Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Cartoon for June 5

Hillary Clinton is toast. But at least she has opened the door for other women to run for, and lose the race for, president.

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35 comments:

  1. Aggie DudeJune 4, 2008 at 9:25 PM

    I don't doubt for a moment that fairly soon we'll have robots teaching students....we practically have that now!

    The problem with capitalism is it's primary mission is to automate everything into funneling resources into the pockets of a small handful of people, who in the name of 'private property' assumed ownership of this planet back in the 18th Century.

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  2. AngeloJune 4, 2008 at 9:59 PM

    another great period piece.

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  3. Barry DeutschJune 5, 2008 at 4:26 AM

    I have to admit, I don't get this cartoon. My best guess is that this is a response to those who are saying that Clinton's campaign was historic. But being "historic" and being a household name in 100 years aren't the same thing.

    (Also, Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for President and lose, in 1872. Not many students would know Woodhull's name, but historians and feminists still do.)

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  4. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 6:34 AM

    robots teaching....."we practically have that now"

    WTF AGGIE DUDE?

    I haven't come across a cyborg in the classroom yet. Although the curriculum is so dryed up and with little space for a teacher to vary it that it is robotic in the more human sense.

    What do you mean by us nearly having it? Whats ur weird experience?

    y_s

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  5. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 6:50 AM

    And then again, considering the hordes of racists guntoting repug maniacs that will descend upon Washington DC if Obama looks like he might win, she might become the first woman to run for president, lose, then become president anyways.

    That's if she became Obamas running mate of course.

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  6. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 7:31 AM

    I agree with Barry. Plus it's unfair to others who ran on major party tickets, like Elizabeth Dole (who got steamrollered by Bush) and Carol Moseley-Braun (who was ignored by the media despite serving longer in Congress than Clinton...).

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  7. Kevin MooreJune 5, 2008 at 7:35 AM

    I think the point is that the history-making quality of Senator Clinton's candidacy has been overblown. If that's the case, I disagree, in that no woman has come even this far toward getting the nomination, which is no mean achievement.

    Nice robot, though.

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  8. DirtySokJune 5, 2008 at 8:59 AM

    "Teechbot", Ted? HAH! Absolutely hilarious! I love it.

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  9. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 10:31 AM

    First woman to run for President? All America needed was to allow one criminally-incompetent, functionally-illiterate moron to hijack the Presidency, and see where we are! Want to take an airline flight to visit family out of state because gasoline prices have gone through the roof? Forget it. Airlines have raised fares nearly 400 percent. Ronald Reagan (prompted by Vice President Nancy...oh yeah, Nancy talked Ronnie into going Republican, or threatened him), tried to take America back to the 'good old days,' but gave us the bad new days. George W. Bush, on the other hand, will travel at his leisure on the taxpayers' dime the rest of his life while we will have to completely restructure America to 1940. What is George W. Bush's 'legacy?' In Bush's lexicon: "No one's going nowhere! Not any more! Heh heh!"

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  10. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 10:52 AM

    If Hillary's loss is a prelude to many women losing presidential elections for the next 66 years, is the not-so-subtle implication that Hillary only lost because she is a woman. Sorry, but that just sounds like more of the "sexism" whining from the Clinton camp that simply baffles me.

    Had Hillary not made some major strategic blunders (e.g., assuming she'd have it wrapped up on Super Tuesday), followed up by a lot continually shifting arguments and rationales about how she was really winning that were insulting to anyone with a shred of intelligence, and finally appealing to the darkest impulses of the electorate, she'd have probably won. The strong support she did have, and her initial front-runner status leaves little doubt that a woman could have taken the nomination and even likely won.

    Just not this woman.

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  11. AngeloJune 5, 2008 at 11:25 AM

    Victoria Woodhull

    wow! good to know.

    I don't doubt for a moment that fairly soon we'll have robots teaching students

    They already do it. Look up "waterford early reading program". You can just plop a kid in front of it with headphones, and they get reading taught to them by a computer. It is used in more than half the classrooms in schools in my community.
    The rest of the teachers are mandated to follow scripts, anyways (the teachers editions literally have scripts in them). You can actually get in trouble for not following the script. It is a legal thing. As soon as robots are cheaper than humans...'bamf'

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  12. Thomas DaultonJune 5, 2008 at 12:12 PM

    I have to ask, Ted, why only one star on the flag in 2074? Have all the other States been conquered by Texas, or did they all secede, or what? Or is it just that drawing fifty stars is a pain in the neck...

