Makes me glad I've never heard of Cox & Forkum. (That can't be their real names, anyway... too perfect. :D )

Isn't that Yassir Arafat on the right?

You're right, these guys are shitheads, and what you're talking about, is going on here, but the Nazi cartoon is of a group of Jewish faces, while the Cox & Forkum one is a caricature of a specific historic personage.

While they are drawing from semitic stereotypes to render Arafat, they are making a recognizable image of a specific person. Kinda reminds me of Allied depictions of Tojo during the Pacific War. Tojo is recognizable through the bald head, slant eyes, weak chin, and buck teeth of propaganda; what we are presented with is a Tojo that has more to do with racism than with the general himself.

I agree that these guys (whom I'd never heard of before now, though I've doubtless seen their cartoons) are idiots who draw upon racism for their cartoons, I don't think the examples present a perfect parallel because of the specificity of Cox & Bunkum's caricature, and the intended general applicability of the Nazis'.

Thanks, though, the world is rife with this and it's good to point out how subtle and everyday this sort of evil is.

As if that wasn't long-winded enough:

When I was a kid, there was a pizzeria in my hometown called Italian Delight, a mob front that was eventually shut down on some RICO violation or other. Anyway, unlike most pizza joints, the cartoon "mascot" wasn't a fat Italian chef; he was skinny, with a long nose, drooping eyes, and stubble. Eventually, when I learned about the Nazis and saw some of their cartoons, I thought, these guys look just like cartoon Italians.

I don't know what that says, exactly, about me or the topic at hand. But it's probably not too complimentary to either.

BP: John Cox & Allen Forkum.

Hugh, you may have seen them on Slate. Their syndication is pretty much limited to a select group of small-circulation Republican dailies -- and blog links from pals of LGF.

Isn't that Yassir Arafat on the right?

Ayup. The point is that he's hiding behind the mask Mahmoud Abbas. (I assume the cartoon dates from when Arafat was alive and Abbas was widely perceived as a Western-acceptable face on the Palestinian Authority.)

Anyway, they're birds of a feather with Chuckie "American Zionist" Johnson. They probably think that their depictions are not racist because they are not depicting Jews.

Reich called it "psychic plague."