Team Politics has gone international! Who cares if you can't find Ukraine on a map? Festoon your home with Ukrainian flags! Change your Twitter avatar to a heart-shaped Ukrainian flag! Tattoo your entire body blue and yellow! It's all about Ukraine -- until the next war or the Azov Battalion gets caught doing something awful, whichever comes first.
But why limit yourself to the yellow-and-blue bicolor you never heard of before two months ago? The United States is directly involved in such a wide range of foreign conflicts, regime-change operations and proxy wars that there's a shallow virtue signal for every wardrobe choice -- including yours.You probably haven't given much thought to the six-years-and-counting civil war in Yemen. The American media hasn't either. But your ignorance doesn't stop you from pontificating about Ukraine -- nor should it mean you shouldn't rush to pick sides in this colorful blood-soaked extravaganza that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Wearing a T-shirt featuring the black, red and green flag of the Houthi rebel movement not only matches the color scheme of that of the Houthis' hip Iranian backers but it may convince sporty members of the opposite sex that you're on the national soccer team of yet some equatorial country no one has heard of. At cocktail receptions, pretend to be into the Yemeni-Welsh music scene and speak loudly about the need to boycott Yemeni oil.
Conversely, you can make a bold statement against the "fake news" by rocking the white-calligraphy-on-green of the Saudis who back the Sana'a-based government of President Rashad al-Alimi and are themselves backed by the U.S. Donald Trump talks a good game about hating journalists; Saudi Arabia actually kills them in their own consulates. Show your support for Saudi Arabia; never let a woman drive.
If your taste in vacuous politically tinged fashion statements runs to the outre, try rocking the #IStandWithAfghanistan hashtag to show your thoughtless concern for the 95% of the population there that risks starving to death -- or the thousands of newborn babies that already have -- because President Joe Biden has imposed devastating economic sanctions on the new government there that could literally kill nearly the entire population of an entire country. You have two options: the black Shahada-on-white of the Taliban or the maroon, forest green and black of the recently deposed American puppet regime. Taliban-white wardrobes work best for American virtue signalers based in the warmer climates of the South; if you dig designer clothing with logos, you may prefer the old Northern Alliance seal. Sample quote: "Those guys who fell off the planes were luckier than those who are slowly starving to death, huh?"
Alternatively, there's always the jokester approach: Support the United States and its theft of billions of dollars in Afghan government funds, money that could be used to feed millions of starving people we used to pretend to care about. Go on Instagram, post photos of every one of the six meals a day you consume with the hashtag #USAIStandWithMyOwnFatAssUSA. And vote for your local Democratic congressman this November.
Avant-garde symbolmongers can make boldly confusing statements about the U.S.-involved wars of the future. It'll be hard to pass up the classic communist red-and-yellow scheme of the People's Republic of China should the mainland decide to invade Taiwan, but those who want to avoid being canceled among the NPR-smart set will need to rock the red white and blue of the island's nationalist flag as they twist their brains into protesting the invasion of a country in the United States doesn't recognize diplomatically as existing in the first place. Support Taiwanese independence by ordering dumplings from your local Chinese restaurant. Some of them are delicious!
Next time: Recycling -- virtue-signaling for the whole planet without doing anything.
Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, "The Stringer." Order one today. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.
21 comments:
Are there any Ukrainian mail-order brides still available? Any blond/blue 36/24/36 left? Asking for a friend.
Ukraine has been Joe Xiden's opportune "wag the dog moment" as a distraction from his multiple major domestic and international policy failures.
Who is this "you"? I agree on the virtue signaling, but Ted is a real asshole in this piece. I will gladly point out Ukraine on a map for him. Who is this guy, Mike Pompeo? Doesn't think anyone can find Ukraine on a map? Mary Louise Kelly sure could point it out.
Once again, the one actor Ted Rall fails to scrutinize and criticize is Russia. He seems to have a pretty big blind spot.
