#and i haven’t even started in the political implications of they being war criminals

[thecocodrille]

I just love drawing this gremlins, they so cute and they love each other. ( I’m crying for the implications of this au, and how they need to hide how much they care for each other :’c )

[seilahsacress]

This is a Naruto and Mystic Messenger combined rant

Spoilers if you haven't seen one of them yet. I personally think Naruto spoilers are ok, if you're anything like me you won't have the mental strenght left to finish this terrible series and just look everything up online at some point anyway but I heavily recommend you play MysMe blind.

Oh well

You've been warned!

Don't proceed longer

Itachi and Rika are the same shit and I don't know which one's apologists I hate more. I think Rika fans are worse? Since they always felt slightly more real to me? But the same goes for Itachi apologists too? Seriously, which side's apologists are worse?

Both those people committed what can be called the absolute worst crimes imaginable to humans. Itachi committed an ethnic genocide out of nationalist feelings. Rika started a cult that kidnapped and drugged people so that she can play the goddess there. Their actions had to have catastrophic effects on the true victims in the respective scenarios, right? There are. MM actually portrays them. Don't know about you but I personally can't get over that scene where Seven had to physically restrain Saeran from committing suicide. Just... Shudders, really...

Then how do the narrative and the fandom treat those unarguable villains? Free forgiveness :D Ignoring the real life implications of their actions, hiding behind pseudo intellectual concepts to excuse them, whining how complex things are when they're attacked and overall "holier than thou" attitude... Oh boi... In for a ride... SCP-001 proposal "When The Day Breaks" (Apologies for adding a third fiction franchise to this post, now you can proceed)

The excuses people make to whitewash their favs are disgusting. For Itachi stans, it's "politics are complex uwu" followed by zero real life examples where an ethnic genocide was justifiable. For Rika stans, it's brain-melting to read manipulations of social issues. They hide behind her "tragic backstory uwu" and the smartass "mental disorder T-T" argument, and treat you like the fucking idiot if you dare "stigmatize" this poor victim girl. Fuck you.

Itachi is a war criminal, Rika is an abuser. There's no way to mental exercise one's way out of this. Those shitty "they thought they were doing the right thing, they were tragic backstories and mental disorders T-T T-T" excuses don't mean fucking shit. Sit down and imagine the real life implications for a second, I beg you.

Do you know who else may have been thinking they were truly doing the right thing? Communist dictators. Suicide bombers. Whatever. You name it. Do you know who else "had no other choice T-T sad T-T complex politics T-T"? Savage bastards organizing the Armenian Genocide.

Do you know why people go through abuse? Cause there are abusers out there, and fuck them. Do you think abusers are merely mainstream "ehe ehe >_< fun to evil~" Hollywood dumbshits? No, most of the time they genuinely believe they're entitled to the other person's appreciation. They have their own "feeeeeelingz~" and sad issues the victim is "obligated" to help them through. Wow, sounds a lot like a specific MysMe girl! Do you know who else other than Rika had an abusive childhood and suffers from depression, anxiety? Billions who did better than being abusers and criminals themselves. And do you know just one more person who was also sick in the head? Fucking Hitler.

In both Naruto and MysMe, respectively Itachi and Rika get away with shit. Former more in a meta sense but whatever. We all know the deal with Naruto's shit narrative, fuck it. Then Rika? The girl from a series I actually like? Welp... She's not punished. Yoosung and Zen don't even know a thing. She's taken good care of and the moment Jumin maybe considers that she needs to face consequences (someone else on Tumblr exactly wrote "bless his soul" and I second it), she's sent away. And appearantly Seven is ok with it? Lmao time to pretend the last few episodes of SE2 never happened and we have an entirely new SE3 to explain all the unresolved plot points.

[kuriquinn]

The Last To Know [5/5]

Blanket Fic Disclaimer

Beta Reader: None right now. Check back later.

Warning: Some language

AN: I decided to add another chapter. Sakura and Sasuke deserve their moment, and Sakura has to resolve her issues with Kakashi and Naruto separately so as not to cheapen the SasuSaku stuff :)

First Chapter

“Sakura!”

