#the new robber barons

[saessenach]

We're settled where we should be.

Bertha & George Russell in Never The New, episode 1 of The Gilded Age

[ultralaser]

# [me from former socialist Yugoslavia: bro do you really thing communism is the only answer anyone can accept?] # I don't hate american communists in theory # it's in the 'family' of political stances where I can mostly assume people have good intentions # but some of them... do not want to address historical horrors caused by that system

companies really have got to be okay with stagnant profits. what is wrong with earning the same amount every year? why does it always have to be more? it’s not sustainable. there are only so many people on the planet you can profit from 😭

[ablogofcourage]

[kickerofelves]

From The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro

[naomifranq]

Marmalade (2024): making art for set dressing

Two years ago, I got an email from Kiwi Smith (the writer of the comic series, MISFIT CITY, that I illustrated for BOOM!). She introduced me to the actor, writer, and director Keir O'Donnell who was in need of some sketches for an upcoming film of his. The request? Sketchbook pages from the hand of Otis (Aldis Hodge) as he sketches and takes notes on the mysterious Marmalade, the bank-robber and love interest of his prison cell-mate Baron (Joe Keery).

I'd never done something like this before, but his prop master was pretty straight-forward with what they needed. Ultimately, I only had to draw two pages of new sketches specifically of Marmalade-specific content. The rest of it consists of old sketches I'd already worked up over time (some of which you may recognize from past sketch dumps).

The goal was to make them look like real pen, ink, and pencil so I had to get creative in Clip Studio. I gave them the sketches mostly separated so they could cut, paste, and arrange them in the prop as they needed. They merged some, omitted others, and the end result looks amazing to me. Never thought I'd get to see Joe Keery tenderly brushing his fingers against my art, but here we are.

What's funnier is how many of the extra sketches I included were sketches of my OCs and D&D characters. Since Aldis Hodge had to pretend to be the one drawing these, I hope he liked the material!

Either way, it was so fun watching this movie with my friends and cheering like it was a contact sport whenever my art showed up LOL. Always grateful to have pals who are excited to gas me up.

For more sketches, check out my Patreon where I've shared these and more for free, open access!

[socialjusticeinamerica]

12 minute YouTube video. President Biden warns of a Tech Bros Oligarchy, the erosion of democracy, a new gilded age, robber Barons having an office in the Capitol, and calls for SCOTUS term limits.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The Rage and Glee That Followed a C.E.O.’s Killing Should Ring All Alarms

"The concentration of extreme wealth in the United States has recently surpassed that of the Gilded Age. And the will among politicians to push for broad public solutions appears to have all but vanished. I fear that instead of an era of reform, the response to this act of violence and to the widespread rage it has ushered into view will be limited to another round of retreat by the wealthiest. Corporate executives are already reportedly beefing up their security. I expect more of them to move to gated communities.... Almost certainly, armed security entourages and private jets will become an even more common element of executive compensation packages, further removing routine contact between the extremely wealthy and the rest of us, except when employed to serve them."

--Zeynep, Tufekci, professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

This is a gift 🎁 link, so you can read the whole insightful article by Zynep Tufekci, a Princeton sociologist. She discusses the "avalanche" of rage against the insurance industry that this shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson evoked on social media:

I’ve been studying social media for a long time, and I can’t think of any other incident when a murder in this country has been so openly celebrated. The conditions that gave rise to this outpouring of anger are in some ways specific to this moment. Today’s business culture enshrines the maximization of executive wealth and shareholder fortunes, and has succeeded in leveraging personal riches into untold political influence. New communication platforms allow millions of strangers around the world to converse in real time. [emphasis added]

[See more under the cut.]

Tufekci describes how income inequality today has exceeded that of the Gilded Age, during which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, etc. (i.e., the "Robber Barons") was amassed. Referring to the Gilded Age, Tufekci commented:

Less well remembered is the brutality that underlay that wealth — the tens of thousands of workers, by some calculations, who lost their lives to industrial accidents, or the bloody repercussions they met when they tried to organize for better working conditions. Also less well remembered is the intensity of political violence that erupted. The vast inequities of the era fueled political movements that targeted corporate titans, politicians, judges and others for violence. [emphasis added]

Slowly but surely, over time, reform occurred. Tufekci says:

The turbulence and violence of the Gilded Age eventually gave way to comprehensive social reform. The nation built a social safety net, expanded public education and erected regulations and infrastructure that greatly improved the health and well-being of all Americans. [emphasis added]

Tufekci is worried that the U.S., a nation that is "awash in powerful guns," may be entering a new violent era. She fears that the national response to today's income inequality and corporate exploitation will unfortunately not be the kinds of reforms that happened previously--reforms that limited how much corporations (and their wealthy owners/ CEOs) could exploit labor, consumers & the environment.

