A regular reader of this publication has complained that it is too relentlessly gloomy about the state of the union. This criticism was offered in a friendly conversation shortly after the Super Bowl, which had been delayed for more than 30 minutes by an electrical outage in a city the government touts as a leader in the “energy efficient forefront,” and he seemed sympathetic to our argument that we are merely offering our most dispassionately objective assessments of the contemporary scene. Still, we vowed to our friend that we would henceforth scour the most reliable new sources for any heartening developments.
It isn’t much, perhaps, but we are pleased to report on a brief episode of resistance we shall dub the Photoshop Rebellion.
This minor skirmish in the culture wars began with the latest clamor for any sort of gun control that might get passed into law, whether it does any good or not, and the president’s unmistakable endorsement of this frenzy. In an apparent attempt to seem a likeable sort to guy to the gun owners whose rights he was threatening, the president then revealed to the press that he practices skeet shooting “all the time.” This claim was met with widespread ridicule, including a especially witty posting at this site, and the White House was so stung by the mockery that its spokesman derisively called the skeptics “skeeters” and presented a refuting photograph of the president firing a shotgun. It made for an enjoyably comical spectacle, except that the White House added an ominous warning that “The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.”
In other words, the White House was warning the supposedly free citizens of the United States that it would not tolerate any ridicule of its silly photograph of the president looking utterly ridiculous. Such thin-skinned and heavy-handed language is common to authoritarian states, where the populations meekly heed the threat, but here the public responded with an appropriate outpouring of more ridicule. Wags of varying wittiness took to the internet with “tweets” of derision and defiantly manipulated versions of the photograph, providing many chuckles to conservatives at a time when they are in distressingly short supply. These subversive satires will likely reach a limited audience, mostly comprised of those already inclined to regard the administration as ridiculous, but it seems a heartening development nonetheless.
The truest measure of freedom, after all, is a country’s ability to laugh at its leaders. Although the administration seems determined to eradicate this troublesome American trait, and has largely succeeded in the mainstream entertainment media, it is good to know that noses are still be thumbed out there.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 