Rhymes with Gall
I've never boycotted anything. Not a store, not an entertainer, not a certain food product. I figure if people have a problem with some entity, be it a corporation or a rock star, they can choose whether or not to consume any goods put out by that corporation or person. And I can see where that might be seen as standing behind your convictions, and where my lack of boycotting might be seen as not standing by my convictions.
I try to separate the parts from the whole. I like Johnny Depp, the actor. I can't see throwing away all my favorite Tim Burton DVDs just because Johnny stars in most of them and Johnny doesn't like the U.S. of A. I still call my fries french fries and I eat croissants and drink French wine.At least half of my CDs are produced by bands or artists that have been know to participate in anti-war activities; some are even on tour right now, promoting some kind of anti-Bush, America is Evil agenda. But I like the music. I enjoy the music very much. And I am not going to pull all of those CDs off of my playlist because the lead singer is an anti-American jerk. When the music plays, he's just a singer, or a guitarist and I dance/sing away. I still treasure all my copies of Too Much Coffee Man even though the author of those comics is a Friend of Rall. I am not going to deny myself the laughs that Shannon Wheeler provides me just because in his spare time he parades against the war in Iraq. Separate the politics from the person is my motto. Unless, of course, the politics is the person. Then you can't separate them.
So I've struggled with myself last night over the issue of boycotting the papers and websites that pay Ted Rall to print his crap.
The struggle lasted about ten minutes. There is nothing redeeming about Ted Rall, I reasoned. His art sucks, his humor is devoid of cleverness, his rants border on treason (see his rant on encouraging the troops to abandon Iraq) and he's just a cruel, callous man. There is no message in his comics except vile hatred for America and most of its citizens. Do I want to engage in this boycott? Do I want to follow Andrew Sullivan's lead and protest Universal Press Syndicate?
Yes, I do.
Mike says this:
bq. The time for merely railing in places like this against Rall’s childishly treasonous outbursts is past. It’s now time to do something more concrete and tangible about him. Let him scream “stifling of dissent” all the way to the pauper’s grave he so richly merits; let him peddle his filth from somewhere other than the protective bosom of the country he so obviously despises. Let him lie down with the terrorist dogs his nihilistic ivory-tower Leftism breeds, weans, and coddles and see if he’s more comfortable in their embrace than our own. Let him reap what he’s sown. There is no reason in the world that any nation, any society, any civilization, should have to tolerate such trifling, intellectually dishonest, and despicable attacks. The fact that he lacks the self-discipline to muzzle his own baser impulses is no reason to continue letting him shit on a rug he didn’t pay for in the first place.
I'm inclined to agree with him. Wholeheartedly.
Let's call this proverbial straw on the camel's back. I've been running after Ted Rall for two years now.
It's just one panel, not even the whole strip. In just one, tiny sentence, Ted Rall changes from just another bitter anti-America screech owl into a hatemongerer. Sure, you can say that some of Rall's past works have been hateful. But not like this. He paints Pat Tillman and, in essence, every soldier who enlisted after 9/11, as racist thugs who want nothing more than to murder Arabs.
That's disdainful. It's arrogant, it's obnoxious, it's vile and it's contemptible. No newspaper or syndicate in their right mind should be letting this hateful attempt at humor grace their pages.
Rall is a disgrace to America. Here is a man who, as a New York City resident, saw the charred rubble of the World Trade Center up close. He saw first hand the devastation of 9/11. And yet he thinks going into Afghanistan is evil and wrong. I don't understand his mind set.
After we began the war on terror in Afghanistan, Rall took a trip over there (risking his life as a visiting cartoonist, mind you). Apparently, he made nice with some residents who told him that this was no war on terror and Bush was just bombing them to protect an oil pipeline. Ted smacked his head and said, DOH!
What I would like to ask Ted is this: What about the Taliban, who had large bases in that country? What about bin Laden, who was hiding out in Afghanistan? No, scratch that. I want to ask this not just of Rall, but of all people who think that the war taking place in Afghanistan is evil, wrong and immoral: What should our reaction to 9/11 have been? Please, enlighten me.
Back to the matter at hand, that being whether or not to ask Universal Press Syndicates to get rid of Rall's comic.
Yes, I am going to write emails today. I don't think Rall's brand of humor and/or political rants belong in anything but some underground paper distributed to raging anarchists in the basement of some decrepit apartment building. And while I will stop short of asking them to no longer print Rall's work, I will be telling them that I will do everything in my power to make it known that Universal Press Syndicate advocates hate speech and the degradation of our soldiers during wartime.
