#AND THE HORRIFYING WAY MEN OF ERAS PAST AND PRESENT ARE SO SIMILAR TO DEATH

[ilikeyoshi]

another day another annoying modern greek goddess per3phone girlboss take

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 65-66

This is the start of the “Ultimate Warriors from Ancient Times” arc, but I want to focus on these two chapters because they feature Mark.   I’ve got a lot to say about Mark under the cut, but the short version is that he’s a lousy Nazi and he deserves everything that happens to him.

A large chunk of Chapter 65 is just Caesar hanging out in Joseph and Speedwagon’s hotel room.   They try to play cards, but they’re both cheats.  This wouldn’t bother me at all until Speedwagon points out that he’s been here for eight hours, and never bothered to explain why.   You’d think Joseph would have demanded an answer a long time ago, since he’s not known for patience.  

As it turns out, Caesar’s been waiting for Mark, a buddy of his in the German Army.   Stroheim was in the German Army too, and he told Joseph that the Nazis had discovered three other Pillar Men in Rome.   That’s why he and Speedwagon came here, after all.    Well, Caesar’s an Italian, and Italy and Germany are allies, so Caesar managed to persuade the Germans (through Mark) to let him take a look at the Pillar Men.    So in this chapter, Mark rolls up in a car and drives them over to the site. 

But we already know what happened at the site in Chapter 64.   The Pillar Men have already reawakened, and all the Nazi soldiers stationed there have been slaughtered.   When Mark leads our heroes into the catacombs, they find the remains of the Germans, while Mark bumps into the Pillar Men themselves.  (Note: the above image is not to scale).

The thing is, bumping into the Pillar Men is hazardous to your health.    We saw that vampire grab Santana and large chunks of his body were completely absorbed.   The same thing happens to Mark, only faster, because Wamuu doesn’t even slow down as he walks past him.    He just walks right through Mark and half of his body is gone.  

So when I first watched the JoJo anime, it was right after I watched the Hellsing Ultimate anime, and I got a kick out of seeing two completely different anime takes on vampire lore.   Let’s face it, the Pillar Men are presented as something beyond mere vampires, but they’re basically just super-vampires, not so different from Alucard in Hellsing.    And both make use of the Nazis, except in Hellsing, the Nazis are the villains, while in Battle Tendency, they’re kinda sorta allies.  Stroheim is clearly a bad guy, because he killed his prisoners and tormented Speedwagon, but Mark is presented as a completely sympathetic person.   He’s got a sweetheart back home, Caesar’s the one who introduced them, and he’s planning to get married the next time he goes back to Germany.   And for his very brief appearance in JJBA, he’s completely friendly and helpful to the heroes.   We’re supposed to feel very sorry for him when he gets killed here.  

Part 2 is my favorite, but I think this stands out as it’s biggest flaw.   I get the idea.    Hellsing was dealing with a lot of dark themes, and the protagonists were horrifying in their own right.   So Kouta Hirano used the Nazis as villains to humanize his vampire characters.    By contrast, Hirohiko Araki seems to be using the Nazis to dehumanize the Pillar Men.   They’re so evil that even the Nazis look halfway decent by comparison.   At least the Nazis are human, with human loves and fears and honor.    The Pillar Men kill Mark without even noticing him, and Speedwagon likens this to a human stepping on an ant.     I get what Araki is trying to do here, but it rings hollow.    Fuck Mark, and fuck his Nazi fiance.  The first time we see him, we get a close up of his Iron Cross medal, with the damn swastika in the middle of it.    We’re supposed to buy into the idea that he’s “one of the good Germans”, and it’s 1938, so World War II hasn’t officially started yet, so somehow Mark is supposed to be cool.   But no, I don’t buy it.

Let me go off on a little sidebar and try to explain how we got here.   Battle Tendency was published in 1988.   Back then, Hitler had been dead for decades, and Germany had been partitioned into two countries, East and West Germany.   The Nazis seemed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history, and as time passed, pop culture grew more comfortable using the Nazis as historical villains in stories like this one.    There was a sense that yeah, the Nazis were really bad, but they were gone now, and they would never come back.   I think there was a similar mentality surrounding the Soviet Union after the U.S.S.R. dissolved.    By the 2000′s there were all sorts of internet memes about Nazi stuff and Soviet stuff and it was rationalized as harmless envelope-pushing. 

