1994: Post-Election Anguish

I kind of felt the same way this past November, but it's helpful to remember that we survived those dark days, and we'll get through these, too. Because one thing you can always count on with the Republicans: they're bound to overplay their hands.

Note: In those days, instead of donkeys and elephants, I was prone to call the Democrats "Weasels" and the Republicans "lizards." The rationale was, they're both egg-suckers, but at least a weasel won't eat their young.

Yarrrrggghhh.

Those of you who read the fine print at the bottom of this page know that the official motto of the Tucson Comic News is "Dedicated to saving the planet from the power-addicted greedheads before it's too late."

There are a few points about this phrase that need to be clarified. The first is that, as several of you have pointed out, the planet is likely to be around for the foreseeable future; it's humanity that needs to be saved (okay, call it poetic license). The second point is that, given the current political climate, it's probably already too late.

1994: Gay Rights Are Human Rights

This "Publisher's Rant" from the eleventh issue of the Tucson Comic News introduced the work of the brilliant cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who also blogs brilliantly here.

Meanwhile, we've come a long way since 1994; marriage equality is on the horizon, though it may not come soon enough for all concerned. A final end to legal discrimination against gay people may come down to the conscience of Anthony Kennedy - or the health of some of his colleagues.

As you may have noticed, last issue featured the final installment of Mark Alan Stamaty's brilliant "Washingtoon." Mr. Stamaty's work can now be found (in full color!) exclusively in the pages of Time magazine, once the flagship of the Henry Luce empire, now a cog in the Time/Warner multinational. I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have sold my soul to the same devil, given the chance.

In its place, I am proud to announce the arrival of Alison Bechdel's delightful feature, "Dykes to Watch Out For," which follows the lives of a dozen charming lesbians. As a cartoonist myself, I have long admired Alison's work, both for her expressive pen-and-ink work, and for the vitality of her characters. I've missed the soap opera of their lives since moving here, so I am pleased to introduce Alison and her cast of characters to Tucson.

It's also great to have another female cartoonist to, however marginally, attempt to correct the huge gender imbalance among my contributors.Out of some thirty cartoonists whose work I draw upon to assemble this paper, Alison is the, er, fourth woman. She joins Marian Henley ("Maxine!") on the feature pages, while Ann Telnaes, who was recently hired by the North America Syndicate, joins Pulitzer Prize winner Signe Wilkinson in storming the once all-male bastion of editorial cartooning [Note: Telnaes received the Pulitzer in 2001]. As this paper continues to grow, I'll do my best to try to bring more women's points of view into these pages.

1994: Nixon Obituary

Working today as a substitute, teaching junior high students about World War II. During my lunch break I fished out my flash drive to see what I felt like posting today. This is my obituary for one of the central figures of the post-war era. You might argue that Ronald Reagan had more influence on American politics as it stands today - but nearly everything Reagan did, Nixon paved the way for it.

I lost a little piece of myself last month. A man I had hated for most of my life, who I had studied intensively for the last eleven years, the subject both of my first book and of my first published writing at the tender age of eleven...the man whose library I was thrown out of on opening day.

My initial feelings were of relief and elation, not for the death of another human, but for the fact that that conniving little mind was finally shut down, that he could do no further harm. Then, gradually, for the first time I was able to see Nixon as a human being, not as a symbol, or as the author of his policies. I felt sympathy for him, his family and his admirers. And I was able to get in touch with those qualities of his that I myself admired.

It was the shallow and superficial nature of the coverage that cured me of this. Ignorant anchors who got their facts mixed up. Pundits eulogizing his "legacy" and downplaying his "mistakes." Pathetic man-in-the-street interviews: "Waaal, he opened up to China, and he brought our boys home from Vietnam, sure he made some mistakes, but who doesn't, evrybody's human, and I think he was one of the greatest Presidents we ever had..." YYYAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH.

1994: The Haiti Intervention

While our focus rightly continues to be on the people of Egypt, our neighbors in Haiti continue to suffer under the combination of Mother Nature's wrath and the legacy of US domination. Here's a piece from the December 1994 Tucson Comic News, written as US troops were once again dispatched to Port-au-Prince. For more background on Haiti, see chapter 41 of The CIA's Greatest Hits.

It used to be a truism of American politics that the Democrats (Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ) would get us into wars, while the Republicans (Hoover, Ike, Nixon) would get us into recessions and depressions. Well, twelve years of Reaganbush, with three wars, capped by a recession, pretty much shot down that cliche. But these days, the Democrats can't seem to run a war to save their lives.

