Ted Rall by Ted Rall
- August 17, 2009
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Deploying the razor-sharp wit and incisive take-no-prisoners satire characteristic of his generation, Gen Xer Ted Rall has become one of the most widely read editorial cartoonists in America. Twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rall's work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers, as well as such magazines as Time, Newsweek, Fortune and MAD. He is also the author of 15 books, including several graphic novels and political polemics about Central and South Asia.
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Comments (39) Jump to Comments Form
Dale Hopson
said,
3 months ago
Ted, I don’t get this one…
And I do agree with him about the unhealthy “food” most Americans eat!
ultramaroon said, 3 months ago
We’re waiting for American troops to leave Iraq.
We’re waiting for health care reform that is worthy of the name.
Basically we’re waiting for some sign - any sign - that Barack Obama will fulfill the hopes we invested in him.
Ted thinks we’ll be waiting a long, long time.
I’ve thought Ted has been too hard on Obama but frankly I’m starting to come around to his point of view.
Vasmosn said, 3 months ago
Undo 8 years in 7 months? Some people really must have thought he was the messiah!
sirrom567 said, 3 months ago
Considering the myriad of vested interests that stand in the way of anybody – including Obama – getting anything done, and the general obstinate stupidity of the American public, what we really need is to make Bernie Sanders dictator plenipotentiary. Or as Ted might say, Generalissimo El Bernardo.
cjr53 said, 3 months ago
We could also use a cessation of the party of No, and an elimination of the talking heads such as limbaugh, beck, coulter, etc.
There are some things that Barrack could do without legislation from congress.
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
cjr53, Not much thankfully, he has not been declared dictator(yet)
Gamerboi said, 3 months ago
Dale,
This is a parody of Obama’s health plan, but with food instead of health care.
Adam Sperry said, 3 months ago
There are a thousand things Obama could do, at least temporarily, with the stroke of a pen.
For instance:
He could close Guantanamo permanently and give the land back to Cuba. Right now it’s all, ‘OMG- we have to wait…for something…’
He didn’t have to defent DOMA.
He could stop DADT and make sure Congress had a bill to rescind both of these.
(Obama has flat-out broken his promises on Civil Rights and Equality)
He could stop torture once and for all by he US, and he could stop send prisoners to other countries to be tortured.
He could order complete withdrawls from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Need I go on???
WestTex13 said, 3 months ago
cjr53 - Of course a single party view with no opposition or any opposition being removed forcefully is a swift method for making change. It has historically worked.. While we’re at it we should set up concentration camps and fire up the ovens..
iamthemodextremist said, 3 months ago
No to all of you. What Rall is doing here is trying to make money. No matter what happens, no matter who is in charge Rall’s comics are never going to change because that is the personality that people have come to expect for him. He’s exactly the same as Rush, Beck, Hannity, Rhodes or any of the others. He’ll always just bow down to what the far left demands.
4uk4ata said, 3 months ago
Maybe because he is on the left?
AJLCAB said, 3 months ago
I am probably not as left as Mr. Rall but I too am let down by President Obabma’s administration to this point. Yes, it is very early in his term but the variance from what he campaigned on and what has been accomplished is growing more each day. I am not sure if the President does not want to push his campaign agenda or if he has left the day to day details to the psycho in the House (Chairman Pelosi). You would think with control of Congress and the White House that even a slightly liberal agenda would be possible. This latest fiasco with a healthcare initiative really broke my heart.
Tigger
said,
3 months ago
Ted Rall, a Liberal, is against Obama’s Health Care Plan.
This my friends, is why Obama’s proposed Health care Reform will fail.
4uk4ata said, 3 months ago
Rall is against it because he finds it too much to the right. The right is against it because it is too much to the left. You can’t please them all.