Her blushing musings come to an abrupt, crashing end as a familiar voice shatters the somber silence of the cemetery.

Within a blink of an eye, Naruto has skid to a halt in front of her, face sweaty and red from exertion, shoulders heaving as he pants for breath.

Sakura frowns in speculation, gazing at the spot where Sasuke just stood, and where Naruto has appeared.

If they were still genin, she might suspect Naruto were engineering some kind of trick on her—masquerading as Sasuke in an effort to gauge her mood before approaching her. Except, the things that Sasuke said to her are too personal and too specific for Naruto know about; even if he were pretending, he wouldn’t think to say those things.

So the timing is just really coincidental…

Suddenly Sasuke’s words make sense and a rare jab at annoyance for her other former teammate pricks at her. He probably felt Naruto coming this way and decided to leave them to talk.

Sakura wonders if it’s actually a good thing that Sasuke is more aware of the world now than he was when they were kids. He never used to care if she and Naruto were fighting.

��I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am so sorry!” Naruto wails, throwing himself on the ground in front of her and actually bending his head to the ground in dogeza. “I will never do anything like that, ever again, and I will tell you everything I know from now on—except, well, things that I tell Hinata, because there’s some stuff you can only tell your wife, you know? Well, know, you don’t, because you don’t have a wife—but everything else!”

“Maybe not everything,” a mild voice adds, and of course Kakashi is standing nearby, appearing too swiftly and silently for her to notice. Unlike Naruto, he isn’t prostrating himself on the ground, but he holds himself at a polite distance from her, as if waiting for permission to approach.

Naruto glances up at Kakashi, with a confused look, then his eyes go wide in understand.

“Right! And except for some of the Hokage stuff, because I can’t,” he tells Sakura. “But other than that!” He then ducks his head toward the ground again. “And if I do it again, you can beat me until I can’t move, or rip off my arm again, or…or force feed me vegetables, just as long as you forgive me!”

On anyone else, this would be irreverent and behaviour unbefitting of the crime, but she can hear the desperation in his voice despite the hyperbole.

“Us,” Kakashi corrects quietly. “Though it would be unseemly for your Hokage to get on his knees in front of a civilian.”

“Yeah, right, you’re just worried you’ll break your back or something, old man,” Naruto quips.

Sakura considers her friends for a long moment, feeling as if her innards are churning. It has been days, but the wound of being kept in the dark is still fresh. She knows she’s not ready to completely forgive them yet.

“Leaving a friend in the dark is the same as leaving them behind,” she tells them in as neutral a voice as she can manage, trying to put her thoughts in order. Both men wince at the very personal implications behind that statement. “You know…you knew all I ever wanted was to stand beside you. To be acknowledged and treated like I was on the same level. Since I was a girl, I wanted that more than almost anything and you…you both treated me like a child. Worse, a stranger who wasn’t trustworthy enough or mature enough to handle the truth.”

“This particular truth has done more harm than good to those who know it,” Kakashi responds quietly.

Sakura inclines her head, acknowledging the validity of that, but has no intention of letting him off with the official party line.

“When has holding back the truth ever done any of us favours?” she counters. “Was Naruto better off not knowing why the entire village hated him as a child?”

Kakashi’s jaw clenches beneath his mask.

“Were you better or happier not knowing who your parents were?” she goes on, addressing Naruto directly as he slowly sits back on his haunches. “That was protect you, right? Are you grateful to the people who kept that information from you?”

“That’s…” Naruto begins, twin spots of angry colour burning in his cheeks.

“What about Sasuke? How much of his life was wasted hunting revenge over something he thought was truth…all because a certain someone was trying to protect him?”

“Those are all extreme examples, Sakura,” Kakashi warns.

“Maybe. But they didn’t start off that way. They all started with the simple need to protect someone. And in the end, the people who were supposed to be protected were busy hurting in the dark,” she insists. She turns to face both men, squaring her shoulders. “I understand that my not knowing the truth about such a horrible situation is not as serious as having an entire village hate you for something you can’t control…but it was still a breach of trust. Especially because what you two and Sasuke think of me…it has always mattered more than what anyone else did. And the idea that you don’t trust me…it makes me feel physically sick.”