This cartoonist triggers my gag response. What a one-note idiot. He's a Karen.
Rall is a writer and cartoonist for Sputnik International, owned by the official propaganda organization of the Russian Federation government. You are free, of course, to publish his garbage, but I'll never read it.
@7:22 PM
AGREED. Vice President Harris can stand to do a better job, herself.
The Mother of All Wars.
I didn’t stutter.
Go back to Russia.
There are so many syndicated columns you could post but you pick this one KF? Like another comment said above, this guy never seems to criticize Russia, just mocks Ukrainian support. Robert St John and that bozo from starkville i get, at least they're local, but this clown?
Agreed that this guy is a real asshole. This guys just makes a ton of assumptions about people who support Ukraine and shits them out into an article to make them look like geopolitically illiterate sheep. It’s a cheap (and readily transparent) trick.
Yeah, the world has a lot of problems outside Ukraine. So what? Are we forbidden from helping until the rest of the world outside Ukraine is perfect?
And Ted, I’ll debate you any day on Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen (which Trump’s buddies in Saudi are largely responsible for) and so on.
His columns appear in Creators Syndicate. I like to have a conservative and liberal one. I get Shapiro and Rall from Creators. CS doesn't have many liberals and I'd rather run Rall than a washed-up Susan Estrich.
I came across Mr. Rall on of all pages, the editorial page of the WSJ. Mr. Rall is a huge free-speech advocate, something disappearing on his side of the fence. In case you haven't noticed, the libs posted on this site such as Maher, Brand, Dore, Rall, and others all have one thing in common: They are advocates of freedom of thought and speech.
I can assure you there are more a few readers who find Mr. Gardner's columns stupid or repulsive and guess what? They get to criticize him as well.
7:22 P.M., You do realize Joe Biden did not invade Ukraine, don’t you?
Advocating for free speech is disappearing on his side of the fence, Kingfish?
It’s not his side of the fence that’s trying to cancel Disney and ban books. It’s not his side of the fence that are trying to oust Liz Cheney because she takes a different view from them regarding the election. That’s your side of the fence.
I'm sorry? Didn't AOC and her friends back a few primary challengers to more moderate Democrats? Aren't a bunch of Democrat progressives putting together a serious primary challenge against the Senator from AZ? Even here in Jackson, some they ran Shanda Yates and Angela Cockerham out of their own party because they weren't liberal enough for their tastes.
An interesting take on a troubling situation.
Kingfish the entire republican party censured Chaney, as in they voted on it. AOC and her friends don't represent the democratic party, they're just part of it. They can back who they want, and disagree who they want. Also you didn't address the book banning and free speech of teachers. Conservatives (mostly conservative Christians) are they ones who want to ban any form of speech or expression that doesn't line up with their backwards beliefs. I go to church, read my Bible, but absolutely cant stand a 'conservative christian' who is full of themselves.
And this dude aint a liberal, regardless of where you found him.
If this is your attempt at having a token liberal, you swung and missed. But I think you’re smarter than this. I think you think we might not be though.
Lest some of you missed the point, most of the people "rocking" the Ukraine colors do not know squat about what is actually going on there and had never even heard of the place until the government needed a distraction. There IS a real war going on there and real suffering, but no more than many other places in the world that have been suffering all along. In effect, Ukraine is the flavor of the week. Dems or Reps, it doesn't matter. Both use the media to their benefit when necessary.
IDK what this guy thinks one way or the other but I have been watching closely for 20 years and still remember the Serbian "war". What you are seeing is a well directed movie and the script was written by a pool of the usual war mongers. And yes, both Putin and the USA installed President in Ukraine are in on it. Believe what you want but this crap is same old same old and par for the course in the Democrat playbook. Preface written by the Clinton and Bush families. Nothing like a good war to distract the world from your crimes.
So now both Bush administrations were Democrat, 9:59?
I guess you represent the "true" Republican, which I presume you believe is a hard-right, ultra-nationalist, whites-only theocracy.
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