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Debate to Nowhere

In previous cartoons, I have dealt with the folly of giving fascists and roundly-discredited racial theorists prestigious speaking platforms — such as Steve Bannon headlining the New Yorker ideas festival — and made the case that it is not “closed-minded” to object to such norm-violating appointments. Here I take on the same basic topic from another angle: if fascists and racists must be treated as part of serious contemporary intellectual debate, as some insist, surely there must be some point when the debate is over? If not, then it follows that there’s no way to ever condemn a set of ideas or come to any conclusions. An analog would be people who want endless “debate” over climate change, long after scientific consensus has been established. The Bannons and climate deniers of the world are free to speak their nonsense, but rehashing it endlessly leads absolutely nowhere.

Cartoon: Hell’s shells

As we close in on Tax Day, a time when many of us will be writing sizable checks to the IRS (ahem), well-heeled people around the world are enjoying their wealth tax-free thanks to secret accounts. On rare occasion, one of these immense piggy banks briefly becomes visible thanks to a data dump such as the Panama Papers. It’s worth noting that the US already has many agencies in lightly-regulated states that can help set up shell companies, thus likely explaining the relatively small number of Americans exposed in this case.

The Cult of Market Fundamentalism

A “classic” for the Fourth of July. While Trump doesn’t follow the dogma exactly when it comes to free trade (for better or worse, probably worse), he and most Republicans in Congress do seem to be true believers in this peculiar form of witchcraft (no disrespect intended to Wiccan readers).

The first step of confronting the problem is to name it. “Market fundamentalism,” a term I picked up from George Lakoff, should be a buzzphrase on the tips of everyone’s lips. It has become THE defining force — paired with racism — of Americans’ economic lives. Pundits and Democratic politicians should be throwing this concept around, ridiculing it like the joke it is. Instead, we’re fixated on the right-wing term “political correctness,” which blinds us to the real problems facing America. Swap these two out and you change the playing field.

McTeacher Night is new low in marketing to schoolkids

Mother Jones has further details: schools get around 15% of profits during the McTeacher’s Night event, which means that, for example, an Ohio school got $191. The proceeds amount to $1-2 per student (after their families spend considerably more than that on McDonald’s food — not the most efficient way to raise funds from this tightwad’s perspective).

Various groups including Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood have campaigns against the program. While purporting to be some kind of altruistic community event, McTeacher Night amounts to cheap advertising: it’s really about inculcating brand loyalty and trust, turning teachers — TEACHERS! — into “brand ambassadors.” At the very moment that we need to change our kids’ eating habits more than ever, we’re normalizing industrialized fast food, through our nation’s educators, as something actual human beings should be eating.

My parents were both teachers, and I cannot imagine either of them having to do this. In fact, I don’t recall encountering any such advertising at all when I was a public school student. I’d probably be shocked if I went into a classroom now.

Oddly Familiar Talking Points

Apologies for the late posting this week. I had to dig myself out of a post-holiday pileup of to-dos.

Let me start by saying I consider myself to be somewhat to the left of Bernie. I favor a Scandinavian-style social safety net — heck, I am Scandinavian. And I admire Elizabeth Warren more than just about anyone. So this comic is not coming from the perspective of a milquetoast centrist Democrat, or even a strong Hillary partisan, as I’m guessing some will assume in our world of fun political binaries. What concerns me is that I’m seeing fundamentally right-wing concepts being adopted by those who self-identify as lefties or progressives. You might say I’m criticizing the left from the left.

To address a few points raised in the cartoon: I shouldn’t need to even spell this out, but as a gentle reminder, Russia is an authoritarian regime that crushes free speech, dissidents, LGBT rights, and now, apparently, my own health insurance. This didn’t just happen to Hillary; it happened to all of us. It’s pretty much the definition of what should be a non-partisan concern. Mountains of evidence exist for Putin’s attempt to swing our election (and others), and to minimize the problem is nothing short of laughable. And yes, I do think the interference had a substantial impact.

Hillary has certainly frustrated me at times over the years, but I came to admire her intelligence and poise over the course of this election cycle. Her performance at the debates with Trump was nothing short of heroic. She also ran on the most progressive Democratic platform ever, but since policy has become almost completely divorced from politics, that doesn’t get talked about much. I could go on, but as my husband says, this was not so much an election as an exorcism, the culmination of a decades-long smear campaign by the right.

The term “political correctness” has been the cornerstone of conservative efforts to transform the ideas of civil rights and equality into something frivolous and stupid. The right loves plucking silly examples from obscure, powerless people and blowing them up into huge “culture war” issues that supposedly threaten the nation. “PC” is an insult that plays into their hands.

Along these same lines, “liberal elites” — long a Fox News favorite — is designed to shift attention away from the actual economic elites hoovering up the world’s wealth and resources, such as the Koch Brothers or Trump, and instead make one think of poodle-owning urbanites supposedly looking down their noses at everyone (while in reality voting to raise the minimum wage). It’s a frame, not a fact, and hides a deep anti-intellectual agenda. By definition, I would say a liberal is someone who cares about the less fortunate. So a liberal “elite” would be a liberal with power. However, the term is thrown around as a pejorative to smear just about anyone — feminists, college student activists, etc. — rendering it meaningless, and an effective right-wing language hack that divides the left.

So don’t fall for these con-job concepts! We progressives need to be strategic in our opposition, not Fox News Lefties.

Finally seeing the (torch) light

For background commentary, I’d suggest revisiting this cartoon and blog post.