She has to pause here, fighting a resurging lump in her voice, uncertainty at being so direct once again making her falter a bit.

Hold on to the knowledge that they really want what’s best for you, Sasuke told her, and she does.

The seriousness of their behaviour is not diminished in any way, but she knows it wasn’t done out of malice or calculated intent. In their ignorance, they continued a behaviour that she never clearly asked them to stop. They ought to have known better—Kakashi especially, being that he is usually more perceptive—but still they only wanted to keep her from unpleasant knowledge.

She is not so petty or frail as to walk away from such a close friendship based on one indiscretion, but they have to know that she won’t tolerate it again.

Sakura looks up at the sky, carefully weighing her words, and the nods to herself.

“I won’t be treated like wallpaper by you guys anymore,” she vows, glaring at them both challengingly. Her eyes linger on Naruto. “I am your equal. Maybe I’m not the ancient reincarnation of a demigod like you or Sasuke…and maybe I didn’t come back from the dead or master a thousand techniques like you, Kakashi-sensei.” She nods at him. “But I am just as important. It’s time you both acknowledged that in action and not just words.”

He inclines his head at this, agreement written in his eyes.

“The three of us are the students of the Sannin—you and me and Sasuke,” Sakura tells Naruto. “But more important than that…we’re Squad 7. We’re Kakashi’s students. We’ve been a team since the bell test.”

Naruto can’t help a nervous, nostalgic chuckle at that.

“If I don’t have all of the information, I can’t be an effective part of that team,” Sakura concludes. “And when that information is something that has hurt a member of my team? A dear friend? What else can I imagine but those bonds weren’t as strong as I thought they were?”

“No way!” Naruto cries. “You know how strong our bonds are, Sakura. We couldn’t have done everything we did if it wasn’t. Even before the war.” He scrambles to his feet, gazing down at her with eyes softened by regret. “You’ve always been one of the people I care about most. The best thing that ever happened to me was being put on a team with you and Sasuke—and you were at least nice to be around. Sasuke and I would be dead a hundred times over if you hadn’t been there keeping an eye out for us, even before you got all scary strong. And yeah, sometimes we forget, but it’s only because we love you. And you shouldn’t have to worry about the hard stuff if you don’t have to.”

“That’s not how it works, Naruto,” she replies quietly. “We’re adults now. We’ve lived through war. I know just as much as you do that the world isn’t a very nice place. Do you think when I work in the hospital all I do is prescribe medication and wave my hands over people and make them feel better? I have to sew up bloody wounds and tell people they’re dying—little kids who haven’t even reached the Academy yet! Sometimes I have to sign papers to remove children from abusive homes, or force poison into someone’s system on the off chance it might make them better. I have to operate on criminals just to make them fit enough to stand a trial where they will probably be executed anyway. None of that is easy or good or right, but I have to do it.”

She turns to Kakashi, who has been listening in silence.

“Will you try to protect me from that, too?” she challenges.

He sighs, shaking his head.

“You’ve made your point, Sakura. And I don’t disagree. But some matters are more delicate than others. As your Hokage, all I can promise is that I will do everything legally possible to ensure proper information dispensing. As the highest-ranking member of the team that took out Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, you are entitled to be informed of relevant information on your comrades, and I’ll ensure you have it as soon as possible,” he tells her. A beat later, the official-sounding tone disappears in favour of something more sheepish than she’s used to Kakashi using. “But as your former teacher, you’ll have to forgive me if it takes a little longer to remember these things. For me, you three will always be my adorable students. I will always want to protect you.”

“Okay, hold on, I know why that applies to Sasuke, but when was the last time you protected me?” Naruto scoffs.

“You haven’t been arrested for any of the graffiti incidents yet,” Kakashi points out.

“…Right.”

“It’s a start,” Sakura acknowledges, too used to the by-play to pay it much attention. “I can accept that it’s a start.”

His eyes crinkle in a smile.

Sakura turns to Naruto and frowns at him.

“If you ever pull something like this again—” she begins.

“I know, I know,” Naruto interrupts, holding up his hands as if to stave off some invisible blow. “I got the message when you punted Kakashi-sensei through the window. You’ll flatten me or turn me into a stain or paste or—”

“No,” she says. “I won’t.’

