Now, then, where was I?

Oh yes. Vladimir Putin had just ordered a murder and I was explaining the commentary of Jeff Danziger and Ann Telnaes to the kids ...

... no, wait, that was a while ago. Funny. Seems like it was just this past week.

Here's what Jeff is up to now.

And Ann posted this at the Nib. 

What I like about their work is that they don't muddy their arguments with details. I don't mean artistic detail: While Telnaes has the very sparse style of her animation background, Danziger's chilly comment on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya includes a lot of artistic detail that is only missing in his depiction of Netanyahu because it is unnecessary.

Which is what I mean: Only what is necessary.

In each case, the argument is presented, the reader's intelligence is respected and, despite the lack of explanation and labeling and back-and-forth dialogue, you can't mistake the message.

The big difference being that Danziger is dark and Telnaes adds a little something to make you giggle. I don't mind giggling over Rudy's T-shirt, though I felt guilty over giggling at Putin's singing to himself. 

But that heightens the impact. That's a good kind of guilt.

Bad guilt is the kind you don't feel, and going through the current crop of political cartoons after a week of laying off them reveals a lot of cartoons the makers of which should feel guilty about, indeed, for a failure to understand things on a level that makes it hard to believe they're even trying.

Jen Sorensen lays out this blind ignorance, a stunning level of missing-the-point.

The argument in favor of offering young people hope and opportunity as a way of making them less likely to join gangs -- street gangs or terrorist gangs -- is plain and proven.

It's not that the leadership of these groups is poor and undereducated and hopeless. Osama bin Laden came from a wealthy family, other terrorist leaders have often had backgrounds that were at least comfortable if not elite.

But they aren't the ones strapping bombs to themselves or going off on obvious no-escape murder missions.

Look: This is not a political opinion or something peculiar to the current situation in the Middle East. This was true in Ulster, where peace came with the economic uptick, and it has been true in every similar situation.

Cartoons mocking the proposal to fight hopelessness as a means of cutting off the cannon fodder demonstrate not just hatred for Obama or hatred for Muslims or love of bombing (which, as Sorensen's character notes, we are doing) but a deliberate ignorance, a deliberate lack of thought, a deliberate refusal to consider the proposal rather than the source of the proposal.

They demonstrate a fundamental incompetence and unfairness on the part of the cartoonist. And it's not limited to analysis of terrorism.

 

Which brings us to Chan Lowe, speaking on the eager acceptance of the odd notion that net neutrality equals government interference.

He's right, but there are a raft of cartoons out there from cartoonists who have regularly, dogmatically preached the doctrine that free markets and competition are the Holy Grail of good policy, yet have suddenly decided that, no, we should instead uphold the monopolies that stifle and restrict it.

Clearly, they are not in favor of "free markets" but of anarchic, unchecked plutocracy.

They are aided in promoting this sociopathic economic doctrine not only by reflexive hatred of the twice-elected President of the United States, but also -- and Lowe points out -- by the fact that most people don't understand the concept of net neutrality.

And, on that topic, Comcast, Time-Warner, Verizon and the rest are aided by cartoonists who illustrate talking points they have either not examined or are deliberately misunderstanding.

This one simply isn't that hard to understand, if you make any sort of effort.

 

Bruce Plante explores a more complex issue, though one that overlaps somewhat with net neutrality and governmental preferences and so forth.

He presents the basics plainly: The veto of the Keystone Pipeline means the (continued) shipping of crude by rail line, and he adds some splashes of oil to remind us that rail shipping has also had its share of environmental mishaps.

Since pipeline proponents have been eager to publicize rail accidents, I'm not 100 percent clear on Plante's intention: Is he suggesting that the veto will increase those derailments, or that it is another problem to be solved? I'm counting on the latter.

In any case, this matter of getting crude to the refineries is not going to go away by having everyone purchase electric cars, because not everyone can afford them or manage to limit their travel to the current range of the things. Perhaps in the future, yes. 

And we are, indeed, finding other ways to carry home our groceries than in plastic bags, but I don't foresee a world in which we all use wooden toothbrushes with boar's bristles (which would require cutting down trees and killing innocent piggies anyway).

We need to find alternatives to oil, because it won't last forever, but we're not going to stop using it tomorrow or even the next day, so a search for a safe way to transport it remains on the table.

My solution would be, rather than to pour money into a pipeline, to fix and expand the rail lines, because (A) we need to do that anyway, and (B) good rail lines are multi-functional and not only could we solve the problem of oil cars falling off them, but we'd aid other businesses and maybe even public transit.

But that gets into the whole area of repairing our infrastructure, and that's just crazy-talk.

 

So the first week of my Lenten political-cartoon fast is over, and what I've come away with so far is that, while I genuinely dislike partisan prattling from either side, my real issue is with those who speak without thinking.

And as Tom Tomorrow suggests, I'm not going to get very far with an attitude like that.

 

Meanwhile, Prickly City has been well ahead of me, pondering these same questions over the past few weeks.

I agree with Winslow, so, if stirring up the juices is your thing, I'll see you next Sunday.

Otherwise, come on by again tomorrow.

 

 

 

Comments

[Bookworm]

Thanks for the clear explanation of your take on the Pipeline issue. Not knowing anything about oil or its transportation, I tend -- I admit it -- to agree with the last opinion I've heard/read. My question is whether it takes less resources to transport it by rail or by pipeline, or would the pipeline installation and repair bills use up any possible savings? It's like putting solar panels on my roof -- how much does it need to cost to negate saving money on my energy bills? The perennial question, I guess.

[Murdoch]

Your issue is with people who speak without thinking? Then think. Who benefits from Nemtsov's murder?

Quoting a Hamburg blogger: As vice-premier under Boris Yeltsin Nemtsov was at least partially responsible for the mafiazation of the Russian economy. Everyone but some oligarchs and the "western" neoliberals was happy when he and the Yeltsin gang had to leave.

After he was kicked out and until yesterday Nemtsov was a very minor opposition politician polling at some 1%. The communists, the real opposition party in Russia, poll at about 20%. No one in the government had reason to care about or fear Nemtsov.

So whodunnit? Someone with relations to the "model"? Someone hurt in the gangster "privatizations" executed under Nemtsov's rule? Some Ukrainian oligarch interested in creating more schism between the "west" and Russia? Some "western" government plotting the destabilization of Russia? End quote.

Other sources say that not even the opposition in Russia is blaming the Kremlin for this. But here in the low-information West, it's enough to say "Putin critic" to know who did it.

The US is being led to war. Please don't amplify the propaganda.

[Mike Peterson]

I heard this from someone online and said, "Yeah, rt.com?" and didn't hear back.

If you think the spin only comes from one side, you're not part of the solution. And if you don't understand Occam's Razor, or the history of the Soviet Union or Russia or Vladimir Putin ... well, that's what I mean about people who don't bother to think before they form opinions.

[Mike Peterson]

As for relative costs of pipeline vs rail, I'm not sure how it shakes out on a spreadsheet, but, as noted, improving the rail system would bring in enough other benefits that a simple this-to-that comparison is invalid. A pipeline does one thing. It would have to be incredibly efficient to be better than building something that would do all those other things as well.

[Murdoch]

Recent history demonstrates that it's safer to be wrong in the right company than right in the wrong company -- but please consider this viewpoint (like the others I cited, NOT from RT):

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/02/playing-chicken-with-nuclear-war/

[Mike Peterson]

I'm sure you could not possibly be safer.

[Mark Jackson]

Speaking of misunderstanding net neutrality:

http://www.johnhodgman.com/post/112540831413/the-cartoonist-has-no-idea-how-net-neutrality