7/21/2011

Cartoons That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Choke an Aussie with Koala Kebabs and Kegs of Carlton:


That's a political cartoon from today's Times of London, a newspaper owned by News International, which is owned by News Corp, which is "run" by Rupert Murdoch (if by "run," you mean, "Go fuck yaselves, ya bloody galahs"). It is expressing a disgust and frustration with the amount of coverage given to the phone-hacking/police bribery/corporate influence scandal engulfing Great Britain. One could say that, sure, starving Africans are more important than the corrupt political, judicial, and media institutions of the United Kingdom. And one could certainly do so by using a caricature of the horrors afflicting the people of Somalia and other countries.

One could respond with outrage, with a knee-jerk accusation of racism, which the Murdoch brand indulges in with egregious regularity. One could say that, of course, the Times would want to deflect the story, much like the New York Post has buried the story, much like others in the Murdoch empire have rushed to defend the man who looks like a child-eating beast out of Pan's Labyrinth.

Instead, the Rude Pundit would respond with "I've had a bellyful of white assholes using images of hungry black people to manipulate public opinion, as if implying that those black people are being ignored when, in fact, the British government, with the approval of those very members of Parliament who are on the attack over the phone-hacking scandal, has tripled the amount of aid it has sent to Somalia just this year, even if much more needs to be done, while the white assholes at Murdoch's media outlets say that the money is going to pirates and terrorists and should be cut off, so probably cartoonists like Peter Brookes should go fuck themselves with their smug little poison pencils until they stab their prostates with the tip." Or, in other words, it's possible to take care of two things at once. The scandal can bring down Murdoch and the Prime Minister while the British government tries to help the starving.

Or, in otherer words, despite Murdoch's media's best efforts to make everyone believe the opposite, it ain't a black or white world.