Rall hatred is no longer a source of amusement for me. It's disturbing. Will I be provoking censorship by emailing UPS? No, because I am not going to ask them to stop using Rall's work. But I'm going to be damn sure to spread the word that UPS is syndicating a columnist that wishes ill will upon our troops (yes, he has stated this in so many words) and thinks they are all racist, wannabe murderers.
The fact that he thinks we had no right to a)defend ourselves and b)attack Afghanistan to prevent more terrorism is another rant for another day.
I'll be doing what Sullivan asks today:
bq. The hate-monger is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. It's not censorship or "McCarthyism" for people to complain about any syndicate that peddles the poison that Rall lives off. Today's disgusting diatribe against Pat Tillman is so vile, so utterly devoid of any motive or argument but personal malice and hatred, some form of protest is surely merited. Email the vice-president for print syndication, Lee Salem, and tell him what you think of Rall's cartoon. Please, please, be civil. His email is lsalem@amuniversal.com. He needs to hear from you.
I reiterate what Sullivan said: Civil. Flies with honey.
[For a further look into the mind of Ted Rall, go here]
Related: The Ted Rall Unemployment Project
If anyone has a screeshot of the Kerry ad appearing on Rall's site, please email me. I got that information from someone else and I would like to make sure it's accurate.
Update: I just received an email from a reader that read, in part:
bq. I'm forwarding an email to you that I sent this morning to the national sports talk show host Jim Rome. Rome had a personal relationship with Pat Tillman and actually gave the eulogy at Pat's funeral yesterday. If you've ever heard one of Rome's rants on the radio you know he's capable of beating a subject to death and he does have a national audience that rivals Rush Limbaugh. I wanted you to know what I'd done in case you'd care to rally YOUR troops to email Rome about taking the fight to Rall.
He includes a copy of the email he sent:
It's just one panel, not even the whole strip. In just one, tiny sentence, Ted Rall changes from just another bitter anti-America screech owl into a hatemongerer. Sure, you can say that some of Rall's past works have been hateful. But not like this. He paints Pat Tillman and, in essence, every soldier who enlisted after 9/11, as racist thugs who want nothing more than to murder Arabs.
That's disdainful. It's arrogant, it's obnoxious, it's vile and it's contemptible. No newspaper or syndicate in their right mind should be letting this hateful attempt at humor grace their pages.
Rall is a disgrace to America. Here is a man who, as a New York City resident, saw the charred rubble of the World Trade Center up close. He saw first hand the devastation of 9/11. And yet he thinks going into Afghanistan is evil and wrong. I don't understand his mind set.
After we began the war on terror in Afghanistan, Rall took a trip over there (risking his life as a visiting cartoonist, mind you). Apparently, he made nice with some residents who told him that this was no war on terror and Bush was just bombing them to protect an oil pipeline. Ted smacked his head and said, DOH!
What I would like to ask Ted is this: What about the Taliban, who had large bases in that country? What about bin Laden, who was hiding out in Afghanistan? No, scratch that. I want to ask this not just of Rall, but of all people who think that the war taking place in Afghanistan is evil, wrong and immoral: What should our reaction to 9/11 have been? Please, enlighten me.
Back to the matter at hand, that being whether or not to ask Universal Press Syndicates to get rid of Rall's comic.
Yes, I am going to write emails today. I don't think Rall's brand of humor and/or political rants belong in anything but some underground paper distributed to raging anarchists in the basement of some decrepit apartment building. And while I will stop short of asking them to no longer print Rall's work, I will be telling them that I will do everything in my power to make it known that Universal Press Syndicate advocates hate speech and the degradation of our soldiers during wartime.
Rall hatred is no longer a source of amusement for me. It's disturbing. Will I be provoking censorship by emailing UPS? No, because I am not going to ask them to stop using Rall's work. But I'm going to be damn sure to spread the word that UPS is syndicating a columnist that wishes ill will upon our troops (yes, he has stated this in so many words) and thinks they are all racist, wannabe murderers.
The fact that he thinks we had no right to a)defend ourselves and b)attack Afghanistan to prevent more terrorism is another rant for another day.
I'll be doing what Sullivan asks today:
bq. The hate-monger is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. It's not censorship or "McCarthyism" for people to complain about any syndicate that peddles the poison that Rall lives off. Today's disgusting diatribe against Pat Tillman is so vile, so utterly devoid of any motive or argument but personal malice and hatred, some form of protest is surely merited. Email the vice-president for print syndication, Lee Salem, and tell him what you think of Rall's cartoon. Please, please, be civil. His email is lsalem@amuniversal.com. He needs to hear from you.
