Fear of Fun
Oh, no! That New Yorker cover is going to ruin everything for Obama. This is the tipping point. Now he'll never get elected. I'm so disappointed. I had such great hopes. What can I do? Cancel my subscription to the First Amendment?
Fear. It's all about fear. I've always been instilled with fear by TV commercials. From the woman who was afraid that her mother-in-law would disapprove of her because she couldn't see the reflection of her face in a dish, to the man who's afraid that he has restless penis syndrome.
And now I have such great fear of a dumbed down public. You know, those who still believe there was a connection between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. They're going to believe that an editorial cartoon is an actual photo of Barack and Michelle.
What's next? A cover showing Jesse Jackson cutting off Obama's nuts? Maybe the New Yorker can redeem itself by publishing an image of John McCain singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." Nah, that concept would be too far fetched. I'd have to cancel my subscription to real life.
If McCain wins the election because of this misunderstanding, I promise I'm going to move to Dubuque. Sorry, I don't mean to whine. It's just that I never ever thought that in my lifetime I would see a president of the United States who was half-white. And now the dream is over. Dang!
Follow Paul Krassner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Zen Bastard
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If that were MCain and his wife on the cover instead of the Obamas, the liberals would be singing a different tune. To them, it's all fun and games unless the messiah and his wife are the butt of the joke.
Except the Obamas aren't the butt of the joke, the cartoon is in defense of the Obamas and it's skewering the bigots. That's the irony the howling Democrats fail to appreciate.
No, the Democrats do get it. We just don't think it was well done and so therefore achieves the opposite of it's intended goal and in fact will be used to perpetuate the very thing it's supposedly against. Which will be ironic and therefore kind of sadly funny in it's own way.
It looks like the same hysterical people who were attacking those who protested Obama's vote on FISA as harmful to Obama are now quivering with fear that this cover will harm Obama. Get a grip, people. Stop letting fear be your guide.
All you people who are so offended by this cover, where were you when this cover came out:
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Why weren't you calling for a boycott of the New Yorker then? Far more tasteless (and also a lot funnier).
Also, do you really believe you are going to convince the American people to vote for Obama by calling them too stupid to understand the message of this cover?
Fortunately, Obama seems to be more intelligent than his supporters, so there is some hope left.
Here here! Thank you for this post. Many who are outraged about this cover make the point that it underlines the "whisper campaign" that has been going on for months. Well...doe
My personal favorites are the people who say, "Of course I, in all my smartiness, understand this cover, but my deep concern is for the multitude of morons..." Moron rehab seems like a futile exercise, but the only hope is to bring this stupidity out into the open.
To answer your first paragraph.
Imagine if this was the cover of The American Conservative or Weekly Standard..
Well, I guess I'm a personal favorite. I live in the state of Virginia in a very conservative area where people don't like McCain and they're trying to figure out Obama. They're listening to Rush, but they're still unsure. They figure they weren't going to vote Obama because of Rev. Wright but the vitriol from Jesse Jackson gives them pause. They just need something to tip them in a direction. But hey, this liberal magazine thinks that Obama is a radical (with a flag burning in the fire place, never mind the rest) so this must make all that crap Rush is saying true. For some voters, it's this one little stupid thing that churns in their "gut". It's not the New Yorker readers I'm concerned about. It's the undecided, going with the "gut" readers that just haven't decided. If Obama can do something to eliminate his "alien-ness" then he's fine, but that image will stick with some uninformed voters.
I am afraid you have missed the whole point. Yes there are those who will see that drawing and it will reinforce all the fears they have of Obama and his wife. There is not much to be done with that crowd. But the bigger picture as I see it is that the Repugs show their aggression and their bully pulpit through their repetitive language and we validate this hate talk by repeating it ourselves when we defend what is being said. We need to change the language! When the artist claims he is using visual sarcasm, he must look at the issue from all angles, especially when it being used on the cover of a well read magazine. When the Repugs scream out their negative accusations and the Repug rhetoric, it must be replied with positives and do not reinforce their messages.
Just for making Paul Krassner pop out of the scenery I'm glad this huge to-do happened. Hi Paul. You're an American treasure, albeit one who is regularly recovered at the landfill thanks to your uncomfortable truth-telling. Also because it reminds me why I can't actually hang with liberals all that long before they get to be sanctimonious wet blankets. And because it reminds me that the basic liberal problem is that they are basically kind of sort of for the "people" but they believe the people are endlessly stupid and need to be spoonfed everything, and at the end of the day they aren't really smarter than the average American after all. Which takes me finally to Obama's lame move-to-the-center moves that have utterly deflated the spirit of his campaign (and which have been inspired by the same lack of trust....b
I'm so sick of white liberals who use the constitution to defend the indefensible. It's not about whether the magazine has the right to publish such images--OF COURSE THEY DO--it's a matter of decency.
Decency?
