Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 15, 2011

Trust The Red Rascal, Excellency!

It’s a little odd to have this slapstick absurdity stuff right on the heels of the very straight-on war and PTSD story the weeks before. Both are good, but it’s an odd mix.

They should probably have let his Excellency in on the rescue plan.

NO! Cannot risk telling ANYONE! Don’t know whom we can trust!

Wow, he’s using the same excuse as Moammar el-Gadhafi. Impressive, given cartoon lead time before print. “They’re on drugs, which is why they are rebelling against their beloved leader!”

No, it’s the opposite. Triff thinks his people won’t come after him because of the drugs he gave them.

and we have a cab waiting upstairs, so could we make this quick please?

Wow. Jeff actually came up with good - and appropriate - lines.

In America, there can be no revolution because television is the opiate of the masses. The bread was lost in cuts to social programs, but the circuses remain.

John Lennon, in “Working Class Hero,” said,

A working class hero is something to be. Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV, And you think you’re so clever and classless and free, But you’re still fxxxing peasents as far as I can see, A working class hero is something to be, A working class hero is something to be.

I think this is a good time for Boggie to get out of Casa Blanca.

It’s usually not a good sign when Jeff is the voice of reason in any given strip.

In America, there can be no revolution because we actually have a free press and the freedom to assemble. Every time someone gets the urge, we form a few rallies and vow to get our revenge in the next election, because in THIS country we can be reasonably sure that will work.

I for one am glad that we change the dominant political party in this country every couple of elections, not because it proves they’re basically the same party but because that proves that nobody is cheating.

The revolution will not be televised, the revolution will not be televised.

You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised.

Pitchforks and torches have given way to AK-47’s and RPG’s. Ain’t progress wonderful?

pretty naive of you mblase75, as our government on all levels is moving to a one-party corporate state.

If the American people ever wake up and see all the rights they have lost from the 50’s until today, especially because of the Patriot Act, where they can arrest you without a warrant and either give you a trial or not, and even if found innocent they don’t have to release you, the revelution may not be far behind.

Blase lives up to his name. There is little difference between Democrats & Republicans, although with the advent of the Tea-Bags, the Republicans–now Teapublicans–are stupider and more regressive than ever.

We need a new Progressive Party to help this country move forward. Most Americans lean to the left, but they are surrounded with a right-leaning mass media, and an active minority of pawns, who work from simple-minded fear & loathing to serve the interests of the wealthy and drag America backward.

I’m with you, rmbdot. When Jeff is the most rational one in the room, things are not looking good at all. I would say His Excellency is living in a major bubble devoid of all contact with reality. I wonder if he has tried taking a quick look out the window at the rest of his burning palace?

mblase75, changing political parties every few years does not prove they aren’t cheating! In fact, it is true as corzak says that our government on all levels is moving to a one party corporate state. This “corporate state” was limited by our constitution, but that got tossed out the window many years ago. Tell me when, in history, has a government who has been given all the power over the people ever brought prosperity and abundant life to a people? The “government” becomes a cancer taking all the lifeblood of it’s host and growing bigger and bigger and bigger, promising to feed the body of people, only to funnel the money into it’s own special interests and our government is funneling money BIG TIME into saving the worlds economies through the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements. The people are being bled to DEATH! Our own Federal Reserve is a CARTEL OF private bankers who rule the world’s economies and right now they want to funnel society into a one world governing body and financial system.

Brian, I’m not sure that we need a new Progressive party - after all (at least in my state), the Communist and the Socialist parties always put MoveOn-backed candidates or onto the ballot, which gather about 2% of the votes between them.

I agree that there are many similarities between Republicans and Democrats, but that’s only because they’re both so entrenched and do business behind closed doors. As we’ve seen lately in Wisconsin, there are substantial philosophical and operational differences between the two parties. If a new Progressive Party were to be launched but consisted of the Usual Suspects, they’d fall back into their old good-ol-boy ways pretty bleeep soon and then we’d have 3 parties that looked the same to you.

