Cartoonist Michael Leunig – yesterday defending his anti-war stance – has received further grief from Age letter writers:
Leunig’s complaint
Aside from the fact that it was falsely submitted on his behalf, it is hard to understand why Michael Leunig is so distressed that one of his cartoons that was rejected by The Age was so warmly accepted by the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri.
It clearly met the criteria that made him eligible for a prize in Hamshahri’s mock-the-Holocaust contest. Perhaps he should thank the person who submitted it for identifying a new self-evident market for his work.
Ian Farrow, Hampton
Fighting fascism
That Leunig sees himself as a warrior against fascism is a wonderful joke: he opposes fascism by opposing the overthrow of Iraq’s fascist regime and by viciously attacking Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Go figure.
Leunig has a certain talent for whimsy and drafting cute wee duck thingies; why doesn’t he go back to this and leave fighting fascism to people such as Tony Blair, who can recognise real fascism when they see it.
Bill Anderson, Surrey Hills
It is clearly inappropriate for anybody to draw attention to Israel’s occupation. It is apparently not acceptable to draw parallels between the behaviour of the Nazi regime and the Israeli government. As leading American dissenter Norman G Finkelstein points out when writing about blind supporters of Israel, it is “acceptable and justified – one might even say de rigueur – to compare Palestinians and their leaders to Nazis.” After the recent Hamas victory in Palestine, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu compared it to the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany.
As for the laughable suggestion that Blair is leading the charge against fascism, perhaps Bill Anderson would care to discover how he misled the British people.
… Benjamin Netanyahu compared it to the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany.
Ah yes, the ever familiar reductio ad Hitlerum.
Three words come to mind: pot, kettle, black.
Mr Anderson (apparently still stuck inside the Matrix?) is in dire need of a crash course in social science 101 before throwing around big words like Fascist, which he clearly has no concept of.
He musy be the only other person in Oz, apart from Howard, who thinks Blair ahs any intention of fighting something he is working so hard to emulate in the UK.
ya know, because of the terrible mass murder that is associated with fascism, a lot of older people and liberals as well recoil at the use of the word to describe modern states like america,
but by any definition of the word, america and increasingly britian are fascist
i said this recently on this board and was ridiculed for not offering proof which is pretty stupid because where do you begin,
but i will begin with a bit from wikipedia on the page called fascism
Fascism in many ways seems to have been clearly developed as a reaction against Communism and Marxism, both in a philosophic and political sense…
america has also defined itself on anti-communism
It viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution
designed to protect collective and individual rights, or as one that should be held in check.
whilst talking about reducing size and scope of govt, bush has increased it
It tended to reject the Marxist notion of social classes…
as does america in its own mythology
embracing nationalism and mysticism…
as does america
and advancing ideas of strength and power as means of legitimacy, a might makes right that glorified war as an end it itself and determinant of truth and worthiness.
as does america
These ideas are in direct opposition to the ideas reason or rationalism characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment, from which liberalism and, later, Marxism would emerge.
Fascism is also typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic.
as does america
Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.
as does america with their commander in cheif
Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the population, including big business, farmers and landowners, nationalists, and reactionaries… conservatives and small businessmen, and the poor to whom they promised work and bread.
as with america, big business, hand in hand with govt, conservatives, small business
the difference is, everyone learned a lot from the last attempts at totalitarianism,
so its much more sophisticated now, we help to dumb ourselves down, we disconnect from our support networks, we fight with each other instead of them,
but worst of all we tell ourselves that we are free, and the media is free, and speech is free
You are right Smiths,
Those right wingers who objects to the Us being described as a fascist state insist that until there are gulags and secrety prisons, where government enemies are shisked away, then the word fascism doesn’t apply.
Liek you said, where do you begin with the explanations?
Having known Michael Leunig many years ago I would say that his ‘horror’ at what happened with his cartoon has more to do with his sense of having his privacy invaded. He is a very private man. He is a very introverted person and that sense of privacy, introversion, self-absorption is part of his brilliant talent.
