Support Ted’s Work

New Dates Added to Northwest Tour

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Ted Rall

The tour for my upcoming Book of Obama is coming together. Seven Stories Press is setting up dates in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s how it looks now.

Don’t wait until later–now is the best time to arrange for me to come to your city this summer or fall. If you can arrange a venue (your cousin’s garage doesn’t count), get in touch and let’s make it happen!

And if you live in the Northwest, mark your calendar!

Friday, June 1, 2012
7:30-10:30 pm
Live Wire Radio
The Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta Street
Portland, Oregon 97211

Saturday, June 2, 2012
7:00 pm
Elliot Bay Bookstore
1521 10th Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98122

Sunday, June 3, 2012
2:00 pm
Village Books
1200 11th Street
Bellingham, Washington 98225

Monday, June 4, 2012
7:00 pm
Kings Bookstore
218 Saint Helens Avenue
Tacoma, Washington 98402

Daily Kos’ McCarthyite Cartoon Censorship

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Ted Rall

So last May 2011 the blog Daily Kos conducted a poll of their readers asking whether they wanted my cartoons added to the then-new Daily Kos comics line-up, which includes a bunch of like-minded altie/leftie comix, the likes of which I typically run with.

Here was the poll:

“I’d like to see Ted Rall added to the DK4 comics lineup”

Results:
Yes
83% 420 votes

No
16% 86 votes

Total 506 votes

They’re still adding comics. Not me. Apparently I’m too critical of Obama. DK owner Markos tweeted today about my being blackballed: “Feeling entitled much?”

It’s not about me, Markos. It’s about your readers.

What is this, a Florida election?

Ted Rall Live in Portland

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Ted Rall

I will be touring to promote my upcoming book THE BOOK OF OBAMA, and the first confirmed date is in Portland, Oregon. This is a live appearance and tickets are now available. Here are the specs:

Friday, June 1, 2012
7:30-10:30 pm
Live Wire Radio
The Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta Street
Portland, Oregon 97211

If you’d like me to come to your city and can arrange–and promote–an appearance, now is a good time to let me know.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Want More Wars? Raise Taxes on the Rich

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Ted Rall

Tax Fairness Won’t Reduce Inequality

Reacting to and attempting to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Obama used his 2012 State of the Union address to discuss what he now calls “the defining issue of our time”—the growing gap between rich and poor.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” Obama said. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

No doubt, the long-term trend toward income inequality is a major flaw of the capitalist system. From 1980 to 2005 more than 80 percent in the gain in Americans’ incomes went to the top one percent. This staggering disparity between the haves and have-nots has created a permanent underclass of underemployed, undereducated and alienated people who often turn to crime for survival and social status. Aggregation of wealth into fewer hands has shrunk the size of the U.S. market for consumer goods, prolonging and deepening the depression.

How can we make the system fairer?

Liberals are calling for a more progressive income tax: i.e., raise taxes on the rich. Obama says he’d like to slap a minimum federal income tax of 30 percent on individuals earning more than $1 million a year.

Soaking the rich would obviously be fair. GOP frontrunner/corporate layoff sleazebag Mitt Romney earned $59,500 a day in 2010—and paid half the effective tax rate (13.9 percent) of that paid by a family of four earning $59,500 a year.

Fair, sure. But would it work? Would increasing taxes on the wealthy do much to close the gap between rich and poor—to level the economic playing field?

Probably not.

From FDR through Jimmy Carter it was an article of faith among liberals that higher taxes on the rich would result in lower taxes on the poor and working class. This was because the Republican Party consistently pushed for a balanced budget. Tax income was tied to expenditures, which were more or less fixed—and thus a zero-sum game.

That period from 1933 to 1980 was also the era of the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society social and anti-poverty programs, such as Social Security, the G.I. Bill, college grants and welfare. These government handouts helped mitigate hard times, gave life-changing educational opportunities that allowed class mobility, closing the gap between despair and hope for tens of millions of Americans. As the list of social programs grew, so did the tax rate—mostly on the rich. The practical effect was to redistribute income from top to bottom.

Democrats think it still works that way. It doesn’t.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically under Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushes. Budget cuts slashed spending on student financial aid, food stamps, Medicaid, school lunch programs, veterans hospitals, aid to single mothers. The social safety net is shredded. Most federal tax dollars flow directly into the Pentagon and defense contractors such as Halliburton.

As the economy continues to tank, there’s only one category to cut: social programs. “Eugene Steuerle worked on tax and budget issues in the Reagan Treasury Department and is now with the Urban Institute,” NPR reported a year ago. “He says one reason no one talks about preserving the social safety net today is that lawmakers have given themselves little choice but to cut it. They’ve taken taxes and entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, off the budget-cutting table, so there’s not much left.”

Meanwhile, effective tax rates on the wealthy have been greatly reduced. Which isn’t fair—but not in the way you might think.

