Heard Ya' Missed Me, So I'm Back!

Yep, I heard Americans were kinda missing being in quarantine and out of work with no safety net; friends, family and neighbors getting sick and dying, science denialists going apeshit, government and media blaming China for everything, so here I am — back again, Amerika, right when you’re trying to stir up a world war and inflation’n'austerity are crushing the shit out of you, and your influence is cratering and you’ve just been made a global fool of and you’re cruising for comeuppance, yeah — heard ya’ missed me, so I’m back to fvck your shit up, Amerika.

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Finishing The Job

It is with anxiety, chagrin and dread that I present this, my first cartoon of the 2024 Presidential “election” slog…

…and despite the massive disappointment and lack of enthusiasm of huge swaths of Democratic voters, Gropin’ Joe announced his re-election campaign kickoff with a promise to “finish the job”… at which point yours truly, like millions of others, is cringing and asking themselves: what job would THAT be — immiserating the poor and the working class? Terrorizing immigrants and bullying our next-door neighbors? Fattening up the war profiteers and Wall Street? Beating down anti-war dissent in public media? Dragging us into World War III?

Lotta big jobs to finish there, Joester; guess you’re going to need four more years to thoroughly screw things up, huh?

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"White Paper" Revolution

Welp… (siggghhh) another day, another US-cheered and instigated protest “movement” for “freedom” in China, slavishly “reported” by the US boss’ media. Hell, they’ve even got a cute gimmick and a cute nickname to go with it already. The “White Paper” Revolution, the wags are calling it at the State Department, NED, USAID, New York Times, Washington Post, and every goddamn cable news network on Earth, and it’s supposedly all about some Ayn Rand concept of “freedom” from the testing and quarantine requirements of China’s largely successful public health response, which is aimed at getting as close to completely eradicating the virus as they can get — as opposed to the US, which abandoned the population to its own devices to sicken and die of COVID19 to the tune of just over a million people last year.

Freedom, my ass — the freedom of ignorant, Ayn Rand brutalists whose twisted ideas of “bodily autonomy” include no concept whatsogoddamnever of acting conscientiously or making small sacrifices for the public good. It’s the freedom of selfish chuds who want haircuts and ice cream, who want to be “served” no matter what the actual human cost.

This astroturf circus isn’t about freedom, it’s about the likes of Tesla, Intel, Apple and others who are impatient to literally work people to death in China the way they have in the US for the past two years.

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Ode To Joy

Y’know that stupid game you play with fortune cookies in which you read the fortune out loud and add the phrase “in bed” at the end…? Well, that’s apparently the favorite little fun game with the brain-rotted US media with regard to China, especially at the Olympics this past week — find any news of any positive achievement of or any news that reflects well on China, and the US Boss Media will be right on top of it with their shallow bitching and moaning about “human rights”, trot out their victims of the week, fling some over-hyped apocryphal stories around and wail “but at what cost”?

The front page of the Washington Post — where Democracy died long ago and is now beginning to smell really pungent in darkness — put on quite a show this past Saturday, pissing and moaning about the job the Chinese did of keeping covid under control during the Olympics, claiming that it “kept the joy out of the Games” and at “great mental and financial costs”. It was a headline so galling that I had to just kind of stand there in the front hall, slack-jawed, sputtering and giggling as I read and re-read it.

I was almost in awe of it, somehow — a gaggle of hacks from a corporate mouthpiece in the seat of the US Empire, which had twice as many covid-19 deaths last week than China had all of last year, is having a tantrum about China taking the steps any responsible government should do during a public health emergency, filling its pants about how it took the joy out of the Olympics. Myself, I think any “joy” issues our friends here had came more from the shock of being shown up by a Chinese-American who chose to ski for China, and by a government which treats healthcare as a public good rather than a commodity.

Yeah, shame those horrid, awful Chinese commies took appropriate action to mitigate the spread of an infectious pathogen and took a little bit of the “joy” out of it for you — not nearly as awesome as here in the good old USA, where we’re joyful and free and lost nearly a million people to covid19 last year.

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Omicron Lights: They're MILD...!

Schoolkids and teachers in the UK, Oakland and NYC are being clobbered, child infections are jumping, hospitals are being swamped, but the State and the media keep telling us that it’s “mild” — over and over and over again, beating the word to death like a slow, painful mantra, kind of like “Weapons of Mass Destruction”… or, perhaps the end of a cigarette commercial in the 1950s or ’60s — “…and, they are mild!”

Al Jazeera’s just precious as hell, here. They really do think the Chinese are some kind of weirdos for actually trying to eradicate covid — they had what… two deaths last year? — while, back in The West™, we’ve thrown in the towel; State spokespeople have laughed in our faces on live TV, and thrown the working class to the wolves with a big, hot, sloppy slice of “learning to live with it”.

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What's Happy About It?

As seen from the POV of Old Father Time. 

Happy New Year? Huh, what's happy about it? No, really; I know it's only January 1st, but what the hell's happy about it?

