Many pundits asked how the proposed cruise missile strikes against Syria would affect, not the Syrians, but the American presidential election campaign of 2016. Why doesn’t anyone ask the Syrians?
Three Years From Now
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Screw the Syrians, they’re just empire fodder.
‘Kay, I have to break from my usual pattern of commenting only when Something Awful Occurs.
This cartoon is bloody goddamn brilliant. I have never wanted Rall’s cartoons to be in the mainstream more than now.
In the other thread there’s a discussion about the military. The immorality depicted in this cartoon is exactly why that service creates moral culpability in many cases.
Ted, Americans don’t even care about brown people in THIS country…hell, even more they don’t even care about WHITE people in this country…..Syrians aren’t even real to them…it’s all just some new Reality TV series called The Middle East…it’s not real to most people…..
THIS is what I have to explain to people about Syria. They get that it’s stupid the media won’t shut up about the next election. They don’t get that people over there are real and that every time we drop a bomb we will be killing innocents. Yes. On purpose. Because we chose to do it. Ah, yes, the American media. Bunch of high school chicks going on about a popularity contest.
Absolutely true – and when people don’t feel like they can do anything about it, or feel that they will suffer if they try to do anything about, then most of them don’t try to do anything about – and they avoid even talking about it. Imagine all that effort, money and resources put to work to help our own nation with unemployment, healthcare, etc. Fat chance with what we have as “leaders” now. People who live in a bubble and are completely out of touch. By the way, have you drank enough water today?
It is not accurate to say our leaders are out of touch. Out of touch implies ignorance of reality. No, they are not out of touch, they know what’s going on and they don’t care, they are serving the interests of their masters. The rest of us are just a temporary affliction on their planet, one that will eventually go away and die.
I’m reminded of the story about the fox and the scorpion. Scorpion convinces fox to swim him across the river. Fox lets scorpion on his back. Halfway across, scorpion stings fox. As they both go under, fox says to scorpion, “We’re both going to die. Why did you do that?” Scorpion replies, “It’s my nature.”
Obama, like all presidents, has shown that killing is a requirement of the position because, well, just because. I guess it’s tied in to feelings of inadequacy. (The clearest case of this was Dubya: a simpleton who succeeded solely based on his father’s assistance–and even then, it was a near thing–and the close supervision of an entire raft of con artists and criminals who guided him every step of the way.) It’s simply Obama’s nature to cause the deaths of hundreds of people and then absolve himself of any moral obligations by invoking “collateral damage/national security.” Perhaps it excites him to do it. Maybe he has no feelings about it at all, like how the head of a fast-food burger chain doesn’t break down and weep for the cows.
It’s simply the nature of the sheeple to not care/not pay attention to these things. It’s the limitation of being unable to see past a certain point, coupled to an avoidance of ever having to accept that one’s initial conclusions were wrong.
The politician’s job is to keep the standard of living to a certain point. For the sheeple, anything he does is fine, for as long as the standard of living continues. If Obama were to set up a child rape factory that somehow gave everyone free cable and put the price of gas down to $1.60 a gallon, we’d hear things like, “Well, those six-year-olds were asking for it, anyway” and “Well, I’m sure the rape professionals are gentle with the children. Hey, I mean, they’re getting fed and housed, what’s the problem here.”
I blame the journalists who stand by and break the stories about the new iPhone, filling the airwaves with drivel, weakening the entire form. I keep wondering when someone’s going to finally figure out that Apple’s products aren’t particularly exceptional, just marketed better. That is, that Steve Jobs true genius was in his ability to control the press.
Alex – After many years of living overseas – in Russia, Italy, the Baltics – I’m in Lithuanian now, I have learned that people “don’t think the same”. Stop and think about that for a minute.
Whatever the reason for whatever area or even season, they don’t think the same. You can blame people and “tell” people anything want, but if they don’t even think like you or hold the same values, your rhetoric and all the typing are simply worthless. You can type forever and bark ar others about what you want to tell people, but they won’t follow your logic becuse they don’t think like you do. You may think that it is impossible for them to “not think like you do”, but believe me, it is possible. Isn’t that sad? – You can type all the shit you want and think you correct and trying illuminate a fact, and then find out that the reader is completely in disagreement. Is the reader a bad person?
Yes, rikster…..anyone who disagrees with me is a bad person.
@ rikster –
You hit the nail on the head!
I lived in Germany for six years during the 1970’s. I had to learn that the German mindset is different from that of the United States. Even their jokes took a different bent! So I learned to think as they do, tempered with my U.S. upbringing. Honestly, *theirs* made (makes) more sense to me!
Trying to convince a suicide bomber that his actions are wrong, when he’s convinced he is serving his god (Allah) will never succeed. They don’t hate the U.S. for “freedoms” – the hate is geared to greed and world domination, the goals of the U.S. government.
This isn’t about “bad,” as I tried to establish right from the beginning (i.e., the scorpion’s nature). I don’t think the scorpion is bad or evil, it is simply behaving as it does. Just like I don’t think my housecat is evil when it catches a mouse. The semi-feral cat next door once left a bird’s head on the steps for me. I didn’t run inside thinking, “Evil, evil, evil.”
Clearly, it’s ridiculous to think that, somehow, I would be able to convince all the scorpions to stop stinging. So I don’t.
What I’m after is that the journalists (and that’s what they’re there for!) tell people that scorpions are dangerous. But they don’t because the new iPhone is shipping!!!!1! That’s what I object to, that’s what I am trying to change.
No doubt, certain people have an evil nature and will behave the way they are wired to. Or vice versa, Saints will always be saints. But the vast majority of people fall somewhere in between, and their natures can be impacted radically by the system under which they live. Here in the United States, you can see how the breaking down of the social contract after Ronald Reagan encouraged a lot of people to lead with their lesser natures.
My goal is to create the conversational and political space to discuss the need for a system that encourages the best behavior rather than the worst behavior.
I agree that the media has a huge role to play in this endeavor.
Ted:
Quick question. As I sit here stuffing my croissant and coffee into my mouth, looking at your cartoon while the television goes on and on about the new iPhone (Syria? What’s that, a sugar substitute?), a thought came to mind that so impresses me, I’m certain I’ve got it wrong. No snark intended; I mean this question in all seriousness:
Do you think that the news coverage would be different if these people in Syria were more Americanized? That is, T-shirts, jeans, carefully waxed to control excess body hair, etc., with lots of known logos in the background (a McDonald’s, a KFC, a Gap, etc.)?
Alex, I think it would help if we had a common language, so that “the people” around the world could look into the camera and communicate with each other directly.
To the point of the cartoon: Nicholas Kristof–no uberhawk he–had a good piece in the times a few days ago, for those that missed it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/opinion/sunday/kristof-hearing-you-out.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Thank you
The last frame says it all – some guests are always the «wrong» guests, unless their narrative can be forced to fit into the pattern predetermined by the powers that be in Washington. As long as politics is regarded as a (US) football game between «our» side and «the bad guys», the general farce, otherwise known as the presidential election, down the road is always going to be more important than the people being murdered by «our» weapons or as a consequence of «our» actions….
Henri