Memorial Day: When Editorial Cartooning Comes Out to Die

No meme is stupider than “the troops died to protect our freedoms” – since the U.S. hasn’t fought a war that involved defending the U.S. since the 19th century, it would be more accurate to say that the troops died in order to crush other people’s freedoms – and that meme hits its zenith on Memorial Day, when the nation’s idea-challenged editorial cartoonists seize an opportunity to file a cartoon days in advance so they can kick off to the Bar-B-Q pit. Here are but a few of this year’s chestnuts of nastily nationalistic, sentimental pabulum:

 

132216 600 Memorial Day cartoons

First of all, the yellow ribbon is for live troops. You’re supposed to put it on your tree until they come home. I don’t think you’d put that in a cemetery – not unless you want them to come home and commit suicide. Which does happen a lot these days. (Also, on a side note: how did the original “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” song, which was about a convict hoping his lover would be there for him when he got out of the joint, get appropriated by the military industrial entertainment complex?)

The bigger point, of course, is that these dead men and women did not protect the U.S. since the U.S. has not been attacked by an invading army since, well, 1812. It merely reminds us of all the war and mayhem U.S. forces have caused all over the world – you know, places that are not lands of peace and freedom.

Not that the U.S. – where the FBI freely admits searching journalists’ files – is exactly a land of freedom. Or peace (see Newtown).

 

Sometimes a shitty cartoon can prompt a lot of thought.

 

132247 600 Memorial Day cartoons

A genuinely confusing cartoon. Knowing Beeler’s politics, I assume this is pro-war, but the tone is as sinister as WW2 propaganda art. Where are we, exactly?

 

132174 600 Memorial Day 2013 cartoons

Grateful for what? Dead soldiers? How does this “grateful nation” show its thanks – with a free flag?This kind of thing is soooo right-wing – and yet it draws no notice – that it gives me chills.

 

132018 600 Memorial Day cartoons

Aside from the mawkish sentiment, it’s pretty inaccurate. Military cemeteries, and military graves in civilian burial grounds, tend to be well-maintained.

 

112412 600 Never Forget cartoons

McKee had to know – these guys all had to know – that other cartoonists would do this exact same cartoon. So why do it? The excuse used to be that their readers – in their paper – deserved their unique cut-and-paste take on a generic idea. But now with the Internet…why?

 

132187 600 MEMORIAL DAY 2013 cartoons

Zero.

132259 600 Memorial Day and Drone use cartoons
This one literally makes my head hurt. The sentiment is so disgusting I…WTF?

132267 600 Remember cartoons

Takeaway message: It is Memorial Day. Which I knew from looking at my calendar. Advice for Gorrell: Google Image Search high-res files when you’re looking for flags. I’m awed by this cartoon; it took him less time to make it than for me to read it.

 

112555 600 Memorial Day Over cartoons

Idiotic. But detailed. Them rocks look good for rock-climbing on a beautiful Memorial Day.

112493 600 Memorial Day cartoons
Apparently this sentiment does not apply to Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Somalis, etc.

 

112434 600 Memorial Day cartoons

When I first saw this, I thought it meant Electronic Benefit Transfer. Now that I understand it, I wanna know: do we owe these dead troops to China? Would they take them back? Having trouble with the analogy.

112200 600 Memorial Day names cartoons

What, no rapists?

 

112350 600 MEMORIAL DAY 2012 cartoons

Check out this fascist art. See, Randy, one of the reasons I never enlisted is so that I don’t have to salute anyone. That is what freedom is really about.

 

112411 600 Who we are cartoons

Well, probably more conservatives. But you know, there are and were dead socialist soldiers. And communists. And Klansmen. And, for that matter, what about the non-Americans who were promised citizenship but died before they got it?

Our troops should fight another war: against Memorial Day editorial cartoons.

18 Comments.

  • F*in hilarious. Never stop goin after em Ted!

  • i love this new feature and hope you continue. the brutal takedowns are fun but i mostly just like incisive criticism; i myself am not able to articulate as well as you why something doesn’t work.

  • “the U.S. hasn’t fought a war that involved defending the U.S. since the 19th century,” “[US] has not been attacked by an invading army since, well, 1812.”

    hmmm… I am sure you are going to whip out some points to prove me wrong and foolish, but I’ll bite. As I recall in WWII Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and actually invaded the Aleutian Islands of US Alaska and held them for about a year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign). That alone should address both statements as far as self defense and repelling of an invading army post 19th century.

    Similarly, while Germany didn’t actually invade it did start attacking US merchant ships before the war, declared war on the US first (our deceleration was in response), deployed saboteurs via U-boat onto US mainland soil, and created a whole host of (perhaps pie-in-sky ridiculous but still count) plans even before WWII was officially underway for attacking the US (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/operation-pastorius-hitler-s-unfulfilled-dream-of-a-new-york-in-flames-a-716753.html). While our declaration of war wasn’t really a response to an invasion per-say, I do think it is not an unreasonable stance to say responding with force to such aggression and a declaration of war initiated by Nazi Germany is still a mater of self-defense, which occurred after the 19th century.

