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Last updated on March 30th, 2018 at 07:37 pm
Age cartoonist Michael Leunig analyses the Danish drawing debacle:
The cartoons are taunts, probably deliberate, to an aggrieved and traumatised spiritual community who feel at the mercy of the West’s contempt, ignorance and ruthless military might.
Very well, Michael. If not towards an “aggrieved and traumatised spiritual community”, against whom should cartoony ridicule be properly directed?
Public cartoon ridicule is properly dumped on the slick and the mighty, the officially powerful, on our own smug mob, on the triumphant ones protected by helicopter gunships and offices of state.
This is a perfect distillation of leftoid victim-think, which must always align with a perceived underdog, regardless of how rabies-infected that underdog is. They must be good, because they’re hurting! It’s puzzling, then, to recall that Leunig asked us to pray for Osama bin Laden after his henchmonsters murdered thousands of people much less mighty and powerful than the superwealthy al Qaeda boss; those murdered, most of them, were less wealthy than is Leunig.
- Anybody want to draw some cartoons of Leunig? He seems to be saying he’d be a perfect target.Posted by PW on 2006 02 12 at 02:41 PM • permalink
- #1, I agree, when Leunig asks for cartoon ridicule to be dumped “on our own smug mob” what immediately comes to mind his own idiotic cult.Posted by dsmith_michigan on 2006 02 12 at 02:45 PM • permalink
It’s puzzling, then, to recall that Leunig asked us to pray for Osama bin Laden after his henchmonsters murdered thousands of people much less mighty and powerful than the superwealthy al Qaeda boss; those murdered, most of them, were less wealthy than is Leunig.
I think you’re asking a multi-culti leftist to be moral consistent. It ain’t gonna happen.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 12 at 03:24 PM • permalink
Any cartoonist with a heart or a conscience (from whence good cartoons come) would not mock or taunt such a group in this formally transgressive way.
We now know why Leunig is such a crappy cartoonist, since he has no heart nor conscience.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 12 at 03:28 PM • permalink
- The other defining mark of a “true” “liberal” “progressive, aside from a fundamental moral and physical cowardice, is their uncritical willingness to abandon any given civil liberty at the drop of a slogan. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were were being told in baleful terms that obscenities like Howard’s sedition laws and leak investigations in the US were undermining freedom of speech and the right of the press to publish freely. Now, without stopping to draw a sober breath, the same people are caterwauling that people, in this case poor oppressed Muslims but in the past poor, oppressed gays, AIDS victims, Democrats, what have you, have the right not to be offended by the free speech of others…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 12 at 03:59 PM • permalink
- In other words, Jews (of which there are 14 million in the world) can be lampooned and laughed at, while Muslims (of which there are 1.3 billion, we’re told) are off limits.
Public cartoon ridicule is properly dumped on the slick and the mighty, the officially powerful
Most of the richest people on the planet are Muslims, or has this Leunig character not heard of oil?
Posted by SoCalJustice on 2006 02 12 at 04:10 PM • permalink
Many Most of the richest people on the planet are Muslims
Whoops.
Posted by SoCalJustice on 2006 02 12 at 04:39 PM • permalink
- Forget what this idiotic darling of the sinking “Age” has to say. he is not Australia’s answer to Gary Larsen.
He can’t draw and can’t paint. Only the fools at the age would call him and artist.
He is the Loewenstein of the cartoon world -endearing himself to the lobotomised arty farty left to gsin recognition as an artist.
- Leunig’s pathetic attempt to justify his own lack of belief in genuine freedom of expression and speech also betrays that other key point of left thinking; we are all no more than the group we are identified with. So if you think Muslims as a group are the poor and oppressed (a dicey contention in itself) than it doesn’t matter if you are rich and powerful, if you are Muslim you too can identify with the oppressed. In contrast, some poor unemployed white male can’t complain or be discriminated against because white males supposedly run the world.
- Has peanut brain thought for a moment why our side has progressed to have invented helicopters and has accumulated the wealth to allow them to be built? And why the democratic west is a place where asylum seekers and economic (and other) refugees are migrating TO rather than FROM?
One of the main contributing factors to our progress is that we have an environment where the population can DISSENT and DEBATE in an atmosphere of SAFETY and NON-VIOLENCE. Societies that are too frightened to speak their minds stagnate and regress.
