Liberal Media

Cidu Bill on Nov 3rd 2009

Arloed for language

liberalmedia.gif

They lost me with the “liberal media” reference

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Far Left Side, comic strips, comics, humor, media | 30 responses so far

30 Responses to “Liberal Media”

  1. Elyrest Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:17 am 1

    My thought, when I read this one, was that from a conservative’s point of view this is what liberals really would be covering - if there really was a liberal media. I don’t know any liberals who support these things, but ………

  2. Kate C Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:19 am 2

    I’m also baffled by why the artist is sculpting Pedobear
    http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pedobear

  3. Adam F Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:59 am 3

    He’s sculpting it because that’s the kind of things liberals are into, according to the cartoonist.

  4. Frank the curmudgeon Nov 3rd 2009 at 01:05 am 4

    Alas, ’tis but a pale semblance of the truth. ( did I plagerize that ?) AND YES, WHO GIVES A RAT’S ASS ABOUT THE F$%# YANKEES. GO PHILLIES! NICE JOB MIAMI. GREAT JOB EAGLES.

  5. BCK Nov 3rd 2009 at 01:35 am 5

    There isn’t a liberal bias in the media. There is a conservative bias in the media.

    If the media were as biased to the left as the actual media is currently biased to the right, this is what it would sound like.

  6. Richard Nov 3rd 2009 at 01:48 am 6

    Hi, Elyrest. I’m a Liberal who really supports most of the things in the comic. I don’t support actually murdering the CEOs of the major insurance industries, but it wouldn’t bother me terribly if they all came down with horrible diseases. I do believe that the way we celebrate December 25 is more appropriate to a Pagan holiday than it is to anything in the Bible. I hate Fox News as much as I hate anything in the world today, and I would believe Ailes is a servant of the Devil if I believed in the Devil. I don’t quite believe Obama is a Fascist, but I do believe he is spineless and far to beholding to Wall Street. And I don’t give a damn about baseball.

  7. Tim O'Shenko Nov 3rd 2009 at 02:16 am 7

    The cartoonist believes there is no liberal media bias (or, at the very least, it’s blown out of proportion), and so made this panel to show what he feels a liberally-biased media would like like. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

    As for the sculptor, the pedobear, or the space-age tv with a coat-hanger antenna and a tiny tiny screen, I don’t get it.

  8. Tullia Nov 3rd 2009 at 03:19 am 8

    I’m thinking much what BCK said: the media is currently biased towards conservatives, so much so that right-wing talk show hosts can say crazy, far-right-wing things, and it’s considered permissible public discourse. If the shoe were on the other foot and people listened en masse to crazy, far-left-wing gibbering, then this is what it might sound like. The left-wing nut audiences might look like this, too, rather than the stereotypical right-wing gun nut with his ammo collection and black velvet paintings of Jesus bass fishing. Or so says the comic. I think.

    T. O’Shenko — the TV I’m not sure about either, but it looks to me like a pseudo-Mac version of the TV. An iTV, I guess. The coat hanger makes it look sort of broken, but the Mac thing would fit the liberal stereotype.

  9. furrykef Nov 3rd 2009 at 06:04 am 9

    I find it odd that a comic called The Far Left Side would make this point. It sounds centrist if anything, although I suspect, as Elyrest seems to be suggesting, that it’s intended to be a parody of a conservative’s view of liberalism. It doesn’t quite come off that way, though.

    - Kef

  10. Nicole Nov 3rd 2009 at 08:54 am 10

    furrykef … I think it would be clearer if the caption read something like — “If conseratives veiw of the media was true”

    And as a liberal I have to say that I couldn’t possible care less who wins the World Superbowl Cup

  11. Curmudgeonly Frank II Nov 3rd 2009 at 10:44 am 11

    I think BCK (5) and Tulia (8) have it. It’s not clear whether the cartoonist is liberal or moderate, but he’s clearly mocking the right’s accusation that the media has a liberal bias. “If there were left-leaning commentators as rabid as some on the right, they might sound like this.”