What Tufekci implies, but doesn't state, is the reason those kinds of reforms won't happen is because nearly half of the country, riled up by right-wing media, elected Trump--a greedy corporate billionaire--to take away their economic pain.

So of course Trump has enlisted two other billionaires, Musk and Ramaswamy to demolish labor protections, business regulations and the social safety net--the very reforms that helped average citizens avoid the worst labor exploitation and economic problems of the Gilded Age.

In doing so, Trump and the billionaire oligarchs working with him are setting the nation up for disaster.

These billionaires who believe that anything that helps corporations (and the wealthy who own or run them) flourish, seem to have completely forgotten that AI is now finally taking off. and in its wake many people (including those in technical fields and management) will be laid off.

But by that time, there will be little or no social safety net for them to fall back on.

Unfortunately, there will be lots of AR-15s laying around.

Wait until the working and middle classes FINALLY realize they've been had by Trump and the billionaire oligarchs.

The violence of the Gilded Age will be nothing in comparison.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Although Biden, Harris, and Waltz are all friends to labor, Trump is set to trash labor regulations if he returns to office as part of his war on government regulatory agencies. Furthermore, according to WaPo, it now appears that Trump is thinking of creating a commission, headed by top business executives like Elon Musk, to audit U.S. agencies, and to make recommendations about which programs to cut.

Given Musk's anti-union, anti-labor record, it is likely he would put programs that enforce labor regulations on the chopping block--as would probably most of the top business executives that Trump might appoint to this commission.

Trump wants to put the New Robber Barons in charge of a commission to cut government programs.

What could possibly go wrong?

Image source

According to The Washington Post:

Behind closed doors, former president Donald Trump and his advisers have been talking for months about forming a commission led by prominent business executives to comb through the government books to identify thousands of programs to cut. [...] On several occasions... [Elon Musk,] the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has expressed interest in being part of a “government efficiency commission” aimed at eliminating wasteful regulations and spending. Musk in August posted an apparently artificial intelligence-generated image of himself behind a lectern labeled “Department of Government Efficiency,” with the acronym DOGE — a meme-based cryptocurrency Musk has previously embraced.

But having big executives like Musk on such a commission raises conflict of interest questions. According to The Washington Post:

“It raises questions that the commission’s focus is on saving taxpayer dollars, but you have someone potentially involved whose company is one of the biggest recipients of federal spending,” said Anna Massoglia, a money in politics expert at the nonprofit organization OpenSecrets. “Cracking down on government waste and abuse is important, but we also need to have accountability mechanisms so private sector actors involved in this kind of program can’t manipulate it for personal gain.”

Trump is systematically selling off access to power to billionaires in exchange for campaign contributions. This should be a HUGE story in the MSM, but sadly, it isn't.

On this Labor Day, we might want to remind our working class relatives and friends who support Trump, that he's planning on putting greedy business tycoons on a commission to recommend which government programs to cut. Do they really think that these New Robber Barons won't recommend cutting programs that enforce labor rights and protections?

Labor Day typically signals the end of summer and the start of a new school year. But every four years, this weekend marks the stretch run of the presidential election. This campaign season has already seen several surprises, and with eight weeks left, more are likely to come.

The past four years has seen an increase in union activity. More young workers have rediscovered the empowerment of being union members. Labor markets remain tight, a relatively strong economy has put teeth back in collective bargaining efforts and the threat of work stoppages is again an option available to workers.

Union members know what is at stake this election. The Biden administration has been a strong advocate for the labor movement. Union workers and their contributions have been an integral part of all of his key pieces of legislation. That would certainly continue under Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

President Joe Biden is the only president in history to walk an active picket line with striking workers, demonstrating that he backs up his words with action.

Good Labor Day news: Young workers driving union activism. We need them to keep momentum.

[robertreich]

Bezos and Musk Vs. Workers

Two of the world’s richest men want to end unions once and for all. 

Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Amazon are both arguing in court that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional on the grounds that it combines judicial and executive functions.

The NLRB is the agency that supervises union organizing and collective bargaining as established by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 — a cornerstone of FDR’s New Deal that guarantees the right of workers to organize. It is, in effect, the referee of labor management relations.

If Bezos and Musk get their way, two of the richest people in the world will have gutted the enforcement of labor laws designed to protect the right of average workers to unionize. Corporations could fire employees who try to organize, without any repercussions. It could also be a death knell to unions that already exist.

Corporate giants Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have similarly advanced their own legal arguments echoing the same anti-union, anti-worker sentiment. So much for being “progressive” companies, huh?