The down side to having the right to say pretty much what you like: you need a thick skin to be able to withstand the inevitable barbs, insults etc that will fly your way from time to time. The other downside is that idiots also get a chance to spew out crap, like this guy http://antonyloewenstein.blogspot.com/.
But a small price to pay for the overwhelming benefits of free dissent.
For Loonig to suggest the Muslim world is poor is just laughable. Maybe he needs to pop in for lunch with this guy http://www.ursispaltenstein.ch/cgi-bin/EE/images/sunday/sultans_private_jet-Dateien/frame.html.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2006 02 12 at 04:51 PM • permalink
- a spirichul community so aggrieved and traumatized and helpless before our ignorant military might that when you say something they find the teeniest bit offensive they riot, torch buildings, smash cars, order up boycotts, call for the “extermination” of the offenders and their entire nations, and demand that nobody be allowed to say That Thing ever again, anywhere. Pore little aggrieved spirichul peoples! Our hearts bleed for them.
- Does anyone else find Leunig’s phrase “those protected by helicopter gunships” somewhat revealing? This could have come directly from the mouth of some Palestinian apologist explaining why Jews in Israel are fair game for suicide bombers, because they are protected by helicopter gunships while the poor, helpless, childlike Palestinians are at the mercy of the insatiable Israeli war machine. It’s hard to know exactly what Leunig intends this phrase to mean since it comes in the middle of a long, garbled sentence about “the officially powerful”, but it’s not often that you hear the term “helicopter gunships” associated with Howard or Bush, whom we might presume the rest of the sentence is about. On the other hand, it’s used in reference to Israelis all the time.
Have we discovered the left-wing version of the “dog whistling” that the left always detects on the right?
Posted by dsmith_michigan on 2006 02 12 at 05:42 PM • permalink
- #11, Spot on!
Why is a group of people 1.2 plus Billion strong, essentially considered a weak minority by this guy?
Surely a group that size could shape its own destiny.
A few million Jews however, including one dying in a hospital bed is fair game for Leunig… Oh hang on… They must be the “triumphant ones”.
- off topic, but dig this last line (no link, pay-per-use) from The Australian today (Nation P4) on the police non-action against the baseball-batting car wreckers at Cronulla – compliments by the way to the reporter Imre Salusinszky, my third-favorite man behind Tim and Danny Katz:
The original loss of the recordings—the first time such a failure has occurred since the current system was installed in 2000—fuelled claims police had been told to go soft on Middle Eastern crime.
But a police spokeswoman told The Australian yesterday police were simply instructed to withdraw and monitor angry groups of Middle Eastern men as they gathered at Punchbowl, in western Sydney, on the night of December 12 last year.
She strongly denied they were told to hang back for fear of antagonising the men.
Eventually, a convoy of cars was allowed to proceed, unintercepted, from Punchbowl to the beachside suburbs of Cronulla and Maroubra, where more than 100 ethnic men were involved in retaliatory attacks that included smashing up cars and assaulting bystanders. Later that week the NSW Labor Government gave police emergency powers that would have allowed them to intervene at Punchbowl.
Last Friday, police arrested four young men and four male juveniles over the revenge attacks. …The Sunday program on the Nine Network broadcast unofficial recordings of police communications at Punchbowl.
On those recordings, some of which have aired previously, a police radio operator is heard telling riot police on the ground at Punchbowl their patrol commander is going to “have a cup of tea and get back to us’’ regarding an urgent request for riot gear.
The police spokeswoman yesterday confirmed that the “cup of tea’’ remark was “inappropriate’’ and was the subject of an investigation.
Later on the Nine tape, amazed police are heard describing the convoy of cars from Punchbowl as it proceeds unhindered through red traffic lights.Ohmygod, are youths of Middle Eastern appearance also exempt from traffic light
discipline?