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Season's Greetings

 

For the workers who died at a candle factory in Kentucky, and an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, for every worker forced to risk their life without proper protective gear or healthcare, in the middle of a pandemic and a tornado, to keep the profits coming in and the supply chain stocked so we can buy our daughters a Fighter Pilot Barbie for Christmas… Season’s Greetings from Capitalism.

“The bosses won’t keep us safe; they only care about profit. Workers are the only ones who know what is safe and what is not. We should decide whether to continue working or not. For that purpose, we need to fight for Health and Safety Commissions to be set up in all workplaces that will function independent of the bosses, that are democratically elected, and that can organize to impose protocols and shut down production when necessary.

Not one more dead worker at the hands of the bosses! Our lives are worth more than their profits!”

Left Voice, 12.14.2021

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...in the headlights

Yep, that’s right, kiddies. You heard right — they actually looked us right in the face and said they didn’t see it coming. Cripes, everybody else and their dog saw it coming; it was on the TV and the papers and the Internet for weeks, months. Same with Delta.

Really — the leaders of the most powerful nation on Earth, with a metric buttload of information and resources at their disposal, didn’t see the latest’n'greatest Covid variant coming? Y’mean, they couldn’t get hold of somebody at the WHO, the CDC, the NIH, the Salk Institute who actually knew a thing or two about virology who could’ve thrown them a heads-up? If there’s nothing else Anthony Fauci ever did that was worth a yard sign, this was it.

So, they didn’t see it coming? Uh huh. I’m thinking there’s something else that bunch isn’t going to see coming, either.

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...Or The Virus Wins

Remember right after Nineleven™ when the travel industry and retail were imploding, and Bush and that bunch were telling everybody to “go shopping, or the terrorists win”? Welp… same deal here. The State and Capital won’t do what needs to be done to keep us safe and to eradicate Covid-19, and have chosen instead to go with “herd immunity” (a.k.a. “mass death”) to serve Capital at the expense of the working class and their families.

…and speaking of serving Capital — all the sudden squawking about the “supply chain” kinda smelled funny to me from the get-go simply because every major US media outlet and their uncle all started yelling ZOMG SUPPLY CHAIN almost simultaneously, as if somebody threw a switch, not unlike all the screaming about the “labor shortage”. My suspicions were pretty much confirmed the other day when, while catching my daily 15 seconds of MSNBC, they were doing their daily Supply Chain Meltdown and one of their “guest analysts” was the CEO of Mattel.

Yeah, that’s right; that’s what this pants-crapping is all about — not enough Barbies at Wal-Mart for Christmas.

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Havana Syndrome

 

Well, at long last revealed: the source of that noise that’s driving the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Havana — and the U.S. State Department — outta their goddamn skulls.

Why, it’s the sound of a successful Socialist state right in our backyard, inventing a fistful of Covid-19 vaccines, being recognized by a major U.S. medical journal, helping to vaccinate the rest of the region, treating healthcare as a public good and beating down the pandemic — all while under continuous blockade, economic warfare waged by the U.S.

No wonder Gropin’ Joe and Skinny Mike Pompeo are screaming “SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOPPPPP!!”

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I Love New York

Here’s one in solidarity with our comrades and neighbors in the UK, where PM Boris Johnson is basically engaged in the same kind of slow genocide currently being revved up in NYC and elsewhere in the USA — forcing children back into school buildings with inadequate protection or distancing and no remote instruction options during a surge in one of the deadliest pandemics of the past century — with the attendant government and media distortions and cover-ups galore.

The TL;DR here is that they just don’t care anymore, or at least have quit pretending to care. Every goddamn politician and TV talker using the term “herd immunity” doesn’t really know or care what it really means; it’s their vile-ass code for “let everybody die” — or, for the rest of us, “look the hell out”.

So, it’s grand to see that parents are waking up and doing it for themselves both in the UK, and in New York City, where DeBlasio is desperately trying to plaster a big ol’ happy-ass “I Heart NY” sticker on the whole mass-homicidal debacle that’s already killing children in the UK and here across the Pond.

Just a little something to keep in mind the next time you see the entire US press plastered with images of fascist chuds screaming and crying about their “medical freedom” when required to comply with the simplest and most basic and effective public-health measures.

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Stealing Our Souls

 

There's a new strain of Covidiot virus going around among healthcare workers — proof that Stupid can strike any of us, though if you consider how long it takes to become a doctor vs. how long it takes to become a nurse, it all makes sense.

There have been a couple of outbreaks of the new Stupid Variant in the past week, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and in New York. A close read of the thread in which Max Blumenthal tweets the NYT article tells me, personally, that Blumenthal is about to dive down the anti-vax rabbit hole if he hasn't already. He seems to imply at one point that PhD's were among the most reluctant to take the vaccine, which proves nothing except that having a PhD doesn't make you immune to the Stupid Variant — nor does not being a Trumpster.

