corn in the bible posted:

guess whos back

there wolf posted:

Wait, this is not making a terrible point. Are we sure it's the same guy?

SwitchbladeKult posted:

I don't think "Look at this hypocrite, we shouldn't listen to his opinions about healthcare and guns because he doesn't talk about women's issues!" qualifies as a good point.

the_steve posted:

Plus, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but, weren't the women on The Man Show well aware of the fact that they were being paid to be objectified on television?

They weren't raped or sexually assaulted, as far as I know, like the Just Nuts guy is trying to imply.

the_steve posted:

Plus, please correct me if I'm wrong here, but, weren't the women on The Man Show well aware of the fact that they were being paid to be objectified on television?

They weren't raped or sexually assaulted, as far as I know, like the Just Nuts guy is trying to imply.

Zesty posted:

Yeah, none of that happened during Obama's presidency.

Edit: Oh this is an old comic.

corn in the bible posted:

corn in the bible posted:

SwitchbladeKult posted:

Botox?

Herblock posted:

1. The Near-Great Society

People are always talking about "the verdict of history," as if it were to be rendered by 12 good men and true in unanimous agreement — or about "what history will say," as if they took literally the traditional cartoon character of a white-bearded figure writing in one large book with a quill pen. But history is not always even "a fable agreed upon"; it is what various writers convince various readers was so; and even commonly held opinions on past events and public leaders are subject to change from one generation to another.

Despite President Johnson's most ardent efforts to woo a national consensus, it eluded him; and even with the benefit of perspective, historians who write about the Johnson Administration may be no more of a single mind than commentators of the day.

There is probably a special irony in the fact that during the tenure of an Administration which was terribly anxious to achieve unity there was so much talk of gaps that it seemed at times to have achieved a Great-Divide Society.

There has been a credibility gap; a generation gap; the gap between hope and achievement; the cosmic gulf between space flight and the nearby slums; and the Grand Canyon between opinions on the Vietnam War. One thing we have not had is a yap gap. And this has represented an improvement over the frightened and frightening silences of the early 1950s, when dissent was regarded as dangerous — as indeed it turned out to be for many who dissented.

Some historians may decide that our present national wounds are more painful than gaping. The civil-rights gap is far less than it used to be, but it hurts more to feel it existing at all. The gaps between the affluent and the poor may not be as great as they were in the days of the sweatshops, but we are more aware of them, and of the iniquities of inequities.

Since cartoons generally put more stress on unfulfilled needs than on surveys of past gains, it is worth noting here some of the accomplishments of the Johnson Administration. They include three far-reaching civil-rights acts; an immigration act which also eliminated long-standing inequities and discriminations; the basic legislation of the Economic Opportunity Act, including the Job Corps, VISTA and Head Start; aid to Appalachia; the rent-supplements and model-cities programs; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, including aid to slum schools, and college loan programs; the Teacher Corps; programs to aid the states in health services; Medicare; minimum-wage increases, with broader coverage; and an act providing legal aid to indigents. Also, anti-pollution programs; two new Cabinet departments, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation; such consumer-protection acts as auto-safety measures, a meat-inspection act, a truth-in-packaging measure, an expanded flammable-fabrics act, and the truth-in-lending act. Add some measure of gun controls and the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. And chalk up, a consular treaty with Russia and the outerspace and nuclear-nonproliferation treaties.

The achievements were many and impressive, and came fast during the early part of the Johnson Administration. In working his measures and appropriations through Congress, perhaps Mr. Johnson got while the getting was good, and knew that a blockage was bound to develop in the Congressional cornucopia.

It might have been, as he said, that we could afford spending for continued progress at home along with an escalating Vietnam War; but budgetary considerations became greater and progress became less. It might have been that, after the landslide victory of 1964, losses of some Congressional seats to conservatives were inevitable in 1966; but about four dozen House seats were lost and many bright, progressive Congressmen were gone. It might have been that more modest requests for domestic programs represented realistic appraisals of what could be expected from Capitol Hill; but the scaled-down requests for cut-back programs were chopped still further by Congress. There is no question that many Congressmen who whoop through any and all war appropriations would not spend the same money on the home front, war or no war. This is particularly true of those bellicose Republican "conservatives" and Dixiecrats who are more ready to lay down lives than prejudices, and who can hear the most distant drum more clearly than the cry of a hungry child in the street. But the purse strings were bound to be drawn tighter with thirty billions a year going for war.

Perhaps even more important than the financial expenditures on Vietnam, the Administration was spending its eloquence and energies, its persuasive powers and prestige, on the war. And there developed a communication gap between a pained Administration and dissatisfied former supporters. The Administration kept pointing out that it was passing more legislation and spending more on public welfare than any other Administration in history. The critics kept pointing out that the deeds at home were not keeping pace with the needs of the times or the Great-Society Expectations that had been aroused. The Johnson programs went remarkably far, but they did not go all the way with LBJ rhetoric, or seem to be going as far as the men, money and material that kept flowing to Vietnam.