“You…you won’t?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He looks confused.

“But I will never speak to you again,” she informs him. The line is a childish one, something not out of place in the Academy courtyard, but the words ring with promise, the weight of the threat as edged as a declaration of war. “You, or Kakashi-sensei. And I’ll put in for a transfer to another village.”

She turns to Kakashi now, raising an eyebrow as though waiting for him to protest, but he simply looks thoughtful.

“There are a lot of places in the world that need talented medic-nin. I am already doing them a disservice by staying here in the village when I could be out there helping the people who need it. We aren’t at war anymore, so I’m not bound to serve only Konoha’s interests alone, but the well-being of all people in the world,” she explains. “If it turns out that I’m not trusted here by my friends and comrades, or by my own superiors…” She shrugs. “Kankuro has been trying to get me to come work for the hospital in Suna for months now. I’ve been considering a temporary exchange for the good of the hospital’s teaching policies, but I can easily make that permanent. And Karui tells me that the Raikage is conducting interviews for a new chief of staff of the hospital in Kumo.”

“But…but you can’t,” Naruto looks perplexed. “You’re a Konoha-nin.”

“My life does not depend on this village, no matter how much I love it,” Sakura says. “And with all the work the Kage are doing to promote trust between the villages, it’s not so difficult to travel these days. Honestly, I might still leave to travel the world for a little some day. But my coming back will depend entirely on what kind of village is waiting for me.”

The let’s that sink in, and from Naruto’s chagrined expression, she knows he’s taking her seriously.

“This will always be your home,” he tells her, “and I promise, I’ll make it a village—no, a city—worth being proud of. There won’t be anymore secrets from you. Ever. Believe it!” And then, in a move she hasn’t seen in years, he holds out arm in front of him, parallel to the ground, fist clenched. “I promise.”

In her mind, an image from her memories—a short, stupid looking kid with blond hair and wearing orange—superimposes itself on the picture that Naruto makes now.

I won’t go back on my word…that is my ninja way!

Sakura smiles, a little wistful, but without the bitterness of the past few days.

“Alright,” she says. Then she turns serious again. “But it’s still going to take some time. I’m still not happy about all this, and I haven’t completely forgiven you yet. So don’t be surprised if I avoid you both for a little while, because none of this is okay.”

“That’s fine,” Kakashi says. “We can be patient.” Naruto groans, and he amends. “I can be patience. And I can bury Naruto in enough paper work that he’s forced to be patient.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t think you can joke your way out of this,” Sakura warns, shaking a finger at her former instructor. “We are going to talk about the situation with the Elders, because that is not going to continue. We owe it to Sasuke—we owe it to the entire village to untangle that particular snarl.”

“No arguments from me!” Naruto grins. He  rubs at his nose. “Hey, I have a great idea! How about, to seal this whole deal, we go get some ramen?”

“…You really don’t understand the concept of giving people space, do you?” Sakura sighs.

“You’re surprised by this?” Kakashi counters.

“I bet if I send a clone to grab Sasuke, he’s come with us,” Naruto continues, apparently not hearing them. “It’s will totally be like old times! And hey, maybe Teuchi will extend my free ramen pass to you guys too. I mean, you sort of helped me save the world, and it’s the first time in ages we’ve been able to sit together, so maybe…”

Sakura allows Naruto’s ramblings to wash over her.

She wasn’t lying when she said things were not completely forgiven; trust is not something so easily regained with a few words. She suspects it will be months, perhaps years before she can be around them without a modicum of doubt rising up, whispering to her that they still think she is weak.

But Sasuke thinks she’s strong.

And more importantly than any of that, she knows she’s strong.

She will get through this.

And she’ll show Kakashi and Naruto just how serious she is tomorrow when she demands a formal investigation into corruption on the part of the Elders. It’s sure to stir up conflict among the village’s government, but if there’s anything Sakura’s teammates have taught her, it’s that change doesn’t happen unless someone makes trouble.

Naruto was the pest that made people believe; Sasuke the menace that made them forgive.

Let’s see what I become, she thinks to herself with a confident smirk, following the two men away from the cemetery.

