Patreon for GrrrGraphics

Hello everyone,

I am now on Patreon and I invite you to take a look. I will draw the cartoons that the MSM won't draw. Anti-Federal Reserve cartoons. Anti-New World Order cartoons. Anti-gun confiscation cartoons. Anti-crony capitalism cartoons. Pro-freedom and liberty cartoons.

I have also been selling some of my original cartoons, and to my biggest fan (you know who you are) who has been buying them--a big THANK YOU . Every original cartoon offered on eBay has sold.

We are on Patreon in order to develop a stronger internet voice and fanbase.  We intend to reclaim our true Internet identity and become louder than any troll voice.  Our fanbase on social media continues to grow daily and we’ve received a great response. However, it takes time to draw the cartoons and encouragement alone doesn’t pay the bills. It requires money to host and maintain a website as well as purchase computer equipment and art supplies.

Expanding and connecting with our growing fan base in a creative and entertaining way is our goal on Patreon. We plan on offering rewards and a unique interaction with those who are willing to support us. This may include offering sketches and original cartoons, signed prints and special deals on souvenir items. One of our long-term goals is offering a ‘coffee table’ book of cartoons.  Memberships are monthly, you can change to a higher or lower level at anytime! 

We welcome your suggestions, your ideas and your support

--Ben and Tina Garrison

We are selling signed high-quality prints as well as original cartoons. So far, we've had a great response!

http://www.ebay.com/usr/grrrgraphicscartoons

https://www.patreon.com/grrrgraphics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NBCr_csTls

http://www.bengarrison.com

Tears of a Clown

John Boehner is known not just for his ridiculous, deep-orange suntans or his inability to restrain his tears, but also as a ‘consensus builder.’ Some Republicans might interpret that as an Obama butt kisser. Regardless, he’ll be resigning from Congress around Halloween. Many Republicans will say ‘good riddance.’ Now Boehner can enjoy a lucrative retirement while playing on the golf course with Obama.

Boehner epitomized 'consensus.' The MSM tells us that's a 'good thing.' That is, both parties working together to strip away our liberty while impoverishing the middle class with lies, open borders, 'free trade' (shipping jobs overseas). Both parties clamped down on dissent by bringing about a police state and an atmosphere of 'political correctness.' You don't like what's going on? You don't like big government getting bigger? You're labeled 'stupid.' You're labeled a 'racist.' You're labeled an 'extremist.' Nowadays just supporting the Constitution can get you labeled a 'Constitutionalist,' which is meant to be disparaging!

Meanwhile, both parties work together to increase the advantage of the globalist banksters while the rest of us become debt slaves. 

Boehner will retire with a comfy pension and plenty of perks. He'll be laughing--not crying--all the way to the bank.

Petrenko Solves the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 Puzzle

Shostakovich's masterpiece, Symphony No. 4, was suppressed as being 'formalist.' It would not be heard in the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years. The Soviet authorities forced Dimitri to deliver something more simple and 'understandable.' He delivered. His 5th is perhaps his most popular symphony and it was instantly recognized as a great work. During its premiere, the audience was touched to the point of tears by the third movement--an elegy to the populace suffering under Stalin's tyranny. People 'got it.' The ending, however, is commonly seen as the 'weak link.' It didn't seem to match the rest of the work's seriousness. The ending in particular was often panned by critics, but in reality Shostakovich made it loud and simple on purpose. He was, after all, under orders. The string section's repeating note at the end seemed to say, "There. Is this simple enough for you?" 



The problem with the ending has now been resolved by Petrenko. He is a great conductor and he realized that, by slowing the tempo down considerably, it would make the ending match the rest of the symphony. It is now something monumental and profound. I only wish Shostakovich himself could hear what Petrenko has done. I'm sure the composer would be very pleased, indeed. Bravo, Petrenko. Bravo!

Info Graphic: A Trio of Trolls

It has been over five years since I began penning anti-Federal Reserve cartoons in my spare time. I started drawing them in 2009 and almost immediately I was attacked by Internet trolls. At first I was bewildered and perplexed. I knew nothing about trolling or why they would do such a thing. Many of my friends and family thought I should simply ignore them.

