Posts Tagged Politics
The Sharp Political Humor of Will Rogers
Posted by admin in Political Humor on October 22, 2010
Will Rogers was an amazing person and one of the wisest men of any generation. His accomplishments include being a champion lasso thrower, a performer on the Broadway stage, the star of 71 movies, a radio broadcaster, an author of six books, and a syndicated newspaper columnist. Will Rogers traveled around the world three times and befriended presidents, senators, prime ministers, and kings.
Will Rogers was famous for his simple, insightful humor and his ability to connect honestly with everyone he met. His comments about politics in general and the politics of his generation are among his most memorable. The following are some of the best Will Rogers political quotes.
There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what’s going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best.
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.
The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, “How’s the President?”
An economist’s guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s.
Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing — and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.
If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?
Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice doggie” until you can find a rock.
A fool and his money are soon elected.
About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.
Our Constitution protects aliens, drunks, and U.S. Senators.
Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.
Politics is applesauce.
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it… You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him “father.”
There ought to be one day—just one—when there is open season on senators.
The country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of Congress.
If you ever injected truth into politics you’d have no politics.
Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.
We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?
Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.
Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States; they have not had one since Lincoln.
The 1928 Republican Convention opened with a prayer. If the Lord can see His way clear to bless the Republican Party the way it’s been carrying on, then the rest of us ought to get it without even asking.
There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.
All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.
Will Rogers was asked about the nature of his humorous remarks about politicians. “I have often said in answer to inquiries as to how I got away with kidding some of our public men, that it was because I liked all of them personally, and that if there was no malice in your heart there could be none in your gags, and I have always said I never met a man I didn’t like.”
The Evolution of Classical Satire Into Modern Day Political Humor
Posted by admin in Political Humor on July 30, 2010
Satire, as defined by the Britanica Concise Encyclopedia, is an artistic form in which human or individual vices, folly, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of irony, ridicule, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to bring about improvement. Literature and drama are its chief means of expression, but it is also found in other forms of media such as film, the visual arts, and political cartoons. Satires had been present in Greek Literature, with Aristophanes as well as in Roman Literature with Juvenal and Horace. Juvenal and Horace’s satires have since then developed according to their perspectives. To Horace, the satirist is a refined man who sees stupidity and insanity everywhere, but is moved to gentle laughter rather than to rage. To Juvenal, on the other hand, the satirist is a respectable man who is horrified and angered by corruption. Horace’s satires are friendlier in tone, thus containing no dangerous attacks against powerful individuals or serious vices. Juvenal’s satires, however, are bitter accusations of the vice and folly of his own times that include most men and all women.
The Elizabethan Period proved to be the Golden Age of Satire as satirists like Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe wrote works that were more direct and straightforward, leaving little room for subtle irony. In Voltaire’s Candide, he showed how having a ridiculously positive outlook on life will still lead to a life with numerable tragedies. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, exposed the cruelty of humanity, and Daniel Defoe’s Jure Divino, the writer made an elaborate and learned attack on theories of the ‘divine right’ of monarchs.
Through the years, satire developed into many forms: the Persian satire, the Elizabethan satire the Anglo-American satire, the 18th, 19th and 20th century satire to name a few. Different satires have developed due to the fact that these satires are responses to the issues present in their period. What started out as poems, books and novels developed in plays, adjusting to the changing times and interests of the public. Similarly, the satires of today’s modern world had developed into political humor, as more people can relate to the issue in this medium.
Political humor is best compared to satire rather than to parody, which is only concerned with mocking an original work. Political humor seems to have developed from Horace’s satires: amusing is but still able to address the issue at hand. Political humor should not be taken as a personal attack against a politician, but rather as an unsolicited advice from an observer. Satire is, after all, developed with the intent of bringing about improvement, and political humor seems to have developed from this literary genre. Politicians who yet to become objects of political humor should not fret about being in the spotlight. According to Maureen Dowd, a columnist at the New York Times, Republican Presidential candidate Barack Obama has not been the object of any political joke by American comedians mainly because “he’s very hard to mock”. He has kept an honest image and he has remained focused and serious in his work. With that kind of attitude, any politician can escape satirical political humor.
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