You may be right, tigger, and it may be the plan eventually lacks the broad support to pass. However, it will not be because the plan is inherently flawed, but because of the weak organization of those who should have supported it.
bromonation said, 3 months ago
10/10
ynnek58 said, 3 months ago
I wasn’t let down because I was pretty dang sure Obama wasn’t the Messiah. Look, the dude had no track record – he basically hadn’t done much of anything as a senator (except accumulate an extraordinarily socialist voting record). He wants to be Lincoln SO bad, but he’s nothing but another LBJ. It’s no different than Eisenhower getting elected saying he was going to get us out of Korea – did he? No! There wasn’t really much of a choice (at least at that point) even if he wanted. Obama said what was popular and what people wanted to hear. You didn’t actually believe him did you? How can you tell a politician is lying? He’s every bit as big a dip wad as Bush – just in a different direction. Have no expectations of government – you won’t be disappointed.
ynnek58 said, 3 months ago
Difference is Christianity is voluntary… sure – seems like a small thing… Problem here is socialists think they can determine my level of ‘benevolence’.
Ted Rall
said,
3 months ago
If Obama had proposed true socialized medicine, it would have saved people paying for private insurance up to $10,000 a year. A law requiring employers to pass the savings from not having to provide healthcare on to their workers in the form of $10,000-a-year raises would have made sure that everyone in America effectively earned $10,000 a year more (minus increased taxes to pay for healthcare, but still).
$10,000 a year is worth going to Town Halls and yelling at right-wingers over. Some vague “public option” (or, now “public co-op”) is not. That’s why healthcare is not going to happen.
Ted Rall
said,
3 months ago
Obama a socialist? If only.
ynnek58 said, 3 months ago
Hey I hear Venezuela is looking for a few good men… I’m sure Hugo would welcome you with open arms!
Ted Rall
said,
3 months ago
Chavez just nationalized golf courses. Awesome!
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
…and has shut down ALL radio stations so that there are NO unsanctioned voices left
ynnek58 said, 3 months ago
Lego,
It turned put they were all opposition stations and his thugs went through with a fine-tooth comb to get them on a bunch of technicalities. You couldn’t ‘get’ to buy the license unless you were willing to back him.
Only a true commie could get excited about the government confiscating all of the golf courses. All of that worked so well in the ‘revolution’ in Cuba!
meowdam said, 3 months ago
there are none so blind as those who will not see
Ted Rall
said,
3 months ago
Ynnek: The Cuban Revolution is far from perfect. But consider the alternative that it replaced and the alternative gangster capitalism that we would like to see there, and it smells like roses there.
You do bring up a reasonable point about Chavez’s penchant for squelching the opposition. At least there *is* an opposition in Venezuela. Here in the United States, to watch TV and read newspapers, you’d think there was no one to the left of Barack Obama, i.e. a center-right technocrat.
Ted Rall
said,
3 months ago
Also, anything that gets rid of stupid wasteful golf courses isn’t all bad.
fennec said, 3 months ago
Ted. I am of a much older generation than yours, and I admit I often don’t understand where you guys are coming from. However, I was in my 20’s in the 1960’s, and out there on the streets demonstrating, getting our photos into the FBI files, and all that. The thing is, one thing I learned after all that was that sooner or later one must settle in the short term for the possible. Look at the McGovern situation. He was trounced, but what he espoused eventually came to be received wisdom. I also saw what happened when we liberals turned on Humphrey in 1968. Sure, we were right about the war, but where did that get us? (BTW, I was campaigning like mad for Gene McCarthy, having lived thru the bad McCarthy) Just some thoughts from an old f@rt.
ynnek58 said, 3 months ago
Ted,
We might could come to an understanding about golf courses lol – sucking a ½ million gallons of scarce western water resources a day to water in Palm Springs, for example, IS pretty stupid. Somehow though, if the government took it over, they’d be sucking 700-800K gallons a day. I’d believe in Government more if their track record were a little better (righties AND lefties).
YouWereWarned said, 3 months ago
US of A: The best of both worlds!
As capitalists, they make everybody pay the few.
As socialists, they make everybody pay for the few (like in golf).
