According to some, the Mayan calendar predicts that the world will end at 6:11 am Washington DC time on December 21, 2012. Fortunately for Obama, he’ll face the apocalypse as a singularly well-rested president.
Doomsday for a Well-Rested Man
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
7 Comments. Leave new
Think of all the wasted effort that would have gone into reforming US gun laws, stopping those interminable foreign wars, ending tax breaks like «carried interest» for the super-rich, etc, etc ! Good thing that Mr Obama called this one right !…
Henri
Ted-
“I would’ve done it differently than Obama.” != “Obama did nothing”. Fact free, ODS fueled BS like this is one of the chief reasons nobody pays attention to the left anymore.
Well said, Whimsical!
Instant, Overwhelming, Leaving No Means of Choice, and No Deliberation for the Moment is what a ‘pundit’ does. How anyone can decide that Obama has done nothing is beyond me – especially considering what the guy before him did.
You got it half right, rikster. “(C)onsidering what the guy before him did,” Obama’s performance of continuous, bipartisan fellatio on the collective wankie of party of “the guy before him” amounts to LESS than nothing.
(Have we mentioned here Obama’s claiming for himself the power to execute American citizens abroad without review of any other branch or institution of government? This, of course, was done with only the blessing of the DoJ – like “the guy before him did” [but merely for torture.] I always said Bush was a minor-leaguer.)
Whimsical,
I don’t see where Ted said “I would’ve done it differently than Obama” or “Obama did nothing” in the cartoon or in his comment on the cartoon. The closest he comes is a very specific indictment: that Obama “didn’t bother doing anything about the economy” and that’s a pretty fair accusation.
Yes, Obama did do some things about the economy, however none of the things he did were with the intention of actually solving the root causes of the problem or helping the middle class. All the unemployment stats are deceptive. The U-6 is the only one that gives a comprehensive picture, and that’s barely ever brought up by the media. And everyone (except the unemployed) likes it like that.
Why? Ask anyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment. Your immediate boss probably has his or her job just by luck. The last thing he or she wants is anyone ever pointing out bad policy or suggesting improvements. Why? Well, if Lowly Employee can think of it and Immediate Boss can’t, Immediate Boss’ position is threatened. The Lowly Employees understand this without being told: if you draw attention to yourself by being too smart or too critical of inefficiency, you will be penalized for it. At best, you can see your IB in private, point out the observation, and IB will take credit for it. Then, to protect himself, IB will have you fired, so that no one ever finds out you came up with the idea that saved the company $8,000 a year on electricity.
So no one honestly discusses unemployment stats in a mass media setting. Thus, it’s easy-peasy to do nothing to fix things but massage the stats so that it looks like the problem is going away. Do you really think the unemployment of 7.8% (or whatever it is right now) is true? For unemployment to be going down while food stamp dependency goes up, the number of uninsured people goes up, etc., tells anyone who can reason that something isn’t right with the figures somewhere.
And now, we have the fiscal cliff. You do realize what that’s all about. Once it activates, everyone on extended unemployment benefits simply loses them. Buh-bye. Unemployment will drop again, even as more people end up on the streets or on someone’s couch.
Well, I’ve got to wrap this up, I’m off to my temp assignment, which will be ending in a few days.
@Alex
Ted’s default position is “I would’ve done it differently then Obama”. Which is fair, because that’s the default position of a lot of people- including me. However, that does not give him the right to claim that Obama did nothing on the economy, as he clearly does in the cartoon itself. That’s just fact-free, ODS fueled BS- and the constant spouting of fact free BS is one of the main reasons no one pays attention to the left anymore.
You’re still wrong, but your position is somewhat more defensible because you at least acknowldege reality and the fact that Obama did something on the economy. You’re completely wrong about the reasons and the effects, but at least you acknowledge that things were done.
Then you lose it and go off on an irrelevant (at least to the subject under discussion) tangent about uemployment rates- which no one is discussing- and then head straight into CT land by implying that the fiscal cliff was set up to deliberately end people’s unemployment benefits to lower the unemployment rate.
(For the record, while I don’t believe that unemployment is 7.6%, I’d actually find that far more belivable then your claim the unemployment rate is 53%. A little higher than U6, or around 25% sounds about right. And yes, that’s too damn high, but Obama isn’t the one standing in the way of a solution).
Even if your conspiracy theory were true (which it isn’t), who is it that’s standing in the way of a deal to avoid going over the fiscal cliff? Oh yeah, that’s right- Republicans. I understand that your situation sucks, and you are angry (and there is plenty to be angry about) but when you bitch about Obama you are aming your anger at the wrong target and using it in ways that won’t end up helping you.
«… you are aming your anger at the wrong target and using it in ways that won’t end up helping you.» That would seem to be an adequate description of your own situation, «Whimsical» and your misdirected anger at «the left» to which, you claim, in a not atypical oxymoron, «nobody pays attention». Or perhaps, in your case, it is indeed «nobody» who is «pay[ing] attention» ?…
Henri