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Of Octopuses and NRA
The Associated Press launched a story that, because an NRA cartoon had shown Bloomberg as an octopus trying to take over, and there were Nazi cartoons depicting Jews as octopuses, NRA must be antisemitic. The media picked it up, quite uncritically. "The eight-armed sea animal has been used as the Nazi representation of Jewish conspiracy and control, and was referenced by Adolf Hitler in "Mein Kampf,"" says AP.
A few minutes of research would have shown that the "octopus taking over" cartoon theme has been used by everybody to depict everybody (especially corporate and business interests), and in WWII was more often used by the Allies, with the fascists cast as the octopus.
Here, for example is a British cartoon depicting the fascist Japanese government as an octopus.
Here's an American leaflet (aimed at Japanese soldiers, and hence written in their language) that shows the Japanese hold on Taiwan as an octopus caught between FDR and Chiang Kai-Shek (translated, the message is that the alliance of China and the US will doom Japan).
And here's a wartime image showing the American eagle attacking the fascist octopus.
After the war, the octopus was used to depict the Soviets, and Stalin in particular and more recently, World Trade Organization. Here's a French cartoon that puts Bill Gate's head on a world-hugging octopus.
And in 19th century newspapers, the octopus was used to depict the liquor industry and the Southern Pacific Railroad's monopolistic plans, And in a 1904 Russian cartoon, it is used to depict British capitalists taking over Europe.
In fact, there's a website devoted to octopus propaganda, from which I got several of these images. It begins:
"Cephalopods are major figures in one of man's least noble popular enterprises: propaganda.
Despite their generally shy, retiring habits, octopus have long been used to connote villainy and dark intent. As such, they have also long been staples of propaganda illustrations....
Typically, the Enemy Octopus stands in for a nation or distinct community, and not as an individual. The octopus has been cast as Nazi, fascist, Jewish conspiracist and English imperialist. They've stood in for Antwerp, of all places. Stretch out the arms and they span the distance from 1904 Japan to 2003 internet, anti-Russian sentiment to anarchist website."
[UPDATE: I'd initially attributed this story to Violence Policy Center, based on the first report I had of it. While it sounded like VPC at the time -- they are opponents worthy of the steel, being fast and creative -- I can't find any confirmation that they were behind it, and it's quite possible that AP, while neither fast nor creative, actually came up with it on its own. I've amended the post accordingly.]
[UPDATE: chuckle. I purposely avoided the plural of octopus, because it is indeed octopods or octopodes, the work being Greek and not Latin. Not that I'm fluent in Greek, but I read it in George McDonald Fraser's hilarious novel "Pyrates," where two pirates get into an argument over the correct plural. It's one of the funnier books I have ever read, with most of the competition for that title coming from the same author.]
· NRA
Comments
The New York Times used to show the Wall Street money interests as an octopus. The KKK used to represent Wall Street as Jewish. Ergo, the NYT is antisemitic. Works for me, anyway.
Posted by: Charles at April 19, 2007 01:40 PM
I remember seeing Standard Oil depicted as an octopus in my high school history text books. I found one version online, here is Standard Oil as an octopus and another.
Posted by: Alcibiades at April 19, 2007 01:42 PM
(Satire) Could the NRA's depiction of Bloomberg with Octupus body be a comment on gene splicing and the horrific results depicted in Scifi movies could soon be a reality? (LOL). Any, at least I can now set aside the imagery of the NRA as Jew hating Nazis. Whew! That was a close one!
Posted by: Don Hamrick at April 19, 2007 02:32 PM
I remember standard oil and the nazis both depicted as octopi when I was a kid. I think pretty much everyone has used a kraken or octopus as a way of accusing their enemies of malign cleverness.
The only images I think of as being particularly antisemitic are the big-nose jewish caricatures done up by the nazis and later imitated by the arabs in more recent times.
Posted by: Jim W at April 19, 2007 02:32 PM
Not to mention that the President of the NRA herself, Sandy Froman is Jewish.
Posted by: Kevin P. at April 19, 2007 03:03 PM
Even the ADL, which is incentivized (as an axiom) basically to identify antisemitism wherever it can be gleaned, wouldn't bite at this hypothesis in the article you link to!
