Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Cartoonists With Attitude in Boston/Cambridge area tonight 9/28! "Mikhaela Reid's cartoons are right *$%@ing on." "Masheka Wood has powers way beyond mortal cartoonists. Get on his bandwagon now before there's no room left!" Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney's secret bunker! "Ex-gays" are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills! Brooklyn-based cartoonists Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood are on a rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Slideshow, discussion & signing.
Posted by Mikhaela Reid
If you're not lucky enough to be at Stumptown in Portland this weekend with Ted and most of the Cartoonists With Attitude, a few of us (as in two: Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood) are doing a cartoon slideshow and book signing in Boston (CWAer Brian McFadden will be attending):
-- Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
-- Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles and th(ink)
Reverend Rall You may know Ted Rall as a cartoonist, columnist, editor, graphic novelist, radio host and/or Central Asia expert. But he's had quite a few other odd jobs over the years, as he chronicled in one of my favorite sections of Revenge of the Latch-Key Kids: stock trader, investment banker, taxi driver... And now, wedding officiant! On Sunday, Sept. 2, in Lowell Massachusetts (birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution and American labor movement!), Ted officiated my wedding to fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Masheka Wood. Note the official cartoonist wedding Hello Kitty binder. For the most part, Ted played it straight and serious (and sweet!), but his introductory remarks were classic Rall: His remarks were a big hit with the friends and family--all agreed it was the best wedding officiant speech they'd ever heard. This was not the first case of an editorial cartoonist performing a marriage of other cartoonists--Cindy Procious and Clay Bennett (both of whom were in attendance at my wedding!) were married by fellow cartoonist Dennis Draughton. P.S. No, Ted is not an ordained anything or a judge or a sea captain. An obscure Massachusetts law allows a friend or family member to perform a single wedding with permission from the governor—good thing Mitt Romney was no longer in office when I sent in the application!
Posted by Mikhaela Reid
When Masheka met Mikhaela, the rivers ran red with blood. Swarms of locusts filled the skies. The dead walked among us....no, wait. That was when I officiated at George W. and Laura Bush's wedding.
Cartoon for September 27
Thousands of people marched through Jena, Louisiana to protest the prosecution of six black high school students--jocks, members of the football team--who repeatedly kicked the head of a white student after one of them had already knocked him unconscious.
We've come a long way from Rosa Parks.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Thousands of people marched through Jena, Louisiana to protest the prosecution of six black high school students--jocks, members of the football team--who repeatedly kicked the head of a white student after one of them had already knocked him unconscious.
We've come a long way from Rosa Parks.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Stumptown Comics Festival, Portland
I'll be in Portland this coming weekend, attending the 4th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest. It promises to be a cool event, old enough to have become organized, new enough to be fresh and exciting. I'll be sitting at the Cartoonists with Attitude table with Stephanie McMillan, who draws the viciously subversive comic strip "Minimum Security"." There will be a CWA panel and slideshow with other "Attitude" cartoonists, including Matt Bors, Ben Smith, Barry Deutsch, Stephanie McMillan, and Shannon Wheeler at 11 am Saturday. I'll do my own dog and pony show, solo, at 12 noon Sunday.
I did a special cartoon for Stumpton for the local Portland Mercury alternative weekly newspaper.
I'll be in Portland this coming weekend, attending the 4th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest. It promises to be a cool event, old enough to have become organized, new enough to be fresh and exciting. I'll be sitting at the Cartoonists with Attitude table with Stephanie McMillan, who draws the viciously subversive comic strip "Minimum Security"." There will be a CWA panel and slideshow with other "Attitude" cartoonists, including Matt Bors, Ben Smith, Barry Deutsch, Stephanie McMillan, and Shannon Wheeler at 11 am Saturday. I'll do my own dog and pony show, solo, at 12 noon Sunday.
I did a special cartoon for Stumpton for the local Portland Mercury alternative weekly newspaper.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Downscaling MLK's Dream: Response
posted by Susan Stark
Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al can go down to Louisiana to march for 6 kids, but for some reason they can't go down to Louisiana and lead a massive march with the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward to get their land back.
Yet white liberals treat these "photo-op" black so-called leaders as if they were channelling Martin Luther King's spirit directly.
posted by Susan Stark
Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al can go down to Louisiana to march for 6 kids, but for some reason they can't go down to Louisiana and lead a massive march with the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward to get their land back.
Yet white liberals treat these "photo-op" black so-called leaders as if they were channelling Martin Luther King's spirit directly.
COLUMN: Jena 6, or Downscaling MLK's Dream
Here's this week's column.
White policemen patrol black neighborhoods, less as guardians of public safety than troops subduing occupied territory. They hassle young black men, subjecting them to "random" searches. Sometimes--too often--they shoot them. All-white juries acquit them, validating tall tales of squirt guns and wallets and shadows that look like guns.
Our prisons look like America--the part of America that's downtown and predominantly African-American. Being born black means you'll probably attend substandard, poorly funded schools, that you'll earn less than if you'd been born another race. You'll get sick more often and die sooner. Why aren't these life-shattering, soul-crushing injustices, rather than the overzealous prosecution of the schoolyard thugs known as the "Jena 6," attracting thousands of marchers?
I used to live on a street next to a strip of park created to separate my neighborhood--which was white--from Harlem. On my side of the park the New York ritual called "alternate side of the street parking" required motorists to move their cars daily. This cleared the way for street sweepers and garbage pickup. It was clean and safe. My morning walk down the park's stairs to the subway illustrated the nature of systemic racism.
Each step was crumblier, more trash-strewn. On the east side of the park, where every face was brown, the garbagemen came once a week. Bags of refuse broke open, their contents whipped around in those little wind vortexes that spring up in urban spaces. When the light in a lamppost blew out on the Harlem side, it stayed out for months. Many of the buildings had been abandoned.
African-Americans live lives whose despair is amplified by petty nonsense. At our post office, the clerk always demanded that my black roommate show an ID to pick up his packages. She never asked me. (Racism is complicated. She was black.) Boutiques on Madison Avenue buzzed me in wearing ripped jeans and a Dead Kennedys T-shirt; they ignored him in a suit and tie. I'm not surprised that blacks are pissed off. The shock is that they haven't burned down the whole country.
The Jena 6 hype is bizarre, while countless innocent African-American men rot in prison--some on death row--unjustly convicted because they couldn't afford decent lawyers.
According to a website set up for their legal defense fund, "The Jena Six are a group of black students who are being charged with attempted murder for beating up a white student who was taunting them with racial slurs, and continued to support other white students who hung three nooses from the high school's 'white tree' which sits in the front yard." (The charges have since been reduced to aggravated assault.) The implication is obvious: "hate speech" justifies physical assault.
Justin Barker, 17, was beaten unconscious and then kicked repeatedly. A sturdy sort, he spent three hours in the emergency room before attending the school's Ring Ceremony later the same day. The accused, members of the school football team, claim that Barker had made fun of one of them for having himself been beaten up by a group of white students at an earlier event, one of a string of racially-charged incidents in the small town. Barker denies it.
"Young white males involved in the racial incidents received slaps on the wrist, at most, while young blacks received school expulsions or criminal charges," wrote Clarence Page in The Chicago Tribune. One of the Jena 6 remains in jail despite having had his conviction overturned. That's wrong. But, said Justice Department attorney Donald Washington, "There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack [on Barker]." Furthermore, reports the Associated Press, "the three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days--they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks."
"They haven't always been fair in the courthouse with us. If you're black, they go overboard sometimes," says Jena High School janitor Braxton Hatcher, 62, who is black. That's easy to believe. Then he repeats the standard talking point: "I think this was just a fight between boys. I don't think it was attempted murder."
Six against one isn't a schoolyard fight. I've been in more than my fair share of schoolyard fights, so I know. Fights are one on one. Six on one is attempted murder. Kicking someone after they've passed out is attempted murder. Nothing Barker said, no matter how foul, can justify such a vicious assault by bullying jocks. This is the stuff of Columbine.
Symbolic hate speech, even as vile as nooses in the context of the recent history of the Deep South, pales next to actual physical violence. The real problem is that there's a perception that attempted murder charges wouldn't have been filed had the races of the students involved in the Barker beatdown been reversed.