Beyond their copycat legal arguments, what do all of these corporations have in common? A history of bashing unions and preventing workers from exercising their right to organize.

The NLRB has charged these companies with hundreds of violations of workers’ rights. They’ve fired pro-union workers, retaliated against organizers by cutting their hours, closed stores that tried to unionize, denied benefits being provided to non-union workers, and refused to bargain. And now Musk and Bezos are even going after the referees — the NLRB—  so unions and workers don’t stand a chance.

It’s not the first time their argument has been trotted out by robber barons. A similar case made its way to the Supreme Court way back in 1937. The opinion in that case upheld the NLRB and its decision to punish steel barons who fired workers who tried to organize a union.

Modern-day robber barons Bezos and Musk are hoping today’s Supreme Court will reverse its 1937 ruling and return America to a time before workers had a referee to ensure their rights.

Evidently, it’s not enough for Bezos and Musk to amass more wealth than any two people on the planet. No, they want even more wealth and covet even more power — and don’t want to share it with their workers.

You see, unions are one of the greatest champions of equality. And unions don’t just help unionized workers — they help all workers. There’s a ripple effect that occurs when workers organize: Non-union workers often receive the benefits of higher wages and safer working conditions fought for by organized labor. Unions also play a political role: They provide countervailing power to the overwhelming political power of giant corporations.

We will all suffer if unions are not there to have the backs of workers.

Now these cases may take a while to snake their way through the courts.

In the meantime, please share this video. These corporations win this fight only if the public doesn’t know what’s happening.

And support your local unions. When they go on strike, join a picket line. Better yet, join a union if you can.

We all need to voice our support for organized labor now more than ever.

[light-the-spark-of-dawn]

Bruce Wayne being the owner of the Daily Planet is just about the only reason I can believe Clark Kent would still have a career as a news reporter. And to be clear, this isn't a joke about his salary (which would probably be decent anyway since he's a senior reporter), but rather a commentary on the compromised integrity of American journalism.

Consider the news surrounding the United Healthcare shooting. The murder of a healthcare company CEO was immediately met with universal public support for the killer. Pretty much everyone in America despises the predatory healthcare system so much that they celebrated Brian Thompson's getting gunned down in the streets of Manhattan as being well-deserved, in spite of major news media trying to paint the bastard as an innocent victim and family man

Literally, the best defense of Thompson's character that they could come up with was that he was a father, husband, and a successful CEO who expanded the company. None of the articles mention that he had been separated from his wife for years. They conveniently leave out that under his leadership, UHC was criticized by the American Hospital Association and used AI to automate claim denials, forcing thousands of people to go without medical care.

The dead are lionized all the time. But this was a man whose life's work was built off the suffering of others and had virtually no good deeds to speak of. And yet the narrative that news reporting is trying to push is that the public joy at his murder is "disturbing" and "ghoulish" and even "un-American" (genuinely the most tone-deaf take I've seen thus far).

And now that Luigi Mangione has been arrested as a suspect in the case, the news have shifted to dissecting his whole life and laying it bare for people to see. He's a well-read and intelligent guy who graduated from an Ivy League college. He's a 26 year old tech bro from a wealthy family and was the valedictorian of his private school. He wrote a review of the Unabomber's book and gave it 4 stars. He had a traumatic back surgery and afterward became depressed and withdrawn. He wrote a manifesto condemning corporate America. He played Among Us (the fact that a major news company published a whole ass article about this is both hilarious and depressing).

Whether Mangione was the killer or not, the media is airing out any and all details of his personal history. But most of the articles I've seen aren't trying to analyze what would have led to an otherwise normal guy to assassinate a healthcare CEO. Because it's obvious to anyone who knows anything about American healthcare. Instead it's all talk about how he was "yelling at the press" and not about what he was yelling ("This is completely unjust and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience").

90% of American media is owned by 6 conglomerates. It's in their best interest to diminish sympathy for someone like Mangione, who spoke out against the corporate robber barons. It's in their best interest to make people think he's a radical nutjob, a privileged college snob, a violent right-winger- anything that makes him less relatable to the people who are supporting him. And it's working.

Already we're seeing people across the political spectrum getting hung up on whether Mangione is a hero or not because his cousin is a Republican, his family was wealthy, he was college-educated, he's a cis straight white male, etc. It's worth noting that he hasn't even been extradited from Pennsylvania to New York yet, much less been put on trial or found guilty. And even if he was, his identity is not the point.

We must stop looking at the trees and take a step back to see that the entire forest was planted to prevent us from seeing the palace behind it.