I reiterate what Sullivan said: Civil. Flies with honey.
[For a further look into the mind of Ted Rall, go here]
Related: The Ted Rall Unemployment Project
If anyone has a screeshot of the Kerry ad appearing on Rall's site, please email me. I got that information from someone else and I would like to make sure it's accurate.
Update: I just received an email from a reader that read, in part:
bq. I'm forwarding an email to you that I sent this morning to the national sports talk show host Jim Rome. Rome had a personal relationship with Pat Tillman and actually gave the eulogy at Pat's funeral yesterday. If you've ever heard one of Rome's rants on the radio you know he's capable of beating a subject to death and he does have a national audience that rivals Rush Limbaugh. I wanted you to know what I'd done in case you'd care to rally YOUR troops to email Rome about taking the fight to Rall.
He includes a copy of the email he sent:
Jim, I’m sending you this email because you’ve demonstrated in so many ways the high regard you held for Pat Tillman. Ted Rall, a political columnist and cartoonist has recently published a cartoon that defamed Pat in a manner that was particularly despicable. Rather than try to describe the garbage this jackhole produced I’ll provide an internet link: http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/ This particular cartoon was/is published in a wide array of places on the internet including MSNBC, which has since removed it from their website. Today, Mr. Rall is vigorously defending his work, saying, amongst other things: "At best, Tillman was foolish and misguided." And "Mr. Tillman served an evil president and an evil cause" as justification for his defamation. As you can imagine, this lunatic has infuriated a large segment of the online community who, like you, revere the memory of Pat Tillman. Jim, this moonbat deserves to be publicly excoriated for his actions and as the songs says "nobody does it better" than you my man. DaveDo with that what you will.
[*ed note: This may be edited later for clarity, as I'm writing it on the fly]
"Good morning, Mrs. Broslovski. Now what seems to be pissing you off this week?"
Comments
Well, this may or may not not be of interest to you, but after that huge mea culpa, the principled souls at MSNBC appear to have put Rall's cartoon back up.
Posted by: jeremy | May 4, 2004 10:33 AM
I realize that Rall has less artistic talent than I do (which is really saying something), but does anyone else think the Tillman character in the comic looks nothing like Tillman, and much more like Rall himself?
Posted by: Angie Schultz | May 4, 2004 10:43 AM
Whoops - just noticed someone already flagged Rall's return at MSNBC in other comments. Sorry for the repeat.
Posted by: jeremy | May 4, 2004 10:51 AM
Oh man. If Romey gets a hold of this and instructs his 'clones' (thats what his most passionate listeners are called) to email Lee Salem, he'll get millions.
I'll email Rome as well. His email address is jimrome@netzero.com
If he gets a bunch he'll start off his show with that. In fact, since he was at the service, I can almost guarantee that's what his show will start off with.
Posted by: Jay | May 4, 2004 10:58 AM
Just out of curiosity, do we know for a FACT that he went to Afghanistan? I mean, Michah stated he saw devistation of Panama as a Ranger-he didn't. Jayson Blair was a journalist who clamed places/interviews that never occurred. Rall doesn't have any integrity or morals, so who's to say he was actually over there?
Posted by: JohnO | May 4, 2004 11:04 AM
If he gets a bunch he'll start off his show with that. In fact, since he was at the service, I can almost guarantee that's what his show will start off with.
Posted by: merchandise | May 4, 2004 11:12 AM
I don't want Rall to be unemployed or reduced to penury. It would warm my heart to think of him, say, pumping gas or running a hot dog stand or driving a cab or one of those other jobs people from the Third World will crawl across broken glass to take in these United States.
Posted by: Crank | May 4, 2004 11:40 AM
Rall also pens the "Testosterone Diaries" for Men's Health magazine every month. Like every other piece of garbage this shit produces, it's poorly drawn, unfunny, and either doesn't make sense or doesn't have a point.
If you're a Men's Health subscriber/reader, or just want to see Rall lose every gig he has, please write to the Editor at Men's Health and ask them to cease publishing Rall's work.
http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article/0,2823,s1-8-102-0-123,00.html
Posted by: Chris | May 4, 2004 01:12 PM
Thanks for the link. I was thinking this morning that Rall is like the character Ellsworth Toohey in the novel the Foutainhead. Toohey is out to destroy the hero, Howard Roark, because he is a collectivist, and collectivists can't have heros because they inspire people to achieve greatness (which is not compatible with the everyman philosophy).
