My Missing Donald Trump Cartoon
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Marijuana in California
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Architypal American
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California Budget La La La
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California Empty Pockets
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Let’s Run This Up the California Flagpole
My home state has been kicking the budget can down the road for years and is finally running out of road. California is facing its biggest budget deficit ever — a staggering $21 billion, or 49.3 percent of the state’s general revenue fund.
As a political cartoonist I look for bad guys to skewer in my cartoons. In California there are bad guys everywhere to be blamed for our fiscal mess: our good-for-nothing Governor Schwarzenegger; our greedy, irresponsible legislature; the media that ignores state issues; and the electorate who votes for more debt to fund wasteful projects like multi-billion dollar trains people don’t want to use. Voters have approved more bond debt than the state can sell. In short, everyone is a bad guy.
Different groups point to their own favorite villains. Liberals like to blame Proposition 13 for limiting the legislature’s ability to raise taxes, even though our taxes are crazy high. Conservatives like to blame labor unions for milking the state dry, and liberals for chasing away business with taxes and regulations. The media likes to blame voters who vote for constitutional amendments that micromanage our dysfunctional legislature. Populists want to tax the rich more, even though the state has gotten into trouble by relying too much on income taxes and crashed when the incomes of the rich fell with the current recession.
But cash-flow isn’t California’s only problem — we also have a water crisis. In Los Angeles I’m limited to watering my lawn after 5:00pm on Monday and Thursday, and I struggle with a low-flow toilet, that has to be flushed three times to work, while rice farmers flood their farms with cheap subsidized water and the legislature has approved a whopping $11 billion bond measure, laced with porky giveaways, to fix the “water problem.” California would have plenty of water and money to go around if we had leaders who could step up and make some serious choices.
My favorite California money pits are the state commissions; out-of-work legislators, who have been term-limited out of office, are appointed to these six figure, do-nothing jobs while they relax and wait for their next electoral opportunities.
We have colorful problems and goofy characters who should make great cartoon characters for me, but they all share the blame so equally, and are so uninteresting as individuals, that my life as a California editorial cartoonist is more frustrating than it should be.
Of course, this all leads me to suggest that we change our state flag.
The bear on our flag might be the only state government character who stands blame-free, and who looks good in a cartoon. We should keep the bear — but let’s change him every so often to let the government know how we feel about them. Here are a few of my suggestions for a new state flag.
California’s governor and legislature could run a few of these flags up the flagpole, and see who salutes them.
Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons as well as 50 other cartoonists, at www.caglecartoons.com are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.
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California Budget Harakiri
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California Budget Red Ink
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None Too Happy With Mr. Fish
From my e-mail box … somehow I don’t think Mr. Fish’s response to this reader will be satisfying to him.
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 7:49 PM
To: cagle.com
Subject: Mr. Fish Memorial Day “Cartoon”
Please tell Mr. Booth that although it is fair to humiliate politicians who unthinkingly send young men off to war, it his improper and unacceptably demeaning to belittle those who are brought up in the tradition of answering the call to arms when it comes. The cartoon is also unbelievably cruel to those who have lost family members in defense of our country.
Unless Mr. Booth can prove he served and put his tail on the line for this country, I suggest he keep his figurative mouth shut and ink bottled rather than make fun of a tradition that keeps us free and safe Without all Kevins, you would have a very small volunteer military indeed. And whether he agrees or not, we would be far less safe and fat and happy here if that were the case.
As a Former New Yorker, now living in Oklahoma, I further submit that since this tradition is strongest in the American South, Midwest and West, the cartoon is also brazenly elitist and sectionalist. I teach returning GI’s from Iraq and Afghanistan and Booth should be first in line to kiss the ground upon which these wonderful men and women walk.
I am so sorry you gave this piece of trash the light of day.
Bob Avakian
Tulsa, Oklahoma
On May 25, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Daryl Cagle wrote:
Hola, Dwayne,
Write a nice response and I’ll post it in the blog and newsletter.
Best,
Daryl
From: Mr. Fish
Subject: Re: Mr. Fish Memorial Day “Cartoon”
Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 14:28:21 -0700
Hey Bob,
I must respectfully disagree with your assertion that we must support and honor all men and women who choose to sacrifice their bodies to the perpetuation of massive amounts of violence in any war, particularly one predicated on hubristic goals with reprehensible consequences. Additionally, to address the broader implication of your note, to suggest that the tradition of any one nation engaged in war with another (or, in this particular circumstance, the tradition of one nation invading and then occupying another) be respected merely because it is a tradition is lazy at least and fascistic at worst. Remember, slavery was also a tradition. Should that atrocity be respected as well? Do you, Bob, raise your fist to the sky every morning and curse the fact that you have to dress yourself and prepare your own breakfast and rake your own yard? Or, more to the point, do you waste your time addressing emails to abolitionists in the past who felt it was their moral obligation to dispel the horrific myth that insisted indentured servitude was glorious and should be cherished and upheld for future generations? (I will now take a moment of silence so that you can sing Ol’ Man River with tears in your eyes.) Finally, committing brave servicemen and women to acts of criminal behavior in an illegal war and then saying that their intentions are really to uphold peace, democracy and humanitarian law, none of which apply to the situation at hand, is a treacherous sleight of hand and one that should be ridiculed. When an army is sent to commit a crime in the name of bureaucratic criminals, the nation is not being defended for me or anybody else. Instead, it is being made uglier and morally indefensible.
Fish
I’m eager to see the comments on this one. See more of Mr. Fish’s cartoons here.
-Daryl
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Obama Patriotism
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Bhutto Memorial
