The CBC has a neat article about the use of satire to deal with complicated issues, primarily armed conflict, and how satire can help us reason through the complexity. A neat way to approach news, that’s for sure.

Indeed, most satires of war don’t lampoon the enemy; rather, the central characters inevitably question their own side. In Catch-22, the Germans — the nominal foe — are barely mentioned; Heller’s true target is the U.S. army apparatus. The point is mordantly demonstrated in the fact that the more missions bomber pilot (and protagonist) John Yossarian flies, the more he has to complete before being allowed to go home. The comic preoccupation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Dr. Strangelove (1964) was not the Soviet Union, but the United States’ Cold War paranoia.