#am i angry about a centrist ass take
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cassian andor 🤝 hadder ponta
- rebels (spirit and lofty interpretation count right?)
- men
- have a mother
- rebel insurgent (one is headcanon)
- brunette
- they would be friends because they have equal amounts of characterization for me to make that determination (hc)
- treated as solely love interests even though one is written with the entire intention to be a love interest but i’m going to say the treatment by fans of a lead and a supporting stereotype are comparable for centrist blind feminism i mean men’s rights
#i don’t care if you love a character u do u#it’s the overcompensation of erasing character and identity in order to make women more digestible#ur not doing feminism any favors by comparing qira and leia organa like#nobody needs to do that because they have enough character on their own#nobody DOES that#am i angry about a centrist ass take? that’s what having an opinion is like#shut up lila#andor talks#jyn erso
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fuck.
like i'm so mad and i'm crying and i feel like a cunt and maybe he's right or maybe i'm overthinking it like always but.
i just.
i get so fucking angry whenever my partner dismisses my feelings about politics or challenges me about them because he's a centrist idiot and all the content he watches is fucking garbage conservative assholes who think that people of color are DEI hires only and that woman can't make good content and that only the olds of disney should be allowed to do stuff and i'm just so tired. i'm so fucking tired.
i wonder a lot if i'm overthinking it because whenever i'm alone or in the shower or awake before him, the thoughts get me and then i get sad because i don't know what to fucking do anymore.
i wonder if i'm being defensive because he said he feels like an emotional punching bag whenever he calls me and he knows i hate HATE talking on the phone even though that's easier for him. but i also feel bad because i think he's right and i just get so mad and start letting it out and then flipping from one emotion to another to distract myself from blowing the fuck up on him for like breathing but i just don't know what to fucking do.
i feel like everything fucking time i tell him how i feel, it's for nothing. like he never hears me on it, just nods for a day or two and then goes back to this stupid fucking pattern of nothingness.
and i know i'm so frustrated and fed up with it, i'm so fucking tired of it. like babe, you're a fucking grown ass adult too. take responsibility for bettering yourself first and do not think for a single second that i will do that for you. i don't change people. i refuse to do it now, actually. i will change for myself and i will work to be a better person for me so that i can be proud of who i am and what i do. i do things to be proud of myself, to be better for myself, as much as i can. i genuinely hate that he doesn't see what i do for myself and then try to take a page form the same book to do better for himself too.
like. sorry but your mom is right to be worried and she's right to ask me to at least help you or talk to you because she loves you and i do too. but also it's fucking pointless if you're gonna be an asshole and 'joke' that "oh but you're a woman and the inferior sex so it doesn't matter lol". like no, it does and you're just an asshole. those jokes aren't funny, they're never fucking funny and i never laugh and neither are all the other 'jokes' that are just cruel fucking stereotypes that no one else is laughing at. jesus fucking cristo, read the room, have some introspection and fucking tact, get better friends and watch better content that doesn't always punch down on people, especially fucking minorities. i'm just so tired.
............. sometimes i wonder if this is worth it. all this anger and hurt and doubt. so much doubt. i wonder if this is a sunk cost fallacy. i wonder if i really love him. i wonder if i just don't want him to be lonely and i don't wanna be lonely. i feel so judgmental all the time because i feel like i have to compare my relationship to everyone around me who's happy and getting married or got married and still managed to build lives with a person they love. i feel like i’m not doing anything to better his life but he's also not doing anything to better mine. that's what a partner's supposed to do right? make you better, make you wanna be better and do better?
but it doesn't feel that way with us. i look at my sister and her husband and i want to cry so badly again because i see how he made her into a better version of herself and how he's told me that she makes him into a better man too. she's not perfect but she's better because she had the right partner by her side. i see my friend who got engaged recently and bought a house and a dog and got a promotion at her job and travels and has so much fun with her fiancé because they wanted to build their lives together and they do. i see my best friend who's quiet but so loved by her now fiancé and how he helps her be a better version of herself and to take chances and she does. i'm so proud of all of them. i'm happy for all of them, i really am.
but i'm also so fucking jealous of all of them. i want that too. i've wanted that for so long. it's all i want. and i feel like i'm getting nowhere and nothing from my partner. we don't go out, he's always asleep til like noon and never wants to leave the house, this sounds stupid but literally all he does is play video games until 4am while i fall asleep at midnight. it's like we live separate lives but sleep next to each other. i go out to visit jovana because she lives down the street and like we actually do stuff and plan things and she's a friend who encourages me to live life joyfully. but my own partner doesn't make me feel that way?
i said sunk cost fallacy cuz it feels like i put love or tried to be kind and good to someone who just fiend twang to fucking change. and i don't want to change him or force him to become someone he's not. i think one of the most profound things one of my exes ever told me was to stop trying to make him into another person cuz that's not who he is. he said once "you want me to be alex but i'm not. i'm me. you can't force people to change into another person. you can't." it stays with me even now. and maybe that's what makes me afraid of wanting to change my partner too. he's so fucking stubborn and won't things that are better or good for him and he overdoes them when he does. he won't listen to his mom or his sister or me when we all say the same fucking thing over and over again. and it's so tiring, it's annoying, it's so fucking frustrating because eventually you get to the "then why do i bother?" stage and that's where i am. cuz why do i bother? why do i try? why do i want to do this? do i want this?
i think of the future more now and each time i think of a possible future with him, i get so scared. i see nothing but misery in the sense that i feel like i would be putting my time and energy and love into someone who doesn't want to put the same amount of effort into themselves and i would be so frustrated and sad all the time. i would be miserable. i'd have a mediocre life and i'd be fucking miserable because that's not what i want from this life. why do i wanna live or have a life with someone who can't take the fucking trash out from the bathroom when it's full and i gotta remind him when i'm there? who i have to remind to eat? who makes fun of me when i say i'm hungry cuz he does fasting but i fucking don't because i had an ED and i need to eat? i get especially mad with that because "oh babe, it's a joke" no fuck you, i've said how it makes me fucking feel so many times and you still do it. it doesn't feel like a joke. jokes make you laugh and i'm not laughing, i'm going to fucking cry cuz i feel horrible about my weight and i get that shit enough at fucking home with my mom. i hate it so fucking much. it just makes me want to starve myself again. i already don't wanna be around people who fucking say anything about my weight cuz i get so defensive and so fucking self conscious and i feel like shit. thanks.
