Huckabee is totally Cobra Kai material.

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Via SAJAForum, an…interesting political cartoon by Ted Rall which experiments with a provocative question: what if Republican threat to everything presidential candidate Mike Huckabee were a different sort of fundamentalist?

Ted Rall on Huckabee.jpg

Here are the cartoonist’s own words regarding this work, from his blog:

Today’s cartoon responds to the generally respectful tone accorded Mike Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution and is therefore, by definition, a lunatic. [vague link]

I do appreciate Rall’s overarching point– Huckabee is allowed to be as batshit crazy as he wants to be because he’s on the fundamentalist fringe of my religion instead of any other one– since I’m no fan of the preacher man. It’s a very valid concern.However, I also cringed slightly at how Rall made his point. I cynically wonder whether people will get mired in “Hinduism is strange” instead of questioning why we aren’t more worried about the rise of this candidate. After all, if Rall’s conception of Hindu fundamentalism (cobras? chanting? SATI??) confuses slightly-familiar-with-Hinduism-me, what will those with even less exposure to the religion think?

And if you are Hindu (as I think a majority of our readers are), are you offended by this cartoon?

255 thoughts on “Huckabee is totally Cobra Kai material.”

  1. Look no further, it’s all here folks; ancient history, religion and modern day politics, all working in our favour (and I’ve got sand in the Sahara to sell you)

    http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

    Excellent!

    And if you are going to vote at all after seeing this, well, what can be said?

  2. There is not much point berating Divya, her attitude is a fairly accurate representation of a majority of non-hindus of non-Indian origin, and ironically, of most scholars of hinduism in the west as well. I couldn’t care less when it comes to religion, but the fact is, something along this lines is true, though not to the same extent, of India studies (both in India and west) as well—and no matter how progressive you are, the two are correlated.
    Are you saying that one of the axioms of ‘India/Hinduism Studies’ is that India/Hinduism is inferior? I’m not really surprised, unfortunately.

    Yes. Qualifications are warranted here of course—if you are a historian, with some exceptions, yes; if you are a linguist, by and large no. But in many cases, India studies look more like an exercise in nonscientific entomology than a study about people, thanks to the complete contempt of what the subjects of the study think and no attempt at nuance in understanding some issues.

  3. the skiing great in telluride

    so you’re a trust-fundie, Manju? Perhaps a good reason to join your harem, but a fiscal physical conservative like you may not be able to handle my progressive taxes on your assets.

  4. 149 · Divya said

    This, I suppose is the basic predicament. Hindus want so desperately to fit into the Abrahamic model. Sad.

    If someone with background in Abrahamic religion want to know Hinduism, I think it is worthy effort to draw parallels with their model to explain it to them. On the other hand, if the person is already decided on what is Hindusim, I don’t see a point in fitting it to any model. Everyone can happily get on with life in their relative bubbles. As a native saying goes, you can’t wake up a person who isn’t sleeping :).

    Divya, it seems we have mis-communication problem because of misunderstood intentions. I don’t think it adds anything to the discussion at this stage if I go on about why I brought up Panchayatana puja or Adi Shankara.

    I am glad to have come back to this thread and read through all the comments. I learnt that Sepia Mutiny could be quite tolerant of OT posts.

  5. 254 · Violet in Twilight said

    I am glad to have come back to this thread and read through all the comments. I learnt that Sepia Mutiny could be quite tolerant of OT posts.

    I am glad you came back, too. To me, this thread wasn’t that off-topic. Plus, as has been noted, the conversation was civil and edifying, so of course we were “tolerant” as you put it. 🙂