The cartoon that Gawenda rejected was brilliant. It was also subtle. I have no doubts that Leunig would be prepared to defend the cartoon itself.
But I can understand how he would be ‘upset’ to have a stranger make use of his work without consulting him. Anyone who writes or paints or draws cartoons or creates in any way would be.
And people like Leunig, who want only to live a quiet life for and with his art, would be traumatised by the attention, unsought, which has come his way.
On the other hand, sometimes Life demands that we take responsibility for what we do and who we are and maybe this is one of those times when Life is demanding it of Leunig.
Certainly, ignorance is not an excuse for anyone likely to remain oblivious of the fascism precedent, unleashed in 1933. In reflection on the contemporary reoccurrence of the fascism on the global scale. So as we proceed to review an authentic history annals, there is quite notable milestone, worth remembering. That on Feb 27th, 2003, was 70th anniversary of the plotted firebombing German Parliament (Reichstag) by the Dutch pseudo-terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe.
Reminiscent as a typically contrived act, which catapulted Baron Rothschild’s descendant, the infamous Adolf Hitler into top chancellery role and the legitimacy to reshape German constitution. Though 70 years later such anniversary was barely reported in the corporate media. Wasn’t noticed in US or Australia, yet demoralised Germans remembered very well such a fateful day of Feb 27th, 1933. As they commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace, and mobilising other citizens across the world.
In reflection on what started 73 years ago, when German government in a midst of the worldwide economic crisis received reports of the imminent “terrorist” attack. As some foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on the few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored such a relatively meagre efforts. German intelligence services knew however, that the odds were for the “terrorist” eventually to succeed (some were still arguing whether rogue elements within the intelligence service helped).
Amazingly, warnings of the investigators were totally ignored at the highest levels. In part because the government was “distracted”, as a man who claimed to be the nation’s Commander in Chief had not been actually elected by the majority vote. So conscientious citizens still claimed he had no right to the powers, he coveted. Though by the time of his successfully brief action to seize Austria (in which almost no German blood was shed), Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation.
Likewise hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine’s “Man of the Year”. Most remember his Government’s Office for the Security of the Homeland, branded as Reichs-sicherheits-hauptam. Along with its Schutz-Staffel what was simply known by its most infamous agency’s initials of the SS.
We also remember that Nazis developed a new form of the highly violent warfare, termed as the “lightning war” or blitzkrieg, which while generating devastating civilian losses, produced a highly desirable “shock and awe” amongst world nation’s leadership (according to authors of the 1996 book “Shock and Awe”, published by the National Defense University Press).
Hence in reflection on that period, the American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) defined a form of the government, where German democracy through Hitler’s close alliance with the largest German corporations in tune with Hitler’s policy of using war as a tool to keep the power, materialised as: fas-cism (fbsh’iz’em) n.
A system of the government that exercises dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through merging of the state and corporate business oligarchs, wrapped in the belligerent nationalism. So with the hijacked world at the crossroads, we face sabotaged industrial relations and contrived unemployment nowadays.
Meant to destitute dissidents cadre under draconian master-vs-slave norms imposition. As financial and socio-political fraud being replicated worldwide. Useful remember therefore at the moment that the ravages of the previous economic depression hit Germany and US alike.
Through 1930s however, Hitler’s and Roosevelt’s regimes, chose a very different courses to bring nations back to the power and prosperity. Germany’s response was to use an extreme right government’s position to empower corporations and reward the society’s richest tribe oligarchs.
To privatise much of the commons, stifle dissent and strip people of the constitutional rights. All along the outlandish somersault acrobatics performance to create an illusion of the prosperity through continual and ever-expanding appropriation bills emission in lieu of the war on the “terrorism”.
At the time when America passed a minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced the anti-trust laws to diminish the power of oligarch corporations, increased taxes on corporations and wealthiest tribe affiliates. Created Social Security and became an employer of the last resort through the vital programs to build national infrastructure.