Poor Mojo's Two Minute Hate

In what Democratic leadership accurately described as a political ploy, 3-5 thousand people were bused in to Raleigh yesterday to condemn their peaceful, and loving neighbors who just happen to be of the same sex. The contrast is stark between yesterday's rally supporting constitutionalized discrimination and the NAACP rally last month calling on the legislature to actualize their stated commitment to civil rights and civil liberties.

To their credit, Senate pro Basnight and Hackney were not moved. In response to Called2Action Chairman Steve Noble's assertion that his group is "able to bring pressure to bear on the people who have bottled [the amendment] up," the N&O reports that

Well, I’m glad he didn’t mince words. Eng, who in another one of his “God of the Universe” columns referred to himself as an “Asian supremacist,” is suffering from a terminal case of ignorance — with complications of bigotry added in there for further misery.

AsianWeek pulled Eng column, but it received a lot of coverage on the blogs, including this story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Why would a non-religious Jew be hostile to the concept of a Jewish nation-state(beyond, like Cohen (and me on some days) worrying about whether the establishment of Israel in its particular time and place will turn out, in retrospect, to have been a wise decision?), in others word, be anti-Zionist, in disproportion to their expressed hostility to any other form of nationalism?...

Put another way, there is a segment of the American Jewish community, if asked to describe one of the great events of post-Holocaust Jewish history, would describe the murder of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwermer while working for the cause of civil rights in Mississippi. This incident combines Jewish powerlessness and victimhood with a sense of innate Jewish goodness in a way that has a certain masochistic appeal to some Jews; the image of an Israeli soldier, which makes most Jews proud, revolts at least part of this segment of the community. This is actually a peculiar form of Jewish particularism, and one that I found far more chauvinistic in its own way than most versions of Zionism.

Spockos's campaign is working. Bank of America, Mastercard, and the Michigan Economic Development Corp have all pulled adverstising and now KSFO/Disney/ABC are hopping mad and have had their lawyers send Spocko's ISP a letter asking that his site be pulled down so that he could no longer post clips from their hateful and violence-inciting broadcasts. Fortunately, someone else has taken those clips and posted them across the internet (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw5Ga6nC7nY and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCcY5LrCMSA&NR). Today at noon, in a big freak-out response (or a cynical ratings ploy), KSFO will pre-empt regular programming to allow the KSFO personalities cited in Spocko's e-mails to answer questions on-air about the controversy from the public.

Secret video footage reveals Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a 'state within a state'. Many of the preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain's leading Islamic institutions.

A forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers in some of Britain's most moderate mosques are urging followers to reject British laws in favour of those of Islam. Leaders of the mosques have expressed concern at the preachers' activities, saying they were unaware such views were being disseminated.

But the real culture of hate, an entire society that celebrates, elevates and has even built an industry around hate is much closer to us than the lands of Sunnis and Shiites. In fact, compared to the American culture of hate, the Arabs are neophytes at best.

In America, hate is even chic and trendy. It can be mass market but it can also be elitist. There are blogs that celebrate hate as an emblem of superiority, encouraging and fueling it. Millions of Americans slavishly follow gossip mongers in all media lusting for the latest blood feud as if little is more satisfying or fashionable than celebrity role models and icons going after each other's throats. At the Grammys we award Rappers who have turned hate into an entire entertainment industry.

I'm just happy to see someone else wondering about this. The above comments make some good points, but what it boils down to for me is this - It's the onion, so it's likely very dry sarcasm... but I just don't really get it. That's not to say it's not funny or poignant, but I feel like if it's over my head it's probably over most peoples... I don't mean to sound like a jerk, just saying I usually understand the rest of the Onion stuff. The cartoon kind of mystifies me...

Posted by: Pete | December 5, 2006 10:49 PM

Ah the cartoons are meant to be ironic, but they're just too clumsy to work. Reminds me of amateur cartoons that show up in college newspapers, usually by some campus communist that believes him/herself to be so clever, but in reality produces dreadful cartoons that spit, sputter, and fall way short of their mark. In short these cartoons are hammy, unimaginative dribble for pinheads with delusions of being clever.

Posted by: G | December 8, 2006 03:35 PM

Sorry, but are you people serious? You're actually wondering if the Onion's "Kelly" cartoons are sincerely right-wing hate-doodles? I'll have to look around on Poormojo.org to find the threads where you debate how someone as stupid and stoned as faux-columnist Jim Anchower could possibly get such a high profile job at the Onion.

I mean, really. The entire publication is, and always has been, a piss take on mainstream media. The Kelly cartoons have executed this idea more effectively than any other method offered by the paper in years.

And thanks to the person above who used the Rumsfeld cartoon as a case in point. The OJ Simpson one should also be noted, although really, all of them are pretty damn obvious in terms of poking fun at mainstream right-wing political cartoons. (If anyone knows the name of the political cartoonist who actually does draw himself in the bottom corner, please post... I can't remember his name or the paper he draws for.)

