#anti-billionaire narrative

[ferdifz]

Thoughts on the missing OceanGate Titan submersible

So much "eat the rich" energy surrounding the social media comments around this story...

Meanwhile explorer Paul Henry Nargeolet is not a billionaire.

———

IwriteOK on Twitter:

folks complaining that the government or whoever isn't doing enough to rescue the deathsub may not realize that rescuing human beings submerged anywhere near the depth this thing was supposed to be at would be harder than putting a man on the moon

Not quite harder than putting a man on the moon, but hard enough still.

...as in: Each single trip to the moon requires months — if not a whole year or more — of preparation. This rescue needs to be done within the next like 48 hour or so, or not at all.

———

And how goes the Ukrainian counter-offensive? How goes the Myanmar coup-detat? How goes the Iranian women's-rights rebellion?

All things that continue to cost very real human lives.

———

Hope this one Tumblr post will be enough to sate my hunger to commentate. And then I can let go of commenting on this issue anymore going forward.

———

Update, about an hour after original post: US Coast Guard says 'underwater noises' have been detected in search for missing Titanic-tour submarine.

🐦 [Spectator Index] [AFP News-Agency] [the Associated Press]

———

Update, a few more hours later: Although yeah to be fair (via Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter) :

My god—Oceangate, operator of missing submarine exploring the Titanic wreckage, had a viewport (window) certified only to 1300 meters, as whistleblower complained in a lawsuit, but was fired. So what’s the Titanic wreckage depth? ➡️4000 meters. 🔥

Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It Could Safely Travel To (The New Republic, June 20, 2023)

———

Update, June 23rd:  "Tail cone of Titan sub found" - US Coast Guard press conference - via BBC News live update web-page

June 24th: Canadian and US officials have indicated there will be investigations into the Titan deaths. Other government agencies are may join in, but it is unclear at this stage which agency will lead the investigation.

June 28th: Pieces of derbris confirmed to be former OceanGate Titan submersible recovered; suspected human remains among the wreckage. (the Guardian)

[machinavocis]

.

[lilacsandlillies]

I was going through the anti Jason Todd tag because I hate myself and want to understand where people who dislike him are coming from and one thing I kept seeing was annoyance at Jason fans who claim that Jason is female coded and realized that the term “female coded” might not be the best term to describe what we mean.

A female coded character in literature and media typically means a character that has no specified gender or otherwise does not have a gender but is obviously meant to be a stand in for a woman or female. Kind of like how Starfire has no specified race (due to being an alien) but is still obviously black coded based on the way she’s drawn and treated by the narrative.

This is slightly different than what we mean when saying that Jason is female coded. It’s not that Jason is literally supposed to be a stand in for a female character, it’s that the way a lot of characters treat him and a lot of the tropes used on him are things that usually saved for female characters, not big buff men like Jason.

To start with, being Robin is narratively (or at least was) very similar to being a woman in a story. Robin is a role made to complement Batman (who we all know is basically the ultimate male power fantasy). Robin’s role is to be an accessory to Batman. Robin can be smart, but not smarter than Batman. Robin can be strong, but not stronger than Batman. Hell, Robin is often kidnapped and used as a literal damsel in distress, a role often regulated for women as a whole.

What sets Jason apart from the other robins (except for Steph) in this regard is that they were allowed to be characters outside of Batman. Dick might not have been the “man” of the story when he’s with Bruce, but when he’s with the teen titans suddenly he’s the smart one who has all the answers. Jason’s Robin was never really allowed this.

Then we get to the most, controversial, part of Jason’s female coding. The fact the he was effectively fridged. Fridging is usually only referred to as frigding if it’s a female character, but Jason’s death checks pretty much all the other boxes needed. An incredibly brutal death that was more about Bruce’s feelings on it than Jason himself.

This is especially apparent when compared to the other Bat characters. For all the female coding, the only other Robin to actually be fridged was Steph (and we all know about the misogyny surrounding her death). Barbara was also kind of fridged during the killing Joke. The only female character to escape this is Cass (to my knowledge). When you look at it through this lens, the fact that the only other characters to be permanently damaged like this for Bruce’s story are female, it’s not hard to see where the idea that Jason is female coded comes from.

You can even find this in Jason’s origin story. Poor little orphan is saved by benevolent billionaire is a role usually saved for little girls, like in Annie.

Despite what you might think, this even continues after Jason’s revival. Jason is still used less as a character and more as a motivation for Bruce. He’s regularly called emotional and hysterical (terms usually used to refer to women).

Jason is first and foremost a victim. A role performed by women in most media. Men are expected to be stoic and “rise above” the things done to them as to not be victims, as continuously shown by the way characters like Nightwing are not allowed to be effected by the horrific things they go through. The fact that Jason is shown the be angry, and sad, and emotional, constantly, and the fact that he’s punished and vilified for it puts him in a place much more similar to a female character.

There’s a reason that so many Jason fans (that like him for a reason past “antihero with guns”) are female. For most characters, when you swap their genders there would be a pretty clear and big difference in the way their story takes place. If you swap Jason’s gender, the story takes place identically.

