In a nation with two right-wing political parties to choose from, what is a liberal voter to do?
The Lesser of Two Evils
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."
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Ted, they’ve done it to you again!
This ‘toon is dated April 4th!
(Not really relevant to the caption: The Lesser of Two Evils” either.)
Ever so slightly off topic but I thought you might be interested to run your BS detector over this little gem from Rick Santorum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egtaV6Pj8yI&feature=player_embedded
I’m afraid you stop short of accuracy on the analogy, Ted. My suggestion: change the man’s dialog in panel four to “Also, the Nazi’s are going to shoot you and everyone you care about in the face.”
Then you’ll have come CLOSE to comparing to what the Republicans will do if we are suicidally stupid enough to put them back in charge to what the Democrats will do if we keep them in power.
If the Nazis do what is predicted by Whimsical, it will be with the powers the current, Great Liberal Imperial Wizard has claimed for himself — and all succeeding Imperial Wizards, including those with “N” after their names.
The top goons of the previous Wizard’s administration went from viciously attacking the wimpiness of current Wizard to musically cooing, in almost orgiastic delight, and downright envy, at the notion of “due process-less” imprisonment and/or murder of citizens that the current Wizard has coyly acquired.
It is true Nazi-like brutality and total disregard for (the remnants of) the constitution that Obama adopted, making Cheney & Co. Inc., wonder how they could have forgotten to exercise such “basics” in their eight-year reign of anti-terror, terror.
I guess getting shot in the chest is detectably better than getting shot in the face? Shall we sit on a hot stove waiting for the current Wizard to announce a DOJ investigation of the “murder kids in the street” laws, and those behind them?
It’s bad enough to be a single issue voter who can’t see the forest for the trees, but a demonstrably incorrect single issue voter is even worse.
Brilliant, excepting the standard American usage of liberal for leftist.
“Your cartone is brilliant because it compleatly represents the Unitad Stats”, remarked Yorgen of Scandivalvia, as he itchilly mulled whether to draw one of his $17.00 a pack cigarettes. “Ted Rule is phantastic.” Maybe today he would venture the outdoors. A mouse dropped feces on his toes through the hole in his slippers. The snow continued to fall.
Please don’t feed the DNC troll known as Whimsical.
Ted, et al,
The “lesser of two evils” argument has been around for how long? Decades? Every time, I get told that if I don’t settle (in the upcoming case for Obama) then the worse evil (Romney) will get elected and bad stuff will happen.
I am really not interested in, literally, the same old argument as has been used countless times before. Obama is a significant disappointment. He wants another four years? Sorry. He pissed through the first four. As his employer, I’m not impressed. I say give the job to someone who might actually come to work and act like he means it.
Cthulhu 2012……why settler for a LESSER evil?
Spot on, Ted – loved it muchly !…
Henri
@alex
“Obama is a significant disappointment. He wants another four years? Sorry. He pissed through the first four. As his employer, I’m not impressed. I say give the job to someone who might actually come to work and act like he means it.”
Translation: Obama isn’t doing enough to satisfy ME(not that anyone could), so fuck the consequences to the country and everyone living it in if he doesn’t get re-elected, because what I want is more important (even if there isn’t a person on Earth who could’ve gotten me what I want) then petty little things like the survival of the country or the welfare of the people within it.
I’d have SO much more respect for you if you’d just come out and say it plainly, dude. I mean, I’m not satisfied with Obama either, but I don’t have anywhere NEAR the level of ego required to put my desires above what’s best for the country.
As for the right wing plant known as ex, the less said about (or to) him the better. He’s just mad I uncovered his true agenda.
Whimsical makes sense, and I agree with a lot of what he has to say – While I am dissapointed in what Obama has accomplished vs. what he promised, I understand that he is trying to do as much as is possible with a ‘dead battery’ Congress, ignorant populace now focusing on their latest lynch mentality, and a Media that is completely led by their wallets. The smart people know that Obama is playing ‘rope a dope’ , and understand that a second, last term may give him a much better opportunity to get a few punches in that would have ended his first term if he had tried them earlier. Sorry Ted, I also agree with a lot you put forth, but an actual physical revolution is something that the American people probably can’t even envision or are capable of despite all the rhetoric.
@Aggie_Dude says:
Cthulhu 2012……why settler for a LESSER evil?
…
The year is 2016 and Ted Rall sits down with a typical CthulhuBot to discuss President Cthulhu’s re-election campaign.