    [Though I’ve been lurking for a long time, this is my first post. My “earned nickname” is already clearly established on this site, so I’ll settle for ‘II’. I seriously doubt that “Frank the Curmudgeon, Jr.” would work.]

  12. Daniel J. Drazen Nov 3rd 2009 at 10:52 am 12

    I don’t know how old this cartoon is, but since the Great Digital Switcheroo you can’t use a coat hanger as an antenna anymore and I don’t think that TV has a converter. Yeah, I’m a nerd.

  13. Matthew Nov 3rd 2009 at 11:19 am 13

    Daniel, this is in a liberal future, and it’s a digital coat-hanger. It receives & converts.

    I don’t see why liberals can’t enjoy baseball. I am very progressive & love baseball. Go Phillies!

    Nicole, I believe that the award is the World Super-Series Trophy Cup, but I could be mistaken.

    The words in the strip are pretty funny, but I, too, don’t understand why we see a sculptor making a giant teddy bear. A comment on Jeff Koons?

  14. Elyrest Nov 3rd 2009 at 11:41 am 14

    Daniel - it’s a new cartoon, but if there was a liberal media (as depicted) we might never have gone through the Great Digital Switcheroo so it’s valid.

  15. John Small Berries Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:03 pm 15

    The sculptor also wears a beret, and as everyone knows, anyone who owns something stereotypically French is a socialist!

    While most of the “news items” do appear to be what Limbaugh/Coulter/Palin ascribe to the liberal worldview, the last two confuse me.

    “Fascist” is the label that teabaggers assign to Obama; isn’t he supposed to be the Messiah to the (strawman) Left?

    And I guess the baseball thing is supposed to show that liberals, unlike “real Americans”, don’t care about sports - but then why choose the Yankees? New York is second only to San Francisco as the liberal den of iniquity, isn’t it?

  16. Ian Osmond Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:04 pm 16

    Speaking as a liberal, if I ran a radio station, that IS what it might sound like . . .

  17. Ian Osmond Nov 3rd 2009 at 12:09 pm 17

    More to the point: most of you people who are calling yourselves “liberals” on this thread? You’re centrists. People who have normal, middle-of-the-road, common-sense sorts of beliefs.

    Nothing wrong with centrists, of course. Centrists are the basic bedrock of a society.

    And, to John Small Berries: Obama IS to the right of liberals. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be in bed with the insurance industry the way he is. He’s come up with a “health care reform” program with is basically a giveaway to corporate interests. The fact that it’s (marginally) better than the status quo is nice, but it’s still not anything that a liberal like me would want. And the Yankees are also a facist, corporate entity which tries to buy its way to success based on nothing more than money. Also, great name. “Why is there a watermellon there?” “I’ll tell you later.”

  18. ty Nov 3rd 2009 at 01:47 pm 18

    The TV looks like the old globe design, a popular “futurist” model from the early seventies, made by JVC, among others. One of the more sought-after TV’s by collectors of vintage electronics. Not sure what that has to do with being liberal, though.

  19. Elyrest Nov 3rd 2009 at 02:11 pm 19

    Ian Osmond - I actually think that most of the people who say they are liberals are liberals and that you and others may be confusing that with radicals. Radicals are the equivalent of reactionaries. Far left vs far right. There are not just three stances there are at least five and even they can be broken down more. L-R we have radical-liberal-centrist-conservative-reactionary. Most of the batshit crazy stuff comes from the people on the extremes.

    I am a liberal. Obama has some liberal ideas, but he is a politician so he’s never going to be way liberal in his actions. If only.

  20. paperboy Nov 3rd 2009 at 02:15 pm 20

    Ian Osmond, I agree: most “liberals” should look up (and not on wikipedia) the liberal platform; they may find they’re centrists. And, yeah, Obama has surrounded himself with Wall Street weasels. But the Yankees fascist? How else do you get the top players besides paying them? Do you think they’d join a team just because they like the owner? And that IS a perplexing cartoon.