Indeed, the Urban League finds that the average black man convicted of aggravated assault--the charge pending against five of the Jena 6--faces 48 months in prison if convicted, a term about one-third longer than if he'd been white. And the Justice Department says black men who get arrested are three times more likely than whites to end up in prison.
What white apologists call the legacy of racism--does a continuing phenomenon leave a legacy?--wrecks the lives of millions of Americans. Consider the following:
"Statistically," reports The Los Angeles Times, "black males in America are at increased risk for just about every health problem known. African Americans have a shorter life expectancy than any other racial group in America except Native Americans, and black men fare even worse than black women…It is possible, [researchers now] believe, that the ill health and premature deaths can be laid--at least in part--at the feet of continuous assaults of discrimination, real or perceived…The reaction contributes to a chain of biological events known as the stress response, which can put people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and infectious disease, says Namdi Barnes, a [UCLA] researcher…for many African Americans, these responses may occur so frequently that they eventually result in a breakdown of the physiological system."
In short, racism kills.
As one wag observed, the Jena 6 are no Rosa Parks. In the face of the intractable challenge of a nation so racist that it literally makes people ill, however, what passes for a civil rights movement finds that it's easier to set its sights low.
(C) 2007 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.
Here's this week's column.
White policemen patrol black neighborhoods, less as guardians of public safety than troops subduing occupied territory. They hassle young black men, subjecting them to "random" searches. Sometimes--too often--they shoot them. All-white juries acquit them, validating tall tales of squirt guns and wallets and shadows that look like guns.
Our prisons look like America--the part of America that's downtown and predominantly African-American. Being born black means you'll probably attend substandard, poorly funded schools, that you'll earn less than if you'd been born another race. You'll get sick more often and die sooner. Why aren't these life-shattering, soul-crushing injustices, rather than the overzealous prosecution of the schoolyard thugs known as the "Jena 6," attracting thousands of marchers?
I used to live on a street next to a strip of park created to separate my neighborhood--which was white--from Harlem. On my side of the park the New York ritual called "alternate side of the street parking" required motorists to move their cars daily. This cleared the way for street sweepers and garbage pickup. It was clean and safe. My morning walk down the park's stairs to the subway illustrated the nature of systemic racism.
Each step was crumblier, more trash-strewn. On the east side of the park, where every face was brown, the garbagemen came once a week. Bags of refuse broke open, their contents whipped around in those little wind vortexes that spring up in urban spaces. When the light in a lamppost blew out on the Harlem side, it stayed out for months. Many of the buildings had been abandoned.
African-Americans live lives whose despair is amplified by petty nonsense. At our post office, the clerk always demanded that my black roommate show an ID to pick up his packages. She never asked me. (Racism is complicated. She was black.) Boutiques on Madison Avenue buzzed me in wearing ripped jeans and a Dead Kennedys T-shirt; they ignored him in a suit and tie. I'm not surprised that blacks are pissed off. The shock is that they haven't burned down the whole country.
The Jena 6 hype is bizarre, while countless innocent African-American men rot in prison--some on death row--unjustly convicted because they couldn't afford decent lawyers.
According to a website set up for their legal defense fund, "The Jena Six are a group of black students who are being charged with attempted murder for beating up a white student who was taunting them with racial slurs, and continued to support other white students who hung three nooses from the high school's 'white tree' which sits in the front yard." (The charges have since been reduced to aggravated assault.) The implication is obvious: "hate speech" justifies physical assault.
Justin Barker, 17, was beaten unconscious and then kicked repeatedly. A sturdy sort, he spent three hours in the emergency room before attending the school's Ring Ceremony later the same day. The accused, members of the school football team, claim that Barker had made fun of one of them for having himself been beaten up by a group of white students at an earlier event, one of a string of racially-charged incidents in the small town. Barker denies it.
"Young white males involved in the racial incidents received slaps on the wrist, at most, while young blacks received school expulsions or criminal charges," wrote Clarence Page in The Chicago Tribune. One of the Jena 6 remains in jail despite having had his conviction overturned. That's wrong. But, said Justice Department attorney Donald Washington, "There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack [on Barker]." Furthermore, reports the Associated Press, "the three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days--they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks."
"They haven't always been fair in the courthouse with us. If you're black, they go overboard sometimes," says Jena High School janitor Braxton Hatcher, 62, who is black. That's easy to believe. Then he repeats the standard talking point: "I think this was just a fight between boys. I don't think it was attempted murder."
Six against one isn't a schoolyard fight. I've been in more than my fair share of schoolyard fights, so I know. Fights are one on one. Six on one is attempted murder. Kicking someone after they've passed out is attempted murder. Nothing Barker said, no matter how foul, can justify such a vicious assault by bullying jocks. This is the stuff of Columbine.
Symbolic hate speech, even as vile as nooses in the context of the recent history of the Deep South, pales next to actual physical violence. The real problem is that there's a perception that attempted murder charges wouldn't have been filed had the races of the students involved in the Barker beatdown been reversed.
Indeed, the Urban League finds that the average black man convicted of aggravated assault--the charge pending against five of the Jena 6--faces 48 months in prison if convicted, a term about one-third longer than if he'd been white. And the Justice Department says black men who get arrested are three times more likely than whites to end up in prison.
What white apologists call the legacy of racism--does a continuing phenomenon leave a legacy?--wrecks the lives of millions of Americans. Consider the following:
"Statistically," reports The Los Angeles Times, "black males in America are at increased risk for just about every health problem known. African Americans have a shorter life expectancy than any other racial group in America except Native Americans, and black men fare even worse than black women…It is possible, [researchers now] believe, that the ill health and premature deaths can be laid--at least in part--at the feet of continuous assaults of discrimination, real or perceived…The reaction contributes to a chain of biological events known as the stress response, which can put people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and infectious disease, says Namdi Barnes, a [UCLA] researcher…for many African Americans, these responses may occur so frequently that they eventually result in a breakdown of the physiological system."
In short, racism kills.
As one wag observed, the Jena 6 are no Rosa Parks. In the face of the intractable challenge of a nation so racist that it literally makes people ill, however, what passes for a civil rights movement finds that it's easier to set its sights low.
(C) 2007 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Cartoon for September 24
Wealthy liberals are often accused as hypocrisy. Conflating liberalism with socialism, conservatives seem to believe that rich libs don't have integrity unless they redistribute their own personal wealth evenly across the world's population.
So I did a comic showing what would happen if the world's wealthiest man did exactly that.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Wealthy liberals are often accused as hypocrisy. Conflating liberalism with socialism, conservatives seem to believe that rich libs don't have integrity unless they redistribute their own personal wealth evenly across the world's population.
So I did a comic showing what would happen if the world's wealthiest man did exactly that.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Because I Have So Much Free Time
The votes are in. I am President-Elect of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC), the only organization of which I am a dues-paying member.
It's a minor historial moment: I am the first "alternative" cartoonist to have held this office.
Surely there's some way to close the following logic gap: Never, in the history of the form, has the quality of political cartoons has been as high as it is today. Never have they been more widely read, or appreciated, by the public. Yet newspapers are firing their cartoonists and slashing their budgets to buy syndicated cartoons. There have never been so few cartoonists. There have never been so few editorial cartoons in print.
There's a huge demand for editorial cartoons. But the media that used to pay for them are dying (really committing editorial suicide). Trying to find a free market solution to this conundrum will be my biggest challenge during the coming couple of years.
The votes are in. I am President-Elect of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC), the only organization of which I am a dues-paying member.
It's a minor historial moment: I am the first "alternative" cartoonist to have held this office.
Surely there's some way to close the following logic gap: Never, in the history of the form, has the quality of political cartoons has been as high as it is today. Never have they been more widely read, or appreciated, by the public. Yet newspapers are firing their cartoonists and slashing their budgets to buy syndicated cartoons. There have never been so few cartoonists. There have never been so few editorial cartoons in print.
There's a huge demand for editorial cartoons. But the media that used to pay for them are dying (really committing editorial suicide). Trying to find a free market solution to this conundrum will be my biggest challenge during the coming couple of years.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
From Today's e-Mail
Greg W. wrote me an e-mail about my column from a week back. I pointed out that Congressional Democrats are lying when they claim they need a filibuster- or veto-proof majority, which would necessitate Republican support, to end the war in Iraq.