That works in some cases, but when trolling ramps up to libel and criminal harassment...well, that can be difficult to ignore. Just ask Kathy Sierra when she started dealing with trolls. The ringleader was a young man named 'Weev' who mercilessly hounded her so much that she decided to drop off the Internet completely. You can read her story in her own words here:

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/

Her story was very familiar to me and it DOES seem like the trolls always win. But then, one of them pushed things too far and he was arrested. I was able to obtain justice--even if indirectly. Joshua Goldberg began trolling at the age of 12 and he kept ramping up his activities until he crossed the line--he was promoting murder for laughs. For some reason the young man had a fascination with Australia and many of his aliases were Australian. This even threw off a cyber investigator who tried to help me by tracking down the identities of the trolls.

I can boil the trolling down to three main attackers. One of them is now in jail. It doesn't take a lot of trolls to ruin one's reputation and a few can wreak a lot of damage. My commercial art business has been hurt. I had to leave my art gallery because trolls began attacking the owner. Lawyers were not interested in my case due to the difficulty of prosecuting online libel. Just because justice can't be had, the trolls think what they're doing is 'right' and 'free.' Nope--it's still criminal to change my work into anti-Semitism and racism and then claim I drew them while spreading them around the Web. Copyrights do have meaning and my work is owned by me. It's satire, you say? Wrong. Satire would be to draw your OWN cartoons in my style to mock my work.

One of the lawyers suggested I should go on a PR campaign and tell my story. I've done that. I even wrote a book. I gave away more copies than I have sold. I have also been trying to stay afloat by selling originals of my cartoons. I've sold them all so far (with special thanks to one collector who loves them--you know who you are!)

Drawing political cartoons without editorial constraints is a good example of engaging in free speech. I drew cartoons that mainstream media cartoonists wouldn't draw. I had to be shut up. Whether or not the trolling was first instigated by government provocateurs or by chuckleheads doesn't matter. The only way to get out of this mess is to keep drawing them until my REAL cartoons begin to drown out the ones defaced by trolls. It would be great if I could draw them full time, but that requires some sort of support. It's why I signed up for Patreon. If only a few thousand supporters would pledge $1 a month, I could draw cartoons full time. That's a dream, but I had to try.

https://www.patreon.com/grrrgraphics

To my first three supporters, my hearty thanks and I will do my best to make it worthwhile.

Meanwhile, here is an info graphic that shows my three main tormentors and how they are all interconnected. When it comes to Internet trolls, it's a small world.

Rate Hike: Crying Wolf

Lew Rockwell writes,

 "Once again the Fed’s bite has failed to live up to its bark. Despite months of expectations that it would finally raise rates for the first time since 2006, the Fed continued to sit on its hands while pointing to some unspecified date in the future when all the economic and financial stars will align in a way that makes a 25 basis point increase appropriate. Am I the only one getting bored by the repetition?”

 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/09/peter-schiff/the-weak-and-utterly-dependent-economy/

No, Lew, you aren’t the only one. I’ve been following their farce for quite a while. The Fed keeps barking about a rate hike wolf, but that’s all it is—barking. If the rate hike cycle DID return, the wolf would blow down the Fed pigs' house of straw. There’s simply way too much debt built up and rising rates would make that debt worse. It would crash the economy still further.

Savers are desperate to get some kind of return on their money. They get a fraction of a percentage while at the same banks gouge people with an average of 18 percent on their credit cards. The banks create money out of thin air due to fractional reserve banking and the people get the shaft. And before you tell me it’s the peoples’ fault for getting in credit card debt to start with, let me say many can’t find a job and if they can it’s part time and/or close to minimum wage. The under 5% employment the Fed brags about? More smoke and mirrors and data distortion. In other words, they’re lying. The economy is not humming along, or they would have raised interest rates years ago.

