Rall on the Berg Beheading (Yet another idiot heard from)

Patterico's Pontifications ^ | 5.12.04

[mhking]

It didn't take long for Ted Rall to weigh in with a predictably boneheaded comment on the beheading of Nicholas Berg. Rall quotes -- and mocks -- Bush Administration pronouncements on the Abu Ghraib scandal and the beheading of Berg. Rall then argues that if the beheading says anything about the true nature of the terrorists, then the Abu Ghraib scandal says something about the true nature of the American people. In Rall's twisted view, any contrary opinion reflects "cognitive dissonance."

Here is the beginning of Rall's post:

Cognitive Dissonance

"I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated. Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people."
—George W. Bush, May 4

"[The beheading of Nick Berg] shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children."
—White House spokesman Scott McClellan, May 11

When we commit crimes, in other words, they're aberrations. When they commit them, they reveal exactly who they are and what they're about.

There I go again, talking treason!

No, Ted, this time you're just talking stupid.

By the way, Teddy-Boy is encouraging his readership to write MSNBC to support him. Accordingly, I am encouraging my readership to write MSNBC to denounce him.

Send your email to:

GeneralComments@feedback.msnbc.com with a copy to letters@msnbc.com.

Remember to be polite.

To write Rall directly, send an e-mail to chet@rall.com.

No threats. Let's demonstrate the true nature of the American people. Feel free to express your revulsion for his hateful ideas -- but do so in a civil and nonthreatening manner.

[L.N. Smithee]

It is difficult for me to fathom the level of self-loathing that Rall must suffer from. I wonder if his poor excuses for drawing are the difference between his continuing to draw breath and a suicide bid, since he must figure that he, as an American, doesn't deserve to live.

[baseballfanjm]

Because he's a coward who spews anti-Americanism, yet would never go to a countries he says are better than America because he wouldn't have freedom. Strange logic from his twisted mind.

Plus, he's an AWFUL cartoonist.

[weegee]

Rall barely even added any comments to that iditorial that were his own.

Ted Rall is a confessed anarchist-socialist. He opposes our constitution. He opposes our form of government. He has ZERO love for America.

As bad a Ted Rall is (and he is even ostricized by leftist cartoonists) he does not deserve to have his head savagely cut off of his head by IslamoNazis and the video of the act sent around the world. Ted Rall opposes America but he doesn't realize that even if things were as bad as he claims (they most certainly AREN'T) he would only be going from out of the frying pan into the fire if he was successful in seeing the American government collapse.

The prison abuse was being investigated by the government. There are 18,000 military investigations every year resulting in 3,000 court martials. We prune out the troublemakers. Who in the Middle East prunes out the Islamofascists? Over there governments SPONSOR IslamoNazi terrorism.

The photos of the abuse at the prison were leaked by one of the participants to say his/her hide. There is the claim being made that they were "only following orders" and being made the scapegoat for orders that came from someone above. That is what this is all about, a legal manuever.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Ted Rall is the reason for insect-repellent. Look no further than his lawsuit against "Dirty" Danny Hellman.

Here was a man who was a relatively unknown artist that decided naively to take on the "Creature from the Black Lagoon", in the form of Rall. Hellman was nearly bankrupted as a result of Rall's frivolous lawsuits.

We can only hope that his bastard decides to flee to Canada sometime in the near future. Though I can't say that I'm walking on eggshells waiting for it to happen.

[F14 Pilot]

PING!

[wai-ming]

Rall then argues that if the beheading says anything about the true nature of the terrorists, then the Abu Ghraib scandal says something about the true nature of the American people. In Rall's twisted view, any contrary opinion reflects "cognitive dissonance."

It is Rall that is cognitively dissonant. He's comparing apples and oranges here.

Nobody is saying that all Muslims commit atrocities, only the terrorists. Yet Rall implies that the Abu Ghraib prison incident says something about (all) Americans.

What an idiot.

[Travis McGee]

Rall is trying hard to launch himself into the Al Franken and Michael Moore league of well-compensated America haters.

He may find himself getting more than he bargained for. I don't think Tillman's Ranger buddies will forget or forgive his crapping on Tillman's (and the Rangers) honor.

[Richard Axtell]

When I read about the recent rhetorical atrocities of Kennedy, Leahy, and others, I am reminded of the story about "The man without a country". As punishment for treason, the man was put on board a ship, never to touch land. He literally lost his country. Rall is officially added to the passenger list of the SS Outcast, when it sails... sometime soon. Rall will join his fellow traitors Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Dennis Kucinich, Ramsey Clark, Al Franken, and a growing list of liberal luminaries. All people who willingly and readily would sacrifice their own nation's national security to either garner political power, or to satisfy their own twisted sense of ideological self-hatred. Their exile would be permanent, never again to set foot in the land of their birth, they having betrayed it and scorned its very existence. Ah... day dreams.

[Enduring Freedom]

If a coqsucker had a pencil and a penchant for buggery, it would be Rall.

[baseballfanjm]

He sued a guy for making fun of him? What a wimp!

If that's the case, Pat Tillman's family should sue Ted Rall. Rall knew nothing about Pat Tillman as a person, and yet he made a sick cartoon portraying Tillman as mindless, gun-happy jerk who just wanted to kill people.

If being likened to a B-movie monster is slander, then there's no word strong enough for Rall's character assassination of Tillman who, by all accounts I've heard, was as good a man as there is.