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
Big Ear, spoken like a faithful follower of the dictatorial left.
Yennek58 answered your post. Chavez is eliminating all opposition.
icomefromthefuture said, 3 months ago
I come from the future! Where mayonnaise has been outlawed, but Miracle Whip thrives!
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
I’m for killing leftist enemies of the United States anywhere.Can’t understand how we missed Fidel so often.
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
That would be sedition and disloyal. They may be worthless scoundrels but they are “our scoundrels”. And we still have opposition media and the right to vote for more than one hand selected ballot. (so far)
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
…thats because you will no learn to trust your betters.
ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago
Hurray! Ted’s here! Or was anyway.
Somebody said Rall’s against and that’s why health care will fail.
Health Care failed a year ago, it failed two years ago. Why? Because instead of building a mandate by the people for the government to wrest control of this nation from the corporate entities that have been steeling from us for decades, Obama went on the offense against the Democratic party. (He had to, how else would he distinguish himself amongst a stage filled with people more qualified than he?)
The time to do health care was day one. If he took the Trillion dollars promised for “Stimulus” and put it in a trust fund for Single Payer, and if he funded the rest of it through a mechanism similar to the preferred stocks strategy that the government employed with the financial corps, he never would have needed to bankrupt GM. Every Municipality would be running in a surplus right now.
The stock market would be through 17,000, and Capital gains revenues would be through the roof.
Obama has been wrong on this for years.
Seeing health care die like this is the old Cadillac story; It’s like watching your mother in law drive off a cliff, in your brand new Cadillac!
Ted, Thanks for coming!
fennec said, 3 months ago
Reasons, I wish you were right, but my expectations are that it would have come a cropper even with your approach. He could never have gotten it through with the stimulus funds. His real hope was to get it through before the August recess, but that failed. Just hope something that is a baby step forward can get through this Autumn.
ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago
I’m not sure I know what “Come a cropper” means.
My guess would be like the argicultural equivalent to a “Gusher” in that a farmer grows a crop and if the Good Lord wills it and the crick don’t rise, he has a bumper crop.
But that doesn’t fit into your post contextually. Unless, you’re a farmer, because those guys are always telling you how bad their luck is, either the apples didn’t grow, or the apples grew perfectly and so the price dropped because everybody else’s apples grew too. Too much rain, not enough rain, too hot in the winter, too cold in the winter…feh!
Which leads me to think it means “go down the crapper” but nobody “comes to the bathroom’ and everybody “Goes to the bathroom” (even when there ain’t no bathroom, ask a bear!)
But I’ll assume the latter and I’ll say, that’s why time should have been spent building a mandte among the people to overthrow the failed policies of the Republican Machine over the last 60 years.
Pointing to Reagan as the “Transformative” figure and the Republican party as “The Party of Ideas” and denying LBJ’s “Country before politics” move of ramming the Civil Rights Act down the throats of a bigotted nation were the reasons that Health Care Reform 2009 came with it’s own 100% Infant Mortality rate.
We finally had the people willing to listen. Willing to look beyond the stereotypes and realize that we had given corporate enough rope and they hanged us all.
We finally had the opportunity to have an intelligent debate that could have culminated in a party platform made up of the best ideas of the party and the people, an opportunity we are never likely to see again in the 40 years I have left (OTOH I could die tomorrow, I’m ready).
He fricken blew that opportunity away, and for what?
Dutchboy1 said, 3 months ago
Instead of saying “and a party of bankers ate all the food”, it should say “and we gave all the food, including yours, to a party of bankers”. GET IT RIGHT!
ReasonsVentriloquist said, 3 months ago
Dutchboy1,
I don’t think that’s correct, or fair. First off the bankers ate up all the money, so the fed had to print up new money to replace all the money the banks et.
Secondly, it wasn’t Obama that gave the banks the money, that happened in August of last year while Obama was still telling people how he was going to work with the Republicans to solve our problems.
I liked that line, but my favorite line is “A tip would be nice…”!