Satire

From E&P, a fellow Flak Magazine cartoonist has decided to stop doing political cartoons because the excuses used and lies told by the Bush Administration are "creatively limiting to satire."

I can surely sympathize with his frustration, and I agree that it is possible for satire to be rendered obsolete in a world where "villainy" has become the norm. But I don't think we're there yet... and our human society, in its entire history, has yet to reach that point of total disaster. Satire, as a literary tool, may evolve and the modes of delivery may change, and it may veer more towards straight criticism in times when hypocrisy is wide-spread (such as now), but the end goal remains the same -- social pressure. We just have to work that much harder. I would hope that we are quite a ways away from the point where we just give up, as long as we still have the will to fight.

I think cartoons, as a form of satire used to effect social change, still have some juice left in them too, as long as we don't allow ourselves to stagnate or to be compartmentalized. The proof is just a few stories down on the E&P site, where the buzz is that the "I" word is finally being uttered freely in the mainstream media thanks to a Doonesbury cartoon. Lo and behold, we turn on the Situation Room, and Bill Schneider is dissecting the cartoon frame-by-frame.

That is cool... and it's a good example of what you can do if you're in 1400 papers around the world.