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Get over it, you lost! Al Murray with Nigel Farage, the unsuccessful Ukip candidate in the 2015 South Thanet byelection. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

One of the most rewarding things about being a comedian is reading in the papers and in blogs all the time what its like, how the industry works, why people have done well, what youre required to say and do. This goes above and beyond the daily deep shock of someone telling you that you are not funny. Its amazing what you find out, even in your third decade of being a comedian. Its never not fascinating to learn that the only reason you are on a 90-date tour is because the BBC have fixed it for you, even though your career is over. And so on.

Lately there has been a disturbance in the comedic force, whereby my noble, misunderstood and sadly undervalued trade has been dragged into the ankle-deep debate of Brexiter/remoaniac chuff. (Dont panic, we are used to it; all debate about comedy is characterised by its profound shallowness. Its great to be taking part. That comedians should even have to engage with the annual are women funny? thing is our vocations journalistic Danegeld.) The debate in the current fetid rock-pool goes as follows: all comedians are liberal London leftie EUSSRBBCLIBLABZIOCON stooges who were desperate to retain their Brussels shackles of serfdom and slavery, and they better get ready for the dole queue because no one likes them and anyway no one ever did, who do they think they are having their own ideas in a landscape of endless opinions? As the deathless phrase goes: stick to comedy, you unfunny bastard.

There are problems with some of these propositions. On social media, an anonymous stranger took the opportunity to embrace the mood. They told me that my recent show in Portsmouth would be a disaster because it was a classic leave area, ha ha! I was staring failure in the face, thatll learn me etc etc. If there were only 400 people in Portsmouth, I could concede that there might be a problem. Yet some 200,000 people live there.

Now, if you believe that the whole world thinks as you do an easy enough mistake to make then why wouldnt all these choir-preaching comedians be finding it difficult right now? But the whole world doesnt: the result of the referendum was as near half-and-half as dammit (cue catcalls of Get over it, you lost!). When I started writing my current show, Lets Go Backwards Together, the referendum hadnt happened. Last June came and went, and a large rewrite was in order and I will say, hand on heart, that whatever the reasons and whatever the results of leaving the EU might turn out to be, there are many more jokes to be had out of it than had remain won.

But the EU referendum was as much a cultural question as it was a political one, and even though you might not be interested in the culture war and, really, Im not much the culture war is certainly interested in you. Unfortunately. So what is it like on the frontline?

Maybe its me, or perhaps its my audiences, but I have not noticed a huge change since last June, although people really, really want to say there has been. It strikes me that this could be because a lot of the arguments around Brexit are being pushed along by the diehards on either side, while everyone else (including what seems to be my audience) is just in the middle, thinking: Oh great, politicians. Theyll probably screw this up. This goes hand in hand with the impression I have that those same diehards have not retained their sense of humour, abandoned it even, unlike everyone else. Comedians pay their audiences the compliment of having a sense of humour about most things, including themselves. Even the rude ones. Especially the rude ones.

However, there is a bus-sized grain of truth in the arguments about bias. Comedy does have a liberal or leftwing bias it would be daft to deny it. It could be because the right knows better than to waste its time telling jokes and is getting on with being in charge. It is not because of some basement at the BBC where they are reprogramming hopeful comics, eyelids pinned back as they watch Al Gores Inconvenient Truth on a loop in a double bill with Aristophanes Lysistrata. Nor, I think, is it because comics are second-guessing that the only way they will get hired is by conforming. I have no particular taste for conformity, and even less for taking sides, because it compromises your ability to take the piss out of everyone effectively, though sometimes you find you end up having to.

And comedy is supposed to make mischief. Audiences know this; indeed, they expect it. And some reliable standbys arent what they want: in a popular direct democracy, where every vote counts, the normal rules of punching up and down no longer apply; political gravity has been suspended, so up is down and down is up, or even sideways. So offering up no jokes about Brexit or po-faced remainers, come to that would be a terrible dereliction of duty. And, given that Brexit is a patriotic bunfight, surely its our patriotic duty, now more than ever, to laugh at ourselves, one of the chief pillars of ours being the Greatest Sense of Humour in the World? To flick British V-signs, not artless American single fingers, at our lords and masters? Get over it, you won.

Al Murray is on a UK tour as The Pub Landlord, http://www.thepublandlord.com

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What's it like on the frontline in the Brexit culture wars? Just ask a comedian - The Guardian

Evidence abounds that the culture war has been destructive to religion in America. The culture war battlefields are strewn with millions of religious casualties from Catholics, Southern Baptists and mainline Protestants, who engaged as culture warriors opposing or cooperating with secular forces over public policy conflicts.

