Joint Chiefs of Staff: Get over your damn selves. (Cartoon)

[Ravenman]

@Revenant Threshold

Again, what about his depiction do you find distasteful? Do you think all pictures of quadruple amputees are distasteful?

I cannot stand Donald Rumsfeld at all, but I think using the tragedy of troops losing arms and legs to make joke/political dig at someone – even a guy as obnoxious as Rumsfeld – is disrespectful of the troops who have suffered (because, of course, of the horrendous agenda of Rumsfeld and Bush). To me, it doesn’t really matter whether the drawing represented a single soldier or the whole army, it was using the image of a trooper to make a callous political dig.

If the joke were more high-minded – I’m having a hard time thinking of something right offhand, but something more humanizing of the troops beyond being an amputee prop for “Rumsfeld’s” punch line – I’d probably not have a problem with it.

Again, I just don’t see anything political about Pace’s letter. I read it as a protest against a question of taste. I don’t think that’s a problem at all.

[cosmosdan]

At first glance I thought the cartoon to be in bad taste also but on closer examination and reading that it was a direct commentary on a Rumsfeld speech I see it as a graphic yet honestly expressed response. Even courageous in that the artist was smart enough to know what kind of response he might expect.

This morning I saw them discuss it on Fox and friends and a retired colonel said it’s just awful to use our courageous and wounded soilders to make some political point and of course Fox friends robots nodded in agreement.

What incredible fucking hypocrasy… The Republican convention puts a 9/11 banner up tp promote their political agenda. Politicains and pundits routinely accuse those who disagree with this war as beng less patriotic and “hurting the troops” If we grade bad taste on a scale then the cartoonist gets a “hmmm maybe you should reconsider, some people will be deeply offended and angry” and Rumsfeld and a few others of those lying fucking hypocrytes should be sentanced to living and trying to survive on the streets of Baghdad.

[Rysto]

@Ravenman

I really don’t see how the Chiefs were being political in writing a letter protesting what, in my view, is a pretty callous depiction of a service member.

The service member being treated callously is the point of the cartoon. The cartoonist is saying that Rumsfield et al. are treating the Army terribly.

[Mr.Goob]

I’ve been reading Toles for years when he was with the Buffalo News. This cartoon was typical of his style. The round faced “everyman” in the hospital bed is a stock character of his.

He won a Pulitzer prize in 1990 for a clever take on the first amendment. My google-fu finds a bunch of references to it, but I can’t find the cartoon itself.

[Ravenman]

@Rysto

The service member being treated callously is the point of the cartoon.

Your powerful rebuttal reminds me of Homer Simpson: “Let me set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute.”

But Toles seems to be treating the “soldier” just as callously as “Rumsfeld.” It’s rather odd for a person to charge someone with being an unfeeling brute toward the toops if that person is also acting like an unfeeling jerk toward the troops.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Ravenman

But Toles seems to be treating the “soldier” just as callously as “Rumsfeld.” It’s rather odd for a person to charge someone with being an unfeeling brute toward the toops if that person is also acting like an unfeeling jerk toward the troops.

In what way is Toles treating the soldier callously?

Daniel

[tagos]

@Ravenman

Your powerful rebuttal reminds me of Homer Simpson: “Let me set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute.”

But Toles seems to be treating the “soldier” just as callously as “Rumsfeld.” It’s rather odd for a person to charge someone with being an unfeeling brute toward the toops if that person is also acting like an unfeeling jerk toward the troops.

Only in your bizzaro world is the cartoonist treating a soldier callously.

Care to name this soldier? Maybe you recognise him from his eyes? Both figures are symbols. One a symbol of callous neglect and one a heartless bastard. That’s so easy to grasp, symbols being such a fundamental part of western artistic expression that I can’t understand how you fail to grasp it. It makes you look like part of the Offenderati.

[SteveG1]

@furt

Which, at the risk of echoing Moto, is the whole problem AFAIC. There are a hundred different ways to take a shot at Rumsfeld (a perfectly fair target); the way he chose to do it was to use wounded vets as props. “Offensive,” no. In very poor taste, yes.

As props? You mean like when the old

“we can’t quit now! So many have died for this cause!” argument ???

The outcry from the Joint Cheifs and O’Reilly is bullshit. The cartoon expresses outrage at Rummy’s shit attitude of using up and throwing away soldires and veterans. Various veteran advocacy groups support what the cartoon really says.

