Cartooning and Free Speech in War Time

[Wannaplan?]

Great site:

http://www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons/artshow/artshow.html

For example, you can read:

http://www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons/images/artshowart/toons/KuperPeter.gif

http://www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons/images/artshowart/toons/rall.gif

http://www.solidarity.com/hkcartoons/images/artshowart/toons/marland.gif

 

[mugbub]

Poor taste

Regarding cartoon number 2, I'm glad they beat the piss out of those al-quaida bastards and locked them up in Gitmo. Those prisoners have no constitutional rights. They are the enemy. Let the ACLU lawyers get locked up with them.

Cartoon number 3 is in extreme poor taste. To make light of the WTC catastrophe is simply disgusting, and in no way can that be a clever political statement.

 

[el Guapo]

Dittos

I'm in TOTAL harmony and agreement with Muggie!

 

[Tranplanner]

Yeah, cartoon 3 really turned my stomach. But I guess there is this thing called free speech...

 

[NHPlanner]

I'm ashamed to admit that Cartoon #3 is from Mike Marland, the cartoonist for my hometown newspaper....He's usually not that harsh.

I actually used one of his cartoons on the cover of my thesis in college....(this is more typical of him...he usually sticks to state and local stuff)

 

[Jeff]

Re: Poor taste

Regarding cartoon number 2, I'm glad they beat the piss out of those al-quaida bastards and locked them up in Gitmo. Those prisoners have no constitutional rights. They are the enemy. Let the ACLU lawyers get locked up with them.

Cartoon number 3 is in extreme poor taste. To make light of the WTC catastrophe is simply disgusting, and in no way can that be a clever political statement.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[nerudite]

Re: Poor taste

Cartoon number 3 is in extreme poor taste. To make light of the WTC catastrophe is simply disgusting, and in no way can that be a clever political statement.

Poor taste, yes. Making light... I don't know. To some people Social Security is their life, and this makes the point that Bush's budget is going to cause a major catastrophe to the nation's social security system. As editorial cartoons go it's a harsh statement, but maybe not far off the mark.

 

[Jeff]

Hey you keep your comments out of my country's business Canuck!!

Come on now, seriously, Bush did not ruin SS. It's been done for quite some time now. The plan just backfired, people are living way longer than we ever expected when SS was implemented.

I'm not going to be able to retire until I'm 80 with the way things are going.

 

[nerudite]

Hey you keep your comments out of my country's business Canuck!!

Come on now, seriously, Bush did not ruin SS. It's been done for quite some time now. The plan just backfired, people are living way longer than we ever expected when SS was implemented.

I'm not going to be able to retire until I'm 80 with the way things are going.

I'm not saying this editorial dude is right... I'm just saying that he had a point, and he made it very clear. That's what an editorial cartoon is all about. And I think I just wanted to state that I don't think he was making light of 9/11... it was just an analogy to show the gravity of social security's situation.

And don't you call me a Canuck... I'm just on infiltration reconnaissance.

 

[Mastiff]

Re: Dittos

I'm in TOTAL harmony and agreement with Muggie!

Sooo... It was cold enough to freeze hell over, eh?

 

[Journeymouse]

I happen to think that cartoon number 2 is a good point. And before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, the UK - that's Britain if any of you hthink I'm talking about the middle east (see 'Americans ignorant of their UK kinsfolk' ) - military have probably done things that are just as bad. And some of those men probably were evil bar-stewards (think about it). But that still doesn't make it right to have treated them like that.

 

[mugbub]

I happen to think that cartoon number 2 is a good point. And before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, the UK - that's Britain if any of you hthink I'm talking about the middle east (see 'Americans ignorant of their UK kinsfolk' ) - military have probably done things that are just as bad. And some of those men probably were evil bar-stewards (think about it). But that still doesn't make it right to have treated them like that.

Listen to me Limey Boy, when WTC is destroyed in an unprovoked attack you don't go around cartooning it and attach an idiotic political statement.

Now about the prisoners: They're lucky they ain't blood stains in the Afghani desert right now. They're being treated just fine for POWs. We aren't building a bridge over the River Kwai with some dumbass British POWs like back in WWII. These current terrorist POWs are going to be mined for intelligence and then put before a tribunal.

 

[Tranplanner]

didn't we threaten terrible things to the next person who assumed JM was a man?

Cool your jets Mugbug - we're all entitled to our opinions on this forum (including you). But idiotic name calling (limey boy) and such should not become a part of the dialogue.

 

[Habanero]

Dittos

didn't we threaten terrible things to the next person who assumed JM was a man?

Cool your jets Mugbug - we're all entitled to our opinions on this forum (including you). But idiotic name calling (limey boy) and such should not become a part of the dialogue.

I think she, as in Journeymouse, has a very relevant point. Isn't there a golden rule somewhere that says treat people the way you'd like to be treated? Why is it that we can beat the crap out of POWs but think it's wrong that ours were tourtured? Why is it that so many people slam their front door in the faces of missionaries but think it's just fine and dandy to go into another country and preach religion? What makes us so much better than the rest of the world that we can play catch with rocks in our great big glass house?

