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THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.
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The New American Pessimism
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/n…
Union Blues
by Hendrik Hertzberg March 7, 2011
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/…
Thousands Rally in Madison for MLK, April 5 Vote
By Ruth Conniff, April 4, 2011
http://www.progressive.org/rc0…
Wisconsin’s Supreme Test
http://motherjones.com/politic…
Mr. President (The Wisconsin Song) ft. Y-Love (prod. The White Shadow)
http://soundcloud.com/awkword/…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Time for Fair Share Politics
http://www.thenation.com/blog/…
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INTRODUCTION
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A few weeks ago, no one in their right mind would have predicted what happened yesterday in the State of Wisconsin. A political novice defeated an incumbent justice of the state’s Supreme Court. This isn’t something that happens very frequently in special elections in any state. But Wisconsin Democrats and allied groups demonstrated resolve and determination in fighting the GOP Machine. Yesterday, an article in Mother Jones magazine asked if this was even possible
Wisconsin’s Supreme Test
The uprising in Wisconsin this winter vividly illustrated that labor unions and progressive groups could still mount a massive fight when pressed. But can the outrage and determination that fueled the Madison protests be channeled into a victory at the ballot box? That’s the question, as Wisconsinites today vote to fill a crucial swing seat on the state’s seven-person Supreme Court.
The race pits sitting Justice David Prosser, a conservative, against longtime Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, a political novice. The outcome will determine whether the Badger State’s high court tilts to the left or to the right. A Kloppenburg upset would send a strong signal that unions and left-leaning groups in this swing state are indeed a force to be reckoned with heading into the 2012 presidential election — that is, that Wisconsin’s progressive tradition is alive and well. A Kloppenburg loss would take the wind out of the left’s sails, just as progressives in the state are trying to recall a slew of Republican lawmakers for their anti-union votes.
Today’s Update: In a major upset, mobilized unions and progressive groups helped a liberal underdog eke out a narrow victory, but a recount looms.
Editorial cartoonist Ed Stein details above what was really at stake. Hard-won gains made by labor unions over the past century would most certainly have been diluted and the Democratic Party would have been on the political defensive until the 2012 Elections. Instead, a Kloppenburg win results in new-found momentum to recall Republican state senators and restore a sense of balance between employers and employees.
Absent yesterday’s success, we would be looking at more of the disturbing trends that Stein describes below
Difficult Labor
The Republicans in Wisconsin finally found a way to impose their will without Democrats in attendance. Of course, everyone knows that the suppression of collective bargaining rights has nothing to do with the economy. This is about destroying unions, the largest source of funding for Democrats in the country. The lousy economy has given Republicans in Wisconsin the excuse they needed to achieve their long-sought goal of undermining the power of public unions, and other states with Republican governors and legislatures are sure to follow.
Funny, the same folks who cried foul when health care reform was passed on a strictly partisan vote are silent when Republicans eviscerate collective bargaining without a single Democrat voting with them. I was tempted to make the elephant in the cartoon a caricature of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, but given that Republicans in other states can’t wait to do the same, I decided to make the cartoon more general. What I wanted to show here was what unions have accomplished over the years, not to mention the contempt the GOP appears to have for the working man. Without collective bargaining, we’d still have six day work weeks, no workplace safety rules, no child labor laws, no overtime, etc. I worry that we’re heading back to the nineteenth century, when robber barons ruled and workers served at the whim of their lords and masters. Where’s Charles Dickens when we need him?
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2. The Democrats of Wisconsin: Fighting to Preserve the Middle Class
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Rogers blog – http://blogs.sites.post-gazett…
Pro-Union
Many new GOP governors, Scott Walker included, are trying to kill unions. Maine’s republican governor Paul LePage removed a mural from their state’s labor department wall. He claimed the mural was biased toward organized labor and out of line with his pro-business agenda. Imagine that, a labor mural that celebrates labor … how evil!
Civil War by Joe Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Buy this cartoon
Martin Kozlowski, inxart.com, Buy this cartoon
Tony Auth, Yahoo Comics/Philadelphia Inquirer
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Ed Stein, Comics.com (formerly of the Rocky Mountain News)
Statesman at Work by Bill Sanders, sanderscartoon.blogspot.com
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Drew Sheneman, Comics.com (Newark Star-Ledger)
Jeff Stahler, Comics.com (Columbus Dispatch)
Paul Szep, Comics.com
A Message from Arlo Guthrie by Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
Union Busting by Bob Englehart, see reader comments in the Hartford Courant, Buy this cartoonBecause unions helped to create the middle class, safety standards in the workplace, the 40 hour week, paid vacations, livable wages, benefits, etc. etc. etc. Unions also offer a balance of power to the fat cats who are hauling in the TARP-funded bonuses. How about a union for tellers, secretaries, messengers and clerks on Wall Street? Just a thought.
