The really funny thing is that everything in this cartoon is both right and/or wrong and everything it warns about has come to pass in the America of 2009–sixty-one years after the cartoon was made–the only problem is that it claims our current situation will occur thanks to communism.

Ah, fresh, sweet irony!

Check out the original here: www.archive.org/details/MakeMine1948

Siskita first pointed out “Make Mine Freedom” to me after she saw it in the Vintage ToonCast (which doesn’t seem to have been updated since late last year). As I watched this fun little propaganda cartoon for the first time, I couldn’t help but wonder if the slick, slightly darker complexioned man, with the thin mustache, in the almost-zoot suit, peddling the “imported double-talk” was actually peddling capitalism.

After all, Wal*Mart has tried to crush unions, the Bush Administration loved to repeat that everything was fine over and over and over (as do most politicians and the mainstream media even still, though they may not use that exact language), banks and businesses are being bought up by government now in the form of those bailouts, it sure seems like there’s less private property since we can’t afford to buy any, and government has been subsidizing farmers for decades.

Even earlier on in the cartoon, we are told that certain things are guaranteed to us under the freedom of the capitalist system.

1) “Freedom to work at the job you like.” Unless they’re not hiring.

2) “Freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble.” Just so long as you do it in the “Free speech zone” set up several hundred yards from the event you’re protesting.

3) “Freedom to own property.” …and to pay property taxes, mortgage payments and to desperately cling to any job you can get (whether you like it or not–so much for point #1) in order to keep paying said mortgage.

4) “Security from Unlawful Search or Seizure.” this one is completely out the window in our “Post-911 World”.

5) “The right to a speedy and public trial.” …unless you’re labeled an enemy combatant in which case you can be held without charges, indefinitely, without a lawyer and without the right to challenge your detention (habeas whatsis?).

6) “Protection against cruel punishments and excessive fines.” Unless you’re labeled an enemy combatant or copyright infringer. For the former see #5 and for the latter you could be fined thousands for downloading one song. Oh and the imagery used in the cartoon at this point is a fat and satisfied prisoner sitting at a table with a roasted chicken while being waited on by a prison guard. Yeah, I don’t think that’s how it works these days, either (did it ever work this way?).

7) “The right to vote.” …but apparently not the right to proof that your vote counted. Sure, we got Obama in, but we will never know for sure if Bush was supposed to have been in the White House for those horrible eight years.

8) “And to worship God in your own way.” But Atheists can go suck it.

The cartoon explains that the above freedoms are what has made America strong. Since we really don’t have those freedoms any more, does that mean America is weak now?

The funny thing is, the cartoon is right–all those things do make any country strong. However it’s not “capitalism” or the “free market” that guarantees those things. It’s good leaders.

It’s good leaders who make sure that only proper, just laws are passed.

I won’t even go into the overt racism of the cartoon, with any non-white ethnicity being all but left out completely (two shots depicting dark skinned Americans doesn’t count). And what’s with the “ism” peddler, anyway? He’s not as white as everyone else. He’s also selling “Ism” using the exact language that the USG has been using over the past few years to sell us on everything from privatizing Social Security to invading Iraq. High profits, maximum security, etc. And what the hell? The peddler’s company is called “Ism Incorporated!!” Doesn’t that make HIM a capitalist, too?

And that “scrap of paper” seems to be describing the exact effects of the various bailout bills businesses and banks have been begging for. Our money is worth MUCH less now and therefore allows us to do less with our freedom, too. And since our kids will be paying higher taxes (as will their kids), doesn’t that rob freedom in just the same way as Dr. Utopia’s Ism Elixir?

There is one last thing I can think of that “Make Mine Freedom” gets kinda right. That last bit where the John Q. Public character says the following:

“When anybody preaches disunity, tries to pit one of us against the other through class warfare or race hatred or religious intolerance, you know that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives and we know what to do about it.”

Of course, John Q. seems to endorse violence, or at the very least the threat of violence, against those doing the exact things he describes. The thing is our government has been doing this for the past eight years and has pretty much always done these things to control us. Whether it’s the military which aims recruiting efforts at the poor, or the Bush campaign, back in 2000, spreading rumors about John McCain’s “black baby.”

Religious hatred is also used by Christians against Muslims and gays on a regular basis (not to mention the generally sucky attitude toward us Atheists).

The ultimate point here is that everything in this cartoon is both right and/or wrong and everything it warns about has come to pass in the America of 2009–sixty-one years after the cartoon was made.

Boy, I sure am glad we didn’t drink that ethnic man’s “imported” (commun)Ism Elixir back in 1948! Who knows how much WORSE things would be right now!?!?

/ sarcasm