Even after the Assocation of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a formal statement calling for an investigation of the LA Times’ firing of me as a favor to the LAPD because I criticized police brutality, I found it difficult to get support from, well, everybody. Because one of the defining aspects of satire is that, eventually, you end up making fun of everyone. Who end up hating you.
Comedy Time
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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A lot of your cartoons would be funny as hell if they weren’t so tragic, this one is both… well played.
The right at least has no sense of history and a culture of forgiveness.
We on the supposed left have a series of purity tests putting to shame McCarthy and the traffic police. Freedom is freedom to think differently – as long as you stay unwaveringly on our side of the anti-nuclear power, 3rd party over Democrat, don’t question Obama, recognizing Obama as a corporatist warmongerer
divide. Even if you were to emerge from that Catch-22 unscathed, people will still not forgive you for denying the truth about 9/11, the JFK assassination, and chemtrails – you lousy betraying gatekeeper.
Have you considered confessing your sins against Obama and accepting Bernie Sanders as your personal saviour?
Sanders = savior indeed.
🙂
But, mein verehrter Lehrer, remember what happened to the saviour first time around (of course, it wasn’t really the first time around -killing and eating the god is an old religious ritual, but you know what I mean) !…
Henri
… and now you’re getting your sense of humor back. Good show!
Having followed your career for something like 20 years now, I can only imagine what a giant pain in the ass you must be to deal with sometimes, but what an ethical clusterfuck this is for the LA Times. This isn’t even complicated.
Don’t conflate the acid tone of my work with my ability to work with editors. I’m flexible, easygoing and reliable. I doubt any editor would describe me as a pain in the ass to work with.
«Was your job», says it all, Ted – I hope you find another and better one soon ! But anyone who thinks that the primary reason the LA Times fired Ted was an article on a jaywalking ticket is more than permissibly naive….
Henri
Hmmm,
Comedy is knowing that we’re fucked, living with it, but laughing in the face of it anyway … the whole universe is a big-bang giggle.
DanD
Was pleased the Guardian ran an article. Was hopeful more buzz would follow. You seem to suffer more than your fair share of injustice. You must be doing something right.
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/?id=14860
Check the comments.
DanD
If nothing else, I just love how Ted, an open socialist who admires Stalin and Putin, who advocates a system of cradle-to-grave life management by an all-powerful government totally misses the irony of his situation. This is what he’s advocating. Obviously, if it happened to someone he didn’t like he’d be cheering and pontificating about the government must be obeyed mindlessly, but it’s him, so of course it’s evil.
As is your wont, «Fleming Balzac», you seem to have totally misunderstood – or perhaps better, willfully misinterpreted – what Ted has been saying here. Nowhere in anything he’s published on this site does he «advocate[] a system of cradle-to-grave life management by an all-powerful government», nor has he requested governmental intervention in his dispute with the LA Times. He does seem, however, to have expected support from readers and fellow cartoonists – perhaps in your view these latter constitute the true «government»? If only things were so well…. 😉
Hopefully, courses in reading comprehension are offered in your neighbourhood, YOu would be advised not to delay in applying….
Henri
He’s a *socialist*, Henri. Socialists worship government and advocate only a strict permission society. He certainly endorses politicians who use violence to silence opposition – or what’s he doing contributing to Putin’s mouthpiece RT?
Socialism, as history shows, entails brutality and misery to function. Rall is either a fool or a liar if he claims he doesn’t advocate state censorship while supporting a socialist agenda. And he’s getting what he wants – good and hard.
@henri – as I’ve pontificated before, Capitalarianism is a religion, not a socioeconomic theory.
To many christians, if you call someone a ‘sinner’ it means that they not only smoke and drink, but rape, murder and steal. They’re all somehow related in their minds. Kinda like the way you mention homosexuality & they start talking about bestiality.
When a capitalarian uses the word ‘socialism’ they throw in a bunch of nonsense which has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying theory. Here’s the truly hilarious part: you will not find one, single, solitary liberal actually espousing those ‘ideals’ The *only* people actually making those remarks are conservatives.
Mon ami, il est inutile de parler à un fou avec des pensées rationnelles. Pourquoi s’embêter?
ankthay odgay orfay ooglegay anslatetray.
@ CrazyH –
Good one!
Gotta keep the trolls on their toes. (Or is it: “… the toes on those trolls”?
😀
Judging from your reply above, «Fleming Balzac», your knowledge of «history» is on a par with your knowledge of «socialism», i e, utterly lacking. But my response above to you was directed not to your general claims, which hardly require comment, but to your specific ones about what Ted has «advocated» on this web site. Nowhere has he called for mindless obedience to the government – quite the contrary ! Your reply to my response serves only as further evidence of how great your need to attend a course in remedial reading is – although, given the ideological blinders you seem to be wearing, it is doubtful if even that would be of any help….
Henri
Mein verehrter Lehrer, at times refraining from replying is even more of a bother than composing a reply which points out the logical somersaults of which one’s interlocutor is guilty. So while «don’t feed the troll» is often good advice, it is not always possible to apply it…. 😉
Henri
@ mhenriday –
Of course I support your efforts to educate a fool; I simply think that anyone so ignorant as that deserves to be ignored.