Now, if the Republicans wanted to invade Haiti (not that they would, but bear with me) they would have leaked Forrest Gump-styled digital footage of General Cedras buggering dogs in the street, and whipped this whole country into a blood frenzy before moving any troops. The delicious ambivalence on the part of hawks in both parties towards our latest "adventure" shows what happens when they find they've taken their lip service toward democracy and human rights a bit too far.

It may just be that we've come to the point in the New World Order in which homicidal kleptocracies like Somoza's Nicaragua, or Pinochet's Chile, are just too downright embarrassing to be client states of the good old USA - though I wouldn't bet the farm on it just yet. Perhaps, though, a better-packaged neocolonialism is what is now being sought.

After expending American blood and treasure to put the Emir of Kuwait and Guillermo Endara into power-ostensibly to uphold international law-the US had a tough time explaining to its allies exactly why we would tolerate a junta of machete-wielding maniacs right in our "backyard." Fact is, as FDR said about Somoza, "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." And make no mistake about it, those are our machete-wielding maniacs down there. The Haitian military was trained and financed by the US, with many of its top leaders, including General Cedras, on the CIA payroll. Most of them learned their craft at the infamous "School of Assassins" now located at Fort Bening, Georgia.

The US has been kicking the shit out of Haiti at least since 1801, when President Jefferson cut a deal with Napoleon to help suppress a slave revolt on that tortured island. Since then, we have invaded Haiti five times (well, six, now), including, as neo-pacifists like Bob Dole and Phil Gramm like to point out, an occupation that lasted from 1915 to 1935.

The way they tell it, though, we were just a bunch of well-meaning blunderers trying to plant the seeds of democracy, just like hapless Bill Clinton is today. I'm getting a little tired of having to repeat this: Wars have never been fought for altruistic reasons. Never have been, never will be.

What is even more galling is the frankly racist blather on the Sunday chat shows about how our latest expedition is doomed to failure because these Haitians just don't understand Democracy and Human Rights like our glorious selves, and besides, their "culture of violence" is just too deeply embedded. I have simply got to stop watching so much television.

As usual, the only reason this intervention is taking place is to clamp down on democracy, not to "plant its seeds." If we had any commitment to democracy, George Bush could have ended the Cedras coup with a few well-placed phone calls. Fact is, they were only too delighted to have Father Aristide tossed out on his ear after eight months. The slightest possibility of his return sent the CIA into a frenzy of leaks regarding his psychopathic character-based on information provided by the junta itself.

With or without Father Aristide, there's entirely too damn much democracy in Haiti to suit our ruling elites, and the only way to put a lid on it is with another US occupation.

Aristide has now been sufficiently handcuffed to inhibit his freedom to reform Haiti, and whether or not the Tonton Macoutes will be reined in remains to be seen. The US embassy has been maintaining databases of dissidents, just as they did in Indonesia before the 1965 coup that killed between a half million and a million leftists.

It was certainly a dramatic bit of television to send Jimmy, Colin and Sam down for the eleventh-hour save that-surprise!-left Cedras pretty much free to do as he pleases. Whether or not it produces any lasting bulge in Clinton's approval ratings, the Cedras summit was certainly in character.

Sam Nunn had, just the day before, taken to the floor of the Senate to urge that, somehow, the opposition to Aristide, "both legitimate and illegitimate," must be allowed to take part in Haitian political life. It doesn't take a Fellini to figure out the symbolism behind that little gem. Sam just wanted to make sure that the folks who gun down Haitian leftists in the streets can keep on doing what they do best. And with the help of Colin Powell, butcher of Desert Storm and admitted Iran-contra perjurer, and Jimmy Carter, whose much-vaunted dedication to human rights somehow never extended to the people of El Salvador, Senator Sam did just that. I guess I should be grateful he's not Secretary of Defense.

1994: Conspiracy Theory

You might have noticed that I tend to go on about assassination plots and such. This little rant grew out of my interactions online in the early days of the Web (well, early to me). It appeared in the January, 1994 issue of the Tucson Comic News. Note to scoffers: try googling "Operation Northwoods."

Now, if I had suggested, a couple of generations ago, that the federal government was injecting plutonium into helpless retarded children, just to see what would happen, I would have been called a number of interesting things. Perhaps the nicest of them would have been 'conspiracy theorist.' Actually, I get called that quite a bit in any case....