All of these once vigorous and growing religions are now in rapid numerical decline since engaging in the culture war. Even Mormons, who marshaled their forces for selected battles in the culture war, are now experiencing a decline in their rate of growth. All of these religions have paid a heavy price for deploying their forces to secure public policy victories that ultimately failed to compensate for the consequences suffered by them and their adherents.

It is time for the religious culture warriors to stand down and withdraw from the field of battle, regroup and reorient their religion to the first and foremost missions of saving souls and building the kingdom of God upon earth.

In practical terms, what does this mean for religion's public policy engagements? It means, as just one example, that religion should not stand in the way of LGBT advocates in the pursuit of their civil rights. Religion should not oppose LGBT advocates through either legislative action or in the courtroom.

On the other hand, religion should not support the advocates either. Doing so confuses its devoted adherents. The LGBT advocates are perfectly capable of obtaining their own goals and objectives without religion distracting itself from its foremost missions by opposing or supporting their public policy agenda.

Calling on religion to stand down from the public policy battles of the culture war in no way suggests that religion should stop declaring eternal truths and doctrines over its pulpits, warning its adherents and society of the consequences associated with secular trends in conflict with those truths and doctrines. If anything, at least for those religions that have related moral standards, religion should be far more aggressive about prophetically warning of the risks in fraternizing with secular forces.

Moreover, religion should not discourage its adherents from actively accessing the public square. It should courageously teach correct principles no matter the consequences and let its adherents govern themselves in the public policy application of those principles. Religion should act as a battle hospital that provides a refuge for the spiritually wounded. Religion should spiritually heal and help recover those under siege by secular forces.

Meanwhile, religion's forces diverted to the culture war should be fully redeployed to tenaciously defend the God-given freedoms necessary to accomplish its foremost missions. Freedom for religion, its associated institutions and individual conscience of its adherents is absolutely critical for it to faithfully fulfill its divine obligations.

Where secular interests intersect with religious freedoms, religion should not oppose those interests but rather relentlessly secure exemptions from them. Religion should never be diverted by fights with Babylon. Instead, it should marshal its forces to advance the kingdom of God and nothing else.

Stuart C. Reid is a former Army chaplain, Salt Lake City councilman and Utah state senator.

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Stuart C. Reid: Time for religion to disengage from the culture wars - Salt Lake Tribune

"There are two ideas now in the academic left that weren't there 10 years ago," says Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business, in The Wall Street Journal. "One is that everyone is racist because of unconscious bias, and the other is that everything is racist because of systemic racism."

Do you believe that? Before you give a quick answer of "yes," think about it. Do you really think that you, yourself, discriminate illegally against your employees? Do you treat your white employees better than your minority employees?

Regardless of your answer to those questions, if you start hiring people who believe what they've been taught about racism, how does that look for your business? Every project assignment, every promotion, every time you ask someone to stay late can be seen through the eyes of racism. Which means that anything you do can result in official complaints. While the legal standard is different than the emotional standard of a new grad, defending against these accusations can be draining, emotionally and financially.

And it's not just racism--it's sexism.In 2011 the Office for Civil Rights issued a "Dear Colleague" letter, based on Title IX, which advised Colleges and Universities on how to treat cases of sexual misconduct--from everything from harassment to rape. While it might seem like a good thing for universities to actively investigate such charges, the end result has been a disaster.

For instance, a young man was accused of sexual assault and expelled from Amherst even though he had evidence that not only had the woman consented to the activity, he had been unconscious when she performed oral sex on him. The woman didn't file a complaint until years later and the man wasn't allowed to introduce evidence in his favor.

In another case, tenured Northwestern Professor Laura Kipnis went through a Title IX investigation (which she did eventually win) based on an essay she wrote, questioning the "sexual paranoia on campus." She said, among other things, that "women have spent the past century and a half demanding to be treated as consenting adults. Now a cohort on campuses [is] demanding to relinquish those rights, which I believe is a disastrous move for feminism." Students complained and Kipnis was thrown into an investigation where she wasn't allowed an attorney.

Jezebel quotes Kipnis' response as "the new [consent] codes infantilized students while vastly increasing the power of university administrators over all our lives, and here were students demanding to be protected by university higher-ups from the affront of someone's ideas, which seemed to prove my point."

