A Tale of Two Satires
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Some people love my satire. Some people hate it. Many like some satires and styles more than others.
I wrote two satires yesterday in very different styles. The first is broad, silly, and too obvious to require explanation. (Everyone has heard of Trump threatening Greenland, Canada, and Panama, and wanting to rename the Gulf of Mexico.) Since Trump presents as a clown, clowning around with Trump’s clownishness is neither subtle nor acerbic. The piece only stings at the end—and the victims are Trump’s supposed opponents, the Democrats.
The second is obscure, acerbic, and morbid. If it’s humour noir, it’s got more noir than humour. To understand it, you need to know that Zionist hack David Frum just published a piece pretending to defend settler colonialism in Canada, when what he’s really, secretly defending is genocide in Gaza.
So…which of these satires do you like better (or worse) and why? Which of my complete collection of satires are your favorites, and least favorites? And finally, if you like this or other aspects of my work, but aren’t contributing to my January Spotfund appeal and/or my Paypal page, why shouldn’t I satirize YOU? ; - )
Trump Vows to Invade & Occupy Everywhere and Name Everything After Himself
Donald Trump announced this morning that upon being sworn in as president on January 20, his first act will be to invade various countries so he can name them after himself. After invading Greenland and renaming it Trumpland, Trump will invade Mexico to rename it Trumpxico, Canada to rename it Trump-a-duh, and Panama so he can steal the Panama Canal and rename it Trump Canal. He also plans to have Republican allies introduce legislation to rename the United States of America the United States of Trump. Following the Trumpification of North America and environs, the president-elect intends to carry out similar campaigns against the four other continents, the moon and planets, neighboring solar systems, the Milky Way and other galaxies, and ultimately the utmost extremities of the known universe.
The Democratic National Committee issued a statement claiming that Trump’s plans to conquer and Trumpify the universe represent a threat to democracy—and, more importantly, to the availability of sex change operations for needy children. The DNC vowed to save democracy by nominating an unattractive candidate in the 2028 elections, assuming Trump decides to hold them, and added that even though Trump is Hitler they looked forward to making him more popular than ever by pursuing increasingly ridiculous prosecutions and lawsuits.
The eminent Canadian Jewish intellectual David Frum has published a new article arguing that the term genocide should never be used pejoratively. In his Atlantic piece published yesterday, Frum argues that settlers who cross the seas to exterminate and expel native populations are actually perfectly nice people, and that the mass murders, rapes, and other crimes against humanity they commit should not be viewed negatively. Instead, he argues, we should take a neutral, detached view of the people who rape people to death with batons, make national heroes of the rapists, murder children and feed their corpses to dogs, freeze other children to death, tie people up and run over them with tanks, shoot down crowds of starving people when they line up for food, make fortunes selling the organs of the people they murder, bury crowds of people alive with bulldozers, systematically annihilate medical facilities and exterminate medical personnel, gain rabbinical blessings for their crimes, and generally set world records for sadism and murder.
All of that is perfectly fine, Frum argues, because “history abounds with stories of conquest: The Arabs exploded out of the desert to impose Islam upon the Middle East and North Africa; King William and his Normans crossed the English Channel in 1066; the Manchus overthrew the Ming dynasty to rule China.” Bad things were done during those conquests, Frum points out, so we shouldn’t take a negative view of bad things happening today, especially if they are being done by Jews. Frum explains that it is antisemitic to oppose raping people to death with batons, at least if the rapists are Jews on a mission to exterminate Amalek. Why single out Jews when other groups have done bad things too? Anyone who does that must hate Jews, which means they too ought to be ruthlessly exterminated.
Frum adds that since homo sapiens replaced the neanderthals 40,000 years ago, “the system of beliefs that so negatively judges genocide is itself one of the most refined and exquisite products of genocide.” In other words, nobody would be condemning genocide if there weren’t any modern humans around to condemn it. If we hadn’t exterminated those neanderthal brutes, Earth would now be dominated by a bunch of cave men grunting about amalek, which would be almost as bad as the world we have now—a world overrun with antisemites who don’t like it when Jews exterminate whole populations to steal their land and resources.
Since antisemites invariably use the term genocide with a tone of condemnation, Frum, argues, we need to develop surveillance-and-punishment robots with AI algorithms that can distinguish tones of voice and inflict severe pain on anyone who intones the word genocide with anything less than complete neutrality and apathy:
The comedian Louis C.K. has a bit about the word Jew being an unusual word—it can be both the perfectly correct term for a Jewish person and, depending on the tone, a nasty slur: “He’s a Jew,” as opposed to “He’s a Jew.” Fortunately AI-driven killer drones can now make that distinction in a microsecond and dish out the appropriate punishment as warranted. We ought to deploy the same technology to police the word genocide.
A poll of Frum’s readers found that 63% agreed that the word genocide should be banned as hate speech unless spoken in a neutral or approving tone of voice. The remaining 37% will be subjected to heightened scrutiny by AI internet surveillance bots and, as deemed necessary, deplatformed, raped to death with batons, or otherwise exterminated.
I enjoyed both satires, each in their own way, with the second being more to my personal taste and bias, not being from North America.
Back in the 60s and 70s I used to read the Atlantic. So having them OK genocide is kind of a surprise, but since it is a satire I don't know what this jerk actually said. Can you link the article? Sometimes I think accurate reporting of all the murders, rapes, and burnings is better. We seemed to be winning when it was just Gaza rebelling. When Hezbollah got involved it became a war rather than a genocide. Trump is acting like a clown and is headed in the wrong direction. Why do all the aggressive, imperial jerks always get elected. Is the problem Democracy, or are we too big to have a Democracy? Is it the party system, capitalism, the Oligarchy, or the human race?