Humor

To Make Fun Of Nazis, Look To Charlie Chaplin

August 27, 2017 Kevin Hagopian, www.theconversation.com Resist! Adolf Hitler, Charlottesville, Humor, Nazis

By Kevin Hagopian for The Conversation. White nationalists and neo-Nazis are having their moment. Former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke is back, yet again, in the media spotlight, while newer figures such as white supremacist Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell are broadcasting their views via social media feeds and niche internet channels. Many Americans are wondering if this resurgent movement should be ignored, feared or fought. What, exactly, is the best antidote for neo-Nazism? What about laughter? While the August 12 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia was no joke, the images of armor-clad, tiki-torch-wielding white nationalists did give fodder to late-night talk show hosts and editorial cartoonists.

“Yes Men Are Revolting”: Anti-Capitalist Pranksters Face Crisis, Hope

June 10, 2015 Andrew O'Hehir, www.salon.com Resist! Art, Capitalism, culture, Humor

By Andrew O'Hehir in Salon - I have nothing but love – well, let’s say almost nothing – for the Yes Men, the pair of activists, performance artists and culture-jammers who have repeatedly proved that it’s impossible to go too far in making fun of capitalist greed. These are the guys who have staged several of the most epic attention-getting pranks in recent political history, including driving down Dow Chemical’s stock price by staging a press conference to announce that Dow was taking full responsibility for the 1984 disaster that killed nearly 4,000 people in Bhopal, India, and would spend up to $12 billion on medical care, environmental cleanup and related research. As with the Yes Men’s other most effective actions, the key to the Dow ventriloquism lay in stretching plausibility not quite to the breaking point – is it dimly conceivable that a multinational chemical corporation might actually behave like a responsible global citizen?

Protesters Arrested For Satirizing Police Reach Settlement

June 26, 2014 Matt Sledge, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Humor, Occupy, Police, Protesters

Two Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested in May 2012 over a piece of street theater meant to satirize the New York Police Department have reached a $22,000 settlement with New York City, they announced on Tuesday. Bicycling activists Keegan Stephan and Barbara Ross were arrested as they were protesting the NYPD's practice of arresting Occupy Wall Street demonstrators who filmed the police at work. Dressed as comic exaggerations of cops, they were melodramatically ordering fellow bicyclists with the cycling collective Time's Up! to stop filming them. "This was during the height of the suppression of Occupy Wall Street. The police were cracking down, especially on filming the police, so this was a theatrical way to draw attention to the fact that it is totally legal to film the police," said Stephan. The joke went downhill when actual police officers showed up. Initially, Stephan and Ross were told they were being arrested for impersonating police officers. The charges against them were later downgraded to reckless endangerment and eventually dropped.

Valentines Day: Love Letter To The NSA

February 13, 2014 Rivera Sun, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Edward Snowden, Humor, NSA

Dear NSA, This is awkward. All these years, you've been a secret admirer and I never knew it! You've kept track of my phone calls, my emails; all of my communications, but now that Ed Snowden finally spilled the beans about how you feel about me . . . well, I hate to say it and break your heart, but I'm not interested. What were you thinking? There's a thin line between devotion and obsession - you've crossed it. If you're so fascinated by me, how come you never sent flowers on my birthday, hmm? Or took me to a nice restaurant? When Ed first told me how you followed my every move, I'll admit, I was flattered. You're so powerful . . .

Now, The War On . . .

November 21, 2013 Jodie Gummow, www.alternet.org Educate! Arts, Humor, Terrorism

A new campaign entitled, ‘ War on Irrational Fear’, launched by progressive ad agency, Incitement Design, aims to show Americans that our ongoing obsession with domestic terrorism is a costly and harmful distraction, which has been greatly exaggerated. According to its creators, the American media and elected officials talk about terrorism on a daily basis. However, when scrutinized, the actual death toll from terrorism in the United States is surprisingly small with an average of 4.6 American deaths per year from domestic terrorism in the last five years. The campaign puts a satirical spin on the “war on terror” through fact-based research and web video graphics which, according to Robert Arnow, campaign founder and director at Incitement Design, was inspired by Edward Snowden’s NSA mass surveillance revelations: “Snowden risked his liberty to inform the public about the illegal and immoral spying that was, and still is, being directed against innocent Americans. But almost no one in the media or government has addressed the elephant in the room: the data shows that domestic terrorism is simply not a big enough threat to justify the enormous sacrifice of public resources and liberty we’re making in its name"

NSA And Homeland Security Don’t Like To Be Mocked

November 5, 2013 Staff, www.prorevnews.blogspot.com Resist! Homeland Security, Humor, NSA

McCall has challenged both the cease-and-desist letters, arguing that statutes should not be construed to forbid his parodies because nobody could think that they reflect endorsement by NSA or DHS, and that, if the statutes are not construed narrowly, their application to McCall violates the First Amendment. We also argue that the statutory prohibition against “alter[ing] or mutilat[ing]” the official seal of any government is unconstitutionally over broad because it can too easily be construed, as Zazzle plainly did after receiving a threat of prosecution under that law, as criminalizing parody or expressive conduct that is protected by the First Amendment.

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