New Iraq Slogger Cartoon

I have a new cartoon up at Iraq Slogger.com. It’s a reaction to Bush’s State of the Union proposal to relieve overburdened US troops in Iraq with a volunteer Civilian Corps.

Why Barack Obama is a Boomer

Bruce was among several correspondents who questioned a recent cartoon, in which I stated that Senator Barack Obama would be, if elected, America’s first Generation X president:

I believe that the baby boom was 1946-1964, so I don’t think Obama qualifies as a Gen-Xer.

G.M. said:

As much fun as it is, Obama is still the end of the Baby boom. I mean, he graduated high school in the 70s. No Duran-Duran or Pearl Jam for him. You know, Toto and Fleetwood Mac don’t really make for proper Gen-Xing.

Back in the 1990s, before the rest of the world hated us and people cared about generational politics and magazine editors hired me to write a lot of lengthy articles, I published a lengthy treatise on the various definitions of Generation X for Link Magazine. As I noted in the article, there’s a wide range of disagreement on which birth years constitute the Gen X cohort.

Over the years I have come to accept Neil Strauss and William Howe’s definition of Gen X as running between 1961 and 1981. Americans born between these years tend to have certain cultural and economic touchstones in common. The traditional (demographic) differential, which marks the start of Gen X at 1964, doesn’t account for the fact that those of us born in 1961-62-63 (includes me) have nothing in common with Baby Boomers–whether it’s music or the ability to afford college or our first homes.

No one has thought or written more about American generations than Mssrs. Strauss and Howe, most ably in their stunning and bizarrely overlooked tome “Generations,” which literally defines generations and types of generations all the way back to the Colonial era.

Those of us born in 1961, 1962 and 1963 grew up listening to punk, disco and New Wave–for us, the Doors and Beatles were the music of our much older brothers and sisters, if not the old stoner dudes up the street (and obviousy FM radio). We became adults during the 1980s, into a world of diminished expectations and falling incomes. Boomers were already in their 30s, and had the jobs and incomes we wanted. Conduct a poll of those birth years and I guarantee you that very few of them would self-identify with the Baby Boom.

In a way, it all comes down to how someone “feels” to you. Does Obama feel more Boomer or Gen X to you? To me, he’s obviously an Xer, though perhaps barely across the finish line of our simultaneously alienated and happy-go-lucky cohort. In the end, of course, one must look to Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X.” When it came out, Gen X = twentysomething. By that measure, I—and Barack Obama—were Gen Xers.

A Layman’s Review of SILK ROAD TO RUIN

There’s a solid review of SILK ROAD by a typical reader at the blog Rat’s Reading.

“Treated Like a Leftist Lunatic”

Kel is frustrated at the way I’ve been treated for the last six years, while consistently-proven-wrong pundits like Thomas Friedman have collected critical plaudits:

What I still don’t understand about humans or American humans is their ability to deny the obvious or their ability to deny or never bother to understand human nature.  You have been right about this scum of an administration and their evil intentions from the get-go.  Yet liars and idiots who give nothing but their less than knowledgeable opinions or they simply regurgitate White House talking points to be passed off as well thought out opinions, are given respect and accolades by this same media.  T. Friedman, G. Will or C. Matthews to name but a few, are given the utmost respect by this same media.  I can’t think of an area in which you were wrong, but if there is one or two, it pales in comparison to the multitude of things you were right about. 

The above names have yet to be right about anything in relation to Bush or this evil war.  Your writing contained research, even firsthand research in the region.  Your columns are well thought out and researched as well.  Your facts were there for all to see.  Yet you were treated by the MSM as a leftist lunatic that absolutely should not be taken seriously.  Now that you have been proven overwhelmingly correct in all your assessments, or most of them anyway, about this war and this administration, I wonder if that has changed.  I doubt it, quite unfortunately.  But my confusion about humans is why they will listen to liars and idiots as opposed to people who are correct.  Why, Santy Clause why?  It has happened throughout history as Galileo can attest (Galileo vs. the fucking idiotic lying pope or Clinton vs. Gingrich in more modern times).  I have spent a lot of time trying to understand human nature but I just can’t get my head around this aspect of humanity and its subsequent complete idiocy.  Why are people who are right marginalized and those that couldn ‘t be more wrong and are usually continuously so treated as intelligent and taken seriously? 
 
