By Gary Martin
Like almost everyone else, I’m consumed by the election. And now that early voting has begun in every state, there’s no excuse not to get out and cast your vote for the things that matter most to you. You know, it’s not just about the presidency. Lots of important local elections going on, too. With a nod to Voltaire and “Candide” — please encourage everyone you know to tend to our garden or important issues will die on the vine.
Gary B. Martin is an illustrator and animator who has lived on the Upper West Side for more than three decades. His Sunday illustrations for West Side Rag chronicle life in the neighborhood, New York City, and the Universe.
Watch for Gary’s illustrations on Sundays in the Rag and see them all here. For a broader range of Gary’s work, including animations and other motion graphics, please visit www.martoons.com
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Beautifully put
“Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can’t be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.”
VOTE!
Love the conclusion you’ve drawn.
Well done, Gary!!
Equal rights are a joke when in liberal UWS you have those who are of Muslim background being discriminated against and the elected officials and local leaders do not care.
Please show us your evidence.
Denying the suffering of Muslims here on the UWS does not help the pro-Israel cause. It is one thing to say that suffering in Gaza or in other Arab territories is because they are in a difficult geopolitical neighborhood, but this is America, this is the UWS, the place where everyone is welcome. The UWS should not be a neighborhood where we welcome the homeless with open arms, but those who are of Muslim background are made to feel as unwelcome as possible here.
Try being a Jewish student trying to get to class at Columbia University!
Yes antisemitism is a real concern, but you do not take it out on Muslims who have nothing to do with the pro Palestinian protests and who are on the UWS whether as residents, neighborhood workers or what not. In fact, minimizing the Islamophobia I have seen on the UWS makes the pro Israel people no better than the pro Palestinian protestors they dislike. Muslim residents and neighborhood workers who are not taking part in ripping down hostage posters, harassing Jews etc. should not be used as scapegoats for whatever problems people have after 10/7.
As Jerry Nadler once said “we’re better than Hamas” and if anything and if those in the UWS Jewish community were smart, they would make it pretty clear that if you are not among the people harassing Jews and you are Muslim, there is a place for you on the UWS. That would certainly make Jews the bigger people in all this.
What can Muslims on the UWS not do that everyone else can do?
What can Muslims on the UWS not do? Many of the Muslims on the UWS are building workers, car service drivers, bodega workers, local business owners who cannot afford to live on the UWS. If you look at the numerous synagogues on the UWS and the numerous churches on the UWS, many of the worshippers live on the UWS and vote on the UWS. The one mosque on the UWS and pretty much the whole west side south of 125th Street on 72nd Street and Riverside, most of the worshippers do not and cannot afford to live on the UWS and do not vote here, so they get treated worse. Not only that the Muslim community supports are not as strong as other communities, and you have to be wary of who you accept help from because that can get you in the crosshairs of surveillance not just by US authorities but foreign authorities as well. So if something unfair or unjust happens to a Muslim on the UWS or anywhere in our country, there are more limited places for Muslims to go whom they can trust and will not be a liability down the road. This is America and bringing the conflict 5,000 miles away to the UWS benefits no one, neither Jews nor Muslims. We also cannot go back to the Plessy separate but equal doctrine. There is no way the Civil Rights Act or Brown v. Board of Ed will be overturned.
This is brilliant (and I was one of the first early voters yesterday Gary!)!!
Excellent — but how did half our countrymen come to regard those as fighting words?
That’s it in a nutshell. How did that happen?
One can only speculate … so I will. That 54% of American adults have a literacy proficiency below the 6th-grade level might have some bearing on the answer. (20% are below 5th-grade level. I’ve also read, albeit ~20 years ago, that only about 10% of Americans read more than one book a year unrelated to work or school.) Though surely not the whole explanation, this seems a fairly good starting point.
A literacy problem eh? Can you fix an AC unit or run a farm or police a block or fight a fire or drive a truck cross country? Maybe it’s time to consider the working people voting the way you don’t like and why they’re doing it instead of writing them off as morons—and btw college educated ppl will vote the way you don’t like too!
Thank you!
Fabulous!!!!
Amen! Washington Post and L.A. Times take note
No matter your personal beliefs, no matter your political opinions, your vote is your voice
Love this!!
I’d like to see a “Parental Rights” button in this cartoon.
Pity that only one party has gardeners of this kind on the ballot this year.
Right on. We have to show up and tend to the garden to have good results.
What a brilliant cartoon! I’m sending it to everyone I know and I’ll use again and again for each election! Thanks, Gary!
Thank you for cleverly expressing the many reasons why it’s so important to vote. Voting is the way our voices can make a real difference. I know I’m preaching to the choir.
I should add that it might be prudent to avoid dropping your ballot in a ballot box: I’ve just read that, at least in Washington and Oregon, they’re catching on fire for some reason.
Oh, and I completely forgot: they’re also burning in Phoenix … though somehow things catching on fire there doesn’t seem quite so abnormal. Let’s hope we can get this phenomenon under control fast!
Vote early, once, and while it’s still possible; optionally, be thoroughly informed about who/what you’re voting for. That’s my $0.02.
I like your take on Voltaire……the well planted garden to bring hopefully good results whereas I think Voltaire meant that Pangloss was telling Candide to tend to the garden instead of the wicked world.
Exactly, Gary Martin. EXACTLY. My favorite MARTOONERVILLE to date!
Love this!!!!