........but then.
then i think about how he doesn't have relationship experience and he does try sometimes and how he was always bullied in school and how that's one of the reasons i became his friend in the first place: i saw people being fucks to him and i decided that i didn't wanna be one of them because it's easier to be nice. and sure, he's awkward and weird but he did improve himself so much. he's a great friend when he needs to be. i went to his stepdad's funeral the minute i found out what happened because i care about him. i know he can be a better person. i know he can.
i think about how i get those glimpses of that better person sometimes and how i'm happy when i see that person because i love that person. i loved when we played star wars together because he knew i would i enjoy the story and he was right. i like when he cares about me and tries for a minute because then i see the person that i want to be with. i see the person who makes me happy. i want to see that person all the time because it's a sign that he's getting better too, that he's happier and doing something with me to be happy. i want him to be that way all the time. i want to see that person more often than the one that fucking frustrates me to no end.
he has a shitty job that doesn't respect him and that i'm pretty sure did an illegal pay cut on him but whatever i guess. he won't look for something at least a little better. he doesn't go out and this job comes back with him cuz he talks about the clinic and how it sucks a lot. i hate beating anything about that place, it pisses me off so much because i think and know that he deserves so much better but he is too stubborn to put the fucking effort into finding something better. so he comes home and sleeps like the dead and plays video games and maybe MAYBE ventures out to eat occasionally. i'm not stupid. that's literally depression. this job is hell and it's taking its toll on him and he doesn't want to see that. i know that deeply because my precious job did the same fucking thing to me and it nearly killed me. i know what i'm looking at. but he doesn't wanna acknowledge that so what am i supposed to do, even when i try and try and fucking try?
i do suicide prevention. i do it because i tried to kill myself. i do it because i have depression and anxiety. i do it because i want to be better for myself and for everyone around me. i work so fucking hard every day because i have to be better. that's not a choice for me anymore. i must be better. i will be. i am. and i do all of this because then people will be able to come to me and say "hey, i don't feel to great, can i talk to you?" so that i can at least street them in the right direction. everyone who knows me irl know this about me, it's literally part of my personality now.
so why the fuck can't the one person who also knows all this and saw me do everything to help the people i care about just ask me for help too? why won't he fucking listen to me?! i don't want to waste my life talk to walls, it makes me tired too, fuck!! but i do it because i love him and i want him to be that happy person that i've seen before, the better person that i get glimpse of. but i have my limits too. i have limits, boundaries, values, virtues, so many things that i fucking fight and stand for because i believe in the good of the world and i want to be good in this world. there's enough motherfuckers out there and i don't wanna be one of them.
but i'm tired. i'm so tired. i'm so frustrated. i don't know what to do. i can't magically change people. i wish i could, so badly, but i can't. and i feel so small not knowing what to do. i feel so..... useless. i'm crying again and i've been crying this whole time and i just don't know who to talk to about this or what to do. i feel selfish and like a cunt whenever i blow up on him. he's not a punching bag, he's a person with feelings and sometimes he doesn't know how to word things and i get that, i know that, i do. i wish i could go to therapy again. i can't afford that because i have a whole mountain of my own issues to deal with and i'm either going to spiral again or push through this but i'm just. i'm so tired. i don't want to fight. i don't want to be the bigger person. i want to lie down in my room and eat ice creme and watch my shows and fucking cry over how i wish i could have love like my characters do. i don't want to live like this, i don't. i don't. i don't. i hate that part of my life is dependent on another person too. i hate this. i don't want to be in this reality. i'm tired.
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Thess vs Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
You know how sometimes you feel like there's a scream trapped under your ribcage like a frantic bird? Or maybe it should be, you know how you constantly feel like there's a scream trapped under your ribcage like a frantic bird and sometimes it's more active than others? Well, mine is currently flailing like an angry fucking swan.
I'm going to have to write an email to Scruffman about New Girl. I'm fed up. That email will read, "Dear [Scruffman], I wondered if you could have a word with [New Girl] about working in chronological order when she types. I had reason to note that yesterday she was typing all of that day's typing while we still had a large number of reports from the previous day to type." And I may add, "I felt obliged to work an extra twenty minutes yesterday to clear Monday's typing so that we would remain more or less on schedule, which would have been unnecessary had she gone through the queue chronologically". Because I did - and that was after I stepped out to go to the shops for some necessary bits. She is driving me fucking crazy, and I was left with so many of the long-ass bits of typing and the complicated accents and I know that's part of the job but it feels hideously unfair that I should be the one stuck with it all because I'm the only one who seldom cherry-picks what typing they want out of the queue (and then only when I have done ten long-ass complicated bits of bullshit in a row and refuse to do every single one of them just because the rest of my colleagues can't be arsed).
And of course the US election is today and I am nervous as fuck. It's not just about my friends in the US, either. I mean, it's a lot about my friends in the US, but ... seriously, this country went to the right wing idiocy place when Trump got elected, and currently the leader of the Tories is a boomerang bigot who said out loud that Muslims are a "lesser culture" who don't deserve to be here, and as for Labour ... well, Starmer's not even a centrist - he's a straight-up right wing bullshit artist. We're struggling for hope as it is over here, and if Trump wins again, it's going to embolden the far-right assholes who have protests and riots like once every couple of months over here. I could not take that. I couldn't take more right-wing agitation here, I could not take what a second Trump term would do to my friends, I just could. Not. TAKE IT.
And I have no chance to chill even a little because it's fucking Guy Fawkes Day and I thought the fireworks were bad over the weekend ... and they were, but now they're WORSE. So I'm stressed, I'm tired, I'm in pain, I'm angry, I'm badly frightened, and it sounds like World War 3 outside so now I'm getting a migraine.
Good luck to the USians. I wish I had something more positive to say to you, but I wish you all the best, for all our sakes.
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Apparently my politics align with the progressive left, but my worldview and lifestyle aren't turtlely enough for the local turtle club.
As in, even the Democrats in rural areas here are wealthy, college-educated centrists who think the solution to all life's problems involve paying lawyers. They have zero interest in local farmers or blue collar labor progressives or quirky country hippie gays doing anything besides weak-ass phone bank / door-knocking shit, which is just asking already registered Democrats to please remember to vote.
And fine. But that almost literally does not matter. You could get every mild Democrat sympathizer to vote around here, and they'd STILL lose every election by 70%.
You need to do outreach. You need to confront the Republican misinformation and white-grievance shit head-on. And shockingly, the last people equipped to do that around here are interloper McMansion Work-from-Homes who think the rest of us only exist to sell them tomatoes from roadside stands.
We need a populist blue collar appeal to people who are being ground down by the entrenched GOP establishment. They're angry and looking for solutions, and only the GOP are exploiting that, with racist lies and culture war distractions.
But that's harder than hanging out at the local winery and laughing about Twitter roasts of JD Vance, which seems to be all they do up here. Because they literally do not care about votes. They don't actually intend to win anything. This is just a social thing for people who feel isolated politically.
And that is NOT interesting to me.
