Friday the 13th: Tea Party Comic Book - Is It Racist?

Circulating the internet, TEA PARTY COMICS. A blatant rip of many of America's beloved superheroes taking on a supervillian, President Barack Obama.

In what could be a sign of what is brewing in the conservative movement is a potentially damaging comic book that depicts the president in blackface.

The author of the comic is unknown, but the gripes that the comics present are the same talking points generated by talk radio, Fox News and conservative blogs.

A number of tea party leaders disavowed the comic books last week, claiming that they're an obvious plant by tea party opponents.

Right?
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Tom Kalb and His Amazingly Racist Tea Party Comics by Dan Linehan

An extremely racist "underground conservative comic" has began making the rounds online after an excited Tea Party member in Corpus Christie apparently sold it to a blog, Comics with Problems, who promptly scanned it in and posted it online for the world to see.
For some time now, the origins of the comic have been indeterminate. No one seemed to want to take credit for the extremely racist series, and Comics with Problems is still describing the underground comic as, "artist and organization unknown, presumably year 2009-2010, each issue forty pages."
What we have known however, was that the creator of the series seemed to have quite an extensive knowledge of comic book history. Many of the illustrations were penned to directly parody classic Superman, Spider-Man, and even DuckTales comic book covers.
After doing some research on eBay, it turns out the comics seem to all be coming from precisely one source: Tom Kalb, the middle-aged owner of a small, strip-mall comic book store named Caveman Comics and Books, in Mesa, AZ. Mr. Kalb had been been producing and distributing the Tea Party Comix series as "underground conservative comics" on his eBay store throughout the last month.
Here are a couple screenshots from the (now expired) auction that Tom was running. He was advertising that he still has "more than 10" first print editions of the comic series available, even after he had made nine first edition sales throughout the month. I wonder how someone would obtain more than twenty first run sets. Mysterious.
Click for full-size images.


Of course, it makes perfect sense that the series was produced by a comic store owner due to the satirical nature of many of the illustrations.
It remains to be seen whether Tom Kalb is really as racist as his Tea Party Comix make him seem to be, or if the series is actually a form of advanced satire aimed at conservatives in general and the Tea Party movement specifically.
While many people are saying that the comics must have been made to mock the Tea Party, mainly based on the logic that no one in their right mind would ever release anything so blatantly racist without it being satirical, I'm not entirely convinced. Judging from Tom's alternating use of uppercase and lowercase sentences on his eBay store, all the wingnut whargarbl indicators are present and accounted for:

I WILL BE ON VACATION STARTING SUNDAY NIGHT, MAY 23rd. The store will be CLOSED for about 5 days (M-F). On MONDAY (the 23rd) I will fill all orders placed and paid for by Monday morning. The store will NOT be accessible for FIVE days, but I will still take emails and payments (for older orders). I WILL NOT BE GOING TO THE POST OFFICE BETWEEN TUESDAY AND FRIDAY!! ...IF YOU HAVE AN OUTSTANDING ORDER OR THERE IS SOME OTHER PROBLEM, DO NOT GO NUTS WITH FEAR! I'm still here. I have not run off to Mexico with your $22.50... THANKS! .................................................................

Then again, it is eBay. (A++++++ TOP SELLER!!)
Beyond the grammatical issues, there are also quite a few concepts mentioned in the comics that probably wouldn't make much sense to someone unless they were following right wing politics fairly closely: accusations of free abortions, depictions of Obama printing massive amounts of fiat money, showing the President missing his birth certificate. The comic even goes so far as to engage in some good, ol' fashioned vaccination fear-mongering. These don't seem like issues someone non-partisan would know or care about, but they are right in line with the fears of many right wingers.
If any readers happen to be in Mesa, Arizona, feel free to check out Caveman Comics & Books and see if Tom is still carrying any more first editions of the Tea Party Comix. And while you're there, ask him whether he is really a Tea Party member; we're dying to know.
Caveman Comics & Books
500 West Southern Avenue, Suite 32
Mesa, AZ 85210

Conservative talk radio host and the N-word

Conservative talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger rants to a Black caller. Dr. Laura is the fourth most listened to show in America.

Pingpu tribes demand recognition on UN indigenous day

Pingpu tribes demand recognition on UN indigenous day - CNA ENGLISH NEWS

Taipei, Aug. 9 (CNA) About 30 Pingpu tribespeople gathered in front of the Presidential Office on the United Nations' International Day of the World's Indigenous People Monday, calling on President Ma Ying-jeou to recognize Pingpu people as aboriginals.

