The Political Thread

[TordelBack]

The argument McCarthy was using his observation to support concerned the tribalism and selective reporting of the US media, and the way childishly right-baiting sites such as Salon (and their right wing counterparts) distort facts and hijack tragedies like the one under discussion, reducing them to anecdotes in support of their party political talking points. His argument had fuck all to do with race.

I'm not sure that his argument had 'fuck all to do with race', even if it wasn't his intention that it did.  Your point about media tribalism is taken as read, but any remark about racially-biased reporting is made within a context of both historic wrong and ongoing imbalanced relationships of power and control.  Again, this might be insensitivity to that context, either wilfully or in ignorance, and thus playing into the wrong side of a larger argument, but that's a long way from being a racist.

I'm always intrinsically nervous of claims of liberal and left-wing conspiracies, because that's where I find myself politically and thus find such claims to be wishful thinking and/or a right-wing false-flag operation ( ), or more seriously part of the ongoing divide-and-conquer shell game of the grey men that get paid no matter whether red or blue are in the ascendant. However I don't see the problem with intelligent folk examining the possibility, even if I find some of the things they say in the process to be ill-considered or actively risible.  I imagine they think the same of me, if they ever do.

[JOE SOAP]

Don't you think it's interesting that folk are more interested in debating the intricacies of netiquette - whether it was right or wrong to re-post something a creator had said online - than whether what Brendan McCarthy said was factually correct or not? Whether you would want to characterise the remark as racist or not does depend on whether what he said was true or not, and on what particular point he was making

My issue with the other thread is I'm not sure what people expected to get out of it with so little to go on. Accusations of ignoring the issue or sweeping-it-under-the-carpet make no sense unless there's something substantial to go on other than a few off-hand stats - of which I'd say most who read them know as little as I do - in comments posted on the most shallow and reflex inducing social-media sites (Bleeding Cool is not much better). I don't think it was something that demanded attention in what was otherwise a thread intended for his mostly unseen art-work.

Reading the responses McCarthy's given I can't discern a right/left or much of an ideology in any of it other than a general malaise with a certain attitude he feels is prevailing, or glean much more than the opinion of someone who perceives too few faults in a system of cultural attitudes borne of a plethora of agendas that are a ball of confusion at the best of times, but a racist? No, I'm not seeing that at all, and anybody who reads his work, I believe, won't see it either.

There wasn't going to be some eye-opening re-evaluation of his work because there's not been any hardened ideological stance put forth by McCarthy to compare or contrast with his vast amount of art-work. A work which over-whelmingly seems totally at odds with the internet claims of him being a 'racist'.

[Frank]

Aye, we're parsing a few initial words for deeper significance when McCarthy's longer response seems (to me, at least) to make his position and the argument he was putting forward fairly clear. You don't have to follow American politics and news media particularly closely to be familiar with the disgusting, ideologically driven vultures who picked over the corpses of Trayvon Martin and the children of Sandy Hook alike, exploiting the grief of others to further their own ends.

The Clay Davises who use racial tensions to shore up their power base and the bizarre pronouncements of the NRA on such matters deserve equal scorn, derision, and rebuttal.

[The Legendary Shark]

Most politicians are aficionados of the Politics of Fear, to be fair. Fear of guns, fear of terrorism, fear of disease, fear of immigrants, fear of Europe, fear of ideas, fear of questions, fear of badgers and, most of all, fear of not getting richer...

[TordelBack]

There wasn't going to be some eye-opening re-evaluation of his work because there's not been any hardened ideological stance put forth by McCarthy to compare or contrast with his vast amount of art-work. A work which over-whelmingly seems totally at odds with the internet claims of him being a 'racist'.

And then there's this:

http://mindlessones.com/2013/11/09/flashback-to-fever-brendan-mccarthy-race-and-seeing-whats-in-front-of-your-face/

Apparently others have 'found' that 'hardened ideological stance'.  From the comments on that blog post: 

Woah, I had no idea McCarthy was such a piece of crap.

It's important to be made aware when your heroes are total shits.

Right now I feel very much like someone I adored has died...because I've come to realize he never existed in the first place.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see the perfect world that these chaps live in, where no-one ever writes cringeworthy african-american dialogue in a comic, or makes an insensitive comment in defense of a dodgy conspiracy theory they harbour, without automatically being a disgrace to the human race.

[JamesC]

I have to say, this whole debate about McCarthy has really pissed me off.

No one on the bloody internet knows whether he's a racist or not. End of.

It's so easy, when writing on Facebook or on message boards, to use language that can be ambiguous in meaning or to use phrases that have different connotations to yourself than they have for others. It's also absolutely legitimate for someone to comment on a particular aspect (the media reporting it as a race issue) of a tragic story (the American lady's death) without it making the author insensitive to the wider tragedy.
I doubt there's any person on this board that hasn't posted something that's been misconstrued at one time or another. It's a far cry from Frank Miller or Dave Simm's evangelistic political rants - for a start they've set themselves up as armchair political activists over a long period of time and written articles for the specific purpose of encouraging debate. Brendan McCarthy has simply contributed to an ongoing debate as part of a Facebook group, which, though a public lobby, shouldn't then be plastered all over the internet.
This sort of sensationalist online lynch mobbing (not just here but on other sites) could have a real, long-term detrimental effect on Mr McCarthy's income, well being and life in general.

I think, when there are such potentially devastating consequences to Mr McCarthy, he should be afforded the benefit of the doubt. Not because he's a comic artist (although the fact that he's not a professional political commentator or writer in any capacity is relevant) but because he's a human being.

All of the 'stirrers' on this board should be ashamed of themselves.

[Professor Bear]

I was more interested in the odd idea that public comments weren't open for debate.  In general I subscribe to the philosophy that if people are talking about it, then it is relevant whether we like it or not and the only concern is that things remain civil and non-libelous - don't like that an art thread has become a discussion about the artist's political views?  Tough shit.  Go find a board that makes stifling discussion a part of policy, because that, thankfully, is not here.
For my money, McCarthy wasn't being racist, he was being a holier-than-thou hipster jerk by attempting to attack the source of consensus opinion (a typically sneering punk reaction to most things), and the day you can no longer do that on the internet will be a black day for this board in particular, robbing myself and several others of most of our material and we'll be back to talking about werewolves and cheeses.

[M.I.K.]

Cheesist.

[JamesC]

I was more interested in the odd idea that public comments weren't open for debate.

Just because you can do something it doesn't necessarily mean you should.

[Professor Bear]

I like cheese, but I have said all that I need to on the matter.

[TordelBack]

I like cheese, but I have said all that I need to on the matter.

Gouda 'nuff.

[The Legendary Shark]

Ah - but what kind of cheese? Are you a loyal Cheddarite, a misinformed Edamist or a filthy Gorgonzolan? Please tell me you're not one of the ignorant and untrustworthy Spreadable Masses...

[TordelBack]

Beneath a thin paneer of rodoric, these anti-cheese raclettes herve nothing but hate for the urda:  we need a banon these munsters, if this Formaggio is to avoid a terrible feta.  Chimay well ask what the halloumi talking about, but there are no easi singles.








Consider my coat got.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Too change the cheese related subject here's something that might be interesting to watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/46/strange-days.html

[Theblazeuk]

For my money, McCarthy wasn't being racist, he was being a holier-than-thou hipster jerk by attempting to attack the source of consensus opinion (a typically sneering punk reaction to most things), and the day you can no longer do that on the internet will be a black day for this board in particular, robbing myself and several others of most of our material and we'll be back to talking about werewolves and cheeses.

Sums it up pretty perfectly.

Still a bit of a simp.