A record number of years at zero interest rates has not helped the economy. It has only helped the the super rich get more rich. Besides, if things are so rosy as the Fed tells us, why the perpetual ‘emergency’ zero rate position? The Fed continues to lie about economic data to help prop up their market and to pretend they’re ‘in control.’ They’re losing control and they have no more ammo. They have no leverage. They no longer have any credibility. They can’t lower rates without raising them first. They’re pushing on a string. They’re kicking a can down the road. They want to keep their corrupt casino game going for as long as possible. It’s a game that benefits an elite at the top while impoverishing the middle class.

 Yellen even talked about sparking inflation. This is clearly against the Federal Reserve Act and when the Fed says its inflation goal is 2 percent annually they’re really saying, “If you save $10,000 today, we want it to be worth $9,800 at the end of the year. The missing $200 is theft. Quoting Karl Deninger, "It is a giant middle finger erected toward every person in this nation and has stolen trillions of dollars of your, my, and everyone else's money over the last 100 years.” 

 http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230679

The Fed’s mandate is to keep money stable. Instead, since the Fed got established just over 100 years ago, they devalued the dollar 98%. They installed a gestapo-IRS to intimidate Americans. The IRS is the real wolf in this situation. The Fed also created booms and busts instead of preventing them. The Fed is an abject failure.

 It’s time to end the destructive sham known as the Federal Reserve along with the pernicious IRS. Return the oversight of money to Congress where it belongs. —Ben Garrison

Joshua Goldberg, Glue-Sniffing Troll ARRESTED

UPDATE: Joshua Goldberg is confirmed as being European88, a troll who created hate screed boxes with my face and name on them. This garbage still abounds on Google searches. He also went by 'maymayposter' and Michael Slay, and he tricked the master troll, Andrew Anglin. Goldberg wrote essays for The Daily Stormer under the name of Slay. Andrew Anglin supposedly hates Jews, but he continues to harbor defamation against me including many disgusting meme images created by Goldberg. TAKE THAT LIBEL DOWN, ANDREW!

Goldberg was also many other sock puppets, both male and female. Goldberg apparently enjoyed plenty of lulz from his trolling, which became so extreme that he was toying with murder. Now he can laugh his way straight into prison!

UPDATE 2: Joshua Goldberg was also behind the "Goldman Sachs Paper Rain" series of pages on Facebook during 2014. Many iterations were removed, but he had a lot of followers and the exact same tone of voice he used for European88. That is, very arrogant, profane and racist. He attacked me regularly on the page and pushed FB's community standards envelope. When his page got removed, he would simply start another one with a variant title such as "Goldman Sachs Paper Tornado." He would often 'tease' the moderators by posting pornography and extremely violent content and then remove the content within an hour or two. Now that he's been arrested, the attacks on me by 4chan 'anons' have also greatly diminished. He was a 1-man anonymous army who attacked me as often as he could. Why? Because I don't think hate speech belongs on Facebook. By 'hate speech,' I mean calling for the murder of human beings, which was routine for Goldberg.

Here the keyboard coward twists the truth in order to get 4chan to attack me. He succeeded. (I never 'backtraced' anyone on 4chan).

----------

My reaction upon hearing news of Joshua Goldberg's arrest:

I recognized his name. I especially recognized his Facebook icon because he was a troll that repeatedly attacked my wife Tina and me on our Facebook and Twitter pages. He routinely accused me of being anti-semitic, a 'Nazi,' a 'racist' and so forth. We saved evidence of this and I'm still investigating whether or not he is also the despicable troll who calls himself 'European88.' My cyber investigator found that European88 was based in New Zealand or Australia. He was either a retired real estate lawyer venting his racism, or it could have been his son doing the mischief. That could all be completely wrong. Goldberg is a young punk from Florida who carried his trolling too far. I hope you get what you deserve, Joshua! Take a good whiff of prison!

