Latest from Ted Rall

[The Dark]

Another lefty that forgets our troops are fighting and dying for the freedom of Iraq... Fucking assholes.

Freedom of Iraqi oil you mean.

Ted, you do realize we aren't exactly going against Mahatma Ghandi here. Regardless of Bush's motivation the Iraqi people will be better off.

Maybe not against Ghandi, but Ghandi's grandson Arun has protested against the war in DC. He was there along with other various spiritual leaders, including eight members of the Methodist Bishops' Council and the rabbi who is editor of Tikkun magazine. Gulf War veterans also have spoken out against the war.

At this point, Al Sharpton is just about the only person I wouldn't vote for over Bush. Shrub's just another Texas bidnessman who hasn't grown up and never figured out how to do anything without relying on somebody else. His lack of political experience has become apparent since he entered the White House, and his provinciality has become America's greatest liability in world affairs.

[Stormbringer]

Maybe not against Ghandi, but Ghandi's grandson Arun has protested against the war in DC. He was there along with other various spiritual leaders, including eight members of the Methodist Bishops' Council and the rabbi who is editor of Tikkun magazine. Gulf War veterans also have spoken out against the war.

At this point, Al Sharpton is just about the only person I wouldn't vote for over Bush. Shrub's just another Texas bidnessman who hasn't grown up and never figured out how to do anything without relying on somebody else. His lack of political experience has become apparent since he entered the White House, and his provinciality has become America's greatest liability in world affairs.

Bush is an idiot and a fuck up. But regardless of his motivation for war this is the right thing to do. Saddam Hussien is a mass murderer and oppresses his people violently. Good riddance whatever the motive.

[Hamel]

Ted Rall, you are a true American.

[Joe]

Of course he's a true American. A prick and a moron as well, but an American nonetheless.

[fgalkin]

Rall is VERY anti-Bush:


Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

VERY VERY Anti-Bush:

THE MORON MAJORITY

An American Warlord Races to Waterloo
NEW YORK--Now it's official: most Americans are idiots.

Decades of budget cuts in education are finally yielding results, a fact confirmed by CNN's poll of March 16, which shows that an astonishing 51 percent of the public believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

There is no reason to think that. None. True, George W. Bush has asserted the existence of indirect links between low-level Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence officials--a lame lie repeatedly denied by the CIA--but even our professional prevaricator has never gone so far as to accuse Saddam of direct involvement in 9-11. Despite their increasingly tenuous grasp on reality, not even the Bush Administration's most fervent hawks deny that the secular dictator of Iraq is a mortal enemy of the Islamist extremists of Al Qaeda. No mainstream media outlet has ever reported otherwise.

So why do these pinheads think such a thing?

Simple: the official Bushie pretexts given for launching a unilateral invasion of Iraq don't stick. If Saddam was going to launch nukes or anthrax missiles in our direction, he would have done so during the last dozen years, while American warplanes were pulverizing his military installations with weekly bombing raids. He'd certainly let us have it this week, now that Bush is revving up the war he wanted all along--but he won't, because he can't.

Furthermore, no one really believes that the GOP is interested in liberating the oppressed people of Iraq. America's role in the world, after all, typically involves funding dictators--as Bush is currently doing in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan---not democrats.

Like a befuddled chemistry lab student who works backwards from the answer in order to ensure the correct results, the Moron Majority have talked themselves into an excuse they can live with for a war they can't otherwise morally justify. Denial, after all, isn't just a river in Egypt.

By a two-to-one margin, Americans think that their country should adhere to its tradition of attacking other countries in self-defense only, never preemptively. Thirty-seven percent say that they support an invasion of Iraq only with UN approval. This war against Iraq fulfills neither of these conditions, so Americans have managed to morph Bush's insinuations about a Saddam-Al Qaeda link into full-on blame.

Sure, we're about to begin killing innocent men, women and children over in Iraq. It's not self-defense, so let's just call it "vengeance for 9-11." Does that work for you? Great. Osama's gotta be laughing like a hyena now that the heat's off.