Only a fool or a tea party conservative (do I repeat myself?) would want to get rid of unions. Unions maintain the middle class. I’d like to see unions expand into all aspects of America’s working world, especially now when corporate greed is out of control. I’d like to see unions balance the political scene with more donations to politicians who truly are on the side of the working man.
— Englehart explaining why unions are necessary to the survival of the middle class
Joel Pett, McLatchy Cartoons/Lexington Herald-Leader
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Walt Handelsman, Comics.com (Newsday)
Matt Davies, Comics.com (Connecticut News)
Paul Szep, Comics.com
Mike Thompson, Comics.com (Detroit Free Press)
Dan Wasserman, Comics.com (Boston Globe)
Signe Wilkinson, Comics.com (Philadelphia Daily News)
Bill Day, Comics.com (Memphis Commercial-Appeal)
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3. The Democrats of Wisconsin: Fighting to Preserve the Middle Class
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New Business Climate In Wisconsin by RJ Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Buy this cartoon
Wisconsin Budget by Joe Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Buy this cartoon
Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey Record, Buy this cartoon
Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News
(click link to enlarge cartoon
of 3/1/11 in Peters’ archives)
Mike Thompson, Comics.com (Detroit Free Press)
Matt Wuerker, Politico
(click link to enlarge cartoon
in Wuerker’s March 2011 archives)
Money Talks by Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News, Buy this cartoon
Joel Pett, McLatchy Cartoons/Lexington Herald-Leader
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Jeff Stahler, Comics.com (Columbus Dispatch)
Squashed by Rob Rogers, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Pittsburgh Post-GazetteWhen will the Republicans stop trying to make scapegoats out of the poor and middle class? They want to attack everything from unions to education to health care to public television. This disastrous economy was created by deregulation and corrupt Wall St. bankers and corporations. Hey, GOP … aim your budget axe at the real criminals.
— Rogers accuses the GOP of trying to protect criminal behavior on Wall Street
Class Warfare by Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News
(click link to enlarge cartoon of
3/4/2011 in Peters’ archives)
Steve Sack, Comics.com (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Don Wright, Comics.com (Tribune Media Services)
Joel Pett, McLatchy Cartoons/Lexington Herald-Leader
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Begging for Crumbs by Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
Class Warfare Collective Bargaining by Andy Singer, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon
A Glass of Koch by Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
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4. Leona Helmsley Was Right: Only the “Little People” Pay Taxes
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Jones blog – http://blogs.fredericksburg.co…
Fire The Peacock
MSNBC, owned by General Electric, has failed to report on GE NOT paying any federal taxes. GE actually got a refund. They had billions in profits and they cut their work force. Remember that argument that lower corporate taxes created more jobs? Yeah, right.
GE is squirming in explaining their taxes. They say they’ve paid local and state taxes. OK. They won’t come clean on the Federal tax thing. I guess they could whine about the huge expense of paying off congressmen.
I don’t think we can blame GE for this. If Congress gives them the option, why shouldn’t they take it? Blame Congress.
