TheAgitator.com
I Got Ted Rall Fired!
Thursday, March 11th, 2004Not really. But he sort of implies that I helped.
In a really bizarre column, the bomb-throwing editorial cartoonist partially cites your humble Agitator for giving momentum to his firing last week from the New York Times website:
The Internet has become the tool of choice for the previously powerless. Email forwarding, hyperlinks and blogs–a genre dominated by right-wingers–allow anyone with a used Gateway computer and a dial-up connection to rally hundreds of likeminded individuals to point and click, instantly firing off fiery letters to the bosses of radio talk show hosts, cartoonists and columnists who offend their sensibilities.“Here’s the feedback form for Yahoo!’s opinion syndicate,” a blog called “The Agitator” suggests. “Write and tell them it’s time to drop Ted Rall’s column.” “No paper should ever run Rall again,” howls Andrew Sullivan, a Time magazine columnist who also writes the country’s most prominent extreme-right blog. “I urge all of our readers to write to the NY Times,” urges another hate site. “Here is their Contact page. I wrote to the publisher this morning.”
A few liberals try to censor conservatives, but most opponents of the First Amendment reside on the right.
Golly. Let’s count how many things are wrong with those three paragraphs.
1) I’m flattered at Rall’s estimation of my influence, but let’s be honest, here — he gives me way too much credit. “Hundreds of likeminded individuals?” That post went up on October 30, 2002, when this site was a mere eight months old. According to my logs, I had 852 unique visitors that day. For us to break into the “hundreds,” about 25% of you would had to have clicked over and fired off a nasty email to Yahoo!.
And if the number of you who read it are representative of those of you who commented on it, a fair portion of you actually disagreed with me.
2) How in the world is a post from seventeen months ago relevant to Rall getting fired last week? I asked Yahoo! to drop his column. That had nothing to do with the NY Times.
3) “Extremist” and “right wing,” eh? Lemmesee…
I’m very much against the war with Iraq. I’m against a federal marriage amendment. I favor the legalization of all drugs, gambling, and prostitution. I believe sodomy laws should be repealed. I believe in the right to die. I believe the PATRIOT Act should be repealed. I think we should liberalize our immigration laws.
I asked Yahoo! to drop Rall’s column because the column in question carelessly and recklessly suggested that Sen. Paul Wellstone was murdered by Republicans, without any significant supporting evidence. If he’d been working for me, I’d have fired his ass on the spot.
4) Rall also seems to confuse censorship with calling for the firing a crappy writer who makes wild, baseless accusations that drain all credibility from his publisher. If John Ashcroft attempted to coerce Yahoo! into firing Ted Rall under some sort of sedition order or creepy PATRIOT Act provision, I’d be the first to defend Rall. That’s not what happened. I asked you, Yahoo! consumers, to ask Yahoo! for his head. Because he’s an idiot.
5) I’m guessing the folks at FIRE would quibble with Rall’s last sentence. Seems to me that conservatives generally try to clean up speech they don’t like via grassroots/activist means — consumer boycotts, public shamings, letter-writing campaigns etc. That ain’t censorship.
That hasn’t always been the case, of course. But there’s been a noticeable shift in strategy among conservatives in the last decade or so. Even when they rail against the Natioanal Endowment for the Arts, it’s really not a call for censorship. Most I gather would just rather not be forced to pay for the stuff they find offensive.
I generally disagree with them when they wage these campaigns, of course. But I have no problem in principle with them waging them. And at least they usually steer clear of attempting to employ state coersion to achieve their objectives (usually — not always).
More recently, it’s been the left that silences speech it dislikes with harassment suits, university speech codes, hate crimes laws, and the like.
6) I’m baffled by Rall’s assertion that the “genre” of blogs, hyperlinks and email forwarding are dominated by right-wingers. Howard Dean? MoveOn.org? And even if that is true, so what? What’s preventing left-wingers from utilizing the Internet the same way right-wingers do? And aren’t they doing just that?
By the way, here’s the contact page for Universal Press Syndicate. Send them an email and tell them to drop Ted Rall’s column.
Not because he’s controversial. Not because I disagree with him.
But because he can’t write, he’s obviously lazy with his characterizations, he can’t think, and there are about six dozen lefty writers who could make better use of the space.
Go forth, my hundreds (hey, thousands now!) of right-wing extremist minions!
Sieg heil, mein Fuehrer!
The only thing I can say is that Ted Rall is an idiot.
Andrew Sullivan is “extreme-right”?And there is a vast right wing conspiracy being run on dilaup and old Gateway computers? Um. right, Ok.
Hm, vast right-wing conspiracy or Rall being a paranoid hack? Occam’s Razor says… the latter!
But then, one would already know that if they’ve read just about any of his “works.”
About Bloody Time, Too
That no-talent commie Ted Rall has had his crap flushed from the NYT website, and is blaming The Agitator. Rall’s “work” has always reminded me of the shitty little comics
Blogger blame
Ted Rall is blaming blogger Radley Balko, among others, for getting canned at the NY Times. Radley responds here.
I have a Dell… so he’s wrong about that too.
Don’t forget to write to the NY Times and tell them to give back Duranty’s Pulitzer while they are cleaning house.
A popular theme in books, movies, etc. is the little guy, working on a shoestring budget, taking on the establishment. Leftists like Rall don’t like that theme when they are part of the establishment, though. In fact, he seems downright terrified that a peon with a cheap computer could affect him.