How does this impact your business? Think about sexual harassment charges. When an employee has a consensual affair with a superior and then changes her mind about the consensual nature of it two years later, how are you going to respond? You're required to investigate, but the evidence is two years old and you're not a police officer and you don't have police powers. The employee, coming out of this university environment, will expect you to side with her immediately. If you don't, she will sue. If she can simply get an attorney to take her case, you're out thousands of dollars defending yourself, and if it hits the internet, you can be crucified in social media.

It's a huge mind shift--where people are always taught to appeal to an authority and that authority is you, but you're expected to side with the complainant. That's not how the business works, and you'll prevail (hopefully) in the courts, but do you want to go through that hassle over imagined racial or gender slights?

If you don't, you'll want to be actively aware and involved in what is happening in the universities.

The Wall Street Journal continues with Haidt's viewpoint.

If you're not a student or professor, why should you care about snowflakes in their igloos? Because, Mr. Haidt argues, what happens on campus affects the "health of our nation." Ideological and political homogeneity endangers the quality of social-science research, which informs public policy. "Understanding the impacts of immigration, understanding the causes of poverty--these are all absolutely vital," he says. "If there's an atmosphere of intimidation around politicized issues, it clearly influences the research."

Today's college students also are tomorrow's leaders--and employees. Companies are already encountering problems with recent graduates unprepared for the challenges of the workplace. "Work requires a certain amount of toughness," Mr. Haidt says. "Colleges that prepare students to expect a frictionless environment where there are bureaucratic procedures and adult authorities to rectify conflict are very poorly prepared for the workplace. So we can expect a lot more litigation in the coming few years."

You should be concerned. You should be very concerned. For state universities, you should let your legislatures know about your concerns. For private schools, you'll want to let your Alma Mater know, especially if that knowledge is tied to your usual donations.

We should not tolerate racism or sexual harassment in our businesses, but we can't live where we see racism and sexism behind every viewpoint we might disagree with. If you value diversity, you'll need to remember to value diversity of thought, which our universities aren't that great at encouraging in the current environment.

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How the Campus Culture Wars Are Coming to Your Office - Inc.com

Strategic bombing is an effective military strategy with the goal of weakening the enemy through the use of air, land or sea firepower. One of its main objectives is to demoralize the enemy so concessions will be made and the enemy conquered.

This battle strategy is now being used in the culture wars, as we saw last week in North Carolina prior to the repeal of House Bill 2 (the law prohibiting controversial bathroom policies from going into effect).

In his book, Rules for Radicals which many on the extreme left use as a guide for todays cultural battle plans author Saul Alinsky said: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

And thats exactly what we saw last week in North Carolina: Threats of economic disaster heaped upon us from media outlets across the country, all before a crucial vote to repeal HB2. It was nothing less than strategic bombing, with the use of projected economic losses instead of proven economic gains.

The facts are that our state has thrived economically since the passing of HB2, yet those facts simply got in the way of the radical left. So they firebombed us with fake news to drum up our imagination that North Carolina was headed into the toilet if we kept the law in place.

The Washington Times even noted the strength of our economy since the passing of the bill with an article 10 days prior to the vote, headlined, Tourism thriving, economy expanding in North Carolina despite bathroom bill desertions.

Check out some of the facts from the article:

But just days before the vote, the AP circulated a new report that our state was going to suffer massive financial losses over a 12 year period, upward of $4 billion in revenue. And with that little missile of guile, the strategic bombing began.

Check out the headlines that immediately ran from around the country:

The list goes on. But suffice it to say none of these reported the facts from the Washington Times article, but only the threats from the AP analysis.

It was nothing less than strategic bombing and it worked.

Many of the same legislators who took a moral stand for the safety and privacy of women and children decided it was no longer politically expedient to do so, and they switched their votes. The law was repealed, yet with it came a four-year hold on cities being able to enact new bathroom policies to allow men in womens restrooms (a twist that angered everyone the radical left).

No matter where you stand on HB2 or the new law (HB 142), the reality is that strategic media bombing will be used on any moral issue the left wants to be overturned or enacted. So moving forward, be sure to pay attention and prepare to fight back.

And the best way to fight back is to simply tell the truth.

G.K. Chesterton once said, When deceit becomes universal, truth becomes a revolutionary act. Were praying for truth revolutionaries today ones willing to stand up and not back down when the strategic bombs start falling again.

Get your copy of the Benham brothers first book, Whatever the Cost: Facing Your Fears, Dying to Your Dreams, and Living Powerfully, right now!

Media wishing to interview Jason & David Benham, please contact media@wnd.com.

