Cartoons: Trumped and terrorized

Seems to me Donald Trump's current popularity is due to his talent for saying out loud what many people in America feel but don't have the courage to say. Pretty sad, huh? Today's cartoons look at Trump and terrorism. Also sad is how we're being educated in the language of terrorism: radicalized (also look at the talk page) and suicide belt.

Remember when Trump said that, as President, he would build a wall between the US and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it?

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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We've progressed from Trump the Petty and Petulant Isolationist to Trump the Terrorist.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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Meanwhile, 'ISIS' (vs. 'ISIL' vs. 'Islamic State') gloats.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Republicans, especially the Tea Party, have been radicalized for some time now.

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Meanwhile, Earth bears our misdeeds.

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Mike Keefe, The Week

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I quote Thomas Paine (The Crisis):

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Terrorism is tyranny from within.


-- Marge

Cartoons: only the 2016 GOP presidential race is funny (and that not so much)

Today's comments include Bernie Sanders on climate change and terrorism, ISIS, a no-Syrians policy in America, innocent Muslim bystanders, and the 2012 vs. 2015 presidential races.

While some scoff, Bernie has a good point and doubles down on [the] climate change-terrorism link in a CBS news piece, which reported:

"If we are going to see an increase in drought, in flood, and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that people all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources," the Vermont senator said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," elaborating on an argument he made during the CBS News Democratic debate Saturday night. "If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you're going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them. And that will lead to international conflict."

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Chip Bok, The Week

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I must admit it feels good to reduce ISIS to cockroaches.

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David Horsey, The Week

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The New York Times reports: G.O.P. Governors Vow to Close Doors to Syrian Refugees. I take exception to the word 'prudent' in the video; sounds like doublespeak to me.

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Molenbeek, a Muslim community in Belgium, is where Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected architect of the Paris attacks, lived. The residents of  Molenbeek are telling us, 'We are not terrorists'.

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Chan Lowe, The Week

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I keep wondering, if I were to vote for a Republican candidate, who could I possibly vote for?

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John Cole, The Week

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-- Marge

Civil disobedience to terrorism

In today's social vocabulary the term radicalized is usually applied to an individual or group embracing Islamic terrorism.

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upstateNYer, The Machine Stops, Wikipedia

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But in a world increasingly out-of-balance, economically and politically, the instances of a person or group being wounded by the 'system,' whichever system it is, mount in number.  A recent attempt to speak out in the form of Occupy was summarily dismissed by local authorities, sometimes by unnecessary measures.

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Defining civil disobedience becomes a philosophical exercise.  Quoting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The term ‘civil disobedience’ was coined by Henry David Thoreau in his 1848 essay to describe his refusal to pay the state poll tax implemented by the American government to prosecute a war in Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. In his essay, Thoreau observes that only a very few people – heroes, martyrs, patriots, reformers in the best sense – serve their society with their consciences, and so necessarily resist society for the most part, and are commonly treated by it as enemies. Thoreau, for his part, spent time in jail for his protest. Many after him have proudly identified their protests as acts of civil disobedience and have been treated by their societies – sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely – as its enemies.

The Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War were acts of civil disobedience.  The assassination of Martin Luther King and Kent State Shootings are examples of what can happen when wronged or dissident groups speak up in America.  The article Domestic Terrorism in America During the 1960s and 1970s gives a succinct history dissent during that periond of history.  Pop History Dig has a page devoted to the reaction to the Kent State Shootings.

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John Paul Filo, Kent State massacre, ©Valley News-Dispatch

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One thing is clear: open protests simply cause a war-like reaction from those in power. Members of the 99% who recognize the threats inherent in the growing economic gap in so-called first world countries, realize that your strength is in numbers and the 1% cannot survive without your economic support.

 -- Marge