- While I’m at it, The Age’s hordes of leftoid columnists march in step with Leunig on hypocrisy and illogic, while Age editors continue to give them open slather to blaspheme against Christianity (btw I’m an atheist). Take Monica Dux yesterday (Sun) on RU486:monica dux
“With all the subtlety of a Danish Muhammad cartoon, the pro-life lobby discard all nuance and drown all debate with the simple cry of ‘baby murder’…
Maybe Jesus could be recruited to the pro-choice cause. I see the proud poster now; our Lord, wearing an apron, a screaming child tucked under each arm, his hair and beard greasy and unwashed, waiting for the next single parent payment to come in, wishing that abortion had been an option when he and Mary Magdalene had that little slip-up. The slogan: “If it weren’t for the twins I could have really amounted to something.” Maybe this will do the trick.”
Of course, The Age never published the Danish cartoons. This is its reasoning:
The Age has not published these cartoons as a matter of editorial judgement, a position supported by this newspaper’s cartoonists. The Danish cartoons were neither insightful nor effective, just stereotypical smears. At the level of content, there was little justification to run them. Even given their curiosity value, such material carries a responsibility to consider whether the point of publication outweighs any likely offence. Having the freedom to publish does not mean we must publish to prove it.
stereotypical smears
- This guy is a gutless, pathetic hypocrite!
For a minute there I thought he was talking about the Jewish community, whose aggrieved trauma extends beyond even the establishment of the Islamic faith, and continues today due to the likes of predictable, cliche-dispensing, cowards like Leunig himself.Leunig is not just a nut, he’s a truly bad “man.”
- According to Leunig’s criteria, The BrokeBack Mountain Shopping List isn’t funny. If you’ve seen the movie, it’s hilarious. They’re not mighty but they just might be slick, if they use what they’ve ordered.Posted by Angela Bell on 2006 02 12 at 06:39 PM • permalink
- “those protected by helicopter gunships”
even this like much of leunigs work is ‘borrowed’ from the internet- probably from loewensteins web site.
For more on SELF LOATHING JEWS, see Melanie’s web site-The boycott of decency.Percy
are YMEAs allowed to bear weapons as a mark of respect for the supremacy of their faith?
- Percypup
I saw the Sunday program with the information on the post Cronulla revenge attacks.
I understand perfectly the police radio person speaking of persons in authority “having a cuppa” and getting back to them. I’d be pretty cheesed off, too, at not getting an answer immediately.
I was shouting-at-the-tv (s-a-t-t) angry when I heard more of the police recordings speaking about the apparent disregard of the convoy for traffic signals, etc, and that STILL wasn’t enough for the police do DO anything.
And I was s-a-t-t angry at the youth representatives saying that it was only “young kids” doing all the attacking and that the government and authorities should “do more”* for these people. (*Throw money at them – or their youth centres.)
WTF? It’s not the government or the authorities responsibility to do more for these people kids. If it’s kids it is up to the community and especially the parents to DO something about their anti-social, destructive behaviour. (Yeah, and that’s gonna happen.)
The justification for the vandalism and violence was that they were kids and didn’t know better, and they were really angry and upset.
Again, defending the indefensible.So much is reported which turns out to be part truths or outright lies.
And the NSW government is still denying that there is favouritism shown to those of ME origin.
- Care to send a message or tribute to Leunig?
TRY HERE.Posted by Islam is a cancer – Chuck Norris is the answer on 2006 02 12 at 07:32 PM • permalink
Public cartoon ridicule is properly dumped on the slick and the mighty, the officially powerful, on our own smug mob, on the triumphant ones protected by helicopter gunships and offices of state.
And in Syria, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Egypt who are the officially powerful, the slick and mighty triumphant ones protected by helicopter gunships and smug mobs?
- Leunig has a vast constituency, they may be out of power at the moment and thus feeling disenfranchised but this just hardens their common purpose. They are folk marxists. Folk marxists have a very clear and surprisingly unaminous view of who is “right” and who is “wrong”. They often argue against what would seem to be in their own interests e.g. they will argue that Osama bin Laden is really not a threat and shouldn’t be killed as it was not his fault that he (you know the story). But the confusing thing is that OBL has publicly made it clear he wants to subjugate them all to Sharia law.
Leunig wants to say awful things about those he believes to be the “oppressors” even where they are providing him with the freedom and lifestyle that he enjoys. Even better for Leunig is that he sees himself as a fighter against the oppressor and his peer group will see him in this role also.
