#republicans are insane

[thefrankshow]

The filthiest Republican alive!

[heroesofcrash]

Not really a question, I just wanted to let you know that I was binging your comic and kind of liked it, but you couldn't stop interjecting your retarded, half-baked politics into the strip, so I had to give up on it. Too bad. Word of advice: when you're trying to build a following for your product, it probably isn't smart to piss off over half your potential audience. PS: Trump won.

Thank you for your concern.

I strongly believe in trying to not be offensive towards people, especially those who are often treated poorly by society. I try to be as kind and respectful to others as possible.

Here's the thing, though: I make an exception for Trump followers. Quite frankly, I don't give a blonde pig's hair about whether I offend you guys or not.

Trump's been perfectly happy to offend women, Mexicans, Jewish people, black people, Muslims, trans people, rape victims, POWs, grieving military families, and more with his words AND his legislation. Why should I care if my humble little comic offends him or the people who support his views? Perhaps you should do what you tell everyone else to do when they're "easily offended" and grow a thicker skin.

Furthermore, it's cute that you think Republicans are "over half my potential audience" because A: As I recall, Trump didn't win the popular vote. I think there's more liberals out there than conservatives, honestly. And B: I don't want anyone who's foolish or obnoxious enough to support Trump in my audience anyway. I especially know, as someone on the autistic spectrum, that I don't want a fan who casually uses "r*t*rded" as an insult.

Most importantly of all, my comic is my own personal outlet. It's how I express my humor, my creativity, my dreams, and my truth. And that includes my belief that Trump has been a terrible president and a terrible person, and that there's no excusing his cruelty, ignorance, egomania, or corruption. If you don't like it, tough.

P.S.: Trump lost the popular vote the first time, and lost the whole election the second time, and all his followers threw a baby tantrum and tried to stage a coup against the U.S. government. Trump's also no longer the president, and he's going to jail. Go cry about it, traitor.

[progressive-politico]

I Used To Be A Trump Supporter But The Left Saved Me And Made Me A Better Person And All I Can Say Is I Grew Up.

If You Feel Like You're Trapped And That There Is No Way Out I Just Want To Say That There's Always A Way Out And You Can Escape The Echo Chamber Because You Have Family And Friends That Love You And Care About You And That You Can Be Free From The Toxicity That The Right Has Brainwashed You Into.

[scottguy]

Republican greed has created insanity in the United States.

[thedepressedjuggalette]

Trump plans to ban contraceptives. I have PCOS and need the pill to keep my hormones in check, if that is taken away from me my life is gonna be hell.

[kobebibebi]

their digital footprint must be insane,,

[darthmatthewtwihard]

Ron DeSantis is a racist piece of trash.

"Only through history does a nation become truly conscious of itself." - Arthur Schopenhauer

DeSantis, a white racist, is no judge of what has educational value, for he only values his whiteness. Disgusting.

[novelconcepts]

I live in a neighborhood I generally regard as safe for queer people. I live in a city pretty well known for being progressive, liberal, open to minorities. I live in a place I actively chose because it felt safe for me, my wife, my queer siblings, my friends of color. A place where there are endless Love is Love placards, pro-science measures, pro-Gaza notices in public windows. A place I love dearly for all of these reasons.

There are still Trump signs here. There are still proud bigots, loudly announcing they’re going to vote for that piece of shit. Here. In my safe neighborhood, in my liberal city. Here, where I can’t not see them. Here, they are still trying like hell to take away democracy. My liberties. My safety. Everything I hold dear, every reason I moved here in the first place.

The polls don’t matter. The registration numbers only count if the registered actually come out when push comes to shove. Do not rest on your fucking “oh, it couldn’t happen again” laurels, do not get complacent. Do not let your guard down. Vote. It is more critical than ever.

[ferrarer17]

This man has completely lost his mind.

[thefrankshow]

Indeed.

[gayforcarstairsgirls]

Noah Schnapp is more powerful than the United States government

[monsterhugger]

i'll always prefer manga canon banana fish bc i think setting it in the 80s means there are a lot of things present that add to the story that are absent when it's set in the 2010s (homoerotic 80s action movie outfits, griffin being implied to have been drafted vs joining the military by choice, general lack of cell phones or computers usable by the general public, etc) but i think there's something to be explored in the idea that ash is going through all this during the AIDS crisis AND the satanic panic. like obviously there would be fallout in the 2010s but we get like two pages in the manga about the government's reaction to dino's operation being exposed and like. oh my god it would be fucking insane. it would be so much more fucking insane than we ever see

like i think yoshida made a very conscious decision to avoid mentioning any real politicians so the president is kind of this like. nebulous fictionalized US President character but like. imagine if it was fucking Reagan denouncing a pederasty ring with ties to the republican party. like. what even.