The problem is, it doesn’t seem so harmless in 2021, when Russia is a autocracy that meddles in U.S. elections, emboldening white nationalists in the process.   The “alt-right” fanatics who marched in Charlottesville in 2017?   The rioters who stormed the Capitol building this past January?   Those assholes probably wouldn’t call themselves Nazis, but neither did the Nazis.   They called themselves “National Socialists”, because they were trying to make their ugly policies sound more legitimate.   The same holds true for “alt-right”, “economic nationalist”, “Qanon”, “truther”, and so on.   They’re just new labels for the same old horseshit.  

I don’t want to judge Battle Tendency too harshly, because it’s the product of a different time, an era when people could at least pretend that Nazism was one of the few problems that we didn’t have to worry about any more.   The same mentality can be found in Hellsing.   The Nazis in Hellsing are definitely villains, but the conceit is that they’re all immortal vampires or werewolves, because that’s the only way the Nazi menace could possibly exist in 1999.    Otherwise, they’d all be dead of old age.   Battle Tendency is set in 1938, so it takes the liberty of presenting sympathetic Nazis, because we already know they’ll be defeated in the end, right?   We might as well see what makes them tick.  

Araki may have thought that using Nazis in a story set in the 1930s would be no different than using Napoleonic French soldiers in a story set in the 1800s.  And in the long run, that might be true, but I don’t think we’re there yet.   In the here and now, it’s aged rather poorly.  

Of course, just because Caesar and Joseph feel bad for Mark doesn’t mean I have to.   And Araki may have been more self-aware than I’m giving him credit for.    Nazi Germany wanted to set itself up as the Master Race, and in this fictional world, the Pillar Men have come to do the same thing, only they’re much, much further ahead of the game.   I think part of the point of Stroheim and Mark was to contrast the Nazis’ supreamcist attitudes with Kars’ ambitions.   For all of Stroheim’s boasting, he’s helpless against Kars’ might.   But at the same time, for all of Kars’ power and brilliance, he’s ultimately chasing the same pipe dream as Hilter and his followers.  

Let’s get back on track.    While the good guys react in horror at what happened to Mark, the Pillar Men just stand around nearby and discuss their situation.   They completely ignore our heroes, just like they ignored Mark.   Kars wants to locate the Red Stone of Aja, because it’s the secret ingredient to the mask he designed that will make them immune to sunlight.   Esidisi doesn’t understand how the stone helps their plan, but he’s totally on board.    But as they head out, Wamuu suddenly attacks Kars, because Kars stepped in his shadow, and apparently Wamuu just lashes out at anyone who does this, friend or foe.   

Wamuu is deeply sorry for this, and begs to be punished, but Kars apologizes instead, because he knows about Wamuu’s whole shadow thing and he feels that he’s the one who made the mistake here.  I really love this exchange, because it defines the Pillar Men so well.    As indifferent as they are to human lives, they respect one another a great deal.   Kars is the leader, but he still treats the other two guys like close associates.    He needs Wamuu’s sharp senses and keen warrior instincts.   Meanwhile, Wamuu and Eisidisi practically worship Kars like a god.   They’ve literally followed him around the world and across thousands of years in pursuit of his vision. 

So yeah, if the goal here was to use Mark’s suffering to make me hate the Pillar Men, it doesn’t work.  The Pillar Men are evil, sure, but they’re pretty cool bad guys.   On the other hand, Mark looks ridiculous here, with Caesar holding and talking to half of his body.   This looks like something out of a Tex Avery cartoon.   

I mean, let’s set aside the whole Nazi thing for a moment.   Why should I feel sorry for Mark?  Because he’s in pain?   He got cut in half!   He should have died instantly!    Because he was going to get married?   We only met this guy one chapter ago!   Because he’s Caesar’s friend?  Well Caesar’s kind of a jerk too.  

Anyway, Mark begs Caesar to kill him and end his suffering, so Caesar uses the Ripple to stop his heart.    Or the half of it that’s still there, I guess.   

Okay, so the whole point of Mark’s death is to really get the good guys fired up to battle the Pillar Men, right?    Okay, Caesar tries to take them on, and he opens with the Bubble Launcher, the same move he talked about earlier.   It didn’t beat Joseph, but Caesar’s Hamon power does hurt Wamuu’s skin, which is more than Joseph managed to do against Santana.  

The Bubble Launcher is supposed to surround the opponent with dozens of soap bubbles charged with Hamon energy.  Wamuu can’t escape without touching them and getting hurt.   But Wamuu just sprouts all these long braids from his head and clothes, and swings them around with superhuman precision to know the bubbles away without hurting himself.  

