Little Orphan Annie, in its original incarnation by the right-wing extremist Harold Gray, is a curiosity of a comic strip. Like the writings of Ayn Rand, the opinions of Harold Gray may seem compelling at first, but further exposure leads to them being off-putting. The mere strength of a person’s conviction does not make them right, and for me that certainly applies to Harold Gray’s view of life.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is proof that many people can be misled by an argument that is presented forcefully and repetitively, yet is a total fabrication. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, but what if the smoke is fake? Click the picture below to read a 1942 installment of Little Orphan Annie.
Here is a great, exaggerated setup between two anonymous characters, which was a typical device of Harold Gray’s when he wanted to make a point. The father of three sons who were serving — and dying — in the armed forces pummels a businessman who brags about the money he’s making from the war. Seems simple enough. But why is it Annie and not Daddy Warbucks observing this street level tableau? Because Daddy made his fortune as a war profiteer in World War I, and Gray would have had a hard time drawing a distinction between Warbucks and his younger counterpart.
This is one of many pet peeves about right-wing hard-liners. They are reluctant to acknowledge complications and contradictions in their viewpoints. Often they refuse outright to admit that they’re wrong in any way at all, and they consider people who are more liberal to be weak, and lacking into convictions, if not morals. It’s all a bunch of hypocrisy, of course, as evidenced by Newt Gingrich having an affair even as he was leading the charge against Bill Clinton because of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
What comes to mind about this Little Orphan Annie cartoon is that the Bush administration did a masterful job of playing both sides of this argument at the same time. Dick Cheney and his Halliburton Corporation have profited tremendously from the action in Iraq, and the oil company friends of Cheney and Bush have done very well indeed. But anyone who dared to question their motives in going to Iraq was met with an indignant cry of, “Remember 9/11!” as if it were “Remember Pearl Harbor!”
Germany didn’t attack Pearl Harbor, but Germany was an Axis power allied with Japan. Bush and Cheney insisted there was an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, when in fact there was none. Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11/2001, so “Remember 9/11” was a completely false justification for moving beyond Afghanistan into Iraq.
Another sentiment expressed in the Annie comic strip is “I’m not crying, I’m still eating.” Such virtue! It’s how men like Gray wanted the common people, still stinging from the Depression, to feel. “I’m lucky to have what I have” is indeed, I agree, the right way to live one’s life. But I don’t want to have somebody who’s fabulously wealthy tell me that’s how I should be. Harold Gray himself had no children, and it’s safe to assume he made a great deal of money as the creator of a major syndicated comic strip in the heyday of newspaper comics. Gray apparently felt entitled to his money, as he let another one of his characters, Maw Green, express on his behalf. Click the single panel to read the entire comic strip.