Oh, I Almost Forgot . . .

From the Big Apple to the Big Easy:

Go Saints. Fuck Katrina.


Susan

Ted Rall Newsletter - February 2010

Issue Number 2 - February 2010

Ted Rall Newsletter

NEW BOOK FOR FALL 2010: POLITICAL MANIFESTO

My new political manifesto, which argues that the United States is headed toward economic and political collapse—and offers a solution so radical it'll make you giddy—is coming out this fall from Seven Stories Press. I'm polishing up last-minute edits and working on the cover now. From the first chapter:

It doesn’t matter whether you feel it or not. It’s happening. The story of the United States of America as we know it—not merely as the world’s dominant superpower, but as a discrete political, economic and geographic entity—is drawing to a close due to a convergence of emerging economic, environmental and political crises. It’s not just that we won’t be selling most of the goods, using most of the resources or starting most of the wars anymore. (Although we won't.) Nor will we all die. Many, probably most of us, will survive. Our land will remain, whatever remains after rising seas anyway, and our descendants will be doing whatever people will need to and be told to do then. But the U.S. as an idea, as a country, will cease to exist. Like the Mayan empire. Like Czechoslovakia. Like the Soviet Union.


SUMMER 2010 AFGHANISTAN TRIP IN PERIL

I'm trying to raise the travel expenses to return to cover the war in Afghanistan this summer. I want to check in on my fixer from 2001 and his family in Taliban-occupied Taloqan, do an exposé on the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline oil and gas project, and visit remote parts of the country where reporters never venture. I will blog, file essays and cartoons, and write a book about what I hope to find—how the occupation is affecting ordinary Afghans nine years into the war.

Since I can't find a newspaper or magazine willing to foot the bill, I'm using Kickstarter.com. People who want to support a project that might not otherwise take place pledge money; if enough people do it, the project gets funded.

If not, it doesn't. And everyone gets their money back.

Unfortunately, things don't look good now. After a great start—66 people put up $5,334—pledges have slowed to a trickle. There's still time left, but at this rate I will NOT be returning to Afghanistan—unless more people pledge their support.

I understand; times are tough. It may be that this idea just won't work. However, if you're interested in supporting aggressive, independent, completely unembedded journalism and have a few extra bucks, please help me get there! I need $19,000 more in order to pay for transportation and security for four weeks travel. You get goodies depending on your level of support; obviously bigger is better. The link is:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tedrall/comix-journalism-send-ted-rall-back-to-afghanista-0


TED RALL ANIMATIONS ON YOUTUBE

I am producing, along with David Essman, some of the most outrageous political cartoons available in animation, for the Internet. But I won't be able to keep doing them unless some websites start paying for them. If you're working for a website interested in edgy political content, please check them out and get in touch. I am willing and able to package them with my weekly opinion columns.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tedralltoons

You can also see them on Ted Rall Online at:

http://www.rall.com/goodies.htm

Up most recently, “Operation Haitian Earthquake Freedom,” about the militarization of disaster relief.

SIGN UP TO GET TED’S CARTOONS AND COLUMNS

I have begun serializing pre-edited copy from my upcoming Political Manifesto through the 2010 Ted Rall Subscription Service. This is EXCLUSIVE to subscribers. Everyone else will have to wait until the book comes out this fall.

Subscriptions for the Ted Rall Subscription Service are open now for 2010. For $30 a year you get my cartoons and columns emailed to your in-box, in many cases days or even weeks before they go online or appear in newspapers! You also receive big discounts on any original cartoons you request ($100 cost instead of $500).

Go to: http://www.rall.com/subscription.htm


EVENTS - FEBRUARY

Hey New Yorkers! Please come out to support me at my biggest book signing ever—at the flagship Upper West Side Barnes & Noble.

When: Tuesday, February 16th, at 7 pm
What: Discussion about my new graphic novel memoir, “The Year of Loving Dangerously,” with Pablo G. Callejo.
Where: Barnes & Noble at Broadway and 82nd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

BUY A SIGNED COPY OF “THE YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY”

You can still get a personally signed copy of Ted’s “The Year of Loving Dangerously” for $23.90 (includes shipping within the United States). There are only a few copies left. Then the offer is null and void.

Check out: http://rall.com/buyyold.htm


VISIT TED ON FACEBOOK

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=500182857


FOLLOW TED ON TWITTER

http:www.twitter.com/tedrall

DEMAND THAT YOUR NEWSPAPER CARRY ME!