I did quote “Extra!” magazine in stating that there might be a political price to pay by Democrats, who would surely be accused by Republicans of abandoning the troops. (With the war unpopular, however, we don’t know if this argument would resonate with voters.) In essence, yes, Pelosi and Reid would be “shutting down the government”—or, more accurately, the part of the government that runs the occupation of Iraq. The Pentagon would continue to receive appropriations for non-Iraq activities, of course. But the failure of Congress to allow an appropriations bill to come up for debate, and pass, would force the DOD to withdraw troops.
The parallel with Gingrich ends here, however. Republicans ousted Gingrich after “shutting down the government” lost them points at the polls. Truth be told, many GOP members of Congress had tired of Gingrich’s imperious manner and were jockeying to replace him long beforehand. If Democrats were united behind Pelosi, and they appear to be, there would be no reason for them to replace her as speaker. Remember, that would be a choice.
The fifth expert said that the president is The Decider, and that conducting the war was pretty much his sole prerogative.
The scenario you describe is theoretically possible. But it would depend on the Blue Dog Democrats actively deciding to decimate their own party, thus reducing their own chances of retaining their offices in the next election (due to lack of funding and coordination by a national party) against the deep-pocketed Republicans. Anything can happen, but that’s a remote possibility at best. Moreover, the support of the Blue Dogs for the war is sketchy at best.
As you say, one can’t put everything into a column. Moreover, there are always things I don’t think of (like the possibility of the Blue Dogs allying themselves with the GOP). But I always try to give the devil his due in every argument, never dismissing blithely but trying to counter with logic and common sense. I may not always succeed, but that’s my goal.
Greg W. wrote me an e-mail about my column from a week back. I pointed out that Congressional Democrats are lying when they claim they need a filibuster- or veto-proof majority, which would necessitate Republican support, to end the war in Iraq.
I have read several of your columns recently and find them to be generally informative and insightful.
Several of these recent columns have addressed the US
Congress and the fact that Nancy Pelosi allowed measures funding the Iraq war to be voted on and ultimately approved. You (and several others) have suggested that if the Democrat-controlled Congress made it clear that no Iraq War spending bill without a timeline would be forthcoming, not only would this not be 'abandoning the troops' but it would also result in our troops being withdrawn from Iraq. In the interests of completeness, I think that those (like
you) who support this position should provide response to a couple of points that (in my opinion) are serious issues with this premise.
1. If Ms. Pelosi were to simply not send the Senate or President an Iraq appropriations bill without timelines, wouldn't she essentially be 'shutting down the government'? The last Speaker of the House who tried this (Newt Gingrich) was removed as speaker of the house shortly thereafter. While there were other reasons for Gingrich to lose his speakership, Gingrich's failure in his stand-off with Clinton always seemed (at least to me) to be the beginning of the end for him. Since you support Ms. Pelosi ultimately doing the same thing, you should at least explain why you think she would not lose her speakership over this, or, if you believe she would lose the speakership but should anyway, why she should throw away the speakership of the house over this issue. Note: I don't necessarily think that it would be the wrong choice for her to sacrifice her speakership position to end the war, however, if this is the cost, proponents of this strategy (like you) should acknowledge this cost.
I did quote “Extra!” magazine in stating that there might be a political price to pay by Democrats, who would surely be accused by Republicans of abandoning the troops. (With the war unpopular, however, we don’t know if this argument would resonate with voters.) In essence, yes, Pelosi and Reid would be “shutting down the government”—or, more accurately, the part of the government that runs the occupation of Iraq. The Pentagon would continue to receive appropriations for non-Iraq activities, of course. But the failure of Congress to allow an appropriations bill to come up for debate, and pass, would force the DOD to withdraw troops.
The parallel with Gingrich ends here, however. Republicans ousted Gingrich after “shutting down the government” lost them points at the polls. Truth be told, many GOP members of Congress had tired of Gingrich’s imperious manner and were jockeying to replace him long beforehand. If Democrats were united behind Pelosi, and they appear to be, there would be no reason for them to replace her as speaker. Remember, that would be a choice.
2. Lets assume that Ms. Pelosi had agreed to your recommendation, and that of the four out of five constitutional experts (in the interest of completeness you should have mentioned what the fifth said), and simply kept sending the same bill with timelines to the President. What would stop the "Blue Dog" democrats (of whom I understand there are 40-70) from caucusing with the remaining Republicans and electing a new Speaker of the House? (at the same time destroying the Democratic Party) This is the main issue that you should be addressing. In this scenario Ms. Pelosi would have thrown away her speakership and we would still be in Iraq.
The fifth expert said that the president is The Decider, and that conducting the war was pretty much his sole prerogative.
The scenario you describe is theoretically possible. But it would depend on the Blue Dog Democrats actively deciding to decimate their own party, thus reducing their own chances of retaining their offices in the next election (due to lack of funding and coordination by a national party) against the deep-pocketed Republicans. Anything can happen, but that’s a remote possibility at best. Moreover, the support of the Blue Dogs for the war is sketchy at best.
I understand and appreciate the effort that you put into your columns and certainly do not expect you to cover everything in every column. However, the points that I have raised are very crucial to the issue and are what (I think) is keeping Ms. Pelosi from doing what you suggest. We all are suffering from cherry-picked intelligence on Iraq (actually cherry-picking of information in general is not only a serious issue in our country, it has its own college major - Marketing, or as I like to call it: lying) and we know that those in favor of invading Iraq only presented information which supported the case to go to war. I would hope that in your pursuit of ending the war, you present all the facts, including those that do not support your argument, lest you become the evil you so despise.
As you say, one can’t put everything into a column. Moreover, there are always things I don’t think of (like the possibility of the Blue Dogs allying themselves with the GOP). But I always try to give the devil his due in every argument, never dismissing blithely but trying to counter with logic and common sense. I may not always succeed, but that’s my goal.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
COLUMN: The Antiwar Movement's Dirty Secret
WAR IS BAD FOR LOGIC AND OTHER LIVING THINGS
Antiwar Left Shuns Iraqis
NEW YORK--"What non-violent antiwar activists are unable to realize," writes Peter Gelderloos, "is that the most important resistance, probably the only significant resistance, to the occupation of Iraq is the resistance being waged by the Iraqi people themselves." This comes from a relatively tangential passage in a thought-provoking book, "How Non-Violence Protects the State," that will get a more detailed look in a future column.
Although its appearance in The Nation guaranteed it would receive scant notice, a July 30 essay by Alexander Cockburn was one of the first to seriously address the most troubling internal contradiction of the anti-Iraq War left. War, everyone knows, is a zero-sum game. For one side to win, the other has to lose. If you "support our troops" you hope, at minimum, for their safe return. But each day a U.S. soldier survives at the front means another day he will occupy Iraq and another day he can kill Iraqi resistance forces. Supporting the troops, as right-wingers say, requires supporting their mission. Which means opposing the guys who are trying to kill them.
Cockburn quoted antiwar activist Lawrence McGuire: "The grand taboo of the antiwar movement is to show the slightest empathy for the resistance fighters in Iraq. They are never mentioned as people for whom we should show concern, much less admiration. But of course, if you are going to sympathize with the U.S. soldiers, who are fighting a war of aggression, then surely you should also [my emphasis] sympathize with the soldiers who are fighting for their homeland." (An intellectually honest person would substitute "instead" for "also.")
It kills me to say this, but neocon madman William Kristol was correct when he wrote in The Weekly Standard: "What mattered to the left was that it was dangerous politically not to 'support the troops.' Of course the antiwar left hated what the troops were doing…So 'supporting the troops' meant feeling sorry for them, or pretending to."
The 2004 discussion over U.S. soldiers who bought their own body plates, and resorted to "hillbilly armor" to protect their Humvees from roadside bombs, was a case in point. Antiwar pundits, including me, tried to drive a wedge between the Bush Administration and the military by pointing out that the Pentagon was pinching pennies at the expense of soldiers' lives. But what if you're an Iraqi? You risk your own life every time you place an IED along the "Highway of Death" between Baghdad and the airport. The more Americans you blow up, the closer you come to achieving your goal of liberating Iraq. The last thing you need is "antiwar" Americans agitating for stronger armor plates!
A parallel to World War II, "the good war" depicted in countless movies, is useful. You're a German citizen living in Berlin, and you hate the Nazis. You're against the war. Do you pray for the SS? Or the French Resistance? You can't do both. (Well, you could--but you'd be an idiot.)
