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The Book of Obama: From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt

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Ted Rall
How did a charismatic young president elected in an atmosphere of optimism and expectation lead the United States to the brink of revolution? From a chance encounter in the early 1980s to the Democratic primaries of 2007-08, I was one of the first to size up Barack Obama as we know him now: conservative, risk-averse and tone deaf. In The Book of Obama I revisit the rapid rise and dizzying fall of Obama–and the emergence of the Tea Party and Occupy movements–and draw a startling conclusion: We the People weren’t lied to. We lied to ourselves, both about Obama and the two-party system. We voted when we ought to have revolted. Here’s the story of what went wrong — and a prescription for real change. In The Book of O(bama): From hope and change to the age of revolt, Rall lays out his case, and it’s a strong one, for why we should revolt instead of vote, how the only…
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The Anti-American Manifesto

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Ted Rall
A revolutionary manifesto for an America heading toward economic and political collapse. While others mourn the damage to the postmodern American capitalist system created by the recent global economic collapse, I see an opportunity. As millions of people lose their jobs and their homes as the economy collapses, they and millions more are opening their minds to the possibility of creating a radically different form of government and economic infrastructure. But there are dangers. As in Russia in 1991, criminals and right-wing extremists are best prepared to fill the power vacuum from a collapsing United States. The best way to stop them, I argue here, is not collapse—but revolution. Not by other people, but by us. Not in the future, but now. While it’s still possible. The Anti-American Manifesto was widely discussed among progressives and leftists and remains a basis of discussion for people seeking to create the space to discuss politics outside of electoral irrelevance — a revolutionary movement.…
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The Year of Loving Dangerously

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Ted Rall
This autobiographical graphic novel is a collaboration between me (my story, my writing) and Bluesman cartoonist Pablo G. Callejo. Travel with me to 1984, the year I lost everything. The place is New York City. In the space of a few months, I got expelled from Columbia University, fired from my job, arrested for drugs that weren’t even mine, dumped by the girl I thought was The One, and evicted. I hit the streets with $8 and the clothes on my back. Desperate and prepared to succumb to homelessness, I invested a third of my worldly savings on pizza. There I met a girl who took me home for the night…and so began my “Year of Loving Dangerously.” Year, currently in development to become a feature film, is a personal account about the commodification of sex and the ends to which anyone will go to survive, seen through the lens of a cruel Reaganism where the safety net is all…
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America Gone Wild: Cartoons by Ted Rall

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Ted Rall
My fourth cartoon collection collects the work that made me America’s most controversial cartoonist. Here are the classic “dirty dozen” cartoons that shocked and awed newspaper readers after 9/11: “Terror Widows” and its sequels, “FDNY 2011,” the Pat Tillman series. There is also a lengthy introduction and commentary, which includes behind-the-scenes looks at the hate mail and death threats that poured in from outraged right-wingers. It may be hard to believe now, with George W. Bush a fading memory (or an elder statesman!), but when I penned these cartoons (from 2000 through 2006) I was virtually alone (save for a few other cartoonists) in standing up against a tsunami of insipid post-9/11 patriotism, militarism and nationalism. “In addition to political cartoons that have been featured in national newspapers such as the New York Times, this volume includes comics that appeared in the magazine Men’s Health. With these panels, Rall turns his scathing wit on relationships and the human condition.” —School…
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Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?

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Ted Rall
This is the book I wanted to write instead of To Afghanistan and Back — everything you ever wanted to know about Central Asia, without having had to attend grad school — but didn’t have time. Five years later, I was able to release my Central Asia brain dump, a book anyone can read cold and come away understanding the importance of the region and why it’s so interesting. Comprising travelogue, political analysis and five graphic novellas, “Silk Road to Ruin” examines the “New Middle East”–a part of the world the United States is focusing upon more than the Middle East. “Silk Road to Ruin,” featuring an introduction by “Taliban” author Ahmed Rashid, includes 200 pages of essays about everything from oil politics to the wild sport of buzkashi and 100 pages of graphic novel-format comics about each of my five trips to the region. Elderly Central Asians are starving to death in nations sitting atop the world’s largest untapped…
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Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists

