I won't even comment on this. At least not right now.
Just take a gander. And tell me what you think.
(By the way, here's what MSNBC thinks about this cartoon...)
Keep in mind, this is the same guy who drew this.
RJ Elliott is a three-time graduate of the University of Central Florida. His passions in life are sports, politics, and nature. He dislikes daytime television, anti-American dictators, and people who talk like Garrison Keillor. …
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Al Barger
Yeah, Rall's a jerk with this Tillman cartoon. It's one thing to question our foreign policy, another to just openly disrespect someone who has given his life for his country like this.
On the other hand, I'm all in favor of slaughtering the sacred moo-moo cows, and Rall is known to do so. You linked to his famous "Terror Widows" cartoon as a further outrage. But that one was BEAUTY. Some of those people ARE milking their victimhood for money, fame, sympathy. That needed said.
That public service kind of balances out his offense with the new Tillman piece.
2 - RJ Elliott
Al, I kinda-sorta agree with you in regards to the "Terror Widows" thing.
But this guy is more than simply an iconoclast. He has proven himself to be the most vile "cartoonist" in the land. He'll demean ANYBODY in order to get a little media attention. Not just the widows of those killed in terrorist attacks, but actual heroes who sought to bring such villians to justice.
Ted Rall is opportunist scum. Plain and simple.
3 - Al Barger
Perhaps, but his private motivations mean nothing to me. The Terror Widows thing alone buys him a lot of slack with me. He stepped right into the line of fire with that one, and broached a sensitive topic badly needing broached.
4 - bhw
Political cartoonists -- the good ones, anyway -- are always pushing the bounds of propriety. They say things that make you laugh and cringe at the same time.
I think the Tillman cartoon is harsh, mostly because Tillman is dead and he's being singled out. But that's the point of the satire: everyone else singled Tillman out. Now Rall is doing it too; he just has a different opinion of Tillman than most people seem to.
5 - mike
Rall's an a-hole. Tillman was one guy who actually walked his talk. The "satire" accomplishes nothing but make a fool of Rall.
That said, the cartoon should not be pulled. Free speech is free speech.
6 - Eric Olsen
RE mike, I suppose MSNBC could have made the statement of disavowal and left the "cartoon."
I despise Rall with every fiber in my being, I think "Terror Widows" is heinous grandstanding shit, this latest outrage is absolutely in line with his vulgar, snide, cramped, amoral, twisted, hopeless routine. He is among Ohio's most vile products, just after Jeffrey Dahmer.
7 - bhw
Oh come on. Dahmer raped, murdered, and then ate young boys for dinner. A bit o' hyperbole this morning?
8 - Eric Olsen
you'll note I placed Rall after Dahmer, maintaining my keen perspective of relative evil
9 - bhw
Gotcha. 8-)
10 - Chris
Just one thing: Free Speech may be Free Speech but that don't mean anyone has to publish it.
Remember Kids: as a General Rule the 1st Amendment is a restriction on the Government, not private entities.
Thanks.
11 - mike
Still, it should be allowed to stand, in the interest of open debate if not interpretation of the First Amendment.
But I can understand not wanting to run it. I enjoy pushing the envelope, but there are limits. Tillman was un-American precisely because he actually put his principals before his pocketbook. The rest of us are sheep.
12 - Jim Carruthers
I don't really like Ted Rall's cartoons, they are rather blunt both in drawing and point. However, (and I should point out that I don't know who the fuck Tillman is, if, as the cartoon says, just a football player) it really highlights how debased and worthless the word "hero" has become. Along with "tragedy". As Ken Macleod pointed out this week, the path to the disintegration of the Soviet Union is rather similar to what is happening under the Bush junta, minus the blind drunk vodka binges. Somehow drinking Jebus filtered through stale Twinkles just doesn't seem the same. And the poppy crop is apparently very good this year.
A couple of other Greek concepts for you to study: hubris and nemesis.
Compare and contrast, and remember, class, show your work.
(Okay, I fibbed, Twinkies don't get stale).
13 - Jim Carruthers
Everytime I hear a right-wing fuck-wit who can't find his ass with both hands, nevermind another nation outside the county he lives in, heralding a "hero", I think of Bill Hicks. Because Bill was from Texas, and he knew bullshit when he smelt it, and he wasn't afraid to say "Bullshit". I know he had material about the Gulf War which is the same bullshit you are getting today, but here's what he would have said about this bullshit:
From what I can see, Tillman was a fucking idiot who played too often without a helmet and drank too much Kool-Ade. Next thing I know, you'll be voting for Stillson.
