Look Cool; Vote DSA

12 x 18 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.8mb

It’s all in the name – Democrats first, Socialists second (if at all). If you want to see what the DSA is really all about, just have yourselves a long, steamy gawk at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s about sucking the blood of the Left by tempting us with fake “progressive” politicians who insist that the DNC is an institution worth saving and wasting our time and energy before zombifying the People’s movements and shuffling them off to the Movement Graveyard. But, hell; my peeps at the Socialist Equality Party and WSWS lay it out a lot better in words than I can at the moment. Here’s a couple of points from the SEP’s Ninth Congress Resolution re: the DSA, Jacobin Magazine & ilk:

16. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the initial beneficiary of this radicalization. But the DSA is not a socialist party. It is a faction of the Democratic Party, and its principal role is to block the development of an independent political movement of the working class, to capture the movement toward socialism and confine it within the framework of the capitalist two-party system. Wherever it holds office, this function is on display. In New York, Mamdani governs in coordination with the Democratic establishment and the Trump White House, imposing austerity on the workers who elected him, while DSA-aligned officials preside over the destruction of public education and expanding police budgets across the country.

17. The DSA’s central claim, that the Democratic Party can be transformed from within into an instrument of progressive change, is refuted by all historical experience. It is also exposed by the party’s own response to the DSA’s electoral victories. The Democrats’ “centrist” wing has issued a manifesto reaffirming that its members are “capitalists” and launching a new witch-hunt against the party’s own left.

– “The drive to dictatorship and the political radicalization in the United States”, Resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US),
posted at the World Socialist Web Site 20 August 2026

 

…and here’s a quick rundown of DSA escapades over the last year or two:

> Jacobin’s defense of the Trump–Mamdani pact and the capitalist state
> How the Democratic Socialists of America helped sell out the Philadelphia municipal workers
> After NYC elections, Jacobin offers services of DSA to Democratic establishment, union bureaucracy
> Jacobin advises union bureaucracy on how to respond to wave of contract rejections
> Ocasio-Cortez says pro-Palestinian demonstrations should be ‘shut down’

12 x 18 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.8mb

Voter Enthusiasm

 

11×17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 694kb

I happily confess that nearly my entire contact with Legacy Media™ these days comes from the five minutes or so I spend scoping out the front pages of the Washington Post, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times – and the New York Post, if I think I can stand it – in search of inspiration at the newsstands of my local bodegas while out on my morning walk.

Isn’t it adorable how all the DNC can think about is getting their goddamn vote out while our neighbors are being snatched and disappeared by gangs of masked thugs, the regime is spitting in our faces on live TV and trying to provoke a civil war, and pretty much every goddamn American institution we were taught to venerate in school has turned out to be total garbage? But yeah, sure, Donkeycrats; let’s get that mid-term vote out.

And what’s with the “voter enthusiasm” thing? Goddamn Democrats can’t shut the hell up with that crap. What, are they bugged that the voters are so goddamn beat down, desperate and indoctrinated that they’re just kind of reflexively dragging their glum, dejected asses out to punch a chad, tap a screen, pull a lever, then back home for “The Price Is Right” instead of eagerly, happily, proudly – dare I say “joyfully” – skipping and singing on their way to the polls?

11×17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 694kb

ICE Unmasked!

“I was in Austria during the War. I am not programmed to respond in that area.”
— US Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to Chris Hayes, 07.15.2025

If candy-assed, non-committal hemming’n’hawing were an Olympic event — if namby-pamby mealy-mouthing around were an NCAA Division I sport — New York Rep. Hakeem “AIPAC Shakur” Jeffries would be a multiple gold medalist, AND in the top brackets for the Final Four.

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

 

Cheap Groceries

On top of this CNN Town Hall shartage, my regular “Random 15″ from MSNBC included Kay-Kay speaking at a rally where she makes the big buildup to the working class, only to cap it with a declaration that she will ban price gouging on groceries…

all in that classic delivery of hers, that sounds as if she studied public speaking under Hillary Clinton, like a foreign actress who had to learn her lines phonetically. Dear GOD, just listen to that scolding junior-high principal voice, so full of passion and conviction when she talks about goddamn CHEAP GROCERIES. …and the crowd’s going wild for that shit; just listen to ‘em, as if cued by an electric sign, like a game-show audience.