But, back to the outbreaks of Covidiot Virus. You know how back in the 1970s and '80s you'd read every so often about some National Geographic documentary crew going deep into the Amazon jungle or someplace and encountering some tribe that's lived in isolation for a thousand years, and they see the cameras and video images of themselves for the first time and freak out because they think the cameras are stealing their souls? Well, how different is that from these doorknobs who think that Bill Gates is putting microchips in vaccines, or that taking cow dewormer and shitting out your stomach lining will cure Covid-19?

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At Last!

 

Despite the vaccine, we're still getting sick and dying in huge numbers out here. We're also still unemployed or trapped in shit jobs, or being thrown out of work, about to lose our homes. Some of us are already homeless and our poverty has been criminalized. Some of us are being murdered by the police.

In the face of all this, what's Priority One for the Democratic Party?

Giant asteroid hurtles toward Earth. A liberal basks in the glow, "Now Trump is going to pay!"

 — Vastleft, @vastleft on Twitter 08.09.2021

Yep, you guessed it. Their empty-ass January 6 show investigation which will achieve absolute zero, and which will be dragged out clear into the midterms to raise money.  

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A Great Day For America (or, That Aged Well)

 

Late this past spring, even while the Delta Variant was spreading in Europe and elsewhere, Gropin' Joe went on TV in the White House Rose Garden, pulled off his mask and declared the pandemic over, calling it "a great day for America" — following later this summer with what had to be the weakest, most pointless COVID vaccine policy ever. Regular testing and a mask requirement? That's it? Not "get vaccinated or get fired"?

Needless to say, the Washington Post and crew were right on top of it, cranking out articles about how wonderful it is to be re-emerging, to go back to "normal", sometimes vaguely insuinuating that people still wearing masks in the grocery store were "the new weirdos" — as opposed to the knobs who thought they were being muzzled and forced to breathe their own CO2, who were last year's weirdos.

Yeah... that sure aged well, didn't it? Seems that Biden & Gang are employing the same strategy Trump did after the last election.

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DNC Ramen

From the party that brought you DNC Dog Food, New Blue Money Detergent, Blue Box Chardonnay, and their Premier Donut Assortment now comes — DNC Ramen! Just the thing to blow that big-ass $2000 — uhh, that is, $600 + $1400 — stimulus check that we were supposed to be getting. Never mind that Gropin' Joe, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock came right out and said in front of god and everybody that their being elected would allow the immediate passage of $2000 per person in Covid'19 relief.

That would be two thousand —count 'em — two triple-zero dollars. Not the measly $600 and the "oh, alright" $1400 after that, which is what Snopes uses to give its master class in triangulation and "meaning of is" asshattery in an attempt to "fact check" what Biden & Bros said right in front of our personal faces. Luckily, we now have fact-checker checkers.

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Vaccines Are For Cucks

I'm just going to leave this here...

"it’s crazy to watch all my California and NYC friends scramble for vaccine appointments meanwhile in Texas I get a text from the local hospital every week begging people to sign up for extra doses they have because everyone here is anti vax and so many vials are going to waste" —abby govindan, @abbygov on Twitter 04.04.2021

 

"We should also open up special graveyards for anti-vaxxers . . . who die because they didn't get vaccinated. Every gravestone 'Thought vaccines were for cucks'." —Trotsky of the 21st Century, @LTrotsky21 on Twitter 04.05.2021

 

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Independence Day

“If we do all this, if we do our part, we do this together, by July Fourth there’s a good chance you, your families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard, or in your neighborhood, and have a cookout and a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day...” —Joe Biden, 03.11.2021

So, that's the big-ass far-reaching goal here, huh? A "good chance" we'll be able to sorta kinda hang out on the Fourth of July. Not that the Fourth Of July has really meant anything at all to me in the past 15, 20 years, but still... that's the big challenge to the nation?

D'ahh, well. Granted, that speech wasn't exactly JFK's "We Choose To Go To The Moon In This Decade" challenge, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get.

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Merry Christmas!

So, after all the thrashing and banging and cheap theater, the next one-time stimulus check will be a whopping-ass means-tested $600. For all the people who are sick and dying of COVID19, who are about to lose their jobs and homes, SIX HUNDRED DAMN DOLLARS. 

Mind you, they practically broke their goddamn necks to approve a $740bn war budget, but for everybody out here sick, dying, unemployed, homeless...? SIX HUNDRED DAMN DOLLARS. 

Luckily, we all have plenty of "understanding" to pay for our rent, groceries, utilities and COVID19 shots.

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Hang In There, Baby!

God, I miss Trump already — yeah, I said it, and I'd say it again if I had to. The sonofabitch isn't even out of office yet, and I already miss him. I miss the breathtaking, aggressive stupidity, the comical blustering, and those tweets. Oh god, yeah, those tweets — every one a solid nugget of pure comedy gold.

I really was hoping for another four years of those little classics, but no luck. Instead, we're in for four years of banal, empty, platitudinous bilge — like this little stinkburger, where he takes forever just to tell us that all we'll likely get for coronavirus relief is another measly-ass $1200 check, and that otherwise we can go fuck ourselves. Christ, it looks like something off an old 1970s cat poster.

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