I'll continue my investigation. I'm also going to update my ebook...probably sometime next month. This will be included.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/unmasking-a-troll-aussie-jihadist-australi-witness-a-20yearold-american-nerd-20150909-gjil47.html

http://www.news4jax.com/news/accused-orange-park-terrorists-troubled-past/35225780

https://8ch.net/pol/res/3258486.html#3265210

Many on 4chan and 8chan have claimed that it was a Jewish troll who began defacing my cartoons and libeling me. I have no way of proving that, but in this case they may have been right. Sorry, but I'm not about to hate 'Jews,' merely because one of them was a pathetic twerp and punk troll. 

Apparently this bag filled with scum also used my name while setting up his myriad accounts to stir up shit and get others to attempt bombings and murder for him.

Here's Joshua Goldberg attacking me because of rense.com. Jeff Rense was the first 'big name' site to publish one of my cartoons. I admire Rense's determination to release news on Fukushima when other MSM 'journalists' ignore it altogether. I don't agree with Rense's anti-Zionism. Goldberg used the instance to defame me. Notice he posted this on the Goldman Sachs Paper Rain page. At that time, I was under ruthless attack by the entity behind this page--and I repeatedly filed claim forms with Facebook to get such material removed.

This is the same black background used by European88 on his vitriolic hate screeds to defame me.

Here the little bastard used my name to set up accounts

The tissue of lies runs deep. While pretending to be a white supremacist Australian, he also published articles on 'The Daily Stormer' and was part of Andrew Anglin's 'troll army.' He went by the handles of European88 and 'maymayposter' on Reddit. He used both of his handles to attack me repeatedly. His modus operandi was to also steal names and photos and create Facebook and Twitter pages/accounts to defame his targets. One troll can do a lot of damage and this young cretin made it his life's mission to stir up shit. Apparently as he aged and continue to 'get away' with it, he decided to up the ante and instigate terrorism and murder.

I penned an imaginary troll when I drew this cartoon. As it turned out, Joshua Goldberg was one of my biggest tormentors and he had hair just like the troll in the cartoon.

Quinn Norton wrote a short essay in which she hinted at worse things to come from Internet trolling and their identity fraud. In the case of Joshua Goldberg, she was right. He took sadistic pleasure in the creation of arson fires on the Internet. He stoked fires. He liked to watch things burn. He carried his trolling to such an extreme that he began encouraging murder. 

----

Social media generates these doppelgängers, memes are constructed of these doppelgängers. Increasingly they have a network life without us, looking like us, being talked to (and sometimes replying) as us. Some are better than we are, and some are Zyklon Ben. Some are trapped, and some slowly trap us — signaling terrible things, just as doppelgängers always did. Figuring out how to manage these rogue instantiations of our identities could be one of the more difficult tasks of 21st century life. When they are constructed by bureaucracies, like innocent victims of the no-fly list and cases of terrorist mistaken identity, they can be even worse and more dangerous than Zyklon Ben. --Quinn Norton

https://medium.com/@quinnnorton/4chan-tells-is-very-little-about-ben-garrison-but-it-tells-us-a-lot-about-the-net-bf3b75ccbc54

Here is Goldberg on our banned list. "Moon Metropolis" was just one of his many handles.

I'm now updating my book, 'Rogue Cartoonist,' since I know know the true identity of one my main tormentors, European88.

The Trump Tango

Trump continues to increase his commanding lead in the polls. There are a variety of reasons for this. For one thing, he’s not politically correct. I suspect most Americans, like me, are becoming very tired of being called ‘racist’ merely because we don’t want to go along with the New World Order. That phrase was first voiced by the first George H. W. Bush. To be sure, Trump comes from the 1 percent, but he’s not controlled by them. Trump seems to care about bringing back jobs and self-respect to the middle class. Will he do that? Can he do that? It remains to be seen.