The Internet is cool. But it doesn't pay. If you want to keep seeing good cartoons, write to your local newspaper and demand that they carry my stuff. It works more often than you'd think!

To unsubcribe from this newsletter, simply hit “reply” and type “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject line of the email.

Soldier Admits to Waterboarding 4-year-old Daughter

This was bound to happen, eventually. When you start torturing a certain group, it's inevitable that it will move to other types of people. Who will it be next?

Susan

Cartoon for February 8, 2010

This is actually true--the part about the child porn victim.

Reminder: Subscription Service

Just a reminder that, if you haven't signed up for the 2010 Ted Rall Subscription Service, you're missing out on some sweet stuff. Starting this week: pre-edited excerpts of my new political manifesto book to be published by Seven Stories Press this fall! ONLY for members of the Subscription Service. Click the link in the right margin if you're interested.

Cartoon for February 5, 2010

A whole year wasted. Now that it's too late, Obama pretends to get tough.

Ted Rall Signing YOLD at UWS NYC Barnes & Noble Tuesday February 16!

Cartoon for February 3, 2010

Everyone knew Ted Kennedy was going to die for years. The special election in Massachusetts didn't come as a surprise. Yet, when Obama finally had 60 votes lined up to pass healthcare reform, he didn't insist on keeping Congress through Christmas (and New Year's and MLK if need be).

Either this is the most amazing example of political incompetence or a vigorous defense of Americans' sacred right to take time off from work.

TED RALL COLUMN: The Contrarian Manifesto

Boom or Bust? We're Always Wrong

My father taught me to go left.

Not politically. He was a right-wing Republican. At the movies.

"Most people choose the right entrance," he told me. "There are usually more seats on the left side of the theater." I've found that to be true.

He dressed like a conformist. But Dad was a contrarian. "If you don't know what to do," he said, "do the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. On average, conventional wisdom is always wrong. Run away from the crowd—and you'll come out ahead in the long run."

Never has the wisdom of his words been more apparent than now. Acting like Chicken Little proven right—this time, the sky really is falling—government and business are making decisions that are the exact opposite of the right ones.

Which is nothing new. Politicians and businessmen also do the exact opposite of what they should do during boom times too.

Consider prison policy. Hit hard by the Depression that began in 2008, cash-strapped states are releasing prisoners early. California's early-release bill even eliminated supervised parole. Because the average recidivism rate is 80 percent, "[unsupervised parole] is designed to reduce the number of parolees returned to prison, essentially because the state will not know if they are violating the terms of their parole," reports The Contra Costa Times.

But facing a state underemployment rate of 23 percent, California parolees have no real chance of finding work. Most will commit more crimes. From the standpoint of social stability and public safety, it would make more sense to keep them locked up.

If anything, a better time for leniency would have been the 1980s and 1990s. Jobs were plentiful. Wages were steady. Some employers, dealing with a tight labor market, would have welcomed ex-cons. Criminals could have gone straight. But leniency is not what happened.

Instead, "tough on crime" politicians pushed through longer sentences, fueling a massive boom in prison construction. In 1975 there were fewer than 600 state prisons in the U.S. By 2000 there were over a thousand —a 70 percent increase.

Many of those prisons are now being closed due to budget cuts.

If the leaders of our government and major corporations were smart, they would respond to booms and busts the opposite of the way they do.

During a boom, salaries are high. Stock prices rise. State and federal tax revenues go up. Governments run a surplus. Soon we hear calls to "give back" the people's money—by cutting their taxes. As a result, tax rates fall. So do government revenues.

This is stupid. During a period of economic growth and low unemployment, governments should increase taxes. After all, people can afford to pay more when they earn more. And booms eventually end. So some surplus should be set aside for a rainy day.

During a bust, salaries stagnate or decline. Securities markets seize up or crash. Governments run into fiscal trouble. So they raise taxes.

This is stupid too. People are broke. The last thing they can afford during a recession is higher taxes. Governments should cut taxes when the economy sucks. They should be drawing on that big nest egg they should have stashed away during the fat years to pay bills and stimulate recovery.

The Stupid Opposite Game has been in full effect since the mid-1990s. Bill Clinton, who presided over the largest and longest economic expansion in U.S. history, slashed income taxes. Barack Obama, dealing with the gravest economic catastrophe since the 19th century, is effectively increasing them. To Obama's credit, he doesn't have a choice. The cycle can only be broken during a boom. It has to begin with that nest egg.

Then there's spending.

