Can poetry challenge militarized language and propaganda? Are textual critique, parody, and satire adequate responses or do they reify these abuses? This question was over on Ron Silliman’s blog and interests me partly because it is a silly question and because it’s a question I often answer to myself (being inherently, biologically silly). Silliman, I guess, has given up or rescinded upon his communist past (well, I was lead to believe he was a communist) as he answers this with heavy commentary on American politics. Being a nominal American only, I just can’t understand the typical American response of outing the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats. Outside of America, it seems to make little difference in real terms (i.e. the number of bombs and big business dropping on foreign countries) who is in office. What I think is at stake is more of a cosmetic PR issue at best. George Bush is a moron and is an embarrassment to Americans who believe in America. Democrats are, on the whole, better spoken. Sadly, the greens, Ralf Nader, are not terrible well spoken either… But this isn’t what I intended to write about at all. Can poetry challenge…? Well, yes it can and it's not really a question of whether we should combine this with direct action - that's like asking can a car move? and getting the answer "yes, if we give it some gas". As far as I’m concerned this question is asking us more about the challenge itself. Since poetry can challenge, what type of challenge can it pose? Textual critique, going back to the car question, needs factual critique as well. A semiotic analysis of political speeches and jargon does have it’s place, but that is a fairly narrow following. … But parody and satire?? This must have been asked by a humorless group of people. Parody and satire are the lifeline of the ability to challenge “militarized language & propaganda”. Much of Swift’s writing, for example, or even some of Lee Ann Brown’s Oulipo National Anthems are testament to the effectiveness of parody and satire. Moreover, magazines like Private Eye in the UK keep this traditional alive.. Apparently, even Michael Moore is capable of satire. Certainly, a certain caliber of parody and ‘satire’ is counter-productive. The late night talk show variety (Jay Lenno, etc), from what I’ve seen (very little) is complicit in the comedian’s own celebrity and is almost always counter-productive. I’m out of time, but want to add that the only response capable of reifying these abuses is the militarized language itself. “Shock and Awe” reifies abuses. Any intelligent parody or satire of Shock and Awe exposes the shallowness and reification. …