There is a tendency to think that Rall was either foolish or a troll (as Glenn Reynolds expressed it). He's neither. The denial of the existence of real heroes is a crucial part of the leftist philosophy.
Posted by: Pat Curley | May 4, 2004 01:23 PM
Great post, it is good to see others out there as unimpressed with Rall and his perpetually demeaning tripe. I have linked to your post here because to say anymore one my own would simply be a waste seeing as how you covered all the bases so well.
In regards to the Fountainhead connection I too thought of that. Great minds think a like I guess.
Cheers!
jim
Posted by: James Doney | May 4, 2004 02:02 PM
While I certainly condemn Rall's insulting strip about Pat Tillman, I still think Ted Rall's ideas are no worse than Ann Coulter's. So I would like to see more centrists and conservatives condemn her as well, though lately the only ones to do that have have people on the left.
Posted by: Ben | May 4, 2004 02:33 PM
You don't think Rall is worse that Coulter? Really? How very sad.
Posted by: Jeff G | May 4, 2004 02:53 PM
Coulter's plenty bad, Michael Moore bad. But Rall is really on another level entirely - as bad as or worse than Michael Savage, who lost his national platform in a hurry. He's much more premeditatedly malicious.
Posted by: Crank | May 4, 2004 03:14 PM
I bet Tillman knew that Afghanis aren't Arabs.
Does Ted Rall know that?
Even money he doesn't.
Posted by: Sigivald | May 4, 2004 03:47 PM
Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.
"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''
Posted by: judson | May 4, 2004 03:50 PM
I have been at work and unable to listen to the radio. I heard Jim Rome's opening dialog, "Being chosen by the Tillman family to be master of ceremonies was the greatest honor of my professional career."
However, beyond the opening, I was unable to listen - did he ever broach the subject of Rall or that college punk that was all the rage last week?
Having listened to Rome for a very long time, it would surprise me a little if he mentioned them. He's usually very conservative about things like that - he usually avoids politicized discussions as much as possible. I don't know if he would bring it up unless a caller broached the subject first.
Anyone have a report from the show?
Posted by: Olesma | May 4, 2004 04:27 PM
hmm...An Editor & Publisher article about Rall's cartoon being pulled from MSNBC just hit the top of Yahoo's "Most Popular" news category...
perhaps michele (and other blogs, the Ted Rall Unemployment Project, and Jim Rome) had an effect, as the evening browsing hours start...
Posted by: clyde | May 4, 2004 05:51 PM
"What should our reaction to 9/11 have been?"
My immediate reaction might have been to cut all ties with the bin Laden Family and the sultans in Saudo Arabia, demand that the Taliban return the 43mil we gave them prior to 9/11 (after they blew up the 1200 year old buddha statues), demanded that Osama be turned in for crimes against humanity.
Also, I wouldn't have sat in a classroom for 1/2 hour after the attacks, after being briefed about highjacked planes before getting into the limo that would take me there.
And I wouldn't have flown Saudi and bin Ladens out of the country after the attack.
Posted by: bsti | May 4, 2004 11:23 PM
Yea, the Taliban would have been shaking in their boots at that point, huh?
And then the second waves of attacks would come...
Posted by: michele | May 4, 2004 11:29 PM
bsti, you are not very bright.
Michele already said it - but if you think that simply demanding that a government do something will make it happen, then quite frankly you are either living in a dream world or an idot. Or both.
That post was quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read.
Posted by: Olesma | May 4, 2004 11:57 PM
Some people just do not respect anything or anyone. Shame on them!
Posted by: cigars | May 5, 2004 12:35 AM
yeah, it is true that I am not very bright when it comes to politics. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.
That said, had Bushco taken out the Taliban instead of negotiating with them..would have worked in MY dream world.....the Taliban did not attack the US, we were in negotiations with them. I'm sure they didn;t care, or rather would prefer we were attacked than not, but ending thier reign of terror rather than appeassing them from the outset, kust saying.
But, I am an idiot. I confess.
Posted by: bsti | May 5, 2004 01:45 AM
bsti what thell does this mean?
"the Taliban did not attack the US, we were in negotiations with them."
As for Bush taking out the Taliban, do you mean before or after 9/11? Perhaps that was a job for Clinton, pre 9/11? And if Bush did a pre emptive strike on Afghanistan or Pakistan to wipe out the Taliban, he would have been reamed up the ass for it.
If the Taliban did not attack us on 9/11, who did?