If you’re mixing up the Republicans and the Tea Partiers, you’re making a big mistake, as the TP’s resent big-spending Republicans even more than they detest big-spending Democrats. You’ll see that clearly in the 2012 primaries. If a non-Obama-zombie fiscally conservative Democrat happened to run for office, they’d get backing from the Tea Party. However, it so happens that there aren’t any.

Jessica, GT had enough lead time to incorporate Gadhafi’s statement directly into this strip, which is confusing because it contradicts “the package“‘s desperate cry for help weeks ago. GT clearly is drawing direct comparisons to Libya this week, except, of course, in his absurd Magical Fantasy that Obama would ever declare a no-fly zone over Gadhafi’s country.

His title may be “President-For-Life”, but he’s really the “King of Denial”.

Royalty can be a heavy burden. This is something Red Rascal is about to learn the hard way.

Workers of the world unite. The Red Rascal will help free us from the corporate-military complex.

@mightaswellbe,

It’s Gil Scott-Heron’s, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” from the 1970’s. Definitely worth checking out. He also wrote a great anti-nuclear song, “We Almost Lost Detroit,” about a real near disaster at a nuclear power station.

@mightaswellbe

What Craig said above is about the song lyric I posted.

The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

Love the smoke coming in from the pillaging!

I agree, Nemesys, that a new Progressive Party would have tough going against the entrenched parties & entrenched mass media. It should start small and grow from there, getting a foothold in one city, then another, then in a region, then the state. Vermont is a beginning, and Wisconsin & Minnesota have seen progress, but there are setbacks.

As for the Tea-Bags, they are Republicans, and they have made the Republican Party more regressive. The Tea-Bags have incoherent positions, including loving Social Security & Medicare while hating government spending; keeping mum when Bush-Dick spent us into debt, then protesting when President Obama spends to help the economically hurt.

The Tea-Bags are, generally, pawns for a handful of wealthy White men, who want to ensure that taxes are low & get lower, especially on the wealthy. When Bush-Dick & the Republican congress created the vast tax giveaway ten years ago, that began the debt spiral in which we currently flounder, these men were happy: Thus, no Tea-Bags.

When it appeared that Obama would raise taxes on the wealthy, bingo! From out of nowhere, White middle- & working-class folk who have gained already from Obama’s presidency and stand to gain more put tea bags on their hat brims and followed the marching orders from the mouthpieces of the wealthy White men.

Bloody revolution feuled by drug-induced, mass psychosis among the peasants? Better check the granaries. You might have an ergot problem.

TimeWeaver - Not so much “Red Rascal” as “Scarlet Pimpernel”, eh?

Brian, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the nature of the Tea Party. Republicans are much more afraid of them than are Democrats, as their biggest (legitimate) fear is that they’ll place their own candidates on the ballot and split the vote. Were I you, I’d encourage the seperation between the two because it will be disaster for both were that to happen.

Fiscal conservative Tea Partiers will vote their platform, and I agree that the Republicans who work with them will succeed with their support, which has the value-add of including many people who were never politically active before. I also agree that they have influenced Republicans (“kept them in line” might be a better way to think of it) to not play patty-cake deals with their opposition and to simply stop all the spending if they want to keep their jobs. “I’ll vote for your bridge if you vote for my highway” ain’t gonna work so well these days.

There were many people on the right who loudly questioned Bush’s spending at the time, including Rush. Limbaugh moaned constantly that Bush acted far too much as a liberal would, and today constantly uses Bush’s Republican congress as a classic example for Conservatives NOT to do in the future. He blames that spending for the 2008 presidential loss, since Republicans had no fiscal credibility as a result. That lack of credibility, of course, formed the genesis of the Tea Party.

Personally, I don’t see the disconnect between collecting the Social Security and Medicare benefits that they have already paid for while advocating for more choice and less government control over those assets in the future. If anything, that seems like a very progressive idea.