[Wil H]

Anal Rape??

Guess that's what happens when you allow "don't ask, don't tell"......

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Too bad you couldn't read the New York Press when it was still a somewhat reputable newspaper-carrying the syndicated columns of Christopher Caldwell and John Fund-they were all over this story as it was happening. They also did a lot of scathing-not to mention hilarious-covers that portrayed Rall in a truthful light; exposing his vindictiveness for everyone to see.

Pat Tillman, Marianne Pearl, the countless soldiers who are sacrificing their blood, lives and sacred honor in the War on Terrorism; Rall has a unique list of adversaries.

If I were him I wouldn't show my face outside of Greenwich Village anytime soon.

[.45MAN]

I'll go along with that, maybe the intake should be cut off..

[weegee]

How many articles/essays has Ted Rall written about American prisons? Things like guards knowingly allowing sexual and physical assault (including murder)? I have never approved of jail vigilantism but it is well known in America (even if the full horror isn't). People are sentenced and they pay their punishment.

If jail vigilantism is permissible then we might as well forego the trial and just get a lynch mob.

Everyone has seen at least one movie, tv show, etc. where some newly convicted prisoner is told, "meet your new cellmate/husband". Guards knowlingly allow this abuse to occur. Where is the tv report about it? Where are the protests in the streets?

I've had a former guard here on FR complain to me when I said that some guards do use such action to control prisoners and to break their spirits (the guards don't rape, they let a prisoner do it). I responded with a number of articles that I quickly googled. I didn't hear a response and I won't bother to do it again on this thread. Sometimes the guards are brought up on charges, quite often authorities know it happens.

Even GG Liddy has discussed such abuses. When he was in prison, there was a man who was about a week from his release date. He got his throat slit while he slept. He was cut from ear to ear. I think it got ruled a suicide. Mr. Liddy said that there was little regard for an investigation.

And that is just America. If Rall really wants to vent he can do an expose on Mexican prisons. If he "really really" wants to vent he could have done exposes on the abuse of prisoners while Saddam was in power. CNN knew what was happening. Ted could have talked to some Baghdad bureau employee and promised annonymity.

[weegee]

William Joyce was another treasonous member of the media. He was an American born, British citizen. England hanged him after WWII for treason.

Mildred Gillars was also convicted of treason after the war. She was jailed for less than a decade and later became a teacher.

There is speculation that William Joyce would have lived if he had been tried in America instead.

Mildred Gillars was nicknamed Axis Sally.

William Joyce went by the name Lord Haw Haw.

Michael Moore most assuredly is a member of their clique these days:

Wednesday, April 14th, 2004 Heads Up... from Michael Moore

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?

[snip]

I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

Just because the treasonous SOBs who protested Vietnam (like Jane Fonda posing on an enemy anti-aircraft gun) were never charged or prosecuted does not mean that there is any doubt they were traitors to this country.

[Trinity_Tx]

No doubt.

Do ya ever get the feelin that these guys were just such wimps growing up that they spend their adult lives doing with a pen what they never could do face to face without gettin their lil butts kicked? lol

[backtothestreets]

"Rall then argues that if the beheading says anything about the true nature of the terrorists, then the Abu Ghraib scandal says something about the true nature of the American people."

The Abu Ghraib scandal, the current investigation, and the trials and punishment resulting from such trials certainly does say some thing about the true nature of the American people, and it is worth fighting for.

The wanton, barbaric, TORTURED beheading of Nick Berg, a humanitarian trying to help rebuild Iraq, says everything anyone needs to know about the true nature of the terrorists. Don't waste time waiting for an Arab government or Islamic clerics to launch an investigation and trials. It would never happen.

[stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims]

He`s the typical whiny liberal hypocrite, which pretty much describes all liberals. It`s a mental disease caused by the refusal to grow up and face reality. The only reason he is drawing this stuff is because he`s one of the usual whiny ass mutts who don`t like who the President is. Like a little kid who doesn`t get what he wants, he stamps and stomps his feet waaaaah waaaah and he doesn`t care what the consequences are. If what he draws in his scrawl emboldens the psychotics even more, so be it. If protesting Bush before the Iraq war emboldens Saddam to defy the UN even more, so be it, because Teddy is upset! Waaah! Waaah! He didn`t get Al Gore as President, Al Gore, a guy who thinks the temperature is more of an imminent danger to the entire world than a bunch of wackos who have been mass murdering civilians in just about every country in the world for the past 36 years. So Teddy is gonna ignore people like Saddam, ignore Castro who throws people in prison for 70 years for sneezing and shoots people who try to escape Cuba, and just
keep on stamping and stomping because the little boy doesn`t like who is President. WAAAH WAAAH! The elction was stolen! Waaah WAAH! Yeah, but Al Gore who wanted to put the voting "rights" of felons over the voting rights of our own military in Florida, who got Jesse Jackson to come down and create a BS protest about "blacks who were turned away at the polls", who sent people out in the street to give booze and butts to the homeless for votes, who lost recount after recount down to the chad, was completely legit. Lets not mention anything about that. What Teddy wants Teddy should get because the universe revolves around Teddy and his fantasy world.

[King Prout]

Rall is an ass worthy of no attention from me save a casually brutal kick.

[Travis McGee]

Exactly. But Rall isn't taking into account what some Rangers back from Iraq might say to him with their fists.

I look forward to Rall's "new look" after "discussing" his dishonoring Tillman and the Rangers.