Dave’s latest lumbers a bit – it’s a lot like one of those grand setpiece blog pieces that are meant to show everyone just exactly how it is with wit, parody and sparkling satire, but trips over its own shoelaces.
The basic problem is the precept, namely that George equals Adolf. This is taken as a given for Dave but it only really works if there’s a general appreciation that this is in fact the case, which there isn’t. And as I say, the piece lumbers too much in the execution to be persuasive (too many fake Cherman names, made up characters that don’t do anything or have any relevance, a generally cluttered scenario, etc).
Hey, I’ve got one for you: Imagine George Galloway stamping on a human face forever. Now that’s funny.
I’ll refer Dave to the absolute classic in this genre, namely Alexander Cockburn’s spoof interview of Adolf by Andy Warhol. I can’t find the whole thing online, but there’s an excerpt here, in an article by non other than our favourite uber decent, Christopher Hitchens.
Of course, if you’re going to accuse Galloway of being a Nazi, you’d best do so in a non-suable manner. The interesting contrast here with Nick is in the ending. Dave takes the ameliorative view that George and the boys will just fade away of their own accord. Nick, on the other hand is – what’s the phrase – chewing the carpet? Whoops, metaphor!
rioja kid
9 Comments:
I thought that in the Aaro parody world Hitler was Saddam? And if Saddam = Hitler and Hitler = Galloway, does this mean that, by transitivity, Galloway = Saddam, too? That'd be convenient.
I thought the courtroom parody was a terrible piece - I really wonder whether he is aware that there were trials of leading Nazis at Nuremberg?
The new piece I can't face reading. Is there any point to it? The idea behind it seems quite offensive.
Don't mention transitivity!
In the mad mad world of decentism, the classic discussion is here:
http://tinyurl.com/cutso
where Eve Garrard claims that saying X=Hitler is a form of Holocaust denial just in case X is or war less bad than Hitler. Clearly Dave didn't get the memo.
that should be "or was", clearly my "Don't mention ... " opening subverted my fingers.
I wonder if at a Decents' party Eve Gerrard has ever met Carol Gould? Surely Eve's opening line would be to accuse Carol of Holocaust denial using that argument*? I can't imagine they would get on well.
* For instance: "Melanie Phillips goes so far as to use the ‘Goebbels’ word to describe this BBC offering, and I thank her for having the courage to be one of a handful of voices who see the United Kingdom sinking into a kind of madness", or "Never has Great Britain looked so much like Nazi Germany as it did this week" or, "It reminded me of a comment made to me by an American expatriate shortly after 9/11: ‘Now I know what the Jews felt like in pre-war Germany."
"Is there any point to it?"
The point appears to be that George and his supporters are Nazis, despite the absence of trivia like a biological theory of history, master race ideology, private militia and a belief that the nation has been stabbed in the back by lilly livered liberals, etc - which last sounds more like Nick.
The style is like your uncle dancing at a wedding, and refusing to stop till he's finished, which takes far too long a time.
I think Dave has not quite got the message and he should use the blog for ideas he has that aren't really good enough for the Times, not the other way round.
On the subject of Eve Garrard and what you can and can't say about the Holocaust, this, and the fact that she actively campaigned for Oona "the current situation in Palestine is exactly like the Warsaw Ghetto and we should therefore boycott Israel" King, suggest that she would get on with Carol Gould better than you might suppose. I think it's called "moral clarity".
Mmm, it does seem that anything is possible, but I suspect Carol's declaration that 'Never has Great Britain looked so much like Nazi Germany as it did this week' after that Labour activist was thrown out of the conference might be a step too far.
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