Support Ted’s Work

Computer Fundraiser – Week Two

•
Ted Rall

It’s week two of my computer fundraiser for a laptop and desktop computer to replace my quickly crashing and dying machines.

First, I’d like to thank the generous donors who kicked in $1,420 so far. Clearly the laptop is paid for (plus necessary software). Now I’m pressing onward for the desktop.

There simply isn’t enough money in print any more to justify drawing or writing. Welcome to neo-feudalism. Artists need patrons to survive…but the rich aren’t very interested in the kind of work I do. This is the brave new world of political writing—if you care about content, you have to pay for it directly. .

2012 found me in need for a pair of new computers—a laptop for travel and a sturdy desktop for day-to-day production of cartoons and columns. It’s also important to have two machines in case one suddenly decides to crash. Thanks to you, the laptop is taken care of. Even if that’s all I get, I am incredibly overjoyed and humbled by the response.

My existing machines are ancient—the desktop dates to 2002—so I’ve actually done pretty well by these guys.

The more you donate, the more you get back:

$50 – signed rough sketch

$100 – signed copy of The Anti-American Manifesto

$250 – original artwork for a syndicated cartoon

$1000 = artwork for five original cartoons, plus I’ll meet you for drinks in NYC

$5000 – artwork for ten original cartoons, plus I’ll fly anywhere in the continental US to meet you for drinks AND give a speech to a local group of your choice

To donate simply click the PayPal button in the right margin of this website and write “Computer Fundraiser” in the subject line. Make sure you include your email address and mailing address.

2012 Ted Rall Subscription Service

•
Ted Rall

With the New Year comes my annual appeal to consider signing up for my Email Subscription Service. You’ll get my cartoons, columns and other material delivered straight to your inbox as soon as they’re created—often days before they appear online. Get all the details here.

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH COLUMN: The Inevitability of Mitt Romney

•
Ted Rall

“Conventional wisdom” has kept other GOP candidates at bay and ensured Romney remains the likely Republican nominee.

“Why don’t they like me?” Time magazine asked on the cover of its December 1, 2011 issue, next to a face shot of a bushy-browed American politician Mitt Romney.

According to that nebulous vapour that accompanies conventional wisdom, the former governor of Massachusetts will inevitably emerge as the Republican Party’s nominee to challenge President Barack Obama in November.

The wise white men of the media also posit that the GOP isn’t happy about it. The pundits say that Republicans feel that it’s Romney’s turn in a party that traditionally hands its top spot to the guy (Dole, Reagan, Bush, etc.) who’s been patiently waiting. The pundits also say that Republicans also feel that Romney is too liberal, too squishy, and too Mormon for a party that has been hijacked by its right-wing Tea Party faction and right-wing Christian fundamentalists based in the South and Midwest.

As these conflicting narratives play themselves out in editorial pages and news analyses, the twisted relationship between media determinism and popular democracy is being exposed in sharper relief than in any recent election.

Reporters tell us – and no doubt believe – that they are dutifully relating the Republican Party’s discomfort with Romney’s inevitable turn.

There was no mention made of a similar inevitability when Hillary Clinton, heir apparent to the Democratic throne, was vying for the Democratic nomination four years ago.

Phil Singer, adviser to Hillary in ’08, was quoted in an October 13, 2011 ABC News piece (headline: “Is Romney Inevitable?”) saying that there’s a “Goldilocks balance” to the inevitability dance: “You want to be inevitable, but not too inevitable because it takes away a sense of urgency from your supporters”, Singer said. “If you create this perception of inevitability you run the risk of seeing a more lacklustre turnout than you would need for a favourable result.” But, on the other hand, he also said that “inevitability is an asset in terms of chilling your opponent from raising money and mounting a challenge”.

But what about the media’s role in a story they’re supposed to be covering, rather than shaping? Would Romney be the widely-accepted frontrunner without their description of him as such? Would Republicans be annoyed by Mitt’s reputation as a flip-flopper – a tag that could stick to just about any politician anywhere – if the punditocracy didn’t go on-and-on about it?

