https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8897471/Backlash-appalling-Guardian-cartoon-Keir-Starmer-offering-Jeremy-Corbyns-head-platter.html
Gaffing Season
The weather is getting chilly, and we risk losing our heads. Brainfreeze is affecting the best of minds. People all over the world have been living with the reality that their lives might end sooner than expected, from violence, the virus or the ills of lockdown.
Consider the sensitive times that worn and stressed out communities have limped through this year, add social divisions big enough to trigger mass protests big enough to trash towns and cities, and know that citizens are a tad triggered.
Mammy says
When people who have big brand clothes and the vote take to lynching statues and stoning horses, we shouldn’t need a memo to tell us that something “just ain’t right” – In fact, something is very wrong, even more wrong than me quoting Mammy from Gone With the Wind. Leaders and the media might do well to take a little extra care about how they present information, you’d think. You’d be just as wrong.
Last Gaff – Number One
People sometimes struggle with numbers, but not in carefully rehearsed speeches broadcast to the world (on loop). When the numbers refer to virus-violence crazed voters and reference the threat of them getting unwell or dying from Covid-19, you’d think the Induna would be clear about the decimal places their decimation has reached. Again, you’d be wrong. The thousands added to the millions of citizens/voters/ballots at risk of getting unwell or sadly dying from Don’s virus is just todays gaff. ‘Tis the season …
Gaffed
I’m not sure when Gaff Season started, I’m almost sure it predated the Chinese New Year.
Societies everywhere are divided, factions have been protesting and blaming “others” for “everything”. The election (yes, that one) has fought lockdown rules, illness, death stats and the “Brexit Barneys” for headlines. No easy battle considering wars and migration are the big grabbers.
The media has played it’s socially distanced role in ensuring that people living in fear of the deadly ‘Rona never forget there are always other threats out there. Wars happen as they will, the saga across the pond might make a good Boxset some day, but humans living with lack (current or possible) quickly recover from the urge to share with “others” – The migrants crossing the sea from the mainland are fast becoming the new “unfair”. They are also “others”, and cause enough broad based discomfort to filter out the news on loop and dilute the numbers gaff.
The numbers gaff follows an earlier gaff which follows a tragedy.
Earlier Gaff
I was pondering the election (yes, THAT one) because the news was on loop in the background. The word “fair” kept popping in my frozen brain.
Then I read this:
So… the LIEbour (Labour) Party are having a right old, or should I say, a left old go at one another. Their former leader Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended and the ultra left wing newspaper, THE GUARDIAN, prints this ‘cartoon’ on the day that 3 people are attacked in a church in France, 2 of whom were beheaded. The cartoon shows Sir Kier Starmer, the new LIEbour leader holding the decapitated head of Jeremy Corbyn.
HMH
The Cartoon
People are struggling to manage a virus that is potentially life threatening in a world where terrorists butcher inncocent people over a drawing. Whatever their state of mind, the murderer/terrorist sees this has being fair – Or justified. On a separate note, an experienced cartoonist creates a line drawing depicting an outcast previous political party leader – Served up on a platter, some symbolism around John the Baptist maybe? Who can tell with brainfreeze?
Question
Is fairness attainable?
Personally, I don’t think it matters so much who wins an election in the West anymore – My biggest concern is the narowing of the margins that win our elections. It seems we are going to have to live in a world where Mr and Mrs Ordinary might be forced to consider that being fair doesn’t mean that our children and citizens will be safe.
Victims are neither right nor wrong, but with fractured communities, neither seems to offer any guarantee of peace or safety. Fractures don’t always heal the way our egos would like. I think we might be in for a few crazy years yet and I fear that before November is through, we might experience a few more September‘s in some form or another.