A lot of this is best shown in men’s reactions to Arkham Knight’s version of Jason. In that game, Jason is similarly angry and emotional, albeit for slightly different reasons. He is also still unmistakably a victim. You’d think the men playing would like him. After all he’s a big cool angsty guy with a lot of guns and muscles. Instead, a lot of men’s thought that he was whiny. That his feelings were annoying.

There’s also something to be said about how his autonomy is regularly undermined by Bruce (specifically in Gotham war) and how his decisions and feeling are constantly treated as if they’re worth less than Bruce’s, but that’s a discussion for another day.

[burst-of-iridescent]

ana's meta masterlist

Pro-Zutara:

the official zutara dissertation: part 1 | part 2

zuko, aang and taking lightning for katara

zutara and romantic coding

"you rise with the moon, i rise with the sun" is a zutara line

zutara and thematic significance

zutara vs jetara

zutara parallels in the awakening

zutara's narrative culmination

zutara in the crossroads of destiny:

azula vs katara

love as resistance in the catacombs

zutara in the southern raiders:

the true source of katara's anger at zuko

katara bloodbending before zuko

the narrative relevance of zutara

zutara and bloodbending

zutara's narrative symmetry

why zuko had to betray katara in ba sing se

Anti Anti-Zutara:

the official zutara dissertation (p.3)

"zutara would face too much opposition from their countries"

"zuko and katara are a colonizer/colonized ship"

"zuko and katara would fight all the time”

"platonic zutara is better than romantic zutara"

"fire lady katara is racist"

“zuko would’ve taken lightning for anyone”

“katara is too traumatized by the fire nation”

“shipping zutara is amatonormative”

ATLA Ship Criticism:

the official zutara dissertation: part 4 | part 5 | part 6

why mai.ko was never intended to be canon

mailee is a better ship than mai.ko

how kat.aang could've been fixed

kat.aang's lack of trust in the southern raiders

emotional labour in kat.aang

kat.aang’s narrative imbalance

comparing katara and aang's parenting

the fortuneteller does not foreshadow kat.aang

ATLA/LOK:

azula/katara parallels

katara's choice in the crossroads of destiny

was zuko's betrayal in-character?

zuko's comments in the southern raiders

zuko's comments in the southern raiders (pt. 2)

zuko is not a “bad boy”

zuko’s treatment of aang in sozin’s comet

sokka didn't feel inferior to katara

did mai fear azula?

comparing mai and toph

azula vs zuko: the tragedy of narrative foils

should aang have killed ozai?

sexism in the water tribes

thoughts on the atla comics

writing a final battle: kung fu panda vs atla

gratuitous violence in the legend of korra

The Hunger Games:

zutara and everlark parallels

zutara and everlark parallels (pt. 2)

gale's arc in the hunger games trilogy

the myth of humanity's inherent evil

the ending of lucy gray

Squid Game:

individualism under capitalism

the ethics of billionaires

[kp777]

By Nancy J. Altman and Danielle Deiseroth

Data for Progress

Sept. 28, 2024

When voters are informed that Harris supports increasing Social Security benefits, while Trump supports cutting them, Harris draws in an additional 4% of likely voters in a head-to-head race against Trump.

Social Security is a top issue for voters in the 2024 election. It is especially key for older Americans, who vote at higher rates than their younger counterparts. Indeed, for the 67 million current beneficiaries, their families, and the millions more working families approaching retirement age, Social Security is a bread-and-butter issue.

Donald Trump understands the politics of Social Security and the risk it poses to his campaign. He is distracting from his history of supporting benefit cuts by promising to end the taxation of benefits (along with many other phony promises of tax cuts) and lying about undocumented immigrants receiving Social Security. His campaign is flooding Pennsylvania and other swing states with pro-Trump and anti-Harris mailers, as well as TV ads, about Social Security.

Voters have shown that they will support the candidate who fights to protect and strengthen Social Security.

The best way for the Harris campaign to counteract the Trump narrative on Social Security is by pouring resources into a narrative of its own: Kamala Harris is fighting to strengthen Social Security by requiring billionaires to contribute their fair share, while Donald Trump will slash Social Security (as he has tried to do in the past) if he returns to the White House.

Data for Progress’ polling demonstrates that Social Security should be a winning issue for Democrats, as their policies on Social Security align with the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans. Seventy-four percent of likely voters want to increase Social Security benefits, while only 2% want to cut them.

Kamala Harris agrees. According to her campaign website:

“Vice President Harris will protect Social Security and Medicare against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and his extreme allies. She will strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the long haul by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes. She will always fight to ensure that Americans can count on getting the benefits they earned.”

And yet, with only weeks to go before the election, most voters are unaware of where the parties stand on this crucial issue. Only 22% of voters say that they know “a lot” about the Democratic and Republican plans for Social Security, and one-third of voters know “nothing at all.”

Even when directly asked about Harris’ position, less than half of voters are aware of her support for strengthening Social Security. Just as importantly, only 44% percent of voters know that Trump has supported cutting benefits.

