Open Thread WE 3 NOV 22 ~
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“People are the same no matter how big or small. The size doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.”
Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1904. Mostly known for writing children's books, Geisel also dabbled in more serious issues.
Of his many works, only four could truly be called political. "The Lorax" was a parable on short-sighted exploitation of natural resources, "The Butter Battle Book" was a commentary on the arms race, "The Sneetches" dealt with racism and "Yertle the Turtle" himself was representative of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0317450/bio
Per Wiki ..
As World War II began, Geisel turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, later published in
Dr. Seuss Goes to War.
Some would also allude to Rocky and Bullwinkle as having a political angle, though chiefly using satirical themes. Although these cartoonish times are no laughing matter, do you have any favorite comic strip memories?
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Open thread so post away!
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Comments
Good Morning...
Walt Kelly's Pogo cartoons were pretty good too.
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This is one of the most quoted Pogo lines...
and here's the whole strip from Earth Day 1971
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From wiki...
Pogo was a daily comic strip that was created by cartoonist Walt Kelly and syndicated to American newspapers from 1948 until 1975. Set in the Okefenokee Swamp in the Southeastern United States, Pogo followed the adventures of its anthropomorphic animal characters, including the title character, an opossum. The strip was written for both children and adults, with layers of social and political satire targeted to the latter.
These days I'm a Mr. Fish fan...
although he has a case of TDS (Trump derangement syndrome).
Happy fall y'all!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Although I rarely see syndicated comics anymore
Doonesbury was pretty good for awhile.
Thanks for visiting.
The history tunnel, how did that work out ? edition
1698 - Scottish settlers make landfall in Panama, establishing the ill-fated 'Darien Venture' colony
1907 - US banker J. P. Morgan locks over 40 bankers in his library to force them to find ways to avert New York banking crisis
1915 - First US election by proportional representation, Ashtabula, Ohio
1917 - Balfour Declaration proclaims support for a Jewish state in Palestine
1947 - Howard Hughes flies "Spruce Goose", a huge wooden airplane for the first and last time
1954 - Strom Thurmond is the 1st senator elected by write-in vote (South Carolina)
1976 - Democrat candidate Jimmy Carter is elected President of the United States, defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford; Walter Mondale elected vice president
1983 - US President Ronald Reagan signs bill establishing Dr Martin Luther King Jr. holiday
1988 - The Morris worm, first internet-distributed computer worm to gain mainstream media attention launched from MIT, strikes Pentagon, SDI research lab & 6 universities
2004 - George W. Bush is re-elected as President of the United States, defeating Democrat candidate John Kerry
Comics i read daily
are in the feel good category.
Red and Rover is one and Mutts is the other. Both are loving and respectful towards our non-human friends.
NYCVG
Good morning QMS. Gotta second the motion for Pogo.
A lot of his stuff is still on point. Locally as a kid (SoCal) Gordo, hard to describe, took place in Mexico. Early Doonesbury and early Calvin and Hobbes, of course.
Those were all strips. Dr. Seuss, as i recall, was known mostly for his books, which is the thin edge of the wedge for the nomination of comic books, which almost requires that one include early Mad Magazine.
In a different vein, and for a different audience/mind-set, and also, different in being current, the web-comic XKCD.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I grew up in the mid 70s, so I remember
(sort of, a little) Wonder Warthog. Now the only thing I remember is when Philbert Desinex (Desinex was a brand of deodorant at the time, may still be) saw a Nazi rally, His first thought is to transform, "but "the Hog Of Steel" would probably join them"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Wart-Hog
Then there was Norbert The Narc
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/norbert-the-nark/4005-19975/
and if you think cops are violent today
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_Fosdick
I was surprised to discover that in at least the first season of Perry Mason Burger and Tragg were villains.
On to Biden since 1973
IIRC, Desenex was a brand of anti-athlete’s foot fungicide. n/t
Ah yesss. I forgot The Furry Freak Brothers
and R. Crumb Comix.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I have an unpublisheed novel
where the character has a chat room group that uses the FFFBs as their avatars. The character is "Norbert".