Ted Rall: During President Cthulhu’s recent Heartland of America tour he depopulated most of the Midwest. How does he expect to win if he keeps eating his constituents?
CthulhuBot: Now there you go again, Ted, always focusing on the negative! What about President Cthulhu’s accomplishments, like how he solved the banking crisis?
Ted Rall: You mean when he ate all the bankers on Wall Street and replaced them with extra-dimensional horrors from beyond our reality?
CthulhuBot: You don’t consider that an accomplishment?
Ted Rall: Before that, the banks could evict you from your home and leave you penniless. But now they just implant you with their alien brood and leave you to suffer a horrifying death.
CthulhuBot: Ah, but President Cthulhu did withdraw the troops from Afghanistan.
Ted Rall: Only because he needed them when he invaded the planet Kragorrr in the “17th Realm of the Shadow Zone”. The troops are now serving unlimited tours of duty in an alternate dimension.
CthulhuBot: But the Kragorrrians were threatening to enrich Higgs Bosons and develop a bomb that could destroy the Milky Way galaxy!
Ted Rall: Isn’t the dominant lifeform on the planet Kragorrr a form of bread mold? It would take billions of years of evolution for them to even become sentient.
CthulhuBot: Only just. First they become sentient, then they blow up the galaxy. The Kragorrrians may be bread mold, but they’re also dangerous fanatics!
Ted Rall: In 2012, candidate Cthulhu pledged to close Gitmo. It’s 2016, President Cthulhu is nearing the end of his term, and Gitmo is still up and running.
CthulhuBot: But Ted, Gitmo houses the most terrifying organisms in the universe: suspected terrorists!
I move we organize another political party:
the Rally Party (derivative of “Rall”)!
Second anyone?
Whimsical,
Plenty of people could have done something that would have impressed me. Keeping Gitmo open did NOT impress me. Killing American citizens without due process did NOT impress me. This farce of a health-care plan did NOT impress me. A rejiggering of unemployment figures in which we all carefully avoid looking at how terrible the jobs that ARE coming along are in terms of benefits or long-term prospects for advancement did NOT impress me.
That isn’t my ego, that’s facts. Your paralogical insistence that Obama deserves another four years because he isn’t as bad as the Republican candidate simply isn’t good enough. Please stop telling me to lie back and think of England on this. It isn’t working. You want to just lie there and take it, that’s your business. Don’t insist that I learn to accept it, too.
hahahah I thought Republicans were the ones that used scare tactics . Republicans will shoot you in the face, vote Democrat hahahahaaha.
As a side comment, I enjoy the ongoing sniping between exkiodexian and Whimsical, with each accusing the other of trollery.
So, which one of you is Colonel Flagg, and which one is Captain Pratt?
Obama doesn’t “deserve” re-election? Perhaps. But Romney doesn’t deserve election. As in most elections, I will hold my nose and vote for the lesser evil, under no mis-impression that it is not still evil.
@alex
As soon as you stop trying to tell me I have to accept my country being fucked over because your ego isn’t satisfied.
Look, you want to have unreasonable expectations, that’s your call. But at least have the intellectual honesty and fucking moral courage to announce that what you want is more important than what’s good for the country and stop trying to pretend that anyone could’ve gotten you what you want.
You’d still be dead wrong, but at least you would’ve taken a position I could respect instead of hiding behind an air of (completely false) moral superiority. It isn’t moral to doom your country because your ego is bruised(especially when if you look at it realistically, there isn’t a person on Earth that could’ve salved it). Quite the opposite, in fact.
What you want is NOWHERE NEAR as important as saving the country, especially since there isn’t a person on Earth who you could’ve put in that office that could’ve gotten you what you want. That isn’t my ego, that’s just facts.
Unless you can make a viable case that electing Romney is better for the country (and no, Ted “We’ll be a better country in 1000 years after suffering through the fascist regime that will arise from that” is NOT a viable case), you are morally obligated to do everything in your power to get Obama elected.
@derlehrer, kissing Rall’s ass doesn’t get you anywhere, I tried that for a couple years and then gave up.
The Universal Party Hack:
So you think I’m evil, ha ha ha.
What are you going to do about it little man, vote?
Ha ha ha, no matter what you do the guy who comes after me will be worse, ha ha ha.
Now get out of here before I whack you with a club, or stick you with a cattle prod.