終わり

Whew! I’m exhausted! This fic ended up being more emotionally driven than I expected it to be, and a lot longer. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed it.

I’ll try to edit it tomorrow and post the full version on ffnet, ao3 and wattpad as well. After Curriculum night…it will probably be the only thing I have the energy to do tomorrow, because it’s gonna be a loooong day of parents and teachers and students and just…socializing in general *shudder*.

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are much appreciated! Also, if you are in a supportive mood , you can find my tip jar here.

クリ

[cappuccinocommie]

alright, i'll bite! why was homecoming almost marxist?

THANK YOU! OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN BURSTING TO SAY THIS SHIT SINCE LIKE TWO DAYS AGO

WHY “SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING” (2017) WAS ALMOST MARXIST: AN ANALYSIS

I’ll do only the non-spoiler shit above the cut because I don’t know if you’ve seen or not, and put the spoiler stuff under a read more. 

Let’s begin with the most obvious difference: the new “Spiderman: Homecoming” movie is NOT AN ORIGIN STORY. 

This in itself is incredibly important, because it means that the old politics of Spiderman can really no longer apply in this new narrative. In previous Spiderman movies, Peter Parker/Spiderman has been said to be analogous to America – a budding young country, finding itself wielding untold economic and military power, and unsure of how to use that power in the world. Likewise, Peter struggles with his powers, even wondering if it’s right to use them in the first place – but by the end of both series, he feels he is called by a sacred duty to be Spiderman. So the previous two franchises were essentially metaphors for American imperialism. You can find a much better explanation of why that is on THIS video; because I haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet. (my guess is that the creator of this video feels very differently than I do about America’s place in the world, but it’s a good analysis all the same.) But remember the motto: “With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Not only is that motto NEVER MENTIONED in the new Spiderman (you heard me right, they DON’T SAY the “great motto” line, ever), Peter has no qualms about his powers. He doesn’t struggle with “how to use them properly.” He KNOWS he’s Spiderman. He wants to help people. And that sets up his primary goal during the entire movie: to prove himself to Tony Stark. (I’ll get back to this.) But case in point; Peter can no longer be comfortably analogized to be representative of America; at least not in the way he previously was, as a world power trying to find how to best impose its influence. He’s something different now. 

This is where it gets spoilery. I’ll see you below the cut. 

Okay. So let’s talk about the opening scene.... which has literally NOTHING to do with Spiderman. 

THE OPENING SCENE

It starts “8 years ago,” or RIGHT AFTER the battle of New York in the first Avengers movie. We see a cleanup crew, a ragtag band of workers with a contract from the city to scavenge all the alien technology. 

But enter “DAMAGE CONTROL.” They are an organization designed to clean up the mess left behind by superhero battles, and they unceremoniously kick the workers from their jobs. But it gets better – Damage Control is headed up by, you guessed it, TONY STARK. Which makes THIS beautiful line possible: “So the people making the messes are the people profiting from cleaning it up.” Which, if you didn’t already know that Stark is bourgeoisie…. Stark is bourgeoisie. Though his days of selling weapons to armies might be over, his days of hurting workers are not. 

But instead of just capitulating to Damage Control, those scavengers KEEP some of the alien technology and are able to create incredible tools and very deadly weapons from it, as well as a flying suit that enables the leader of the group to be the Vulture.

This is an ENORMOUS departure from the previous two films. “Spiderman” (2002) opens with a voiceover from Tobey Maguire as Peter before introducing Peter himself, on a school bus. “The Amazing SpiderMan” (2012) opens with Peter’s backstory, of his parents disappearing when he was a young child. In Homecoming, Peter isn’t even mentioned or shown until, like, 5 minutes in. This may seem like a minor detail, but it’s incredibly important. The backstory that we get in Homecoming is not for the hero, but actually of the VILLAINS – Vulture and his crew. We get their backstory, and they are humanized and even justified in our eyes. Damage Control, headed by Tony Stark, took their jobs away. Why shouldn’t they have fought back to keep themselves and their families fed?

(Essential Disclaimer: Yes, using alien technology to build incredible powerful weapons and selling them is bad. But… we should also probably consider how this is a deliberate, DIRECT parallel to Tony Stark’s own origin story.)