But what am I going to do? Subversively hang out with people I don't like, doing pointless shit, on the off chance one of the VIPs thinks I'm funny or something and maybe takes my advice? How long is that going to take? And also, that fucking sucks.
This is why I wasn't involved before. The Democrats here suck. I don't like them, and they don't want me around.
All I can think to do is randomly try running for some tiny office as a weird indie progressive, and make enough noise that they show up to either tell me to stop or meekly give me $5 to see what happens.
And I totally have time and energy to do this.
Blegh. I don't know.
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The 'one day' thing is more of a response to activists and others constantly having centrists and others inserting themselves into conversations to say that in an attempt to shut things down. When the mute/block/unfollow buttons exist so you can pull yourself out of the conversation and return when you're ready - instead of saying to people who are hurting she need change that they need to center others. Especially since leftist/activists try not to insert themselves into conversations where people are destressing or taking their mind off things. Outside of the 'armchair' activists that only ever take action online but most online only people are like that.
Centrists trying to derail and shut down conversations is an issue and it should be addressed, but honestly I have seen way more so-called progressives shutting down conversations by absolutely refusing to accept or entertain anything they don’t consider a perfect solution and then patting themselves on the back for being more morally pure than those dirty neoliberals (anyone who has any understanding of how politics actually work).
I am all for criticizing Biden and reminding people that we need to keep working. What I’m not here for is acting like anyone who’s happy that Biden won is actually a “neoliberal shill who just wants to get back to brunch”. Biden's win is going to save lives. Biden has already taken action to undo the worst of the damage from the last 4 years. He’s already taken action to protect marginalized groups. He’s already taken progressive action that activists have been fighting for for YEARS. It’s not enough, but we’re still allowed to be happy about it! We are still allowed to be happy that the burgeoning fascist party who wholeheartedly embraced racism and conspiracy theories got their asses handed to them!
And if your (not you anon, just in general) response to people celebrating that is “oh but he hasn’t shut the border camps, but I guess you only care about kids in cages as political pawns”, that’s not progressive and that’s not activism. Neither is lying about or misrepresenting what Biden has or hasn’t done so you can post a rolling eye emoji and say “but at least there’s not a cheeto in the white house!” That’s just attacking your own allies so you can get off on being condescending instead of doing something useful.
Useful activism would be something like reminding people - WITHOUT attacking them for not being performatively angry enough - that 5calls.org exists! Just choose the issues you care about and enter your zipcode and it will tell you who your representatives are, their contact info, and a short script to use.
I support the one about closing the border camps. We’ve accomplished so much over the last year and we should be proud of that! So let’s keep that momentum going and start pushing for the actual progressive change we need!
#us politics#half of this is not actually in response to your ask i'm sorry#you're right but i'm just so SO sick of the shit i'm seeing from so-called progressives#attacking people for 'not doing enough' for the crime of not sounding angry on twitter
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stupid shitty rant bc I have too many thoughts in my head and I have to get them down somewhere and twitter isn’t doing it for me
you have to make the distinction, first off, between propaganda media and actual people. of course the news is going to paint any resistance as unreasonable and mindlessly violent, THAT��S WHAT PROPAGANDA DOES. I’m not even convinced centrists are a real thing that exists, I’ve never once seen an actual person sincerely say that both sides are the same. I’ve seen trolls saying it, I’ve seen the news saying it, I’ve seen fascists lying about who they are saying it to discredit people they don’t like, but not once have I seen someone sincerely believe it.
I also just love the willful misinterpretation of things that actual people have said. “slur-laden ranting at people on twitter doesn’t work to accomplish your goals” DOES NOT MEAN “I want you personally to lie down in front of a tank, don’t even yell while they kill you”. I’d fucking love to know where yall are getting the idea that it does.
simple q&a: do you want people to stop being fascists? if yes, why would you continue to use methods we know for a fact won’t make them stop being fascists?
“but wwii-” yes and we remember how well that went don’t we? we remember the death tolls? we remember how bad things got before they stopped? do we want to repeat that?
the french revolution is a hot topic for idolization right now isn’t it, I guess all the poor people who died were just acceptable collateral? and it was totally fine when the leaders of the revolt found themselves in line for their own death machine? because that shit was acceptable was it?
and I love, I just fucking love that this will be translated as “don’t move, don’t speak, don’t even feel angry, just let it all happen” even though I am saying nothing of the sort. you are so eager to put words in peoples mouths, so eager to lash out and vent and act on your anger, you just want to do things that feel good instead of doing something about the fucking problem.
I am not, under any circumstances, saying that every oppressed person has the obligation to meekly go to their oppressors and politely ask for their human rights. I am fucking furious that my words can be so easily twisted. “oh you said X which obviously implies Y” stop fucking reaching! I am so goddamn tired of trying to explain myself and having people explode at me, saying I’ve said things that I patently did not say, and when I try to explain that that’s not at all what I said, I just get screamed at more for trying to backpedal, because obviously their bizarro assumption of what they think I said is the truth, and anything I try to say to clarify is a lie to cover my own ass, when I can’t even comprehend how they got from A to B on this one and it’s just confusing and painful and maybe I did say that without meaning to? maybe I misunderstood my own position? maybe I’m fucking sick of being gaslighted???
what I am saying is that I, as a privileged person, have the ability and the responsibility to talk to people who are my peers and communicate with them. we know, as a documented fact, that that method works. not 100% of the time, fucking obviously, but a damn sight more than screaming and throwing things does.
and because I have to cover every single possible base here, no this does not apply to actual self defense. if someone is threatening violence on you, or attempting violence on you, of fucking course no rational person expects you to sit still and take it quietly. what the fuck kind of lunatics have you been interacting with that you think that’s even remotely close to the words coming out of my mouth? if someone is fighting you, fight back, fucking obviously.
yes there will always be people who are too hateful to be convinced, too wedded to their own false superiority, and no, I don’t have a good answer for how to deal with those people. I don’t pretend to know everything. but the ones that can be convinced, should be.
nothing I have said translates to “you’re not entitled to your own feelings of anger and justified resentment, and have no right to express them” fucking. nothing. but there is a grand canyon sized difference between expressing justified anger and trying to solve the problem. don’t pretend your venting is trying to be productive, the problem at hand requires a different method and you know it. you cannot solve both impetuses at once; scream, vent, throw things, do whatever you feel you have to, and then start work on fixing the problem. a lot of what I’m hearing parses as “fuck you of course this will work, I am entitled to my anger so it follows that expressing it will fix the problem” and I honestly can’t tell if that’s actually what’s being said but it sure damn sounds like it
a lot of this is probably a product of aspiebrain; I don’t see why people persist with inefficient ineffective methods when there are what seems to me like better options. I don’t understand why people react to things that I have not said, and ignore the words that I did say. I can’t imagine ever thinking that screaming my anger at a broken car will fix the car. and I am legitimately terrified of the open war that I keep seeing advocated for.