While these figures are alarming, they also present the Harris campaign with a massive opportunity to inform, energize, and mobilize voters by making Social Security a key election issue.

The best way for the Harris campaign to counteract the Trump narrative on Social Security is by pouring resources into a narrative of its own.

When voters are informed that Harris supports increasing Social Security benefits, while Trump supports cutting them, Harris draws in an additional 4% of likely voters in a head-to-head race against Trump.

Voters have shown that they will support the candidate who fights to protect and strengthen Social Security. During the 2022 midterms, Democrats in swing districts won by campaigning on strengthening Social Security. Data from AARP found that older voters in swing districts backed Democrats by a 3-point margin, defying the stereotype of seniors as a conservative voting bloc. This happened because Democrats hammered home their commitment to Social Security, and voters responded.

The Harris campaign is making significant progress in reaching out to seniors on drug prices, and a similar focus is needed with regards to Social Security. If the campaign can break through the noise, voters will know that Kamala Harris is the only candidate fighting for seniors.

[phoenixyfriend]

[squints at the MCU] Tony Stark has displayed more ability to weather interrogation and torture than Steve Rogers.

This is "(displayed more)(ability)," not "(displayed)(more ability)," to be clear.

(I know fiction’s depiction of torture is famously propagandafied, but in this case, it’s not about torture for information so much as physical traumas shown on screen.)

(Anyway, have a rant I did on discord the other day.)

It's not really so much about "resisted the urge to hand over information" as "survived a truly harrowing experience and still came out of it trying to do good."

Tony's very first movie involves getting repeatedly drowned while in constant pain from bomb injuries as a civilian contractor, and I… don't think I can remember anything even a little similar with Steve

I don't think he's ever been captured for long before breaking out? All his injuries are in active battle, not torture.

Like... Steve went through something horrible with the ice and losing Bucky, nobody can argue that. But I think it's very telling, sometimes, that movie Steve, especially 2012 movie Steve, is completely unaware of the absolute nightmare that Tony experienced in his solo movies.

I have so many feelings about Tony Stark being the epitome of "guy who was raised and manipulated into being a bad person by someone he trusted, and (after a horrible experience) attempts to be a better person, constantly and consistently, even if he sometimes fucks up in the execution."

And the way that some fics elide his experiences in cleaning up other people's messes (first Obadiah's, then Howard's) and how that doubtlessly compounded his many neuroses from fixing messes that he did actually create himself is just

I have a lot of feelings

And am also feeling a little bitter and salty about how Tony Stark's MCU incarnation reportedly took some inspo from Elon Musk... and a little petty and satisfied about just how drastically we've all be shown that Musk can never live up to the idea of 'billionaire with inherited wealth who actually, without hesitation, risks his own life to save millions' that he tried to use PR to achieve in the media with 'my electric cars are gonna save the world' stunts about things he didn't actually have a hand in inventing

I'm just reading some fics I really enjoyed when I was still in the YA fandom, and there was a reference to a line Steve said in the movies and I started thinking (again) about how frequently fans take lines from Steve or Sam about Tony as gospel, because they haven't seen Tony's movies, and the lines from the star spangled boys are contextually meant to show that they don't know jackshit about Tony or his life, because they are directly contradicted by multiple prior films.

Also like... how often Steve's traumas get explored (in fic) in a way that Tony's just... don't? At most, his issues about Howard get explored, but that's it.

There's this moment in CACW that people take as Accurate and it infuriates me.

Tony Stark: [Back in the cell.] Just look. Because that is the fellow who was supposed to interrogate Barnes. [He shows a holographic image of Doctor Broussard.] Clearly, I made a mistake. Sam, I was wrong. Sam Wilson: That's a first.

Which, like... it's a bad movie. Obviously. But also

That line is immediately followed by Tony revealing that he's here to help the others and is sabotaging the security to make sure Ross can't take advantage, and yet fanfic still uses Sam's quote to promote anti-Tony agendas!

And 'Tony admits he fucked up' is. Like. Listen to me

Tony's first solo movie is fixing Obadiah's machinations. *

His second solo movie is fixing his Dad's fuckup.

His first team movie is fixing Thor's mistakes.

His third solo movie is fixing something that is only tangentially his fault.

It's not until AoU that the fuck-up is really his and his alone (well, not counting Bruce), and even then, even then, a massive portion of the blame is narratively laid at Wanda's feet!

And only then do we get this man, who has spent five movies seeing what happens when people don't take responsibility for their actions, or have anyone riding them to be ethical, who has criticized himself for neither having that oversight nor providing that oversight for people who snuck shit under his nose, that is when we get Tony weighing in on the side of "most countries on the planet are agreeing with this and it's for a reason, please work with me here, maybe we can get some of it rolled back to be less authoritarian and more reasonable."

