Karmageddon

I’ll be absolutely 100% honest with y’all — I couldn’t pretend I didn’t enjoy this. At last, some more folks got up the cajones to put their foot down, rise up and hit the bully back. And after a year and a half of relentless US-backed oppression and genocide, Israel — like your standard-issue bully — instantly starts screaming victim and runs crying to the teacher.

I couldn’t pretend not to enjoy the footage of Israelis nervously lined up at airports, scrambling aboard buses and boats, running all over each other to get out of “their” country. What’sa matter, gang? That land was promised to you by god. What are you running for?

Trump’s remarks were real class, too — the more he bragged, the more you knew Israel was getting a first-class ass-paddling. So goddamn MUCH winning, there, Donster.

Hats off to Iran for having the strength and courage to teach Israel that actions have consequences.

11 x 17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 782kb

 

"Iron" Dome

Almost as if somebody threw a switch someplace, Western media were suddenly awash in fotos and video of bombed-out buildings and people weeping for lost and missing loved ones and agonizing over the trauma of having to hole up in basements all night in… Tel Aviv.

Yes, that’s right, the capitol of the most reviled nation on Earth, led by a skeezy cabal of psychotic genocidal fascist murderers, trained and funded by an equally skeezy cabal of psychotic genocidal fascist murderers — is begging us to “not remain silent” and stand with Israel as they get some well-deserved payback at last.

All my pals and I are hashtagging this happy fun time #Karmageddon.

Cry me a goddamn river, motherfuckers. Iran’s got yer number.

11×17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.2mb

Retro Kitsch

Many of my readers of a certain age may have had Dads or uncles who were enthusiasts of a certain style of rec room bar lighting. Here’s my backhanded tribute to classic Mid 20th American cheese.

11 x 16.5 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 797kb

 

Wishing Stars

Keep asking for it, and ye shall receive it.

11×17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.9mb

Happy Goddamn New Year

“REGRET From Military”, it says here.
That’s right — REGRET for “unintended harm”.

Oh, for Christ’s sake, why do these goddamn thugs even bother? Who do they think they’re kidding? Do they think that after nearly 3 months of genocidal brutality, fascistic bullying, threats and media lies, Genocide Joe’s little buddy actually expects us to believe that they REGRET this goddamn horror show?

The threat of the Bad Old Rethuglicans taking over stopped scaring me nearly 30 years ago, and right now it scares me even less, if such a thing is possible. Four more years of Trump? Big goddamn deal; we’ve ALREADY been through 4 more years of Trump, so I could give the slightest molecule of a rat’s ass who “wins” your goddamn “election” next year. For all I care, the Democrats can get their asses shredded so goddamn bad that they have to be identified via dental records. At this point, I don't care so much about defeating Trump as I do about defeating America.

11 x 17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 710kb

 

Know Your Enemy

So, this week, about two and a half months into this horror, it finally dawned on Genocide Joe and the New York Times that relentlessly bombing the ever-lovin’ piss out of a practically defenseless civilian population which is at least half children in a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing might cause you some PR issues down the road…

Shaddup!

For real, serious — the USA and Israel are obviously 110% on the wrong side of history, millions around the Earth are standing together against their butchery, and the only response that the USA, Israel and their media flunkies can muster is to basically just scream back at us to shut up and then try to pretend we don’t exist. If it weren’t so disgusting, it’d be even more hilarious; these bastards have built themselves a seriously goofy alternate reality and are determined to stay in it even while it’s collapsing on them. It’s as if they actually know how much of the Earth actually believes their shit, but it’s all they got, so they have to stick with it.

Meanwhile, yesterday saw the “National March For Israel” polluting my neighborhood — from all accounts, spit in the ocean compared to the waves of uprising going on against their fascist asses and, as I’d guessed, the likes of MSNBC were absolutely all over this horseshit this morning. I could almost smell Joe Scarborough & krew soaking their panties on the air as they swooned over that gaggle. “Politicians, celebrities, hostages’ family members joined thousands…” they gushed all morning today; the MSNBC anchor didn’t even bother to tamp down the schoolgirl pride welling up in her voice. The celebrities included alleged actress and veteran Left basher extraordinaire Debra Messing, which ought to tell you something.

11×15 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 680kb

#EjectIsrael

So, late last week, I’m hearing all this bullshit bubbling in the news about Genocide Joe calling for a “pause” in the Israel-Palestine “conflict” so that the hostages can get out safely — god bless their exceptional asses — and maybe also so that any Palestinians remaining who are actually able to move can also get out, and probably end up being bombed on the highway to the refugee camps, or bombed at the camp once they get there, or both; thanks so much, Joe.