I don’t have all the answers. but I do not trust people who say that they do.
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So apparently I wanna talk about Secret Empire
[Shows up a month late with Pete’s Coffee]
There’ve already been a lot of well-written thinkpieces and entries about this comic, about Nick Spencer, about it all. But I wanted to maybe throw my two-cents into the pile because, to this day, I think most people are still a little confused about where the outrage is coming from, what exactly is making people uncomfortable, and why it all just keeps snowballing on itself.
And honestly I don’t blame those people; this whole situation is kinda hard to parse. You think it’d be easy to understand why “They turned Captain America into a Nazi” makes people upset, but the thing about Secret Empire is that it honestly does a good pretty job of covering its own ass, of not doing anything overtly offensive, of leaving in all the loopholes and technicalities and escape clauses to its own premise. “It’s going to be undone in the end.” “He’s not actually a Nazi, he’s just brainwashed (even though the story goes on and on for pages about how he’s actually not brainwashed and is in fact a Nazi).” “We’re treating Nazis as bad guys, not glorifying them.” “And they’re not really Nazis, they’re Hydra, it’s totally different.” “We’re tackling topical issues! Aren’t we brave! And daring!”
And that’s the kind of stuff I wanna try to cut through here, but it’s gonna require...well...yet another thinkpiece. Sorry about that.
So I think that Tumblr has covered much of this pretty well, but something to be aware of is that, for a while now, genre media has had A) really iffy mindsets about Jewish issues and B) a sort of casual flirtation with "cool Nazis" as some edgy cool thing to hype and market. It’s not glorifying Nazis exactly, but it’s using that kind of imagery and ideology as tools to sell your books and movies and TV. And when I say "genre media" has been doing these things, I actually am specifically referring to Marvel comics and studios for a notable chunk of these instances.
When you combine those instances with the state of the world where Nazism has been regaining traction with the 'chans and redditors and within the White House itself, with Holocaust denialism and Jewish defamation being a regular fixture of the news cycle...it's no wonder that members of the Jewish community and blogosphere has been feeling disenfranchised by a lot of the old entities and structures that had seemed like they should be able to count on as a matter of course. That includes the government, that includes our fellow citizens, and it also includes the media.
(sidebar, I am not Jewish, I just enjoy their comics!)
That's what readers mean when they say this feels like the worst sort of climate for a story that reveals and is marketed on the premise that Captain America was secretly a Nazi all along. It's not that people don't want the current political climate to be examined and lampshaded in media, it's that this specific method of examination comes across scarily comparable to all the antisemitic media and rhetoric that's been released throughout the years which has led us to this current political climate in the first place. It's the media-slash-rhetoric where Jewish (and other) characters have their origins retconned and whitewashed into homogeneity, where pontificating supervillains are just misunderstood revolutionaries who might have a point or something, where fascist police-states are shock value tropes to engender hype and interest amongst audiences.
Spencer's argument is that this story, which depicts a universe where the fascists win, is intended to incite discourse and criticism against such a universe. Hydra are still clearly the bad guys of the story, we're obviously intended to want to see them lose, of course they're going to lose by the end. But the way that the story has been constructed up to this point exhibits a lot of the same signatures of various antisemitic story beats we've had throughout the years. Captain America being retconned from a stalwart defender of Jewish people into being a Nazi agent, for instance, evokes Wanda and Pietro Maximoff being changed from prominent Jewish-Romani superheroes into whitewashed Hydra recruits on the big screen...and there was certainly no secret message or hidden allegory behind the Maximoffs' change; all it was was offensive and tone-deaf and that was it.
For another instance, Nazi Steve delivering issues-long sermons about how the heroes of this world have gotten complacent and misguided and that the world needs someone willing to make the tough choices, to do what it takes to protect it, is reminiscent of Tony Stark and Carol Danvers making fascism-apologia for months on end throughout the two Civil War event comics, like, hey maybe these guys playing the hardball roles have a point right? Hey aren't we so hardcore and edgy for tackling the hardcore and edgy topics? CHOOSE YOUR SIDE!...and in the end this fascism-apologia is just played completely straight, no hidden critique, no last-minute swerve, just Marvel turning its heroes into borderline supervillains and that was the end of the story. But hey, this story here and now will be totally different from that! Becuuuz...for some reason.
To be direct about his: This isn’t our first rodeo, Marvel Comics. Let’s not pretend that Marvel...and DC, let’s be fair...haven't in fact made a lot of legitimately terrible in-canon offensive character assassinations of iconic characters and that it's not that unreasonable to be afraid of it happening again at any given point. Let’s not pretend that Marvel hasn’t done a lot of those things for the specific reason of angering readers and then feeding off of that anger and attention.
At the very least, there's been this weird romanticizing of Hydra Cap from Spencer in what I've read of these books so far; it doesn’t exactly refute the premise that Steve being Hydra is bad, but Steve is still the protagonist of these books no matter how brainwashed he is, so these issues seem to have come across less like "Our heroes have to prevail against this nefarious schemer and his nefarious schemes!" and more like "Watch in wonder as this shadowy agent prevails against all the clueless establishment and does badass things throughout his mission!" It falls into the "cool Nazi" trend where it's like, of course we're consciously aware that he's the bad guy here, but isn't he so edgy and hardcore and badass anyway? I haven't read as many issues of Hydra Cap as Spencer would probably like so, I dunno, let me know if I'm way off here.
So, to summarize...well, not summarize exactly, but to organize these points, lets’ do a list. Everyone likes lists, right?
1) Showing the "bad guys" losing in, like, probably the very last issue of this year long storyline (which also included the main Captain America book which led up to the actual event) doesn't suddenly omit all those issues where the "bad guys" were shown being edgy and hardcore and badass and smart and powerful and pulling one over on all those dense clueless liberal "good guys," except in this case the bad guys are people who directly abetted in the Holocaust and not the guys who stole forty cakes.
2) This is during a time in the world where antisemitic rhetoric is seeing a startling resurgence -- or maybe just coming back into the light again after hiding away for a bit -- and Holocaust denialism, vandalism of public Jewish spaces, and outright physical violence being more and more common occurrences.
3) Readers in general have been consistently burned by Marvel's consistently tone-deaf depictions of moral or social narratives throughout their events (Civil War: police states are great!) (Civil War II: police states are great!) (IvX: Cyclops is goddamn HITLER for some reason). Jewish readers, in particular, have good reason to not to trust Marvel to be respectful and tactful of their issues. Any such complaints or concerns have been responded to with derision or misunderstanding on Spencer's part, which only makes everyone angrier and more wary.