* and removing himself from the military industrial complex he was raised and groomed to be in, but that's a system and not an individual act or a set 'villain'

Or as @firebirdeternal put it:

I would say that his first solo movie does have a large element of fixing his own mistakes too, it's just that his "mistake" was Trusting the Wrong Person and not taking personal responsibility for how his actions are affecting the world. (Which, he immediately does upon coming back from being captured? "We're going to immediately stop making weapons, because it's making the world worse" and then when Obadiah cuts him out of the company he goes "Oh. Okay no that didn't work, have to personally fix all this then.") and yeah it's just Tony have plenty of reasons to be on the side of "Someone needs to have oversight over this"

IM1 is such a good exploration of someone in privilege saying "this stops now" in a situation where they do have control because they have been confronted with their mistakes in a way that's unavoidable

It's also like, a great example of the fantasy of the Super Hero. Because Tony Stark, the businessman, even with all his wealth and knowledge, isn't able to stop the systemic harm being caused by His Own Company. One person isn't able to do that, even with the best of intentions. It isn't until he becomes something else, something more, a Super Hero, that he's able to make any kind of meaningful change on his own. Like IM1 is just a phenomenal movie. It understood it's subject material so incredibly well.

And people skip it and then take Steve and Sam at their word about Tony's strength of character and moral convictions and I scream.

THIS MAN FLEW A NUKE INTO A WORMHOLE WITH THE FULL EXPECTATION THAT HE WAS GOING TO DIE

Yeah, like, that Jump on the Grenade mentality is something that he and Steve actually literally share.

They both had 'jump on the explosive to save people' moments in their introductory movies.

I find so much more strength and inspiration in stories like Thor and Tony, where they are inherently fuck-ups and were shitty people and they are trying so damn hard to be better, which is more Tony than Thor really, but both of them and their first movies are just. I find that more inspiring than Steve or T'Challa or any other hero who was already a good person and just Became Great.

Tell me about the person who has to struggle to find that moral choice. Tell me about Natasha dragging herself from her oceans of blood and Tony fighting the government over whether they have the rights to use weapons he's created and about Thor having to reckon with his family's power being born of imperialistic ravaging of other cultures.

I want to hear about the people for whom being good is hard and a choice they don't have to make, but then they make it anyway.

Also I stand by "I am Iron Man. [infinity snap]" being the most amazing bookend the MCU could have done and probably the best part of the Endgame.

[sindri42]

What is capitalism if private ownership and monopolization are out

This is about the insulin thing, right? Let me walk you through the steps.

The current situation is, there are three big corporations making insulin. They make it for super cheap, like $2 a dose or something including packaging and distribution and all that jazz, but they know that people need this stuff in order to not die, so there's no reason to restrain themselves as far as pricing goes. So they sell the stuff for like $500 a vial, earning a tidy 25,000% profit, because what are customers gonna do, not buy it?

In a capitalist system, this is a huge opportunity for anybody with a few thousand in seed money and a smidge of ambition. The process of making insulin is hardly a secret. I might not have the economy of scale going and I need a big up-front investment for equipment, but even if it costs me five times as much per dose to produce the stuff, that's still less than 2% of the current market price. So I start making and distributing the stuff for $10 a vial, and selling it for $400, and all the customers see that they can get the same product for $100 less so they stop buying from those three big companies and start buying from my startup. Then a month later, somebody else comes along with the same idea but undercuts me, and I lose all my customers to sombody willing to sell the stuff for $350, but that's fine I just change all my labels to sell for $300 and they come rushing back, and I'm still making $290 pure profit on every vial. Fast forward a couple years, and the market price of insulin is like, $12 a vial tops, because if you try to get profit margins any bigger than that you're the most expensive option and nobody buys from you. There was never any altruism involved in that process, no magic, no glorious savior who figured out a way to impose their will upon the world in order to save lives, just ordinary greedy humans fighting each other to make more money for themselves, but the end result is that the people who need this stuff to survive get it for a tiny fraction of what they used to be paying.

In the system that we're actually using, the three big corporations go to the government with three big suitcases full of cash, and the government passes a law that says anybody who tries to make insulin who isn't one of the three big corporations goes directly to prison forever. All the competition vanishes, and without the risk of somebody selling the same product for less they're able to keep raising the price as much as they want. I mean, if you get up to the point where the majority of your customers literally can't buy it anymore and they die then you have fewer customers, so going up into the millions per vial would be counterproductive, but as long as the majority of people who need insulin can just barely scrape together enough, you maximize your profits. And all it costs is widespread human suffering and a few surprisingly affordable bribes.

And then here's the really funny part: the corporations that benefit most from government interference in the market? They're the ones that fund all the media that convinces kids that the solution to all their problems is to give the government even more control over every aspect of life. They're the ones who pushed the narrative that 'libertarian' is synonymous with 'pedophile'. They're the ones who bury stories about corrupt politicians so you never question how a congressman can have a salary under $200,000 a year, go into the position with a net worth of a million dollars, and come out eight years later as a billionaire. Almost every "anti-capitalist" movement out there, if you follow the chain of evidence back, is funded directly by the corporations it claims to oppose, because shifting the balance of power further away from the individual and more toward the State means more profit for the people who are in a position to manipulate the state.

