I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.
Interpretation
Satire should target those in power, as targeting the powerless is cruel and unrefined.
Molly Ivins emphasizes that satire, a form of humor often used to criticize, should focus on those who hold power rather than the vulnerable. Aiming satire at the powerless undermines its purpose and can perpetuate cruelty, highlighting a need for responsibility in comedic expression.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of social justice, one might quote Ivins to highlight the need for responsible critique.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.
Dreading that climax of all human ills the inflammation of his weekly bills.
I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
Grandma told me Mama was once caught by the Principal for writing in the front of her book, "In Case of Fire, Throw This in First." I have never had so much respect for Mama as the day I heard this.
Comedy is to force us to observe ourselves in ways that are humorous and yet, at the end of the day, that cause us enough discomfort with the status quo to make a change.
In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl.'
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