[Ravenman]

@LHD

In what way is Toles treating the soldier callously?

@tagos

Only in your bizzaro world is the cartoonist treating a soldier callously.

Like I said in #41, the symbol of a wounded soldier is essentially a stooge, a prop, or set-up line for a cheap zing at Rumsfeld. I have a great deal of sympathy for troops wounded in Iraq, as do the overwhelming majority of anti-war folks, but I don’t see any sympathy in the cartoon for the symbolic amputee soldier. Lack of sympathy is the definition of callous, so I think the term is appropriate.

In a way, I think the cartoon exhibits a left-wing version of that obnoxious Bush line about having to send more troops to Iraq to honor those who have already died. It makes wounded troops look like a prop for a political argument, and I think it’s simply disrespectful, no matter which side does it.

If the cartoon had been about tanks being shot up and humvees looking like jalopies and troops with boots falling apart, I’d have no problem at all such a cartoon.

It makes you look like part of the Offenderati.

Whooo! Offenderati! I’ll consider myself ZINGED! Excuuuuuuuse me if I just slink back to my Offenderati hole and wallow in how offended I am!

But before I stage my retreat, will someone please tell me how the JCS questioning a matter of taste is in any way an improper wading in to politics?

[RickJay]

@Ravenman

I really don’t see how the Chiefs were being political in writing a letter protesting what, in my view, is a pretty callous depiction of a service member.

Are you guys using a definition of the word “callous” that differs from the one usually used in English? In what was was that cartoon lacking sympathy for others? Clearly, the cartoonist’s point is that he DOES have sympathy for the Army and it soldiers, and that he is criticizing Donald Rumsfeld for lacking that sympathy.

Honestly, are we just making stuff up now? What’s next, that the cartoon is callous and it’s also racist because the soldier’s white and that implies no black soldiers have been wounded? Jesus.

[Rysto]

@Ravenman

@Rysto

The service member being treated callously is the point of the cartoon.

Your powerful rebuttal reminds me of Homer Simpson: “Let me set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute.”

You’ve taken that sentence out of context. Let me rephrase in a way you can’t alter:

The service member being treated callously** by Rumsfield **is the point of the cartoon.

[Miller]

@Ravenman

Like I said in #41, the symbol of a wounded soldier is essentially a stooge, a prop, or set-up line for a cheap zing at Rumsfeld. I have a great deal of sympathy for troops wounded in Iraq, as do the overwhelming majority of anti-war folks, but I don’t see any sympathy in the cartoon for the symbolic amputee soldier. Lack of sympathy is the definition of callous, so I think the term is appropriate.

But if he didn’t have sympathy for the troops, why would he have been offended by Rumsfeld’s comment in the first place? The fact that he’s going after Rummy in the first place is a direct result of being sympathetic to the situation in which he’s placed our soldiers.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@RickJay

Honestly, are we just making stuff up now? What’s next, that the cartoon is callous and it’s also racist because the soldier’s white and that implies no black soldiers have been wounded? Jesus.

It seems to me that what’s next is the AMA coming along and condemning the cartoon for displaying doctors as callous. After that, the nation’s high school English teachers will resign en masse.

Daniel

[An_Arky]

This reminds me of an interview with Johnny Rotten where the interviewer reads the lines from God Save The Queen:

God save the Queen
A Fascist regime
It made you a moron
Potential H bomb

The interview says “so, you’re calling the Queen a moron”, and Rotten says “No, it made YOU a moron”, then the interviewer says “so you’re calling the Queen a moron”… :rolleyes:

[Ravenman]

@Miller

But if he didn’t have sympathy for the troops, why would he have been offended by Rumsfeld’s comment in the first place? The fact that he’s going after Rummy in the first place is a direct result of being sympathetic to the situation in which he’s placed our soldiers.

Well, I’m not criticizing Toles for being anti-troops. It could well be that he has tremendous sympathy for the troops, and if he says he does, then I’ll take his word for it, no questions asked.

I’m just looking at the cartoon, and I don’t see the trooper portrayed in a sympathetic light. I see a symbolic trooper in a pathetic light, essentially as being a stooge in a shot at Rumsfeld. For all I know, based solely on looking at the cartoon, Toles is merely taking a shot at Rumsfeld, nothing more, nothing less.

