CSotD: Peace Without Shame Without Peace
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“From the least of them to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; from prophet to priest, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of My people with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all. Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” — Jeremiah 6:13-15
Bunday’s audience is British, but he has a style here reminiscent of artists whose work must transcend borders and languages: No text, and clear imagery anyone can understand, whether they agree or not.
There is no sin in making your message clear as long as you don’t make it condescendingly obvious, for instance by labeling the three men. He also foregoes the tempting gag of using Trump’s tie as the red carpet, which would add a laugh to a situation that is not in the least funny.
This is an excellent, concise statement.
By contrast, Cole does require readers to have a sense of what is at stake, and what has been: He has just repeated this piece that originally ran in March. I’d have skipped the peace/piece pun, but it does no harm to accent the hypocrisy Jeremiah decried some 2600 years ago. Plus ça change indeed.
And plus ça change from 2014, when I dropped this meme upon the seizure of the Crimea. Did nobody see this coming? Really?
There’s a reason Toro’s cartoon has been reprinted and shared so often, and it’s largely because you don’t have to be a wise, well-read history scholar to feel that sense of doom. It’s flattering to know where things are headed, but horrifying at the same time, and, if you don’t remember the “little green men” — Russian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine with no identifying patches on their uniforms — you should at least know that Hitler’s attempt to conquer Europe began with a nibble before he began taking gulps.
One of the best parts of the No Kings rallies has been seeing the mix of young folks and old folks who share a level of common sense and human decency you don’t necessarily encounter on social media, where bots and trolls make up a majority that doesn’t really exist in three dimensions.
Now the Republicans are quarreling amongst themselves because the proposed agreement clearly gives Russia everything it wants except the rest of Ukraine, though it includes an agreement to keep peacekeepers out, which smells suspiciously like giving Russia the rest of Ukraine.
It seems that, unless a bunch of Senators met in the cloakroom to concoct a lie, Secretary of State Rubio told them the proposal had been written by the Russians, only to remember that, gosh, no, they didn’t write it, we did.
Rubio’s reversal not only defies Occam’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is likely true, but confirms Hanlon’s Razor, which states that you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Even the White Queen, who could believe six impossible things before breakfast, would find it hard to accept that tariffs are paid by exporters, that trade imbalances are a plot against our country, that raids in Chicago turned up masses of violent criminals, that Donald Trump graduated from Wharton with honors and could have played professional sports and that Dear Leader had a role in writing up Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine Wish List.
And that Trump will release his taxes as soon as the audit is finished and will release a comprehensive health plan in two weeks. The Washington Post used to keep track of Trump’s lies, but, well …
I am reliably assured that parts of the Post’s newsroom are excellent.
Meanwhile, I get no comfort by seeing our president selling Putin’s recipes, but I don’t believe that Zelensky is going to swallow it and I’m reassured that those people at the window can see what is happening, even if there are people in this country who apparently cannot.
Or will not. After all, we are living in a country where reminding people to obey the law is an act of treason that merits the death penalty. And we’re all gonna get $2,000 checks. Y’know — in two weeks.
Like Luckovich, Rowe picks up on the GOP frenzy over autopens, which they claim were used to mask Biden’s incapacity, though I haven’t seen evidence of Dear Leader laboriously signing each of the pardons for the January 6 tourists or his buddies who conspired to falsify the 2020 elections.
Rowe has been listing Trump’s outrages and crimes as tattoos for some time now, but his use of a blood-soaked dove as an autopen is a new development, and he makes no secret of who slaughtered that poor bird.
Morland, however, takes a different tack, with Zelensky the one looking in through the window, which he has apparently cracked by beating his head against the barrier, while Trump sits happily on Putin’s lap, wearing a self-satisfied, childish grin that seems lifted from photographs rather than caricatured out of sarcasm.
And Chappatte simply boils it down to the basics: Putin and Trump have come up with a plan and expect Zelensky to sign it by this Thursday or Dear Leader is threatening to halt all military assistance and let the author of the plan take as much of Ukraine as he would like.
Makes me wonder if Dear Leader is ever going to figure it out, and who’s going to still be alive if he finally does.
I wasn’t going to do anymore pardoned-turkey cartoons, but Jennings has put such a great face on this one, and managed to turn it from a potential dinner into a bird of prey, that I can’t resist.
Combined with the Thanksgiving deadline Dear Leader has set for Zelensky to betray his country, this is well above the run-of-the-mill pardoned-turkey gags, particularly since she’s in Britain where Thanksgiving is someone else’s celebration.
Assuming anybody besides Vladimir Putin has something to celebrate this year.
Gratitude used to be so much easier to find, and so much more fun to acknowlege.
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