Thursday, July 17, 2008

Helping "The Politics of Fear"


During my news reading yesterday, I happened on to a few articles that were talking about the cartoon in The New Yorker depicting Barrack and Michele Obama as terrorists with a burning US flag in the fireplace. The finishing touches of this supposed satirical cartoon contained a portrait of Osama Bin Laden over the fireplace mantle, a turban on Senator Barrack Obama's head, and Mrs. Obama dressed in fatigues with an AK assault rifle slung around her back. According to Elizabeth Moore of Newsday.com, The New Yorker claims "[t]he image by cartoonist Barry Blitt, titled 'The Politics of Fear,' is meant to caricature the use of scare tactics and misinformation against Obama."
Now, to begin with, I generally object to censorship, unless it is used to protect children from hateful, sexual, or violent content in which children are unsupervised during their consumption of the media. With this being said, I also think that news sources have a responsibility to safeguard their readers from being misled. Would it have been that difficult to display the cartoon's title, "The Politics of Fear," at the bottom of the magazines cover? I suspect that it would be, if, the magazine's intent was to spread the same fear and misinformation that the cartoon is supposedly lampooning.
Americans, in my opinion, generally know that "image is everything," as the adage goes. The same can be said for the media. The infinite amount of public opinion polls inform these news sources that millions of Americans believe Mr. Obama is Muslim (and judging from many of the forums concerning this cartoon, many do not know how to spell 'Muslim' . . . [sigh]). At any rate, Senator Obama is a Christian, to the best of my knowledge.
And even if he was Muslim, I could not agree with vilifying those who practice this faith. To do this is the equivalent to claiming all Christians are bad people because some members of the Ku Klux Klan are God fearing Christians. It is absolute nonsense. There are good, bad, and people in between of every group, regardless of their heritage, political association, religion, or gender.
To his credit, John McCain has even condemned the cartoon, as I am sure that many other conservatives have as well. In a world where propaganda and misinformation are relied upon by government, corporations, and next door neighbors to sell political, social, and consumer ideals to others, it is refreshing to realize that there are still people who are willing to stand for what they believe is correct, despite great opposition to maintain the status quo.

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