the onion satire essay

Well, here we are. It’s been two years of fighting, over 100,000 people are dead, there are no signs of this war ending, and a week ago I used chemical weapons on my own people. If you don’t do anything about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. If you do something about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. Morally speaking, you’re on the hook for those deaths no matter how you look at it. So, it’s your move, America. What’s it going to be? I’ve looked at your options, and I’m going to be honest here, I feel for you. Not exactly an embarrassment of riches you’ve got to choose from, strategy-wise. I mean, my God, there are just so many variables to consider, so many possible paths to choose, each fraught with incredible peril, and each leading back to the very real, very likely possibility that no matter what you do it’s going to backfire in a big, big way. It’s a good old-fashioned mess, is what this is! And now, you have to make some sort of decision that you can live with. So, where do I begin? Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but let’s start with the fact that my alliance with Russia and China means that nothing you decide to do will have the official support of the UN Security Council. So, right off the bat, I’ve already eliminated the possibility of a legally sound united coalition like in Libya or the First Gulf War. Boom. Gone. Off the table. Now, let’s say you’re okay with that, and you decide to go ahead with, oh, I don’t know, a bombing campaign. Now, personally, I can see how that might seem like an attractive option for you. No boots on the ground, it sends a clear message, you could cripple some of my government’s infrastructure, and it’s a quick, clean, easy way to punish me and make you look strong in the face of my unimaginable tyranny. But let’s get real here. Any bombing campaign capable of being truly devastating to my regime.
Not to be confused with satyr. Satires redirects here. For other uses, see Satires (disambiguation). 1867 edition of Punch, a ground-breaking British magazine of popular humour, including a great deal of satire of the contemporary, social, and political scene. Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm— in satire, irony is militant [2]—but parody, burlesque, exaggeration,[3] juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This militant irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack. Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, television shows, and media such as lyrics. Contents 1 Etymology and roots 2 Satire and humor 3 Social and psychological functions 4 Classifications of satire 4.1 Horatian, Juvenalian, Menippean 4.1.1 Horatian 4.1.2 Juvenalian 4.2 Satire versus teasing 4.3 Classifications by topics 4.4 Classifications by medium 5 Development 5.1 Ancient Egypt 5.2 Ancient Greece 5.3 Roman world 5.4 Medieval Islamic world 5.5 Medieval Europe 5.6 Early modern western satire 5.7 Age of Enlightenment 5.8 Satire in Victorian England 5.9 20th century satire 5.10 Contemporary satire 6 Techniques 7 Legal status 8 Censorship and criticism of satire 8.1 Typical arguments 8.1.1 Bad taste 8.1.2 Targeting the victim 8.1.3 Romantic.
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The Satirist  features original works of satire and parody, especially literary artifacts, as well as serious criticism and book reviews. The Satirist publishes fake news as seen in  The Onion, but these are just for topical amusement; they don't generally purport to be of any lasting literary value. In fact, readers of The Satirist are as likely to be reading or citing our book reviews and movie reviews as enjoying our fake news , satires, poems, and essays. The Satirist sometimes wishes it were The New Yorker, aspiring to lofty heights of sophistication and perspicacity. Instead, The Satirist produces fake news, book reviews, movie reviews, and the occasional major piece of satire. Satire Submissions - Content Tips Satires often play with genre-bending. So it's always important to establish the genre of the satire. Fake news or news satires should read like a news article, unless it is purporting to be another type of article, such as an op-ed, an essay, a review, or whatever. Thus, the perspective and tone of the author should also remain consistent. (There are rarely good reasons for breaking down the verisimilitude of the piece, though it may appear irresistible at times, especially when aiming to achieve a higher level of absurdity.) For political satire, the better pieces take aim at, for example, both major American political parties, rather than take an obviously partisan position. Topical fake news is great, but generally has a short shelf-life. It's also worthwhile to aim for more timeless satire, difficult as it is. The Satirist - Submissions - How to Please familiarize yourself with The Satirist. Send an email to submissions[at]thesatirist.com with a query and/or a completed work. You should receive an automated reply confirming receipt. Please include the title of your piece in the email subject line. A funny title has a better chance to attract.
Hello. My name is Bashar al-Assad. I am the president of Syria, and in the last two years, you—the citizens of the world and their governments—have allowed me to kill 70,000 people. You read that correctly: I am an individual who has murdered 70,000 human beings since March 2011, and you have watched it happen and done nothing. I have killed many people: protesters, rebels, innocent civilians. You name a group of people and I’ve killed them. I have killed people with families and loved ones. I have killed mothers and daughters and fathers and sons, and I continue to do so. In fact, I’ve killed many people in broad daylight, but yet here I am, alive and still killing people. Because I’m able to continue doing this, I can only conclude that killing nearly 100,000 people must be an acceptable thing. After all, no one in the international community has done much more than verbally condemn my actions. So I’ve taken that as tacit permission to continue doing what I am doing, which, again, is brutally murdering tons and tons of people. As a side note: I do think it’s actually interesting that everyone knows how many people I’ve murdered, and yet nothing has happened to me. Don’t you think that’s interesting? In the 21st century? Anyway, I think it’s interesting. You see, I control a strong military, so I have been able to send soldiers to kill pretty much whomever I want. Some days there will be a public demonstration against me, and I’ll have the police fire live rounds into the protesters. And then sometimes I’ll send up an airplane and it will drop a bomb that kills dozens of defenseless people in a few seconds. Then I’ll wake up the next morning and do it all again because nobody has tried to kill me or arrest me. That’s a pattern I’ve been repeating, unimpeded, for almost 750 straight days. Seventy thousand people: That’s 96 a day for the past two years. In fact, I just.