I wanted to let you know that I am a big fan and you are one of the reasons I continue to believe in humanity.  I don’t know why people like you are marginalized, even like Galileo, when you can show by the facts that you are correct. Thanks for all you do.  I know it has to take guts and some huge balls to keep fighting with all of this country’s idiots threatening you with death.  Those of us with a functioning brain see you as the hero you are.
Thank you, thank you very much, Kel

No, thank you, Kel and everyone else, for reading. And for supporting my work, not least by buying my books. It’s humbling.

Ted Rall at New York Comicon, Feb. 23-25

New York’s Comicon is only a few years old but has already grown into the biggest comics convention in the city. This year’s convention, at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center on 11th Avenue and 33rd Street, will feature me not only selling and signing copies of my new books Silk Road to Ruin and America Gone Wild at the NBM Publishing table, but also two panel discussions in which I will be a participant.

Both panels will take place on Sunday, February 25.

1 pm: “Attitude”-themed panel featuring Attitude cartoonists Neil Swaab (“Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles”), Mikhaela B. Reid (“The Boiling Point”), David Rees (“Get Your War On”), and Ward Sutton (“Sutton Impact”).

3 pm: “How to Get Syndicated” Panel (I’ll be repping United Media)

“Diesel Sweeties,” by R. Stevens

Diesel Sweeties has been a great webcomic since 2000. Now it’s a kick-ass daily comic strip that I strongly urge you to check out.

Of course, I’m biased. I first came across R. Stevens’ comic strip about the romance between a robot and a flesh-and-blood hu-man while researching my book Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists. And, when United Media asked me to pick comics for syndication to daily newspapers, “Diesel Sweeties” was my first pick.

I haven’t felt this excited about a daily comic strip for ages, and I hope you like it too.

You can check out “Diesel Sweeties” in print in the Seattle Times, Portland Oregonian, Rocky Mountain News, Detroit News, Albuquerque Tribune, Houston Chronicle and other papers across the United States. If you’d like your local paper to consider it, please write them a letter to the editor.

It’s an American Dictator, Stupid

What do you call a political leader who does whatever he pleases? A dictator. When there’s no meaningful internal opposition to his actions, he’s a durable one.

For those Americans who still doubt that the 2000 (and probably 2004) elections were a coup d’état carried out by a military-corporate junta of bandits, looters and mass murderers–OK, I get it, it’s hard to accept–the rabid cat is out of the bag. George W. Bush is a dictator.

What else can you call a leader who wages a wildly unpopular war and then escalates it after citizens have delivered a resounding and overwhelming no-confidence vote? Bush is a tyrant, and he’s every bit as deranged and dangerous as his father’s former employee, whom he sent to the gallows last week.

The Democrats? Useless, as usual. They’re planning to try to possibly pass a non-binding resolution, not even calling for a full-fledged pullout but merely asking pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top for Bush to not send another 20,000 to 40,000 troops. To a war, remember, that no one wants anymore. At all.

I don’t say this lightly: Bush is a dictator, albeit one mildly inconvenienced from time to time by remnants of the former opposition party. And we live in a dictatorship.

It’s the Iraqi Resistance, Stupid

I’ve been using the term for years, but isn’t it finally time, nearly four years into the occupation of Iraq, for the American media to join the rest of the world? That’s right. It’s time to stop calling the Iraqis who are resisting our oppressive presence “insurgents” and use a word that fits a lot better: “resistants.”

I know. They don’t wear berets or blow up Nazis. They don’t look like the French Resistance, which virtually defines the word in the American psyche. But the media has already quietly dropped the fiction that the Iraqi government is sovereign. Most press accounts refer to the “occupation.”

The Iraqi resistance fits the bill in all the important ways: they are using violence to resist the U.S. occupation and its puppet regime. More importantly, “insurgency” implies a nascent movement that may or may not last. You can have an insurgency for a year or two. What we have now looks more permanent. Can anyone imagine a scenario in which the Iraqis put away their guns and IEDs before we leave?

Ted Rall Subscription Service

It’s that time again! As you may recall, I charge for the Ted Rall Subscription Service–whereby you receive my cartoons and columns in your e-mail box well before the rest of the world gets them on the web (in some cases, days before) and you support my work–annually. With the New Year comes my request for you to consider signing up for the TRSS.

After discussion with some current subscribers I have decided to keep the rate the same as last year, $25. So if you’d like to get my stuff by email, please pay in one of the two easy ways:

BY MAIL: Send $25 to Ted Rall, PO Box 1134, New York NY 10027. Make sure to include your email address with your payment!

BY PAYPAL: Email me at chet@rall.com and I’ll tell you what to do.

Thanks again for your support and Happy 2007!