There is some good news in all this. I know, "good" is a relative term if you're reading this in a bomb shelter under Baghdad or trapped at your work station under the rubble of an office building some Islamist wired and brought down on your head. But the war on Iraq is likely to lead to the political demise of the man whose evil and illegitimate rule currently represents the greatest threat to stability and peace in the world: George W. Bush.

Win or lose, Iraq will probably be Bush's Waterloo. Victory over Saddam's armed forces is a given; just as a company's announcement of previously-anticipated profits fails to deliver an uptick in stock price, military success is already assumed by the market of public opinion. That's why, even after it became evident that he'd be fighting this war alone (plus Tony Blair, minus the British public), Bush had to go ahead. His right-wing base, the part of the electorate that craves a belligerent president to protect it from future 9-11s, would have otherwise deserted him.

Even if Bush delivers a best-case scenario--quick defeat, minimal U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties--it won't do him any good. His supporters already expect that.

Things are most likely to go wrong when Bush can least afford it, during next year's campaign. Don't believe Kurdish promises to rejoin a federalized Iraq--they've had de facto independence for 12 years and they're not coming back. Turkey is already threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, and they're leaning on their own Kurds. Hoping to neutralize its unruly neighbor, Iran is arming the Shiite majority. Civil war is more than likely, possibly leading to the disintegration of Turkey and an American excuse for an attack on Iran.

It's impossible to predict the effects of prolonged American occupation of an Arab country; increased terrorism, regional instability and even greater Muslim hostility to the U.S. and its allies seem likely. But a failure to establish a long-term U.S. military presence throughout the country could prove even more damaging than a quick pull-out. If Iraq follows Afghanistan into neglect, political disintegration and anarchy, we'll be able to count our resentful new enemies by the tens of millions.

American alliances and relations with the UN and NATO have been stretched to the breaking point. By launching an illegal, unsanctioned invasion of a sovereign nation, the U.S. has abandoned its moral standing. We are, by definition, a rogue state. More frightening than that, foreign leaders from Paris to Berlin to Beijing to Moscow are starting to count more on one another than on us. This means trouble for us, sure, but also for Bush as we notice our nation's loss of prestige.

As always, however, the fools will save us from themselves. The 51 percent who currently believe what is patently false will ultimately conclude that they were duped by Bush (though it's not really true). Like stupid Americans before them (those who bought into the Domino Theory, Joe McCarthy and the necessity of interning Japanese-Americans in concentration camps), they'll wonder what the hell they were thinking. And they'll have lots of time to think about it, what with not having a job and all.

Then they'll vote for an Unnamed Democrat, currently leading Bush 48 to 44 percent in the Quinnipiac poll released March 6.

(Ted Rall is the author of "Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan," an analysis of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline and the motivations behind the war on terrorism. Ordering information is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.)

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/site/viewru.htm

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[The Dark]

Bush is an idiot and a fuck up. But regardless of his motivation for war this is the right thing to do. Saddam Hussien is a mass murderer and oppresses his people violently. Good riddance whatever the motive.

So, by that logic, the moment this war is over, we should invade Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, North Korea, Cuba, China, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (again), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia.

What's so different about Iraq that we decided to attack them instead? Just what has Iraq done to anger us, other than attempt to assassinate Shrub's father years ago? This war is, in my opinion, not my people's war. Just as the War of 1812 was Mr. Madison's War, this is Mr. Bush's War. A war caused by a man elected by the corporations and fought for the interests of the corporations, whether or not they are in the interests of the people.


[edit]Not sure Colombia should be on the list...they're not under a repressive regime, but their people are targets of attacks by guerilla groups. It's iffy.

