The Silly Concept of Human Rights at Conception

Anyone considering a vote for McCain should recognize that McCain’s stance on abortion and human rights represents the extreme far right of the Republican Party. McCain is no longer a maverick representing the centrist positions he once practiced.

“At what point is a baby entitled to human rights?” Rick Warren asked at the Saddleback Forum on August 16th, McCain responded bluntly, “At conception.”

The belief that human rights are an entitlement at conception negates two vital facts. One, by granting human rights to the embryo or fetus, reliant on the mother (in cases of natural insemination and frozen suspension for artificial insemination), you are putting the rights of two humans at conflicting positions that can never be reconciled. Obviously the mother a higher authority over the rights of the embryo/fetus; however does the mother’s actions that might result in a miscarriage (natural abortion) mean a violation of any one of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ? Does her very act of carrying the pregnancy to term mean a 9 month restriction on the fetuses will to move freely?

The concept is completely silly, however this is McCain’s stance on when human rights are granted.

Obama’s response to this answer was more nuanced, as it should be. While mocked by conservative commentators when he said, “…whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity…is above my pay grade,” his reference here was to a higher authority, God. Does McCain consider himself the equal to God?

A closer examination of the UDHR actually outlines a much narrower focus when granting human rights, and the interpretation of these rights is not so black and white. In fact, in the United States, the full slate of human rights doesn’t become fully obtained until an individual is of legal age. A ten year old is compelled to join the church of their legal guardian. A kindergartner does not participate in their government. The list could continue ad infinium.

The point is, the answer as to when human rights are granted is not “at Conception”, a pithy two word answer that tingles the spine of certain logically blind, stupified evangelicals and far-right politicians who manipulate their emotions for political gain. The answer is never to be answered, similar to the question of life after death. This is a personal decision, and the formal legal struggle means debate, scholarship, technology and evolution.

Let’s hope for a president that understands this debate and all sides.

In Black and White (and Red) Day 7: China Olympic Disaster: A Silence Kept Too Long

I’m normally not one to recycle material, however considering that most visitors to this site are new, I’m going to guess you, my angry reader, won’t mind. (I’m assuming your angry, otherwise you’d probably not be interested in cartoons bashing China’s human rights position and the fact it was given the Olympics to host despite this obvious mark on its record.)

This is a drawing I did way back in the early days of this blog project called PixelMarx, I did a cartoon for the Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth. Since then, this cartoon’s been buried. That was until recently, as the public began to awaken to this whole issue.

Now with the protests surrounding the Olympic Torch relay, the image is all the more relevant. Those who’ve already seen this, I apologize (well maybe not).

You can read the original post, Foul Smell from Beijing More than Olympic Sized Pollution.

There are a few comments, including the most recent one just the other day.

Sier wrote, “Your drawing is based on your biased imagination and showing you have not any real knowledge about China.” To the biased imagination part, I fully agree (in fact I’m thinking I might steal that line when describing what I do here - drawings biased by my imagination - it has a special ring to it. But I digress.

Instead, I’m making my own pledge to boycott the Olympics, the whole thing. I’m not going to read, watch, pay any attention to the event. It’ll tie nicely into my boycott of NBC and the rest of mainstream media. And to all those who say boycotts don’t work…don’t think you persuade me :).

Note: For anyone wondering who the man behind the mask might be, it’s Hu Jintao (pronounced “who”).

In Black and White Day 6: Howard Zinn and A People’s History of American Empire

Howard Zinn’s upcoming book is being introduced by this nice presentation/political art film that’s narrated by Viggo Mortensen and guess what…it’s in black and white. I’m being lazy today (actually I’m trying to learn animation) so I thought I’d let another artist do the work.

Check out the work of Mike Konopacki, a political cartoonist, who’s brief 2 second spot at the end of the clip doesn’t give enough recognition to the artist…

In Black and White Day 2 - Seeds of War

Day 2 and I didn’t get to spend as much time as I’d have liked with this drawing. but something started to emerge toward the end. Although drawing in Photoshop, I tried to emulate a scratchboard technique. For those not familiar with what scratchboard is, it’s basically a clay board, covered in black ink. You then use a sharp object and you scrap away to reveal an image. It’s a challenging technique to do it well, of course with Photoshop, there is considerably less challenge.

In Black and White Day 1: Inaction = Silence

There is a time for color. And then there’s Picasso’s Guernica.

Especially on themes of war, of humanity, on human rights, and political struggle, black and white is often more powerful; a stark blatant expression. You can’t negotiate. Black and white offers very little subtlelty.

So I’ve set out a goal for myself (similar to the one that launched this blog). For the next 30 days I will post a new drawing each day. These drawings will be inspired by what I consider the greatest black and white political art.