Read the full article at Al Jazeera English.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: How To Talk To An Obama Voter (If You Must)

•
Ted Rall

In 2012 Politics Is In The Streets—Not the Voting Booth

The Occupy movement is lying low. The Tea Party has been completely absorbed into the Republican Party—just another interest group. The only politics anyone talks about is the presidential horserace.

Don’t be fooled. This is temporary.

Spring will come. Robins will sing. The Occupations will return, bigger, energized and more militant. Don’t be surprised if movements more militant, further to the Left than Occupy, begin to emerge.

What passes for politics—Democrats, Republicans, vacuous debates over mini-issues (flag burning, taxes, deficits, gays) as the big issues go ignored (jobs, income inequality, militarism)—will be finally, totally and irreversibly exposed as the irrelevant, distracting farce they are.

Politics is about to move into the streets. Where they belong. Where they live in countries whose citizens are engaged in the fight over their destinies.

There will be primaries and party conventions and debates. All part of a ridiculous sideshow.

Get ready. 2012 is set to become our year of revolution.

No more will we outsource our lives to 435 oily white men in Washington and 50 random idiots in the state capitals. We will demand what is ours: freedom, dignity, equality, justice, fairness, decency. We will vote with the signs we hold. We will debate our neighbors in parks, cafes and bars. Our elections will be held in clouds of pepper spray, amid swinging batons and flying rocks.

It’s on.

Can you feel it?

Not everyone can. Maybe their instincts have been dulled. That’s OK. People are different.

People who don’t understand that everything has changed are gearing up for a presidential election. Obama versus Probably Romney. Should they vote? If so, for whom? Should they canvass/work the phones/donate to the corporate candidate of “their” choice?

We who feel it need those who don’t feel it at our sides. We who are ready to emancipate humankind, we who are challenging the monstrous hegemony of a corporate state with bottomless pockets and an endless capacity for violence can’t afford to have millions of intelligent, otherwise like-minded allies distracted, sucked into the vortex of electoral BS. We need everyone—including the Obamabots.

They’ve been programmed with talking points. Here’s how you counter them.

Obamabot Talking Point: If I don’t vote for Obama, the Even Worse Republicans win.

Answer: So vote for Obama. Or don’t vote. It makes no difference either way. Voting is like praying to God. It doesn’t hurt. Nor does it do any good. As with religion, the harm comes from the self-delusion of thinking you’re actually doing something. You’re not. Wanna save the world? Or just yourself? That, you’ll have to do outside, in the street.

In a second term, a reelected Obama who doesn’t have to worry about running again will be free to do cool liberal stuff.

Lame duck, anyone? Second-termers are weak. Look at previous presidents’ second terms: Bush 2005-2009, Clinton 1997-2001, Reagan 1985-1989, Nixon 1973-1974. Not much got done. Lots of scandals. Second-termers do worry about the next election; they want a successor from their party (typically their veep). Anyway, there is no evidence—none—that Obama ever wanted to do cool liberal stuff. He never promised any. Dude was a conservative Democrat all along. In a second term he’ll be a weak conservative Democrat so preoccupied trying to hand off the baton to Biden that he won’t float anything risky.

Lesser-evilism, yo. Gotta do whatever it takes so that Romney/Gingrich/Ron Paul doesn’t get in. Gimme those Obama totebags!

In the short run, this is a valid argument. If we were only considering this one election, it would make sense to get Obama in again. Anything to keep those crazy Republicans out.

Over the long term, however, lesser-evilism falls apart.