Posted by: Ron Coleman at April 19, 2007 03:34 PM
Progressive-era anti-business firebrand Frank Norris wrote a novel called the Octopus in 1901, about an evil big business:
The NRA must be anti-big business progressives, I guess.
Posted by: Tim Shell at April 19, 2007 03:40 PM
My goodness. I think Dr. Seuss must have been an anti-Semite! He drew a political cartoon showing Nazis as an octopus!
Oh. Wait....
Posted by: Tom Westberg at April 19, 2007 03:47 PM
Alcibiades and Jim W., you're quite right. There's also the novel The Octopus, by Frank Norris, the story of a corrupt railroad company victimizing wheat farmers in California at the end of the 19th century.
And, of course, there's Cthulhu...
Posted by: Mary in LA at April 19, 2007 03:56 PM
"In a related development, the spokesman for the National Association for the Advancement of Octopi Rights said, 'As an semi-sentient invertebrate I'm offended by the Violence Policy Center attempts to demonize us. Hey, we have feelings too!"
Posted by: Mark Jaeger at April 19, 2007 04:01 PM
Will no one stand up against the antiCephalopites!!!
First they came for the squids, and I did nothing...
Posted by: RS at April 19, 2007 04:06 PM
Nazi octopi are Everywhere!
Posted by: pst314 at April 19, 2007 04:28 PM
Cthulhu has also been depicted as octopus-like.
The NRA obviously consists of Lovecraft fans.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at April 19, 2007 04:37 PM
As one of the authors of the Call of Cthulhu game (I personally pitched the decliing sanity concept from the Spacer Gamer article by Ken St. Andre to Sandy Petersen), I very much doubt that the Violence Policy Center intended to refer to the Big Guy.
They more likely had Frank Norris's depiction of the Southern Pacific Railway in his The Octopus in mind.
Posted by: Tom Holsinger at April 19, 2007 05:06 PM
Let's not forget Spiderman's nemesis, Dr. Octopus.
Obviously, Spidey is an anti-semite. He dates that shiksa Kirsten Dunst, too.
Posted by: cris at April 19, 2007 05:10 PM
Dunst? Dunst? Isn't that a GERMAN name?
Just saying.
Posted by: Dick Eagleson at April 19, 2007 05:47 PM
'The Octopus' (about 1900) by Frank Norris is a novel about the railroads grip on California.
The book sellers had some great illustrations of 'guess what?'
Norris, great and now ignored, is worth a read.
Posted by: K at April 19, 2007 06:50 PM
The plural of octopus is octopodes.
Posted by: Eric Jablow at April 19, 2007 06:56 PM
Frank Norris wrote about 'The Octopus', the mass murderer attacked Norris hall.... hmmmm
Posted by: hmmmm at April 19, 2007 07:30 PM
The always-inventive Violence Policy Center launched a story that
What's the VPC's connection to this?
I don't see any mention of them in the linked article, nor any source given for the assertion that the VPC is behind this meme.
Posted by: Robert R. at April 19, 2007 08:13 PM
Heavily armed Jewish Octopuses?
An airport screeners life just gets more complicated all the time.
Lift up you legs and show me your tentacles, all of them now.
Not those you idiot! … Your tentacles, Your tentacles…
Posted by: Neo-andertal at April 20, 2007 01:00 AM
Love it when my disparate interests converge :) Marine aquaria is my 'other' hobby, and I've been looking into keeping cephalopods for almost a decade. I'll probably get one in the next few years. Wouldn't want to jump into anything prematurely :)
http://www.tonmo.com/ has tons of coverage of cephs used in propaganda over the years.
Posted by: Chris at April 20, 2007 08:10 AM
Engine search:
arab +cartoon +jews +octopus
choose "images"
Al Jezeera's cartoons, always derived and never funny, milk that meme in some of their better panels.
(Once the NYT crossword forum was overtaken by an argument running at least a week about the plural of octopus. Citations for both are found in dictionaries. It got down to whether a dictionary was 'descriptive' or 'proscriptive'. Seems Daniel Webster, that is, one kind tells you the way words are being used and the other tells you how they should be used.)
Posted by: bo ure at April 21, 2007 02:33 AM
Sorry, scratch Daniel Webster. Bad editing.
Posted by: bo ure at April 21, 2007 02:35 AM