East Coast v. Gold Coast

J.L. writes:

Re: You and Chris Ware
You know this is the type of beef that got Biggie killed…
Regards,
A Fan Of Both

Yo, bald bitch! Just kidding.

The U.S.: Imperialist Aggressors

Gabe writes from Canada:

An excellent piece. In fact the anti-war movement was inundated with the same imperial patriotism that afflicts the movement today, with slogans like Bring Our Boys Home, there was a similar, support the troops, oppose their actions orientation both of those who sought a full withdrawal and conservative elements that wanted to limit demands to a moratorium on bombing N. Vietnam. The Rambo origins of the myth is interesting…

I do have a disagreement with your article. I do not believe that the US military has ever been an honourable occupation, any more than the British or the French. With only two exceptions (world wars), every war America has waged has been as imperial aggressors. (Even with WWI, I would have difficulty regarding the Entente as morally superior to the Central Powers, especially considering that Britain and France had much more extensive empires than Germany.) Also, I do not regard the atrocities of the West as equivalent to the murderous response of the colonised (9-11), a distinction that is politically difficult to argue in North America, but is less so when considered from the realm of global human experience.

Certainly the United States was not obliged to involve itself in World War I. That was America’s attempt, with a military flush with cash from the first modern income tax, to compete with the European powers for global domination. We also provoked the Japanese into the Pearl Harbor attack with our military blockade, although it was for the betterment of mankind that Imperial Japan was defeated (and obviously Nazi Germany as well).

Obviously 9/11 pales compared to the scale of murder abetted by American foreign policy. Heck, America has already murdered nearly 200,000 people in retaliation for the deaths of 3,000. But yes, it is difficult to get insular and insulated Americans to see that.

Bad People Do Bad Things

Rachel writes:

Just a quick comment about this week’s column. You asked the rhetorical question, ‘How is a person who voluntarily commits “horrible crimes against humanity” not a “bad person”? ‘ I think it’s _especially_ important to think of people who commit horrible crimes against humanity as ordinary people. Hell, even the Nazis were, in fact, ordinary people. (It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, but I’m sure you have a copy of Hannah Arendt’s _Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil_.)

Sure do. Also worth checking out is “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” But onward:

Once we start thinking of them as “bad people”, we’re not too far from labelling them as “evil-doers”. What I’m trying to say is that if we think of them as “other” people, we won’t consider _ourselves_ to be capable of this. From the military’s point of view, if the Nazis were just “evil-doers”, the US military couldn’t possibly commit human rights violations because we’re “good”, and when we torture people, it’s out of necessity, not out of “evil.” (Of course, for this logic to work, the military would need to believe that torture produces good intelligence, which is bullshit.)

It’s truly terrifying to think that anyone is capable of genocide or any human rights violations, but trying to describe people who commit these horrific acts as other than human can distance us from the reality of human rights violations, and allows a greater possibility of history repeating itself.

I’m a little dumbfounded that my column could have given anyone the impression that I view troops who commit atrocities, and even those who make the wrong moral choice by fighting an illegal war for an unelected dictator, as less than human. We’re all human. Adolf Hitler was human. My thinking relies greatly on Sartre’s view that we are defined by our actions, specifically our worst actions. So troops who commit gross violations of human rights are, by definition, bad people. Of course they are many other things as well: sons, brothers, lovers, accountants, auto mechanics, firefighters, soccer fans. But if morality is to have any meaning, we have to be able to point at someone who does something bad and say: that person is a bad person.

Bush’s “evildoers” is reductionist to the extreme and, more to the point, distracts from the pertinent issue of what motivates, say, 19 young men to kill themselves so they can take a bunch of Americans with them. It is also the height of impertinence to trivialize one’s enemies while it is nothing more than hypertrivialization to minimize the sins of your own side.

Chris Ware Parody Cartoon

I’m getting a lot of “WTF?” emails, more than I anticipated, as the result of today’s cartoon. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Chris Ware is a graphic illustrator who, among other things, also draws a comic strip in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. This is an (attempted) send-up of that. I thought he was better known than he is. My apologies to those who didn’t get the joke.

Global Warming Blog?

Steve asks a boon:

I love your blog, your comics, and your weekly columns. You do an excellent job of presenting a view on disputed topics which would otherwise be neglected. You have become quite the power-proponent of underdog views. While I know this makes you unpopular in conservative media, I have nothing but respect for you.
As such, I ask a boon.
Please consider writing a blog on global warming because the mis-information is reaching critical levels. I keep talking to people about this issue who are getting crap science from neo-con media. These clowns are convinced that global warming is either NOT real or NOT human sourced. I’m asking that you consider writing something to help attack such myths. Some good links are at http://ironlabyrinth.blogspot.com/

I almost feel the same way about the global warming deniers as most scientists feel about the idiotic design simpletons: to argue with them is validate their position as a serious one. It isn’t. Must we give flat-earthers, supply-siders and Bush-won-in-2000ers equal time when the truth has been proven repeatedly. One of the most wearisome aspects of Internet debate is the time-wasting aspect of the willfully ignorant.

Typical Internet argument:
“So what do we do about global warming?”
“There is no global warming. If there is, prove it!”
“OK, check out and “

At best the challenger simply melts away into cyberspace, possibly convinced but unwilling to admit it in public. At worst he continues:

“Those links don’t mean anything! Statistics can be twisted! Scientists are all liberal!” (OK, the last one is true. Hm. Wonder why?)

Iit’s a total fucking waste of time to discuss things with the uninformed, half of whom I suspect are 12-year-old kids (and not the well-read type) anyway.