“A popular theme in books, movies, etc. is the little guy, working on a shoestring budget, taking on the establishment. Leftists like Rall don’t like that theme when they are part of the establishment, though. In fact, he seems downright terrified that a peon with a cheap computer could affect him.”
If those same peons got O’Reilly, Hannitty, Coulter, etc. fired Rall would be commending them rather than complaining.
Typical hypocritical, two sided, leftist
Ouch, Rall associated me with the Radical Right! SLANDER! I think I will have to retaliate by getting him fired.
I agree with Rall. I’m so sick of all the typical right-wing venom spewing from Sullivan; especially all his gay-bashing. It’s got to stop.
Calling something extreme is really a kind of compliment. Jack Black is extremely funny. Lance Armstrong is extremely tough. Rush Limbaugh is extremely conservative.
Take it as a compliment. 8^)
Rall should check out the blogger ecosystem. The top ten is dominated by lefty bloggers. There are no traditional conservatives in the top ten — all left or libertarian.
Rall is a baby. If the NYT finally woke up and realised they were hiring an arse and decided to put him in the trash can, good for them. If Rall wishes to continue drawing cartoons mocking firefighters’ widows and other such charming images, he can do so on his own website. That is what a free press means. It also means we are free to call him what he is – a louse.
Paranoia Redux
The all powerful Radley Balko has been partially credited with Ted Rall’s firing from the New York Times website – by Ted Rall himself. Or something like that – for a short posting he made in October of 2002 suggesting…
So is there room now for NYT to run Bagge..?
As for Rall, his rant blinds him to the fact that sites like LewRockwell.com would link to his cartoons, when apparently appropriate.
^^^
Oops. Me.
Rall is a self-righteous prick (google for ‘”Ted Rall” “Dirty Danny Hellman”‘ if you don’t already know that story) and a lousy cartoonist besides. Trust me; I used to see his stuff when he was an undergrad at Columbia U., and his stuff hasn’t changed since he was 18. Just looking at his stuff should be enough to convince anyone that he’s a vicious, hate-filled person who basically thinks anybody who disagrees with him is Satan.
Ooo, I want that book. Thanks, JD!
Get me Steve Bosell’s lawyer!
Mr. Rall:
I’ve got more litigation than I can handle. Perhaps you should stick with your current representation.
Ms. Doris Blasingham, ESQ.
darn I was hoping it was me that got him fired.I called Universal Press after reading the one and only column of Mr. Ralls I will ever read.I wanted him fired not because he was right or left,but because of his lack of humanity .
The Rundown
Best Headline Ever: “Nun faces jail for drunk tractor driving.” The mourning continues in Spain. It still amazes me that something like this hasn’t happened here on our shores already. So the civil union compromise constitutional amendment has been app…
Thanks for posting this, Radley.
I was confused as to what you had done to him. At first I thought it was something you had recently posted. But, having found nothing, I decided I didn’t have the time to dig for it.
Generally, I like this Blog.
But what of all this muckety muck about government going after shock jocks? They are basically making the fines 20 times greater, and for what? A few choice words or themes?
A person, no person, is forced to listen to morning radio shows or any other show for that matter.
Then there is the junk about government regulating diet.
Seems the theme for our legislators lately is nannyism. What about that?
I’ve read your columns on foxnews.com. Right-wing extremist? Oh, yeah, uh huh, sure. Ted is clearly wandering in the windmills of his mind.
Radley, you act like a thirteen year-old girl who got her first kiss. You and your hoarde of frothing republican troglodyte groupies aren’t worthy to clean Ted Rall’s toilet.
This Ted Rall should have worked for Himmler. He has the beyond liberal tendency of Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s main Man. Sorry Rall, maybe Adolf Kerry will hire you as a hack writer… he doesn’t care about the truth either
This Ted Rall should have worked for Himmler. He has the beyond liberal tendency of Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s main Man. Sorry Rall, maybe Adolf Kerry will hire you as a hack writer… he doesn’t care about the truth either
It would appear that Rall has been tossed by MSNBC as well. Maybe he should change his name to “rail” as in “railroaded out of town”! Good riddance.
Ted Rall crossed the line with his article about Reagan. He couldn’t even wait for him to be buried before attacking him with his most recent screed.
If he is representative of the leftist in this country we are indeed in deep trouble.
Respect in this country started dying about the time Mr. Rall was born. It is really too bad, that an entire generation has been brainwashed into believing that they are entitled to government handouts. His reflections on Reagan include the typical saddistic accusations that he let 500,000 die of AIDS. I sincerely doubt President Reagan was responsible for the irrisponsible behavior seen in the gay communities regarding this fully preventable disease to this day. Why should ordinary tax payers be paying for the choices of a few? If they risk their life in the name of fun and freedom, why should we be expected to pay their bills?
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africansâ?? attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa.
god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management â??
3. Mafia aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (”On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Enough evidence was present to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
The problem with the original post is that the author hasn’t actually looked at any of the evidence Rall suggests exists. There is no shortage of Minnesotans who believe there should be a real investigation into Wellstone’s death. The investigation we received was an embarrassment.
You would think that the recent revelations regarding the Bush Admin’s disregard for the Constitution, free speech, separation of powers, and democratic institutions and their free use of illegal imprisonment, torture, and kidnapping would make an intelligent person suspect they might be capable of doing even more severe harm to their opponents. I suppose there were those who supported Hitler and considered themselves â??liberal,â? too.