Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s new trade agreement with Asian countries, environmental regulations would be weakened even more than they were under George W. Bush. The agreement is top secret, but thanks to WikiLeaks we know that, among other atrocities, the practice of “finning” — cutting the fins off sharks and tossing them back into the ocean to die — would be allowed to continue.
What He Deserves
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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A worthwhile petition can be found here:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/stop-the-trans-pacific
Thanks.
Also the white house petition
http://wh.gov/l9mgW
which is languishing, clearly not well publicized.
In my gocomics persona (to the right of Neoconman), I mentioned that the US isn’t doing enough to support the finning industry.
In real life, Europe banned finning in 2012, and China is banning shark fin soup, both of which are helping.
As with climate change, the US is particularly laggard.
Thanks Michael, now I have something else to obsess about: What state would the world be in if America wasn’t filled with self-absorbed asshats whose interests extend only to the fulfillment of their immediate comforts and greeds?
What kind of world would we have if Americans were outraged at the notion of finning? Or global warming? Or slut-shaming and calling it being “pro-life”?
If I don’t ask, I won’t be able to get to sleep tonight. Here’s the set up:
Obama keeps behaving in what can only be described as a far-from-Progressive fashion. We can argue back and forth about certain issues, but here’s one that, really, are we going to actually argue about whether hacking part of an animal away, and then throwing the rest of the animal back into the ocean to die, is or is not sick? Will there be impassioned explanations about how this is merely part of the 11-dimension chess game? (Has PETA considered demanding the president surrender the family pet? I mean, if you’re gonna say it’s fine to cut a fin off a shark, who knows what’s fair game for a dog.)
That site — the one that tipped us all off to how much of a racist sumbitch Ted is — however, has consistently made excuses and evasions for The One. I haven’t checked, but I’m suspecting that:
if dropping bombs on brown children 6,000 miles away is okay, and
if locking Chelsea Manning in a metal box is okay, and
if torturing people in America’s shamehole (aka Gitmo) is okay, and
if chasing Edward Snowden out of the country is okay, and
if putting those other whistle-blowers in jails is okay, and
if letting all the Wall Street criminals get away with it is okay,
it’s a pretty safe bet that, even if a few of Them, are unable to cheeringly get behind animal maiming, those apostates will be silenced fairly quickly by that site.
So here’s my question. And it’s a genuine question. I’m not trying to be snarky, smart ass, or any of the rest of that. I would genuinely like to know.
How do They reconcile all this? They are still supporting, vigorously, someone who, by any empirical standard, seems every week to get closer to being described most accurately as a sociopath. I could understand this level of fanatical devotion at the beginning, but now, more than a full four-year term in office? How can such a degree of delusion sustain itself?
Perhaps you give too much credit to those who continue to support BO. You seem to assume that they are sensitive to events, are engaged in analysis, and are making “informed” decisions (regardless of the idiocy of the reasoning behind them) . If, however, you think of BO’s lovers as being like tweener fans of a pop star, like devotees within the bowels of a heavy cult – something like that – you might come to a different understanding of the profound shallowness that attends their defense of the current pres.
None of what you describe is OK. But its not going to change until the left pulls its head out of its ass and starts playing the game by the rules it ACTUALLY has, instead of by the rules they THINK it should have.
So, given that the alternative to Obama and the Democrats are people who will LITERALLY bring about the end of this country, if not the world, and doing something stupid like throwing away your vote by not voting or voting for someone that has no chance does nothing but empower said people- we really don’t have a choice.
Locutions like «the left pulls its head out of its ass» and «shitty attitudes» are so very convincing, «Whimsical» ; I’m surprised you don’t employ them more often. Why be concrete, when one can malign those with whom one happens to disagree in that charming manner ?…
Henri
Typical “progressive” reaction- attack the tone of the message because you can’t deal with the substance.
Besides, I tried being polite and reasonable for the better part of a decade, and I got the same crap you’re trying to peddle: attacks on “tone”, ad hominems, and deliberate misunderstanding and misstating of my point, so as not to deal with the actual content of what I was saying, so I switched to blunter language.
And If somebody’s house is burning down around them and they insist on sleeping, at some point you’re going to shift from tapping them on the should and politely requesting they wake up to slapping them across the face and telling them to wake the fuck up.
It may not work any better (especially if the person in question) insists on staying asleep. But at least you’ll know you did anything and everything you you could to save them from the fire.