PETER PARKER: WORKING CLASS HERO

So, THEN we get to see Peter. It’s essentially a recap of his time in the Civil War movie, in which he had a brief role fighting on Iron Man’s side against Captain America and the Winter Soldier. But after that battle, it shows Peter being quite unceremoniously dropped back at his house, and consequently ignored by Tony Stark.

That sets up Peter’s motivation. He WANTS to be Spiderman. He wants to fight alongside the Avengers. He wants to prove himself to Tony Stark so he can be Spiderman, the Avenger.

My interpretation of this is thus: the Tony Stark uses the Peter Parker. He needs SpiderMan be “on the ground,” to help and fight his wars. But Peter is ignored afterward; he’s given a high-tech suit and put back in his place. This, to me, is directly comparable to the bourgeoisie’s relationship to the working class. I also have a theory that the high-tech suit represents a “wage,” but that’s a bit extraneous. 

Peter’s motivation is also analogous to the ideal of the “American Dream.” Just as the proletariat believes it can achieve its wildest, wealthiest dreams if it just works “hard enough,” Peter believes he can join the Avengers if he just impresses Tony Stark. He believes he can “rise up in the ranks.” 

But this is shown to be damn near impossible. Peter is shown to… not actually be that great at fighting everyday crime. He liberates a stolen bicycle, but can’t find its owner. He gives an elderly woman directions (arguably his most successful effort in the entire movie). He tries to stop a car from being stolen, only to find out that the “thief” was in fact the owner of the car.

Then, when stopping an ATM robbery, Peter happens across super-powerful weapons made of alien technology – sold to the thieves by Vulture and his crew.

After a fight with those thieves goes awry, Peter tries to contact Tony Stark again, and is once again ignored.

After the next run-in with the weapons, Peter is actually told by Tony Stark – or rather his empty – to drop it, and to let other people handle the situation. Which, let’s talk about that. The suit that came to rescue Peter was empty, and Tony Stark was actually off in a foreign country at a party or something. This, to me, says a lot about the alienation of the working class. 

Then, we get to the “PETER FUCKS UP” stage. 

Vulture has a weapons deal on a ferry that Peter goes to in order to finally capture the criminals – it goes badly, and the boat is lasered in half and almost sinks, until Tony shows up and saves everybody. He’s angry at Peter and actually takes the suit away. He thinks Peter doesn’t deserve to be Spiderman. 

(Another important note: Tony’s alliance with the government, or really the bourgeoisie’s alliance with the state, is really fleshed out here. Not only does Damage Control do state work, but Tony, instead of dealing with the Vulture problem, called the FBI to let them deal with it. But also didn’t tell Peter that.) 

Peter goes back to normal life, and even gets a date to homecoming, a girl named Liz. On the night of homecoming, he goes to her house – only to discover that her father is the Vulture. 

Vulture recognizes him, too, and because of how much his daughter likes Peter, gives him a chance to let it go. But Peter being Peter, chases after Vulture as he and his crew go on one last job – to steal Tony Stark’s property when it’s being moved from Stark tower to another location. 

This results in a VERY interesting dynamic. Peter is bound to retrieve Tony’s property, because he needs to get back into Stark’s favor and because it’s the “right thing to do.” (Also, Tony owns a bunch of dangerous shit that would be bad in the Vulture’s hands.) But in the end, though Peter succeeds at saving Tony’s property, he saves Vulture’s life. There’s no hesitation. No second thoughts. Peter instinctively uses the only strength he has not only to warn Vulture about the explosion, but drag him out of burning debris. They collapse in the sand together. 

PETER’S REWARD

After all of that happens, Peter is on Tony’s good side again. He’s brought to the new Avengers headquarters, where he’s told he will get to be an Avenger, get a new, super hi-tech suit, and that there’s a bunch of reporters waiting behind a door to hear from Spiderman. Peter is suddenly offered everything he wants after his loyalty to Tony Stark, after saving his property. Peter has achieved the American Dream. 