So its a “win/win” for him. Of course it would all fall apart if muslims did really get what they want and imposed sharia law. Could you see the Taliban with a sense of humour to tolerate Leunig, I can’t. But for folk marxists like him the unreality of the goal is an important part of his goal selection. Up close reality would place him an uncomfortable position
- about the Danish cartoons. Leunig includes this, self-pityingly:
I note, without surprise, that a couple of prominent Australian media personalities who loudly advocated the Iraq war and who have publicly called for my internment, and that I be taken down because of my cartooning freedom, are now vigorously championing the rights of the Danish cartoonists. Very suspicious!
well leunig, who are these two prominent Australian media personalities? Please cite their actual words you complain of (are they Siamese twins speaking in unison, by the way?) Why haven’t you named them? There is nothing easier or more gutless than attacking anonymous targets – no names, no packdrill (for Leunig).
- Allan #31 – folk marxists: the bastard inbred descendants of Lenin’s ‘useful idiots’.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 02 13 at 12:22 AM • permalink
- Once again another strange leftie; Michael Looney, this time steps forward to surrender democratic views under the pressure of Islam – no other religion that is so oppressive gets such an easy ride; protected by well-meaning, but grossly misinformed small ‘l’ liberals
I myself am religious (Orthodox Christian), and view this protection of Islam as the work of Satan (ducks as statement is itself lampooned)… an attempt to explain why this hideous ideology is continually championed by those that it hates – reminds me of the left-wing Iranians who helped put the Ayatollah Khommeni in power. The left seems to be of a self-annihilation bent
- #29 Did just that…
“…Loonig,Not here to blow sunshine up your ass, like all your other sycophant Aged readers do.
Just wanted to encourage you to keep self-loathing.
It is quite inspiring to watch an unflushable turd such as yourself hate everything about himself, his country and his life.
May this furuncle grow to such significant proportions it causes your premature death after manifesting into an inoperable pestilential tomour from which there is no known panacea.
I realise your flock won’t have the guts to publish this here.
Sort of sums up your current view of free speech…”
Posted by Jay Santos on 2006 02 13 at 01:00 AM • permalink
- So Leunig thinks we should sell Denmark helicopter Gunships? Is that what I’m hearing?
It’s a small country, maybe weaponized Hughes MD-500’s will do…
And I sent my earlier post to The Age’s Feedbackm, FWIW…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 13 at 02:24 AM • permalink
- Clearly, abortion should be made retrospective.Posted by Bullshit_Mr_Han_man. on 2006 02 13 at 02:25 AM • permalink
- ” … the slick and the mighty, the officially powerful … the triumphant ones protected by helicopter gunships and offices of state.”
JERUSALEM, Aug. 19, 2003
“A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus packed with ultra-Orthodox Jews on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, including at least five children, and wounding about 100 in one of the deadliest bombings in the past three years of fighting.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/20/world/main569221.shtmlThose slick, powerful kids really had it coming.
- #40- You may be too old for a ‘late trimester’ abortion –
There’s always the ‘Death with dignity’ option for you though.
I’ll even supply the stuff you need –
Cheers!Posted by Islam is a cancer – Chuck Norris is the answer on 2006 02 13 at 04:38 AM • permalink
- Leunig is a victim himself of a twisted thought process described by Bruce Thornton.
This reduction of Western civilization “to a mass of soulless, decadent, money-grubbing, rootless, faithless, unfeeling parasites,” as they describe the caricature, is in fact a creation of Westerners themselves, and the Islamist for the most part reprises the indictment that generations of Western poets, philosophers, and artists have repeated.
According to this indictment, Western technology and science and their bastard child, industrialism, have ravaged the earth and exterminated whole peoples, and now threaten to destroy the human race along with all other life.
He has made the mistake of assuming some virtues of a bygone Golden Age or imagined Utopian future where people are quite different in their outlook and societal norms.
Thornton adds:
Our psychic dissatisfactions are luxuries affordable only by those for whom sheer survival is no longer an issue and physical comfort is taken for granted.
He also describes the suffering of people before modernity intervened in day-to-day problems of disease, injury and food acquisition.
Please read it all.
- But hes NICE.
Just so sling blade, disabled schoolbus, dribble into your medication cup NICE.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 02 13 at 08:08 AM • permalink
