Deploying Sgt. Jeeves: Pat Oliphant's Editorial Cartoon

When President Obama proposed raising taxes for Americans whose income exceeds one million dollars per year, House Speaker John Boehner denounced the proposal as “class warfare.” Many conservatives echoed the allegation. The term “class warfare” has become the flashpoint of public discourse this season among editors, bloggers, columnists, and others; on September 23, the phrase got nearly 5,000 hits in a Google News search. A Google blog search for the week of September 16-23 yielded 44,900 hits. Widely-syndicated and often controversial cartoonist Pat Oliphant’s succinct contribution to the debate was published in numerous U.S. newspapers on September 20, 2011.

Read it here: Oliphant, "Class warfare"

1. Oliphant’s cartoon centers on a very literal interpretation of “warfare.” What do you think he is saying by making this interpretation? Why do you think so?
2. In Oliphant’s depiction, why are the millionaires sending their servants out to fight the “class warfare”? What is the implication of Oliphant’s depiction?
3. Part of the humor of Oliphant’s cartoon comes from the idea that the maids, cooks, and butlers would cheerfully go off to fight on orders from their millionaire bosses. Still, there may be people of more humble status and income who defend Boehner’s assertions. Listen to the conversations around you and pay attention to media reports. What are they saying in response to the President’s proposal and the allegations of “class warfare”? Do their arguments make sense to you? Why or why not?
4. What do you say? Has President Obama declared “class warfare” by proposing to raise the tax rates for people with 7-digit annual incomes? Write an essay in which you respond to the question, providing evidence and careful reasoning to support your position.

 

Comments

[Amethyst Ralph]

I responded to Deploying Sgt. Jeeves: Pat Oliphant’s editorial Cartoon. When I saw the cartoon I knew exactly what it meant. When the man stands there and says, “We all must do our share,” I knew what it meant. The rich always send the poor to do their dirty work. The poor always have to fight in a war they did not create or have anything on the line. The rich use the poor to secure their assets and quote un quote make jobs with what the soldiers have secured. Class warfare has been going on since the beginning of time; this is not a new concept. In the cartoon the rich are sending their servants to fight. Oliphant shows that they never fight their battles, they always relay on someone else to do it for them. If it mattered to them so much why not the rich enlist? I can see why the rich would be upset about the assertion of class warfare. Some of these people actually worked for their money and have to take care of numerous people in their families. This does not only go for rich business men, but hard working mothers as well as other people who have very good professions they worked for. Some upper class sees the lower class as lazy and why should the rich get taxed if they are making all these jobs for the poor? Some of their arguments do make sense, others I find frivolous. The poor should not have to pay a higher percentage in taxes then the rich. To prevent warfare everyone should just have the same percentage of taxes. I do not think Obama created class war fare. The rich has been creating war fare for years on end, so why is this big deal? Is it unfair for the rich to pay the same percent on taxes like the lower class? Is it unfair that the rich will lose a couple thousand dollars and the poor will continue to pay and stay below poverty line? I think this is a tossup depending on how someone views this problem. Maybe if everyone paid exactly the same the cries of class war fare would stop.

[Barahona, Erick]

When Obama proposed raising taxes on those with income greater than seven digits, House Speaker John Boehner condemned the proposal as “class warfare.” Now why is that? After reading articles about the diminishing middle class, this is an idea that could balance the scale of social economic classes. Perhaps Obama could be attempting to tip the scales, but I doubt his intentions were to create “class warfare.” I think its less of a divide and more or a unity. By helping the middle class, the nation benefits entirely.

Pat Oliphant is making a powerful statement about the super wealthy in his comic. In a sense, they are able to build an army of citizens to do their tedious task. They already spend enough money on keeping their taxes low; they might as well be patriotic and help their country. By having a squad assembled literally at their door, Oliphant is exposing the strength of the super wealthy. The sarcasm bleeds through in the bottom left corner of the strip, when a little bird claims, “We all must do our share.”

The humor behind the servants being loyal is too large to overlook. The idea is that the poor will remain loyal to the super wealthy in order to keep classes as is. If to contemplate this scenario, how many servants would really protest against the lower classes? Current events like the Occupy Movement would make it possible for those servants to resist such demands from employers. For those who would defend Boehner, then their conservative views would detain them from seeing the greater picture. The problem with government is that it is running off of loans and bonds. There is no real money to support such entity; Obama wishes to reduce its debt in order to prevent a crashed stock market. Although not the most capitalist strategy, it is an action that is struggling to resolve such a solid issue.

It would be inconvenience for Obama to start a war at this time. He is currently trying to resolve many other issues and has ended some of them. Obama is simply doing his job as a member of the Democratic Party. He is representing those with Democratic ideals and must take the attack from the conservatives. Oliphant is narrating one of Obama’s procedures in order to help the country return to a common state of middle class America.