CSotD: A Festival of Futility
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Ann Telnaes combines her anguish over the crackdown on women’s rights under the reconstituted Afghan government with her fury over the assault on women’s rights and dignity by JD Vance and his misogynistic followers.
Don’t say “It can’t happen here,” because it’s already happening here with the overturning of Roe v Wade, cutbacks to freedom of choice, the outlawing of misoprostol, and, as she notes, Vance’s attacks on women who do not fit his model of their only value as child-bearing vessels.
Even if Vance and his incel brigade get into power and achieve the combination of legislation, court decisions and social pressure they desire, however, we’ll be a long way from the way women are oppressed in Afghanistan. This David Horsey cartoon would be a solid commentary on the new laws there, except that it ran in May, 2001, before we temporarily overthrew the Taliban.
It’s still solid commentary, but today our only interest in Afghanistan is exploiting the attack during the withdrawal, which we don’t blame on the Taliban but rather on the president whose predecessor freed Taliban fighters, drew down our troops and set a withdrawal date.
Which brings to mind another cartoon from the early days of our adventure in the sand, this one by Bob Englehart, who was not a prophet but had a grasp on reality.
I don’t know what to do about the Taliban and the fate of Afghanistan’s women, but I’d suggest we get our own house in order and that men who like women pitch in on the task.
The world is full of things we can’t fix until we straighten ourselves out, and it doesn’t help to have people like Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) assisting Vladimir Putin in his attempts to interfere with our electoral system by insisting that he isn’t doing so.
The evidence has been around since before Bill Barr deleted it from the Mueller Report, but Garland’s announcement of a major payoff to finance pro-Russian, pro-Trump propaganda is clear.
Benny Johnson, one of the conservative commentators involved, admits that he was suckered by the bribery, though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe what he was unwittingly paid to write.
As Tim Pool posted “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.”
Poor babies.
But Benson says Garland is lying, so it never happened.
Jeremy Banx has me pegged. I went to Xitter to fetch those Useful Idiot quotes and it’s not the only time.
When I was a reporter, one of my colleagues volunteered to work a day at the local sewage treatment plant, which was having quality control problems. We admired him for it, but I don’t expect anyone to admire me for probing Xitter to see what sewage is backed up there.
Ian Baker’s time traveler isn’t real, but he’s right about how “X” hasn’t caught on with editors or, really, anyone not named Elon. Still, it’s bizarre that editors continue to deadname the platform. And probably just as silly that people like me insist on calling it “Xitter.”
It’s one more thing like the Taliban that can appall us without our being able to do much about it. I’d say boycott its advertisers, but it barely has any and I doubt Musky’s lawsuit against them for not advertising with him will bring them around.
What a maroon.
On the topic of horrifying things we might be able to do something about, I disagree with Pat Hudson’s analysis because I believe the Biden administration is ratcheting up its pressure on Netanyahu and, so far as I know, the weapons we continue to provide are not the kinds of things he’s using to slaughter civilians in Gaza.
It would be lovely if international relations worked on as simple a level as some people think they do, and I say that as part of a contingent who once thought you could end war by sticking daffodils down the rifle barrels of soldiers.
Matt Wuerker (Politico) has it right: No matter how close we come to a ceasefire, negotiations are hampered by the fact that leadership on both sides seems unwilling to stop, regardless of how much their people — the survivors, that is — want the killing to end.
Attempting to be neutral means appearing to take one side or the other, and given all the outside parties with stakes in the game, taking either side provides you with powerful enemies or at least stirs up additional trouble and death.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Jones and Wolterink are harsh in their judgment of Netanyahu, who reportedly rejected a peace offer that would have freed several of the hostages who were, instead, executed and returned as corpses.
In his Substack column, Jones compares Netanyahu to Trump for his heartlessness and to Putin for his attacks on civilian targets. He’s not wrong, nor is Wolterink wrong for adding up all the dead instead of focusing on the six most recently killed.
Then again, the six were executed, which speaks to the ghastly brutality on the other side.
Wilcox attributes the continuing death to a tactical decision in the face of popular opposition, and that restrained word, “punish,” adds a cold calculation to the matter.
It’s reminiscent of Gen. Curtis LeMay’s plan for victory in Vietnam, and a cartoon that ran either in Punch or the New Yorker lampooning his approach, in which an officer says “Bomb them back into the Stone Age. It’s the only language I understand.”
But it also opens the disquieting question of whether we expect better behavior from clean-shaven people in suits and ties than we do from bearded people in flowing robes.
Bob Gorrell (Creators) notes Biden’s more strident demand for an end to the conflict, and this is a cartoon that could be taken either as a warning to Israel that they need to get their act together, or as a condemnation of the administration for failing to stand by an ally.
Given Gorrell’s support of Trump, and Trump’s vow to let Israel finish a job that has already cost 40,000 Palestinian lives, I don’t think he is celebrating a chance for peace.
Meanwhile, “Let’s leave it alone” is not an option.
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