4) Indeed, Marvel and Spencer's go-to insistence that Hydra are totally not Nazis at all and you're just being nitpicky if you say they're Nazis just further makes them come across as tone-deaf and bullish on the matter, on top of (probably unknowingly, if I’m feeling generous) mirroring the talking points of actual real life Nazis, who've been trying to rebrand themselves as something different for years in order to come across more fluffy and palatable to mainstream sensibilities.
5) I mean there's also the fact that Hydra is -- as currently depicted in this very event by the very writer who keeps saying they're not Nazis on Twitter -- a completely fascistic political regime that stifles free thought and rewrites history through fear, violence, and propaganda and oh hey did someone mention concentration camps? ‘Cuz there are concentration camps in this book. Hydra is functionally indistinguishable from Nazis in this actual book. This is not a book about Captain America being brainwashed by Saturnians to plant death lasers on the moon, this is a book about Captain America being a Nazi and doing things associated with Nazis in absolutely every respect. But sure let’s get comic shop owners to dress up like them and stuff
6) "I don’t care if this gets undone next year, next month, next week. I know it’s clickbait disguised as storytelling. I am not angry because omg how dare you ruin Steve Rogers forever. I am angry because how dare you use eleven million deaths as clickbait." Copypasted directly, because how can you get clearer than that.
7) Spencer's work with Sam Wilson Captain America, which generally turns him into a centrist apologist at best who couldn't believe that he himself was ever that much of an annoying liberal activist or something and occasionally fights literal "social justice warriors" on college campuses throwing bombs and internet slang, isn’t a particularly encouraging thing to have hanging on the back of your mind while reading this story about how Steve Rogers was actually a Nazi all along. 8) In a world where an X-Men artist is literally sneaking secret antisemitic propaganda into books that are supposed to celebrate diversity and civil activism, can you really blame people for being antsy about a comic book that is making members of Stormfront cream themselves by revealing that Steve Rogers was a secret Nazi all along?
So yeah, I dunno if I have any great point to make with any of this. I just felt like collating all the outrage and shedding a little light on how the situation comes across to me. Secret Empire isn’t exactly the sort of clear-cut idiocy where, y’know, some dense writer fridged yet another female character or replaced yet another hero of color with his white predecessor from forty years ago. Its problems are a bit more intricate, which means the blowback is a bit more intricate as well.
#Captain America#Secret Empire#Nick Spencer#Marvel Comics#Marvel#Steve Rogers#Hydra#Nazis#comics#Overthinking
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here is my brother telling a biased and american centric recent history, but things got replaced with pokemon
The year is 1776 and the Dwebble declare their independence from the Inteleon empire fighting in the dwebble revolution for their independence eventually winning and gaining their independence for the 13 colonies of dwebble and then after that in 1812 the sandslash declare war on the dwebble the newly formed dwebble empire and fight the war of 1812 with that but we both win at the same time they send the roofers down the truth in their search for Western expansion but with meanwhile in a year up the slack ass or decide they want more liberty equality and fraternity and at overthrow the aristocracy and king
OK to the swablu for a revolution which is shortly before axew Bonaparte comes and sees his power but meanwhile once again on the Americas, dweebles think less of the shiny dwebbles and enslaved them until they fight a Civil War were the northern to be able to come up on top and sign the 13th and 14th amendment giving the freedom to the shiny dwebble more rights but then president sneasel lincoln that the third is assassinated by an angry crabominable Jackson. takes a cursola again bashing reconstruction but then nothing happens until Etiwanda loon reunion nights this one at the swallow Inn Empire reunites and then a little bit later, oh yeah, during all this time there is the wheezing revolution were the wheezing is industrialized everything with bronzer and magneton klink klinklang and then after the snom revolution of 1905 Apom shoots a phantump in single parasect sparking World War I. which eventually all the countries of Europe fight in before the allied powers come up Hydreigon forcing that I forgot with Germany is Empire Hydreigon to sign the treaty of Electabuzz forcing Hydreigon to give up the land of magmar as well as pay heavy reparations. However during this time as well with the ood mustache he is very not happy about this and is countries to feet so he goes to art school but fails miserably but he becomes more important later. At the same time the snoms are even more angry and launch the snommunist revolution of 1919 eventually overthrowing the tzar before fighting in the snommunist in the Civil War against the white Snom before establishing the snomunist union. and snommunist across all of Russia during the same time in dwebble miss plays the balltoy market causing the great the big sad of 1919 before a president wedwebble Roosevelt comes in with his new deal and saves it. but back in Europe Hydreigon as well as with this weird guy with a mustache takes power after burning the Parasect and stunfisk March before establishing the Hydreigon empire deeming that him and leader. he then goes and invades the countries of elgyem and market to golduck. to for more land and control of the Hydreigon people before ultimately invading seviper sparking World War II as the Allied powers of inteleon will just change. inteleon we had rainbow beers inteleon is now inteleon. and France is swablu was the oil it is wow empire and other bedroom empire declare war on the mesprit empire for their annexation of seviper which they finally had enough after years of just accepting and not doing anything like the centrist they are and eventually World War II begins. and they fight and it's very bloody but then Genger bombs Pearl Harbor and causes dwebble to enter World War II against it for the allied forces along with other snommunist empire on and then eventually they win but after it's very bloody and everyone dies. including a genocide of the Geodude people. but after that the geodude their own state but that's very controversial I had an excellent end of life for us and it's a fight still going on today. but after World War II the very odd Hydreigon killed himself with a mustache and everyone was happy. and then and then begun the cold war between the dwebbles in the snommunists as a fight for power through proxy wars in Africa. including of the heart of aerodactyl Stan which was very bad at the same time they were developing cloister weapons that could annihilate the entire world in just one blow/ and things got very hot during this time and I am weevile a president John and John anti-Kennedy the third assumes the presidency before he was assassinated I was assassinated and was it taken over by Komala Johnson who signed the civil rights act giving the dweble all the shiny we will see even more rights allowing them to vote in certain Congress even more meanwhile the snommunists have developed their own rocket and are aiming for the lunatone. which scares the rebels who launch their own program called Wassa. and so they do that and eventually the dwebbles get to the Luna tone they land on the Luna town planting the flag winning
planting the flag winning the space race. very angry but they keep tensions down as the cold war rages on The cold war rages on other countries are rebuilding establishing fairy thriving social democratic societies around human need rather than human greed while America is capitalism not America I mean dweble and snommunists is authoritarian which is very bad everyone's bad we should nuke everyone. but during all this the 70s and 80s happened then came a very dwebble Ronald gave all who is very bad and trickle down economics is a myth. who eventually through peace deals lowers the nuclear arms capacity but everybody lies about that. and then in the snommunist empire a shiinotic Gorbachev takes power. and an extra form such as swoobat and woobat for more openness and a free economy. but eventually that causes revolution and the entire union collapse is eventually leading to the biggest country, but I'm in assuming off Geo political power that it had but then it's kind of boring there for a bit so then not much happens the US has some things a president Bill CinderAce did not have sexual relations with that woman. and then I found President George Eiscue that comes into power but this is not long after the after his up controversy elections. the 9/11-where terrorist from the terrorist group unown crash plane twin gmax duraladon and spark the new war on terror. in which we will country in Vegas petil in 2001 and in 2003 then with the neutral country if they're claiming that they had weapons of mass destruction this whole war was later determined to be a farce only for the enrichment of the power of the military industrial complex in the money which they return to the politicians who enabled it. but then after that Bush Bush whoever Bush was becomes very unpopular and is then voted out in 2008 by Barack quilava who is also a total farce as in a faux progressive who claim to be for progress but he's really a radical centrist shell who voted with the Republicans, and is basically a 1980s Republican which is also even worse so that's why we hate quilava. but not much happens and then in the summer a scrafty bin laden is killed from the owner of a terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the twin gmax duraladons. but then quilava leaves in 2016 with the election of Donald raquaza or who claims to protect the borders from the evil electrode people down south and establish new trade deals against the corphis people who also had a revolution in the 1960s where shelgon-zo Don kills landlord is good .and the statue so then in 2016 also during the same time there's a primary for that the Democratic we will nomination between Hillary Sedra and a good Bernie Tangler who is burned by the establishment and screwed over. and yeah but that happens that's exactly why a rayquaza one the election who then took power and then is it more fascist authority. and that is world history explained through Pokémon now gamefreak make this game.
