Tag Archives: Gulliver's Travels

Trump as Frankenstein’s Monster

By Robin Bates | Published: August 27, 2015

What is it about Donald Trump that brings out the literary analogies? First a Salon columnist compared him to Odysseus’s Cyclops, then the New Yorker’s John Cassidy saw him as Gulliver, and most recently Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and others have compared him to Frankenstein’s monster. I’ve written about the Cyclops parallel here, but let’s take […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Frankenstein, GOP, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, politics | Comments closed

Stewart Should Learn from Jonathan Swift

By Robin Bates | Published: November 6, 2013

Jon Stewart may be one of our leading satirists, but satire comes up short in handling this country’s healthcare crisis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ACA, Gulliver's Travels, Jon Stewart, Jonathan Swift, Modest Proposal, Obamacare | Comments closed

Depressing News? Read Gulliver

By Robin Bates | Published: September 23, 2013

If you ever feel that humans are nothing more than Yahoos, Swift urges us to remember that there are good Samaritans amongst us.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged cynicism, Good Samaritan, Gulliver's Travels, houyhnhnms, Jonathan Swift | Comments closed

Swift and Food Stamp Cuts

By Robin Bates | Published: September 17, 2013

What would Jonathan Swift say to GOP radicals who seek to cut food stamps.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged food stamps, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Modest Proposal | Comments closed

Getting Tied Down in Syria

By Robin Bates | Published: July 10, 2013

Is there a danger that U.S. involvement in Syria will lead to a Gulliver-like disaster?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Middle East, Shiites, Sunnis, Syria | Comments closed

Only Comic Satire Can Do NRA Justice

By Robin Bates | Published: January 17, 2013

It takes a Joseph Heller or a Jonathan Swift to capture the craziness of the NRA.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Catch 22, Gulliver's Travels, gun control, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Heller, NRA, politics | Comments closed

Analyzing Loughner’s Booklist

By Robin Bates | Published: January 10, 2011

Like much of America, I am still in a state of shock over Saturday’s shooting of a Congresswoman, a judge, and 16 others. Like many I wonder if this was an example of a disturbed mind encountering the inflamed political rhetoric that has come to characterize American political discourse. (Add Arizona’s permissive gun laws into […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Adolph Hitler, Aesop, Aldous Huxley, Alice through the Look Glass, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Arizona killings, Ayn Rand, Brave New World, Charles Bukowski, Communist Manifesto, Ernest Hemingway, Fables, Fahrenheit 451, Gulliver's Travels, Harper Lee, Hermann Hesse, Homer, James Barrie, Jared Lee Loughner, Jonathan Swift, Karl Marx, Ken Kesey, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Mein Kampf, Meno, nimal Farm, Norton Juster Phentom Tollbooth, Odyssey, Old Man and the Sea, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter Pan, Plot, Pulp, Ray Bradbury, Reading George Orwell, Republic, Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, violence, We the Living, Wizard of Oz | Comments closed

Obama, Idealist or Realist?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2010

2010 in Review There was an interesting dust-up last week amongst conservative intellectuals following the release of some more Richard Nixon tapes. Henry Kissinger can be heard making the following cold-blooded remark about Soviet Jews in 1973: “Let’s face it: The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Michael Gerson, Modest Proposal, politics | Comments closed

Laura Ingraham Is No Jonathan Swift

By Robin Bates | Published: August 10, 2010

Since I wrote about Swiftian satire yesterday, I was interested when a current political satirist was contrasted with Swift in yesterday’s Washington Post. Laura Ingraham has a new book out which purports to be the secret diaries of Bo, the White House dog. In his review Steven Levingston concludes that, while the book is sometimes […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barack Obama, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Laura Ingraham, politics, satire | Comments closed