Now, this isn't to say that a free market is without problems. If there was zero regulation of the production of insulin, then a particularly unethical person could undercut the legitimate sources by making a loose approximation of the product people need for much cheaper by using dangerous or ineffective methods, and then sell it at prices that legitimate manufacturers can't compete with because the purchase price is lower than the manufacturing price. Which means that when you buy insulin, you would need to do your own research into who's got a reputation for quality, and there would be people who straight up die because they decided to go for the $4-6 "insulin" instead of the $12-15 insulin. But I'm pretty sure that would still be better than the only option being $500.

[eclecticwordblender]

south korea is a terribly misogynistic country and that the hate the korean entertainment industry receives stems from the fact that society loves to hate on anything with a predominantly women led fanbase and likes to diminish it as anti-intellectual fluff are two narratives that can and should exist simultaneously btw.

taylor swift is a billionaire and therefore a morally wrong person and her music is mediocre at best and that she receives disproportionate hatred just because she is a rich and powerful woman with a women led fanbase and nothing she does warrants misogynistic hatred are also two narratives and can and should exist simultaneously btw.

[haleviyah]

Explain the logic.

For context, this user is an Anti-Zionist and we have a history for the past few months since October. He has resorted to calling me a "demon" multiple times just for poking holes in his narratives this is one of them. I have lovingly given him the nickname "Messiah" because he firmly believes he is never wrong yet nails himself in the foot.

He likes to demonise Israel while also claiming to be friends with Jews (I highly doubt that). This time around he is asking where all the money towards Gaza went. I responded by showing the net worth of Hamas leaders shown below:

It shouldn't take a genius to figure it out where that cash went.

I then asked, "If these men truely cared, why haven't they come to Gaza." I mean, they had nine months going on ten to figure out a game plan no?

His response: Blaming Netanyahu and pointing at a destroyed airport. Alright, but that doesn't answer the question does it? He's just playing the blame game at this point. So I asked again,

"Where are they? If they cared for the cause, where are they?"

His response:

Mine, and hopefully the final:

(pardon any misspellings on both our parts, but you get the point.)

It's true, the Escobar empire back in the 80s started off on a few thousand and grew to millions by smuggling drugs and people over MULTIPLE borders - it was a global network that started off in Colombia.

Yet, BILLIONAIRES for Gaza's cause cannot figure out how to come over ONE BORDER and meet with the people or let alone send food and water.

The point I am making is I know a cowardly leader when I see one, and Gaza unfortunately is subject to said cowards. They are only in it for the money and looking righteous, but never truly giving their cut of the shares to the people.

Explain this logic here? Who's really the "demon"?

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

I just wanted to speak out/rant if thats fine.

Taylor is a billionaire. She is white. She came from a rich family. She has fans that would literally clean up her crimes if she asked them to.

It's almost ridiculous how some fans portray her as 'a saviour', 'sinless, sweet girl'. Mind you, she in her mind 30s.

I love Taylor's music and the persona she has up for the media but you can't deny that she isn't all that very truthful.

She herself said that anti hero and midnights as a whole is one of her most honest and truthful works yet. She clearly states in antihero that she is narcissist who disguises it as altruism, she indirectly said that she does twist the narrative. Despite her confessing this herself (a few) swifties will defend her yet again for miniscule matters.

I am not a Taylor anti and probably never will be but I accept that media can easily be falsified. It baffles me how rare media literacy is nowadays.

This is a safe space for ranting sweet anon. I agree with you, especially on your point about how strange it is that her fans insist on the narrative that she's a saint despite the fact that she admits to having flaws. For example, on anti-hero she references her narcissism and on Getaway Car she confesses to being in a PR relationship and cheating.

Also strange how they infantilise a 34 year old woman so that they can perceive her as the epitome of faultless. However, it seems like she's happy to go along with it. After all, she profits from her cult and their blind fanaticism.

This narrative is pushed by a lack media critical thinking (and media literacy as point out) as well as wilful ignorance. It's easier to feed into a culture of celebrity worshipping and extreme parasocial relationships.

It's frustrating to witness this toxic stan culture so feel free to rant about it whenever you need <3

[hollow-keys]

I think a lot of people don't get that superheroes don't often have the morality of online leftist. They will see Batman go guns bad. Donate to charity. No killing. And assume his anti killing rules are routed in leftist ideology.

This isn't true. He supports state sanctioned killing in many comics. He is anti-vigilante killing. And on occasion even against self defense killing.

In Batman #420 Bruce locks KG Beast in a storage room and leaves him there to either find a way to escape himself or die (not seeming to care which, honestly if I am remembering correctly leaning towards death) but in Batman #422 he condemns Judy Koslosky's self defense killing of a serial killer who had already killed her sister because she lured him into attempting to kill her by following him around and glaring at him. Both give the villains the opportunity to survive KG Beast has to escape and Karl just has to resist the temptation to try to murder a woman.

There is Batman: The Hill where he defends the GCPD killing a 14 year old with a gun as necessary but in Batman: Under the Hood he condemns the death of Captain Nazi. This isn't the most leftist character in the world. Leftists don't tend to be okay with cops killing kids but against killing Nazis. It tends to be the other way around. I read Batman: The Hill and I do think the cops used undue force and should have at least attempted deescalation in that situation.

