Saturday, December 28, 2013

Comedy has been the left's greatest weapon, Herblock inflicted most harm, changed America forever-Harris, American Thinker

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"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Saul Alinsky

12/27/13, "Comedy as a weapon of the left," Susan D. Harris, American Thinker

"How is it that leftist mockery of conservatives became a staple of popular culture? One of the major sources of the attitude that now pervades the dominant media of our time is a man named Herbert Lawrence Block, aka Herb Block, aka Herblock.

As a political cartoonist, Herb Block used comedy and mockery with cunning skill. Throughout his seventy-two year career, he helped influence the political landscape through thirteen presidential administrations....

In retrospect, Block's greatest nationally inflicted harm was mocking America's response to Communism.  Only six weeks after Joseph McCarthy announced he had a list of known Communists, Block began a propaganda campaign that would change American history forever....

Thanks to people like Herb Block and his ilk, McCarthy became an American laughingstock, allowing communism and socialism to become "cool" in Hollywood, while Conservatives became unofficially "blacklisted."  Sixty years later his methods of using humor and sarcasm for social influence are a template for those still seeking to destroy conservative values.

Block's unyielding support of gun control and unquestioning belief in climate change also succeeded in influencing public opinion. According to the Herb Block Foundation, he won a total of four Pulitzer Prizes.  

To help further his ideological legacy, the foundation awards its own 'Herblock Prize.'  Among recent winners are editorial cartoonists for The Washington Post, Politico, and a weekly cartoonist for the Daily Kos political blog.... And while most of us hadn't heard of freshman Senator Barack Obama in 2005, he was the guest speaker that year at the Herb Block Prize & Lecture Awards Ceremony.
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It's an art all liberal ideologies have been perfecting since Herb Block drew his first cartoon. From Bill Maher to Tina Fey, Steven Colbert, and Jon Stewart, the left presses the grapes of comedy into a fine wine of vintage derision and acrimonious scorn for those they disagree with.... 
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How did the Socialists and the Communists and the Progressives and the liberals, and every name they go by, succeed in brainwashing Americans? One little joke at a time. Jokes filled with bitterness and lies that spread through universities, office cubicles and bars across the country and permeated the minds of low information voters....
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In this way, the greatest country in the world has been eaten from within by agitators that have the emotional maturity of second graders. The worst part is that we capitulated to these juveniles as we failed in what should have been our parental-like roles as defenders of our founding principles. We say, "Why take them too seriously, after all they're only kids, right?" or "What harm can they do?" 
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We invoked no authority nor enforced any discipline. We made the grave mistake of deciding to be their friends instead of their teachers. Unfortunately when we walked into the classroom, we found a chaotic revelry straight out of Lord of the Flies. The children took control by ganging up on everything that was right and decent and good and giving it the Bronx cheer -- An infantile, but historically efficacious strategy that began, at least in part, at the end of Herb Block's pen."
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Among comments at AT:

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a day ago: It's very simple really. When you don't have logic, facts, or truth on your side, when you don't have and actual argument, one of the easiest ways to make your argument is to mock. You get multiple logical fallacies in one blow! Make your opponent out to be an unthinking moron only an imbecile would listen to and it doesn't matter how substantial his arguments might be. Distort his position into a straw men more comical than Ray Bolger's portrayal of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz and your audience will cheer when you knock it down instead of noting the insubstantial reasoning of your actual position. 

Humor, like music, cuts past one's rationality filters and strikes directly at an emotional level. (I'm afraid of the naked emperor thinking me a fool, so I will certainly compliment the cut of his new clothes!) And since most people make decisions at an emotional level, and then later rationalize their emotional conclusions, humor makes a great tool for attacking one's opponent.

It's one of the reasons Rush Limbaugh is so reviled by the Left, he has mastered their own technique of using humor to strike back, except he does have logic, facts, and truth to back up his attacks, and that only makes his humor more effective in eviscerating them."

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Added: Mocking scientific fact that excess CO2 only exists in China, a comedy show sells the billion dollar a day global warming scam:

In 2012 a North Carolina democrat thought ridicule by the Colbert comedy show proved that Americans were responsible for excess CO2 that only exists in China (what some call global warming):

""This bill has made us the laughingstock of the country," said Senate Minority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe. "We've been on Stephen Colbert's comedy show.""

6/13/12, "North Carolina Senate Passes Anti-Nutcase Bill – AP Immediately Lies About It," Steven Goddard

6/12/12, "N.C. Senate approves sea level calculation bill," AP. Allen Reed

(Leaving aside that CO2 doesn't cause temperature increase to begin with.)

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Comedy sells terrorist beheaders and honor killers:

Comedian Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is praised by Islamists for mocking people who fear those whose religion allows stoning to death, chopping off hands, honor killing, and that remains silent about worldwide terrorism, beheadings, and the like: (pages 13 and 14 of report):





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