How stupid is the following statement taken from his/her post (and what could possibly be stated that would persuade him/her otherwise)?
“Socialists worship government and advocate only a strict permission society.”
(The previous post wasn’t finished before my computer decided to launch it, but I guess it works this way, too.)
😀
But mein verehrter Lehrer, I suffer from no illusions whatever that I should be able to persuade «Fleming Balzac» otherwise – that is not my objective in posting. Fortunately, there are more than two people who regularly read this thread – your esteemed self, for example. When pointing out the fallacies in «Fleming Balzac»’s posts, I am addressing not so much her/him, but other readers with a higher level of reading comprehension than s/he seems to possess…. 😉
Henri
@ mhenriday –
I know. You’ve explained before that “lurkers” are reading your responses and are your target audience.
I am persuaded that any intelligent reader recognizes the fallacies of a fool’s posts, and thus I refrain from engaging.
That is not to say that you need to be of like mind. I enjoy your well-reasoned “pas de deux” responses, so keep at it!
😀
I often consider trolls or true believers to be ‘useful idiots’ – they provide an opportunity to get up on my soapbox w/o resorting to straw men.
Remember also that for every poster, there are thousands of lurkers. So what if we never convince the OP, we may provide arguments which may sway the fence sitters.
In my case – I use a lot of sarcasm & humor. This is no accident, authoritarians hate to be laughed at. Even if we don’t change their opinions, they may STFU. That’s still a win.
Well, Flaming – you’ve managed to convince me you have no clue whatsoever what “socialism” is. Like most conservatives, you’ve been programmed to believe it’s evil without actually understanding anything about it.
Wish to dispute that? It’s easy – without google, tell the class the defining characteristic is which differentiates Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism.
I always get HUGE laugh whenever a conservative starts talking about “mindlessly obeying the gov’t.” You guys want a government that tells you who you can marry, how you can have sex, what you can smoke, and what superstition to believe in. You cheer when cops gun down innocents, you love it when the government murders people without due process, you defend them when they torture – and you never, ever realize that it can be used against you.
And you’ve managed to convince me that you believe anyone who isn’t a socialist is a conservative who has simply been brainwashed and must want the government to control sex, drugs, and religion. I suppose stereotypes are OK when you or someone you agree with employs them? Reading comprehension, CrazyH. FlemingBalzac said nowhere that he was a conservative. Try to stay on topic.
F-balz …
TRall is as much libertarian as he is “socialist” … and he hates “bad-cops.” Can any cop still call himself “good” and yet stay blue-line blind to the crimes of his co-workers?
You’re all-troll and no substance.
DanD
As the others here have clearly shown, FlemingBalzac, you are indeed quite mistaken. This sort of socialist doesn’t want the kind of Big Government that controls the press, but rather the kind of Big Government that merely controls the economy, which of course, will lead to increased health, wealth, and happiness for all and certainly not widespread corruption, abuses, and waste. How you fail to understand that having government make our choices for us does not restrict freedom is simply beyond me.
FlemingBalzac, while Ted as far as I know has never said he likes Stalin or Putin, and has in fact defended conservatives who were fired for their beliefs such as Brendan Eich of Mozilla, I congratulate you on so artfully setting off such a firestorm.
Okay, so let’s look at it from the LA Times to the LAPD:
Completely avoiding the civil and criminal judicial process, the head, LE cocksucking oligarch of the LA Times (either himself or through a lackey) pulls in a favor from the head of the LAPD (either himself or through a slightly different lackey) and has Ted Ralls past criminal history covertly researched BY THE LAPD. In an apparently secret database, they find something. both oligarchs use that something in order to attempt destroying TRall’s professional future.
Now, let’s look at it from the LAPD to the LA Times:
THERE ARE NO criminal investigations being accomplished against Ted Rall. Even so, the LAPD’s head gangbanger has (through his lackey subordinates) Ted’s past researched so as to find some (any …) compromising evidence. They find something, but it’s too revealing, that is until some part-time hacking badge-dangler “snows” it up some. That evidence is then advertised as “proof” positive that Ted Rall is a unrepentant liar. Then (without either the criminal or civil judicial process being used as a “legitimacy” filter) that “evidence” is turned over to the LA Times oligarch, with instructions to destroy TRall’s professional career. On the flimsiest of insufficiently researched evidence, Ted is fired by the Times and then viciously smeared as a criminally predisposed liar.
http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/story/news/local/2015/08/18/sugar-grove-police-chief/31916821/
In the above news story in Ohio, a police CHIEF illegally searches a police database to get compromising information on private citizens. Of course he does it without judicial oversight. That pig then gets slammed in the ass for illegally accessing a police database.
Shouldn’t the California Attorney General’s Office be interested in how the LAPD (in conspiracy with the LA Times) has abused California’s police database system in order to destroy the career of an otherwise upstanding citizen of American journalism?
DanD