Art: Frank Miller | Poster: Peter Brett
As we’ve seen since last week, it’s not just the Right who wants to censor outspoken cartoonists like me — self-described “liberals” and militant pro-Obama dead-end Democrats want to crush dissent.
These fascists will do and say anything to shut down opposition to Dear Leader — especially from the left, who are trying to hold Dems to their promises to the people, because we expose their bankruptcy. They’ll lie about me and my work. They smear me as racist, even though I’ve been fighting racism my entire life — not because it’s true, but because it’s a great way to make people like me shut up.
But I’m not shutting up.
And if you think this ends in 2016 with the end of Obama’s presidency, think again. If Hillary Rodham Clinton runs, they’ll smear progressive commentators as “sexist” for pointing out that she is a tool of the money classes, an oppressor and a warmonger.
Fortunately, there is something you can do. You can support my work and that of other hard-hitting cartoonists and writers who are refusing to be cowed by the pseudo-Dems’ bullshit.
That’s the flip side of the Great Print Media Meltdown. The good side. I’m no longer at the mercy of one or two editors. Now my career lives or dies based on direct support from you, the people. Subscribe to the Ted Rall Subscription Service and get my work before anyone else. Donate. Buy my books.
It’s not just me. But this week and probably this year, I’m the one who will be on the ropes, pummeled by the Daily Kos censors.
Thanks for reading.
9 Comments.
You are one of the few people in any form of media who tells the truth. There’s a reason you’re one of a very few. Publishing economics tends to dictate that, in order to get published, the publisher has to think publishing the author will make money. Which, in the US, means repeating the mantra that the US is the Greatest Force for Good the World has ever seen, and the US Armed Forces are keeping the Good People of the entire World safe from the Evil people, at great sacrifice on their part, and the Commander in Chief is their wise and benevolent commander who must be fully supported.
As Clinton reiterated, the slightest criticism of the Commander in Chief distracts him, and the critic is therefore fully responsible for every brave, self-sacrificing American soldier killed because the critics distracted the Commander in Chief, who must have absolute adulation at all times, and failure to adulate is clearly treason, not to mention killing those brave solders who are giving everything to keep us safe.
And a lot of people accept Clinton’s claim.
And, given that every decent American must fully support our President, it is not just acceptable, but absolutely necessary that decent Americans use every tool at their disposal to silence the president’s critics.
So Mr Rall’s criticisms of a president who apparently lied about closing Guantánamo are completely wrong (he didn’t lie, you misunderstood). Mr Rall’s criticisms of the president for killing many innocents with drones is completely wrong (Mr Rall lacks the president’s intelligence that shows that drones are precise, and no one has been killed except for terrorists who would have attacked the US had they not been droned: terrorists who include not just adult men, but women and babies, and by killing them, Obama is just keeping the good people of the world safe).
So one must use whatever tools are available to demolish and and all of Mr Rall’s totally uncalled for and inappropriate criticisms of our great Commanders in Chief. It’s just American exceptional logic.
What’s happened here involves taking the legitimate idea that people of color are the targets of racism and thus see it more clearly than people who aren’t its targets, and thus deserve to be listened to; and twisting it around to imply that such accusations of racism are always correct and cannot ethically be challenged or even examined. This will work to promote racism, if anything.
What Miep said.
Also, I notice a disturbing pattern. We saw this (those of us who are old enough) back in the 1980s. Then, it was Satanic Panic, and the cry was “Believe the Victim!”
The circular logic of course was that there was a victim in the first place. And even when the children’s stories became impossible and obviously just generated to please the interviewer (who was giving leading questions)–one “testimony” included the detail that a child had been tied naked to a tree outside for hours (on land adjacent to a heavily trafficked street), another that a 10-inch kitchen knife had been inserted into the child but without leaving any marks–the cry remained the same. Believe the victim.
Over at Kos, the echo chamber is probably reinforcing its smug and absolute certainty that it’s correct.
That’s exactly what’s happening at Kos.
It all starts with the assumption that I drew Obama like a monkey. After that, it all devolves into a debate over whether it was intentional or not and if not, it doesn’t matter because I should just stop it.
But what if my drawing of Obama doesn’t actually look like a monkey? They don’t consider that.
Yet most people outside Daily Kos don’t think it looks like a monkey. So the question is, who’s right?
Maybe they are. But then there’s the fact that they pull this bullshit racism card out of their asses whenever anyone complains, for example, that Obama lied about pulling out all US troops from Afghanistan by 2014. That, and the fact that they attacked me politically.
Thanks, Alex. Having spent the last week examining this story from every angle I can think of, what distills out for me is that racism is about discrimination, and that if you can’t demonstrate discrimination, it’s not racism, it’s just something you don’t like.
One of the better notes I’ve seen was about how Ted’s caricature of Obama looked roughly like Bart Simpson. Then there are all the chimp-caricatures of Bush that were so popular.
There is a legal term for this, something about opening the door. Likely no actual human being enjoys being caricatured by political cartoonists, but to put politicians off limits in some ways simply because they are not white guys is politically insane, as it opens up an obvious vulnerability.
I’ll argue until I’m blue in the face that women and people of color are indeed discriminated against and that we should be listened to about this, and not censored. But powerful politicians are dangerous people and we should have every tool in the box available to call them out.
Homer Simpson, not Bart (sorry, I don’t watch TV)
Also, I thought “Terror Widows” was funny, but “Terror Whores” not so much – should have been “Terror Pimps” and the ending was unimaginative and gratuitously misogynistic. But you drew it nine years ago so I’ll cut you some slack 🙂
I should point this out: I generally find your work clean of misogyny. The strip with Condi Rice that was so unpopular was okay from my POV. It was much harsher on white guys, and it was all about politics. Condi Rice is no appropriate role model for any woman.
I don’t waste my time on misogynists. If I thought you were one, I would be doing something else.
This blog post needs a video. Here’s a neat video of a choir singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I used to hang out with Dbug on Daily Kos before I was removed. He showed me this one.
Must be nice to have community that isn’t occasionally brutally ripped away from you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2a2KTx60s&feature=youtube_gdata_player