Posted on 06/06/2013 7:00:18 PM PDT by annalex
I like New Yorker cartoons. I used to seek the magazine out in doctor’s offices and look for them. I even subscribed to the magazine once, but quickly discovered that I don’t like any other material in it. Luckily, these days the cartoons went digital, so here they are. There is one particular cartoon in the recent issue. Let us look at it together:
Now, the issue of the day is the massive use of electronic surveillance by the Obama administration. Indeed, a hilarious spoof on Obama’s happy-face explanations of the Verizon scandal appears in the issue. So in that light, we understand the cartoon above, don’t we?
Look closer. Who is this character at the desk? Right, it is someone whose Administration “won’t stand for any more leaks”. Whose office is, observe, oval, with that distinctive Palladian-neoclassical window. Who speaks with that clipped resolute voice. Yeah, right, that must be Our President.
Look again. We got a wrong man. Hunched down, sagging jaw, growing belly. Much whiter than his furniture. Look, dear reader, what is he the archetype of?
Right. He is that Aging White Male, the One-Percenter, the Cynical Oppressor, the Avatar of Corporate Powers, the One Who Dashes Hope, the One Athwart Change, the No We Can’t kind of guy. He is, in short, a Republican. This nation hasn’t had a Republican president for four and a half years. The problem with leaks is all over the news today. The magazine knows it. It makes fun of it, lightly. Why is the President in the cartoon not Obama?
I think I know why. Because the staff at the New Yorker cannot bring itself to do real damage to this administration. Cartoons are dangerous, and the President is in real trouble now. So the staff takes a good idea and uses it to deflect. Look again at that White Man mouth. The drooping corner. Recognize it? Yeah, sure you do. That is a Nixon mouth. Now everything is back to its rightful place. The Big Brother is a White Aging Republican. The likable dude with a winning smile, who cannot even figure out a Verizon bill, that is our President. Not scary at all. Fighting for you. Hard. With a smile.
So who did the deflecting, the artist? (Someone HEYANT, -- can you read the signature?) Or the editor? I think both. The artist makes the only cartoon he can biologically make, one that puts a White Aging Republican in the role of a Big Brother. The artist brings it to the editor. Now, the editor is paid to be aware of these things, so the editor cringes a bit. “Hey, should we make him look like Obama instead”? No, they decide, let us make him a generic, you know, evil President. White Aging Republican is more like it. It is deeper. Our readers understand depth.
-- “But what if THEY call us on it? THEY will say, we do not dare make fun of BLACK president. Because, you know, all they think about is race… Let us show them: we are not slaves to political correctness. Let us make a cartoon about a BLACK family and put it next!” And this is how we got the next New Yorker cartoon in that issue. For some reason, the page that showed cartoons no longer does so. Instead the menu redirects, and unlike the first cartoon, I did not cache the second one. May be they will restore it later; here is the gallery link.
But if you don’t get to look at the black family cartoon, you are not missing much. It is the unfunniest cartoon to ever appear in any magazine. It shows a distinctly black family with a toddler. Exhausted mother has fallen asleep among the toys. The frantic father carries the toddler, whose mouth is shown in an apparent scream, away from the mother. The caption is: “She took from you the nap you did not use”. Laughing yet? Howbeit, that’s you racially charged cartoon. We can do it. Yes we can.
So that has been all about the lackeys. Let us now discuss the provocateurs.
It turns out, the New Yorker is very, very concerned about our emerging police state. The New Yorker takes accountability of government, and the freedom of the press, and the security of private communication as matter of utmost importance. So great is the New Yorker’s sense of civic duty, they decided to start their own WikiLeaks operation. Behold
This informed source explains:
the New Yorker released Strongbox. Strongbox allows sources to share messages and files with the New Yorker in a form that is more secure than an email or phone call by using a Tor network. […]Through Strongbox, sources can securely and anonymously contact the New Yorker by accessing the New Yorker’s network on the Tor Project.
What follows over there at mozillaopennews.org is an immense graphic that explains a nine-step process whereby data is encrypted, secret randomly generated passwords are shared, two laptops are put in undisclosed locations and swapped about. James Bond is gasping for breath at that.
So, dear reader, what do you think? The magazine that avoids all appearance of disloyalty to our sitting president also runs a whistleblower site. Draw your own conclusions as to what its purpose is.
And that has been the provocateurs part. Good night.
whistle blower ping.
Yup, racism, like all other sinful inclinations, is common to all, even to the editorial staff of the New Yorker. But, wait, we cannot say that, racism goes only one way. Right?
It never fails to amaze me that people so smart, well educated, well paid, and sitting at center of where it’s happening can be so lacking in common sense. To be sure, racism is problem. It always has been (cf. Numbers 12:1); and it always will be. Just as the poor will always be with us ... sadly ... so will racism, so will all sin, until the Last Day.
I believe everyone is afraid. Mess with this administration some alphabet bureau will come after you. IRS, OSHA, FBI...they will find some way to intimidate you and/or persecute or prosecute.
Just use a black crayon to color in the speaker.
And the listener, too, of course.
Thanks much annalex.
May God give us strength.
Tatt
-—— Who is this character at the desk-——
He is certainly not Amish. I’d say he is a big nosed New Yorker, but that would be racist.
I think, in this case, racism was secondary. The primary consideration was: “How can we report on the growing electronic surveillance scandal under the Obama Administration without in any way damaging the Obama Administration?”
Racism, or phony aversion to it, was a gambit they found to implement the deflection.
Rather, for the symmetrically opposite reason. In New Yorker the cartoons were quality intellectual content and the long articles were pulp. In Playboy, the interviews were quality and the pictures were pulp - but exciting to young boys.
Fear is an understandable emotion. If New Yorker did not make a commentary of any kind on the surveillance scandal, that would be a reasonable reaction to fear by a coward in an unfortunate line of work. Here, however, we have an attempt to lick the boot. That is revolting. Moreover, honest people, even when gripped with fear, do not mount a provocateur effort to catch those who overcame their fear.
In defense of the artist, I have seen his cartoons before and they are all with a character like this, always in the corporate boardroom saying something boneheaded self-assuredly. The issue here is that the added architectural detail puts him in the Oval Office and we know who sits there.
Excellent analysis.
Honestly, when I glanced at the cartoon, I immediately thought “Nixon” and thought you were showing an old cartoon just for contrast before showing the Obama cartoon. Until I read on.
Reminisced with you about the magazine. I, too, always loved the cartoons and eventually subscribed for a few years just because of the cartoons. (Right at this moment, I am remembering two of them from the 1970s!) But, I, also, came to realize how leftist they are and stopped subscribing.
Don’t know how that comma inserted itself behind “But”....
Thank you.
Ha, ha.
This is just badly drawn isn't it? What is in that guy's hand? Has Mr. Katz ever seen a handgun? Or a human hand with a cigar, if that's what it is supposed to be? Why is that thing superimposed on the structure of the dock? Looks like their cartoons are in general decline.
I sat at a doctor’s waiting room recently looking at a recent issue of the NYer, as I always do when there, and finding not a single funny cartoon in it. I thought it was me.
No. Wasn’t you.
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