RTSun, 07 Jul 2019 13:08 UTC
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
Progressives and liberals took to Twitter to vent, after President Donald Trump invited right-wing cartoonist Ben Garrison to an upcoming White House social media summit. Garrison has been accused of anti-Semitism.
The guest list for Trump's social media summit, due to take place this Thursday, looks tailor-made to trigger and enrage his opponents. Trump cheerleader
Bill Mitchell will be in attendance, as will pro-Trump memesmith '
Carpe Donktum,' and now self-described
"renegade cartoonist" Ben Garrison.
The announcement of Garrison's invitation set alarm bells ringing on the left, with the Montana-based illustrator described as
"insanely hateful" and
"blatantly anti-Semitic."
The anti-Semitism kerfuffle stemmed from a 2017 cartoon that was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its supposed anti-Jewish imagery. The cartoon depicted then-U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and retired General David Petraeus being puppeteered by billionaire liberal financier George Soros, who was himself controlled by the sickly-green hand of the Rothschild banking family.
Garrison had previously been targeted by a loose coalition of 4chan trolls and 'Daily Stormer' neo-Nazis, who doctored his cartoons to include blatant anti-Jewish caricatures and dubbed the doodler
"Zyklon Ben" and Ben
"One Man Klan" Garrison. He denies any accusations of racism or anti-Semitism.
A stated libertarian, much of Garrison's early work was anti-government, anti-Federal Reserve, and heavily referenced 'New World Order' conspiracy theories. More recently, the cartoonist is best known for his drawings detailing Trump's struggles against Democrats, the mainstream media, and the 'Deep State.' Trump is usually depicted as a muscular, dashing superhero, and his enemies as wretched, hammed-up villains.Though Trump has never shared Garrison's work on Twitter (unlike that of Carpe Donktum),
the invitation was likely extended as a result of Garrison's ban from Instagram in April, which he said was handed down for a cartoon that violated the platform's hate speech policies. Conservatives have long called on Trump to address the supposed liberal bias of the Silicon Valley tech giants, and Thursday's summit could be a chance for the president to address the issue with his base.
Comment: UPDATE 11/07/19: Cartoonist Ben Garrison has been
disinvited from the White House Social Media Summit after complaints about a 'blatantly anti-Semitic' cartoon he drew depicting controversial financier George Soros as a puppet master.
"Because I mentioned Soros and the Rothschilds in a cartoon, the perception from the [Anti-Defamation League] and those on the left is that I'm a 'blatantly' anti-Semitic cartoonist and they were all dancing a tantrum because Trump invited me," Garrison said in a statement on Wednesday via tweet, adding that he and the WH had agreed on Tuesday that his presence would be "a media distraction from the President's message."
The cartoon, from 2017, shows Soros as a puppet-master controlling then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and retired General David Petraeus. Above Soros is the arm of another disembodied puppeteer, labeled "Rothschilds." Journalist Yashar Ali tweeted the cartoon Tuesday morning, informing his audience (who might not otherwise have realized why the cartoon was anti-Semitic) that the "Rothschilds" arm was the naughty part.
Ali's followers were split between the perplexed ("Quit stretching for something to be outraged about") and the incensed ("how is this not a national scandal?") - with a healthy dose of sarcasm ("Only Nazis criticize bankers"). It's easy to see how a reader could get lost on the road to righteous indignation, given that Soros - a favorite bogeyman of the Right whose financial speculation has devastated entire nations' economies while bankrolling progressive political causes - is also portrayed as the victim of "anti-Semitic conspiracy theories" - when he's not being attacked as an anti-Semite himself by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and others on the Right. Further complicating matters is the fact that McMaster was, in fact, a member of the Soros-funded International Institute for Strategic Studies for 11 years.
Garrison was "disappointed" in both the White House's decision to disinvite him and its choosing to publicly announce the withdrawal of its invitation to the summit, which is scheduled for Thursday, he said. While he had initially pledged to remain silent about the invitation's withdrawal, he chose to issue his statement after the White House leaked the news to the media
The Fake News Media is only attacking me to attack the President. I will not let this stand.
"It is obvious to anyone with common sense that I am not anti-Semitic," Garrison continued. "I'm not anti-Semitic merely because the ADL says I am." He accused the group of libel, pointing out that it continues to host retouched artwork of his "with the face of an offensive Jewish stereotype pasted over my cartoon," declaring it further proof of his anti-Semitism.
Lawyer Robert Barnes retweeted the fake cartoon, warning the ADL that it would be a delicious irony to have to sue the group for defamation, and Garrison seconded the threat, telling the censor-happy group to "take this seriously."
"Judaism is a religion, not a race, and evil heretics like Soros and the secularist Rothschild bankers have nothing to do with my community of faith," Rabbi Joseph Kolakowski wrote to Garrison in a letter congratulating him on his invitation, one of many 'Jewish friends' Garrison cited in his statement who had come forward with their support.
"Nowadays you can't criticize Soros without getting called 'anti-Semitic.' They wouldn't care at all about this if I wasn't going to the White House on Thursday," Garrison told CulTTTure, pointing out that CNN reporter Jake Tapper - one of the first mainstream media voices to signal-boost the ADL's smear - is himself a "failed cartoonist." With the New York Times canceling its own political cartoon slot, and MAD Magazine going the way of the dodo, American political humor appears to be experiencing its death throes.
Comment:
UPDATE 11/07/19: Cartoonist Ben Garrison has been disinvited from the White House Social Media Summit after complaints about a 'blatantly anti-Semitic' cartoon he drew depicting controversial financier George Soros as a puppet master.