(Leona Helmsley’s mug shot (right) after being indicted and convicted of federal tax evasion charges)
Tax Burden by Nick Anderson, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Houston Chronicle
Plugging Away by Matt Davies, Comics.com, see reader comments in Connecticut News
Steve Breen, San Diego Union-Tribune, Buy this cartoon
Pat Oliphant, Yahoo Comics/Universal Press Syndicate
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Biz Tax by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, Buy this cartoon
GE Avoids Taxes by Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner, Buy this cartoon
Imagination at Work by John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Buy this cartoon
Martin Kozlowski, inxart.com, Buy this cartoon
Mike Luckovich, Comics.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Drew Sheneman, Comics.com (Newark Star-Ledger)
No Income Tax For GE by Randall Enos, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
Signe Wilkinson, Comics.com (Philadelphia Daily News)
Mark Streeter, Savannah Morning News, Buy this cartoon
John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)
Taxpayer Gets Screwed by Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News, Buy this cartoon
Caterpillar CEO Whines About Conditions in Illinois by Chris Britt, Comics.com, see reader comments in the State-Journal-Register
Corporate Taxes by Joe Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Buy this cartoon
Jeff Danziger, Yahoo Comics/New York Times Press Syndicate
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Buy this cartoon
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5. The GOP’s Stable of 2012 “Presidential” Candidates
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Robert Ariail, Comics.com (formerly of The State, SC)
Jeff Danziger, New York Times Syndicate
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Newt Gingrich’s Family Values by Bill Schorr, Cagle Cartoons, Buy this cartoon
John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Buy this cartoon
Mike Peters, [Dayton Daily News ]
(click link to enlarge cartoon of 3/11/11 in Peters’ archives)
Chris Britt, State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL), Buy this cartoon
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6. Sports Talk: On to Baseball
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Jeff Stahler, Comics.com (Columbus Dispatch)
Busted NCAA Bracket by John Cole, Scranton Times-Tribune, Buy this cartoon
Drew Litton, Comics.com
Clay Jones, Freelance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), Buy this cartoon
Lockout by Milt Priggee, www.miltpriggee.com, Buy this cartoon
Protecting Athletes by Nick Anderson, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Houston Chronicle
Steve Kelley, Comics.com (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
Gary Varvel, Indianapolis Star-News, Buy this cartoon
John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)
Jeff Danziger, Yahoo Comics/New York Times Syndicate
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Pittsburgh Pirates by Randy Bish, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Buy this cartoon
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7. RIP Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro and Elizabeth Taylor
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Geraldine Ferraro Memorial by Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey Record, Buy this cartoon
Deb Milbrath, Freelance Cartoonist
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Note: There are many more editorial cartoons about Actress Elizabeth Taylor in my last weekly diary — The Week in Editorial Cartoons – “I Have Here in My Hand a List of…”
Steve Benson, Comics.com (Arizona Republic)
Steve Kelley, Comics.com (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
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8. Final Thoughts
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Have you been to Europe this year? Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry up!
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A Note About the Diary Poll
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In a recent article in the New Yorker magazine, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote about the changing fortunes of the middle classes and traced it directly to decline in union membership in the private sector
Union Blues
Organized labor’s catastrophic decline has paralleled — and, to a disputed but indisputably substantial degree, precipitated — an equally dramatic rise in economic inequality. In 1980, the best-off tenth of American families collected about a third of the nation’s income. Now they’re getting close to half. The top one per cent is getting a full fifth, double what it got in 1980. The super-rich-the top one-tenth of the top one per cent, which is to say the top one-thousandth, have been the biggest winners of all. What is always called their “compensation” (wage workers lucky enough to have a job simply get paid) has quadrupled.
Over the same period, the composition of the labor movement, as it still defiantly styles itself, has radically changed. A few weeks ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, for the first time, more union members are government workers, not private-sector employees. The Times quoted an official of the United States Chamber of Commerce as pronouncing himself “a little bit shocked,” and he wasn’t the only one. Yet this development has nothing to do with some imagined spike in public-sector unionism. It is entirely a function of the collapse of organized labor in the private sector. For the past four decades, the portion of the public workforce belonging to unions has held remarkably steady, at a little more than one in three. In the private sector, just one worker in fifteen carries a union card.
(Above cartoon by Paul Szep, Comics.com)
Given the above, yesterday’s election of JoAnne Kloppenburg to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was welcome news. While in the long-term, this small step in itself may not radically change the economic landscape, it certainly gives the Democratic Party an opportunity to stop the bleeding and, to a degree, reverse this trend of a shrinking middle class and which has contributed greatly to wealth and income equality for several decades.
What impact, if any, will Kloppenburg’s election have upon the fortunes of the middle classes? Remember to take the diary poll too.
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Extra Cartoons
Saturday Night Fantasy Time Travel
I just posted this diary — If You Could Go Back in Time… If you could, which period of recent (or ancient) history would you like to live in, who would you like to be, and which historical figures would you like to meet?
An excerpt:
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We’ve all, at some point or another in our lives, had this fantasy. Whether we perceive modern life as too hurried, unsatisfying, devoid of meaning, or we see ourselves as slaves to the demands of technology, some of us yearn for a simpler time when many of the great political and ideological debates of our era had yet to be settled. Conflicts or movements of the past that we picture ourselves as an integral part of. For we are confident that our presence would have resulted in an outcome to our liking. Great ideas that we wish we’d thought of. Music that we know we should have recorded. Inventions we know we were destined to be associated with. It is the inevitable ‘what if’ question we often think of. It is the restless explorer in all of us.
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Kirk Anderson, Freelance Cartoonist
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Ben Sargent, Washington Post Comics/Universal Press Syndicate
(click link to enlarge cartoon)
Matt Wuerker, Politico
(click link to enlarge cartoon
in Wuerker’s March Archives)
Tom Toles, Yahoo Comics/Washington Post
(click link to enlarge cartoon)