#mine#pokemon#i stayed up l night editing this because we recorded using diction and nothing was correct
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Open Letter on Hate
I got to call out something that I'm noticing in my day to day in my city, Seattle, because I think that, if not spoken about, it will get out of hand in a very bad way; that something, ladies and gentlemen, is a certain feeling of societal unrest related to the tech industry's impact on the community that, ever so slightly, shows the rear of its ugly head in succint yet cutting ways in everyday life.
Now, first point of disclosure, I'm not one of those Social Justice types and you shall see no clothes-tearing of biblical proportions here; yet, I think that we, and by that I mean Humanity as a whole, we MUST progress towards a more accepting and more emphathetic society. I honestly believe that it is a horribly hard challenge to shed the ugliness of tribalism and groupthink in the modern US, and that as a whole we're currently faced with horrendous Ecological, Social and Political challenges, which we must solve. To constantly try to move the modern narrative to move that agenda forward is necessary.
However, I also know that the establishment is there for a reason, and it would be stupid of me to ignore that or to try to antagonize it. So, call me a centrist if you will, as in, all sides of thought have a lot to be criticized for.
Second, I realize that I come from a position of privilege, which some of you will happily brandish against me (oh, I can just feel the angry keystrokes coming my way already...).
Oh, how I hate that term.
I am an information professional in 2019, a field very, very highly sought after for people and where people generally do well. So I will not claim to have all the answers, lest some of my unconscious biases were to show, but as somebody who knows what happens in both sides of society and that is actually trying to change, I still feel compelled to write my impressions in order to get people thinking.
I may be an information professional yet it wasn't "just given" to me in any shape or form, you know? This stuff costed me years, and years of dedication, capice?
Hopefully you can call me out if I say something uncalled for --remember, this is the cornerstone of cultured discourse, I say something, you say something back if I messed up, from which I learn, and by continuing that process, we reach the Truth. Things will get better as long as we keep talking, and the moment you leave the discussion table because of some high and mighty political belief that precludes basic human decency, then we're done.
So, ok, let's get onto the point: it seems that, as the generation born in the 80s and 90s in the modern, globalized world reaches maturity and as they start to realize that they're Hungry, they're feeling a little bit left to die by a variety of societal forces related to the expansion of the tech industry in the US.
Some call it an economical gap, citing the 1% and whatnot... or some even worse types will start bringing out conspiranoic thoughts that I just would rather not dive into.
In any way, all of this leads to a bunch of... well, just plainly, hate. Hate for each other, hate for the establishment, hate for the goverment, hate for the enterprise. Just undistilled, raw hate.
And this then surfaces lots of ugly things: who would had thought that racism, nazism, white supremacy, sexism and discrimination would be alive and well in 2019? 2019 is one of those year-dates that I imagined would be amazing when we'd get there back in the 90s when I was more impressionable. The mere idea of a 2019 made all of those awful terms sound like a bunch of things that were "of the past"; old horror tales coming from a society less informed, less emphatetic, dumber, and less capable of rational thought than whatever was to come. I thought that with the slow advent of the massively-online, always-on, low-barrier-of-entry Internet, powered through the amazingness of the World, its people and their Cultures, we would reach a better state at Large. Mind you, in a lot of ways we have, don't get me wrong. It may be sucky --yet, it's the best it's ever been, and I truly do appreciate that. And yes, leading the world and taking it upon your shoulders is a terrible and painful task, so it's not easy by any means.
If somebody decides to change sex for example, and shows up tomorrow at your office, and somebody decides to not recognize them, that person will get fired on the spot. Do you realize how impossible that sounds compared to the world of two decades ago?
But, unable to channel that frustration to correct use, confused out of their mind, feeling disenfranchised, there's tons of adults lashing against everything while they're desperately clinging to whatever seems fit to take them out of their misery, be it the necessity to emulate the false semblance of the "Greater" America of yore, the necessity to come together in tribes or factions and make an "us versus them" out of everything, or a general feeling of anger about everything. It's insane and irrational and founded in just pure fear.
Believe me, I've been yelled hate at while walking down the University district just because I'm --obviously-- one of the people moving in. My cleaner yesterday angrily let me know that she used to live on the 8th, and had to move 2 hours of commute away due to the hiking rent prices in downtown Seattle, close to Stevens Pass. I can easily assure you: you got deeper issues than money if you actually have to move that far away to make rent.
But anyway.
I will be the first to recognize it though: most techies fucking suck. Yes, I would also feel pretty slighted if it turned out that my neighbor now is now some brown dude who won't even say hello when I try to talk to him because he refuses to interact socially beyond obligation in anything that's not his native language, fantasizing every day about going back to their home country and retiring for good the soonest possible.
Techies may also be hard to make friends with because of their narrow vision of the world, their lack of time to actually develop social skills... and basically, their inability to take on some ass like god intended.
"My coverage % is my reason to live!", said no one ever.
Yes, guys, get over yourselves.
It's just Java. Calm down.
