Spy vs. Spy

Possible macrocosmic interpretations for Spy vs. Spy:

• The TNT detonator is Bill Ayers, Joe Sixpack, the lobster dinner, Joe the Plumber, accusations of class warfare....uh oh, uh oh BOOOOOOOMMM! Blows up in their faces.
  
• The spies are Pyrrhus and Priam caught in a terrible cycle of violence.
  
• The TNT detonator is the war on terror and we're winning, the surge is working. We're the good team, they're the bad team...uh oh, uh oh BOOOOOOMMMM! Blows up in their faces.
  
• The monochromatic character of the cartoon symbolizes the racial tensions inherent in our culture.

The thing what make the news so hard to handle these days is that everything is presented to us in such black and white terms, as if there is ever a clear good guy and a bad guy. This time around we have a great guy (I've been an admirer of Obama since 2004) and a decent human being who just shouldn't be president now. I love to tease Sarah Palin as much as the next guy. In fact it's become something of a hobby. I disagree with her on pretty much every issue; she thinks people who hail from my state don't love America (even the long term republicans, and those who have lost loved ones in the war), I believe her rallies are coming dangerously close to inciting racial violence in this country and I think the concept of a Palin white house would be a near apocalyptic scenario. "Uh oh, uh oh .....BOOOOM!"

But should people pass judgement on her for deciding to campaign with a small baby at home? Absolutely not! We would never ask the same questions of a man. Should we judge her for the fact that her party bought her a killer wardrobe while she campaigns for Vice President? Absolutely not, because you know we'd be dissing her if she showed up wearing Jacklyn Smith's Kmart collection to her debates and rallies.

Priam killed by Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus), son of Achilles, detail of an Attic black-figure amphora by the Class of Cambridge 49, ca. 520 BC–510 BC, found in Vulci, Louvre, Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully wing, Campana Gallery (F 222), Photographer: Jastrow (2006)

The black and white stuff is getting the better of us. As Shakespeare's story of Pyrrhus, Priam and Hecuba teaches us, the only way out of the cycle of either violence (or rhetorical dialectics) is compassion. Hamlet should have listened and we should listen too. Shakespeare describes the death of Priam in brutal detail (Act II, scene ii), then describes the grief of Hecuba who has lost both her son and husband:

But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.'

With that one line Shakespeare takes us aloft, up to Mount Olympus where can see the human struggle and the pain it causes. The difficult truth is that families feel the same pain when losing a loved one whether they are Iraqi, American or Afghani. The hard truth for me is that people who believe the polar opposite from me are doing what they think will preserve what is good and right about this country (even as part of me screams "No, no, no you stupid, decadent, greedy, warmongering, homophobic racists" and Blicky retorts "Don't you dare spread my wealth you elitist, atheist, liberal, troop-hating commie weakling). We've come to such an impasse that it's only when we can see the world with real compassion and nuance are we ever going to get at any semblance of truth. 

We at Blicky Kitty (with thanks to Katie) have found the solution. Let's just get together and have a dance party!