This, apparently, is going to be her signature achievement if she wins the “election”, if her hands aren’t too full with the goddamn GENOCIDE. Yeah… not a Great Society, or voting rights, or going to the Moon… nahh, just cheap groceries.

11×17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 781kb.

Welcome...! (Instant Karma no.2)

I wish I’d screenshot or bookmarked the tweet I spotted on Facebook featuring a grinning Kay-Kay and Netanyahu shaking hands, with a headline announcing the latest amount of my tax money being shipped off to fund a genocide in Palestine. Not that it matters that much these days, as it’s always such an insanely stonking amount of cash that remembering the actual goddamn number doesn’t seem that important anymore.

Luckily, though, I did save this headline from the Washington Post a couple of days ago, about how the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief fund is already tapped out. Tough luck, MAGA Boy, the money to rebuild your surf shop just went to bomb a bunch of people living in tents.

What goes around, America…

11 x 16.5 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 786kb

Wishing Stars

Keep asking for it, and ye shall receive it.

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

I'M speaking!

That kind of lean-in feminist schtick might go over well on a clod like Mike Pence, but when you pull it on a bunch of citizens who your party has gone out of its way to try to silence and who are calling you out on your involvement in an ongoing genocide in Palestine, it just shows the whole goddamn country who you really are.

You came right out of the gate spitting in the faces of moral people who are speaking up about US/Israeli crimes in Palestine, telling us to shut up and sit down until it’s time to turn out at the polls to vote for rich American women’s abortion rights or some shit, and now you drop your sweetie-pie girl boss bullshit on us.

Not only will we not be voting for genocide, but many of us will not be voting at all, as the events of the past year have shown us what American “democracy” really is.

9.25 x 17 medium-res color .jpg image, 687kb

Glazed And Frosted

Don’t you just love it when these bastards’n'bitches just come right out and show you who they really are — and gleefully, proudly, no matter how vile it actually is? Sure, it’s infuriating, horrifying and digusting, but at least you know the score right up front with these scum. You can’t say you didn’t know.

So, she’s speaking now, huh? Oh, f’crissake, man. I’d honestly rather have 4 more years of Trump than this goddamn insufferable-ass “girl boss” schtick. Granted, this wouldn’t go down well with most of your Liberals, who prefer their fascist rule to be not too outwardly fascist-y.

…and now, working on this piece has given me some ferocious munchies…

11×17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.7mb

 

Live From Rafah!

Except for the occasional break to smear and low-key threaten the anti-genocide movements, MSNBC has been almost wall-to-wall with coverage of the trial of former El Presidente Donald Trump for paying off a porn actress to keep quiet about an affair.

Yep, that’s it — not anything he was responsible for in Bolivia, or Syria, or Yemen, or Venezuela, or for militarizing the southern border, or for the piss-poor Covid response, or the instigation of fascist violence, or basically for any actual serious crimes that the Democrats happily funded, helped him out with and cheered him on as he did it — just the hush money for the porn actress.

And, as one could predict by now, MSNBC’s punditocracy — and the US media at large — has been creaming its panties in front of god and everybody nearly non-stop since last night.

11 x 16.5 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 1.0mb

Now We Are All "Hamas"

Glimpsed a headline on the front page of USA Hooray earlier this week yelling about how one of the groups organizing the campus occupations in the US was apparently under Federal investigation some time ago for (quelle horreur) connections to Hamas — like, anyone who really knows from shit is going to oppose legitimate resistance or even care if activists they know are connected to them — every doctor, reporter, student, laborer, office worker, artist, musician, football player who ever spoke up against Israeli horror is now “connected to Hamas”, apparently including my own self.

Despite the disgusting nature of the headline, I couldn’t help snickering to myself as I knew this was a prime indication that they’re losing hugely, almost none of the People believe them anymore, nothing they’ve tried to silence us has worked very well and that they’ve totally lost control — and, backed into that corner, have resorted to the old standby If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Smear ‘Em.