Whimsical, I think there are many problems with your rhetorical gambits here, but aside from the obvious ones – regurgitating the same ridiculous lines about the left’s so-called shitty attitudes and so on – the main one is that you have a faulty historical assumption that forms the center of all of your arguments, namely that progressives and liberals have failed to support the Democratic Party. If anything, liberals and progressives have supported the Democratic Party more unequivocally during the period in question, beginning roughly in the early 1970s, then they did before hand. This also corresponds with the same period that the Democratic Party has chased the Republican Party and both parties have moved to the right year after year.
I don’t know what the left’s “shitty attitude” has to do with anything, but the fact is that in election after election, the left-wing base of the Democratic Party has reliably supported Democratic candidates from Mondale to Dukakis to Clinton to go or to Kerry to Obama. And odds are, they will support Hillary Clinton or whoever else is the Democratic nominee in 2016.
Sure, there is the occasional antiwar demonstration or whatever, but liberal dissent within the Democratic Party pales in comparison with conservative dissent within the GOP, yet you see the GOP setting the agenda year after year.
Without getting into your overall narrative that everything that has gone wrong is the fault of people like me, your assumption is so faulty that it is hard to get past it.
@ mhenriday –
Why waste your time with this *troll*? The best responses would have been: “You go first!” and “If there’s no choice, what alternative do you suggest?” It is an exercise in futility to attempt to reason with the unreasonable. 🙂
Pity our poor «Whimsical» ! Unable to carry on a civil discussion, he attacks his interlocutors as a collective «left», with «its head [in] its ass» and as individuals with «shitty attitudes», and then whinges about «the tone of [his] message» being «attacked» !
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
…
Henri
Everytime you attack my tone rather than deal with the substance, you perfectly illustrate my point that you don’t have an answer, and that you are so desperate that you will go to any lengths to avoid rational discussion of your shitty attitude and its consequences.
You sum up exactly the attitude problem the left, and demonstrate the correctness of my position.
Thanks, I suppose. You prove my point for me quicker and cleaner than I ever could.
Our poor «Whimsical» seems to believe that by repeating his claims to the effect that the «attitudes» of those whose disagree with him are «shitty» his «point», i e, that the problem lies not with the policies followed by those in power, but with the «attitudes» of those who presume to disagree with these policies, is therewith demonstrated. He moreover seems to believe that his lack of civility is justified due to his extraordinary patience with those nasty interlocutors, who insisted on discussing policy rather than «attitude» ; he maintains that he «tried being polite and reasonable for the better part of a decade», which indeed seems to be a very long time to be polite and reasonable for a person of his temperament….
It would be funny, were it not so pitiful….
Henri
We have our shitty attitudes, he has his stupid platitudes.
@ mhenriday
You said it best with your post on January 25, 2014 at 8:06 AM:
“Why be concrete, when one can malign those with whom one happens to disagree in that charming manner ?…”
How can one engage any kind of concrete logic to refute the claims that the left should pull “its head out of its ass” or that they have “shitty attitudes”? Those aren’t factual claims, but emotional ones unsupported and with no basis in fact. Logic can’t compete with emotions. (Thanks for trying.)
@Ted-
First, I apologize for the lateness of my reply- sadly, as I don’t get paid for educating liberals as to why they are miserable failures at getting the goals they claim to want accomplished (Hint: It’s because they act in ways that guarantee those goals wont get accomplished, while claiming to want “more than anything” to accomplish those same goals); well sometimes, life has to come first.
Second, I’ll give you credit for not indulging in idiotic attacks on tone that only serve to make my point for me by highlighting how desperate you are to avoid talking about the consequences of your attitudes.
That said, you are still being dis-ingenious at best, dangerously naive at worst. Because when you say “If anything, liberals and progressives have supported the Democratic Party more unequivocally during the period in question, beginning roughly in the early 1970s, then they did before hand.”; you have to know that what you really mean is that liberals and progressives have VOTED more for the Democratic party more since 1970, etc, etc.
And that’s true and I’ve never said otherwise. But their constant bad attitudes, democratic bashing, lying about Obama and the Democrats, spreading utter bullshit memes like “both parties are the same” (I got tired of typing all that out, so Ive shortcutted it to “shitty attitude”) has cost the Democrats I’d say three votes for every one they cast. Seriously, I firmly believe we would be a more liberal country if “progressives” would just shut up and drop out of politics altogether, as they shoot the country and the goals they claim to want in the foot every time they open their mouths.
Claiming that voting=support is the equivalent of putting a toothpick under a 500 pound bolder to keep it up in the air and then having a tantrum and going “Well I SUPPORTED that boulder- how dare it fall down on the ground like that!”