Also forgot to bring up the point that we supported Iraq in the early 80s, and we abandoned the freedom fighters in Iraq after Gulf War One. That's why Hussein attacked the Kurd rebels we promised to support (and abandoned) and also the Shi'ite minority in the south that we didn't want to gain power because we were afraid they would ally with Iran.[/edit]

[Stormbringer]

So, by that logic, the moment this war is over, we should invade Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, North Korea, Cuba, China, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (again), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia.

What's so different about Iraq that we decided to attack them instead? Just what has Iraq done to anger us, other than attempt to assassinate Shrub's father years ago? This war is, in my opinion, not my people's war. Just as the War of 1812 was Mr. Madison's War, this is Mr. Bush's War. A war caused by a man elected by the corporations and fought for the interests of the corporations, whether or not they are in the interests of the people.

Like it or not this is a case of enlightened self interest. He's a danger to everyone in the middle east and a danger to his own people with out a doubt. That factors in, along with the fact that the US would benefit from the stability there.

[Joe]

So, by that logic, the moment this war is over, we should invade Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, North Korea, Cuba, China, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (again), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia.

Not all of those countries are a threat to us. Iraq probably is; Saddam is an asshole, and his son is a HUGE asshole. And they both have WMD and a grudge against the United States.

Also forgot to bring up the point that we supported Iraq in the early 80s, and we abandoned the freedom fighters in Iraq after Gulf War One. That's why Hussein attacked the Kurd rebels we promised to support (and abandoned) and also the Shi'ite minority in the south that we didn't want to gain power because we were afraid they would ally with Iran.

I don't know how many times I have brought this up.

We had a UN mandate to go in there and stop Hussein's aggression, not orchestrate an overthrow of its government. Don't blame it on us.

[Montcalm]

So, by that logic, the moment this war is over, we should invade Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, North Korea, Cuba, China, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (again), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia.

What's so different about Iraq that we decided to attack them instead? Just what has Iraq done to anger us, other than attempt to assassinate Shrub's father years ago? This war is, in my opinion, not my people's war. Just as the War of 1812 was Mr. Madison's War, this is Mr. Bush's War. A war caused by a man elected by the corporations and fought for the interests of the corporations, whether or not they are in the interests of the people.

Like it or not this is a case of enlightened self interest. He's a danger to everyone in the middle east and a danger to his own people with out a doubt. That factors in, along with the fact that the US would benefit from the stability there.

I guess the American government does`nt see the real threat to America,maybe they are all blinded to the fact that the majority of arab terrorists come from Saudi Arabia,like the fucker Bin Laden.

[fgalkin]

Here's another article by Rall, this one from December 2000.

Bush's Uncle Tom Cabinet
NEW YORK -- In an attempt to soothe an uncannily apathetic former electorate's concerns about his recent coup d'etat, Generalissimo El Busho has apparently done more to create an administration "that looks like America" than the Democratic president -- Clinton -- who uttered those words.

The appointment of Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state, one of the nation's leading black Republicans -- or more precisely, one of its only black Republicans -- came as little surprise to Washington Kremlinologists. Though coy about his party affiliation back in '92, when he briefly considered an independent run for the presidency, Powell quickly made a name for himself as one of the military's most outspoken opponents of Clinton's watered-down "don't ask, don't tell" policy concerning gay servicemen and women.

Powell's appointment put minority advocacy organizations in a terrible pinch.

On the one hand, the Republican Party's base is stridently, if quietly, racist. The GOP has opposed the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and virtually every single piece of legislation designed to make life for American blacks a tad less unpleasant. It's a party that tolerates former Klansman David Duke not just as a member, but as an official, and its quadrennial conventions feature an ocean of faces whiter than an aisle full of Wonder Bread.

On the other hand, a black man (not the descendant of slaves, to be sure, but of Jamaican immigrants and therefore possessing the requisite skin tone) had been appointed to one of the top 10 jobs in the country. Who cares if he's a right-wing homophobic bigot?

"Congratulations are in order," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume gushed. "I think most Americans will feel good about this choice."