ash makes like one mention of "if i had [an STD] it would have spread through half of congress" and that hits like a ton of bricks. there were already cases of right-wing politicians found to be HIV+ from presumably consensual gay sex, imagine the added wrinkle of credible connections between the US government and a gay child trafficking ring. like. oh my god being gay in the banana fish universe would suck even more absolute shit

[evidenceof]

Source: Richard Winters, Band of Brothers Interview September 29, 2000

Interesting going through the records to see the version of Dick Winters' War which was something else entirely. After the war, he, in a meeting set up by Ambrose, touched base with the German Fallschirmjäger commander Friedrich Freiherr von der Heydte (misspelled in the transcript as "Vonder Hite"), whose company made contact with Easy in Carentan. The meeting and dialogue that followed solidified a few things for me especially after he described the enemy as a, "first-class enemy."

War to Dick, seemingly, was a war to be the best soldier, company, country—likened to a football game. And it shows so much in the writing of Band of Brothers, the eventual show, the corrections and correspondences he's had with all those involved in the narrative. Cutting down what could have been unflattering whether that's how his men reckoned with the war after the fact, or the hell the 101st paratroops raised while in between battles.

Source: Richard Winters, Band of Brothers Interview September 29, 2000

This is a long-ass post so the rest is under the cut if you want to swallow the All-American pill.

Source: Richard Winters, Band of Brothers Documentary Interview

This is isn't going to be a pretty picture at all, mind you. And I mean it's Dick, his blond hair blue-eyed, Christian, (Republican) All-American glory in Class As or a football jersey in the 1940s. His mindset followed suit: that of the White American (male) during the height of America's empire. Persecution for people like him was next to nothing, and a battle could be a battle to prove something to yourself. To have high regard for your enemy, actual Nazis, to regard them by their skill in battle and the neatness of their uniform and march is a take of like the highest privilege.

It echoes a lot in his choices, viewing the war as a battle for who can outclass the other, to prove they're best of the best; the best soldier. Him joining the paratroops with the idea that the doughboy and the run-of-the-mill infantry man wouldn't be the elite arm ("You volunteered and it was the notion that you wanted to do something in order to be with the best. [...] That's the kind of a guy I want to be with. They were in shape. Everything the did, they did it the double."). When he described his men, if he began it with an unappreciative tone about their behavior and conduct, is ended with, "but he was a great soldier on the field." Inefficiency was the enemy. German forces were just the tool to show you where you had holes in your line and which nationality could fight the war the best.

Up until the point of discovering the camp, as an officer, as himself, Dick saw the war as a number of objectives to take over successfully for the sake of the mission, for the sake of keeping his men alive. Only when they find the camp does it seem to really hit him, outside of his disgust for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, why they're fighting this war.

“You’ve never seen anything like this. It’s a complete shock. It just stumps every feeling of emotion that you have. The horror of it…you could never imagine anything like this. [...] Now I know why I am here!” - Dick re: the discovery of concentration camps as told in 'Hang Tough'

The much critiqued Ep. 9: Why We Fight circling on Nix (seeing Dick's irl reaction of him being happy his friend had a larger part in the series), followed by Ep 10 is such a fucking whiplash in tonality not just for the cheeriness of the last ep. But also in showing the atrocities of the concentration camp and then literally giving a platform to a German general talking about how they fought well, having LIEBGOTT OF ALL PEOPLE, to translate feels so deranged. Dick is able to view these the German troops for their individual action and functionality as a soldier instead of a collective ideology of hate and persecution. He then can't comprehend the anger Liebgott had (he tsks a lot about Joe's treatment of the Nazi POWs in the memoirs).

Source: Richard Winters, Band of Brothers Interview September 29, 2000

Dick cared for his men, (my god did he care so much for his men; this is a different conversation that I will yap about some other time), but a lot of the times I feel like compassion couldn't budge beyond that point of understanding. The horrors of the Axis forces were only reality to him if and when he saw them upfront: bombed towns, civilians shot down by 88s, concentration camps. Anything that edges outside that periphery is beyond the objective and therefore inconsequential. "To fight and be the best for the guy beside you in a foxhole," felt like a whole ethos that he carried with him and that propelled him forward.

Dick's view of the world and the war is very much aligned with the white America's vantage point at that time. Liberators, of what and for whom it wasn't always clear to them within the confines of the American logo map that we know America to be today—what mattered was that they were the Good Guys, Victory Joe. They liberated, they did not take. And it ties up so, so neatly for the narrative of Tom Hanks and Co propaganda. What else is there to do after a football game but to shake hands with the opponent?

[prncssguya]

if you hear a phrase like “gun violence is now the leading cause of death for american children” and can just go about your day and not feel an ounce of rage or shame, something is incredibly wrong with you