Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a moderately interesting examination of the history of edgy cartoons and the newspapers that spiked them. Thought-control freaks from Hitler to J. Edgar Hoover have feared the hard-hitting impact that spot-on visual ridicule provides.

Naturally the Chron is nominally supportive of the First Amendment, because newsroom scribblers are required to profess heartfelt allegiance to free speech on a regular basis. It’s expected as part of the job description. The article is taken from a new book,Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression, and is printed in today’s paper with some examples of ‘toons that offended the sensibilities of editors and others.

Interestingly, several paragraphs are devoted to the Cartoon Jihad of 2005, when the Mohammed cartoons published in the Danish publication Jyllands-Posten caused rioting and deaths around the world as sensitive Muslims became enraged at a dozen drawings.

Admittedly, religion and cartoons can make a volatile cocktail. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten unleashed an unimaginable fury by publishing 12 cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. Fleming Rose, the editor who conceived the project, intended to bring attention to increasing intimidation of the free press by Islamic extremists. He never imagined what would follow.

The Muhammad cartoons sparked riots that caused more than 100 deaths worldwide. Mobs torched the Danish embassies in Lebanon and Syria. Protesters in Nigeria destroyed more than a dozen churches. Palestinian gunmen chased Danish aid workers from Gaza. Arabs boycotted Danish cheese. Even Iranian bakers registered their anger, renaming the sticky Danish pastry the “Rose of the Prophet Mohammed.”
[Killed cartoons, San Franciso Chronicle 3/11/07]

Yes, free speech requires serious commitment and occasional courage. Such is the responsibility the press has to the proper functioning of democracy. We citizens need to know what is going on, even when it isn’t pretty.

Apparently the Chronicle thinks readers have forgotten that the paper shrank back in fear, er exercised editorial judgment by not printing the controversial cartoons. In fact, Americans who were curious what the fuss was about had to go online to see the ‘toons, since only a handful of US publications had the grit to print them. Certainly not the Chronicle, as its managing editor explained on PBS’s Newshour, 2/9/06.

ROBERT ROSENTHAL: Well, we made a decision here that we felt we could describe it in words. [...]

It doesn’t mean we haven’t printed or published pictures in the past that we knew might offend people. But in this case, really the decision was made, that as I said, it was probably going to be a little gratuitous and that words were sufficient to describe what was really setting people off.

But today, the Chron is back, in support of controversial cartoons! So noble! Ain’t the MSM grand?

I was recently checking out an article by David Sirota on Common Dreams:

One of my idiosyncratic little hobbies of late is to keep a tally on statements by Washington politicians and pundits that are express an open hatred for democracy.

Now Sirota wants to focus on PC issues:

The message from Washington, D.C. to all of us out here in the heartland is very clear: Our government is the exclusive gated community of Big Money interests, their appointed pawns in Congress, and a select group of self-declared “experts” in the media and at think tanks (which are, of course, funded by many of those same Big Money interests). Inside this gated community, actually listening to or shaping policy on behalf of the vast majority of Americans is considered either laughably outdated or disgustingly unsavory.

This is why we have a House lawmaker running to reporters attacking efforts to end the war as “overreacting to public opinion.” This is why we have a Vice President who goes on national television declaring that what the public wants “doesn’t matter.” This is why the largest newspaper in America continues to publish a columnist who says voters shouldn’t decide elections. This is why, months after being elected to the majority on an antiwar mandate, we have a congressional Democratic Party that still refuses to do anything to end - or even slow down - the war. Because underneath all the platitudes and rhetoric, Washington, D.C. is a place that hates democracy.

Thing is, real principles are something folks stick to even when going gets tough. Poll after poll suggests that the American public want lower immigration levels. Now, Sirota’s article on democracy prompted me to see what he had to say elsewhere about immigration:

Think about it this way: Had NAFTA lifted 19 million Mexicans out of poverty as promised instead of helping to drive 19 million Mexicans into poverty, you can bet the flood of illegal immigrants across our southern border would be a trickle instead of the flood it is today. To be sure, politicians are talking about amnesty or guest-worker programs to give workers some kind of legal status. But if those proposals do not come hand-in-hand with a reform of America’s trade policies, they are destined to be what they have been in the past — merely short-term, stopgap measures, not real solutions.

Until America’s political leaders start making trade policy address the imbalance between the demand for good jobs and the supply of good jobs in Mexico, illegal immigration will continue to be a major problem right here at home.

Now, I appreciate Sirota’s sentiment. I agree that US immigration issues shouldn’t be solves at the expense of poor folks in Mexico. However, it is rather naive-and wishful thinking- to think that a solution will involve no additional penalties of US employers–or reduction of employment opportunities in the US for foreigners.

I think we can arrive at a solution that most Mexicans think is a substantial improvement over the existing situation. Eliminating all extreme poverty in North America(Mexico, Central America and the Carribean) would cost only about $60 Billion/year. This is something the US can and should afford as part of a comprehensive immigration solution.

The thing is : the economic gap between the US and Mexico is big. If the US were back on track economically, it isn’t obvious how that gap might change the next few years. We need a mix of policies that are palatable on both sides of the borders-but both sides will have some flexibility and creativity if this is to happen. Now, I’m personally willing to make this happen even if it takes every penny Carlos Slim and Bill Gates have.