@ Nemesys- For the most part, the Tea Party is as socially conservative as they are fiscally conservative. They would not back any Democrat worthy of the name.

The GOP is more concerned about the Tea Party because they form a substantial block within the party. They’ve already cost some incumbents their jobs & seem ready to vote more out more. There is also the real concern that many of the candidates acceptable to the TP are not acceptable to the general electorate.

BrianCrook is exactly right about the Teapublicans’ deference to the business establishment. This is clear from their failure even to mention tax expenditures: the exemptions for oil depletion, agribusiness, employees’ heath care, home mortgage interest that add up to $1.5 trillion—enough to close this year’s deficit.

In kowtowing to those who benefit from these tax expenditures, the Tea party walks exactly the path worn by nearly every Republican and Democrat of the past three decades. It has in fact become the Yellow Brick Path to the American Dream, which no politician can do without.

It doesn’t matter whether we get a new progressive party or a new conservative party. It won’t really be new unless it dares to wean voters off their American dream and return them from Oz to the actual United States, whose diverse population with its randomly distributed wealth may have become too big any longer to govern itself, or even to raise the revenues it needs to keep functioning.

I think Nem was referring to the Movie “Casa Blanca”, with Bogart and Bacall, Bogie and Bacall.

Similarities there..

Yeah, definitely, Justice22. I was just getting ready to say Bogart but with Ingrid Bergman.

^ hahaha,,, Thanks, Been years since I saw the movie. I don’t care who plays the parts as long as I enjoy the movie. Guess I got the Bogie and Bacal from the Statler Bros.

Gee, I thought I mentioned Boggie and Casa Blanca 9 hours ago, but being as young as I am, I never saw Humphrey’s nickname in print.Where would I find it.

The lives of 2 small people don’t mean a hill of beans in this crazy world.

What drug causes people to think Bush was like a liberal? Talk about out of touch with reality. I love the way Nemesys holds out the possibility that a Teabag would vote for a Democrat, but then discounts the possibility on a technicality.

Two percent for Move-On in the ”Stone Mountain State” is almost progressive. The third party may be the Neo Confederate Party, with the usual suspects.

I agree with you, Nemesys, that there is a faction w/in the Republican Party that can’t stand the dreadful Teapublican candidates, and that many of the Teapublican candidates—both winners & losers—are doing their party no favors: Governor Scott, Senator Paul (who wants to discuss his toilet), Tom Tancredo, Governor Walker, Joe Miller, Ken Buck, Linda McMahon, Christine O’Donnell, &, of course, Sharron Angle.

In addition, we really need not discuss the Tea-Bags any longer, because they are yesterday’s news. The Republican Party has absorbed a few of them & will use more of them, but many of them won’t see another term, and they will have a waning impact on these next two years and the election of 2012, in which there is no Republican candidate who can beat President Obama.

The vast majority of Congressional Republicans are returning to business as usual. They know that we will, rightly, blame them for a government shutdown, and they are beginning to take the heat for accomplishing nothing in these first ten weeks.

Your few citations of Rush Limbaugh, besides embarrassing yourself (why would anyone remember what Limbaugh says?), do not deny my points. We saw no Tea-Bags as Bush-Dick slaughtered Iraqi civilians & children, spent out nation into overwhelming debt, and steered the economy into disaster.

Everyone pays for Medicare, Nemesys. You cannot be against big government while collecting Medicare unless you are moronic, hypocritical, or both.

Thanks, Drome, but I would not call American wealth “randomly distributed”.

Yesterday’s strip mentioned the chopper returning to Herat which is a city in West Afghanistan just south of Turkmenistan which is the country I believe Berzerkistan is modeled after. Until the end of 2006 it was ruled with an iron fist by a real loony-toon who went so far as to rename the months after himself and relatives. Sounds like Pres. Trriff eh?