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IN THE GAME - WND.com

We live in an era in which image memes are lobbed as political salvos. In which security is theater and defining who controls the narrative in a world of facts and alternative facts is the daily bread of the hot-take class. In which words are bombs, delivered in 140-character installments in the new culture war a phrase that can and has referred to all manner of cultural conflicts: The face-off between elite versus populists, urban versus rural, Hollywood versus the heartland.

Culture is a weapon a pretty effective one at that. And its a topic that New York-based curator Nato Thompson takes on in his book Culture as Weapon, which explores the ways the tools of culture are deployed to do everything from sell iPhones to wage war.

As far as timing goes, the books landing during the early days of the Trump administration couldnt have been more impeccable. Culture as Weapon provides a broad overview on how individuals, corporations and governments employ design, storytelling, imagery and art to stir emotion and mold sentiment. The prominence of the Internet and social media makes this all the more profound and far-reaching than in the past.

Thompsons book kicks off with an extensive historical primer. Over the course of the 20th century, the fields of public relations and advertising created visually resonant cultural icons such as the Marlboro Man to move merchandise. Thompson shows how political figures have employed those same techniques to sway elections and stoke fear. For example: the 1988 presidential campaign ad for George H.W. Bush about Willie Horton, the Massachusetts convict who raped a woman while on furlough an ad that ignited anxiety about crime (and African American men) and likely cost Michael Dukakis the election.

Thompson also provides a backgrounder on how visual symbols have been historically wielded socially and politically. The Nazis, for example, were famously meticulous about their aesthetics. Adolf Hitler himself devoted great care and attention to the design and look of the Nazi flag.

The Nazis loved culture, notes Thompson. They used culture. They distributed culture. Cinema, music, flags, banners, book burnings, rallies, and holidays were all deployed in a phantasmagoria of stark blood red, swastikas, and blinding white.

Interestingly, political groupshave also been perfectly happy to co-opt the symbols of those they impugn. Hitlers propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, decried so-called degenerate art anything Modernist or made by Jews even as he put that art on view in an extraordinarily well-attended touring exhibition titled, naturally, Degenerate Art.

A similar phenomenon occurred during the U.S. culture wars of the 1980s and 90s, when Congress attacked some of the artists funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA hubbub, writes Thompson, was an opportunity to condemn luridness and bask in it in equal measure. An artists own work weaponized against him. (The Trump administrations proposed budget cuts are part of a long-running conservative animosity toward the NEA.)

The look back is interesting, and Thompson delivers priceless instances of cultural manipulation, such as when the American Tobacco Co. used the trappings of womens liberation to encourage women to smoke in the late 1920s.

But far more vital are the chapters the author devotes to the recent past and the present to the ways in which big business and government have liberally borrowed from culture for their purposes. (He comes at these topics from the left, with a healthy skepticism of capitalism and its habit of turning everything into sellable merch.)

Thompson examines how art and architecture have been used as an implement of urban development, via so-called starchitectural development projects and family-friendly public art installations such as Cows on Parade. The commodification of bohemia, as he calls it, has led to art being viewed as an engine rather than the cultural mirror of a nation. The NEAs motto, for example, has gone from Because a great nation deserves great art to Art works a model that would no longer be focused on excellence based on taste, writes Thompson, but rather on the way that culture could make things happen.

This, interestingly, has led to an increasing mistrust toward the idea of culture itself. Los Angeles offers a vivid (but not included) case in point: The anti-gentrification efforts in Boyle Heights have specifically targeted art galleries.

Culture as Weapon covers myriad other topics: How the U.S. military employed cultural anthropologists during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how staged social relationships are as intriguing to artists as they are to corporations, and how culture informs our everyday retail experiences. (The layout of Ikea is inspired, in part, by the ramps of Frank Lloyd Wrights Guggenheim Museum in New York.)

In taking on so much disparate material, Culture as Weapon can feel scattered and often delves into topics that the reader is likely already familiar with. (Do we need to read again of the improbable rise of the personal computer from Steve Jobs garage to our back pocket?)

Thompson is at his most effective when he is dissecting what it is about culture that makes it such a potent social tool. Art, in its appeal to emotion, can override rationality. Fear, he writes, motivates faster than hope and appeals to emotion do not rely on the truth.

How the rational brain might counter the barrage of cultural string-pulling that we experience on a daily basis, and how the world of culture might save itself from becoming a mere tool, Thompson doesnt say. But Culture as Weapon provides a compelling manual for determining how the manipulation begins.

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Curator Nato Thompson shines a light on art and the culture wars in 'Culture as Weapon' - The Missoulian