As it turns out, these Pillar Men are familiar with Hamon.   Santana was surprised to encounter Joseph Joestar’s powers, but Wamuu and the others have fought Ripple users in the past.    And Wamuu’s more intrigued than worried...

Oh, as one final aside, on the car ride to the catacombs, Speedwagon asked Caesar if he tried to use the Ripple to destroy the Pillar Men before they woke up, and Caesar explains that it didn’t work while they were in their dormant state.   Remember, at the very start of this story, Speedwagon called Straizo because he wanted someone to use the Ripple to destroy Santana before he could wake up.   Now we see that even if Straizo had agreed to his request, it wouldn’t have done any good.   Sunlight doesn’t seem to kill the Pillar Men so much as it makes them turn to stone, and the Ripple only hurts them while they’re flesh and blood.   So the only way to kill them seems to be by using Hamon in a direct confrontation, and that’s a tall order...

[surly01]

This Week In Doom: What Muslim Ban?

Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on February 5, 2016

Hampton Roads Light Brigade at direct action January 31, 2017

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

–Pastor Martin Niemoller

Our foreign policy requires an externalized enemy, as our economy requires a state of permanent war. Were peace to break out across the world, the US economy would shudder to a halt within 60 days.

Ever since Reagan announced "Morning in America" we have been tempted with the promise of returning America to the golden postwar era when white male colossi like Patton, Marshall and MacArthur strode like heroes astride a grateful world. And the corresponding postwar boom in which American industry sold everything it could make to a prostrate world. Who paid for it with money we lent them.

Trump's call to "Make America Great Again," prints nicely on red ball caps but is short on specifics. One example put in practice is the recently announced Muslim Ban, giving color of law to demonization of the Muslim "other." [Note: On Friday night, U.S. District Judge James Robart blocked the entirety of trump’s de facto Muslim ban from taking effect. His ruling, which applies nationwide, froze all relevant provisions of trump's executive order.]

In a recent Harper's article, Lawrence Jackson ruminates about the leaders of the Atlantic-facing victors, usually known as "the West:"

The most arrogant inhabitants of these nations …understood themselves to be the ordained directors of human beings across the globe, across space and time. They were committed to civilization by the sword. Yet not even Reagan was mighty enough to reinstall the American militants who ached to battle the Russians and the Chinese. Reagan took to politics for what he couldn’t achieve in his original profession, acting. He stood in the shadow of John Wayne, a cultural hero who… declared that the problem was that the values of white rule weren’t being exported vigorously enough. Wayne’s films gave audiences a steady dose of what historian Richard Slotkin calls “regeneration through violence.” Both civilization and capitalist bonanza depend on violent encounters and imperial expansion. If the country is to be healthy, it needs some frontier populated by some brand of enemy.

After 9-11, to forestall a "peace dividend" breaking out, America's best minds concocted the Global War on Terror, a concept plastic enough to permit many interpretations, and unwinnable enough to guarantee the Permanent War Economy. Having recently defined that enemy as brown people planet-wide coming for our golfs and guns, now they have infiltrated our borders! Clear and present danger! Wearing hijab! Sharia Law in our streets! Can female genital mutilation for Barbie be far behind?

Enter trump. In our empathy-free times, we think little and care less about what such reckless decisions mean to individuals. Today I am going to challenge you to care.

Demonstrators march from a Department of Homeland Security office through the West Loop on Feb. 1, 2017 against President Donald Trump's ban on refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Several weeks ago, I listened to a Ted Talk by Deeyah Khan, raised in Norway by an Afghan mother and Pakistani father. Khan recounted the rejection and isolation felt by Muslim kids growing up in the West, and the way they get squeezed between two worlds. At a time when executive action careens towards an unconstitutional ban on immigrants fleeing the very countries we bomb, this talk opened my eyes—and ears.

Khan recounted the story of how she had to subsume her own dreams for her life and take on those given her by her father. To be famous, he said, “it's either got to be sports, or it's got to be music." So he threw away her toys and dolls at age seven, and was given a ratty Casio keyboard. She practiced music for hours each day.

Khan started singing and playing, and became good enough to perform before growing audiences. Let her tell it:

I became almost a kind of poster child for Norwegian multiculturalism. I felt very proud, of course. Because even the newspapers at this point were starting to write nice things about brown people, so I could feel that my superpower was growing.

Until one day, she was headed into a store for candy, and found her way blocked by a man intent on making sure she understood who really ran things in Norway.