I do think free speech is imperiled these days — by bullies, online harassers, those who practice intimidation to silence others (and call it speech), by authoritarian governments such as Turkey’s, Russia’s, and increasingly our own. See also this article about press freedoms threatened around the globe.

Unclear on the Contraception

This notion that birth control pills are now “free,” as Romney claimed in his conference call to donors, needs to end. They are now simply covered by health insurance, which many of us pay for via hefty monthly premiums. We’re actually getting something for our money. Imagine that!

This Week’s Cartoon: Freelancer Riot At Huffington Palace

A rare one-panel Slowpoke. I was sure someone must have already done this idea, but couldn’t find it anywhere.

I often hear people say that Huffpo’s unpaid contributors were fools for doing all that free work in the first place. Which is mostly true, but overlooks the fact that Huffpo also seeks out work from published writers and cartoonists. And they simply refuse to pay. As Matt Bors blogged last week, Huffpo contacted him while he was in Afghanistan, filing comics for paying clients. They wanted to post his work on the site, but darned if they just didn’t have the budget to pay for it! Not only was Huffpo being unfair to him, but to the publications that were buying the work. He said no, but this sort of situation creates an unfortunate race to the bottom for freelancers and paying publications alike. Which is why I try to avoid clicking on any links to the Huffington Post if I can.

For further reading, I suggest this article in the Columbia Journalism Review about an earlier case of labor exploitation involving AOL.

Oh, and you can read my Huffpo-AOL comments and those of several other cartoonists over at Washington Post’s “Comic Riffs” blog.

This Week’s Cartoon: “Protest Pointers With Eric Cantor”

I wasn’t sure which aspect of Cantor’s comments, made at the Values Voter Summit in Washington DC, was more troubling: the hypocritical dissing of Occupy Wall Street protesters in language that could very well apply to the Tea Party, or the more general pooh-poohing of street protest in the age of Citizens United. When you have a Supreme Court that considers unfettered corporate cash to be “free speech” every bit as much as a protest sign scrawled with a Sharpie on a piece of torn cardboard, ordinary Americans are up against some tough competition in the political expression department. Maybe we could funnel money to fly-by-night front groups like the big boys if only we had decent-paying jobs. Until then, Mr. Cantor, I suppose we’ll just have to be uncivilized.

On a purely artistic note, this was my first time drawing Cantor’s bony skull-face. I knew this day was coming, and I’m pretty happy with how it came out. He and Rudy Giuliani should have a skull-face face-off. Not sure how that would work exactly, but I’d rather not think about it too hard.

For more on Cantor’s ties to the financial industry (among other things, his wife was a VP at Goldman Sachs), check out this WaPo article.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Times

This cartoon has generated predictable comments about being about a “silly” subject. I get it; a lot of people, including many progressives, are opposed to NYC’s proposed measures to cap soda sizes at 16 oz. Never mind that the chief scientist for the American Diabetes Association predicts that up to one in three American adults will have diabetes by the year 2050. And silly me, paying attention to conclusive studies proving that excessive sugar (with sodas being the primary culprit) is killing people.

“Educate consumers, don’t engage in Prohibition!” some readers have commented. Well, education efforts in situations like this don’t work, especially when competing with billions of dollars in marketing from multinationals. Also, the sugary drink restrictions aren’t prohibition — they’re regulation. You’re still free to swig as many 16-oz. Cokes as you like.

This isn’t about “controlling” or “feeling superior to” other people. This is about challenging shifting cultural norms that are being driven by super-sized industry profits. But hey, keep drinking that corporate Kool-Aid! No one’s stopping you.

This Week’s Cartoon: “Mr. and Mrs. Perkins Go Gift Shopping 2010”

A holiday tradition continues, as we peek in on the Perkinses once again while they shop for Auntie Perkins and themselves. This year they are shopping online, and having some difficulty in an age when so many things have become “free” — not to mention existing only on an ethereal plane. Fortunately, they haven’t digitized underwear. Yet.

Previous strips in the series are here.

Choice Reads

I’ve been too busy with real-life stuff this week to do much babbling on the internet, but a few items caught my eye that I simply must share with you.

First, the Supreme Court ruled against Arizona’s campaign finance laws that provided matching public funds to candidates who ran against wealthy, self-financed candidates.

It was those matching funds that produced a challenge from well-financed candidates, backed by the Goldwater Institute and other conservative interests. The candidates argued that the matching funds “chilled” their freedom of speech because they were afraid to spend more than the limit that triggered the funds.

Just try to wrap your brain around that logic.  Can we now all agree that the Roberts court is dangerously stuffed with plutocratic wingdings?

In other irritating news, this Texas billionaire managed to even die at just the right moment, during the one-year lapse in inheritance taxes built into George W. Bush’s budget chicanery. Now his heirs will get a cool $9 billion tax-free (unlike, say, the income one earns through working). On top of that, it seems they’ll inherit some stuffed polar bears too:

An avid big game hunter — Mr. Duncan has more than 500 entries in the Safari Club International record book for killing animals including polar bears, rhinoceroses, bighorn sheep, lions and elephants— he made a $1 million donation in his will to the Shikar Safari Club International Foundation.

On a somewhat lighter — though perhaps no less disturbing — note, the Stranger has an amazing cover story (NSFW!) about a strip club in Seattle called the Lusty Lady, which is closing down. It’s a long piece, but I’ll just say that the details get more eye-popping as you keep reading, and leave it at that.