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Ted Rall
The final volume in the “Attitude” trilogy of alternative cartoonists is dedicated to the first wave of webcartoonists (cartoonists whose work is exclusively distributed online). Includes interviews, cartoons and personal ephemera about some of the most exciting artists to lay pen to paper — or stylus to Wacom. Here you’ll find political cartoonists, humorists and dazzling graphic experiments, and a look at the minds behind this exciting field. Includes Rob Balder (“Partially Clips”), Dale Beran and David Hellman (“A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible”), Matt Bors (“Idiot Box”, though he since moved into print), Steven L. Cloud (“Boy on a Stick and Slither”), M.e. Cohen (“HumorInk”), Chris Dlugosz (“Pixel”), Thomas K. Dye (“Newshounds”), Mark Fiore (“Fiore Animated Cartoons”), Dorothy Gambrell (“Cat and Girl”), Nicholas Gurewitch (“The Perry Bible Fellowship”), Brian McFadden (“Big Fat Whale”, now doing “The Strip for The New York Times), Eric Millikin (“Fetus-X”), Ryan North (“Daily Dinosaur Comics”), August J. Pollak (“XQUZYPHYR” & “Overboard”), Mark…
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Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years

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Ted Rall
“Generalissimo El Busho” is my chronicle, in essays and cartoons of the most polarizing presidency in modern American history, a  tragicomic week-by-week dissection of the Bush Administration’s follies and crimes. I’ve traveled to Third World trouble spots,so I recognize a dictator when he see one. Having seized power extraconstitutionally, Bush and his cabal of corrupt businessmen made it obvious from the outset that they intended to rule with ruthless zeal. Unlike many of my fellow journalists, however, I refused to be cowed or water down my rhetoric–even in the wake of 9/11. It’s easy to forget just how radical the Bush Administration was — and how the changes he made continue to have repercussions today. Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, is more hostile to President Bush than most members of Saddam’s inner circle, as this collection of his work from recent years makes scaldingly clear. There’s nothing really humorous here; the satire mixed into Rall’s…
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Wake Up, You’re Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right

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Ted Rall
My first all-prose book marks the beginning of the end of my belief that the Democratic Party was redeemable. Although I have come to believe that moving beyond the duopoly is necessary, liberals and progressives who have not followed me down the radical path will find much to like here. Declaring that there hasn’t been a “real” Democrat in the White House since Lyndon Johnson, I decried the hijacking of the government by right-wingers and the seeming powerlessness of the left to stop them. Seeing the left in disarray, I told liberald how to organize a vibrant, relevant alternative to rightist rule and make life better for vast numbers of people in the process. In order to enjoy  mainstream majority status, I argued, liberals should strive to create a viable American left centered around an effective Democratic party. Why is the American Left in disarray and can anything be done about it? That question has haunted progressives and others who…
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Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists

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Ted Rall
The second installment in the “Attitude” trilogy of interviews, cartoons and photos of America’s top alternative cartoonists emphasizes cartoonists who deploy novel approaches to humor and the comics medium. Politics are still important, but take a back seat to social commentary in this collection. Includes the work of well-known artists like Aaron McGruder, who draws the daily comic strip “Boondocks,” Max Cannon (“Red Meat,” which you’ll find in The Onion), Shannon Wheeler (“Too Much Coffee Man”), Marian Henley (“Maxine!”), David Rees (“Get Your War On,” which appeared in Rolling Stone) and Alison Bechdel (“Dykes to Watch Out For”, the graphic novel “Fun Home”). Also features Jennifer Berman (“Berman”), Barry Deutsch (“Ampersand”), Emily S. Flake (“Lulu Eightball”), Justin Jones (Soda-Pong”), Keith Knight (“The K Chronicles), Tim Kreider (“The Pain — When Will It End?”), Kevin Moore (“In Contempt Comics”), Stephen Notley (“Bob the Angry Flower”), Eric Orner (“The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green”), Greg Peters (“Suspect Device”), Mikhaela B.…
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Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan

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Ted Rall
The result of painstaking research and analysis, “Gas War” is the definitive behind-the scenes story of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAP) project. Conceived during the 1990s under Bill Clinton, the idea was for the United States to control the vast, newly-tapped Caspian Sea oil and gas reserves — which by some measures exceed those of Saudi Arabia — by building an oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. Upon taking office in 2001 George W. Bush revived the then-stalled project. When negotiations with the Taliban faltered, the U.S. threatened to bomb Afghanistan into compliance. After 9/11, of course, they did did just that. Now Afghan puppet president Hamid Karzai is America’s point man on a benighted scheme that refuses to die: the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline. An insightful revelation for anyone who thinks the U.S. government is run by brilliant Machiavellians, “Gas War” is a must for anyone who cares about the effects of American foreign policy and one of…
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