‘Humans as Vermin’ Cartoon Is Hateful

Michael Ramirez has done it again (Commentary, Sept. 23). An offensive and bigoted political cartoon depicted Iraq and Iran following the Taliban as rats being dumped into the “Barrel of Vermin.” The Taliban terrorists are certainly to be condemned, but blaming other nations or a region is simply hatemongering.

It is shameful that The Times prints such irresponsible and despicable messages.

Gail de Mallac

Irvine

*

The Ramirez cartoon was a stunning disappointment. Middle East governments (and peoples) as rats in a vermin barrel? At best it’s derivative: That’s how the Nazis portrayed Jews in the 1930s, and that’s how we portrayed the Japanese in the 1940s.

In reality we human beings are a far more murderous species than rats--perhaps the most dangerous species on Earth. All of us also have the potential for reasoned responses based on careful thought. One critical step in stifling thought and cranking up the murder machine is to cast other human beings as threatening animals. As long as we countenance cartoons like Ramirez’s we reduce our search for answers to knee-jerk impulses.

Sam Coleman

Fountain Valley

*

What an arresting contrast between Ramirez and Arianna Huffington (“With No Lobby, the People Are Unheard”), both of whom appeared on the same page. Huffington consistently invites us to think, to go beyond the superficial--as she did with her provocative views on the gaps in our national security and the role of special interests in our political system.

Ramirez, equally consistently, invites us not to think and to champion the prevailing prejudices of the day--as in his cartoon dismissing the Taliban, Iraq and Iran as vermin. If The Times wanted to show us the difference between mindless patriotism and courageous and thoughtful citizenship it could hardly have done better.

Roger Carasso

Northridge