Between chasing deadlines, drawing cartoon commentaries about the news of the day, I’d jump in my car and drive across town and sometimes across the state to speak in any classroom where I’d been invited to talk to kids about political cartooning. And the role of the press in our democracy. Two topics which sound like snoozers, right?
This guest speaker pulled out all the stops. I chattered like a game show host. I showed them how to draw quick sketch cartoons of famous people. I drew caricatures of the kids. I clowned and I told dad jokes nonstop to hold the attention of the kids. I was good at holding their attention with adolescent humor talking about the Contipation of the United States or breaking words like politics into their roots. Poli meaning many. Tics. Blood sucking leeches. What I wanted more than anything for the thousands of adolescents and teenagers I entertained for over 35-years was to leave them with the understanding that their serious participation in our democracy mattered. How the freedom to joke about our leaders cost cartoonists like me their freedom, all around the world, or their lives.
I struggled to seduce them into giving current events a try.
You are the descendants of revolutionaries
With cartoons I’d explain why knowing the daily news and the context of that news, the history of their place and time matters. Andwhy the fruits of the revolution they inherited mattered. Why it must be preserved at any cost.
“When I was your age I had two brothers in Vietnam. Because of politics. I could’ve been drafted and sent to that quagmire. Because of politics. When I had a terrible accident at your age my rights were explained to me. Because of politics.”
My dad made me watch the news every night. He’d say it was because you never know when you might be dropped into the middle of a current event. That was his version of that old axiom war is God’s way of teaching us geography.
I wanted them to understand why politics mattered. Why free speech mattered. I wanted them to know how politics intersected with their lives then and how it will intersect with their lives again and again and again.
Journalism versus Commentary
I’d discuss the difference between myself, one of a little more than 200 biassed “commentators” who use visual satire to express political opinions as opposed to the thousands of “journalists” who strive to report facts. I just bitch about the villains in the news unlike the thousands who serve our democracy by holding the powerful accountable. By not letting the pwerful get away with lying, evading the truth and justice.
“Who among you would like to become reporters?
And then I’d ask the students, “Who among you would like to become reporters? News anchors? Journalists? Raise your right hands.” A few hands always shot up. “ Leave them up. Like you’re the statue of liberty holding a torch. Higher. Higher! ”
They’d giggle.
“So you want to be journalists? Repeat after me. I swear to always tell the truth.”
They’d say it. “I swear to always tell the truth.”
“Okay. Put your hands down. When you are a journalist all you have is your the truth. Your ethical integrity. Without that you’re nothing.”
Recalling those days today I sounded like I was from an era that was long gone. The age of Walter Cronkite and All the President’s Men and My Lai and the Pentagon Papers, a time when truth was an absolute that mattered to us all. Now power and money is all that matters. The billionaires can buy the truth. And our politicians.
I saw the present moment coming.
So did many of you. Any fool who read George Orwell’s “1984” or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” or Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” could see this dark age lit by Tiki torch light fire marching towards us out there on the horizon.
“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.”
My favorite prophetic read was Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.” In the beginning we were a culture defined by the printed word. Print literate rural citizens would listen to a debate between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for 7-hours.
Today our minds boomerang away to the next distraction every 7-seconds.
In our short attention span post-literate “civilization” there is no patience for thoughtful exposition.
We live in a world where show business on steroids, in games and videos, drown the truth under their digital flood of fact-free amusement. We are trapped in an Idiocracy. Come Monday our republic will morph into pure show business carnival of hawkers, liars and showmen who will profit by selling your republic to the highest bidders and by amusing us over the next four season… I mean to say four years…into a stupefied state of feudal servitude.
In 1776 our revolutionaries swore “eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” In 2024 we have surrendered our minds and our republic to the tyranny of amusement.
Thomas Jefferson believed in a free press no matter how odious its content. And it was odious. He argued it was the responsibility of the press to provide fact based information to the people. Hilarious concept, right?
He actually believed this would insure an informed citizenry. Another knee slapper, right?
Today the content of much of our “press” remains odious. And thanks to the death of print journalism, the superficiality of video news and the online algorithms that seduce us by amusing us endlessly they reinforce our cartoonish biases. Any of us who watch late night shows and catches a Man on the Street Interview bit knows just how informed our citizenry truly is. Dumb and dimmer. Dolts who can’t tell you which came first, the Revoltuion or the Civil War. A nation of self absorbed celebrity obsessed phone distracted dipsticks on espresso who can cite detailed data about their fave sports dude or musical celeb but can’t name the Vice President or tell you who their legislator is.
What truly alarms me is not the predictable success of the fat demented two bit huckster who has made a career out of hawking destructive and toxic fact free bullshit and the billionaire lunatics half of you dimwitted suckers handed this republic over to on election day. What does make me tremble is Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will no longer fact check its social media posts.
During Trump’s rule we will see the growth of more such media platforms that will disseminate only it’s Masters Voice.
As we enter the darkness many will shrug their shoulders, sink into the infinite quicksand of bullshit, abandon the truth and surrender their obedience to the tyrants who seeking to amuse our republic to death so it can pick the bones of the corpse clean.
At least every last dolt and devout dumbass got a red hat.
In spite of the fact we’re Zucked I refuse to cave. I will always choose the truth. Like I always told those school kids, “the truth is all we have.”
As I fade from all but Blue Sky and Substack
So here I’ll remain, happy under the radar in the realm of substack and posting on Bluesky where many notable journalists can be found speaking truth to power, uncensored, unbowed and resolute, like the crew who stared “The Contrarian” recently. I commend their publication to you.
Hello, 2025.
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business https://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X
David Fitzsimmons at Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/fitztooner.bsky.social
Thank you for keeping up our spirits. As an older woman, it's so dispiriting to see two amazingly qualified women lose to the orange bloviator, so every word of encouragement and hope is greatly welcome. Keep it up!
Let us remember that a lot of those dim witted, dolts can't afford espresso, phone, computers or the data it would take to be obsessed with the amusements and fake truths of social media. Their information comes from very limited sources and even though the information is far from the truth, it is designed to speak to their wants and needs. From personal experience in a very rural area, many are poorly educated and a product of our society that left them behind. Thank you for going into the schools and working to enlighten kids on politics and the importance of truth in journalism! They need all the exposure they can get.