Ronald Reagan was a shitty man and a horrible President, but damned if he didn’t know how to get his side elected(without which you will not be able to accomplish squat): and his number one rule: Once primary season was over, you speak negatively ONLY about your opponent- NEVER about your own side.
Every time you lie about Obama (and don’t bother denying it, I’ve caught and debunked you at least half a dozen times), every time you bash the Democrats for not being liberal enough, every time you whine about not having things that no person on Earth could’ve gotten through- it is INCREDIBLY damaging. Every time someone goes looking for facts to counter the right wing narrative and finds your bullshit instead, it makes it that much likely they will drop out of the process altogether, and therefore the Republican will win. “Progressive” bullshit is almost entirely responsible for the enthusiasm gap,and for the decline in voter participation that goes with it, and even you (if you’re honest) will admit that’s done nothing but benefit Republicans.
And once the Republican wins, the Democrats will be convinced that they won because the country REALLY wants their policies, and move right in response. As history demonstrates OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER again…
The GOP sets the agenda because their base supports them (The tea party is not their base. The tea party is the ridiculed fringe on the right, just as “progressives” are the ridiculed fringe on the left.). Liberals do not set the agenda, because they vote for their party and then bash it for not delivering the impossible immediately, depressing turnout and turning off people who would otherwise be Democratic voters in such numbers as to overwhelm the votes they do cast.
And to debunk your bullshit next point before you even say it: Of course that figure is not scientific- only because a scientific study has not been done. I have no doubt that if one was done, it would bear me out about how “progressive” attitudes turn people off and drive the party and the country right.
It’s based on three decades of being politically active. I am within a year or two of your age, Ted (I’m guessing- you’re fairly vague about your age on the blog, and I don’t give enough of a crap to look it up elsewhere)- and Ive watched this process of “progressives” driving the party right unfold in real time- calling it correctly every step of the way.
I’m right about how it happened, and I’m right about how to reverse it. But progressives would rather deliberately misunderstand my point (by claiming that voting is equivalent to support) or worse, make themselves look like childish idiots by whining about my tone than look in the mirror. I can (and have) rightly concluded that “progressives” actually don’t give a shit about the goals they claim to want because they wont take the necessary actions to achieve them. It would damage their “purity”, don’tcha know?
I used to think that I’d be able to wake progressives up in time- that they’d come to their senses about how they are shoving the Democratic party hard right in time to reverse things (Because it will take time- I’ve never said otherwise).
The lefts stubborn determination to stay asleep rather than risk their precious purity to get the goals they claim to want accomplished has reduced me to hoping I die before you get the crash you want.
Because once you get it, I promise you you will realize how wrong you are and how you should’ve tried it my way instead of yours for the past 40 years.
But by then itll be too late.
Wow ! This latest lengthy diatribe from «Whimsical»’s keyboard, with the following peroration :
«Because once you get it, I promise you you will realize how wrong you are and how you should’ve tried it my way instead of yours for the past 40 years.
But by then itll [sic !] be too late.»
brings home as well as any other example I’ve seen recently the dangers of that «everyone-gets-a-trophy» philosophy that seems to have prevailed in US K-12 education this last half century. I suspect that our «Whimsical» – and we readers – are suffering the consequences of her/his being awarded too many gold stars for her/his reports on «What I did during my vacation» at school start in September….
Henri
The “finning,” as disturbing as it is, really is only an apt metaphor for the effect on humans of this hideous “trade deal” that will make the murderous NAFTA seem like a genteel tea party.
http://tinyurl.com/l4ht4fq
Ted, shouldn’t those sharks looking so affectionately at Mr Obama’s mortal coil have been finned ?…
Henri
I was thinking the victims were dead and these guys were their comrades. Anyway, it’s an afterlife fantasy, so the finned should be intact, no?
Right on, Ted!
In the afterlife (should there be one), I want to be as Adonis.
(On the other hand – WHY?)
😀
Not, alas, being as generous as you, Ted, I was thinking more of revenge by the «risen» (literally, as from what I understand, finned sharks sink) sharks. But then, I’ve never been able to understand church doctrine on «resurrection» – am I resurrected in the flesh I enjoyed at 20 or the less enjoyable version at 70 ?…
Henri
Henri, The form that one assumes in the afterlife is always been a question for me. For example, if you are killed in a horrible car accident, do you spend eternity looking all mangled and ugly or do you get to revert to your preferred form, say 23 years old in my case? Or do you end up in some random form, such as fourth grade? The church needs to clarify these matters. I’m hoping that Pope Francis takes care of it soon.
Ted, I’d be more than happy to settle for fourth grade, if you can convince Franciscus to opt for it….
Henri