Satire In The Face Of Authoritarianism

Political critique dates back to the dawn of civilization. Challenges to those in power are rarely well received by those who stand to lose everything.

In medieval times, an all-powerful king would hear difficult truths spoken only to him by the jester, who wrapped messages in entertainment and silly outfits to lessen the blow.

In modern times, satire has evolved into a witty and humorous form of political commentary.

The timing of today’s post has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with a local, taxpayer-funded nonprofit community organization blocking, well, it would appear half of Beaverton by now. We woke this morning to find that we, too, had been too spicy for someone’s delicate eyes and ears.

Here’s the thing about censorship and authoritarian rule: It never lasts, because the practice is unsustainable.

Imagine the following scenario. It’s entirely fictional. NONE of this has happened. Really.

You’ve been the Chair of a haphazardly run organization for seven years, long after you claimed you would step down. You’ve grown comfortable being able to do, well, whatever you want, and without any form of recourse.

For a brief period of time, someone convinces you to maybe hold your finger off the block button from a particular wine bar that you, for whatever reason, simply cannot stand. So after six years and just as many disgraced and fired Executive Directors under your watch, you agree, biting your tongue, to re-engage with that wine bar.

And for about five months, everything seems great. You’re posting their events on your calendar, they’re posting your events on theirs, you’re starting to see their customers warm up to you, and you’re starting to believe that maybe, just maybe you had the wrong idea about them.

But then, one day your organization steps into a public relations nightmare. It becomes known that despite your claims of using local artists to create marketing materials and imagery like “Beverly the Beaver”, it turns out the un-registered business you contracted the work to in fact used AI to create it.

So, a local artist speaks up about it. You now have a choice.

You could take a Mayor Mamdani approach of, “I didn’t think about riding my bicycle without a helmet, sorry about that New York! Here I am in a helmet, and now I’m giving away free bike helmets to everyone!” 

In this sense, it would involve you responding, by saying, “Good point, we didn’t realize it was AI. Hold on while we do away with all of the AI stuff, and re-engage with you and other local artists to get this done right!”

That would show accountability, humility, grace, leadership, and ALL of the things that would actually play well into the public’s eye.

Instead, you block the artist. It’s easier. It avoids accountability for you. It’s basically like burying your head in the sand and plugging your ears.

It’s also what and who you really are as a person. It’s who you’ve always been. You recall now WHY your organization lost six Executive Directors in six years. You literally could not, or did not, want to work with them.

There’s only one problem. You tried to silence an artist. So they talked with their artist friends. And all of them showed up. And so you started blocking them, too.

Now imagine that it appears you end up blocking more than 22 accounts, including artists, businesses, community members, and even a political candidate.

How does this build community? How does this send any message over than what we are seeing, that you genuinely don’t care about anyone or anything in this district, other than carrying on with your programming and bulldozing everything and everyone standing in your way.

Wow! Imagine if any of what I have written here is actually true, about a real life downtown association that is blocking discriminately just to avoid accountability.

I wonder what the people of Beaverton would feel about this. What they would have to say. What they would do.

– David Anderson, Co-Owner
Syndicate Wine, LLC