâce, Cheney spoke directly to his listener's reptilian brain, the part that most powerfully controls our behaviors because it constantly is vigilant to maintain our survival. "Those that threaten us and kill innocents around the world," he said, arousing the reptilian awareness of threat, "do not need to be treated more sensitively, they need to be destroyed."


snip

That being said:

George Bush is a punk ass bitch
Crony capitalist all about the rich

Dumbass sat for 7 minutes like a dope
While schollkids read "My Pet Goat"

No WMD in Iraq you fool!
Iran got nukes, N. Korea do too

Kerry punked Bush in each debate
Idiot boy Bush could not relate

[Village Idiot]

12. Ridicule has been tried -

the American Taliban has no sense of humour, however...