Support Ted’s Work

“After We Kill You” Dates: Decatur Book Festival, Strand NYC, SF, Chicago and more

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Ted Rall

Tomorrow I’m flying to Atlanta for the annual AJC Decatur Book Festival, so if you’re planning to attend, I’d love to meet you! I’ll be speaking and showing work from “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan” this Sunday, August 31st at 2:30 pm at the Decatur Recreation Center Gym.

Next week, I’ll be back in NYC:

Wednesday, September 3, 2014
7:00 PM
The Strand
828 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Here are some more upcoming dates, for San Francisco and Chicago. I’m also thrilled to be able to confirm my first-ever appearance at Powell’s Books in Portland, which is without a doubt one of the best, if not the best, book store in the United States.

For a full schedule, check out rall.com/events. I keep it updated.

Monday, September 22, 2014
6:00 PM
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Saturday, September 27, 2014
9:00 PM
The Seminary Co-op Bookstores
5751 S Woodlawn Ave
Chicago, IL 60637

If you don’t see your city on the list, please get in touch with your local bookstore, university or political group about arranging an appearance this fall.

Last Night’s DGR Panel

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Ted Rall

Thanks to everyone who came out for last night’s panel discussion, “Creating Strategies for Revolution,” sponsored by Deep Green Resistance to discuss the relationship between the environment and Revolution. It was an interesting and worthwhile discussion, and I enjoyed debating with Chris Hedges, whom I met for the first time, but the takeaway for me was: how are we going to overthrow the government when we can’t even define basic terms that are in the dictionary?

Even people on the Left can’t seem to understand basics like:

Revolution is the violent overthrow of one class by another.

An independence struggle, like India, is not a Revolution.

An anti-racism struggle, like South Africa under apartheid, is not a Revolution.

A Revolution has not occurred unless society is radically transformed socially, culturally, economically and politically.

A Revolution is both a process and an achievement.

Identity politics divide those who would fight for Revolution, and thus supports the oppression of the ruling class.

It is imperative to identify, and hate, enemies to be defeated.

The Left has a LOT of work to do to get its shit together.

 

Ted Rall with Chris Hedges

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Ted Rall

I’ll be speaking tomorrow night at 7 pm in NYC:

Wednesday, August 27, 2014
7PM – 9PM
Creating Strategies for Revolution
Project Reach Community Center
39 Eldridge Street
4th Floor
New York NY 10002
A panel discussion with Chris Hedges, members of Autonomous Indigenous Movement, People’s Survival Program, OWS Zapatista, One Struggle and Deep Green Resistance.

Note: address has changed.

Al Sharpton’s Sellout

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Ted Rall

NYT: ““We are not here to cause riots; we are here because violence was caused,” Mr. Sharpton said at a rally after the march, adding, “an illegal chokehold is violence.” But, he said, “we are not against the police.””

I am. Against the police, that is.

If you’re for the police, you’re for racism and state oppression. Because that’s what they do.

LOS ANGELES TIMES CARTOON: Bootlegging the Bootleggers (Apartment Edition)

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Ted Rall

Home Sweet Sign

Every year in Los Angeles, the city housing department learns that 600 to 700 enterprising urban homesteaders have built “bootleg apartments” without bothering to obtain permits. According to a Times piece by Emily Alpert Reyes, this activity has brought an “unusual alliance of landlords and tenants” who want the city to issue an amnesty for those units that conform to safety codes.

“Landlords argue that many of these nonconforming apartments are perfectly safe. And tenant advocates say they often provide rare patches of affordable housing in a city of whopping rents,” writes Reyes.

Current practice, Amos Hartson, chief counsel and director of legal services at Inner City Law Center, is to “evict tenants and rip out the unit” after they’re discovered. Both sides see this as a waste of perfectly good housing.

Reyes: “The details are still being worked out, but backers say the idea is simple: Landlords could come forwardand fix plumbing, wiring or other issues without enduring a lengthy, expensive process to comply with city codes. Tenants could avoid being displaced from decent apartments.”

Not everyone is cool with this. “If you follow this lawless path, you’d very quickly see the quality of life deteriorate for residents in lawful, permitted apartments,” said Steve Sann, chairman of the Westwood Community Council. “It’s a fiction to say you can cram more people in the same space and nobody loses out.”

Though seemingly novel, there are precedents for retroactively legitimizing living spaces that began outside the normal legal strictures. New York’s SoHo district, now a tony tourist neighborhood choking with high-end boutiques, was populated during the bad old 1980s days by artists roughing it in former industrial lofts, sometimes without running water, much less certificates of occupancy. A “Loft Law” allows people who can prove they’ve been in their now-seven-figure spaces since the “C.H.U.D.” period to keep them. Also in New York, squatters have occasionally been allowed to keep “their” homes — sometimes even collecting city loans to help them make improvements.

In Los Angeles, the police won’t arrest a squatter unless there’s proof a crime has been committed — and he can only be evicted as the result of a civil proceeding, which can take many months. But that’s an ad hoc, not a systemic, policy.

Which brings us to Sann’s point. If anyone can create a bootleg apartment anywhere he or she wants, aren’t those of us who pay rents and mortgages — not to mention real estate taxes — suckers to play by the rules? The median price of a three-bedroom house in L.A. county is $668,000. Wouldn’t it be smarter to set ourselves up anywhere we want, then get legal later?

For this cartoon, I fantasize about moving into the ultimate view, from the top of the Hollywood sign. Because the setting doesn’t have a lot of intrinsic detail, I worked a little harder than usual on the foliage.

Because I Love You

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Ted Rall

My new book, “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests: Embedded in Afghanistan” comes out in two weeks! (I am SO going to regret choosing that long title.) I’m getting ready to do a series of discussions and book signings all over the United States during September, October and November, and in preparation I have been going through photos of my 2010 trip. That’s when I found this beauty:

Trippy

 

It’s the courtyard of the empty wedding banquet hall where we stayed in Taliban-controlled Taloqan, in Takhar Province near the Tajikistani border.

Freedom, you see isn’t free – there’s a terrible price to pay in terms of taste.

Obama Says His Silly NGO Would Have Saved Michael Brown

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Ted Rall

This is an early release due to the timely nature of this cartoon:

President Obama suggested that My Brother’s Keeper, a broad coalition of backers of local and national leaders in philanthropy, business, government, faith communities, and media that meets periodically at fancy resort hotels to discuss the challenges facing boys and young men of color, might have saved Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, from being shot to death by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer.

My Brother's Keeper Scrambles Into Action

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