In the following week, Bush piled on politically correct appointments of right-wing conservatives. "Fiercely pro-business" Texas supreme court justice Alberto Gonzales, a Latino who served as Gov. Bush's adviser on executing state inmates and repeatedly ruled that teen-age girls had to obtain parental consent to get abortions, was named White House counsel. Dr. Condoleezza Rice, a black woman who served on Bush's dad's national security council during the late '80s -- where she helped plan the illegal invasion of Panama and the subsequent arrest and framing of that country's president -- landed the national security adviser job. Anti-Castro Cuban refugee Mel Martinez was picked to become secretary of housing and urban development, Bush the First's deputy agriculture secretary Ann Veneman to get the No. 1 ag job, and New Jersey Gov. Christi(n)e Todd Whitman -- the "n" comes and goes -- to head the EPA. This looks, but hardly feels, like America.

Democrats, who watched haplessly and helplessly as the White House was stolen away by an outlaw Supreme Court, have been amazingly silent as an El Busho who ran on a platform of inclusive compassionate conservatism assembled a Cabinet exclusively composed of right-wing conservatives. (And while it's easy to be distracted by, say, Whitman's pro-choice stance, all of these people are conservative where it counts -- in the departments they'll be heading.) Only one Bush appointee, Sen. John Ashcroft, faces serious Senate confirmation problems -- and he's a white guy. As long as you dress up your right-wing business shills in skirts and additional melanin, Bush has proven, liberals won't squawk.

In the aftermath of the coup, soft-liberal pundits opined -- and GOP spokesmen tacitly agreed -- that the squeaker election-that-wasn't would necessitate a bipartisan approach to governance. If things had gone the other way, if Al Gore had assumed the office that he actually won, Gore would surely have appointed a Republican or two to his Cabinet. But Republicans never make concessions to the left, and the generalissimo is no exception. By dragging up every right-wing woman and minority he can to serve on his team, Bush has cleverly created the illusion of, in Dr. Rice's words, "an administration that is bipartisan and perhaps most importantly, an administration that affirms that united we stand, divided we fall." These blacks, Hispanics and women share their politics with uptight white males, but a disorganized left still obsessed with identity politics can't allow themselves to speak the truth, or even their truth: Progressives are better off under white male liberals than a bunch of right-wing nuts who look like America.

(Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist based in New York, is author of "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids.")

COPYRIGHT 2000 TED RALL
Originally Published on December-28-2000

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Stormbringer]

Like it or not this is a case of enlightened self interest. He's a danger to everyone in the middle east and a danger to his own people with out a doubt. That factors in, along with the fact that the US would benefit from the stability there.

I guess the American government does`nt see the real threat to America,maybe they are all blinded to the fact that the majority of arab terrorists come from Saudi Arabia,like the fucker Bin Laden.

Actually, you'd be suprised at just how aware we are. And a pretty good reason to oust Saddam: a free, secular nation on our side in the middle east.

[Joe]

Yes, much of al-Qaeda's funding comes from Saudi Arabia; have you any idea how unfeasible it would be to actually attack it to take care of the problem?

[fgalkin]

Like it or not this is a case of enlightened self interest. He's a danger to everyone in the middle east and a danger to his own people with out a doubt. That factors in, along with the fact that the US would benefit from the stability there.

I guess the American government does`nt see the real threat to America,maybe they are all blinded to the fact that the majority of arab terrorists come from Saudi Arabia,like the fucker Bin Laden.

Actually, you'd be suprised at just how aware we are. And a pretty good reason to oust Saddam: a free, secular nation on our side in the middle east.

We already have Israel, don't we?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

Before Bush got elected, Ted Rall was quite normal:

DE-NAZIFY THIS!