The moral quandry forced upon the left is epitomized by Phyllis Bennis, an in-the-box wonk for the Institute for Policy Studies. "Certainly," she allows, "the Iraqi people have the right to resist an illegal occupation, including military resistance." Which is, as they said in the 1970s, mighty white of her. "But as a whole," she continues, "what is understood to be 'the Iraqi resistance' against the U.S. occupation is a disaggregated and diverse set of largely unconnected factions, in which the various often-antagonistic armed movements (including some who attack Iraqi civilians as much as they do occupation troops) hold pride of place. There is no unified leadership that can speak for 'the resistance,' there is no NLF or ANC or FMLN that can claim real leadership and is accountable to the Iraqi population as a whole."
For most of World War II, the same was true of the French Resistance (history grants them the upper-case "R") too. Communists, socialists and even monarchists fought the Germans--and each other--until Charles de Gaulle's center-right faction prodded, bullied and ultimately muscled out his (more popular and more progressive) rivals. There were, as in Iraq today, French criminal gangs who fought solely for money. If this was 1943 and Bennis and other mainstream liberals were anti-Nazi Germans, would they "support what is called 'the French resistance'"?
As their Iraqi counterparts do today, the Free French carried out what the press of the period called "terrorist attacks." Kidnappings, assassinations and bombings were usually directed at government officials, German troops, and French collaborators--but civilians were also killed. So why does the antiwar left find the Iraqis distasteful?
Gelderloos argues that the post-Vietnam American left is hard-wired with reflexive pacifism, denying that violent militancy can ever be a valid tactic, even when faced with horrific oppression. Liberals frequently express disapproval of protestors who smashed windows at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, and the Earth Liberation Front's (ELF) torching of SUVs at auto dealerships--even though no one got hurt.
Knee-jerk non-violence partly explains the left's reluctance to embrace the Iraqi resistance. Nationalism/patriotism is another factor. Who wants to see more funerals of American soldiers? And who wants to be smeared as the next "Hanoi Jane"?
When "asked who I think will then take power [after U.S. forces leave Iraq]," Bennis writes, "the only thing I can anticipate with any confidence is that first, I probably won't like them very much because they're likely to have a far more religious orientation than I like but that second, it's not up to me to choose who governs Iraq."
The Islamist and/or totalitarian ideology of many of Iraq's anti-U.S. factions is a turn-off to the secular American left. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland worried aloud in late 2003, when the war against the occupation of Iraq heated up: "Not all of Iraq's resistance will fit [a] romantic, maquis image. Some will be Baathist holdouts, Saddamites who once served as henchmen to a murderous dictator. No progressive should want to see these villains land a blow on British or American forces." This year, in the socialist New Politics, Stephen Shalom noted that "to give our automatic support to any opponent of U.S. imperialism means we should have supported the Taliban in 2001 or Saddam Hussein in 2003."
Since war is a zero-sum game, it's our guys or theirs. "Support the troops by bringing them home" is an empty slogan that belies reality. With both political parties supporting the war, U.S. troops are not going to come home any time soon. As Gelderloos writes: "The approach of the U.S. antiwar movement in relation to the Iraqi resistance does not merely qualify as bad strategy; it reveals a total lack of strategy, and it is something we need to fix." It also exposes an ugly truth about antiwar lefties. They don't believe in national self-determination any more than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book "America Gone Wild," which includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial political cartoons of the post-9/11 era.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
WAR IS BAD FOR LOGIC AND OTHER LIVING THINGS
Antiwar Left Shuns Iraqis
NEW YORK--"What non-violent antiwar activists are unable to realize," writes Peter Gelderloos, "is that the most important resistance, probably the only significant resistance, to the occupation of Iraq is the resistance being waged by the Iraqi people themselves." This comes from a relatively tangential passage in a thought-provoking book, "How Non-Violence Protects the State," that will get a more detailed look in a future column.
Although its appearance in The Nation guaranteed it would receive scant notice, a July 30 essay by Alexander Cockburn was one of the first to seriously address the most troubling internal contradiction of the anti-Iraq War left. War, everyone knows, is a zero-sum game. For one side to win, the other has to lose. If you "support our troops" you hope, at minimum, for their safe return. But each day a U.S. soldier survives at the front means another day he will occupy Iraq and another day he can kill Iraqi resistance forces. Supporting the troops, as right-wingers say, requires supporting their mission. Which means opposing the guys who are trying to kill them.
Cockburn quoted antiwar activist Lawrence McGuire: "The grand taboo of the antiwar movement is to show the slightest empathy for the resistance fighters in Iraq. They are never mentioned as people for whom we should show concern, much less admiration. But of course, if you are going to sympathize with the U.S. soldiers, who are fighting a war of aggression, then surely you should also [my emphasis] sympathize with the soldiers who are fighting for their homeland." (An intellectually honest person would substitute "instead" for "also.")
It kills me to say this, but neocon madman William Kristol was correct when he wrote in The Weekly Standard: "What mattered to the left was that it was dangerous politically not to 'support the troops.' Of course the antiwar left hated what the troops were doing…So 'supporting the troops' meant feeling sorry for them, or pretending to."
The 2004 discussion over U.S. soldiers who bought their own body plates, and resorted to "hillbilly armor" to protect their Humvees from roadside bombs, was a case in point. Antiwar pundits, including me, tried to drive a wedge between the Bush Administration and the military by pointing out that the Pentagon was pinching pennies at the expense of soldiers' lives. But what if you're an Iraqi? You risk your own life every time you place an IED along the "Highway of Death" between Baghdad and the airport. The more Americans you blow up, the closer you come to achieving your goal of liberating Iraq. The last thing you need is "antiwar" Americans agitating for stronger armor plates!
A parallel to World War II, "the good war" depicted in countless movies, is useful. You're a German citizen living in Berlin, and you hate the Nazis. You're against the war. Do you pray for the SS? Or the French Resistance? You can't do both. (Well, you could--but you'd be an idiot.)
The moral quandry forced upon the left is epitomized by Phyllis Bennis, an in-the-box wonk for the Institute for Policy Studies. "Certainly," she allows, "the Iraqi people have the right to resist an illegal occupation, including military resistance." Which is, as they said in the 1970s, mighty white of her. "But as a whole," she continues, "what is understood to be 'the Iraqi resistance' against the U.S. occupation is a disaggregated and diverse set of largely unconnected factions, in which the various often-antagonistic armed movements (including some who attack Iraqi civilians as much as they do occupation troops) hold pride of place. There is no unified leadership that can speak for 'the resistance,' there is no NLF or ANC or FMLN that can claim real leadership and is accountable to the Iraqi population as a whole."
For most of World War II, the same was true of the French Resistance (history grants them the upper-case "R") too. Communists, socialists and even monarchists fought the Germans--and each other--until Charles de Gaulle's center-right faction prodded, bullied and ultimately muscled out his (more popular and more progressive) rivals. There were, as in Iraq today, French criminal gangs who fought solely for money. If this was 1943 and Bennis and other mainstream liberals were anti-Nazi Germans, would they "support what is called 'the French resistance'"?
As their Iraqi counterparts do today, the Free French carried out what the press of the period called "terrorist attacks." Kidnappings, assassinations and bombings were usually directed at government officials, German troops, and French collaborators--but civilians were also killed. So why does the antiwar left find the Iraqis distasteful?
Gelderloos argues that the post-Vietnam American left is hard-wired with reflexive pacifism, denying that violent militancy can ever be a valid tactic, even when faced with horrific oppression. Liberals frequently express disapproval of protestors who smashed windows at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, and the Earth Liberation Front's (ELF) torching of SUVs at auto dealerships--even though no one got hurt.
Knee-jerk non-violence partly explains the left's reluctance to embrace the Iraqi resistance. Nationalism/patriotism is another factor. Who wants to see more funerals of American soldiers? And who wants to be smeared as the next "Hanoi Jane"?
When "asked who I think will then take power [after U.S. forces leave Iraq]," Bennis writes, "the only thing I can anticipate with any confidence is that first, I probably won't like them very much because they're likely to have a far more religious orientation than I like but that second, it's not up to me to choose who governs Iraq."