There is a lot to say about the vague morals of the characters. Batman does a lot for charity but he definitely classist in a lot of his appearances. Characters can be complex and imperfect. Just because he cares about people in poverty doesn't mean he doesn't look down on them.

Also the whole 'violently beat people okay' and 'child sidekick okay' because genre convention while killing bad. It's like . . . killing is also present in superhero comics? Deadpool, Wolverine, Crimson Avenger, the Spectre . . . killing is also part of the genre. It has nuance to it. But heroes have killed at least on occasion since the very beginning.

Yes, you get it! People on here take "doesn't kill/believes in redemption" to be inherently proof of support of rehabilitative justice and leftism when... it isn't lol. I've yapped about superheroes and copaganda before here (I think it's a good post, I'm proud of it) so I'll try not to repeat myself too much but a conservative can believe in people's ability to change and not killing or whatever while still supporting the structures of the police and prisons, still believing that people should be arrested and serve time, even the rest of their lives. And that's what people don't get.

The word cop has been so twisted by this site that people use it to mean "anyone who judges me" or "anyone I don't like." It's used to describe individual behaviour the person has a problem with which ends up obfuscating the fact that a cop isn't defined by their personal ideology or what type of violence they commit, they're defined by the fact they commit violence to uphold the state's power. Their personal thoughts and opinions can make them worse, more violent and more oppressive, but personal opinions do not change what they are. Batman is a paramilitary state operative, not a radical leftist. I'm sorry.

And yeah the charity defense also misunderstands the point because conservatives donate to charity all the time. Charity is used by the rich to launder their reputations. They give a tiny fraction of their wealth back to the people so people don't question the rest of their wealth. Narratively, this works the same way so writers can go "See! He tries helping people via kindness but Gotham is innately corrupt and people just choose to be evil here so of course he has to dress up as a bat every night." Narratively, his charity exists so the writers can justify why he has to be Batman and to make him look better. If he really meant to help people with his money, he wouldn't be a billionaire anymore.

You're right about killing being present in the genre since since forever. Not as consistently as other things, but still present for sure. People defend violence they enjoy as "just part of the genre" but condemn violence they don't as bad and wrong.

I support hitting superheroes with the leftist beam but the fact of the matter is that most aren't in text and Batman even less so than others.

And you can dislike this. Batman is a character who's been through a million different incarnations and interpretations and you can latch on to more liberal, understanding incarnations or make up your own but you cannot defend main universe Bruce by pretending he's something he's not.

Thanks for the ask!

[transmutationisms]

hi caden, i love your blog. you completely changed my understanding of succession when i first stumbled upon your writing. i wanted to ask what you thought of the use of pete seeger's 'which side are you on?' in season 1. it is one of the only overt gestures towards anticapitalist politics in the show and maybe the only one that comes to mind where the show calls in in other media (because one of the only other times that i can think of is ewan's anticapitalist lawyer) so it feels more 'real' to me, if that makes sense, because 'which side are you on?' has had a real-world role in anticapitalist politics in a way that ewan's lawyer has not lmao. i was wondering what you thought of that choice narratively/stylistically/etc. thank you! hope you're well.

hi! honestly, i read that as one of the most cynical moments in the entire show. the whole premise of the seeger song is that there's an inside and an outside to capitalist class interests: you'll either be a union man or a thug for jh blair. so, choosing a side makes an actual difference: are you defending or opposing capitalist class interests? with kendall and the vote of no confidence, obviously, there is no analogous choice. kendall and logan are both fighting for the same thing, namely control of the company. picking one of them over the other does nothing to alter the underlying power structures the way unions do, or are supposed to. the song pokes fun at kendall for having styled himself a revolutionary in order to make his media conglomerate power grab.

narratively and stylistically, i find this scene intensely satisfying. lines like "come all of you good workers" playing over footage of a billionaire wandering wall street are an extremely effective way to convey both how removed kendall's world is from that of struggling kentuckian miners, and how kendall is trapped by his own outrageous wealth and inability to imagine an escape from the company or his father. it's not an entirely unsympathetic sequence, but it's certainly not a flattering one. the joke here is that kendall wants to engage in the picture-book heroics of taking down the big evil boss, but he has no interest in why that boss exists in the first place. so, unlike striking miners, he's simply trying to maintain the same class structure but with himself at the very top of the hierarchy. even being logan's son and very much a member of the capitalist class isn't enough for kendall; he needs the actual ceo position. that he sees this as a way out of his father's abuse and control, rather than an avenue to his own perpetration of the same things, is indicative of how little he thinks of anyone besides himself and logan as a person with interests and needs.