Global warming is an irrefurtable fact. As the Inuits told the New York Times a few weeks ago in their remarkable series about its effects in the Arctic (including the fact that the polar ice cap is now officially doomed), there’s no debate. All you have to do is go up there and take a look.

I’ve just finished editing the latest installation in the ATTITUDE series: ATTITUDE 3: THE SUBVERSIVE NEW MEDIA CARTOONISTS! Like its predecessors ATTITUDE and ATTITUDE 2, ATTITUDE 3 collects cartoons by, interviews with and never published before rare artwork by 21 groundbreaking humor, social commentary and political cartoonists. This time, however, ATTITUDE takes on the exciting and vibrant world of webcomics: Internet-based cartoons that, with few exceptions, only appear online. ATTITUDE 3 is a primer to webcomics but, more than that, it’s a damned cool and funny book. Amazon will soon be accepting pre-orders and those who place their orders early will be rewarded not in the next world but in this one–watch this space. Official publication date is June 2006.

Stupid Bush Quote of the Week

And there are so many to choose from!

This one comes from last night’s lighting of the White House Christmas tree:

“America’s military men and women stand for freedom and they serve the cause of peace.”

Right. The military is all about serving the cause of peace. And you thought Orwell was dead.

This Sunday San Franciscans should join the Ted Rall Showfrom 11 am to pm. All others must wait until (sigh) live-streaming finally comes online! All I know is what they tell me, folks, and they tell me it’ll be any day now. Which means maybe later this month. I don’t know. When I know you’ll know.

This Sunday I’ll interview Princeton University immigration expert Douglas Massey on his ideas on how to resolve the current immigration crisis (hint:make immigration easy and legal, thus eradicating illegal immigration). Also join fellow cartoonists Mikhaela B. Reid (“The Boiling Point”) and Ruben Bolling (“Tom the Dancing Bug”) for a cartoonists’ roundtable discussion of the week’s news.

The Nanny Media

John points out a problem with the media that has long bothered me but that I’ve never articulated in public before:

Hello Ted,
I just read your column about how the media can restore its credibility. All your points were spot on, but I’d like to add one more that is counter-intuitive.
Right now I’m reading George Packer’s book Assassin’s Gate. In it, Packer describes a scene during which an American guard demeans and humiliates a detainee by using obscenity. Summarizing the conversation does not do it justice. Only reading it verbatim conveys what every American knows: When we use the F word among friends, it’s a sign of affinity. When we use it among strangers, especially when the stranger is in a difficult situation, it’s a sign of dominance and often an indication that we are willing to resort to violence. How does a reporter respond when every other word is an expletive? Usually, he skips the whole statement or he reduces it to a meaningless exchange.
From there, where do the newspapers go? Well, they can’t show pictures of dead bodies. From there? They can’t show coffins. From there, if they travel with troops, they can’t publish the obscenity laden dialog of soldiers. From there, they have to rely on press conferences, which, as you mentioned in your article, are a source of lies, not news. The ultimate result is the daily news media go from a fear of publishing the obscene to a fear of publishing the offensive.
What does the public get? A litany of mundane, feel-good stories; a streak of political “gotcha” stories; a limitless supply of superstar screw-ups; and, when foreign events are covered, they are watered down to the point that they bore most adults. Acceptable for kids, palatable for the easily offended, boring to the average adult who requires something a little more visceral to pique his interest.
Mark Twain originally published his book Innocents Abroad in a newspaper, the Daily Alta California. By today’s standards it is a highly offensive book (it points out the sanctimony, cruelty, and hypocrisy of pilgrimaging Christians), and it is not journalism because it relies simply on the keen observations of the journalist. Now imagine Packard trying to get his book published in any daily newspaper in America. Forget the neocon history, or the relevance, or the fact that it paints a detailed picture of Iraqis that Americans rarely see, it would be banned because it is written as a first-person narrative and because it is spiced with the occasional expletive.
Journalists have a long litany of words and things they can’t publish, but far war worse is the fact that journalists cannot publish their own observations because personal observations, particularly in a war zone, are often rife with obscenities, offensive topics, and dead bodies.
If I could say one thing to the readers of the trade journal Editor and Publisher, it would be this:
War is not rated G. It is an adult topic, it is an obscene topic, and, unless journalists want to continue destroying their credibility by relying on anonymous sources and pathological liars, they’ve got to get out there and report first hand what they see and hear. Thank you, Ted. I enjoy your writing very much.

I can also vouch that Packer’s “Assassin’s Gate” is superb.

Taking Responsibility

Jim sends this awesome rant:

When someone says: “It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake.” I wonder what is meant by “taking responsibility”. Where is the downside? Talk, especially from our politicians, is cheap. For a politician, “taking responsibility” is a duck tossing water on its back. It should be more like falling on one’s sword. I was buying John Edwards tale until I got to the ‘taking responsibility” point, followed by “We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. Why is the word “honorably” used? This is not an honorable war; “taking responsibility” would mean saying to the American people that we should not expect an honorable outcome. “Taking responsibility” would be telling those grieving parents that their children have died for nothing. “Taking responsibility” would be to apologize to the world and to Iraqi people for starting this damn war. Apologize for the loss of life; apologize for the destruction of Iraq and its infrastructure. “Taking responsibility” would be the President and Vice President submitting their resignation and those of their cabinets and call for a special election. Apologize for this failure in leadership, this failure to do Their Job. Apologize to the World for the cowboy foreign policy that bypassed all conventional norms. “Taking responsibility” would be admitting to that the American system failed to protect the well-being of the World’s people and surrender control of the U.S. Armed forces to the United Nations.
But, I expect nothing from this bastard President.