    But I am sure you have a ripping series of counterpoints, I am eagerly anticipating seeing them.

    • My assertion relates directly to the invading portion. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and later the Aleutian Islands (this letter episode followed the US declaration of war), it was not an invasion. Nobody asserts that Japan intended to invade Hawaii, much less the mainland United States. Japan’s war aims where clearly directed at the Pacific rim. In terms of an invasion force, the last time that any country invaded the United States with the intention of occupying territory was 1812.

  • As I read cartoon after cartoon, ‘They died preserving our freedom. They deserve our deepest gratitude.’ I felt as Mr Rall wrote, ‘preserving our freedom???’

    But I didn’t respond, I didn’t write anything against the cartoons or against the many comments wholeheartedly supporting such cartoons.

    The US had ordered a blockade of Japan in ’41. When Germany ordered a blockade of the US in ’17, that was an illegal act that was tantamount to a declaration of war and so Wilson declared war on Germany, as was absolutely necessary. But when the US ordered a blockade of Japan, that was perfectly legal, and the Japanese had absolutely no right to do anything but retreat back to their home islands. Or get nuked (by attacking the US blockading fleet in Pearl Harbor, they chose to get nuked).

    But I didn’t write anything. It’s Memorial Day. Those soldiers drafted to die to enrich the powerful are just as dead, and through no fault of their own, as if they were really defending our freedoms, and they thought that’s what they were doing, so they deserve our respect and our gratitude. (Meanwhile, their destitute widows and orphans are getting almost nothing from the US government.)

    But I agree, it’s irritating to see cartoon after cartoon implying that they all really died to preserve our freedoms, when none who died in any of the 20th or 21st century wars actually did so.

  • @michaelwme:

    Sure, but that is not really that relevant. The US may have started the poking and prodding that precipitated violence with Japan, but Ted’s point was that the US has never had to respond to an invading army or started actual hot hostilities in self defense since the War of 1812. Even if the US incited the Japanese to violence, it still ended up needing to repel an invasion force that occupied US soil proper (not a protectorate), and subsequent acts following Pear Harbor end up being legitimate acts of self defense – even if it is ultimately the US’s fault for needing to defend itself. Thus your point that the US was a hypocritical asshole to the point where Japanese aggression was inevitable is still irrelevant to the incorrectness of Ted’s assertion as I have outlined it.

    I do agree with you and Ted that these cartoons are crap, because since WWII basically all US hostilities (the majority of all US hostilities ever) have been about enriching the transnational corporations that happen to be based in the US. I just disagree that the last legitimate war, last repeal of invasion force on US soil, and last legitimate act of armed self defense was the War of 1812, I think it is WWII for the reasons I gave. The US may still have been assholes and committed a few War crimes before during and after, and this may amount to inexcusable behavior but that doesn’t change the fact of repealing an actual invading force, and the legitimacy of self defense.

  • @micaelwme:

    I can’t find any signs of your blockade pre Pearl Harbor. There was an embargo, to be sure, which is what looks to me like what goaded Japan and forced their aggression, but an embargo is VERY different from a blockade.

    Can you link me to something to give me a little background on the blockade? I like to cure my ignorance when it presents itself.

  • alex_the_tired
    May 27, 2013 10:10 PM

    1. Ted. As Konglefart points out, you are able to articulate what we cannot about these cartoons. I suspect part of the problem with why editorial cartoons are so shitty is because no one’s there to critique them. Literally, no one knows how to precisely define what the failings are, so the failings continue.

    2. Someone. Yes. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Ted’s point may fail in the details, but Hawaii, at that time, was not part of the U.S. When someone attacks a U.S. military base overseas, do you — honestly — start to hyperventilate at the though of how soon they’ll be marching through the streets, raping and pillaging? Of course not. Ted’s main point holds: we in the U.S. have never even come close to having to deal with the sort of mayhem Europe faced in WWII or Vietnam got handed to it (my understanding is that there are parts of the Mekong Delta that still don’t have anything growing on them).

    3. One thing I never see on Memorial Day (which I was thinking about today) can be expressed in the following paragraph:

    J.R.R. Tolkien served in WWI. Millions died in the war. He didn’t. And he came home and wrote some things about hobbits. The same holds for WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and so forth. Out of all those millions who fought and all those millions who died, what have we lost? Did something as meaningful as The Hobbit die in a field hospital in 1917 France? What if Charles Schulz had died in Europe, instead of coming home to draw Peanuts? Gene Roddenberry was in a plane crash during WWII and walked away from it. What if the angle of impact had been a little more steep? War is never just the losses we remember one day out of the year while we’re running around to barbecues and retail stores. It’s also the losses we never knew we lost in the first place.

