Against the Moralists: Brickbats Are an Art.

[smalll]

Many of us now deplore the tone and substance of the conversation here at GDP now that the Primary Wars are at full throttle, and that concern is fair and valid, up to a point: many of us are engaged more than usually in throwing brickbats. But throwing brickbats that hit their mark (and hit hard) is not easy to do.

Sure, people can post simple full-on rants, full of insulting nicknames for candidates and their supporters, larded with lies, and perhaps even spiked with a C-word or an N-word, and such rants will and should be locked. But such brain-dead freeperistic bickbats don't really hit their mark very well. The best brickbats (to make a wrenching shift in analogies here) work because they "get under the skin" of the opposing camp. And what gets under the skin the best are not lies (exaggerations or facts in a certain light are another matter) -- what gets under the skin best are truths (chosen with a bias, to be sure) hammered home with humor. And humor is hard to do.

Take this poll thread currently in play:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4496325&mesg_id=4496325
Sure, it's anti-Obama, and it's snarkulous brickbattery. But it works, because it's funny! Kudos to the OP.

To be fair, at times the Obamanians can exhibit a certain comic ability. Let me give one small example that struck me. There is a poster (or posters) out there in GDP who have as their sig lines: "Hillary 2008: Don't Get Your Hopes Up." Now I'm a Hillarite, so to me the fact that Obama seems to communicate in slogans and keywords (such as "hope") counts against him. That sig line tries to pooh-pooh and diminish my questioning of Obama's rhetorical emptiness. But that sig line is funny, I've got to admit! If I let it, it would get under my skin. Kudos to it's inventor. It could have said "Hillary 2008: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here" or maybe "Hillary 2008: The No-Hoper" which would have been like most of our collective productions, certainly like most of mine, only semi-funny. But now and then, inspiration can hit us, and it comes to us just perfect: "Hillary 2008: Don't Get Your Hopes Up."

So, moralists, get off the high horse every now and then. Sure GD:Primaries in "wartime" "is what it is," but it isn't a wasteland, a sewer or a cesspit. (This isn't Free Republic.) The best of our warriors here aren't thugs or goons, they're artists.

From one happy warrior to all the other happy warriors of GDP, have a good weekend, and may inspiration strike you at the right moment. May all your threads be festooned with recommends (AND with enraged responses that declare you are now "on ignore") may your brickbats hit hard, may you get under the opposition's skin, and, God willing, may you give the rest of us all a good laugh!

:hi:

[smalll]

1. I see someone recced this thread, but forgot to kick it!

I'll do that for them.

[beezlebum]

3. sorry

i walked away for a second after rec'ing

[beezlebum]

2. ignore!!1eleven!

:P kick and rec