As the war in Vietnam escalated, the war on poverty faltered, and the projected upward curves of welfare programs fell. The "Great Society" became increasingly the target of ironic jests; and finally the term itself was dropped from the Administration vocabulary, which had always suffered from a tendency to verbal overkill.

Probably to a greater extent than most Administrations, Lyndon Johnson's bore the brand of the Presidential personality. He could say that maybe he didn't get things done with "style" but he got things done; and this was true. But what he considered mere lack of style was to others a missing ability to arouse and lead an entire people.

A strong President, and perhaps more knowledgeable about government programs and legislative procedures than any of his predecessors, Lyndon Johnson, unlike Dwight D. Eisenhower, wouldn't be accused of or excused for not knowing what was going on. He could be and was accused of not sharing facts candidly with his fellow countrymen. His hand seemed to be in everything his Administration did; and if he did not see each and every sparrow fall, he saw, as far as one man could watch everything, where each bomb was and was not supposed to fall. He must have seen also where he fell down; and of course he saw his popularity drop in the polls.

In mid-1968, in an extemporaneous speech to a group of graduates of the Capitol Page School, he referred to his announcement that he would not be a candidate for another term in the White House. "On March 31," he said, "I thought this country was divided. I didn't know how much I contributed to that divisiveness. I hoped I didn't contribute anything. I never tried to say any mean things or hateful things. But I felt in the atmosphere that perhaps if I indicated that I did not have any personal ambitions whatever, that it might somehow contribute to improving the political atmosphere and the division among us. This might make me better able to unite the nation..."

A Presidency that came in for this kind of self-examination will give the historians plenty to do by way of examining and evaluating.

They may recall an old two-line gag, in which one man asks, "How's your wife?" and the other man replies, "Compared to what?"

Compared to past Administrations, historians will probably find that the LBJ legislative record looks brilliant, even taking into account his inheritance of good works in the legislative pipeline when John F. Kennedy was killed. And they may note that LBJ appointments to high posts were, on the whole, excellent. They may decide that, compared with internal disorders and divisions in other nations of the time, our domestic strife was not so bad as it seemed at close range. They might find that Mr. Johnson looked very good indeed compared to the Presidential possibilities offered by the other major political party in the 1960s — candidates who were more hawkish and reckless abroad and less concerned with public welfare at home.

Perhaps only with time will it be possible to assess new programs that seemed to begin all too modestly but that may be seen in perspective as landmarks.

Some historians may be struck by the paradoxes in a Presidential Administration that moved legislation without moving people, and that offered great accomplishments without meeting its goals or ever-growing national needs. It advanced the public welfare in a nation considered generally "prosperous," and became unpopular with Americans perhaps never before so frustrated by a combination of unresolved problems at home and an unresolved war abroad.

Some of those historians may feel pretty frustrated, too.

Much has been written about the burdens of the Presidency. The President who set out boldly to establish the Great Society might share the lament of Linus in Charles Schulz's Peanuts:

"There's no heavier burden than a great potential."

SwitchbladeKult posted:

I don't think "Look at this hypocrite, we shouldn't listen to his opinions about healthcare and guns because he doesn't talk about women's issues!" qualifies as a good point.

corn in the bible posted:

guess whos back

corn in the bible posted:

Angepain posted:

What's even going on in the bottom right there. Just a weird rock?

OldMemes posted:

Is Johnson considered to be a good president or not? Non-American here, and he seems to be one of the 20th century Presidents people don't seem to talk about much, so is he considered good or bad?

King Possum III posted:

2

Pants Donkey posted:

I honestly haven't been following the opioid crisis, but since there's a ton of cartoons on it lately, I have to assume it's affecting a shitton of white people since they're mysteriously blaming a broken system instead of addicts*.

*_{This is a good thing, but change "opioid" to "pot/crack/etc." and see how sympathetic these cartoonists are about addicts.}

OldMemes posted:

Is Johnson considered to be a good president or not? Non-American here, and he seems to be one of the 20th century Presidents people don't seem to talk about much, so is he considered good or bad?

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Samurai Sanders posted:

Is he trying to say everyone owns a bathrobe or is a bit off on his understanding of popular imagery of people?

T-man posted:

I think the idea is that you just wander around nude except for the mask. Which would make Kubrick proud, admittedly.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Samurai Sanders posted:

Well yeah, but in all the other images of Weinstein in cartoons etc he's in a bathrobe.

Emasculator posted:

Only sort of related, but hey.

OldMemes posted:

Is Johnson considered to be a good president or not? Non-American here, and he seems to be one of the 20th century Presidents people don't seem to talk about much, so is he considered good or bad?