the contrast between the shiny new glass and bustle of manhattan, versus the old-recording sound of the song, also points to some way in which union politics from the 1930s tend to falter when confronting the labour laws and practices of the 21st century. gig economies, cyberspatial capital, &c don't speak exactly the same language as unions modelled on organising tactics of nearly a century ago; kendall thus looks doubly absurd, trying to fancy himself not just a rebelling worker but one whose strategies simply seem incommensurable with the functioning of a modern media conglomerate (in deleuzian or foucauldian terms, the labour union is an effective strategy when dealing with a disciplinary society with disciplinary workspaces, like a factory; if it is to achieve anything in the control society with its corporations and neoliberalisation, it needs to update its tactics).

politically this is a good example of how the show typically leans more on satire of capitalism than on active or positive engagement with anti-capitalism. i also remember that the first time i watched the show, this was one of the moments where i felt like it was clear how the general trajectory for these characters is going to go. kendall is always going to pursue logan's empire; he's never going to seek a way out, and his actualisation, which is loganification, will always come at the expense of countless unnamed other people. he will never get the victorious moment he dreams of because his narratives for understanding the world are extremely limited and simplistic, and he can only cast himself as a few heroic archetypes that don't exist and that certainly wouldn't be him if they did.

for me this sequence is emblematic of both the show's strengths and what many leftists ultimately find frustrating about it, namely its refusal to engage with anti-capitalism beyond using it to mock the capitalist class. the song ends up telling us a lot about kendall and his relationship with logan, but isn't really trying to link the show up with actual alternatives to the capitalist systems of control that pen kendall in. it's a gesture toward awareness of proletarians (like the shots scattered through the show of domestic workers, event staff, &c) but is ultimately limited by the pov characters' own refusal to think about such people in any sustained capacity. again, i think this works incredibly well and succinctly as a piece of character work for a billionaire; but for people who want the show to engage more directly with labour politics and anti-capitalism, rather than such character study (& i can certainly understand that position), it's also a moment that sums up the fundamental problems of the premise and the writers' overall approach to politics.

[jewish-sideblog]

As someone who believes in horseshoe theory (not entirely because politics is way too complicated to simplify into that), I’ve always seen it as less of a thing about people’s actual beliefs, and more the structures of those beliefs, and the way they go about them, if that makes sense

So like, the alt/far left has this fantasy of some kind of violent revolution, where we not only dismantle or reform corrupt systems, but we also brutally slaughter people that are deemed as too privileged or having the wrong views, and I think that’s very similar to how the alt right’s endgame seems, especially the evangelical right. These types of people never want to actually make small changes that will progress us to the point of a better society, they just expect to wake up suddenly and society is being toppled. Like, isn’t that just the rapture, but dressed up in leftist clothing? Idk. There’s also this mentality on the alt left that capitalism is caused by billionaires and people like that, instead of the other way around, and that we can get rid of capitalism just by getting rid of those people. I am anti capitalist and very anti billionaire, it’s just that I see capitalism is a deeply ingrained societal issue that’s not caused by specifically people, only exploited by them. The idea that there’s a select few behind a huge part of our world is a right wing Jew hating talking point, but it’s something I see a lot of the far left embrace

Also, the behaviours of the alt left tend to mirror the alt right. Calling everything that doesn’t fit their narrative propaganda, conspiracy theories that everyone outside of the bubble can see are bullshit but they are convinced are real, that cult like mentality of ‘if you say or do anything that goes against what we believe, then you’re just as evil as Nazis/the people who want to topple society (I don’t know right wing terms lol). I mean, they’re literally sharing neonazi slurs now (the number of leftists I’ve seen using ‘zio’ is shocking)

I don’t know, I’m a leftist (or at least someone who agrees that human rights are maybe a teeny tiny bit important compared to money, you know), but I’m also very critical of the current state of the left, especially the far left. I want us to build a much better world than what we have now, and I don’t think any kind of extremist ideology is not going to improve it

Yup. 100%. I still consider myself a leftist too-- at least, I'm trying to-- but the current state of the left is hyper-radicalized, hyper-polarized, and severely under educated.

[rei-ismyname]

X-MEN - MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

A lot of X-Men, indeed a lot of Marvel characters, have transformations, alter egos, symbiotes, etc that cause trouble. Jean Grey has the Phoenix, Angel has Archangel, Malice takes over a lot of women (Dazzler, Sue Storm, Rogue, Mirage, Betsy Braddock, and many more), Gambit has Death, Magik and Darkchilde. That short list is really only scratching the surface. So many heroes get transformed or similar once and once it's defeated or overcome it becomes an ongoing trial for them.

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin made a deal with Cyttorak of Crimson Bands fame for the power of JUGGERNAUT once, for reasons I don't recall right now. I always thought it was a bit of a boring choice tbh - his angsting over being a big dumb monster isolated from the things he loves is already a thing he does. Sure it was fun here and there but it was more of a 'struggling with the Dark Side' thing and Cyttorak didn't have all that much power over him. I think a better choice for a recurring alter ego would have been....

THE PROLETARIAN - WORKER'S HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION! With Vladimir Lenin's face on the chest of his sinister communist red overalls and everything. Obviously the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore but that's even better IMO. What does the Proletarian do after the Cold War ends and capitalism has 'won'? Siezes the MFing means of production for the people, that's what! Does he smash the X-Men too? Probably, they are definitely neoliberal bootlickers who are allied with several billionaires, and while they're not as bad as the Avengers they have an awful lot of faith in the USA as an institution despite it constantly trying to kill them.

