The Sorensen Monologues

This Week’s Cartoon: “Fun With False Equivalence”

This comic has attracted more irate email than usual, with a longtime conservative reader referring to it as done “with vitriol.” I don’t see it as a particularly angry cartoon — if anything, it seems like my usual absurdist approach, showing how ridiculous militant right-wing rhetoric sounds coming from the mouths of famous progressives. (Aren’t we usually accused of being wimps?) I planned to do this strip ever since a blog commenter (not here)  hilariously referred to Paul Krugman as an example of incivility on the left equivalent to the insurrectionist language on the right that has come under criticism since the Giffords shooting.

To answer those readers who are upset, let me first say yes, I am aware that Obama once used that quote from The Untouchables. And yes, there have been occasional instances of Democratic politicians saying bad things, like the guy in Florida who said his opponent for governor should be shot for his role as CEO of a health care company that defrauded Medicare. But here’s the thing, people: you are forgetting to contextualize.

Only one side of the political spectrum has a broad, organized movement — once fringe, now growing ever-more mainstream — based on extreme paranoia of the government and the idea of resistance through armed revolution. This stuff forms the very raison d’etre of the Tea Party and various “patriot movement” subgroups. You have heard of the Oath Keepers, yes? If not, look ’em up. Much of the rhetoric I criticize in my cartoons comes from politicians stirring this particular pot —  they are pandering directly to their gun-nut base. They aren’t just trying to use more action verbs.

Now, about Loughner: while the cheese may have fallen off of his cracker, he was clearly paranoid about the government and into currency conspiracy theories. Dude was down with the gold standard! That’s classic far-right stuff.  To quote my colleague Clay Jones, who drew a controversial Sarah Palin cartoon that cracked me up:

I do know the rhetoric is too much.  I know it’s wrong to put crosshairs on human beings.  I know it’s wrong to mask threats as political overtones.  It seems conservatives would agree with that.

I ask that you ask yourself what I’ve asked myself.  Did the right wing contribute to this?

I can’t say it did.

And you can’t say it didn’t.

And one last thing: I don’t care about “scoring political points.” Giffords feared for her own life, as I’m sure many politicians do today. Something is wrong when running for office — especially as a liberal — feels so dangerous. That’s what really bothers me.

Reality Eclipses Satire, no. 87,493

I love this. In my cartoon this week, I suggested an absurd way that Michelle Bachmann might explain her quote that voters should be “armed and dangerous” over the cap-and-trade bill. As I learned today via TPM, she actually did walk that quote back a month later, saying the following:

“I want my people in Minnesota to be the most educated people. I want them to be armed with knowledge, so they can be dangerous to the policies of the left.”

Almost like my comic. Clearly I didn’t go far enough.

Slowpoke on NPR

Just found out my latest cartoon is on NPR right now. The comments section seems to have quite a few people trying to depoliticize the AZ shootings, blaming “both sides” for their partisanship. (Personally, I don’t think questioning the violent, paranoid rhetoric of Palin, Angle, Bachmann, et al, makes one particularly partisan, but whatevs.)

Not that there’s anything wrong with having strong political convictions. As reader AC wisely pointed out, people mistakenly believe “it is partisan politics generally, not any actual positions on either side, which is the problem.”

People Saying Intelligent Things

I liked Amanda Marcotte’s recent analogy:

Holding the right responsible for their paranoid, incendiary, violent rhetoric reminds me strongly of trying to put a cat in its carrier.  You know it has to be done, but you really don’t want to do it.  The cat is going to lash out.  She’s going to hide under the bed.  She’s going to hiss and scream.  She’s going to grab the sides of the carrier as you push her in, in a pathetic final bid not to go the carrier.  But you have the fight anyway, because you can’t just renege on your responsibilities the second they become a problem.

Matt Bors also has a good post:

And that’s where we are at. You can’t talk about the issues underneath this without being accused of “politicizing” it. The shooter is crazy and incoherent enough that we can all comfortably write him off as a “lone nut,” America’s favorite term to absolve us from looking at any of the societal problems that causes this type of behavior–or, god forbid, the tools he used to kill so many so fast. Unless the shooter fits into the binary mold of a mainstream liberal or conservative, we are content to pretend his behavior took place in a vacuum. “A lone nut! you’ll get those.”

There’s also a refreshingly nuanced take on my latest cartoon over at Comic Strip of the Day:

There are a number of cartoons about the Tucson shootings, ranging from “weepers,” which serve the important purpose of informing people that death is sad, to those suggesting a direct, specific correlation between the rhetoric and the action, as if the right wing had purposefully delivered a detailed “to do” list into the hands of the shooter. I haven’t seen many that managed to make a persuasive point, but I would count this as one…

As for countering her examples, feel free, but I want to see something more persuasive than the time Obama explained his planned debating style with a flippant reference to Sean Connery’s advice to Kevin Costner in “The Untouchables,” or a DNC map that used traditional archery-style bull’s-eyes to show the areas in which they planned special efforts. Don’t waste my time unless you have specific examples of times nationally-known progressives used rhetoric about “refreshing the tree of liberty” or “reloading” or encouraged people to bring firearms to political rallies.

Predictably, I’ve been accused by others of not looking at the oh-so-incendiary rhetoric of the left, but tell me: when is the last time you heard a “mainstream” progressive pundit talk about killing ATF agents?