Obama is a typical victim of the fear reflex, proposing a budget that freezes federal spending for the rest of his term—except for the military. Hit especially hard would be the Army Corps of Engineers and NASA.

This is exactly the opposite of the budget he ought to be proposing.

The Army Corps of Engineers builds the massive public works projects that create a ripple effect through the economy, immediately employing thousands of workers and leaving a legacy of infrastructure that can promote future economic growth. As FDR did during the 1930s, Obama ought to increase spending on infrastructure. Funding for NASA ends up paying a lot of salaries for scientists—people we ought to be encouraging.

The military budget, on the other hand, ought to be slashed. True, wars stimulate the economy. But they cost more than they earn—in lives, subsequent foreign aid and international contempt.

If CEOs and government officials were smart, they would be hiring like crazy. Millions of smart people are out of work. They can be hired much more cheaply than in the late 1990s. Plus they'll stay longer. Competitors real and imagined have vanished. There's less pressure to expand too quickly.

Venture capitalists ought to be loosening, not tightening, their purse strings. After all, there's no better time to start a new business. Eighteen of the top 30 Dow Jones index companies were founded during economic downturns, including Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Walt Disney, Adobe, Intel, Compaq and Microsoft.

So what is a good contrarian to do? Celebrate. Take chances. Because the sky really is falling—and that's great.

(Ted Rall is the author, with Pablo G. Callejo, of the new graphic memoir "The Year of Loving Dangerously." He is publishing a new political manifesto for Fall 2010. His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2010 TED RALL

Ted Rall Live Tonight in NYC

8 pm tonight in NYC: I'm talking comix and politics at the People's Improv Theater: Check out the 8 pm listing @ http://tinyurl.com/y87o8p8

Cartoon for February 1, 2010

Everyone agrees that socialized medicine is fine...in Haiti.

My Only Error...

...was drawing this more than a year ago.

Ted Rall on MSNBC Today

I'll be on MSNBC's "Dylan Ratigan Show" today at 1:40 pm West Coast/4:40 pm East Coast time to discuss my plans to return to Afghanistan and whatever else they want to discuss. The show's website: http://tinyurl.com/ybj7og3

Cartoon for January 29, 2010

Let freedom ring! For abstract legal entities, anyway.

Cartoon for January 27, 2010

Finally, Obama creates a few jobs--in the GOP.

ANIMATED CARTOON: Operation Haiti Freedom

The US made ZERO effort to help Haiti. Soldiers made aid shipments wait four (!) days to arrive while they established "command and control." Then for three more days, the aid sat at the airport, locked up and guarded...meanwhile, tens of thousands of people who could have been saved...died.

Check out my new animated editorial cartoon with David Essman. If you'd like these to continue, please ask your newspaper or magazine to run it on their website!

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Down the Haiti Memory Hole

Haiti News Coverage Turns Sublimely Ridiculous

Ah, "1984." As the cartoonist Matt Bors says, it's "the dystopian novel that keeps on giving."

Orwell's main character worked for a government ministry that controlled the future by changing the past. Its most effective tool: the Memory Hole. Pieces of history went in—poof!—never to be heard from again. Afterward, it was as if those particular events had never happened:

"The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia."

American news producers and editors have long been masters of the Memory Hole, purposefully omitting the most relevant information stories that would otherwise make the whatever the current regime is look bad. "President Hugo Chávez," reported The Washington Post in a typical example of spin from 2005, "has recently accused President Bush of plotting to assassinate him." Going on to slam Chávez's supposed "bluster and anti-American showmanship," the Post left something out: Chávez's accusation was true.

Still, no one could have anticipated the soaring brazenness or the cynical linguistic savagery U.S. state-controlled media would deploy while "covering" the invasion of Haiti.

[Given that it took at least four days after the earthquake before the U.S. military permitted relief supplies to land at the Port-au-Prince airport, turned away planes from such NGOs as Doctors Without Borders, and that Defense Secretary Robert Gates refused to release aid until a full week had passed, one can hardly call the deployment of 10,000 troops a relief operation.]

Vanished from news accounts of Operation Haitian Freedom—poof!—was the United States' century-long raping and pillaging of the country, including several CIA-backed coups that installed vicious dictators and a brutal occupation by U.S. Marines that lasted several decades.

There were hundreds of candidates to choose from in awarding this week's Haiti Memory Hole Prize, but the winner is The Oregonian, the daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon. On January 15th the paper published an editorial titled "A muscular paternalism for Haiti" with an incredible thesis:

"If the nations of the world had devoted to Haiti only a fraction of the diplomatic and military energy they have spent over the past five decades on nearby Cuba, the country would be far more advanced and able to aid in its own recovery today."