Obviously this would never happen. Stan Lee was very anti communist, even if he didn't know a damn thing about it, and Marvel has remained so to this day. More broadly, a century of McCarthyism and Red Scare messaging has done some serious damage. Also, Marvel just does not do anything other than the most milquetoast liberal politics. Anything else is mocked and defeated by the narrative itself. Personally, I think that would make it even more interesting, as being committed to any form of anti capitalism to any degree is soul crushing while living under it.

I'd do anything for a Colossus solo where he interrogates his relationship with Communism, because the man is a true believer despite often defending capitalist interests (as far as he's shown to believe anything.)

This question, for instance. Does his power belong to the state? Xavier handwaves it by saying it belongs to the world (AKA his interests) but it's never truly touched on again. Krakoa would have been a great opportunity, a mostly moneyless society that already had bartering and mutual aid happening. Not everyone's needs were met and plenty of people fell through the cracks - Colossus or The Proletarian would have been the perfect advocate.

It's Kurt and Legion who come closest to forming a commune without hierarchy, and Kurt was working on justice reform. Forge had global poverty and homelessness solved, but ORCHIS and The Fall of X put a stop to that. Lenin's Ghost!

Bring back The Proletarian, you cowards!

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

I do not have the expertise or knowledge to join in the chorus of people who are accusing JK Rowling of Holocaust denial. I’ve done part 1) of my goals with this piece and explained why people are making the accusation; she was objectively wrong about a historical fact in which the Nazis burnt research into trans healthcare. But any analysis as to whether this constitutes Holocaust denialism is, in my view, best left to the experts in that field. My expertise is in transphobia and the way it operates. I think JK Rowling’s social media activity over the last two days is an interesting case study into how bigotry constantly and confidently bullshits itself into believing it has successfully reasserted the narrative. When, in reality, any real inspection causes it to quickly fall apart. Throughout these tweets Rowling seemingly can’t give a direct response to anything put to her. The tweet that kicked off people making these accusations is unmistakeably her disagreeing with established historical fact about the burning of Institut für Sexualwissenschaft’s research. When presented with citations by Caraballo and others demonstrating the established historical facts regarding the burning of Hirschfeld’s Institute JK Rowling’s responses get increasingly further from the point. She moves the goalposts as facts are repeated to her, adding more conditions and hoops trans people need to prove and jump through for her to accept she was wrong in that first tweet. When this fails, she changes tactic to discrediting Hirschfeld, as if his shitty beliefs somehow make the burning of his Institute – and research into trans healthcare it contained – null and void. Then, you get the ending; the real anxiety the she was expressing reveals itself. In my view, this is demonstrated via the tweets where Rowling expresses the belief that trans people are inserting ourselves into history and centering things around us all the time. To my eyes, its just another form of the common anti-LGBTQIA+ trope of claiming we’re asking for too much in some regard. None of this was about historical facts. It wasn’t about the Nazis. It wasn’t about the Holocaust or any of its victims. It wasn’t about the research Magnus Hirschfeld led. It wasn’t about what a few random Twitter accounts said. It wasn’t about the lives of transgender people in early 1900s Germany. It was, in my opinion, just a bigot being upset that trans people aren’t quiet about our erasure from history. All just one big billionaire whine that we are asking for too much by insisting that our histories aren’t erased.

Gemma Stone, via TransWritesWorld, March 2024

[andreablog2]

I feel like more people in NYC need to be aware of Peter Thiel and the connections these downtown people have it’s lowkey a cult

It’s not even just “downtown nyc people” but from what I’ve read he’s funding things like a pronatalist.org, rumble/callin (video and podcast streaming services, that’s kind of becoming a less obvious Prageru), something to do w accelerationism, an antiwoke film festival, famously red scare, he also owns like the biggest net surveillance company which has been associated w the cia, was trumps political advisor, most likely a pedophile, breakout labs in sf which is this scientific research grant system that’s mainly focused on like… longevity science and so much more probably. It’s not even just him, billionaires are trying to streamline the discourse on online communities through mimetic warfare, he also has a company that grants money to people who want to write abt mimetic theory? …I guess that sort of discourse terraforming could translate into the cultural happenings of an actual geographic location….in this case “downtown nyc” just bc only a certain amount of artists can make it in a place like that and money from a billionaire probably helps. I’m sure he has something to do w indie sleaze too. But people into those rich person burgeoning art scenes that take space in perpetually gentrified neighborhoods aren’t necessarily known for their spines or integrity so I could see people being influenced by a substack alone which is crazy. The interests of gentrification and the interests of anti wokeness aren’t necessarily in opposition to one another. But his scope is larger than that trust fundian mapplethorpe idolist niche honestly. I’d love to hear more about what other cultural ventures he’s funding it’s kind of insane. I don’t even think he’s in charge of the narrative I think he’s still in bed w the cia honestly or he has some kind of agreement w whoever comes to him w their wishes for society?