But he turns it down. He goes back to being regular old Spiderman. He doesn’t join the Avengers. And though Tony bluffs it like it was a test, it’s revealed that he genuinely made that offer to Peter, and was extremely surprised that he turned it down. 

LOOSE ENDS

A big thing in movies is that a lot is shot, but a lot is also cut. So what ends up on the cutting room floor, and what ends up on screen, is very important. Not only do we get the entire opening scene being about Vulture and his crew’s backstory, Vulture also gets several solo scenes at their base. 

Tony Stark NEVER gets a solo scene where he’s not talking to Peter. This has a large effect on who we perceive to be closer to us as the audience; it has a great deal to do with who we feel CONNECTED to and empathize with. Tony Stark is not meant to be an empathetic character... but Vulture, who is arguably a victim of Tony Stark, is. 

Now... I say Homecoming is “almost Marxist,” because I don’t think it ever fully draws marxist conclusions. Does it have implications of class struggle and of working-class solidarity? I think absolutely. But it never comes to the obvious conclusion that it set up – that Tony Stark is actually still damaging, even as a “philanthropic” billionaire, and Spiderman is bound to fight the villains created by his mistakes. Vulture is a sympathetic villain, but he’s never made out to be MORE than that – as a product of the vicious society he lives in, wherein workers are crushed under capitalism and have to fight for survival. It’s even possible that both of these conclusions were actually shot, and ended up cut, though I doubt it. 

But Peter is DEFINITELY DIFFERENT from the old, imperialist Spiderman, and I hope that we get to see more of who the new Spiderman is politically and philosophically in the future Marvel canon. 

[nancy-astorga]

After a decade fighting the cartels, Mexico may be looking for a way to get its military off the streets

In December 2006, just after taking office, Mexican president Felipe Calderon deployed Mexico’s military to the cities and countryside to take on the country’s drug trade.

It was not the first time Mexico’s military had been sent out to fight narcos, but Calderon’s escalation — from 20,000 soldiers deployed around the country to 50,000 — marked a shift, the effects of which have reverberated around the country.

But in recent months, Mexico’s military leadership, after a decade of fighting a seemingly indefatigable foe, has been increasingly critical of the tasks it has been assigned.

“We didn’t ask to be here. We don’t like it. We didn’t study how to chase criminals,” Mexican Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos said in early December. “Our function is something else, and it’s been made into something unnatural. We are doing things that don’t correspond to our training because there’s no one else to do them.”

Critical comments from the military about its decade-old domestic deployment are rare, but Cienfuegos has made similar statements before.

“Of course we have committed errors,” he said in an interview with Mexican news outlet Pulso in mid-March. “One of those was when we entered fully combat against drugs.”

In that interview, Cienfuegos also underscored the gap between the military’s training and the roles it was being asked to fill on Mexico’s streets. “The military is not intended for the work it does today,” he said. “No one with responsibility for this institution is prepared to do the functions of the police.”

While Cienfuegos has been one of the most high-profile critics of the domestic deployment of Mexico’s military, he is not the only one.

“I think that there is frustration on the part of Mexican military personnel about being engaged in eternal conflict,” David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego and director of the school’s Justice in Mexico program, told Business Insider.

“There’s a lot of dissatisfaction,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, “because the use of the military to conduct law-enforcement operations actually goes against the Mexican constitution.”

Beyond the broader legal implications, the day-to-day impact of Mexico’s actions in a domestic law-enforcement role has caused frustration both inside and outside the ranks.

“There’s dissatisfaction within the military because it’s been the institution that they have always regarded as the most uncorruptible, if you will, within the country; however, now … there’s been more corruption within the ranks,” Vigil, who keeps in contact with Mexican law-enforcement officials, told Business Insider.

“So they feel that it’s corrupting the oldest and most respected institution within the Mexican government,” he said, adding:

“At the same time … you have federal prosecutors that are not very happy [because] the military are not trained investigators, and in my conversations with the PGR, they feel they’re losing a lot of cases or not being able successfully prosecute cases … because the military goes in, they’re not trained in this area — they do a very good job — but they go and trample evidence. They trample over crime scenes. They destroy evidence inadvertently.”

Mexico’s high impunity rates — only about 1% of crimes in the country are punished — have been attributed to the Mexican military’s poor preparation for law-enforcement duties, said Vigil, author of “Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel.”