The Islamist and/or totalitarian ideology of many of Iraq's anti-U.S. factions is a turn-off to the secular American left. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland worried aloud in late 2003, when the war against the occupation of Iraq heated up: "Not all of Iraq's resistance will fit [a] romantic, maquis image. Some will be Baathist holdouts, Saddamites who once served as henchmen to a murderous dictator. No progressive should want to see these villains land a blow on British or American forces." This year, in the socialist New Politics, Stephen Shalom noted that "to give our automatic support to any opponent of U.S. imperialism means we should have supported the Taliban in 2001 or Saddam Hussein in 2003."
Since war is a zero-sum game, it's our guys or theirs. "Support the troops by bringing them home" is an empty slogan that belies reality. With both political parties supporting the war, U.S. troops are not going to come home any time soon. As Gelderloos writes: "The approach of the U.S. antiwar movement in relation to the Iraqi resistance does not merely qualify as bad strategy; it reveals a total lack of strategy, and it is something we need to fix." It also exposes an ugly truth about antiwar lefties. They don't believe in national self-determination any more than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book "America Gone Wild," which includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial political cartoons of the post-9/11 era.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Monday, September 17, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Cartoon for September 15
A continuation of the drum I began banging with this week's column. If Democrats want to end the war, all they have to do is refuse to allow debate on any war funding bill. Period. Amazingly, reporters seem to be ignorant about how the U.S. government works.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
A continuation of the drum I began banging with this week's column. If Democrats want to end the war, all they have to do is refuse to allow debate on any war funding bill. Period. Amazingly, reporters seem to be ignorant about how the U.S. government works.
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Friday, September 14, 2007
TGIF! Back from vacation edition.
Posted by The Don
You’re right, it has been a long time since I posted. Since you last heard from me, my part-time job expanded to become (temporarily) larger than my full-time job, a new version of NetNazi at work kept me from all the good internet sites, including this one, I lost my DSL and wireless modems at the same time (you say lightning, I say NSA), causing long delays in restoring service, and much confusion in Bangalore, and then I took a long, much needed (if not particularly well deserved) vacation on the beaches of L.A. For the non-locals, that’s Lower Alabama.
So very many things happened, especially while I was in LA, with no internet, and no TV except the what-you-get-with-bunny-ears broadcast variety. I didn’t know immediately if Larry Craig was a hypocrite, or just someone with a secret. (I’m gonna go with BIG hypocrite.) It was also hard to tell his party affiliation, since the only time the word Republican came up on local right-wing news was in the context of “Republican leaders are demanding that Senator Craig resign.” No responsibility, just the moral high ground.
Gonzo finally turned in his resignation, but definitely not because those mean old Democrats wanted it. He wanted to resign. Really! Buncha damn middle-schoolers. The locals spent more time on the upcoming deer season than on the resignation-under-fire of the corrupt US Attorney General. A lot more time.
Tony Snow is finally leaving, after a stint as liar-in-chief perfectly framed by racism (or at least racial tone-deafness). He started out with “tar babies”, and went out with a snark to a female African-American reporter about white guys looking the same to her. Buh-bye!
David Petraeus turned out to be acomplete tool tool of the Bush administration. Raise your hand if you didn’t see that one coming. I know! Let’s put the guy who botched the training of the Iraqis in charge of the occupation! Brilliant!
Coming back after lacking access to real information was overwhelming and intimidating. I have a better understanding of how easy to not follow the news if you don’t want to. Getting back up to speed took a little while, but I think I can post intelligently again. Insert your snarky comment here:_________________.
After all that, I need a drink! Here’s one I call “Stranger in a Bathroom”. It’s one I normally enjoy when I’m travelling and feeling lonely. I like to hold a Stranger in a Bathroom in my hand and slowly suck on it. If one doesn’t do the trick, I pick up another.
On a side note, I only give this recipe for straight people. While I’m OK with gay people drinking, I’m not there yet, and I don’t think the country is ready, for gay people to drink an alcohol as macho as tequila. I’m not uncomfortable drinking with gay people, but I am uncomfortable if they order tequila. I have an uneasy feeling that it threatens my drinking.
So if you’re not gay, and never have been, bottoms up! This recipe is so simple, anyone can make a Stranger in a Bathroom.
Stranger in a Bathroom
Mix equal amounts of Tequila and Sabra (or other chocolate liquer) over ice. Enjoy!
Posted by The Don
You’re right, it has been a long time since I posted. Since you last heard from me, my part-time job expanded to become (temporarily) larger than my full-time job, a new version of NetNazi at work kept me from all the good internet sites, including this one, I lost my DSL and wireless modems at the same time (you say lightning, I say NSA), causing long delays in restoring service, and much confusion in Bangalore, and then I took a long, much needed (if not particularly well deserved) vacation on the beaches of L.A. For the non-locals, that’s Lower Alabama.
So very many things happened, especially while I was in LA, with no internet, and no TV except the what-you-get-with-bunny-ears broadcast variety. I didn’t know immediately if Larry Craig was a hypocrite, or just someone with a secret. (I’m gonna go with BIG hypocrite.) It was also hard to tell his party affiliation, since the only time the word Republican came up on local right-wing news was in the context of “Republican leaders are demanding that Senator Craig resign.” No responsibility, just the moral high ground.
Gonzo finally turned in his resignation, but definitely not because those mean old Democrats wanted it. He wanted to resign. Really! Buncha damn middle-schoolers. The locals spent more time on the upcoming deer season than on the resignation-under-fire of the corrupt US Attorney General. A lot more time.
Tony Snow is finally leaving, after a stint as liar-in-chief perfectly framed by racism (or at least racial tone-deafness). He started out with “tar babies”, and went out with a snark to a female African-American reporter about white guys looking the same to her. Buh-bye!
David Petraeus turned out to be a
Coming back after lacking access to real information was overwhelming and intimidating. I have a better understanding of how easy to not follow the news if you don’t want to. Getting back up to speed took a little while, but I think I can post intelligently again. Insert your snarky comment here:_________________.
After all that, I need a drink! Here’s one I call “Stranger in a Bathroom”. It’s one I normally enjoy when I’m travelling and feeling lonely. I like to hold a Stranger in a Bathroom in my hand and slowly suck on it. If one doesn’t do the trick, I pick up another.
On a side note, I only give this recipe for straight people. While I’m OK with gay people drinking, I’m not there yet, and I don’t think the country is ready, for gay people to drink an alcohol as macho as tequila. I’m not uncomfortable drinking with gay people, but I am uncomfortable if they order tequila. I have an uneasy feeling that it threatens my drinking.
So if you’re not gay, and never have been, bottoms up! This recipe is so simple, anyone can make a Stranger in a Bathroom.
Stranger in a Bathroom
Mix equal amounts of Tequila and Sabra (or other chocolate liquer) over ice. Enjoy!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Cartoon for September 13
General Petraeus says help is on the way: if, by help, you mean six more months before we can draw another conclusion, which will undoubtedly mean a request for six more months to evaluate the status of the situation, during which a blue-ribbon committee of experts will be appointed to study the implementation of the recommendations of the...
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
General Petraeus says help is on the way: if, by help, you mean six more months before we can draw another conclusion, which will undoubtedly mean a request for six more months to evaluate the status of the situation, during which a blue-ribbon committee of experts will be appointed to study the implementation of the recommendations of the...
Click on the cartoon to see it larger.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
COLUMN: THE WAR PARTY
Democrats Lie to Prolong Iraq; Reporters Go Along
Americans don't know how their government works. Democrats, in control of Congress, are taking advantage of our ignorance to continue the Iraq War. Which brings up two questions: Why won't the "antiwar" Democrats act to stop the carnage? And why aren't reporters calling them on it?
"Democrats," writes Charles Babington in an Associated Press item that appeared in hundreds of newspapers, "control both chambers [of Congress] but lack the numbers to override President Bush's vetoes of bids to mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq." It's a half-truth at best: the Democrats' narrow majority is less than the two-thirds majority they'd need to override a presidential veto. Here's the full truth: it doesn't matter.
The Constitution grants Congress, and only the Congress, to "raise and support armies." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could meet over cocktails right now and cut off the funding tomorrow. Within a few months, the Pentagon would run out of money for the war. They'd have to start bringing home troops. The occupation of Iraq would be over in less than a year.
In June Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Extra! Magazine wrote: "If the Democrat-controlled Congress wanted to force the Bush administration to accept a bill with a withdrawal timeline, it didn't have to pass the bill over Bush's veto--it just had to make clear that no Iraq War spending bill without a timeline would be forthcoming."