On to Biden since 1973
Shelton car tune
Ode to Cuba
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Those and similar words and sentiments
condemned him to the USA'a perpetual hat list
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Some years ago, when I was living in New York
....I went down to SOHO to call on some documentary filmmakers I had met. They were unpacking luggage and equipment from a recent trip. They told me they had been in Cuba helping with the sugar cane harvest. "Were you filming down there," I asked? They said they were not because they didn't want to take a chance of having film confiscated coming back to the US. They said they had read a notice in The Voice that Cuba was asking for help and they joined with some other artists and headed down there. They seemed very energized by the experience, and very tan.
How do you get to Cuba, I asked? They said they crossed the border into Canada, and flew from there to Cuba. I thought how strange it was to inconvenience US travelers by closing the border to Cuba and issuing a travel ban. But as far as the US knew, my friends had only been to Canada. We were drinking Rum that night, smuggled across the Canadian border.
So, who was the US punishing here, I wondered? The Cuban Missile Crisis seemed like it happened a long time ago (even back then). What was the point of making it a hassle for people visiting to Cuba, and doing a good thing for humanity? This was way before 9/11. The Guantanamo nightmare had yet to occur. It seemed like the Soviet missiles were there one day, and gone the next. I then assumed that Cuba was being punished with sanctions for allowing Soviet Russia to plant nuclear missiles there, close to the US border. Years later, I concluded that Cuba was being punished for establishing a communist-style government in the US' backyard. In a more explicit response, the US embargoed Cubas production exports and Cuba's imports of critical goods. They hoped to damage Cuba's economy, causing the small country to fail spectacularly. In it's failed state, Cuba would then prove to the world that Communist governments always fail. But Cuba persisted.
Now, as I watch Russia facing the same situation with Ukraine, that the US faced with Cuba —the memories of my first brush with geopolitics in New York comes back to me. I wasn't as curious about dangerous diplomacy back then as I am now. Along the way, I embarked on a formal study of military strategies. I am familiar, now, with setting up misleading signals, provocations, and false flags. I can readily recognize strategic patterns and their variants because, frankly, there are only so many strategies and they repeat often. And finely, I can tell when there is something missing from a narrative; omissions appear to me like big gaping holes in the logic matrix.
Looking back on that Cuba moment, I realize that I didn't ask myself the right questions.
Have you ever wondered about the real reason that the Soviets brought those missiles to Cuba? Ever wonder what the Soviets got in exchange for removing them?
Just like in Ukraine today, nothing gets done until there is a negotiation and an exchange. Everything else is just bloodletting, opposition propaganda, and exploding ordinance to create demand for the single-payer weapons industry.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Brazil's new President weighs in:
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
North Korea too
It was the Korean War which resulted in the permanent war state in the US which was part of the US anti communist frenzy. Prior to this there was a demobilization after WWII.
There are currently 240 US and South Korean combat aircraft flying around the Korean peninsula on practice combat missions as an overt threat to North Korea. This is more than the number of fighter bombers in four US naval airwings (this is my way of understanding the numbers). Yet, US news media wonder why the North Koreans are firing off ballistic missiles in recent days (thus far other than ICBMs with one exception) in an asymmetric response and won't give up their nuclear weapons.
Earlier this year in the largest joint military exercises since 2017, in violation of the Singapore understanding, a US nuclear powered aircraft carrier entered the Korean littoral along with a US SSN. The current South Korean president Yoon is a right wing dictator who dodged the draft and now encourages the US provocations in show of stupid, incompetent and false bravado as compensation for domestic policies which offer nothing to the suffering Korean public. Yoon deliberately engages in provocative military actions in violation of the Singapore agreement (by Trump and Kim Jong-un) and the military agreements between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un to create military buffer zones along the DMZ and Northern Limit Lines which were intended to improve inter Korean relations and limit the risk of war.
Yoon's party name People's Power Party derives from a Japanese far right organization slogan. This organization dominates Japan's LDP leadership ranks. I wrote this just over two years ago:
Gook-min ui him dang could also be translated as Nationalist Power Party the same way Kuomin is understood in Kuomindang during the Chinese civil war. (edited for spelling, grammar and clarity)
語必忠信 行必正直
Thanks for the backgrounding post soryang
Always wondered about the north / south division. It figures the US is behind it.