Posted by: michele | May 5, 2004 06:00 AM
he means that it wasnt Taliban who did the attacking, it was Al Queda, they were just one of the many corrupt and oppressive govts. that Bush promised to take out of this world. yet he wont attack Saudi Arabia, or even tell them to stop being one of the most oppressive govts in the world today.
Posted by: ch | May 5, 2004 08:49 AM
Rall is Rall and will always be Rall. There is no hope for that bastard. I hope the editors, especially those hiding behind the First Amendment, who allowed this despicable "cartoon" run in their papers and web sites will be fired or at least reprimanded. A halfhearted apology is not enough.
Posted by: Anthony Bouton | May 5, 2004 09:29 AM
That's true, the Taliban did not attack us. But it's also true that we didn't attack the Taliban.
Three groups that shelter in our territory did, though. They are referred to in the press as "Army, Marines, and Air Force."
Some sources say that another group "the Navy" is associated with "Marines" but the Taliban has not been able to prove this, and it is denied by "Marine" activists.
Leftist claims that red-blooded testosterone sports like football are connected to Militant Americanism would seem to be reinforced by revelations about Tillman's history as a football player, but some militants claim not to follow football. An un-named source from within the Army even said "I like to watch soccer."
Posted by: dennymack | May 5, 2004 11:50 AM
bsti,
"That said, had Bushco taken out the Taliban instead of negotiating with them..would have worked in MY dream world....."
Fortunately, we're not living in your dream world. You know, the one where you sound like you want to sit around a campfire and hold hands with people who want us dead, all while singing "Kum-ba-yah."
Why don't we just paint a big sign on the entire country saying "Hit me, I'm a target!"
Posted by: Prague | May 6, 2004 08:38 AM
Ted Rall is a troll. The first rule of the interenet is don't feed the trolls. I know ignoring him won't make him go away, but you have to know that he feeds off this stuff, all the attention, all the hype and anger. He's sitting in his little room laughing it up and having a good ole time. Psychopathic serial killers are the same way, they tend to watch police reports or even sit outside the crime scene when the police are there. For them its a rush, for Rall, the same type of rush is had when he riles up all the people he hates.
Posted by: Gabriel | May 7, 2004 09:41 AM
Wake up guys! The Royal Saudi family is funding the world-wide Islamic fundamentalist "Wahibi" movement with all the billions of dollars gas-guzzling Americans pay for Saudi fuel. The Wahibis, together with Bin Laden, are the guys stoking up the fundamentalists. And the Bush family has been best buddies with the Saudis for two generations - having made their wealth in the oil business.
We have to get off the Saudi tit, get them to stop funding the fundamentalists, and in the process focus our attention getting Osama - who hated "secularist" Saddam and who certainly isn't hiding out in Iraq.
It ain't un-American to point out that Bush has spent the country into a very deep hole and that his absurd war in Iraq has been the best recruiting tool Osama could ever have hoped for. WMD? Al-Qeada link? - What bullshit!
Doesn't anyone feel like they've been suckered by Bush? And wasn't that the point of the Tillman cartoon?
Face it, Bush is too stupid to be president. His his "bring it on" bullshit plays real macho-like, but it is a recipe for disaster. As we are now seeing in Iraq.
Posted by: Aragon | May 9, 2004 10:06 PM
"Billions of dollars gas-guzzling Americans pay for Saudi fuel". Funny, if you look at the merchandise section of Ted Rall's site(www.tedrall.com), he's selling a 1966 Barracuda with a v-8 engine. Ironic? He's also flogging a book about the "truth"-it has that word in it's title-about George Bush's "war for oil" in the middle east. It runs 136 pages. It's THE TRUTH in 136 pages, it's about the war for oil and this jerk drives a 1966 v-8 that guaranteed sucks more gas than a modern v-8. Brutal.
Posted by: Pete | May 15, 2004 02:51 PM
Ted Rall was hired as a government consultant on Central Asia after 9-11.
Why? Few have studied and/or traveled to the area as much as Rall the same way he has.
He was warning the world of the importance of this region long before 9-11.
He has been to Afghanistan, and the other stans several times and knows the region and the US interests there first hand.
He had a spot on the conservative radio station KFI in the late 90s called Stanwatch which included news from the area. After 9-11 he was again called by the conservative station to report from Afghanistan on the ground.
What have his studies and travels told us that we don't already know?
Condi visited them before 9-11 to make sure they were reliable enough to secure the planned pipeline from the caspian sea.
Posted by: Angelo | May 20, 2004 04:11 AM