These days, the words "conspiracy theory" have become a single buzzword, conspiracytheory, which, roughly translated, means, "I don't want to think about that." The pejorative use of the term is used to mean "you are a paranoid wacko." But I use the term proudly, since a lot of what I do is read up on various criminal conspiracies, and try to consider which theories meet the available facts.

After all, the alternative to conspiracy theory is often coincidence theory. For example, if I were to assert, based on a wealth of documented sources, that Lee Harvey Oswald spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out with known CIA agents, extreme rightwingers, wealthy oil industry tycoons, and violently anti-Castro Cuban exiles, there would be two of several ways of looking at these facts. The conspiracy theory would be "perhaps these associations of Oswald's had something to do with the events of November 22, 1963." The coincidence theory would be, "despite these known associates, I believe that Oswald, acting alone, killed JFK." However, only one of these theories is subject to widespread ridicule.

Much of what is put down as conspiracy theory is simply little-known historical fact. The July 1933 plot by fascist US businessmen to stage a coup against FDR, for instance, is simply too well-documented to be refuted. Yet most Americans have never heard of it. Still other conspiracy theorists will take established facts (a significant portion of the money looted during the S&L crisis went to the CIA) and come up with a theory that, while plausible, cannot be proven (the CIA must have planned it that way). There is nothing wrong with theorizing on that basis, as long as the documented facts are identified, and speculation is clearly labeled as such. As long as such guidelines are followed, crying "conspiracy theory!" simply serves to obfuscate the issues involved.

Another buzzword used to trivialize discussions of conspiracy is "revisionist history." This means, of course, "the previous version of history better reflected my belief system." Whether we like it or not, blatant falsehoods pass into history, and if new facts or evidence come to light, history (never a settled, unchallengeable canon of universally accepted facts to begin with) must be revised. Thus the one million "Communists" massacred in 1965 by the Indonesian government become part of revisionist history when interviews with US State Department officials reveal that hit lists were provided to the Indonesian military. Thus the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, which the Wall Street Journal denounced at the time as, you guessed it, conspiracy theory, now must be redefined as revisionist history. No doubt the Journal would have preferred to have left it unrevised.

Another branch of conspiracy theory, more thoroughly stigmatized, concerns secret societies, which by their very nature invite conspiratorial speculation. Taken to extremes, this leads to Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory, in which the whole of human history is to be explained by the devious machinations of the Freemasons, or the Bavarian Illuminati, or the Jews, or the International Communist Conspiracy, or pick your favorite. This sort of thing gives conspiracy theory a bad name.

But looked at more rationally, secret societies are fertile ground for researchers. There is no denying that certain groups of wealthy and powerful men, meeting in secret, have had considerable influence on the course of history - and continue to do so. A branch of rightwing theory, which has also been embraced by many on the left, concerns the workings of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and, more obscurely, the Bilderberg Group. The fact is that these groups do exist, they do maintain secrecy over some of their activities, and that they wield considerable power and influence. Whether you choose to believe that the Trilateral Commission is, as they claim to be, simply a group of concerned businessmen, or perhaps something more sinister, probably depends on your preconceived notions. Adherents to either view would do well to offer some evidence to back up their claims.

To take a more pedestrian example, consider such institutions as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. These very wealthy, mostly white men sit in secret deliberation on how to impose their economic philosophies on Third World countries in exchange for credit, mostly to pay off debts incurred by some bloodthirsty dictator, previously supported by these same men and now, oftentimes, living off deposits kept in their banks. As a direct result of the "austerity" enforced by these agencies, people starve to death.

Is this just "networking," or is this a conspiracy? It certainly meets the dictionary definition (an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful or subversive act). It also resonates with the Latin roots (literally, to breathe together). If you want to believe that the Trilateral Commission, who have been breathing together with these institutions since their inception, are engaged in purely innocuous activities, you are certainly free to do so. But I must say, doing so seems to me to require a certain naive faith that our leaders never lie, and that the world is run pretty much the way our newspapers and high-school textbooks say it is.

The best way to look at many conspiracy theories is to consider them as worst-case scenarios. And since much of our history in the postwar era has turned out to be much worse than even the wildest conspiracy theorists dreamed of at the time, it would behoove us to come up with as many conspiracy theories as possible. Now that we're left having to pay compensation to thousands of radiation victims, as well as literally trillions of dollars to clean up the nation's leaking radioactive waste dumps, who is to say what theories are too outlandish to consider? Understanding and theorizing about such conspiracies is not irrelevant or trivial. It is vital to concentrating on the challenges of the future.