    (I think there's a Star Trek TNG episode where somebody finds an "old" flag with 54 stars and Data says, "That puts it between 2013 and 2025"...)

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  13. Aggie DudeJune 5, 2008 at 12:17 PM

    I haven't come across a cyborg in the classroom yet. Although the curriculum is so dryed up and with little space for a teacher to vary it that it is robotic in the more human sense.

    In the human sense, "education" has been industrialized and McDonaldized the same way almost every aspect of 'modern' life has been. "No Child Left Behind" is a primary example of reducing "education" down to a measurable statistic where "learning" has been bureaucratically defined as "the regurgitation of facts on a standardized instrument."

    As far as the very real sense of technology to rely and convey those facts, that's all around us; Student Response Systems (clickers) in class that reduce all responses to a series of multiple choice categories, multiple choice Scantron exams have been around for a long time at this point. The reduction of essay format evaluation techniques, class sizes of over 300 (sometimes in the thousands), or completely online courses where a student may not have any interpersonal contact with the instructor or other students all serve to routinize the process away from what I consider to be the most important component of education, and that is critical thinking skills.

    The shift in funding in universities away from a balance between Arts and Sciences is not just about English departments feeling left out to dry, it's about changing the nature of our education system to that of simple a commercial enterprise.

    These are degree factories, where "evaluation" of critical thinking skills is being reduced to paper audits so that mindless bureaucrats and corporate desk jockeys can claim some role in the process, whereby justifying their claim to increasingly larger shares of capital and resources.

    I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said for the past 150 years, it didn't take post-modernism to figure out the absurdity of our current social organization. On the contrary, it took post-modernism to accept it as reasonable and valid.

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  14. DennisJune 5, 2008 at 2:13 PM

    All I can say is he better damn well win the election!

    Hillary has an enormous amount of support, likely more in the 'dependable voter' column than does Barack. He is way too dependent on the wishywashy youth vote for my comfort. If he's smart as he pretends he is he'll go cap in hand to NY and get her on board before too long.

    Together they're a lock. Alone he is one easy target for the 'anybody but a black' prejudice vote.

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  15. The Reverend Mr. SmithJune 5, 2008 at 2:14 PM

    Yeah, I have to call bullshit on this cartoon. It was bound to happen. Just because a repugnant corporate raider, who started out with 50% negatives and still came pretty close to the nomination, couldn't "close the deal" (gawd I hate the cliches that pop up every 4 years) has nothing to do with sexism. A Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer would get the usual conservative bashing, but I'm not so sure the media would be sharpening their teeth the way they did with Hillary. The era of the center-right Democrat is over. Hopefully.

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  16. i must not be getting itJune 5, 2008 at 2:45 PM

    This meme is getting tedious. Can't we just acknowledge that she was a shitty candidate?

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  17. Seth WarrenJune 5, 2008 at 3:11 PM

    Obama is toast too...after McCain and the republicans are through with him. Hillary treated him with kid gloves in the debates and during the campaign. The republicans will not be so generous.

    As for losing...well, that's what happens when an election is rigged for one candidate over another. In lieu of crying for "Unity," the Democratic Party can kiss my ass in 2008.

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  18. badnewswadeJune 5, 2008 at 3:26 PM

    Cheap shot, Ted, she lost because she was a genocidal Nazi robot from space, not because she was female. How did one paper put it... "Bush in a skirt". The kind of person who patronises the working class then when in power does everything they can to destroy them. Good riddance.

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  19. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 3:27 PM

    Victoria Woodhull was not only the first woman to run for President, she had the first Black vice presidential running mate....Frederick Douglass.

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  20. AnonymousJune 5, 2008 at 7:15 PM

    Good point about Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass, but as you know if you watched the TV news, Obama's win is historic because he's the first 'major party' candidate. You see, it's only history when someone in the establishment does it.

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  21. devilJune 5, 2008 at 7:22 PM

    Frederick Douglass rules. i'd vote for him in a second if someone could somehow get him on the november ballot. even dead he'd make a better president than either of the two turds we've been served up to choose from.

    Zombie Frederick Douglass in '08!

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  22. AngeloJune 6, 2008 at 12:44 AM

    details details.

    1) Look how the girl is oriented. This is a small class. These are the lucky kids. In the future, most kids don't go to school anymore.

    2) the Robot says the 'first' to run and lose. This was meant to indicate that there were more after her. Many countries we look down upon have already had women presidents (and dictators)! The fact that there were women before Hil just makes the point stronger, if anything.