Good Times Make Lousy Americans

NEW YORK -- At the end of World War II, the American occupation army subjected Germans to de-Nazification. The way some Americans are turning against basic tenets of freedom makes one wonder whether we'll soon need to do the same thing here.
First came last month's meaningless, yet still shocking, vote by the House of Representatives calling for a list of the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms across the country. Never mind that hoary separation of church and state; what really matters in this precursor to next year's presidential race is empty posturing and kowtowing to the right wing of the Republican Party -- not that a bunch of Democrats refrained from joining this contemptuous bum's rush on the Constitution.

Then the perennial cry of dim-witted cloth worshippers once again found support in the Capitol in a revived push for a constitutional anti-flag-burning amendment, seemingly inspired by the laws of some backwater Third World dictatorship. One can take comfort this time that the conniving congressional cowards promulgated their faux patriotism through legal means, but if it ever passed, such an amendment would trivialize the document to the point of rendering it meaningless.

Now, in the ultimate indication that another post-liberal, retro-Reagan, '80s-esque period of political constipation is upon us, the public is turning against free speech. In a poll undertaken by the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, 53 percent of Americans believe the press enjoys too much freedom.

These people obviously don't read the same newspapers or watch the same television programs that I do. They've evidently failed to notice The Cincinnati Enquirer's shameful wuss-out on the Chiquita banana story. (A reporter stole company voicemails to obtain evidence that the company was hiring goon squads, and was subsequently cut loose by the paper -- not because the story was wrong, but because his methods were technically illegal. I say, give the guy a medal!) Perhaps they missed the CIA-led counterintelligence operation, led by The New York Times, to discredit San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb's series on the connection between U.S. support of the Nicaraguan contras and the '80s crack explosion. Most important, they clearly haven't noticed that newspapers and TV news have become moribund, generic and irrelevant to the lives of Americans under retirement age. What excesses of freedom could possibly worry these suburban neo-fascists?

Even more frightening, 35 percent of Americans say that papers shouldn't be able to publish a story without approval by a government censor -- and that's up from 20 percent in 1997. "The survey doesn't address why," Ken Paulson, the center's executive director, says, "but common sense tells you the airwaves and newspaper columns have been filled with Monica Lewinsky, Marv Albert and the aftermath of the O.J. Simpson case." Yeah, but since when does coverage of a Democratic president who models himself after Caligula and a black guy who kills his white wife make liberals look good? Nah, many Americans are simply un-American.

A friend who edits a major national magazine thinks that everyone, whether or not they're born here, ought to be required to pass a citizenship test every three years. This poll is proof that he's right. If you don't understand the fundamental importance of maintaining our right to say anything we damn well please, short of slander or libel, you ought to be deported.

The last time the proverbial pendulum swung this far backward it was 1980. By most objective standards, economic times were good. Unemployment -- the single most relevant statistic to the average citizen -- was low, and double-digit inflation (which was, incidentally, typical of the '80s boom economies of Japan and Israel) was more than surpassed by increases in wages. Nonetheless, reactionary fundamentalist Christian nutcases elected a senile former actor over a moderate Southern Democrat. Sound familiar?

Penny-ante bigotries (flashback: anti-Ayatollah bumper stickers) and antipathy toward the press are this decade's early-warning signs that we may be heading once again into an '80s-style rollback of basic civil liberties, spectacular tax giveaways to a tiny coterie of superrich and economically ruinous policies of wage stagnation and repression of workers. And don't forget: Reagan's trickle-down economics was a disaster for the middle class. It's almost as if, after five or six years of incredible economic growth, right-wing, flag-waving, Bible-pounding twits would rather see their own portfolios evaporate than watch poor people and minorities begin to enjoy the American dream.

Nothing lasts forever, but good things invariably get murdered.

(Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, is author of the award-winning graphic novel "My War With Brian.")

COPYRIGHT 1999 TED RALL
Originally Published on July-07-1999

Then, Bush was elected, and he went crazy.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Stormbringer]

Actually, you'd be suprised at just how aware we are. And a pretty good reason to oust Saddam: a free, secular nation on our side in the middle east.

We already have Israel, don't we?