There will be no words in the images. No labels or cartoonist crutches.

This first drawing was inspired by Kathe Kollwitz, who’s work I’ve long admired and could never hope of achieving her ability to communicate such raw emotion on paper. If you’ve never seen her work, take some time and familiarize yourself with her drawings. They’re beautifully tragic.

Show’n Them What’s Really Wrong with America

Wow, I feel as though I’ve been drawing an entire series on racism in America lately. Didn’t quite expect that, but I guess it’s good to suck it up and address what needs addressing.

I’m going to confess - actually the Irish in spacemonk probably gives it away - but I’ll confess anyway. I’m pretty white. With a typical mutt heritage of various European immigrants (Irish, Swedish, German, and whatever else there is out there). And I was also educated in a largely white school in Alaska. But I’m also of Gen X, a liberal democrat, and so I like to think of myself as pretty open minded.

Then I took a Black Studies class on the history of African Americans in film, I was surprised to learn how ignorant I’d been of the ingrained racism in movies, even to this day (If you wish to read a great book on this subject, check out, Donald Bogle’s “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks” .) And if this is rampant in the movie industry - a pretty progressive bunch - then I feel safe to guess it’s gonna be even worse in society in general. If you don’t believe me, do a search for blacks as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Then do a search for females as CEOs for Fortune 500 companies. You might be surprised to learn it’s four blacks, twelve women.

So this gets me to thinking that as long as we avoid teaching our children the real nature of racism, that it isn’t just what makes the news, but it’s an inherent pattern of stereotyping, of fears, passed on by parents to their children, then we’ll never get beyond this issue. It will continue to be pushed aside, left for later generations, hoping that it goes away. Just last year, while in the grocery store parking lot near where I live, a pickup truck with teens was cutting across, with two huge Confederate flags flying off the back end. I was surprised. Who’d be that insensitive? This wasn’t the South, this was Oregon.

America, we haven’t made it as far as we like to tell ourselves.

Someday a black man or a black woman will again try to run for president, and will get quite far, and then it (the issue we refuse to talk about) will rear it’s ugliness into the lives of another generation, and because they’ve never been taught where the anger and resentment originates, we’ll deal with it in a similar fashion as we are today. Scared. Hateful. And with suspicion.

It will seem like we’ve gone nowhere.

Barack Obama Faces Racism We Are All Afraid to Face

The speech Barack Obama delivered today matters. It matters for history, for this election, and for race relations in this country. And most importantly, in light of questions of experience, leadership and direction for America, the speech demonstrates hat Obama’s candidacy is different.Here is a presidential candidate that takes on an issue instead of hoping it goes away. To directly tackle the issue of racism, and the remarks made by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and to defend his choice not to disown the minister when it would have been easy to disown him — this speaks volumes.

Think of 2002.Think of the fervor leading up to the Iraq War.

In 2002 the best political suicide could have been to be against the perceived fight against Iraq’s plot against the US, where American’s had been scared into thinking that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had been involved in 9/11 and the specter of a mushroom cloud coincided with the latest stories on yellow cake uranium.And no ths isn’t the kind of cake you put candles in.

Think 2002, then watch the speech again.

This is the same man who gave a speech against the war in Iraq. And this is likely the same man who’d deliver a speech against going into Iran, or North Korea, unprovoked.Some would want discount the 2002 speech and claim that he wasn’t in the Senate at the time so his position doesn’t really count. True he could not vote. However it’s not a large leap of faith to see that he wouldn’t have backed away from a no vote on the Iraq war, that he wouldn’t have been persuaded into going along with Bush and Cheney, just as he isn’t going along with the safe route in dealing with the issue of race.

A speech on race in the 2008 election as a Black man looking to become the first African American president of the United States, during a time where racism is rearing it’s ugly head - that’s not a safe speech to give.

Yet Obama delivered it.Now of course a political cartoon blog - and most times I try to be funny, or at least shocking, and to fill the posts with images instead of words.And so I apologize. This isn’t an issue that makes itself into funny lines and satire.

But I’m also hopeful that come November I’ll be able to pack up my pencils and paper, and put my energies to better use, once we elect Barack as the next President

And if we don’t, if we find the choice is between a Clinton or McClinton - take out futures on wood, lead and paper, because this cartoonist will be busy…very busy.

Best.

P.S. I must say, embedding a YouTube video into a Wordpress Blog has got to be the absolute biggest nightmare outside of certain politicians being elected. Incase anyone else has this problem, after turning off all visual code editors, remember, every single space has to be removed from anything surrounding your YouTube code or it’ll break apart in FireFox. AKKK!

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