11×16 inch high-res color .jpg image, 2.1mb

11×17 vertical tabloid size, high-res color .jpg image, 1.7mb

Dear U.S. Left: Stop Asking Me To Vote

Dear US Left:
With all due respect — I really do love ya, we’ve worked together and hit the barricades and been ride-or-die n’all that, but — you’ve just gotta stop this shit right now, y’all, ‘cos it’s the biggest waste of time ever at this point. Seriously, for myself and all of our comrades, I’m here to tell you, you just gotta STOP IT, brah.

Stop asking us to VOTE.

Stop asking us to play in a crooked rigged casino, to participate in a phony “democracy” and vote in a useless “election” in which the candidates and platforms are already decided by the Party and the permissible issues and voices already decided by the media. Stop asking us to drag ourselves off to participate in an empty ritual in an empty institution which has achieved absolute zero.

Stop insulting our intelligence by asking us to participate in the “democracy” of a nation in which the State, the Party and Establishment institutions have at long last finally, thoroughly, utterly and completely alienated us and then relentlessly implores us to participate in their useless, capitalist media-controlled “democratic” institutions. After doing their level best to beat down and silence the dissent and outrage of billions across the nation and the Earth, they’ve got the spectacular gall to try to shame, frighten, and browbeat us into slinking back to their polls for “abortion rights” — for affluent, professional-class American women, of course; not the reproductive rights of working-class and poor women, nor immigrant women, nor Afghan or Iraqi women, and for goddamn sure not the reproductive rights of PALESTINIAN women…

 

My Heart Will Go On

 

I hate to break it to the kiddies at the Dyin' In Darkness Daily, but misidentifying the President of Egypt as the President of Mexico is NOT a "false caricature that could jell" — and neither is being nicknamed "Genocide Joe" and helping to instigate racist violence in his own country, for that matter.

All together, boys'n'girls... 🎵Nearer my God to thee... 🎵 

11 x 17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.4mb

But... What About Abortion?

Normally, my Daily Random 15 Seconds Of MSNBC is your standard-issue eyeroll-inducing partisan babbling, but Steve Kornacki's election report last week totally warmed my heart. Best goddamn news I'd heard in months. F'crissake, Genocide Joe is FIFTY POINTS UNDERWATER with voters 18-34, reportedly the group he needs the most to get his filthy ass re-elected. FIFTY POINTS.

Us And Them

“Haven’t you heard? It’s a battle of words!” the poster bearer cried;
“Listen, son,” said the man with the gun, “There’s room for you inside!”
— Pink Floyd, “Us And Them” (1973)

Throughout MSNBC’s nonstop, never-ending, ceaseless, mind-numbing, soul-crushing, forever-grinding-on coverage of Trump’s little bullshit real-estate fraud trial, they pretty much paused only to scream and yell and bitch in befuddlement about how the Donmonster could possibly still be the goddamn GOP front-runner and bitch bitch bitch above the law and whine whine whine rule of law and snarl growl yell democracy is at stake, followed by a pivot to their illustrious GOP primary coverage in which their chirping mutant anchortarts just couldn’t shut the hell up about how Trump and the GOP’s rhetoric is about “us vs. them” and the Democrats are all about “us”.

…and all I could think of in that moment was how thoroughly the Democratic Party groundlessly scapegoated and demonized Russia for their own ineptitude and general suckage in the Easiest Slam-Dunk Election Ever In All Of Recorded Human History Including The Lascaux Cave Paintings, and how just how much of the Democratic Party’s attitude and general M.O. involves demonizing, scapegoating and otherizing — whether it’s people calling out their Russiagate sham, their idiotic policy decisions or their collaboration with fascists, or pretty much anyone on the left calling out their poor record with ethnic minorities, students, the working class, the poor, or pointing out their long-established reputation for warmongering, you can pretty much count on the Democrats to stand on their record, no matter what.

11 x 16 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 953kb

 

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…

Rules-Based Order

To think that all the arduous years I spent assiduously avoiding dropping a “fallen and can’t get up” gag could be undone by this single column at The Cradle last week. If Amerika’s imperial batshittery in Ukraine hasn’t totally wrecked our rep with the rest of the Earth, than our enabling Israeli butchery in Palestine pretty much ripped our mask the rest of the way off.

We’ve fallen, and we can’t get up.

11×14 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.5mb