Democratic leaders know that. And here's how I know they know: days after taking control of Congress, on January 30, they invited five constitutional law experts to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask them how they could end the war. Four out of five of the experts swore that the Democrats could stop the Iraq War just…like…that.
"I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war," affirmed Bradford Berenson, Bush's White House associate counsel from 2001 to 2003. "It is ultimately Congress that decides the size, scope and duration of the use of military force," added Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general and assistant attorney general.
"Today we've heard convincing testimony and analysis that Congress has the power to stop the war if it wants to," said Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). Yet eight months later, there's still no end in sight.
The Dems won the 2006 elections with promises to end the war. Weeks after taking over Congress, however, Republicans spooked them with one of the most ludicrous talking points of all time. Cutting off the money, they said, would abandon U.S. soldiers at the front, their ammo dwindling as Al Qaeda insurgents swarmed over them. (Actually--the fact that I have to write this speaks to the American right's intellectual dishonesty--the troops would go to the airport. They would board airplanes. They would fly home.)
Democrats worry that they'll be portrayed as weak on defense if they act unilaterally to pull out of Iraq. Irony of ironies, they're wussing out to avoid looking wimpy. Forcing Republicans to vote with them to end the war, they calculate, would give them political cover. Extra! continued: "Democrats may not have wanted to pay the supposed political costs of [cutting off funding], but news coverage should have made clear that this was a choice, not something forced on them by the lack of a veto-proof majority."
Rather than set the record straight, the media continues to spread the Democrats-can't-stop-the-Republican-war meme this week:
Michael Duffy, Time magazine: "If Democrats had more votes--particularly in the House--they might be able to force Bush to change course. But Bush will fight any resolution fencing him in with a veto that, as things stand now, the Democrats cannot override. But the President's critics will continue to try, hoping to attract moderate Republicans who are fearful of losing their seats next year." Occasionally Time invites me to its Christmas party. If I score an invite this year, my present for their fact-checkers will be a copy of the Constitution.
Marcella Bombardieri, The Boston Globe: "In the Senate, Democrats have only a 51 to 49 majority, far from the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster and the 67 needed to override a presidential veto. All efforts to force a troop withdrawal have failed, and the party will have to count on substantial Republican defections to make any further progress this fall." I'll be checking the Globe for a retraction.
Brian Knowlton, The New York Times: Knowlton dutifully quoted Democratic Senator Joe Biden's claim that there were "political limits on his party, even with the Congressional majority it has held since the November midterm elections. 'This is the president's war,' [Biden] said. 'Unless we get 67 votes to override his veto, there's nothing we can do to stop this war…'" Not only did the Times fail to call Biden on his brazen lie, it gave him the last word.
You'd think the Democrats would want to end the Iraq War before their likely retaking of the White House, but that's because you're a human being, not a politician. Politicians are happy to dispatch hundreds of young American men and women to certain death (along with thousands of Iraqis), if the bloodshed squeezes out an extra half percentage point at the polls. Reid and Pelosi prefer to run against a disastrous ongoing Republican war than point to a fragile Democratic-brokered peace.
Why are so many respected journalists parroting the Democratic party line? I suspect that corporate media culture, rather than Judith Miller-style malfeasance, is largely to blame. Ink-stained newsrooms have been replaced by bullpen offices indistinguishable from those of banks or insurance companies. Reporters used to come from the working classes. They distrusted politicians and businessmen, and politicians and businessmen loathed them. Today's journalists are products of cookie-cutter journalism schools. Because graduate schools rarely offer scholarships, few come from the lower or middle classes. They look like businessmen. When they meet a politician, they see a possible friend. They wear suits and ties. And when a U.S. senator like Joe Biden feeds them a line of crap, they gobble it up.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book "America Gone Wild," which includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial political cartoons of the post-9/11 era.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Democrats Lie to Prolong Iraq; Reporters Go Along
Americans don't know how their government works. Democrats, in control of Congress, are taking advantage of our ignorance to continue the Iraq War. Which brings up two questions: Why won't the "antiwar" Democrats act to stop the carnage? And why aren't reporters calling them on it?
"Democrats," writes Charles Babington in an Associated Press item that appeared in hundreds of newspapers, "control both chambers [of Congress] but lack the numbers to override President Bush's vetoes of bids to mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq." It's a half-truth at best: the Democrats' narrow majority is less than the two-thirds majority they'd need to override a presidential veto. Here's the full truth: it doesn't matter.
The Constitution grants Congress, and only the Congress, to "raise and support armies." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could meet over cocktails right now and cut off the funding tomorrow. Within a few months, the Pentagon would run out of money for the war. They'd have to start bringing home troops. The occupation of Iraq would be over in less than a year.
In June Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Extra! Magazine wrote: "If the Democrat-controlled Congress wanted to force the Bush administration to accept a bill with a withdrawal timeline, it didn't have to pass the bill over Bush's veto--it just had to make clear that no Iraq War spending bill without a timeline would be forthcoming."
Democratic leaders know that. And here's how I know they know: days after taking control of Congress, on January 30, they invited five constitutional law experts to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask them how they could end the war. Four out of five of the experts swore that the Democrats could stop the Iraq War just…like…that.
"I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war," affirmed Bradford Berenson, Bush's White House associate counsel from 2001 to 2003. "It is ultimately Congress that decides the size, scope and duration of the use of military force," added Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general and assistant attorney general.
"Today we've heard convincing testimony and analysis that Congress has the power to stop the war if it wants to," said Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). Yet eight months later, there's still no end in sight.
The Dems won the 2006 elections with promises to end the war. Weeks after taking over Congress, however, Republicans spooked them with one of the most ludicrous talking points of all time. Cutting off the money, they said, would abandon U.S. soldiers at the front, their ammo dwindling as Al Qaeda insurgents swarmed over them. (Actually--the fact that I have to write this speaks to the American right's intellectual dishonesty--the troops would go to the airport. They would board airplanes. They would fly home.)
Democrats worry that they'll be portrayed as weak on defense if they act unilaterally to pull out of Iraq. Irony of ironies, they're wussing out to avoid looking wimpy. Forcing Republicans to vote with them to end the war, they calculate, would give them political cover. Extra! continued: "Democrats may not have wanted to pay the supposed political costs of [cutting off funding], but news coverage should have made clear that this was a choice, not something forced on them by the lack of a veto-proof majority."
Rather than set the record straight, the media continues to spread the Democrats-can't-stop-the-Republican-war meme this week:
Michael Duffy, Time magazine: "If Democrats had more votes--particularly in the House--they might be able to force Bush to change course. But Bush will fight any resolution fencing him in with a veto that, as things stand now, the Democrats cannot override. But the President's critics will continue to try, hoping to attract moderate Republicans who are fearful of losing their seats next year." Occasionally Time invites me to its Christmas party. If I score an invite this year, my present for their fact-checkers will be a copy of the Constitution.
Marcella Bombardieri, The Boston Globe: "In the Senate, Democrats have only a 51 to 49 majority, far from the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster and the 67 needed to override a presidential veto. All efforts to force a troop withdrawal have failed, and the party will have to count on substantial Republican defections to make any further progress this fall." I'll be checking the Globe for a retraction.
Brian Knowlton, The New York Times: Knowlton dutifully quoted Democratic Senator Joe Biden's claim that there were "political limits on his party, even with the Congressional majority it has held since the November midterm elections. 'This is the president's war,' [Biden] said. 'Unless we get 67 votes to override his veto, there's nothing we can do to stop this war…'" Not only did the Times fail to call Biden on his brazen lie, it gave him the last word.
You'd think the Democrats would want to end the Iraq War before their likely retaking of the White House, but that's because you're a human being, not a politician. Politicians are happy to dispatch hundreds of young American men and women to certain death (along with thousands of Iraqis), if the bloodshed squeezes out an extra half percentage point at the polls. Reid and Pelosi prefer to run against a disastrous ongoing Republican war than point to a fragile Democratic-brokered peace.