    3) Look at the wall socket. Only one hole per plug. Are we going to master remote grounding in the future?

    4) the robot is clearly not up to even 80s standards. This is a swipe at school funding.

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  23. AnonymousJune 6, 2008 at 12:57 AM

    Stand back for a moment - If I just go to Slate and look at the comments and cartoons, I can make a similar scathing remark on something - Ted Rall a la carte - easy and useless. But if I want to - I can tell you straight-away, as the British might say,that most of you don't have a clue as to what the world thinks of you. We evicted Clinton for his lying about an affair, but we allow an idiot killer who has misled us everywhere...

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  24. erraticJune 7, 2008 at 3:36 PM

    Sometimes I listen to Limbaugh for the "intellectual trainwreck" entertainment factor. He said that if Hillary didn't get the nomination that liberals would be outraged that our society is still so sexist that it wouldn't nominate a woman. I shouted at the radio "Come on! Not even Rosie O'Donnel would be that stupid!"
    ......and then this....

    hmmm.... I'm pretty shocked too, but only because Rush was right for once.

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  25. AngeloJune 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM

    Ryan, Who is outraged? We are just laughing at this country which touts itself as the pinnacle of human existence, but it cannot even do things even third world countries have done many times:

    1.Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka
    Prime Minister, 1960-1965, 1970-1977, 1994-2000.
    2. Indira Gandhi, India
    Prime Minister, 1966-77, 1980-1984.
    3. Golda Meir, Israel
    Prime Minister, 1969-1974.
    4. Isabel Peron, Argentina
    President, 1974-1976
    5. Elisabeth Domitien, Central African Republic
    Prime Minister, 1975-1976
    6. Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain
    Prime Minister, 1979-1990.
    7. Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo, Portugal
    Prime Minister, 1979-1980.
    8. Lidia Gueiler Tejada, Bolivia
    Prime Minister, 1979-1980.
    9. Dame Eugenia Charles, Dominica
    Prime Minister, 1980-1995.
    10. Vigdís Finnbogadóttír, Iceland
    President, 1980-96.
    11. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway
    Prime Minister, 1981, 1986-1989, 1990-1996.
    12. Soong Ching-Ling, Peoples' Republic of China
    Honorary President, 1981.
    13. Milka Planinc, Yugoslavia
    Federal Prime Minister, 1982-1986.
    14. Agatha Barbara, Malta
    President, 1982-1987.
    15. Maria Liberia-Peters, Netherlands Antilles
    Prime Minister, 1984-1986, 1988-1993.
    16. Corazon Aquino, Philippines
    President, 1986-92.
    17. Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan
    Prime Minister, 1988-1990, 1993-1996.
    18. Kazimiera Danuta Prunskiena, Lithuania
    Prime Minister, 1990-91.
    19. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Nicaragua
    Prime Minister, 1990-1996.
    20. Mary Robinson, Ireland
    President, 1990-1997.
    21. Ertha Pascal Trouillot, Haiti
    Interim President, 1990-1991.
    22. Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, German Democratic Republic
    President, 1990.
    23. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar (Burma)
    Her party won 80% of the seats in a democratic election in 1990, but the military government refused to recognize the results. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
    24. Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh
    Prime Minister, 1991-1996.
    25. Edith Cresson, France
    Prime Minister, 1991-1992.
    26. Hanna Suchocka, Poland
    Prime Minister, 1992-1993.
    27. Kim Campbell, Canada
    Prime Minister, 1993.
    28. Sylvie Kinigi, Burundi
    Prime Minister, 1993-1994.
    29. Agathe Uwilingiyimana, Rwanda
    Prime Minister, 1993-1994.
    30. Susanne Camelia-Romer, Netherlands Antilles
    Prime Minister, 1993, 1998-
    31. Tansu Çiller, Turkey
    Prime Minister, 1993-1995.
    32. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge, Sri Lanka
    Prime Minister, 1994, President, 1994-
    33. Reneta Indzhova, Bulgaria
    Interim Prime Minister, 1994-1995.
    34. Claudette Werleigh, Haiti
    Prime Minister, 1995-1996.
    35. Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Bangladesh
    Prime Minister, 1996-.
    36. Mary McAleese, Ireland
    President, 1997-.
    37. Pamela Gordon, Bermuda
    Premier, 1997-1998.
    38. Janet Jagan, Guyana
    Prime Minister, 1997, President, 1997-1999.
    39. Jenny Shipley, New Zealand
    Prime Minister, 1997-1999.
    40. Ruth Dreifuss, Switzerland
    President, 1999-2000.
    41. Jennifer Smith, Bermuda
    Prime Minister, 1998-.
    42. Nyam-Osoriyn Tuyaa, Mongolia
    Acting Prime Minister, July 1999.
    43. Helen Clark, New Zealand
    Prime Minister, 1999-.
    44. Mireya Elisa Moscoso de Arias, Panama
    President, 1999-.
    45. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia
    President, 1999-.
    46. Tarja Kaarina Halonen, Finland
    President, 2000-.

