Commentary 18 Sep 2007 07:47 am
Things Change? Dept.
- In the “No matter how much things change, they always remain the same” department, I’d like to share this cartoon by Daumier done in 1870.
___ Under a tent, the German Chancellor, Bismarck, is shown asleep in his armchair.
____Death points out the politician’s accomplishments, a field of corpses.
– I offered Daumier’s cartoon by way of introducing a story found on line. Go here or here to read the original.
The Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, was placed in hiding by the local police after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, offered a bounty of $100,000 for the murder of Vilks. He said the bounty would be upped to $150,000 if Vilks was “slaughtered like a lamb.” A bounty was also offered to anyone who killed the local editor who published the cartoon. Sweden’s secret police called in extra personnel over the weekend to work on the case.
Haven’t we been here before? Would the wrath of these people be so vehement if George Bush hadn’t chosen to attack Iraq? Would there have been an al-Qaida in Iraq? Would cartoonists or personal opinion be so vilified?
The pile of hatred grows ever larger daily.