Why are so many respected journalists parroting the Democratic party line? I suspect that corporate media culture, rather than Judith Miller-style malfeasance, is largely to blame. Ink-stained newsrooms have been replaced by bullpen offices indistinguishable from those of banks or insurance companies. Reporters used to come from the working classes. They distrusted politicians and businessmen, and politicians and businessmen loathed them. Today's journalists are products of cookie-cutter journalism schools. Because graduate schools rarely offer scholarships, few come from the lower or middle classes. They look like businessmen. When they meet a politician, they see a possible friend. They wear suits and ties. And when a U.S. senator like Joe Biden feeds them a line of crap, they gobble it up.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book "America Gone Wild," which includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial political cartoons of the post-9/11 era.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
Monday, September 10, 2007
Sale on Original Artwork
Normally I sell originals for $500 each. Special offer, good for one week only: three for $750. If you've had your eye on more than one of my cartoons, this is your big chance to put them on your wall.
Any and all of my syndicated cartoons are available, provided that they're available (i.e., not sold or on loan to an exhibit). That leaves 99% of them to choose from.
Email chet@rall.com for details.
Normally I sell originals for $500 each. Special offer, good for one week only: three for $750. If you've had your eye on more than one of my cartoons, this is your big chance to put them on your wall.
Any and all of my syndicated cartoons are available, provided that they're available (i.e., not sold or on loan to an exhibit). That leaves 99% of them to choose from.
Email chet@rall.com for details.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 8, 2007
My Tinfoil Hat
posted by Susan Stark
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's that time again.
It's now time for another episode of (drum roll) . . . The Osama Show!!
Yes, Osama has taken time off from dragging his kidney dialysis machine from cave to cave to grace us with his presence again.
All of that dragging is making him a little worse for wear, because he has far more wrinkled skin under that false beard he's wearing just for this occasion.
I must admit, though, he packed more of a punch in his 2004 "October Surprise" episode, repeating without a hitch, all of the concerns of leftists in this country: the stolen presidential election, occupation of Iraq and Palestine, the grotesque power of Halliburton and other corporate gangs. Thus, securing the election for George Bush.
Oh, boy.
Ms. Stark is a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nutbag, to think that Osama would give an election to George. Well, there are plenty of tinfoil hat wearers, including Craig Unger, who wrote House of Bush, House of Saud, which details the relationship between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia, with a special emphasis on the warm relationship with the Bin Laden family. Both Craig Unger and Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 detail how members of the Bin Laden family were hurried out of the country after September Eleventh, when no one else was allowed to fly. Under normal, rational circumstances, this family would've be held for questioning. What other conclusion can you come up with except that the Bushes and Bin Ladens are in cahoots with each other, if the Bin Ladens are allowed a free pass outta Dodge?
Ah, but, Osama is the black sheep of the family. The rest of the Bin Ladens are good little pro-Westerners and capitalists. Not according to BBC reporter Greg Palast in this article here and here. And to think they were let go when we had them cornered.
As for Osama being a leftist? a socialist? Back in 1996, Osama stated quite clearly what his goals are, and they are far from anything that I or any other leftist cares about.
The conclusion? For those of you familiar with the book 1984, Osama is playing Emmanuel Goldstein to George's Big Brother. For those of you who haven't read that book, he is playing "bad cop" to Bush's "good cop", reinforcing Bush by pretending to espouse liberal and leftist ideals, thus making it appear that leftists are on "Osama's side". True liberals and leftists (and their concerns) are effectively marginalized.
Those who believe that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Bush Regime are probably the true tinfoil hat-wearers, but their arguments are becoming more and more palatable to me each and every time we are subjected to one more of these lame-ass Two Minutes Hate videos from Osama, which strangely enough only seem to help his supposed enemy, George Bush.
I'll gladly wear my tinfoil hat, if only out of spite.
posted by Susan Stark
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's that time again.
It's now time for another episode of (drum roll) . . . The Osama Show!!
Yes, Osama has taken time off from dragging his kidney dialysis machine from cave to cave to grace us with his presence again.
All of that dragging is making him a little worse for wear, because he has far more wrinkled skin under that false beard he's wearing just for this occasion.
I must admit, though, he packed more of a punch in his 2004 "October Surprise" episode, repeating without a hitch, all of the concerns of leftists in this country: the stolen presidential election, occupation of Iraq and Palestine, the grotesque power of Halliburton and other corporate gangs. Thus, securing the election for George Bush.
Oh, boy.
Ms. Stark is a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nutbag, to think that Osama would give an election to George. Well, there are plenty of tinfoil hat wearers, including Craig Unger, who wrote House of Bush, House of Saud, which details the relationship between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia, with a special emphasis on the warm relationship with the Bin Laden family. Both Craig Unger and Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 detail how members of the Bin Laden family were hurried out of the country after September Eleventh, when no one else was allowed to fly. Under normal, rational circumstances, this family would've be held for questioning. What other conclusion can you come up with except that the Bushes and Bin Ladens are in cahoots with each other, if the Bin Ladens are allowed a free pass outta Dodge?
Ah, but, Osama is the black sheep of the family. The rest of the Bin Ladens are good little pro-Westerners and capitalists. Not according to BBC reporter Greg Palast in this article here and here. And to think they were let go when we had them cornered.
As for Osama being a leftist? a socialist? Back in 1996, Osama stated quite clearly what his goals are, and they are far from anything that I or any other leftist cares about.
The conclusion? For those of you familiar with the book 1984, Osama is playing Emmanuel Goldstein to George's Big Brother. For those of you who haven't read that book, he is playing "bad cop" to Bush's "good cop", reinforcing Bush by pretending to espouse liberal and leftist ideals, thus making it appear that leftists are on "Osama's side". True liberals and leftists (and their concerns) are effectively marginalized.
Those who believe that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Bush Regime are probably the true tinfoil hat-wearers, but their arguments are becoming more and more palatable to me each and every time we are subjected to one more of these lame-ass Two Minutes Hate videos from Osama, which strangely enough only seem to help his supposed enemy, George Bush.
I'll gladly wear my tinfoil hat, if only out of spite.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
New Column: KILL THE POOR: Phony Poverty Study Fools Lazy Journalists
NEW YORK--They're baaack! Once again the Heritage Foundation is mangling statistics to whitewash the ugly facts of life in Republican-run America.
Last time, in 2005, they attacked the image of U.S. soldiers as cannon fodder being exploited for Halliburton. Au contraire, claimed the conservative propaganda mill. American troops, they said were actually "wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average" citizen. Of course, this wasn't true. "Military personnel are poorer and less educated" than the average Joe, I found when I took a closer look. Heritage's soldier study used junk logic and apples-to-oranges statistics to promote the GOP's wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. And it worked.
The lazy men who run the big newspapers and TV networks, deluded into believing there are two sides to every story, dutifully repeated Heritage's lies. They never questioned a word. More soldiers died. The Heritage story made us feel less guilty about it.
Now Heritage is telling us that there are no poor people--very few, anyway, and then only for short periods of time--in the United States. The truth is that capitalism is failing millions of Americans. The less we think about the problem, the less we think it is a problem, the worse it will become.
The pseudoacademic demagogues of the right want us to distrust our own eyes. Panhandlers? "Homeless by choice" urban campers, Ronald Reagan, patron saint of modern Republicanism, called them. Single mothers? He said they were "welfare queens." Americans who live in the sprawling slums of the inner cities, the washed-up Walmarted Main Streets of the farm belt, and the scary barred-window suburbs of California and Georgia and Illinois? They're living large, says the Heritage Foundation in a "study" whose dubious findings have already been reprinted--completely unquestioned, as usual--by hundreds of newspapers read by millions of gullible subscribers.
The Census Bureau says that 36.5 million Americans--one in eight--are poor. But "if poverty means a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of the people identified as living 'in poverty' would, in fact, be characterized as poor," says Heritage's Robert Rector. "The typical person defined as 'poor' by the Census has cable or satellite TV, air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player or VCR, and two color TVs."
No doubt, poor people in a technologically advanced nation like the United States don't live as minimally as those in undeveloped states like Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, a middle-class American homeowner would be spectacularly wealthy. A man worth $500,000 could become a warlord. There are no Afghan billionaires. Poverty is relative.
Even the claim that gadget ownership is incompatible with true poverty doesn't hold up: Rector refers to "a DVD player or VCR." But VCRs are antiquated, a decade out of date. It's like saying that someone who owns "a computer or a typewriter" isn't poor.
"Poor Americans living in houses or apartments, on average, have more living space per person than does the average citizen living in European countries such as England, France and Germany," the Heritage study asserts. There's a footnote--but the source material doesn't include figures for per-capita housing density in Europe. (As far as I can tell, such data doesn't exist.) Even if it's true, though, it's a factoid without a point. Europe, urbanized for the past 2000 years, has an overall higher population density than we do--yet enjoys the world's highest standard of living.