Thought I saw some encouraging peaceable gestures a few years back, but not
in quite awhile. Seems uncle sammy is trying to push around anyone who may
object to the unipolar fantasy. A short sighted attitude coming from a weak position.
Actually do wonder about such things
Seems Cuba is a spike under the saddle of western hegemony.
Good for them to fight back. It tain't what the wanna bees profligate about.
It is more about what is possible in a free socio-economic world.
and all of this nonsense ..
I owe a lot to the Houston Post,
one of two newspapers that got delivered to my home town from Houston.
My Dad worked 6 days a week. On Sundays, Mom and Dad propped up on pillows on Sunday morning, read the newspaper, and I am my brother joined them in the bed to "read" the in color comics. And, to have coffee, heavily laden with milk and sugar. This started in my memory when I was two. By the time I was four, I could read. Lil' Abner, Archie, and Snoopy were my favorites.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
inconvenient truths flourished in the funny pages
it was funny (or not) because it was true. once upon a time.
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as printed
Anything Vaughn Bode'.
I put this up before in a different thread, but it still applies.
Junkwaffel, Cheech Wizard, Deadbone Chronicles... He is very badly missed.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Met Vaughn Bodé in person at a comic-con in NYC in 1972
Later when I read about his death it was, like, oh, man, he was a cartoon bodhisattva but hadda split, coz the material plane was just too limiting for a spirit-soul so radiant.
Can that really have been fifty effin’ years ago?!
Then there’s my favorite Wonder Warthog story arcs: W.W. and the Pigs from Uranus…
Or the one where W.W. forms a formidable foursome along with Piltdown Pig, Paranoid Punkpig, and Pig o’ the Future…
Bodhisattva indeed,
as his self-portrait goes...
I never had the chance to meet him- I envy you that!
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Bodé did a self-deprecatory strip where he introduces himself to
his own “Cheech Wizard” cartoon character as “I, your creator”…
But Cheech Wizard mistrusts this robed and long-haired androgynous figure and what sounds to him like some pompous spiritual guru bullshit trip.
So Cheech Wizard ends up kicking his own creator in the gonads and stalking off.
Well, that may mansplain what kinda fckup soup
we are now in? If brains were balls there may be more thought put into effing the world.
“Cheech Wizard” was a big hit with “National Lampoon” readership
i.e. the mix of ego and id typical of testosterone-fueled college frat culture types.
I suspect Vaughn hoped to draw readers in with the superficial appeal of Cheech Wizard’s cool alpha-male-like superiority in the socio-sexual hierarchy, while subliminally sneaking some deeper spiritual messages through to the reader’s subconscious.
Sure.
Growing up in a small bible-belt town, his work was as counterculture as you were likely to find, and was therefore as much a guilty pleasure as sneaking Dad's Playboy out into the woods. And that's not to mention the fact that "everybody's accent" (when read by a smalltown-kid's inner narrator) sounded just like people we knew, with Bodé's choice of words and dialect. Cheech was one of us- the one of us whose lunch money got stolen, but immediately recovered with a kick to da balls.
I didn't need Bodé's spirituality, because I
knewsuspected that it was just an affectation. And I didn't particularly want to end up with the kind of PTSD that he probably had, but my number was in the lottery just like everyone else's. It was a different time, and one that will not soon come again.And I suspect, but cannot prove, that the fictional "Ow My Balls" TV show from "Idiocracy" owed a small but undeniable debt of gratitude to Cheech.... On the other hand, he surely did wump up on a lot of lizards, so I can understand a little discomfort there. (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Goomph....
An absolute favorite...
The astute reader will now realize that I misquote Cheech Wizard a lot, in some of my more offbeat homilies...
On edit: the site that I found had left one panel out of this very important comic: the one where Cheech throws up in his hat. Changes the whole meaning of the strip, it does... Here's a far better resource: https://viewcomiconline.com/complete-cheech-wizard-issue-3/
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I was indeed hopin’ you’d have dat original at yer fingertips…
Till Tha Bodé was vouchsafed unto us Lizards, we had not seen such, nor, I fear, shall we any time soon see his like on this Lesser Bean of a planet again…
I am seriously
bummed that my hardcover collections burned with the house. Oh, well, the Web never forgets...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Yup! n/t