This Week’s Cartoon: “Violent Spin”

What really drives me nuts in the wake of the Giffords shooting is the chorus of voices — mostly on the right — tut-tutting that “we can’t jump to conclusions.” As though they are the source of caution and reason and all things prudent and high-minded. Well, guess what: Your candidates are anything but. I don’t really care whether Loughner is schizo, or what particular bits of tea party propaganda he swallowed or didn’t. If you don’t find the violent language of the right utterly repugnant, then it’s a sign of how far we’ve drifted away from normalcy in this country.

As any anthropologist will tell you, human behavior doesn’t happen in a vacuum; we live in a cultural stew, and by all accounts, that stew is a-bubblin’. Tom Tomorrow linked to a depressing timeline of armed insurrection in America just since 2008. Hint: it’s long.

This Week’s Cartoon: “Winter Hat Semiotics”

Been a while since I rapped at ya, I know. I’ve been busy vacationing at the Slowpoke Underground Bunker and Research Lab in an undisclosed location in the Rockies, and also working on a cool freelance project I hope to share with you in a few weeks.

I’ve been fascinated by the rise of the ironic trapper hat, as shown in the first panel. A couple months ago, I tried on a big one at REI. Then, the other night, I watched a hip young woman dancing in a bar while wearing one of these grandfatherly noggin-warmers. The left girl in the first panel is basically her. I also saw a mohawk-hat kid the other day. For more silly hats and amusing ski vacation anecdotes, I suggest you check out my friend Lloyd Dangle’s recent blogging and sketching from the Sierras.

I saw a bunch of animal-ear hats when I was at the San Diego Comicon, and also one at that same bar the other night. Please, people! Friends don’t let their adult friends walk around wearing little knit cat ears! Unless they are filming porn, that is.

War on Christmas Flashback

I haven’t been paying much attention to right-wing media lately, but Mr. Slowpoke just informed me that the “War on Christmas” is apparently still on. I’ve been so busy traveling and working and preparing to bake a feast and saying “Merry Christmas” to people I know who celebrate Christmas, I didn’t even notice! Anyway, I thought I’d share this cartoon from the Great Christmas Battle of 2005.

(PS: I received an early Christmas present in the form of having a cartoon published on NPR.org yesterday. I think I may have a cartoon in the LA Times this Sunday too!)

Trivia game illo

Thought I’d share something fun I created recently for Geeks Who Drink, a company that puts together pub quizzes. It’s a rare foray for me into the realm of scatological humor, but as a dog owner who spends a fair amount of time wielding a poopsack, it came naturally. Nixon is also fun to draw.

How well do you know the presidents' dogs? No Googling!

This Week’s Cartoon: “The Off-Center Center”

As Paul Krugman pointed out yesterday, the more market fundamentalism fails, the more vigorously it seems to be embraced. Bipartisan compromise now consists of agreement between the center-right and off-the-deep-end psychocapitalists. I honestly don’t see a way out of this self-defeating feedback loop given our current political environment.

Before I wrote this cartoon, I was actually thinking of doing one that showed Republicans praising FDR the way Obama has praised Reagan,  just as Krugman mentioned (hey, great minds think alike!), to show how ridiculously improbable that would be. Also, is it just me, or shouldn’t more people be freaking out about Ron “End the Fed” Paul overseeing the Fed? I dunno, maybe not enough Americans understand what the Fed is.

On another note, all I want for Christmas is for you to join the Slowpoke Facebook Krew, or follow me on Twitter. If you don’t already do so, of course.

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.

SlowpokeBlog Flashback: On Obama

Two years later, I find it interesting to read what I wrote about Obama on the eve of the 2008 Virginia primary:

Tomorrow is the Virginia primary, and for the first time ever I am considering intentionally not voting… The trouble is, neither Obama nor Hillary have shown solid progressive leadership. Both of them pander to the right to the point of grotesquery. I could almost forgive Obama his weak health care plan even though that issue is extremely important to me, but that “Harry and Louise” ad was so wildly irresponsible, it really made me question his judgment. Wouldn’t it be nice if Obama used his rhetorical talents to promote a real health care plan? He has also repeated right-wing lies about there being a Social Security “crisis”; his praise of Ronald Reagan was steeped in gauzy right-wing frames about the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s; and his campaign actually created an oppo page about Paul Krugman, a true-blue progressive hero whose intellectual integrity I greatly admire… Obama has been so reckless in his approach to these bedrock issues that I simply don’t trust him. Sorry to rain on the hope parade, people, but there it is.

I actually admire Obama for what he managed to accomplish on health insurance — but aside from that, I’d say my misgivings were justified. Not that you’ll ever see me as a vaunted TV pundit.

This Week’s Cartoon: “Hedge Fund Nation”

Only in a nation that is truly ill-informed could Republicans block unemployment aid for millions unless the most fortunate among us get tax cuts, while simultaneously talking out the other side of their mouths about deficits burdening our children. All this while we live in a new Gilded Age of mind-blowing income inequality. It’s almost too absurd to contemplate. But you knew that already. As for my thoughts on the Great Compromise: I think Obama could have used his rhetorical abilities to put the GOP on the defensive. But caution is his middle name (it has officially replaced “Hussein,” in fact), and it’s going to come back and bite him on the butt.

One almost gets the impression from the GOP that something is wrong with you if you’re still doing actual, useful work (or would like to, except for the fact that there are five available workers for every job opening), as opposed to occupying the loftier realms of high finance. So I decided to play around with the idea of everyone becoming a banker. Related cartoon from 2004 (a personal fave): “The Labor Chain“