And as I was starting to work on this piece the night before the big mobilization for Palestinian solidarity here in DC this past Saturday, I was seeing a lot of chatter on the Web about how Israel should be expelled from the United Nations for this horror — an excellent idea, though they’d never get it through because Israel’s big, fat, rich asshole Uncle has veto power at the Security Council. Still, what an awesome thought — drum the bastards outta the UN.

But, aaaanyway, yeah; El Presidente wants a “pause”.

“Pause”, my goddamn ass. Time to hit “Stop” and “Eject”. Israel is the scuffy, overplayed, worn-out, hissy old British post-punk mixtape tangled up in the Earth’s 1989 cassette/CD combo boombox, and no pencil made can save it.

6.75 x 14 inch high-res color .jpg image, 861kb

Wiping Hands On The Flag (after William Allen Rogers, 1917)

The ongoing, escalating roaring of bloodthirsty racism in support of Israeli thuggery in Gaza — speaking of mass shootings — put me in mind of a book of cartoons entitled “America’s Black & White Book”, published during World War I by an artist named William Allen Rogers, in particular one of the “greatest hits” from that book, a ripe little nugget entitled “Another Case Of Wiping Hands On The American Flag”, a classic rendition of the “Filthy Dirty Huns Kill Children” genre of the WWI era. Rogers was arguably one of the most raving, drooling, jingoistic warmongering editorial cartoonists of that era — sort of a poor man’s James Montgomery Flagg — and drew for the New York Herald, arguably one of the most raving, drooling, warmongering newspapers in the US of that era.

Their presentation nowadays may be slicker, their media more sophisticated, their rhetoric a little more refined, their approach a little classier, but if you strip it to the core it’s the same old shit they’ve been serving up since the Spanish-American War, at least: filthy dirty Huns are killing babies, filthy dirty Huns are throwing babies out of incubators, dirty filthy Huns are beheading babies… you get the idea.

11 x 16 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.7mb

Beheaded Baby

So, like any halfway-decent vile-ass racist early-stage war hysteria, the mouth-frothing claims of rape and baby-killing always get the most mileage — as always, all the way back to the goddamn Lusitania.

You can imagine my total lack of anything resembling surprise, of course, when the claims turned out to be total bullshit served up by some IDF lackey who’d already been involved in some skanky-ass shit in the settlements.

So, finally, the CNN “journalist” responsible issues a public apology — for being caught lying on the air, AGAIN… but not after the likes of Gropey Joe Biden, the New York Post, MSNBC, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch’s rags, and everybody and their goddamn uncle have blasted it all over the goddamn world — and in the same fashion that US and Western media have always lied to promote their wars, whether it’s the Tonkin Gulf, Kuwaiti Incubator Babies, Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Yellowcake Uranium, Russiagate, the Mariupol Theatre Bombing, the Uyghur Muslims, and now this horseshit.

Oh, and of course, our gal at CNN was “misled” — always, always, they’ve been “misled”, like the Representatives and Senators who jumped aboard the Iraq War bandwagon back about 20 years ago, and had themselves a big ol’ party, thinking they had an easy win until all their shit went sideways on ‘em, and suddenly they were cryin’ in the media about how they were “misled”. They knew it was a metric shit-tonne of lies and bought into it anyway — then got their asses busted, and suddenly they were “misled”, the cryin’-ass losers.

But, sure, I’M the one who’s spreading “disinformation”.

11×17 inch high-resolution color .jpg image, 1.4mb

Keep 'Em Flying! (in solidarity)

In the words of the immortal John Cleese, my nipples exploded with delight to hear that Palestine was punching the bullies back, and in such spectacularly and totally boss fashion.

And in totally standard fashion, Israeli state mouthpieces are screeching about how this is their Nineleven™, how Hamas came for their babies — pretty much the usual response… never fails — when you punch the bully back, the little punk runs crying to the principal. Meanwhile, at MSNBC, some clown who sounded like he was still in college mentioned how this conflict has been going on “since time immemorial”. Shame I couldn’t pull Junior aside to remind him that the Nakba occurred in 1948, within the memories of many people still living, and that 1948 is not “time immemorial” (before I smacked the living shit out of him).

I can’t pretend I’m not enjoying this, but I don’t know which part of it I’m enjoying more — the idea that the resistance fighters would paraglide in, or watching one Western media babbler after another shitting themselves on the air over the fact that ZOMG THEY’RE USING PARAGLIDERS, THE BASTARDS.