Posted by: Brett | December 10, 2006 10:37 PM

I'm not really sure what they're satirizing. I doubt it's really aimed at actual, right-wing editorial cartoonists. It's too over the top, uncharactaristically so for the Onion. Granted, there are probably cartoonists who are every bit as hateful, jingoistic and artless as this guy, but they'd make too easy a target.

Mainly I think this is just the Onion making fun of itself. Remember Herman T. Zweibel? Featuring an ignorant, reactionary cartoonist is the same sort of humour as casting a nutty old crank as their editor.

Posted by: Dan | December 11, 2006 12:36 AM

At least there was a hole until comedian-actor Damon Wayans took the stage.

"Give yourselves a big round of applause for coming down and supporting ' … Night,' " Wayans said, using the word itself, to gasps and laughs. The producers "tried to prep me backstage — 'Don't say the N-word.' They're going to fine me." Wayans sprinkled folded bills across the stage floor, green confetti at his feet. "How much you want?" he asked, looking at club owner Jamie Masada, who sat with his head in his hands at his table in a back corner of the intimate room's main floor.

Anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

"I'll be damned if the white man uses that word last," Wayans said,

According to sources, the hopped-up comedian hopped onstage Saturday at L.A.'s Improv comedy club and dropped the n-bomb on a room full of stunned clubgoers....

As Dick exited the stage, he suddenly grabbed the mic and shouted at the crowd, "You're all a bunch of niggers!"

The stunned crowd gasped and stared at each other.

Also, the main culture prefers focusing on the kind of racism that doesn't call the system into question. Instead, we examine a particular person caught in an awkward or compromised position, as if they are some archiac exception to our wonderful, people-loving democracy. This is especially the case with Richards, whose racist outburst at LA's Laugh Factory is still being talked about and denounced, with Richards assuming the role of the country's main bigot, or at least the present symbol of white contempt for The Other....

Thanks to Richards, there is a renewed drive to get everyone, white and black, to cease saying "nigger," regardless of context. The Laugh Factory has banned the word, which is not surprising, given the bad publicity the club has received. But how does a ban on that or any other racial or sexual epithet change matters? Easy -- it doesn't. It does, however, give many people a false sense of comfort, for if one does not hear or read "nigger," then racism is on the run, yes?

Uh, no....

Sure, now we have a new, cute little word to describe fads and trends of all types, but that’s all that memes will ever be, and people need to stop using it as though they’re an actual, concrete thing. I’d love it if people would stop using the word meme and just use trend, fad, fashion, craze, or some other made-up word that doesn’t have the baggage meme does. But that won’t happen, because “meme” is a quite successful meme.

I'd hate to live in a Universe populated by the people who have populated this planet. Sure, we've developed Open Source software and milk that doesn't need refrigeration, but there's also the troubling propensity to Ethnic Cleansing....

In other words, God had the right idea with The Flood, and delivering Noah to another planet may not turn out to be such a great idea, again.

Re-reading too much Vonnegut these days (just finished 'Breakfast of Champions' last night). So it goes.

You are a prick!

There was no weather, no rain, no wind, no slick roads, no houses, and no kids nearby. You were however, well hidden, in the dark, and between some trees. ... You intentionally put us all in danger to collect a $150. ... How do you feel about being minimized to the role of local tax collector - that is essentially what you are when you hide in the bushes and dispense tickets like Halloween candy. Was your life worth 13 miles per hours over the limit? How about the fact that I was a few feet away from only being 3 miles per hour over the limit? Evidently, I place a greater value on my family's life than you do of your own. All of this for $150? Give me a fuckin' break!

Now for the really pissed off part. You scared the shit out of my 2 year old - the one that was balling in the back seat when you approached my window - yeah that one. The one that was screaming, "bright light, bright light, I don't wike it". To top it all off, you wouldn't even turn down your 44349 kazillion watt light that blasted into my truck - even after I asked very politely and kindly as a favor for my daughter.

You are one classy son of a bitch. Fuck You, you life endangering tax collector.

"I feel that it's really pathetic and disgusting that a corporation is spineless and money hungry enough to reduce lives to the state these animals live in. To force living creatures to endure hellish conditions and abuse so you can make money off their dead bodies is really perverse and disgusting."

He also adds: "My message for the people calling the shots at KFC is simple: You're all soulless monsters who deserve to be tortured yourselves, and you should feel completely ashamed".

Jesus said, that even if we are angry with our brothers, we are liable to judgment. (Matt. 5:22) It would seem that hatred itself is a form of murder, and is anathema to our Savior.

The total goal of the Christian Church is to be able, someday, to harvest the products of good will and love in our world. We may be a long way from that goal, but it must be the focus of every prayer, and the steadfast purpose of every one who has come to know the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.