Comic Strips

There's a famous Churchill quote about democracy that is almost always misquoted:

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

To me, the key words that are often left out entirely are: that have been tried.

For the Aztecs in this picture, it may actually be true that their system was the best one they'd tried so far. Maybe ritual sacrifice of a tiny minority was a small price to pay compared to what they'd experienced until then. Representative democracy with voting rights for all citizens over the age of majority might be the best system we've tried so far. Kings willing to devolve some power to their barons in the Magna Carta was the best system for England so far.

We shouldn't stop trying to make things better. Otherwise we're like these Aztecs.

> tries new system

> 90% of your population dies right away from smallpox

You say "artist not found". Did you try looking?

http://thepaincomics.com/weekly011212a.htm

Lets be real, people enjoy the show.

Gladiator fights would be popular even today, especially if to the death was part of it.

I’m pretty anti-capitalist. Not 100%, but man shit is fucked right now and it’s gotta be reigned in.

A mixed economic system where the necessities of life are not run for profit (maybe even free?) combined with profit-driven progress for the luxuries would be best. With strong unions for all workers of course.

Oh, and fix the democracy too. No more FPTP bullshit.

Considering the awful things the Aztec empire was doing it was probably a natural choice to ally with Cortes to overthrow it. But even if things are bad they can get worse:

In The Conquest of America, Tzvetan Todorov offers a compendium of some of the most chilling reports, mostly from Spanish priests and friars who, even when committed in principle to the belief that the extermination of the Indians was the judgment of God, could not disguise their horror at scenes of Spanish soldiers testing the blades of their weapons by eviscerating random passers-by, and tearing babies off their mother’s backs to be eaten by dogs. Such acts might perhaps be written off as what one would expect when a collection of heavily armed men—many of violent criminal background—are given absolute impunity; but the reports from the mines imply something far more systematic. When Fray Toribio de Motolinia wrote of the ten plagues that he believed God had visited on the inhabitants of Mexico, he listed smallpox, war, famine, labor exactions, taxes (which caused many to sell their children to moneylenders, others to be tortured to death in cruel prisons), and the thousands who died in the building of the capital city. Above all, he insisted, were the uncountable numbers who died in the mines:

"The eighth plague was the slaves whom the Spaniards made in order to put them to work in the mines. At first those who were already slaves of the Aztecs were taken; then those who had given evidence of insubordination; finally all those who could be caught. During the first years after the conquest, the slave traffic flourished, and slaves often changed master. They produced so many marks on their faces, in addition to the royal brand, that they had their faces covered with letters, for they bore the marks of all who had bought and sold them. The ninth plague was the service in the mines, to which the heavily laden Indians traveled sixty leagues or more to carry provisions … When their food gave out they died, either at the mines or on the road, for they had no money to buy food and there was no one to give it to them. Some reached home in such a state that they died soon after. The bodies of those Indians and of the slaves who died in the mines produced such a stench that it caused a pestilence, especially at the mines of Oaxaca. For half a league around these mines and along a great part of the road one could scarcely avoid walking over dead bodies or bones, and the flocks of birds and crows that came to fatten themselves upon the corpses were so numerous that they darkened the sun.”14

That's my friend's opinion on living in third world dictatorships. Very sad and wrong imo but I didn't argue with him fearing he reports me

"Sure, it sucks for that guy, but I just keep persevering... One day I'll be the one eating someone's heart!"

Reminds me of the scene in the Netflix show Norseman, where one character says to another, "you have to understand, ritual human sacrifice is not an exact science."

I know it's a comic, but this likely wouldn't be a sentiment held by people at the time. Would recommend The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow for more.

Remember that time the Mexica asked a king for his daughter to become the wife of the Mexica leader and invited him to the ceremony only to be surprised that the king didn't enjoy watching a priest dance around wearing his daughter's skin?

It wasn't the only system they had!!

The Aztec were a very brutal nation, not entirely unlike Sparta. ~20 years prior to Spanish contact the Aztec led the "Triple Alliance" of 3 major mesoamerican powers and conquered the surrounding countries to make an empire. The majority of the people in the empire did not like Aztec rule. The Spanish made an alliance with the original nations from the Triple Alliance, built a multinational coalition, and waged a war against the Aztec.

The Aztec and Spanish allies alike both suffered from the smallpox plague. The Spanish alliance emerged victorious and the Spanish, as the most powerful of the bunch on the winning side, took control of the newly formed state.

I recognize that artstyle anywhere, that's definitely Tim Kreider of The Pain. Goddamned brilliant political comic artist who switched to long-form magazine articles and stopped making his beautiful and hilarious comics about a decade ago. I'm still sad that we went through the whole Trump era without his cartoons.

I don't know, Nathan Explosion. I just don't know.

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good..."