That's just my .02

 

[mugbub]

Re: Dittos

What makes us so much better than the rest of the world that we can play catch with rocks in our great big glass house?


Well I guess when those jetliners on 9/11 crashed through our great big glass house our rocks became a moot point. Don't be naive with the golden rule bs- did you graduate from Sunday School University? The current POWs are in better conditions now than they were before they were captured.

I'm willing to drop this, but the non US citizens (and texas planner) keep viewing the WTC disaster as no big deal. I can't wait until the Iraq invasion.

 

[donk]

I found cartoon #2 humorous also, especially with some of the things being done to Canadians as they enter and leave the US.

Freedon, only if you're 'merican.

 

[Downtown]

*UN approved blue peacekeeping hat on*

Muggie, Jo was referring to the cartoon about messing with freedom loving people. Regardless, I think that just because someone expresses disapproval about US Hypocrisy doesn't mean that they don't realize what an affect WTC had on america.

 

[Cardinal]

C'mon Mug, you were doing so good for a while....

I don't think anyone here has ever sympathized with the terrorists or shown anything but pain and horror over what happened in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11th. This includes our overseas and Canadian friends who also lost citizens on that day.

But like the general public in the US and the world population, there are different opinions on how the event should be seen. One side has chosen to call it an act of war and use it as a justification for limiting American's rights while carrying out acts of war in Afganistan and potentially Iraq, and who knows where next. Another group of people liken this to a criminal act, not carried out by a nation or a people but by an organized gang. Terrorists. These people are urging restraint, so that innocent lives are not taken and citizen's rights are not forfieted.

Then there are many whose opinions are in the middle. I myself am hesitant to go to war and do not blame the people of Afganistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or other places for what has happened. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with the way these POWs have been treated. If captured in war, I would hope, but never expect to be treated as well.

 

[mugbub]

You win, I'm outta here

I just realized how much time (my employer's time) I waste on this site with you(most, but not all) lazy ass government workers. Some moderator please kill my account so I can get off this electric crack. I'm tired of arguing with you and reading your dumbass posts. Rot here in peace- you won't have Muggie to kick around around anymore.

El Guapo's cool, so is DeVouno, Tasman's got more energy and ambition than all of you combined, Kmateja's nice, Stumpf is cool. That's about it for the intelligence. There's too much bitching and not enough action. Quit wasting your days here. Go make the world a better more productive place. Farewell. See you in Denver.

 

[NHPlanner]

Re: You win, I'm outta here

Some moderator please kill my account so I can get off this electric crack.

So be it.

 

[Tranplanner]

Re: You win, I'm outta here

I just realized how much time (my employer's time) I waste on this site with you(most, but not all) lazy ass government workers. Some moderator please kill my account so I can get off this electric crack. I'm tired of arguing with you and reading your dumbass posts. Rot here in peace- you won't have Muggie to kick around around anymore.

El Guapo's cool, so is DeVouno, Tasman's got more energy and ambition than all of you combined, Kmateja's nice, Stumpf is cool. That's about it for the intelligence. There's too much bitching and not enough action. Quit wasting your days here. Go make the world a better more productive place. Farewell. See you in Denver.

What - you've decided you'd rather quit if you have to respond intelligently rather than just ranting?

I can't wait to hear about all the productive things you're going to do now that you've decided to stop visiting cyburbia...oh wait, guess I won't find out about it all if you're not coming back.

 

[nerudite]

Anyone want to start a poll about when Mugbub2 shows up?

 

[Habanero]

Re: Re: Dittos

What makes us so much better than the rest of the world that we can play catch with rocks in our great big glass house?


Well I guess when those jetliners on 9/11 crashed through our great big glass house our rocks became a moot point. Don't be naive with the golden rule bs- did you graduate from Sunday School University? The current POWs are in better conditions now than they were before they were captured.

I'm willing to drop this, but the non US citizens (and texas planner) keep viewing the WTC disaster as no big deal. I can't wait until the Iraq invasion.

Woah, I never said I didn't care about it, I simply said that I don't thinks it's right to complain about something and then turn around and do it yourself and say we were intitled to it.

 

[el Guapo]

NO!- Not Muggie!?!?!?!

Really! - I'll truly miss the angry bastard. We were making such progress together. We started off with anger in both our hearts and formed a bond forged in discontent and senseless rants. Muggie, I do hope you come back to us someday. I'll keep mugbub2 available as a username.

He is right in one additional aspect - I really do waste too much time here. And Cyburbia is eCrack for planners. Thus, I talked to Dan last night. As soon as he gets settled I'm sloughing off my admin responsibilities, such as they are. Then I'm diving hardcore in to the AICP plan of action. (Is that a Photoshop set up if you ever saw one?) I plan to get back occasionally, but I really have to complete this task.

