Tag: Minorities

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – Treating Mother Earth Badly

Crossposted at Daily Kos

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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Bill Day

Bill Day, Comics.com (Memphis Commercial-Appeal)

Social Justice (don’t shoot the messengers), the grand experiment of Yes We Can

Cross posted at  KOS

Social Justice. Some of us were introduced to the idea in church, appropriately because Jesus preached social justice. Altho social justice is an important theme in all major religions, some churches like the Catholic Church have offices of Social Justice. In deed the term was coined by a Jesuit priest in the mid 1800’s, based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.  

It got a lot of press both good and bad in the 60’s when Jesuit priests preached social justice and organized the impoverished of South America. Social Justice is the heart of Liberation Theology and Black Liberation Theology.  Follow me below the fold for a little background on social justice, why shooting the messenger is counter productive and oh yes, the grand experiment of YES WE CAN.

Britain’s Tories, Race/Ethnic Politics, and the 2008 Election

crossposted from Daily Kos, Truth & Progress, and My Left Wing

Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 during the American Civil War — when President Abraham Lincoln committed the Union to ending slavery — the issue of race has bedeviled not just the United States to this day but in recent decades, several European countries too as they struggle to assimilate minorities of color in their societies. Progressive-minded parties in Western liberal democracies have long been the home of minorities and immigrants seeking to benefit politically and economically from government policies designed to ease their assimilation into society. Some tangible successes notwithstanding, complete assimilation and recognition has often been elusive.  

As has been true for the Democratic Party since the 1930’s — when African-American voters started to switch their political allegiance from Lincoln’s Republican Party to the Democrats as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs provided economic relief to the poor — minorities in Britain have long supported the Labour Party for over 50 years.  

Are we now witnessing an electoral drift from Labour to the Tories in Britain?  More on the flip side.