The more you think about Heritage's BS, the worse it gets.
"Three quarters of these 'poor'"--note the quotes--own a car," Rector continues. Are those cars in good working order, or up on blocks? He doesn't say--but there's a difference.
"When asked, [the typical 'poor person'] reports that his family was able to obtain medical care whenever needed during the past year," he continues. True--sorta. Uninsured people often rely on hospitals, enduring long waits and high fees for substandard care rendered by harried emergency room staffers. Hospitals are legally obligated to treat them--but it's hardly a workable system. Many poor (and middle class) people put off going to the doctor as long as possible.
Then there's this sparkling gem of compassion: "Some poor families," admits Rector, "do experience a temporary food shortage, a condition touted as 'hunger' by activists. But even this condition is relatively rare: 89 percent of the poor report their families always have 'enough' food to eat, while only 2 percent say they 'often' do not have enough to eat."
"Temporary food shortage." If that isn't hunger, what is? "Very simply," says the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "hunger is defined as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. When we talk about hunger in America, we refer to the ability of people to obtain sufficient food for their household. Some people may find themselves skipping meals or cutting back on the quality or quantity of food they purchase at the stores. This recurring and involuntary lack of access to food can lead to malnutrition over time."
Economists consider a society's infant mortality rate to be the most reliable indicator of its citizens' quality of life, and the prevalence of poverty. The United States has the second-worst infant morality rate in the industrialized world--behind Latvia, tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. Western Europe--France, Germany, etc.--kicks our national ass. The poverty rate for American children under 18 was 21.9 percent in 2006, the highest in the developed world.
Upwardly mobile Americans can escape poverty numerous ways--by, for example, earning a college scholarship. But we also suffer a lot of downward mobility, typically after losing a job. "While in any given year 12 to 15 percent of the population is poor," says Michael Zweig, author of "What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the 21st Century" (2004), "over a ten-year period 40 percent experience poverty in at least one year because most poor people cycle in and out of poverty."
Even the Heritage Foundation concedes that some poverty exists in this best of all possible laissez faire worlds. But, they argue in the finest tradition of blame-the-victim, it's "self-inflicted, a result of poor decisions and self-defeating behaviors."
Poor Americans, they say, have a "weak work ethic." The evidence: "The typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year--16 hours per week. "If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty." This assumes that poor parents live in a magical job market where they can work as many hours as they please--a condition that would only exist with zero percent unemployment.
"Father absence is another major cause of child poverty," says Heritage's poverty study. True. "Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock." Again true. The conservative solution: "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty." Stupid welfare queens! Why do they refuse to marry the fathers of their children?
A cat or dog understands hunger. The fact that we have to have this discussion demonstrates the success of the right in redefining basic terms--and the failure of the press to question it.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
NEW YORK--They're baaack! Once again the Heritage Foundation is mangling statistics to whitewash the ugly facts of life in Republican-run America.
Last time, in 2005, they attacked the image of U.S. soldiers as cannon fodder being exploited for Halliburton. Au contraire, claimed the conservative propaganda mill. American troops, they said were actually "wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average" citizen. Of course, this wasn't true. "Military personnel are poorer and less educated" than the average Joe, I found when I took a closer look. Heritage's soldier study used junk logic and apples-to-oranges statistics to promote the GOP's wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. And it worked.
The lazy men who run the big newspapers and TV networks, deluded into believing there are two sides to every story, dutifully repeated Heritage's lies. They never questioned a word. More soldiers died. The Heritage story made us feel less guilty about it.
Now Heritage is telling us that there are no poor people--very few, anyway, and then only for short periods of time--in the United States. The truth is that capitalism is failing millions of Americans. The less we think about the problem, the less we think it is a problem, the worse it will become.
The pseudoacademic demagogues of the right want us to distrust our own eyes. Panhandlers? "Homeless by choice" urban campers, Ronald Reagan, patron saint of modern Republicanism, called them. Single mothers? He said they were "welfare queens." Americans who live in the sprawling slums of the inner cities, the washed-up Walmarted Main Streets of the farm belt, and the scary barred-window suburbs of California and Georgia and Illinois? They're living large, says the Heritage Foundation in a "study" whose dubious findings have already been reprinted--completely unquestioned, as usual--by hundreds of newspapers read by millions of gullible subscribers.
The Census Bureau says that 36.5 million Americans--one in eight--are poor. But "if poverty means a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of the people identified as living 'in poverty' would, in fact, be characterized as poor," says Heritage's Robert Rector. "The typical person defined as 'poor' by the Census has cable or satellite TV, air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player or VCR, and two color TVs."
No doubt, poor people in a technologically advanced nation like the United States don't live as minimally as those in undeveloped states like Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, a middle-class American homeowner would be spectacularly wealthy. A man worth $500,000 could become a warlord. There are no Afghan billionaires. Poverty is relative.
Even the claim that gadget ownership is incompatible with true poverty doesn't hold up: Rector refers to "a DVD player or VCR." But VCRs are antiquated, a decade out of date. It's like saying that someone who owns "a computer or a typewriter" isn't poor.
"Poor Americans living in houses or apartments, on average, have more living space per person than does the average citizen living in European countries such as England, France and Germany," the Heritage study asserts. There's a footnote--but the source material doesn't include figures for per-capita housing density in Europe. (As far as I can tell, such data doesn't exist.) Even if it's true, though, it's a factoid without a point. Europe, urbanized for the past 2000 years, has an overall higher population density than we do--yet enjoys the world's highest standard of living.
The more you think about Heritage's BS, the worse it gets.
"Three quarters of these 'poor'"--note the quotes--own a car," Rector continues. Are those cars in good working order, or up on blocks? He doesn't say--but there's a difference.
"When asked, [the typical 'poor person'] reports that his family was able to obtain medical care whenever needed during the past year," he continues. True--sorta. Uninsured people often rely on hospitals, enduring long waits and high fees for substandard care rendered by harried emergency room staffers. Hospitals are legally obligated to treat them--but it's hardly a workable system. Many poor (and middle class) people put off going to the doctor as long as possible.
Then there's this sparkling gem of compassion: "Some poor families," admits Rector, "do experience a temporary food shortage, a condition touted as 'hunger' by activists. But even this condition is relatively rare: 89 percent of the poor report their families always have 'enough' food to eat, while only 2 percent say they 'often' do not have enough to eat."
"Temporary food shortage." If that isn't hunger, what is? "Very simply," says the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "hunger is defined as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. When we talk about hunger in America, we refer to the ability of people to obtain sufficient food for their household. Some people may find themselves skipping meals or cutting back on the quality or quantity of food they purchase at the stores. This recurring and involuntary lack of access to food can lead to malnutrition over time."
Economists consider a society's infant mortality rate to be the most reliable indicator of its citizens' quality of life, and the prevalence of poverty. The United States has the second-worst infant morality rate in the industrialized world--behind Latvia, tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. Western Europe--France, Germany, etc.--kicks our national ass. The poverty rate for American children under 18 was 21.9 percent in 2006, the highest in the developed world.
Upwardly mobile Americans can escape poverty numerous ways--by, for example, earning a college scholarship. But we also suffer a lot of downward mobility, typically after losing a job. "While in any given year 12 to 15 percent of the population is poor," says Michael Zweig, author of "What's Class Got To Do With It, American Society in the 21st Century" (2004), "over a ten-year period 40 percent experience poverty in at least one year because most poor people cycle in and out of poverty."
Even the Heritage Foundation concedes that some poverty exists in this best of all possible laissez faire worlds. But, they argue in the finest tradition of blame-the-victim, it's "self-inflicted, a result of poor decisions and self-defeating behaviors."
Poor Americans, they say, have a "weak work ethic." The evidence: "The typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year--16 hours per week. "If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty." This assumes that poor parents live in a magical job market where they can work as many hours as they please--a condition that would only exist with zero percent unemployment.
"Father absence is another major cause of child poverty," says Heritage's poverty study. True. "Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.3 million children are born out of wedlock." Again true. The conservative solution: "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty." Stupid welfare queens! Why do they refuse to marry the fathers of their children?
A cat or dog understands hunger. The fact that we have to have this discussion demonstrates the success of the right in redefining basic terms--and the failure of the press to question it.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
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