Bradley Manning wishing he’d just shot an unarmed black teenager

[HardTimes99]

99. With all due respect to you, satire is not necessarily supposed to be

'funny' or 'amusing'. When done right, satire is supposed to hold a mirror up to society to show it its foibles and, at times, its brutality.

Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" actually mock proposes that Ireland's poor children be eaten as a way to solve Ireland's poverty and malnutrition problems. Now no one in his right mind ever thought or thinks that Bishop Swift was actually advocating cannibalism. Instead, Swift's persona uses the language of cold-blooded rationalism to make cannibalism seem not only proper but logical, given the dire straights then facing Ireland's poor. It's most definitely not funny and some here on DU would even call it 'outrageous'. And yet, Swift's work has earned it the distinction of the top 1-2 pieces of satire in the English language (probably tied with Orwell's Animal Farm and possibly Heller's Catch 22).