AnarchoNinaAnalyzes<p>I know this story is several weeks old, but I wanted to talk about it because I'm not sure the mainstream media, which almost universally decried a racist cartoon about Rashida Tlaib being a potential target of an exploding pager in the wake of Israel's (widely-celebrated) terrorist attacks using exploding pagers in Lebanon, entirely understood or was prepared to talk about the ideas the "artist" involved was promoting.</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/20/rashida-tlaib-cartoon-pager" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/us-news/2024/s</span><span class="invisible">ep/20/rashida-tlaib-cartoon-pager</span></a></p><p>Rashida Tlaib condemns cartoonist for racist image of her with exploding pager</p><p>"Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American congresswoman, has accused a political cartoonist of racism after he depicted her next to a pager exploding days after such devices blew up across Lebanon in what the Arab country has said was an attack by Israel.</p><p>A statement from the Democratic US House representative also expressed concern that the cartoon by Henry Payne would “incite more hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities”.</p><p>“And it makes everyone less safe,” Tlaib said of the cartoon – published by the Republican-friendly National Review – which also showed her thinking how “odd” it was for the nearby pager to explode. Pagers had been a preferred method of Hezbollah members in conflict with Israel, before such devices exploded across Lebanon recently. “It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism against our communities,” she said."</p><p>Now on the surface here, the media (and Tlaib herself) are obviously correct in saying that the cartoon the National Review published is racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Arab. Tlaib is also absolutely correct to point out that American is rapidly returning to an early-War on Terror state of open bigotry against Arab Americans, fueled by racist propaganda that is being normalized as a result of political actors, as well as U.S. support for Israel's genocide in Gaza and military actions against Lebanon; this is a larger, purposely-engineered problem in our society and it does make us all less safe - particularly Arab Americans.</p><p>With that having been noted here, there is also a fascist/McCarthyist subtext to this cartoon that as far as I can tell the media is largely ignoring, but the reactionaries pushing white nationalism and US imperial ambitions definitely picked up on. After all, this cartoon is referencing a method of assassination Israel deployed against people it identified as "enemies" and the clear implication of the cartoon is that Rashida Tlaib qualifies under that description and assassinating her might be a good or at least reasonable idea. This is, to put it succinctly, an extension of the fascist propaganda the American Right, all the way up to former President Donald Trump, is pushing regarding the need to take action against "enemies within." Which as we discussed yesterday, is not only straight out of the propaganda playbook for every fascist regime in human history, but ultimately a pretext for purging folks who oppose fascism and the hyper-reactionary nationalist order the larger American right is seeking to impose on our country. The idea that an elected American Congresswoman from Detroit is an enemy of the state, and thus a legitimate target for assassination is not-so subtly woven into the cartoon, and echoes the longstanding hate campaign establishment figures on the right in American politics have been directing against Tlaib for literally years now. </p><p>So yes, the cartoon is racist, yes it's Islamophobic, yes it's anti-Arab, yes it's a thinly veiled incitement for violence; but it's also important to understand that what the National Review has published here is straight up fascist propaganda and it has a clear goal of manufacturing consent for a new type of McCarthyism and the purge of "enemies" defined as anyone, including US politicians, who oppose fascism and American imperial violence. It would have been nice if even one publication I read mentioned that, but American fascism is so ingrained into our society at this point that I question whether folks in our media can even recognize it in the moment anymore.</p><p><a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/Fascism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Fascism</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/Islamophobi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Islamophobi</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/Tlaib" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Tlaib</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/Racism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Racism</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/McCarthyism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>McCarthyism</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/Propaganda" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Propaganda</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/HateSpeech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>HateSpeech</span></a> <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/tags/USPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>USPol</span></a></p>