CSotD: They’re Selling Postcards of the Wildfire
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Morten Morland offers his own version of Desolation Row, as the United States pulls down thoughtfulness and erects a golden calf, an accusation of sacrilege you’d never see on the editorial pages of the Washington Post (but only because it would be repetitive).
Dylan began his lyrics with a reference to a 1920 lynching in Duluth of Black circus workers, and there indeed were postcards sold of the dead men. This may come as a surprise if you’ve never learned the history of lynching, but for those who have paid some attention, the shock is not that it happened but that it happened so far north, since we tend to think of lynchings as a southern phenomenon.
The other way we tend to compartmentalize the phenomenon is to assume it happened a century ago and that those days are long past, but Morland points out that we’re not so civilized after all.
We haven’t started killing each other yet, or at least we haven’t started selling postcards celebrating it, unless you count Kyle Rittenhouse and, to swap loyalties, Luigi Mangione, in which case, yes, we have.
Point being that, if you’ve ever wondered about the people who bought those postcards, or the throngs that gathered to watch heads being chopped off by the guillotines in the Reign of Terror, or the mob who pelted and mocked Jesus as he carried his cross to Calvary, look no further. We’re all around us.
As Max Espinoza says, it appears to be the elephant’s fate to use a major tragedy to vent his frustration with all who do not do things his way, and to stir up the mob against those with whose policies he disagrees.
For my part, I don’t believe in fate, but I do understand that, once you’ve started down a particular road, it can be hard to change directions. For instance, the chief witness against Hunter Biden, the one who provided all the testimony about the money and the corruption at Burisma, has just been sentenced to six years in prison because he admitted it was all a lie.
But Gym Jordan says the House Judiciary Committee will continue to harass Hunter Biden, despite the lack of evidence and despite him having been pardoned and despite the fact that there’s no evidence those circus workers in Duluth even touched that girl.
The lady in Jeff Stahler (AMS)‘s cartoon assumes we’re not apt to change over the next four years. We’ve already seen Dear Leader announce that the California wildfires are Gavin Newsom’s fault, because of a non-existent water plan, how he handled water rights in an entirely other part of the state and his failure to clear all the brush off the 156,670 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Of course, if they had cleared away that brush, they’d have had massive mud slides that would also be Gavin Newsom’s fault.
But the wildfires aren’t entirely Newsom’s fault. Mexico and Canada are also to blame:
Some people will say that CA stands for California, and that the Ontario referenced here is the one in California, not the one in Canada and that there’s nothing here about Mexico at all, but Dr. Naomi Wolf has a doctorate. Do you? I didn’t think so!
Juxtaposition of the Day
As Varvel and Allie point out, the problem is progressive policies. Varvel is more explicit: It’s progressive fire policies, like a bucket brigade where everyone comes together to address a problem, though I’m not sure that’s quite what he means.
But Allie assures us that it can’t be climate change because, obviously, the Democratic liars caused the fire themselves with progressive policies.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
An interesting pairing of “pouring gas on the fire,” with the American, John Deering, focusing on the deliberate intention to make political gains by exploiting the unfolding tragedy, while, from Britain, Riddell offers the more sweeping observation of what happens when support for the petroleum industry meets the effects of a changing climate.
Megan Herbert echoes Riddell’s accusation, but from an Australian perspective, accusing her government of not simply ignoring the problem but of actively making it worse by offering government support to the coal and petroleum industries.
In posting the cartoon on BlueSky, Herbert tags it with #lafires, which, along with Riddell’s commentary, suggests that we are in the role of Bad Example to the rest of the world. And, after all, the fires are here in America, but the climate is everywhere, as are the effects of how nations address it.
Plus I suppose the smoke from our fires isn’t doing the climate any good. It ain’t Krakatoa, but it isn’t helping.
Which reminds me of living in Colorado Springs when Mt. St. Helen’s blew up. It was 1200 miles away, but we had to rinse, not wipe, the ash from our cars lest we scratch the finish.
Those of us distant from wildfires get lovely sunsets, but that’s certainly not all we get.
However, in another view from Australia, Glen Le Lievre warns that this isn’t the time to talk about all that. It’s a neat echo of how America deals with mass shootings, and the flaming corner of the poster is an excellent touch.
There are, by the way, a lot of flaming bear cartoons, as well as a lot of “Isn’t this sad?” cartoons. I’m not sure any of them will make a bit of difference, though the “Isn’t this sad?” ones might spark some contributions to groups attempting to help victims of the fires.
The flaming bears are just a distraction from more disturbing and immediate issues.
Chip Bok (Creators) offers a vulgar look at the villain in all this, because not only are the fires Gavin Newsom’s fault for being governor of a state with taxes, but it’s also his fault that insurance companies (and patriotic Congressmen) are increasingly loathe to cover climate change damage from California wildfires.
It’s also Gavin Newsom’s fault that insurance companies are increasingly loathe to cover climate change damage from Florida hurricanes. That would be Ron DeSantis’s fault, but he’s a Republican.
The message being that a disaster isn’t so bad if you can weaponize it to make Americans hate each other.
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