This type of cartoon is like a lending institution that is not particularly deserving of a direct bailout from those who love the First Amendment - let's bail out something else, something more deserving. It lends itself to the idea that the Right's absurd notions combine to make an absurd picture, it lends itself to those who guffaw at anything derisive about Obama and now have a stronger focus and a perceived group of people with whom they can do their guffawing, it lends itself to those who need someone else to be the first to break the taboo against a random assault on Obama's dignity. It probably lends itself to Indy Mac. It causes all kinds of trouble because of the stupid kind of mindset it lends itself to. The unfortunate part is that the cartoonist probably thought it only lent itself to making the Right seem absurd, and considers it sufficient to condemn those who don't see it that way as "not getting it".
With all that lending you keep referring to, it may be time to call in the loans.
The point isn't that we want the First Amendment to be abolished, it's that we would like some of the folks who think of these things from their little self-contained bubble, to think outside of taht bubble before they do something like this.
Personally, since I know the background behind the drawing, I think it's funny. But, since I know that not everyone knows this background, then maybe it isn't so funny.
This is almost like when Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) used the N-word in his meltdown at the club several months ago...sure
But, do I think Obama could lose solely due to this? No..but it doesn't help in his fight to put to bed all the stupid crap about him swirling around out there.
Fear. It's all about fear.
===
You hit the nail on the head.
Libs and lefties are so paranoid because they've gotten PWNED by Bushco for the last eight years. A lot of 'em are suffering from a sort of battle fatigue, where they hit the ground whenever tailpipe misfires.
That's what's going on here.
Everyone needs to grow a pair, and stay on offense. This is the majors. Whining season is over.
How convenient to always blame the liberals. I'd say those who are so hysterical over this cover are probably the self-identified "pragmatists" who are so fearful that everything short of falling in lockstep with Obama will ruin his chances to be elected. We liberals who actually READ the New Yorker aren't bothered by this cover in the least.
Thou shall not malign MahatmObama, lest the righteous wrath of the faithful shall strike thee down, infidel...
HRC still lost, zioninny.
Honestly, that was pretty funny. But, we screwed this up IMHO. I'll use a rap example, Two Live Crew was a pretty awful rap act, but everyone getting so up in arms about "Me So Horny" rocketed them to the top of the charts. If we just casually ignored this cover (I actually think its pretty funny), it would porbably just go away. But to be honest, we made it a news story. I'm sure Fox is writing headlines right now about how thin skinned liberals are.
Oh, come on. Puhleeze. The cover is stupid, but the artist was not attempting to say these things about Obama - he was trying to point out the utter stupidity of the attacks on Obama. Did he do it clumsily? Sure. Perhaps it would be more palatable if the artist had had a realistic drawing of the fist pump, and showed some mouthbreather watching it from his easy chair - only what the mouth breather "sees" (through his Limbaugh-inspired haze) is the image the artist actually put on the cover.
So we would see the artist doesn't believe this stuff, only dumbass fools who get their "news" from Faux.
Delphine, get educated and find out who Paul Krassner IS. Because your instincts are right on.
"What can I do? Cancel my subscription to the First Amendment?"
The first-amendment excuse is crap. No one is saying it was illegal for the NY'er to do this cover. Having the right to do something doesn't necessarily make it the right thing to do.
A cover showing "Jesse Jackson cutting off Obama's nuts?" would also be offensive, but would at least have some grain of truth so that that you could call that image "satire" . There is no satire in the current cover cartoon, only a collection of hateful vicious lies.
No one should buy this issue at the newstand. I would encourage subscribers to mail this one back to the editors of the New Yorker, with a letter canceling the rest of their subscription. To do so is not anti-first amendment-- it's simply a very ethical way to express your own free speech.
Thank you. My feeling exactly. The majority of knuckle head Americans who see that will think the worst and will not see the so-called satire. I agree this is vicious and hateful...
Must we pander to the knuckle heads? Do we care about the knuckle head vote? And if we do, what does that say about America?
I suscribe and will frame that cover when I get it, asssuming the mail carrier doesn't 'lose it.'
I personally think the picture is hillarious, but then again, I get it. Sad as it is to say, many (far too many) people will take it as an affirmation of their dilusions and or prejudices. As I read from another post, the concept would have worked a little better if the picture of Senator and Mrs. Obama would have been a thought or dream balloon of some far right character. The bottom line is that, as a late dear friend of mine once opined: "98% of people are idiots".
98% of people are idiots" and the other 7% percent don't even know arithmetic :-)
Thanks Paul. Considering that doubt was sowed by Hillary Clinton when she said that Barack Obama was not a Mulim ..........
I suppose there are more people than I thought who, like George W Bush at the correspondents dinner at which Stephen Colbert performed JUST DO NOT UNDERSTAND SATIRE.
And yes, this is satire, which by its nature is designed to stimulate discussion
The next step by the New Yorker should probably be to satirize John McCain similarly, to prod a discussion of just WHY anyone should vote for him.
Something along with Father Time, with John McCain as his face, standing beside his aging Barbie Doll wife, looking insecure, as she stands on a mountain of money. In the background could be the first Mrs. McCain, looking just as old as McCain, which she is, abandoned , with yet another sexy blonde beaconing from the edge of the tableau.
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