Somewhat. The Israelis depend on us and that's enough. But they also are willing to go our way. Besides, in a region like that we could use all the friends we can get.

[fgalkin]

Before Bush got elected, Ted Rall was quite normal:

DE-NAZIFY THIS!

Good Times Make Lousy Americans

NEW YORK -- At the end of World War II, the American occupation army subjected Germans to de-Nazification. The way some Americans are turning against basic tenets of freedom makes one wonder whether we'll soon need to do the same thing here.
First came last month's meaningless, yet still shocking, vote by the House of Representatives calling for a list of the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms across the country. Never mind that hoary separation of church and state; what really matters in this precursor to next year's presidential race is empty posturing and kowtowing to the right wing of the Republican Party -- not that a bunch of Democrats refrained from joining this contemptuous bum's rush on the Constitution.

Then the perennial cry of dim-witted cloth worshippers once again found support in the Capitol in a revived push for a constitutional anti-flag-burning amendment, seemingly inspired by the laws of some backwater Third World dictatorship. One can take comfort this time that the conniving congressional cowards promulgated their faux patriotism through legal means, but if it ever passed, such an amendment would trivialize the document to the point of rendering it meaningless.

Now, in the ultimate indication that another post-liberal, retro-Reagan, '80s-esque period of political constipation is upon us, the public is turning against free speech. In a poll undertaken by the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, 53 percent of Americans believe the press enjoys too much freedom.

These people obviously don't read the same newspapers or watch the same television programs that I do. They've evidently failed to notice The Cincinnati Enquirer's shameful wuss-out on the Chiquita banana story. (A reporter stole company voicemails to obtain evidence that the company was hiring goon squads, and was subsequently cut loose by the paper -- not because the story was wrong, but because his methods were technically illegal. I say, give the guy a medal!) Perhaps they missed the CIA-led counterintelligence operation, led by The New York Times, to discredit San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb's series on the connection between U.S. support of the Nicaraguan contras and the '80s crack explosion. Most important, they clearly haven't noticed that newspapers and TV news have become moribund, generic and irrelevant to the lives of Americans under retirement age. What excesses of freedom could possibly worry these suburban neo-fascists?

Even more frightening, 35 percent of Americans say that papers shouldn't be able to publish a story without approval by a government censor -- and that's up from 20 percent in 1997. "The survey doesn't address why," Ken Paulson, the center's executive director, says, "but common sense tells you the airwaves and newspaper columns have been filled with Monica Lewinsky, Marv Albert and the aftermath of the O.J. Simpson case." Yeah, but since when does coverage of a Democratic president who models himself after Caligula and a black guy who kills his white wife make liberals look good? Nah, many Americans are simply un-American.

A friend who edits a major national magazine thinks that everyone, whether or not they're born here, ought to be required to pass a citizenship test every three years. This poll is proof that he's right. If you don't understand the fundamental importance of maintaining our right to say anything we damn well please, short of slander or libel, you ought to be deported.

The last time the proverbial pendulum swung this far backward it was 1980. By most objective standards, economic times were good. Unemployment -- the single most relevant statistic to the average citizen -- was low, and double-digit inflation (which was, incidentally, typical of the '80s boom economies of Japan and Israel) was more than surpassed by increases in wages. Nonetheless, reactionary fundamentalist Christian nutcases elected a senile former actor over a moderate Southern Democrat. Sound familiar?

Penny-ante bigotries (flashback: anti-Ayatollah bumper stickers) and antipathy toward the press are this decade's early-warning signs that we may be heading once again into an '80s-style rollback of basic civil liberties, spectacular tax giveaways to a tiny coterie of superrich and economically ruinous policies of wage stagnation and repression of workers. And don't forget: Reagan's trickle-down economics was a disaster for the middle class. It's almost as if, after five or six years of incredible economic growth, right-wing, flag-waving, Bible-pounding twits would rather see their own portfolios evaporate than watch poor people and minorities begin to enjoy the American dream.