Taxes on middle-class families are at their lowest level in 50 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal thinktank.

What’s going on?

On the revenue side of the budget equation, the poor and middle-class have received tiny tax cuts. The rich and super rich have gotten huge tax cuts. Everyone is paying less.

On the expense side, social programs have been pretty much destroyed. If you grow up poor there’s no way to attend college without going into debt. If you lose your job you’ll get 99 weeks of tiny, taxable (thanks to Reagan) unemployment checks before burning through your savings and winding up on the street.

Military spending, on the other hand, has soared, accounting for 54 percent of federal spending.

In short, we’re running up massive deficits in order to finance wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on, and so rich job-killers can pay the lowest tax rates in the developed world.

I’m all for higher taxes on the rich. I’m for abolishing the right to be wealthy.

But liberals who think progressive taxation will mitigate or reverse income inequality are trapped in the 1960s, fighting the last (budget) war in a reality that no longer exists. The U.S. government’s top priority is invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens. Without big social programs, invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens is exactly where every extra taxdollar collected from the likes of Mitt Romney would go.

The only way progressive taxation can address income inequality is if higher taxes on the rich are coupled with an array of new anti-poverty and other social programs designed to put money and new job skills directly into the pockets of the 99 percent of Americans who have seen no improvement in their lives since 1980.

You have to rebuild the safety net. Otherwise higher taxes will swirl down the Pentagon’s $800 toilets.

If you’re serious about inequality, income redistribution through the tax system is only a start. Whether through stronger unions or worker advocacy through federal agencies, government must require higher minimum wages. It should set a maximum wage, too. A nation that allows its richest citizen to earn ten times more than its poorest would still be horribly unfair—yet it would be a big improvement over today. Shipping jobs overseas must be banned. Most free trade agreements should be torn up. Companies must no longer be allowed to layoff employees before eliminating salaries and benefits for their top-paid managers—CEOs, etc.

And a layoff should mean just that—a layoff. First fired should be first rehired—at equal or greater pay—if and when business improves.

Once a battery of spending programs targeted to the 99 percent is in place—permanent unemployment benefits, subsidized public housing, full college grants, etc.—the tax code ought to be radically revamped. For example, nothing gives the lie to the myth of America as a land of equal opportunity than inheritance. Aristocratic societies pass wealth and status from generation to generation. In a democracy, no one has the right to be born into wealth.

Because everyone deserves an equal chance, the national inheritance tax should be 100 percent. While we’re at it, why should people who inherited wealth but have low incomes get off scot-free? Slap the bastards with a European-style tax on wealth as well as the appearance of wealth.

Now you’re probably laughing. Even Obama’s lame call for taxing the rich—so the U.S. can buy more drone planes—stands no chance of passing the Republican Congress. They’re empty words meant for election-year consumption. Taking income inequality seriously? That’s so off the table it isn’t even funny.

Which is why we shouldn’t be looking to corporate machine politicians like Obama for answers.

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

COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL

Color or Black and White?

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Ted Rall

I’m thinking of publishing a collection of cartoons picking up from 2008 on. Would you rather pay $14 for black and white, or $22 for full color?

Jack Idema, RIP

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Ted Rall

Jack Idema is dead.

I met this colorful character in the lobby of the Hotel Tajikistan in Dushanbe in November 2001. I was on my way into northern Afghanistan and the HT was the headquarters for reporters covering the Taliban’s last (ha–we thought) stand in north, around Kunduz.

Like all con men, he was vague about his affiliations. He claimed to be on deep cover, an unacknowledged member of U.S. Special Forces working with the Northern Alliance. It wasn’t implausible; he certainly did maintain contacts with both organizations and seemed to be able to pull a few strings here and there.

His interest in me was to try to get my paper, the Village Voice, to run a story about how the Pentagon was refusing to provide proper medical aid to America’s Afghan allies. Naturally I requested proof: people to interview, documents, whatever could help verify his story. All he did was talk. A lot of bluster, much of it including threats about how his Special Forces buddies would track me down and murder me and my family if I ever crossed him.

Having been bullied and beaten as a kid, I wasn’t impressed. And so, finally, the morning I headed for the border, Jack handed me a floppy disc. “Give this to anyone and you WILL die in pain,” he promised.

I carried it to Afghanistan with me. Kept it dry as I forded rivers. Kept it away from the pernicious Afghan dust. Got it back safe and sound to Tajikistan, then Turkey, then New York. Where I popped it into my Mac. And a friend’s PC.

It was blank.

Kickstarter Q&A

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Ted Rall

Today Kickstarter has a question thingie about my use of them to fund my 2010 trip to Afghanistan. Given his preview, I’m surprised that David Carr didn’t mention this approach to funding journalism in his NYT column today.