For military personnel, filling a domestic role has brought with it unwelcome additions to the chain of command.

“On the other hand,” Shirk said, “and especially because we’ve also seen measures to try to reduce military impunity, increasingly the military has … to answer to civilian authorities. So if they screw up, or if they get mixed up in something like Ayotzinapa, they’re way more vulnerable.”

It’s strongly believed that members of the Mexican military were involved in the Ayotzinapa incident — the kidnapping and suspected killing of 43 student teachers and social activists in southwest Mexico in September 2014.

That is just one incident of many suspected military abuses.

A few months prior, after an incident in which 22 people were slain, military personnel were accused of executing at least 12 people in Tlatlaya in Mexico state and altering the crime scene to make it look like a confrontation.

Eight soldiers were charged but ultimately released for lack of evidence, and four ministerial police officers were sentenced to jail terms for torturing survivors of the massacre.

“I would say since about 2014, more and more reports at the national and international level have been coming out with evidence with the human-rights abuses and violence perpetrated by the military,” Molly Molloy, a professor and librarian at New Mexico State University, told Business Insider in December. “It stands to reason … that if you put thousands of armed, trained people in the midst of a sort of criminal gang conflict … that more people are going to be killed.”

Some of those military personnel have even joined ranks Mexico’s cartels, committing offenses they are supposed to be combatting.

Since 2008, the US has supplied funding, equipment, and training to the Mexican military through Plan Merida. Many of those defectors, like the soldiers who eventually formed Los Zetas drug cartel, have put that training and that equipment to brutally effective use in Mexico’s underworld.

According to Vigil, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration is looking to move away from the style of drug war pursued by him and his predecessor, Calderon — most importantly, by de-emphasizing the Kingpin Strategy, which had the Mexican government pursuing high-ranking cartel figures.

“It’s like the proverbial hydra,” Vigil said of the organizations targeted by this strategy, “where you cut off a head and then a hundred take its place, and I’m talking about the splintering, the fragmentation, which has led to even more violence.”

“So now what the Peña Nieto administration and Miguel Chong, the interior minister, are going to do is they’re going to … alter their strategy and do a top-to-bottom dismantling of these organizations,” Vigil added.

“They are changing their strategy to look at the entire infrastructure, attacking the entire infrastructure,” he continued.

“It’s not going to be overnight, but they, thank god, are looking to make necessary changes and hopefully have more significant impact and more lasting impact” on drug-related violence.

Despite those signs that the Mexican government is reassessing its drug war and looking to move away from a military-first strategy focused on the upper ranks of cartel leadership, the viability of such a shift will likely be hamstrung by Mexico’s failure to effectively dismantle criminal organizations and build stronger legal and law-enforcement institutions over the last decade.

Shifting the military away from the Kingpin Strategy “was arguably what they said they were going to do from the beginning, but they didn’t do it,” Shirk told Business Insider.

“As much as I think that the government should be thinking about a comprehensive longer-term strategy, I’m skeptical of that to the extent that I haven’t seen some of the elements that I would like to see for that to be an actual … effective policy measure,” he added.

Analysis of Mexican government outlays by Reuters this year found that since 2015, the Peña Nieto government has cut spending on security programs, after increasing that funding during the first two years of his term, which started in December 2012.

Moreover, the long-time presence of the military in a law-enforcement role has undercut local and state police forces and made local and state governments reluctant or unwilling to enact reform programs.

“In the absence of competent state and local authorities, the Armed Forces are not able to retire, on penalty of leaving the population undefended in the face of organized crime,” Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope wrote in a column in early December. “However, the presence of federal forces reduces the incentives for local and state political actors to build their own capacities.”

“Bad if they stay, bad if they go,” Hope said.

“Ten years ago it was decided that the police should be rebuilt, and we still haven’t seen that reconstruction,” Cienfuegos told the Associated Press in December. “This isn’t something that can be solved with bullets. It requires other measures, and there has not been decisive action on budgets to make that happen.”

SEE ALSO: The battle for control of the Sinaloa cartel is intensifying, and ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s sons are under fire

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