  • @Alex the tired:

    No neither of Ted’s two points involved facing what Europe faced in WW II. His points were 1) no repeal of an invading force, which there was Alaskan islands were occupied for about a year before the Japanese were dislodged from their position with force, and 2) no aggressive act that could be reasonably considered self-defense even though I came up with a perfectly long list of things that could give both fronts of WWII plenty of reason to be considered self-defense.

    Neither rape-and-pillage nor equal severity as to the conditions in Europe have anything to do with the claims made by Ted. His claims weren’t some analogue measure of justice or oppression, they were binary statements of what types of things did and did not happen.

  • nom du jour
    May 28, 2013 6:54 AM

    David Kenyon Webster was an enlisted man not an officer.

  • alex_the_tired
    May 28, 2013 7:56 AM

    Ted’s original point: “the U.S. hasn’t fought a war that involved defending the U.S. since the 19th century.”

    My interpretation — backed up by his use of the word “invading” — of that point is that Ted is talking about actually defending the U.S. from an enemy force physically occupying the actual United States (not a territory, not a protectorate, not a base). That is, the fighting is going to be happening on U.S. soil, destroying U.S. infrastructure, killing hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens. That hasn’t happened since the American Civil War.

    Yes, there are asterisked exceptions: the Japanese floated a few bombs over to the West Coast on balloons (and killed three people, I think). But “invading” two islands in the Alaska territory? That doesn’t count as invading the U.S. except in the most literal, absolutist terms. And if we’re playing by those standards, then aren’t we at war with the Somali pirates?

    The substance of what Ted is saying still holds. We’ve never had Nazis walking down Fifth Avenue. Himmler didn’t empty out the Metropolitan Museum and the National Gallery to add to his personal art collection. No Russo-Cuban invasion force rounded up hostages in the midwest to keep us all obedient while a scrappy band of high school students armed to the teeth fought them off. No American soldier has fought the enemy house-to-house in Detroit as winter approached. The Federalist Papers covers this: extended commercial republic. “Extended?” Yes, sez the Fed Papers, because a large country is almost impossible to invade and hold.

    Memorial Day is a meaningless holiday in this country. We have barbecues. The stores stay open. We make it a three-day weekend to kick off summer. For many people, Memorial Day means a day off from work (at least for those who have jobs). To dress it up like it’s some highly sanctified and reverent day of introspection and reflection is probably the thing that makes the dead spin in their graves that much faster.

    I’m gonna go re-read Smedley Butler’s “War Is a Racket” and think about all the young men who died so that corporations could make fat coin.

  • “Memorial Day: When Editorial Cartooning Comes Out to Die”

    And then there’s Arthur Silber who hangs Memorial Day, itself, out to die:

    http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/05/in-true-spirit-of-day.html

  • @Falco – Thanks for the link to that article.

  • Tyler Durden
    May 29, 2013 1:48 PM

    None of these “cartoonists” took a bong hit. The fucking Ted Nugents of the cartoon world, they be.

  • ” ….how did the original “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” song, which was about a convict hoping his lover would be there for him when he got out of the joint, get appropriated by the military industrial entertainment complex?”

    Blame the Iran hostage crisis; they played it when the hostages returned, possibly prompted when one of the wives (a Penne Laingen) tied a huge yellow ribbon around an oak tree in her yard in 1979. The association with military conflict was cemented in 1990-91 with the Gulf War, and this
    “folk tradition” has carried on ever since. And you notice that nobody mentions/associates the Tony Orlando song with the hanging of ribbons; now people think it’s a Civil War tradition.

    • Yes, thank you so much for those reminders. Now I remember. I had forgotten all of that.

      It’s kind of amazing how quickly people can forget something that was once so famous. Tony Orlando and Dawn were such a hit phenomenon that they actually had an entire prime time TV show dedicated to that song. I don’t know if it ran more than a year, but it was quite the thing. And yet now nobody remembers the original context.

      On the other hand, it seems like a natural progression from a song about a criminal to apply to soldiers who fight in criminal wars. All US troops who fight in combat are criminals.

  • Tyler Durden
    May 31, 2013 7:07 AM

    Don’t forget Squeeze’s “Hits Of The Year”. From 1985.

  • Concerning the Randy Bish bit with the boots and the M-16. I assume it is about Vietnam. At least that was the first time I saw a similar, oh so patriotic drawing about us brave war heroes, way back in the mid to late 1970’s.. What bullshit. That image has been copied so many times, it really is ridiculous. The Vietnam war was (at that time) such a huge waste of human lives and money that it made me sick to think about it then and seeing that image, makes me sick now.

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