One picture says 1,000 words - part I.
You can link to this cartoon from the China Daily to get an idea of how East views West (and East views East). This cartoon tells vividly how the West gets it wrong on China by conflating the Great Panda Bear (whose diet is 99% bamboo and is a highly threatened and endangered species and which many find to be cute - since it is not a danger to humans) with a more sinister looking Brown Bear whose diet, while consisting mainly of roots and fungi, also includes fish and small mammals. Unlike the Great Panda, the Brown Bear is listed as a "least concerned" species.
Note how the cartoon credits "Western Media" with vilification of the Panda, using paste and cut techniques. Cut off the cute head of the Panda, replace with the sinister head of the Brown Bear, thus turning China from a non-threatening, cuddly, safe creature into a ravenous, rapacious, hungry, carnivore. Western Media's propaganda makes China appear to represent the danger that is "in actuality" the danger that Russian poses.
One picture says 1,000 words, part II:
More bears - one of which is Russian, come to us from a Singapore paper. Quite an visual with Bush 43 caught between two bears and a hard place -- being chased by a bear market (hasn't lost the shirt off his back yet, just his shoe) -- going to meet Putin, another world leader, who has the Russian Bear (economy) under tight control. A lot of interesting things going on here.
One picture says 1,000 words, part III:
There is much value in seeing ourselves through the eyes of another -- for an individual human being, seeing ourselves through the eyes of another human being, who may have a less favorable impression of us than we hold of ourselves. Same goes for how the citizenry of one nation views the actions of our government (which in a Democracy ought to reflect the will of the people, although, the U.S. form of government, of course, is a Republican form of government).
This commentary on the Iraq occupation comes to us from Beijing, China. The U.S. invasion of Iraq viewed as a high stakes game of black-jack, and Uncle Sam has lost a LOT of many and all his clothes except his undershorts. There is NO question that he's just about tapped out, but, he while pounding his fists on the table defiantly demands of the dealer "Haven't had enough yet?"
Wow! Initially, I didn't like this cartoon, because it stripped away all the human costs, the devastation, the suffering, and reduces war to ... and then I looked again ... a "game" the U.S. can't win, and couldn't win, EVER; the war game, the invasion game, the occupation game, the imperialist game. And yes, for those politicians who make the decision to go to war, it's truly as sterile as this. They have no blood in it. They have no suffering in it. All about bluster, pride, ego. And war, that smug, unruly, confident, greedy corrupt "thing".
Somewhere, early in my internet reading (circa 2002), I found this description of the face of war: War looks like a baboon's hind quarters.