 

[Journeymouse]

Just thought I'd make it clear that I do think the third cartoon was on the sick side. It probably wouldn't have been considered too bad over this side of the pond, but in the county that dealt with the aftermath firsthand? I'll avoid the actual politics side of my views - as that's all they are - and I've inflicted them on you guys before.

It's a shame mugbub has gone, he might have been interested to know that the 'limey' comment is still making me giggle. There's no way I'm English. My blood comes from more than one home nation and I'm technically an immigrant to these fair shores, anyway.

 

[Wannaplan?]

More Cartooning Censorship

Doug Marlette editorial cartoon pulled from newpapers over the holiday:

http://www.dougmarlette.com/img6.gif

Visit his website at: http://www.dougmarlette.com/ to learn more about the controversy.

Copy at the Salt Lake Tribune has this to say:

PARKER: Writer Blackballed for Being an Equal-Opportunity Offender

BY KATHLEEN PARKER
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

The first chapter of Doug Marlette's novel, The Bridge, is titled: "A Gift for Ping People Off." Although the novel is only loosely autobiographical, Marlette's work as both prize-winning political cartoonist and novelist has proved his title consistently true.

As the year wraps up, Marlette is on the receiving end of an Islamist fatwa protesting a dead-on editorial cartoon that ran last week, while his novel is struggling against a continuing tide of opposition from unseen but powerful forces.

Marlette's cartoon, which has prompted thousands of threatening e-mails, depicts a man dressed in Middle-Eastern garb driving a Ryder truck bearing a nuclear missile with the caption: "What would Mohammed drive?"

Anyone half awake understands that the cartoon plays off the "What Would Jesus Drive" campaign against gas-guzzling SUVs and other recent events, namely that fundamentalist Islamists have hijacked their religion to justify murdering Americans.

Outrage, especially from literal-minded religious folk, is familiar territory to Marlette.

He won a Pulitzer in 1988 for his skewering of the equally zealous, if comparatively benign, holy duo Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker of the infamous "Praise the Lord Club."

Let's just say that Marlette is an equal-opportunity offender. It ain't personal.

What has become weirdly personal, however, is the truly bizarre attack on Marlette's first novel, a riveting tale of the Carolina cotton mill strikes of the 1930s. The Bridge (HarperCollins), published a year ago and now out in paperback, tells the story through the eyes of protagonist Pick Cantrell, who happens to be a political cartoonist.

When Cantrell loses his job at a New York newspaper, after beating up his publisher with his boss's own yachting trophy (a not-infrequent daydream of journalists everywhere), he and family return to their ancestral home place in North Carolina.

There Cantrell, like Marlette himself, discovers the history of his mill worker family.

The story of the mill strikes is historically accurate, including when a national guardsman bayonets Cantrell's grandmother, as happened to Marlette's grandmother -- a fiery feminist rebel to put today's poseurs to shame. What is not historically accurate is the depiction of other "social" characters in the book.

They are, as often happens in works of fiction, fictional.

Yet several people in Marlette's current home of Hillsborough, N.C. (aka Hillqaeda) -- many of them well-known authors -- thought they recognized themselves in Marlette's novel and reacted with a provincial, panty-wadding fatwa all their own.

Several nasty reviews suddenly materialized on Amazon.com. Marlette received Islamist-style death threats. And some bookstore owners were pressured by better-established writers to exclude The Bridge from their shelves. (For details go to www.dougmarlette.com.)

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and Marlette's book suffered another curious setback when Pat "The Great Santini" Conroy, a long-time friend of Marlette's, was asked to pick a book for the "Today" show's book club segment.

When he picked The Bridge, NBC producers blocked him saying that the authors' friendship posed a problem for the show's commitment to objectivity.

"Today's" high-minded claim to objectivity has a nice ring, if only it were true.

Last week, The New York Times reported that another author who appeared on the show, Jonathan Franzen, picked one of his own student's books as his selection -- Adam Haslett's You Are Not a Stranger Here.

"Today" spokeswoman Lauren Kapp told The Times that Franzen's admitted mentoring and critiquing of Haslett's work through the years did not pose a conflict. But Conroy's friendship with Marlette somehow did?

As a matter of objective fact, Marlette's book is deserving of any book club selection.

It was good enough to be named "Best Novel of the Year" by the independent-minded Southeastern Booksellers Association.

It was good enough for Paramount Pictures to buy the rights for a movie reportedly starring Tom Cruise.

And good enough to keep me, a new friend and colleague, turning pages into the night.

But perhaps most compelling, tells an important epic story of heroism, of poor (albeit white) workers who rose up against dark forces in the largest organized revolt in our nation's history after the American Revolution.

That fellow writers should try to bury that story yet again -- this time as an act of censorious revenge born of dysfunctional ego -- is an outrage that only the Taliban could appreciate.

I, for one, can't wait for the cartoon.

http://www.sltrib.com/2002/Dec/12292002/commenta/15358.asp