That's what leads to stickers such as the ones that you see in the picture above being plastered all over the US. Lots of tech companies have brought a lot of new people in town, whose pay grade, suddenly, makes property owners close to the corporate campuses very happy but a lot of renters disgruntled. Not only rent, but cost of living is raising all over the place.
Just ask my SF friends.
I mean, I appreciate that people are trying to speak up against what's happening because I would fucking do it if I was in their position. I have found a certain appreciation for that kind of counterculture (you cannot have a healthy society without counterculture, which is something I think most young children these days are dropping the ball hard on, by the way). It's people trying to speak up, reach out and actually make a point and that's a force of nature in regards to change. It is exactly what we need.
Yet, bottom line, I know that everyone that was born here and grew here deserves respect, so again, I cannot truly say this without my biases showing, and I'm sorry about that, but I am not about being fed a bunch of hate either.
But let's not make it about me.
Let's exception at the vapid finger-pointing. A lot of people are pointing fingers at Sillicon Valley, or megacorporations, or the Wealthy, or... anybody moving to the US themselves don't really stop to consider what the other side is going through.
We're all in the same boat, y'all. We can be friends.
I mean don't get me wrong, I understand where people are coming from. I imagine it sucks to see your city change so fast within your lifetime.
But hear me out, and I say this as somebody who knows that the struggle is real. I know that the rate of change is increasing and it seems awful and like it's not ever stopping, but in my opinion that's not only a consequence of the socioeconomical order. I think it's a logical conclusion of how we have more information to go by now. You have to understand that all of us are competing on a worldwide arena now.
No matter how bad things may be, I think a lot of the hate is just rooted in the fear of change, and only those who understand that we will never get to live slow, ways-set-in-stone, 50 years with the same job lives every again, and embrace it, will always come out on top.
It sucks but embrace it and then maybe, all together, we can make a better thing out of it.
If there's tons of people coming in taking in expensive jobs, why don't you try to play on the same level field? If college is expensive and a machination of an evil system trying to systematically castrate people out of their own volition and enterprise, then why do you still resent people that went to college? Again, I paid for every single cent of my college tuition, don't assume the worse in others all the time. Why couldn't you? Even if it sucks, why didn't you at least try?
No, but it all falls back into anger and fear at the big bad corporations making their lives hell and people will purchase stickers to shit on others... and then they turn around and 1-click buy their stickers online while continuing to avoid going out and watching yet another video on the tube site. Capice?
Again, it sucks, and I know why it sucks, but stopping in your tracks to cry is barely any use. Change careers, learn, and learn, and learn. Adapt and try to play to your advantages. Your tongue is your ally if you use it well. The rate of change is increasing, are you going to surf the wave or will you stay on the shore?
I mean, listen. Don't be the victim. You don't wanna be the victim, believe me. I've seen families ripped apart, torn to shreds because of that. It numbs people. Even though so many things suck, you gotta try to pull through, and not everyone gets the luxury of getting that drilled into their minds by someone else so I'm gonna dad you. Pull yourself together, it's not about the techies, it's not about the corps, or at least it shouldn't be at least or should it?. It can be about you though. That's the only thing you can control, yourself.
Hey, and YOU, as a techie, you don't get off scot-free either.
If you know that you're working in something inhumane or exploitative or terrible in a corporation, don't give in to it. Don't be someone who just takes your boss' agenda in without questioning if that is so. Raise your voice and don't be complacent. Refuse to be fed the vision of the world where you're supposed to just be subservient. And you know, treat the locals with respect. Don't isolate yourself away in your own techie tribe because you're too much of an socially inept, incompetent person to collaborate and integrate. Fucking integrate ffs. Bring money back in to the system and participate in the culture. When in Rome, you know? It feels comfortable to just adscribe things to being "oh, but it's because they don't understand us. It's because they got it in for us. Oh, it's because they're trying to shun us away.". What are you really doing for them, though, and why does that them doesn't become us anyway? Don't be a bad techie, understand your position and act well on it.
And bottom line, at least from my side I want you to know. Seattle, I am trying. I hope you can at least understand that.
Mother 3 warned me about this thirteen years ago when I played a pirated copy of it in japanese, without the translation patch in a shitty GBA emulator in 2006 in the middle of bum fucking nowhere and I didn't even know that it was telling me about what was to come. That's how much ahead of its time that game was.
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The Weekly Ration; Issue #1
Welcome to Working Title! This is a Rip-Off (read rip-off) of FlyDay by Sean Callahan. After he announced he was taking a break on Friday, I did feel a little blah about it and a minuscule amount of "oh shut up Sean" about it. To be fair, he's felt that way about me on multiple occasions and we'd never tell each other this till month's after the event because we are passive aggressive gentlemen. Anyways here's a piece I worked on that really hurt me because I had to research the subject matter.
Investigating the Trash Heap that is the douche-fuck, steroid chugging, centrist bait for unfunny fuck bois at open mics, piece of shit Joe Rogan with no ad-hominems (toward Joe Rogan) except the title where I get to berate his stupid fucking face.
Ad-hominem. In philosophy and debate it is told to us that as soon as you use an Ad-hominem you lose the argument. The theory is as soon as you get into name-calling you become too passionate with hate or distaste that your stand-points fall apart because they are based in anger. You can have an argument solid with foundations, truths, and thought out research but as soon as you call someone a poopy head you lose. You get nothing. Good day sir. I personally think this old standpoint is invalid as a passionate argument coming out of the mouth of someone who isn't a robot has more umph to it. But this is the driving force of these kind of argument freelancers. With the title out of the way that clearly shows I lose, I present the rest of this article that hurt me and I'll show you on the doll.
Let's begin by explaining what a Joe Rogan is. A Joe Rogan is a 51 yr. Comedian, MMA Commentator, Actor, and Podcast Guru. He has a high ranking podcast with a very impressive record of being no. 1 or in the top 5 on Itunes and several other podcast streaming sites continuously for years. On his podcast he goes into depth with interviews with people of all different walks of life ranging from angry white guys to angrier white guys. To his credit, I'm only 80% jesting. To his credit he is a good interviewer for the type of podcast he is presenting. He's had some interviews that made me see perceived monsters as human and golden gods as flawed specimens. In the rare times I've checked out his podcast, his interview with fucking angry red-tinted moron and fuck face Alex Jones (see title) actually had Alex Jones out-of-character and being a fairly down-to-earth alright guy. Until he called liberals pyschic vampires (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkMnwFZyNrw&t=23s), but I imagine doing a show like InfoWars will irreparably have long lasting side effects.