When the argument for every Democrat is that he’s not a Republican, when every Democrat who wins proves a disappointing imitation of the Republicans his supporters were supposedly voting against, when the net result is a string of alternating Democrats and Republicans who basically do the same thing, especially on the major issues, this election isn’t some special “let’s hold our nose this one time” but merely part of a rancid continuum that we should be opposing with all of our strength and energy—something we can’t do if we’re out pounding the pavement on behalf of a man who is oppressing us just as surely as his so-called “enemies.”

(Ted Rall is the author of “The Anti-American Manifesto.” His website is tedrall.com.)

COPYRIGHT 2011 TED RALL

New Auction: Dinner or Drinks in Manhattan with Moi

•
Ted Rall

Just when you thought I’d given up whoring myself out: I’ve just posted a new chance to have dinner or drinks with me on eBay.

Winner gets two hours of drinks and/or winner (on you, naturally) with yours truly. Plus a signed book to commemorate the evening. Or afternoon. Or whatever.

This must take place in Manhattan. If, however, you’d like to fly me to where you live, you can arrange such a thing outside of eBay. Just email me. For the right price, I’ll even be funny. For higher than the right price, I’ll speak to your group.

Minimum bid is 99 cents, so don’t be cheap.

I’m meeting my first auction winner tomorrow night in Manhattan!

World’s Stickiest Radio

•
Ted Rall

Behold the Tivoli Audio SongBook clock-radio: nice sound, cool interface, the world’s stickiest case. That piece of paper is literally stuck there like a Sticky Note:

20111226-140320.jpg

Surely there’s some fetishist out there who would enjoy the hairy radio vibe, but I ain’t quite that kinky.

I just sent off a letter to Tivoli Audio to see if they’ll do the right thing. I’ll keep you posted.

Tom DeVesto, Chairman and CEO
Tivoli Audio. LLC
Seaport Center
70 Fargo Street
Suite 901
Boston, MA 02210

Re: Defective SongBook Clock-Radio

Dear Mr. DeVesto:

I am a big fan of your products and own several of them. I am, however, extremely disappointed in your SongBook and—more importantly—to your company’s lack of responsiveness about what is clearly a systemic product failure.

I have repeatedly contacted Customer Service via your website but have received no reply whatsoever to my queries.

I am enclosing a blue SongBook clock-radio that I have owned for several years. It is, needless to say, out of warranty. It is also melting.

First the plastic casing became sticky. Then it became stickier. Now it’s so sticky that you it is covered with dust and hair. It works great otherwise. But the casing is so disgusting that—well, you’ll see. Take a look.

I am not alone. Others have obviously had this problem:

http://reviews.cnet.com/radios/tivoli-audio-songbook-black/4864-7875_7-31605044-3.html

http://alatest.com/reviews/portable-radio-reviews/tivoli-audio-songbook/po3-32479072,7/

I wish I had read these reviews before purchasing.

Anyway, this is obviously a design error. A company—especially a company like Tivoli, for whom good design is central to your business—should step up and replace or refund its design errors, not ignore queries to its website.

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you very much in advance for your attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Ted Rall

Computer Nightmare!

•
Ted Rall

Just in time for Christmas, it’s–

the Computer Meltdown Problem of Doom!

When things go, they all go at once. Like the economy.

I have two computers: a 2006 MacBookPro laptop and a 2002 G3 tower. Both have been acting quirky for a while. The laptop whirs and buzzes and the tower survived a blue screen of death after three days of rebuilding it. But it’s clear that both are at death’s door. The laptop now no longer allows the single-click option; everything is a double-click. Super annoying. And the tower moves…so…slow…

I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do. I need a new laptop for travel and a new iMac for home to do my work, not to mention finish the two books I owe, but I am ridiculously broke.

Is it me, or is there something strange about having to give the Steve Jobs Estate $7000 (new puters plus software) every few years?

I’m trying to think up some offer that would generate $7000—I’ll illustrate that children’s book you’ve always wanted to get published?—sexual favors?—while I watch my machines fade away.

Anyway, happy Christmas. If your computer still works well enough to read this.

keyboard_arrow_up
css.php