Think about your childhood. You may have dreamed of becoming an astronaut, a police officer, President of the United States. What you probably did not dream of was selling out. So why are we doing it?
What you probably did not dream of was selling out. So why are we doing it?
Other choices too «radical» ? Not sufficiently «moderate» (unlike in the Salafist armed groups which the US creates and supports in various parts of the world when they come in handy and then fights – or hires others to fight – when that becomes opportune) ?…
At some point, just about everyone has to get a job. The police have a few openings for officers who will bring in more in fines than their salaries. Insurance companies are hiring people who will deny claims. Getting elected president one has to be like Obama or Clinton or the Bushes or Trump (and I can’t see that much difference if one goes by actions and not words). And even if you promise to be just like Clinton or Trump, only one person gets that job every four years, and it probably won’t be you.
Fail to issue enough citations, or approve too many claims and you get fired, and how will you pay the rent and feed your kids?
Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid. So I took what I could get. Like just about everyone else, Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennial…
“Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid.”
Many people hate people who get paid for doing good. They know their own pay is earned by carrying the burden of Moral Conflict and think it unfair that some can be both happy AND paid.
When so many people are morally compromised by their jobs, those who manage to be morally unconflicted (aside from sociopaths) are subject to moral envy.
Do see Ted Rall’s excellent column “Trump Gets Away with Stuff Because He Does” for the costs of being true to one’s vision.
David Graeber makes the moral envy argument in his book “Bullshit Jobs”.
April 21, 2021
Ted Rall's new graphic novel is ripped from the headlines.
Suffering from budget cuts, layoffs, and a growing suspicion that his search for the truth has become obsolete, veteran war correspondent Mark Scribner is about to throw in the towel on journalism when he discovers that his hard-earned knowledge can save his career and make him wealthy and famous. All he has to do is…
Publication Date: June 23, 2020
Ted Rall's latest is a no-holds-barred look at the civil war raging within the Democratic Party in the graphic style of his national bestseller, Bernie.
There's a split in the Democratic Party. Progressives are surging with ideas and candidates like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 72 percent of Democratic voters are progressive…
Publication Date: April 9, 2020
The only graphic novel-style biography of the Presidential Contender who revitalized the Left within the Democratic Party. National Bestseller updated for 2020 with 24 new pages taking Bernie into the 2020 election.
Ted Rall's Bernie explores the personal and political development of a man who burst onto the national stage in 2015—rallying Americans and shak…
Publication Date: March 13, 2018
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He thought his church career was drawing to a close. Then he was asked to take over a Catholic Church in crisis.
Religiosity was in decline in the West. And the Catholic Church was in bigger trouble than any other institution you could think of. Losing parishioners, shrinking in power and prestige and discredited by corruption and sex…
Publication Date: December 12, 2017
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Legendary infiltration journalist Harmon Leon is at it again, this time teaming up with ferocious political cartoonist Ted Rall answer the question most of America has been asking: "What the hell happened in 2016?" In their new book, Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America, Leo…
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
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Everyone in America thought they knew Donald Trump: the real estate magnate, reality TV star and bigger than life personality lived his life in the tabloids. Little did they know - though he hinted at it repeatedly - that he planned to take American politics by storm. This graphic biography explores the little-known episodes that helped form…
Publication Date: January 19, 2016
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As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders was surrounded by grinding poverty that turned families against each other as they scrimped and saved to pay their bills.
Bernie saw politics as his chance to give a decent life to everyone, not just those born to wealth or the lucky few who hit it big. But the Democratic Party and the co…
Publication Date: August 25, 2015
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As many as 1.4 million citizens with security clearance saw some or all of the same documents revealed by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Why did he, and no one else, decide to step forward and take on the risks associated with becoming a whistleblower and then a fugitive? Rall's all-comic, full-color biography delves into Snowden's early l…
An independent account—in words and pictures—of America’s longest war from the beginning of the end to the end of the beginning.
I traveled deep into Afghanistan—without embedding myself with U.S. soldiers, without insulating myself with flak jackets or armored SUVs—where no one else would (except, of course, Afghans).
I made two trips, the first in the wake of 9/11, the next ten years later…
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…
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 radica…
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…
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 p…
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, po…
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…
"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 obvi…
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 hi…
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 "Boo…
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 Turk…
"The New Subversive Political Cartoonists" is the first volume in my '"Attitude" trilogy: the definitive record of the political cartooning scene that exploded in alternative weekly newspapers during the 1980s and 1990s. It features interviews of, cartoons by and photos and ephemera about 21 ground-breaking alternative political cartoonists who revolutionized the form. The Iowa City Gazette called…
Other choices too «radical» ? Not sufficiently «moderate» (unlike in the Salafist armed groups which the US creates and supports in various parts of the world when they come in handy and then fights – or hires others to fight – when that becomes opportune) ?…
Henri
At some point, just about everyone has to get a job. The police have a few openings for officers who will bring in more in fines than their salaries. Insurance companies are hiring people who will deny claims. Getting elected president one has to be like Obama or Clinton or the Bushes or Trump (and I can’t see that much difference if one goes by actions and not words). And even if you promise to be just like Clinton or Trump, only one person gets that job every four years, and it probably won’t be you.
Fail to issue enough citations, or approve too many claims and you get fired, and how will you pay the rent and feed your kids?
Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid. So I took what I could get. Like just about everyone else, Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennial…
“Surely one can take a job doing good, can’t one? I couldn’t find such a job that paid.”
Many people hate people who get paid for doing good. They know their own pay is earned by carrying the burden of Moral Conflict and think it unfair that some can be both happy AND paid.
When so many people are morally compromised by their jobs, those who manage to be morally unconflicted (aside from sociopaths) are subject to moral envy.
Do see Ted Rall’s excellent column “Trump Gets Away with Stuff Because He Does” for the costs of being true to one’s vision.
David Graeber makes the moral envy argument in his book “Bullshit Jobs”.