Republicans Terribly Concerned About Possibility That They’re Missing Out on Anal Sex
Mike writes:
Ted, why didn’t your friends keep their aids infected cocks in their pants. They would’ve of saved millions of lives. Stop worrying about Iraq and stop handing out the ass gel.
He’s at mjmbushwin04@sbcglobal.net.
Complete Control
FOR Kent writes:
Read your articles all the time and love the web site, I’ve written before but I just had to chime in about your latest column. I was in the military and while I didn’t go to Iraq I have to sympathize with a lot of the folks that are there, yes it is an all volunteer force and GW is an illegitimate president but the American people who are much less restricted (you should see the Uniform Code of Military Justice) didn’t stand up and force GW out, what were we supposed to do?
Granted, it’s a hard decision. But they could have refused to fightin W’s illegal wars.
Also if you try to fight the military system not only are you out of a job, possible jail time and a dishonorable discharge that does not go away. I’m not using it as an excuse I’m just saying that they majority of soldiers (junior enlisted E-1 thru E-4) don’t have the life experience to stand up and stop it, most move straight out of Mom and Dad’s house and into the Army. It’s tough to take a stand against people that have that much control of your life. Anyway keep up the good work and sorry about the rambling.
What you wrote is undeniable. It is damned hard to do the right thing when the penalties are so harsh. But that doesn’t change what the right thing is.
President Gore
Ernie writes:
I recently read an article that you wrote. Incredibly, I discovered that you are one of those people that still believe that President Bush stole the election from Al Gore. Do you have proof? Did President Bush co-opt the Supreme Court in this crime?
Others have documented Bush’s theft of the 2000 election and, by extension 2004 (because he ran as an “incumbent” when in fact, he was not). I’ve written numerous columns and a chapter in my book “Wake Up, You’re Liberal!” describes in detail the redundant ways in which the election was stolen. Most notably, the United States Supreme Court did not have the constitutional right to hear Bush v. Gore because, as an election dispute, state supreme courts (in this case, Florida’s) are the highest arbiters. Never in the history of the republic has the U.S. Supreme Court arbitrated an election dispute because, under our system, states run elections. It should be noted that, had the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Gore instead, he would have just as illegitimate as Bush is today. Their agreeing to hear the case queered the election. But there are many, many other ways in which the election was stolen–including the hiring of goons to beat up officials conducting the recount at Miami-Dade County–a county where, it ultimately turns out, the uncounted ballots would have handed Gore the state of Florida.
The majority of Americans realize that President Bush was elected and re-elected by the voters of this great country. I challenge you or anyone like you to provide proof that President Bush stole the election in 2000. If you cannot provide proof, then you should retract that statement.
It is not my obligation to reprove what has already been proven. It is American citizens’ duty to remain informed and to learn how to Google.
I am confident that you will not, because it takes a real man of courage and integrity to admit his mistakes. Also, your statements will now lye in obscurity. I will send this to all of my friends. I am sure that they will also be amazed that there are still a handful of people that that insist that President Bush did not legitimately won the election.
Actually, more than half the American people tell pollsters that Bush did not win “fair and square.”
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.