(psst–it’s fun to be blackballed)

Pandering to People

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Ted Rall

In Venezuela, the government is building housing for displaced flood victims. Imagine that, Katrina survivors! Sounds almost…sane.

Naturally the New York Times, which endorsed the coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, is seriously pissed off.

Special Guest Blog #4

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alex_the_tired

I’ve been running into Indians a lot lately. Not subcontinent Indians, the American ones. Not actual American Indians, either. Let me explain. A couple of weeks ago, I was going through a roll of nickels, and I found one of the old-timey Indian head variety. The date on that particular coin is completely obliterated, which happened a lot due to the coin design being prone to erosion.

Also recently, due to various TV commercials and promos for programs, I ended up, in a one-week period, explaining to the same person, on three different occasions, about:

1. the significance of the “Keep America Clean” commercials that ended with a silent Indian with a silent tear running down his face as he saw how despoiled the land had become.

2. the smothering scene at the end of the movie based on Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

3. an explanation (and assembly) of the ridiculously juvenile dirty joke that is available to anyone with a box of Land O’ Lakes butter, a pair of scissors, and the mindset of a 12-year-old boy. The, uh, novelty involves the package design of Land O’ Lakes butter: an infinite loop, each iteration at a smaller scale, of an Indian woman holding a box of Land O’ Lakes butter with an image of an Indian woman holding a box of Land O’ Lakes butter with an image of an Indian woman holding a box of Land O’ Lakes butter … .)

These three items were enough Indian-themed material to trigger that little thing in my brain that usually jams a song lyric into my head. I am amazed at the number of Indian-themed items that have been coming to mind for no reason: the Shawmut Bank logo, Go-Go Gophers, the Hekawi from F Troop, Apache Chief from the Superfriends, John Redcorn from King of the Hill, Chakotay from Star Trek: Voyager, the episode of Alice where Larry Hovis (Carter from Hogan’s Heroes) is playing Vera’s boyfriend and mentions that he is part American Indian, the Mazzola Corn Goodness Woman (“My people call it maize.”), all the Indian references in the Nicholson-Duvall version of The Shining, that episode of Star Trek where Kirk loses his memory on the planet populated by various Indian tribes.

Finally, it all came to a head. Last week, AMC wrapped up the current season of Hell on Wheels. The show is one of those great ensemble dramas AMC cranks out with frightening regularity. (A complete aside: Christopher Heyerdahl’s absolutely flawless performance is the finest supporting role this year. You’ll never look at a Norwegian the same way again.) The overarching plot of the series is the arrival of the railroad to the American West right after the Civil War.

Buried in with the various subplots is one about the end of the American Indians as a dominant culture. As a piece of drama, the subplot unfolds with a superbly just-right touch. It’s not too heavy, it’s not too marginal. Not too preachy, not too casual. And for the audience, it’s an odd bit of time travel. We all know what’s coming, and it’s such a sad thing to contemplate. Not so much for the individual Indians in the story because they could (possibly) survive, but their culture is ending. The railroad dragged the Indians to the end of the line, at least as a dominant set of cultures in America.

About 10 minutes from the end of the episode, the penny (the nickel?) finally dropped, and the thing my subconscious was trying to point out clawed its way to center stage: The Middle Class is now in the position the Indians were in 150 years ago. The end is coming for us, just as it came for the Indians. A small number of the Middle Class will survive, but the culture, all the things that made the Middle Class what it was will be swept away.

The question has frequently been raised: What will happen with the OWSers? How will the movement resolve? Will it succeed? You need go no further than how the American Indians were treated by the politicians.

One and a half centuries later isn’t that long. I can picture a 90-year-old Indian, sitting in a rocking chair, with a group of children. The old person was a child of 10 back in 1860 and would have lived through it all, arriving at 1940 at the age of 90. That old man or woman could have had ample time to tell the whole story to those children, some of whom would have been 10 years old themselves. Those theoretical children would now be 82. I wonder what sort of stories they could tell, if they would cast their memories back to their childhoods. It’s going to be the same sort of thing for the Middle Class. In a few decades, those few of us who make it to 90 will gesture the children over to us, and we’ll tell them stories. “When I was your age, I already knew that I would go to college. Back then, many people, not just the rich, went to college. And there were national immunization programs. No one got polio when I was a boy. And we had supermarkets, those are places where people would walk in, and there would be thousands, no, honestly, thousands of kinds of foods. Cookies, and ice cream, and fresh fruits and vegetables. I know, you all think I’ve lost my marbles but most people in the Middle Class could go to the dentist. People kept their teeth a long, long time.”

Wikipedia has a jim-dandy entry (none of which I can vouch for the veracity of, but it’s free, and almost no one got paid for it, so what’s not to like?) that applies:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz

If you still can’t figure out how it’s going to end for the Middle Class if we don’t wake up, that should help you connect the dots. I wonder what the nickels will look like in 150 years. Perhaps Ted can draw us all a picture.

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