Escorted by police officers, 10 of the protesters entered the Presidential Office to deliver a petition to President Ma Ying-jeou after participating in an ancestor worship ceremony at Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the presidential building.

Historian Lin Sheng-yi, who heads the Ketagalan of Taiwan Indigenous Culture Alliance, said that in addition to petitioning for official recognition of the tribes, they also demanded the restoration of a 4,400-year-old Ketagalan historical site in Gongliao in Taipei County and an investigation into the destruction of the site.

Ketagalan are a Taiwanese aboriginal tribe originating in what is now the Taipei Basin.

No Right Turn: Utterly shameful

No Right Turn: Utterly shameful: "That is the only way to describe the government's refusal to compensate the victims of police rape. The government ignored a recommendation by an independent assessor to grant compensation, instead pretending that it was not the government's responsibility. Bullshit. The rapists and abusers were agents of the crown. They used their position as agents of the crown to enable their offending. Other agents of the crown abused their positions to cover for them. How is the government not responsible? This is a clear failure of the government's duty of care and its duty to maintain proper standards among the police.

But the real reason, apparently, is that the government was concerned that granting compensation might 'open the floodgates' and cause other victims to come forward. Well, we can't have that now, can we? It might make the police look bad! It might cost money which could be spent on tax cuts for the rich! So instead, the government has to deny justice - and reality.

With this decision, National has shown that it does not care about women, and it does not care about justice. Neither attitude is acceptable from our government."

Solitary Confinement Is a “Challenge for Medical Ethics” � Solitary Watch

Solitary Confinement Is a “Challenge for Medical Ethics” � Solitary Watch: "Anyone interested in solitary confinement should be aware of this article in the most recent issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law: “Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics,” by Jeffrey L. Metzner, MD and Jamie Fellner, Esq. Metzner is a respected forensic psychiatrist and professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine; Fellner is senior counsel in the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch.

Several professional organizations and activist groups made up of medical and mental health practitioners have condemned the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. In particular, they have denounced the idea that members of their professions should play any role in that treatment. But as Metzner and Fellner point out, there has been “scant professional or academic attention to the unique ethics-related quandary of physicians and other health-care professionals when prisons isolate inmates with mental illness.” This despite the fact that for some prisoners, “isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.”"

Palestinian female inmates appeal to the Red Cross to close Al-Damon prison

Palestinian female inmates appeal to the Red Cross to close Al-Damon prison :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-1]

MEMO, August 9, 2010


The female Palestinian prisoners of Al-Damon prison have called on the International Red Cross to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to close the "the worst jail ever," as they "experience tragic conditions in Al-Damon."

In a statement issued by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) on Sunday August 8, it stressed that the circumstances and conditions faced by detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres are "very difficult", particularly in light of the abusive policies exercised by the prison services "keeping Al-Damon prisoners in a small department that is cold in the winter, hot in summer, and full of insects."

The PPC drew attention to the policy of "medical neglect" being applied by the Israeli prisons authorities against Palestinian prisoners of both genders. The statement claimed that authorities prevent external doctors from coming into prisons to treat prisoners. Al-Damon contains a large number of those who suffer from acute and chronic illnesses such as joint pain, acute shortness of breath, toothache, allergies, tonsil infections, acute weight loss, and other chronic diseases "which require surgery or specialists counselling."

The captive women’s movement in Al-Damon renewed its invitation to the Red Cross to visit the prison and witness the physical and psychological condition the female prisoners are forced to live in under the tightening policies imposed on them by the Occupation Authorities.

Liberal television host Rachel Maddow solidarizes herself with US military in Afghanistan

Liberal television host Rachel Maddow solidarizes herself with US military in Afghanistan

[wsws.org] The visit by MSNBC news program host Rachel Maddow to Afghanistan in early July was as revealing as it was repugnant. Maddow is a principal voice of the liberal-left in the American media mainstream. When her program first aired in September 2008, the press made much of the fact that the she was the first “openly gay anchor” to host a prime-time news program in the US.

Maddow spent several days in Afghanistan this month, interviewing American officers and soldiers, touring Kandahar and Kabul, discussing counter-insurgency strategy and the overall state of the US military occupation. Whatever misgivings she might have about the ultimate fate of the American and allied effort in Afghanistan, Maddow solidarized herself fully with the occupation and the US military, endorsing the bloody suppression of the insurgency.

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, there were those in the US and elsewhere who were deceived into thinking that the American invasion of Afghanistan had something to do with bringing terrorists and their Taliban sponsors to justice. Nine years of the conflict—with the location and fate of Osama bin Laden largely dropped and the number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan calculated, by US officials, to be between 50 and 100—have clarified the issues.