  21. DPWally Nov 3rd 2009 at 03:14 pm 21

    Paperboy: For there to be a “liberal platform” there would have to be a Liberal party. A generalized ideological leaning isn’t an organization and can’t have a platform.

    (My state (NY) has a Liberal party, but as far as I can tell their platform is to find a candidate willing to be endorsed. Ditto the state Conservative party, Working Families party, and Independence party.)

  22. src666 Nov 3rd 2009 at 03:16 pm 22

    Then again, most “conservatives” are _also_ centrists. The general population is really not so far apart on most issues. It’s the way the extremes of both parties play to the few wedge issues that makes the political landscape look so contentious. Also, the fact that the wingnuts are more likely to want to stand up in front of a TV camera.

  23. Paperboy Nov 3rd 2009 at 04:22 pm 23

    DPWally, I stand corrected.

  24. TonyJazz Nov 3rd 2009 at 06:30 pm 24

    The Yankees comment would have hit truer if it were replaced with NASCAR.

    I am amused that no one seems to ‘get’ the drawing. (I don’t either.) I count on these posters to help me understand some of the comics that don’t make sense to me due to a lack of knowledge (or memory)…..

  25. Mitch4 Nov 3rd 2009 at 07:38 pm 25

    Elyrest at #19 has it right. But the cartoonist has it wrong. All the remarks coming from the radio would be possible for left radicals, but not from liberals. Radicals see liberals as watered-down, compromising, not stepping up to the full consequences of the overall left-of-center positions (which they share to some large extent). And thus the radical critique of Obama would be that he is liberal — merely liberal, only liberal, settling for liberal, failing to be more radical.

    This understanding of the spectrum was at one time taken for granted and understood by all. But today’s Right has wanted to vilify everything on the Left, and one tool or step in that is turning the label Liberal to mean anything on the Left and indeed including or especially what we (with a longer historical horizon) are calling radical. Thus they can employ a term like “ultra-liberal”, which barely makes sense in the correct spectrum view. And the cartoonist just adds to the muddle, by having the radio give radical views but labelling them liberal (just as the rightists would).

  26. Lord Jubjub Nov 3rd 2009 at 07:55 pm 26

    Regardless of the talking points from the TV, the joke clearly is the reference to a French-looking individual carving Pedobear. It appears that the cartoonist considers NAMBLA a liberal organization–or snide comment about recent news from France concerning the boys in Thailand.

  27. Nicole Nov 3rd 2009 at 08:24 pm 27

    Mitch-4 you are right , the radical left does not look kindly on liberals and never have, perhaps that is why it was so easy to make liberal a dirty word, no one would defend it. I will confirm my geezerhood for all time by point out a satirical 60’s folk song By Phil Ochs that denagrated liberals called “Love me I’m a liberal” . In it he takes liberals to task for all the failings you mention.

    Lord Jubjub — I have had a few email exchanges with Mike Stanfill (the artist) and I know him well enough to know that he does NOT consider NAMBLA a liberal organization. As to the news coming out of France … since I haven’t heard it I can’t comment on what his thoughts on that might or might not be.

    It is not for me to label people, but it is safe to say that Mike Stanfill is very far to the left of center, thereby the comics name … The Far Left Side

  28. turquoise cow Nov 3rd 2009 at 08:51 pm 28

    is it possible the cartoonist is using the word “liberal” in a connotation other than the political one? Perhaps by “liberal” he simply means more along the lines of free and open to say whatever the feel like. This is opposed to a “conservative” media, which would be more polite about what they say, more interested in political correctness.

    exactly what that has to do with the bear statue or the oddly shaped television, i don’t know.

  29. Mitch4 Nov 4th 2009 at 01:44 am 29

    Personal to Tim O’Shenko …. Are you the same Timoshenko with whom I shared an office in the AI Lab, and who went on to write books on PHP?

  30. anaceofkidneys Nov 8th 2009 at 02:26 pm 30

    What? We’re not the ones who say Obama’s a fascist… that’s the tea party conservatives’ rallying cry. I wish Obama was further to the left, but I definitely do not think he’s a fascist.

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