Most Americans are sick of the Bushes. We're sick of the Clintons. We do not want dynasties. America is not set up to be run by royal families. We are not supposed to be a monarchy. We are tired of politicians who speak from a teleprompter. We are tired of politicians who are afraid to debate without first running issues through focus groups. We are tired of the fake liars who say one thing then do the opposite. We are tired of the phony baloney politicians who are run by lobbyists, special interests and the big-moneyed oligarchs who really run the show. Trump, for all his many flaws, is genuine. He does not dance around issues; he wants to solve them. Americans are saying, “Let’s face the music and dance.” They want to do the Trump Tango. —Ben Garrison

Enjoy Ben's cartoon takes on current events? ?  Please share on twitter and Facebook. If you would like to become a patron of Ben's cartoons and GrrrGraphics, please check out our new Patreon page, donate as little as a dollar a month and help keep cartoons rolling! Thank you!   GrrrGraphics on Patreon.com

https://www.patreon.com/grrrgraphics

Take 'er down, Wikipedia

UPDATE: PAGE HAS BEEN REMOVED. KEEP ME SALTY, WIKIPEDIA! 

I was surprised to see that I had a page on Wikipedia and for the record, I had nothing to do with it. It showed up out of the blue yesterday. It won't last. I'm not 'notable.' I don't care if Wikipedia considers me notable or not. I did not start drawing cartoons for fame or fortune. I drew them because I was disturbed by the corruption I was seeing. It was my duty as U.S. citizen to speak out against it. If I had to do it all over again, I'd be anonymous. I'm not a public figure. So take 'er down, Wikipedia.


Ben Garrison, the unknown cartoonist.

Wikipedia:

• Delete and Salt Not enough coverage in independent, reliable sources to verify or sustian article. Fails general notability guidelines, WP:NAUTHOR. Article has been recreated after being deleted as an Attack page and serious BLP violations are continuing per [1] Jbh^Talk 13:41, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, delete and salt me already. LOL

http://www.naturalnews.com/051057_Wikipedia_blackmail_racket_corporate_propaganda.html

(NaturalNews) Natural News has long documented the scandal, debauchery and bogusness surrounding the "online encyclopedia" known as Wikipedia – and each time we've been proven correct that the media giant is little more than a corrupt operation that has always attempted to downplay or hide its seedy, shady side.


Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/051057_Wikipedia_blackmail_racket_corporate_propaganda.html#ixzz3kn9Xt1v4

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for example, was exposed by BBC News back in 2007 for tampering with content posted on the site. A tool known as "Wikipedia Scanner," which was hailed as being capable of identifying some of Wikipedia's user editors, revealed the CIA as an active manipulator of sensitive information. The U.S. military has also been caught editing tens of thousands of Wikipedia entries to suit its own interests.

"The sad truth about the Internet is that what started as a liberating multiplicity of informational sources has dwindled to a handful of knowledge-monopolies with Google and Wikipedia leading the pack," writes Micah White for Adbusters.org in an unrelated piece. "Wikipedia is a particularly unreliable source of knowledge and yet, because of a rumored secret-deal with Google, it ranks highly on many searches."

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/041406_Wikipedia_propaganda_disinformation.html#ixzz3knrFw8cP

Citizen Cattle

I sometimes get positive email from people with good ideas for cartoons. Surprisingly, all of the ideas have been good. I haven't been able to draw them all, but I have thought about them. The idea for this cartoon came from a certain Alex L. I realized it was a good idea worth developing and so I did. 

The more we let government decide things for us, the more we become their cattle. We aren't supposed to question government. After all, they have our best interests at heart, right? We fear our militarized police and they treat us like animals, not citizens. The government says we don't need to know if we're eating GMO foods. We don't need to worry about fluoride in our tap water. A little bit of rat poison can't hurt us, right? We don't need to worry about the falsehoods being told to us by mainstream media. We are burdened with debt (especially college kids) and debt slave money is designed to shackle us. We all become poor and on the dole. It's just big government taking care of us, right?

A few years ago I drew a cartoon that featured forced inoculations and I was laughed at. But now it has become a law in California and some presidential candidates such as Ben Carson are openly espousing it. It's inoculation by force. It's inoculation by the point of a gun. Do citizens no longer have a choice about what they eat and drink? Don't we have control of our own bodies? Don't we have say? Well, we'd better start speaking out against these things before the government decides we are ready to be sent to one of their slaughterhouses. --Ben Garrison

http://www.naturalnews.com/050994_Alzheimers_vaccines_mercury_exposure.html#