10 x 17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.6mb

Bone Deep

“You don’t need to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” said Biden in his opening remarks. “The connection between the Israeli and American people is bone deep... I am proud to say that US relations with Israel are deeper and stronger than they have ever been.” —Al Jazeera, reporting on 07.13.2022

 

"Bone deep"? ...as opposed to the connection between the Ukrainian and American people, which is more "skin deep", I'm guessing...?

Yeah, the sonofabitch said our connection to filthy, murdering Israel is "bone deep".

He's actually more or less right, y'know.

14 x 18.5" medium-res color .jpg image, 987kb

Mow The Lawn

So, the other day I'm doomscrolling the news from Gaza, and I stumbled over this 8 year-old Truthout article that somebody dug up and tweeted. The callousness of Washington foreign-policy think tanks — and the Israeli general public — is perversely spectacular:

Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate each new generation of Palestinian militants as “mowing the grass,” a process underway again in new bombardments of Gaza. This ugly metaphor has also penetrated the think-tank world of Official Washington, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray learned...

In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: “It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.”

11x13 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 869kb

Panic Buying

The Colonial Pipeline hack attack caused gas shortages all around the US, sparking massive amounts of mindless — and straight-up stupid — panic buying, and Israel was no exception — and the US, of course, was happy to sell them all the shit they could burn in Gaza this week.

12x14 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 1.2mb

You Can't Silence...

With all the critical issues facing this country – the escalation of police violence; the continued highway robbery of the People by the likes of Amazon; the lack of hurricane relief for Puerto Rico; the lack of clean water in Flint, Michigan; the children dying in cages at the border – the first act of the US Senate this year was to introduce legislation that criminalized involvement with the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement working to end the Israeli occupation and apartheid state in Palestine.

11x11 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 892kb

Blue Wave no. 3: Pukin' Blue, No Matter Who

Welp... I've finally nailed it down. Between Ocasio-Cortez waffling on Palestine, Andrew Gillum flip-flopping on Medicare For All, all the ex-CIA types running as Democrats and all the doorknobs screaming "vote Blue, no matter who", I think I've finally figured out what the Blue Wave is going to be: the Democratic Party choking to death on its own vomit.

11x17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 1.3mb

Blue Plate Special

A little over a month ago, Democratic Party "rising star" (spit) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted "this is a massacre", referring to the Israeli slaughter of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. Needless to say, as soon as the establishment pushed back, she immediately started waffling her ass off and folded faster than Superman on laundry day, saying that she posted that tweet "as an activist" and not a Congressmember. However, now that she's a member of Congress, she's apparently willing to "learn and evolve" -- which, as someone who grew up in Washington DC, I understand to mean "flip-flop", or "do an Obama" as we say these days.



Granted, the focus of her activism was on economic issues, but still -- if you're going to run for Congress, you also need to keep up on lots of other issues as well, such as the 70 years of brutal occupation of Palestine and the Gaza Strip by Israel, and the ongoing mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza.

What especially galled the hell out of me is that initially, Ocasio belted out the straight, raw truth -- but when the pushback hit, her first instinct was to backpedal rather than show some backbone and stand her ground in solidarity with the people of Gaza against Israeli barbarity. All the walking back, backpedaling and explaining she can possibly do now will do her no good because, as the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

At least we found out early.

11x14 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 757kb

Phantom Pain

I'm honestly lost for anything ironic or pithy to add to this, so I'm just going to leave this here:

"Maher Harara, 48, from the Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City, told Human Rights Watch that 'he saw a woman’s finger shot off as she was making a victory sign' as she stood about 40 meters from the fences."

-- "Impose Sanctions on Netanyahu for Gaza War Crimes, says HRW",
Electronic Intifada, 06.14.18

11x17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 644kb

Yaser Murtaja, Presente!

In memory and solidarity with Yaser Murtaja, the Palestinian photojournalist murdered by the IDF at the Gaza Land Day protests last week.

11x17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 1.3mb

Nice Shooting!

If you've noticed, in the past few years, that the behavior and tactics of American police resemble those of Israeli police and soldiers, you'd be right -- and these tactics have come into even sharper focus with the murder of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Minneapolis, Minnesota recently.

Military occupation tactics, collective punishment, terrorizing and brutalizing neighborhoods, shooting kids for throwing stones -- filthy, bloody Israel taught U.S. police everything they know.

11x15 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 957kb

"Israel-trained police 'occupy' Missouri after killing of black youth"
Rania Khalek, Electronic Intifada 08.15.14

"From NYC, Ferguson To Baltimore, American Police Are Trained In Apartheid Israel"
Kit O'Connell, MintPress News 05.15.15

"U.S. Police Routinely Travel to Israel to Learn Methods of Brutality and Repression"
Justin Gardner, Free Thought Project 08.30.15