Taking political shots at someone for not caring about the troops doesn’t automatically put someone on the moral high ground: that ground is seized by actually displaying sympathy or humanizing the pain that is inflicted on the troops. As far as I can tell, the cartoon soldier is treated poorly by being, more or less, the butt of a joke.

(There’s also the additional dehumanization by depicting a wounded soldier as a symbol of an entire institution, but in this instance, that’s more of an intellectual case, and I don’t find it to be offensive per se – but what it does show is an additional way in which the pain of wounded soldiers is not treated with very much respect.)

The way I read the cartoon, the main effect of showing a disabled trooper (rather than a broken-down humvee or something) seems to be for shock value. I don’t think that that should earn Toles plaudits for standing up for the troops, or however you want to phrase it.

On a broader level, I’m getting weary of this competition of, “Which side is more for the troops?” There’s a perfectly good debate to be had whether more can be done to make our troops safer while they’re in Iraq, and whether we should pull them out. (I think the answers are Yes and Yes.) But I don’t think that makes the other side more anti-troop than I; it just means I disagree with the other side’s judgment. So when Bush waves the bloody shirt about honoring our dead troops by staying in Iraq, or when my fellow liberals posture ourselves as being more pro-troop than the other side, I think it’s a childish, callous game of using soldiers as pawns in a petty, bullshit caring competition. I don’t think any of that posturing is very respectful of the troops, and I’d much prefer that these important issues be lifted above ad hominem attacks. Toles notably failed to do that in his cartoon.

Finally, please, oh, please, will someone explain why the CJCS questioning the taste of a cartoon is somehow improperly wading into politics? I’m beginning to think that you all are ducking the question.

[beagledave]

@Ravenman

Your powerful rebuttal reminds me of Homer Simpson: “Let me set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute.”

But Toles seems to be treating the “soldier” just as callously as “Rumsfeld.” It’s rather odd for a person to charge someone with being an unfeeling brute toward the toops if that person is also acting like an unfeeling jerk toward the troops.

The “soldier” is a symbol…hence the name on the hospital chart. The only person with a real identity in the cartoon is Dr. Rummy.

As others have pointed out…there is a long tradition in editorial cartooning to pair a generic “victim” with the real subject of the cartoon.

Example

[Guinastasia]

It seems to me some people are more offended by the way the cartoon is using the plight of the troops to point out how shitty they’re being treated than the fact that the troops are getting the shaft in the first place.

And THAT, if anything, is “anti-troops.”

[Cervaise]

The cartoonist’s depiction of Rumsfeld’s callousness toward his soldiers != cartoonist is callous toward soldiers.

Christ, what is this, reading comprehension 101?

If anything, the cartoon sympathizes deeply with the soldiers getting the shaft from this arrogant, incompetent administration.

[David_Simmons]

@Ravenman

Finally, please, oh, please, will someone explain why the CJCS questioning the taste of a cartoon is somehow improperly wading into politics? I’m beginning to think that you all are ducking the question.

Their wading in collectively as The Joint Chiefs seems improper to me.

See here and here.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Ravenman

Finally, please, oh, please, will someone explain why the CJCS questioning the taste of a cartoon is somehow improperly wading into politics? I’m beginning to think that you all are ducking the question.

Allow me to quote myself, with a minor change to the intro:

@me

[Imagine for a moment that] Ted Toles is a decorated war veteran. If he signed each of his cartoons with his army credentials, including signing this cartoon with his credentials, how would you feel about that? I suspect you’d be all up in arms at how he was using his war-hero-status to promote a political point you disagreed with. I’m almost certain, given Mr. Moto’s responses in previous threads to politicians with army credentials, that he’d object.

Why is it okay for the JCS to use their army credentials in promoting their political point?

If they wrote the letter off the clock, I don’t mind. If my tax dollars helped to fund that letter, it pisses me off.

I don’t like folks using taxpayer resources to promote a partisan opinion. I believe their motive in writing this letter was to promote a partisan opinion. Note that they’ve not written letters criticizing pro-war forces for using soldiers as symbols.

Now, can you answer my question? Specifically, why are you not pissed at how Toles is depicting doctors? His depiction of doctors (clearly military doctors) as uncaring is far worse than his depiction of soldiers.

Daniel