In other words, Haiti's problem isn't that the U.S. expropriated 40 percent of its GDP from 1915 to 1947. Or that the U.S. installed the father-and-son Duvalier team of "anti-Communist" dictators, who looted the Haitian treasury of more than $1 billion. Or that the CIA deposed Haiti's popular, and only democratically-elected president, not once, but twice—because he had the gall to push through an increase in the minimum wage for Haitians who work in sweatshops owned by U.S. companies.

Those events couldn't be responsible for Haiti's plight. Not even a little bit. Because, if you rely on The Oregonian for your news, you'd never know that that stuff happened.

"Perhaps the scope of the current disaster will at last shock these countries, including the United States, to conduct a muscular intervention into Haitian affairs," editorialized The Oregonian.

"At last"? What do they call a 20-year-long military occupation? Half a dozen military coups?

Like most of the world, Haiti would have been better off if we really had "neglected" them. How much of our "help" can these poor people stand?

At least The New York Times acknowledged "Haiti's long history of foreign intervention, including an American occupation" in its coverage. But like other papers that ran sickening—and treacly cartoons falsely depicting a friendly (white) Uncle Sam patronizingly deigning to assist clueless dark-skinned Haitians in their time of need—the most pertinent details had disappeared into the Memory Hole.

Here's an unexpurgated section of the Times' background coverage:

"President Woodrow Wilson sent American Marines to Haiti in 1915 to restore public order after six different leaders ruled the country in quick succession, each killed or forced into exile. Opposition was intense, but it would be nearly two decades before the Marines would leave, in 1934.

"When President Bill Clinton ordered troops into the country in 1994 to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted as president by a group of former soldiers, Haitian critics raised that earlier intervention.

"A decade later, Mr. Aristide was forced out of office, and he accused the United States of orchestrating his ouster."

Wilson said he invaded Haiti to restore public order. The real reason, historians widely acknowledge, was to transform the country into an economic vassal state, a Caribbean colony.

It's true that Clinton brought Aristide back to power. But his predecessor, George Herbert Walker Bush, had ordered a CIA coup that removed him in the first place.

Finally, Aristide wasn't "forced out of office" by some mysterious random power. The Times' editors knew that. After all, their own newspaper ran a page-one story on March 1, 2004 titled: "Aristide Flees After a Shove From the U.S." So when Aristide "accused the United States of orchestrating his ouster," he was "accusing" the U.S. of doing what The New York Times reported that it did.

True, this information is available to anyone who cares to spend a few minutes Googling it. The point is, few people have the time, energy or inclination to second-guess everything they read. Like Winston Smith in "1984," they start to wonder whether they misremembered events as they were originally reported. Maybe we really have always been at war with Eurasia. Maybe we really did invade Haiti in 1915 merely to "restore order." Or maybe, if you live in Portland, this is the first time the U.S. or any other country has ever bothered to pay attention to Haiti. Who knows?

What I want to know is: Why do editors and producers do it? Why do they leave out the basic facts? It's not like they get a call from Big Brother ordering them to spin or delete historical facts from their coverage. They do it voluntarily.

What are they afraid of?

(Ted Rall is the author, with Pablo G. Callejo, of the new graphic memoir "The Year of Loving Dangerously." He is also the author of the Gen X manifesto "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids." His website is tedrall.com.)

New Animation Sends Up Operation Haitian Freedom

The US sent troops instead of aid, blocking aid shipments for four days to set up "command and control" for the invasion as Haitian earthquake victims lay dying, trapped under rubble. No one has the balls to attack the Obama Administration for this act of genocide by neglect. Well, until this afternoon...

new Ted Rall/David Essman animation out in hours!

Cartoon for January 25, 2010

Food, soldiers, or both?

The Whole Sad Story

From Slate:

"Command and control" turned out to be the key words. The U.S. military did what the U.S. military does. Like a slow-witted, fearful giant, it built a wall around itself, commandeering the Port-au-Prince airport and constructing a mini-Green Zone. As thousands of tons of desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies piled up behind the airport fences—and thousands of corpses piled up outside them—Defense Secretary Robert Gates ruled out the possibility of using American aircraft to airdrop supplies: "An airdrop is simply going to lead to riots," he said. The military's first priority was to build a "structure for distribution" and "to provide security." (Four days and many deaths later, the United States began airdropping aid.)