Nothing lasts forever, but good things invariably get murdered.

(Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, is author of the award-winning graphic novel "My War With Brian.")

COPYRIGHT 1999 TED RALL
Originally Published on July-07-1999

Then, Bush was elected, and he went crazy.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Durandal]

Probably. Lieberman is a no,

Thankfully. I don't want that fundamentalist Jewish piece of shit near the White House.

Al Sharpton would be the most unelectable candidate ever,

Yes, such was officialized by The Daily Show.

and a Massachusetts liberal would be disastrous. Gephardt probably won't stand much of a chance, either, not against Bush.

It's too bad, because Gephardt is really passionate about what he does.

I don't know who I'm gonna vote for; the Libertarians have joined the hippies, and I couldn't disapprove more of Bush on domestic policy. I think I'll try apathy.

I'll vote Gephardt. If not him, there's always the Libertarians. I'd much rather have a country full of pinko-commie hippes than goose-stepping fascists.

[Joe]

I'll probably get some shit for this, but I actually kind of like Gephardt. I disagree with just about everything he says, but he's always come off to me as a pretty likable guy.

[Hamel]

Bring back Wellstone from the dead

That'll do the trick

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I'd like to comment on Ted Rall: Sure, he isn't Anti-American, but I still find him offensive.

[The Dark]

So, by that logic, the moment this war is over, we should invade Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, North Korea, Cuba, China, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (again), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia.

Not all of those countries are a threat to us. Iraq probably is; Saddam is an asshole, and his son is a HUGE asshole. And they both have WMD and a grudge against the United States.

What weapons of mass destruction? We still have yet to discover any convincing evidence of any NBC weapons beyond purely tactical biochemical weapons. As much as I dislike Iraq, all the evidence against them seems fabricated by a political intelligence appartus with the sole goal of providing the semblance of a justification for war, regardless of whether or not the reality and the reports coincide.

Also forgot to bring up the point that we supported Iraq in the early 80s, and we abandoned the freedom fighters in Iraq after Gulf War One. That's why Hussein attacked the Kurd rebels we promised to support (and abandoned) and also the Shi'ite minority in the south that we didn't want to gain power because we were afraid they would ally with Iran.

I don't know how many times I have brought this up.

We had a UN mandate to go in there and stop Hussein's aggression, not orchestrate an overthrow of its government. Don't blame it on us.

So the fact that Bush called upon the Iraqis to rebel, said "we will support you," then failed to follow through is right? This is exactly why the rest of the world distrusts us. We refuse to act in anyone else's interest unless it benefits us, even at risk of the deaths of allies.

[edit]Missed a quote marker. Fixed it.[/edit]

[Enforcer Talen]

lol, those cartoons are the funniest thing Ive seen tonight.

[Howedar]

Honestly, I don't think the Dems have a single candidate that can challenge Bush.

Dick Gephardt's running in 2004; I think he'll be the nomination. Can he beat Bush? On any other day, sure. After we've just deposed Hussein and lowered gas prices? Not a chance in Hell.

How low will the gas prices drop? Hell, we had under a buck under Clinton (not that he had any influence, but the public doesn't care).

Besides, having the Dow go up 235 points in a day is not the same as having the economy recover. I'm not convinced that the economy is out of the doldrums yet.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Honestly, I don't think the Dems have a single candidate that can challenge Bush.

Dick Gephardt's running in 2004; I think he'll be the nomination. Can he beat Bush? On any other day, sure. After we've just deposed Hussein and lowered gas prices? Not a chance in Hell.

How low will the gas prices drop? Hell, we had under a buck under Clinton (not that he had any influence, but the public doesn't care).

Besides, having the Dow go up 235 points in a day is not the same as having the economy recover. I'm not convinced that the economy is out of the doldrums yet.

Also, they went below a buck after 9-11, probably because people were'nt driving as much, so the demand was lower. If access to more oil doesn't lower the prices, then the government can always scare the people into staying at home and panicing.