14 - Jim Carruthers
More on the dumbasses who debase the concept of "hero":
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''
Shouldn't you behind the junta start at least feeling a little shame?
15 - Jim Carruthers
I would like to note that as far as I know, of the Canadian troops killed, wounded and maimed by US forces in Afghanistan, nobody in Canada called them "heroes".
Though there was a lot a muttering about 'murrican fuckheads.
16 - Scott Pepper
Jim,
Please see here for why many consider Tillman to be a hero.
17 - BB
Whether or not you consider Tillman a hero is NOT the point. Regardless of your political views, a soldier (a human being) has died doing his duty, and his memory and family do NOT deserve this hateful crap.
18 - mike
Yes, that is the point. Tillman was a human being. Rall is a piece of trash.
19 - Jim Carruthers
Hey, maybe if he's lucky, and photogenic, Pat Tillman can get inducted into to the Jessica Lynch Hall of Fame.
Has the battlefield become a lottery?
Oh, yah, the way it is operated by 'murricans, boy, howdy. Hope my number comes up, yee-hah.
{buncha shit-heads}
20 - Jim Carruthers
Also, none of you have turned in your homework on the definition of a hero, or tragedy or hubris (never mind nemesis, it'll find you).
21 - Jim Carruthers
So, a dumb jock gets sent to a foreign land and gets killed. How does that make him more of a hero than the 500 people who get maimed by landmines from the USA and other countries EVERY DAY!
Now if they were planted where dumb jocks were likely to step on them, and they were only planted in the States (to defend against the North Koreans, or course). I could support them.
22 - Mac Diva
I believe the 'idiot' part may be too harsh, but the rest of Rall's analysis is spot on.
Also, Jim's point about being photogenic is a good one. Tillman is considered good-looking. I happened to watch a news segment about a local soldier who lost a leg his second day on duty in Iraq. An above the knee amputation. That's pretty bad, though he clearly doesn't know it. Said he would love to go back to Iraq and lose the other leg. Now, if the guy was attractive, there would be a jingoistic effort to 'hero-ize' him. But, he is the most pimply faced, long nosed, protruding earred fellow one will see outside of Extreme Makeovers, in addition to appearing to be rather dim. So, I will be very surprised if the myth making machine revs up for him.
Meanwhile, I've yet to see a Right Wing blogger explain why Tillman is being 'honored' by having people sell any memorobilia related to him to the highest bidder on eBay. Could that be about making a buck instead?
23 - Jim Carruthers
MacDiva: did the dude on the teevee have to take his helmet off?
And did he promise his sacred sperm to Jessica Lynch to make really good looking babies to kill for the USAian empire in their foreign wars?
Because y'all can't kill the snot-gobblers 'till they can run and stuff.
24 - Jim Carruthers
MacDiva: did the dude on the teevee have to take his helmet off?
And did he promise his sacred sperm to Jessica Lynch to make really good looking babies to kill for the USAian empire in their foreign wars?
Because y'all can't kill the snot-gobblers 'till they can run and stuff. "specially ifn' they too useless to work at WalMart.
25 - boomcrashbaby
RJ, I looked at that cartoon twice to make sure, but I see it more as a commentary of those who send soldiers out (it says Tillman was just a cog...), then commentary about the media which is always looking for a sensational story (it says let's make him a hero....), etc.
Maybe I'm misreading it, but it looks like the cartoonist just put a human face on the soldier, that of Tillman, but that the commentary might be more about the plight of the American soldier today.
I think though if I lost a family member in Iraq and I read that cartoon about them, like Tillman's family might have read that, I would be even more emotionally devastated. It does seem an awful harsh way to make a point, whatever that point may be.
To everybody who's saying that Tillman is some special hero though because he walked away from millions to fight, I'd like to point out that he is no more a hero than a soldier who went into the army just out of college, with little money and then died. They are ALL the same, they are all heros. Walking away from money does not elevate someone on a higher plain towards martyrdom. It shouldn't anyway. It sounds like the money was no big deal to him, it shouldn't be to us either then. All American soldiers who die in the war on terror are heros equally for what they give for us.