There was this grown white guy in the doorway blocking my way. So I tried to walk around him, and as I did that, he stopped me and he was staring at me, and he spit in my face, and he said, "Get out of my way you little black bitch, you little Paki bitch, go back home where you came from." I was absolutely horrified. I was staring at him. I was too afraid to wipe the spit off my face, even as it was mixing with my tears. I remember looking around, hoping that any minute now, a grown-up is going to come and make this guy stop. But instead, people kept hurrying past me and pretended not to see me.

So she learned that when faced with persecution of brown people, white people tend to not want to get involved. But her fellow brown people would have her back, right? Not exactly.

Some men in my parent's community felt that it was unacceptable and dishonorable for a woman to be involved in music and to be so present in the media. So very quickly, I was starting to become attacked at my own concerts. I remember one of the concerts, I was onstage, I lean into the audience and the last thing I see is a young brown face and the next thing I know is some sort of chemical is thrown in my eyes and I remember I couldn't really see and my eyes were watering but I kept singing anyway. I was spit in the face in the streets of Oslo, this time by brown men.

The threats continued and the oppression, this time from her fellow Muslims, got worse. And it took the edge that we often hear that the Islamic world visits upon women:

The death threats were endless. I remember one older bearded guy stopped me in the street, and said, "The reason I hate you so much is because you make our daughters think they can do whatever they want." A younger guy warned me to watch my back. He said music is un-Islamic and the job of whores, and if you keep this up, you are going to be raped and your stomach will be cut out so that another whore like you will not be born.

Her family realized they could no longer keep her safe, so they sent her to London. She resumed her music career, but with similar results.

Different place, but unfortunately the same old story. I remember a message sent to me saying that I was going to be killed and that rivers of blood were going to flow and that I was going to be raped many times before I died. By this point, I have to say, I was actually getting used to messages like this, but what became different was that now they started threatening my family.

Eventually after transitioning to work as a maker of films, she moved again, this time to the US. She makes this point:

What most people don't understand is that there are so many of us growing up in Europe who are not free to be ourselves. We're not allowed to be who we are. We are not free to marry or to be in relationships with people that we choose. We can't even pick our own career. This is the norm in the Muslim heartlands of Europe. Even in the freest societies in the world, we're not free. Our lives, our dreams, our future does not belong to us, it belongs to our parents and their community.

So this lack of freedom to choose personal autonomy is what we decry in our conflict with Islam: "Islam is a death cult." "Look how it treats women." Yet compare and contrast with the policies announced and espoused by the current trump/pence regime.

Trump wants to completely ban abortion, with exceptions only for rape, incest, or when the life of the woman is in danger. He's backed this up by showing support for a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He has also said there should be "some sort of punishment" for women who seek abortion if outlawed.

He has said of Planned Parenthood, which provides low-cost family-planning services, cancer screenings, and other health care to millions every year, "It is like an abortion factory, frankly."

Mike Pence said he wants to see Roe v. Wade on "the ash heap of history", and has a long record of attacking reproductive freedom in his state.

Also on the books are rollbacks of all 25 of the grant programs managed by the Office on Violence Against Women, housed in Justice. The grants, established by 1994’s Violence Against Women Act, go to organizations working to prevent domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, and elder abuse. Perhaps to be expected from an administration that features a principal with a history of domestic battery.

Denying women reproductive freedom has long been the Holy Grail of Christian Dominionists who have never gotten over The Pill. The Pill gave women the ability to control pregnancy, and with it far more autonomy over their lives. Couple these efforts with the assault on programs that combat violence agaist women, and you begin to trace the outlines of a program to re-chattelize women that sounds positively… Islamist.

Consider in the singular example of Deeyah Khan how Islamists treat women, and realize that this story is re-enacted across the world millions of times over. Then compare with announced trump/pence policies designed to deny women access to services won over decades of activism and legislation. It would appear that the difference is merely one of degree. Policies to repress the rights of women stem from the same shrunken root: an insecure manhood and a need for control. Women, beware short fingered vulgarians and the men who serve them.

Surly1 is an administrator and contributing author to Doomstead Diner. He is the author of numerous rants, screeds and spittle-flecked invective here and elsewhere, and once quit barking and got off the porch long enough to be active in the Occupy movement. Where he met the woman who now shares his old Virginia home and who, like he, is grateful that he is not yet taking a dirt nap, and like he, will be disappointed to not be prominently featured on an enemies list compiled by the incoming administration.