As does doing The Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan is very into hallucinogens and will appear on his show stoned numerous times, more than not. He talks about their mental health benefits and existential properties that have helped him and recommends them to his guests, audience, and everyone in the world essentially. I am very in favor of the good hallucinogens do and support that narrative. He even talks about the benefits of a deprivation tank which I want to try for myself and encourage anyone to as well. However, the goal of most "trips" is to destroy your own ego and perceived world view so as to attain a higher plateau of thought. Joe ignores that side of the journey and with child-like wonder just says "whoa dude". I mean, it is pretty "whoa dude", but that's not the end goal of those journeys. You want to come out changed, your perspective advanced, and less depressed. Joe fails to go past the "oh shiny" phase of trippy drugs, even DMT and Ayahuasca which puts most people on their ass and forever humbled to reality. His blase approach to taking "whoa dude" drugs has even lead to him emboldening contrarian, damaging viewpoints.
Joe Rogan is essentially a libertarian,although if asked he says he is not affiliated with any political party. This stance is held-up by many of his viewers/listeners and is basically the "well I'm not them" argument. It's having your cake and giving it to the 1%. That stance makes him and many with this worldview, see themselves as bullet-proof and hyperbolic Supermans who can give a platform to any sort of ideological monstrosity because "well I'm not them", "whoa dude", or "I don't know about all of that." Interviewing Milo Yolopoopmouse (read YolilelaleeTrump) and "hearing him out" as he talks about "Daddy Trump"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ8KSh9bd6w)without calling out Milo's fascist viewpoints only makes more Milo YugiOh!cards. This is where Joe gains so many followers. Joe Rogan, who "doesn't affilate with any political party" finds himself emboldening centrists.
Centrism is the agnosticism of politics with much more dangerous, physical, and desperate real world applications. Agnostics question, compare and contrast while Centrists, at least of late, are just stirring up ill-will and trying to come out of as the better person. The "I don't give a shit" approach to something like an existential question of God ultimately doesn't have nearly the same impact of seeing an Anti-Fa Militant and a Proud Boy fighting with the response "both sides are bad." Fence sitting on God, fine. Fence sitting on the abject horror of quickly rising fascist dictatorship, not fine. Very not fine. One of the least fine things you can be doing in this or any other year.
This centrism has found him an allegiance of militant fans who take what he says and doesn't say to the extremes. Because Joe is so dismissive or non-argumentative with the ideologues he brings on his show it empowers his viewers/listeners to continue their movements. Joe may hate Trump like any other breathing person with a speck of human decency, but he has Trump fans who have more blood push into their sexual organs when Alex Jones and Milo are guests. Joe may hate racism, but "hearing out" a radical racist gives entitlement to NRA supporters who have wet dreams of home invasions. Joe may think you need to get laid, but having an Incel rant about outright misogyny leads to an asexual self-made eunuch plot his revenge. Take a fucking stand is what I'm saying. Just because you yell a lot on your show doesn't mean you're arguing.
I avoid arguing about Joe Rogan as much as I can, however, I am a comedian as well. I go to open mics regularly, get booked on shows, and want to basically not work so I do comedy. I've been doing it for over 4 years now, and I love every moment of it. No surprise, when I first got into comedy I found Joe Rogan endearing and "sticking it to the soy boy beta cucks" (that exact term is from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Obviously 4 years ago it wasn't really around but I'd be sure to say that phrase if it existed back then). But as with numerous examples in this article and more I can't type as my eye is already twitching enough, I found definite faults with Joe and didn't see him as the hilarious contrarian I once did.
Because I realized he's not even contrarian, he's opinion-lite. He's centrist. He's straw man argument. If this or the rest of this article (obviously disregarding the title) feel ad-hominem now, my only excuse is I'm not very good at this and this is my first time writing one of these articles in several years. Something that makes me chuckle to this day was a clueless, middle-aged guy trying comedy for his first time. He came up to the deck, trying to bond, form a connection with us. His opening remarks were "Wow, Joey Coco Diaz and Joe Rogan are here on the same night! HOW DO I CHOOSE?" which didn't lead to the glad-handing and praise he wanted but a quick "Joey Diaz" from most of the deck. We returned to staring at our phones and avoiding eye contact with eachother. We're comics, we're anti-social weirdos who want to be loved by strangers but only when we have a mic in our hands. He felt crushed while simultaneously thinking we don't like comedy, which is only true of most of us.
If you want the anger and passion you hear from Joe Rogan but with a punch and bravado I suggest Doug Stanhope. Doug Stanhope "doesn't give a shit" but he has real umph and vigor. He has a contrarian viewpoint to almost anything, is hyperbolic, and hypocritical. He's everything Joe Rogan wants to be but far more in-depth, entertaining, and outright funny. Contrarian and definitely not a centrist trying to hide centrism with yelling and looking cool. Now if you excuse me I have to run away from these new comics.
Hope you enjoyed the first of many of these weekly installments. If you are interested in becoming part of TheWeeklyRation Comrades you can email me at [email protected] to get the weeks installment two days earlier on Friday as part of the mass-mailer. Otherwise you can continue following this blog where it’ll be posted on Sundays. This is a project of mine that I was directly inspired to do by Sean Callahan, my best friend and wonderful writer who did a weekly mailer called “Happy Flyday”. Thank you for your interest!
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Apparently my politics align with the progressive left, but my worldview and lifestyle aren't turtlely enough for the local turtle club.
As in, even the Democrats in rural areas here are wealthy, college-educates centrists who think the solution to all life's problems involve paying lawyers. They have zero interest in local farmers or blue collar labor progressives or quirky country hippie gays doing anything besides weak-ass phone bank / door-knocking shit, which is just asking already registered Democrats to please remember to vote.
And fine. But that almost literally does not matter. You could get every mild Democrat sympathizer to vote around here, and they'd STILL lose every election by 70%.
You need to do outreach. You need to confront the Republican misinformation and white-grievance shit head-on. And shockingly, the last people equipped to do that around here are interloper McMansion Work-from-Homes who think the rest of us only exist to sell them tomatoes from roadside stands.
We need a populist blue collar appeal to people who are being ground down by the entrenched GOP establishment. They're angry and looking for solutions, and only the GOP are exploiting that, with racist lies and culture war distractions.
But that's harder than hanging out at the local winery and laughing about Twitter roasts of JD Vance, which seems to be all they do up here. Because they literally do not care about votes. They don't actually intend to win anything. This is just a social thing for people who feel isolated politically.
And that is NOT interesting to me.
But what am I going to do? Subversively hang out with people I don't like, doing pointless shit, on the off chance one of the VIPs thinks I'm funny or something and maybe takes my advice? How long is that going to take? And also, that fucking sucks.
This is why I wasn't involved before. The Democrats here suck. I don't like them, and they don't want me around.
All I can think to do is randomly try running for some tiny office as a weird indie progressive, and make enough noise that they show up to either tell me to stop or meekly give me $5 to see what happens.
And I totally have time and energy to do this.
Blegh. I don't know.
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