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  26. AnonymousJune 8, 2008 at 4:47 PM

    Wow! Thanks for the tip about Douglas being the first African-American VP Nominee.
    Refresh my memory, someone. What African-American VP nominees have there been on ANY party's ticket? I know of Jarvis Tyner (and nothing else) and Angela Davis on the Communist Ticket and Ezola Foster as Pat Buchannan's VP nominee in 2000. (It's ironic that Pat Buchanan had an African-American on the ticket before the Republican or Democratic parties...)

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  27. AngeloJune 8, 2008 at 7:48 PM

    I was just at the market, and I heard two women talking to a woman cashier about Hillary. The cashier was sad that Hillary lost, but the couple were talking about how Obama's speech "seemed condescending".

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  28. erraticJune 9, 2008 at 10:12 AM

    Angelo, you forgot Bachelet in chile...anyway, you missed the point. the point is that there's no sense in complaining about narrowly missing a chance for a woman to become president when another major and similar first is imminent. If Hillary had won, would Rall be making the equivalent cartoon about black candidates?

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  29. AngeloJune 9, 2008 at 1:00 PM

    would Rall be making the equivalent cartoon about black candidates?

    If someone who's great, great grandfather was an American slave got elected, it would still be a shame it did not happen much, much sooner.

    Barack is a Hawaiian of noble Kenyan background, as far as I can tell.

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  30. AngeloJune 10, 2008 at 12:21 AM

    ...there's no sense in complaining about narrowly missing a chance for a woman to become president...

    Who is complaining about that?
    Again, it is not this time that is so damning. It is the last 200 years and the next 200 years.

    You will find no crying Hillary supporters here.

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  31. SDSJune 10, 2008 at 2:13 AM

    I'm a dyed in the wool feminist, but I take some exception to Angelo's list of "elected women". As an Indian, I am too familiar with Indira's reign. Count the amount of people on your list who came in as part of dynasties. The list caves.

    I honestly think that we should be pretty happy with the results of Hilary's nomination. It showed that a woman can go high within the current structure, yet we can agree that the current structure is dismal. Even if Obama is not a messiah (I agree), it's great to evaluate the woman for more than her gender. That's almost entirely why she lost.

    Making HRC or Obama a referendum on their groups is a hollow goal. Focus on the fact that we aren't close to 50% women in any other level of government. Focus on the fact that African American school systems collapse under the misguided property tax funding models. Useful equality is more than a check mark. If it weren't, the women of India would be living it large right now. And that ain't the case.

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  32. AngeloJune 11, 2008 at 2:23 AM

    sds, I agree! Even monarchies are more fair to women than US democracy. It is pathetic. This is not even a small victory. It is a micro, nano, femto, yocto victory...tinier than the tiniest subatomic particle floating in the vastness of space.

    Admit it, sds. This country is a unmitigated failure in this department. The fact that Hillary was the best we could do is damning enough. How can you see any good in this?

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  33. CelinaJune 12, 2008 at 10:00 PM

    Making HRC or Obama a referendum on their groups is a hollow goal. Focus on the fact that we aren't close to 50% women in any other level of government.

    too true!

    Useful equality is more than a check mark. If it weren't, the women of India would be living it large right now. And that ain't the case.

    I think that has more to do with things like colonialism and development than anything else.
    Do Indian men have it much better?

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  34. SDSJune 15, 2008 at 11:13 PM

    Celina,

    My specific reference to Indian women was a relative one. So, although the country is developing, the problems for Indians. It's an interesting example because India is (to me) the runaway winner in post-colonial democracies in terms of stability, viability, and economic and social equality. And while Indira did run the country, it's hard to say that women don't still have severe inequalities there wrt everything from education, jobs, healthcare, and social status.

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  35. AngeloJune 17, 2008 at 9:32 AM

    Every indian woman I have met is smarter and more down to earth than a typical American woman.

    IF your culture affords you eough intelect to survive outside the kitchen, it has done its job, cause you can always leave the country.

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