Too absurd to lampoon

Too absurd to lampoon

Famed political satirist Tom Lehrer, who died in July at 97, long lamented the end of his beloved political satire career. That occurred in 1973 when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris Accords designed to end the Vietnam War.

The ceasefire quickly fell apart allowing the war to grind on for two more years till North Vietnam overran the South, sending the US military fleeing in chaos.

Kissinger, architect of Nixon’s vaunted peace plan that elected him in 1968, voraciously promoted endless war for 3 years prior to the award that killed over a million Vietnamese as well as 20,000 US soldiers. Not a single one of those deaths were necessary. Yet, Kissinger proudly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, then spent his remaining half century endlessly defending his murderous war policies.

Lehrer remarked at the tine "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize". Lehrer felt real-world political events had become so absurd that satire could no longer effectively lampoon them.

Fifty-two years later the Nobel Prize continues to go to figures more deserving a War Prize. This year the Committee selected Venezuelan opposition political figure María Corina Machado who for over 20 years now has been supporting US efforts to overthrow the socialist Venezuelan governments of Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro. She currently backs Trump committing mass murder obliterating small unarmed boats in the Caribbean near Venezuela and has endorsed US land strikes in Venezuela which appear imminent.

Her strong ties to Israel’s Likud government have increased since they began their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza two years ago. One reason is her opposition to the Maduro government’s support of a Palestinian state.

If Tom Lehrer were still alive, he’d no doubt remark how right he was 52 years ago….one can’t satirize such an absurd, senseless Peace Prize pick.