In the interest of giving fair time to all opinions, I’ve decided to step aside and table my regularly scheduled rabid wall-punching right wing diatribe. Instead, today’s post has been guest written by a member of the Green Party in Cambridge, on the topic of how to give a proper media statement.
How to make a left-wing progressive media statement
by Sheila Baldwin-Cooper-Oscar-Meyer
Are you planning to attend a protest against a G7 convention? Going to picket outside of an oil company? Just planning to throw a brick through some deserving corporate window? If there’s any chance that you might be interviewed by a reporter, especially on camera, you should brush up on the following official advice for progressive media statements.
- Make sure your voice goes up—preferably a dissonant interval like a half-tone or a diminished fifth (“The Maria”)—at the end of every sentence. Otherwise, you’ll sound offensively declarative and patriarchal. Kind of like a Republican.
- Shrill monotone nasal intonation! I can’t emphasize this enough. A low, calm voice does NOT get the message across. You want to aim for something between a child’s whine and a cat being ingested in a jet engine. You know who have creepy-low, calm voices? Republicans.
- Use the word “shocked” or “outraged” at least five times. Per sentence. If you’re not shocked, you’re probably a Republican.
- Use the phrase “the current administration” in a smugly mocking tone in every other sentence. Republicans!!!
Despite this advice, you may find yourself flustered in the heat of the moment. The best of us do (especially with all the great weed that one tends to find at a protest). If all else fails, chant something that rhymes. It will be hard, so fortunately the research and development wing of the progressive movement has discovered that “ho” and “go” rhyme, even if–and this is crucial–you put other words in between them. An example: “Hey hey, ho ho, lateral extraction drilling has got to go.” Does it mean anything? No. But did you actually learn anything about economics or environmental science while you were majoring in gender studies at Brown? Exactly. Stick to the playbook; it’s time tested by a generation who managed to dismantle an entire culture while higher than a roadie at an Allman Brothers concert.
And just remember: when all else fails, call somebody a “fascist”.
One response to “How to make a left-wing progessive media statement”
Screamingly funny.
Another useful template is the stock phrase:
What does it saaaay about us as a sooo-siii–uh teeee ?
I mean what does it saaaaay?
What does lateral extraction drilling saaaaay about us as a society?