[statsbot]

SITUATION In an alternate history where time travel has been invented, a cabal of time-traveling traders and politicians are engaged in intertemporal arbitrage, using their future knowledge to corner markets throughout history. They've recently set their sights on the oyster trade of 19th century New York City, hoping to use their advanced refrigeration tech and insider info to make a killing. But their actions are destabilizing the timeline and threatening to erase key historical figures from existence. The party must unravel this temporal trade network and confront the mysterious mastermind behind it all before irreparable damage is done to the space-time continuum.

SETTING The adventure spans multiple eras, but key events occur in:

New York City, 1842 - The booming oyster trade has made the city the oyster capital of the world. Oyster cellars line Canal Street, shucking a staggering 700 million oysters a year. The docks bustle with oystermen.

The Far Future Oyster Vaults of Neo-Nassau, 2891 AD - Towering refrigerated vaults hold trillions of perfectly preserved bivalves. Chrono-barges zip through pneumatic tubes overhead. Neon-lit canals crisscross the city.

The Temporal Trade Hub, Outside Time - A mind-bending nexus where past, present and future intersect. Causality-defying architecture shifts like a kaleidoscope. Traders haggle over price fluctuations yet to occur.

CAST

Crassus Rockefeller III - Robber baron, mastermind behind the Oyster Futures Syndicate. Seeks to monopolize history's oyster supply. Wields a Causality Anchor that stabilizes him in spacetime.

Vivian "Viv" Wellfleet - Rogue chrono-trader with a heart of gold. Wants to stop Crassus and restore the timeline. Former collegiate oyster shucking champion.

Shucker Jim - Grizzled 19th century oysterman. Secretly an undercover Chronoguard agent. Rocket harpoon prosthetic arm. Loyal but haunted by a tragic past.

The Muculent Sibyl - Prophetic oyster-human hybrid from an alternate timeline where oysters evolved sapience. Whispers maddening future-truths. Chained in Crassus' vault.

Ostreida, the Oyster Goddess - Eldritch bivalve deity worshipped by a future oyster-cult. Seeks to flood Earth's history, returning it to a primordial sea.

The Chronoguard - Temporal law enforcement. Hardened time-cops in chromed exo-suits. Seek to stop illegal intertemporal trade by any means necessary.

The Oystermen's Union - Tough New York oyster workers, their livelihoods threatened by future sabotage. Burly, bearded, and brawny. Know the oyster beds like the back of their callused hands.

INITIAL CONDITIONS The 19th century oyster trade is booming, but prices have started fluctuating wildly and oyster shortages loom due to temporal meddling. Anachronistic tech has been found in oyster beds. Strange future-cultists lurk in oyster cellars, preaching the coming of an Oyster God. The Chronoguard has dispatched agents to 1842 to investigate, but Crassus' syndicate has a head start and deep pockets. The timeline is already fraying at the edges - historic oyster-lovers like Queen Victoria are fading from existence. The players arrive in old New York to find a temporal powder keg ready to blow.

GOALS

Crassus Rockefeller III - Corner the oyster market across all of history, making trillions. Ascend to economic godhood.

Vivian "Viv" Wellfleet - Stop Crassus, restore the original timeline, save the future. Maybe shuck some oysters along the way.

Shucker Jim - Complete his mission, avenge his partner, keep the space-time continuum safe from rogue traders and their greed.

The Muculent Sibyl - Escape her imprisonment, reveal cosmic truths, bring about the Oyster Singularity her visions foretell.

Ostreida, the Oyster Goddess - Flood Earth's history, make the world a oyster's paradise. Destroy upstart humanity.

The Chronoguard - Arrest Crassus and his cronies, stop the temporal trade in its tracks, preserve the integrity of the timeline.

The Oystermen's Union - Protect their way of life, drive out strange future interlopers, keep oyster prices stable and bellies full.

TOOLS/RESOURCES

Crassus Rockefeller III - Vast wealth, future tech, Causality Anchor, bribed officials across eras, oyster futures contracts.

Vivian "Viv" Wellfleet - Heirloom chrono-compass, knack for disguise, knowledge of oyster lore, her trusty quantum-shucking knife.

Shucker Jim - Rocket harpoon arm, Chronoguard combat training, 19th century street smarts, loyal oystermen contacts.

The Muculent Sibyl - Precognition, psychic whispers, eldritch oyster magic, fanatical mollusk-hybrid cultists.

Ostreida, the Oyster Goddess - Divine bivalve powers, oyster monster hordes, tidal magic, beachhead temples across history.

The Chronoguard - Jurisdiction across spacetime, stun-harpoons, chrono-cuffs, hardened exo-suits, orbital trawler-ships.

The Oystermen's Union - Strength in numbers, intricate knowledge of oyster beds, sturdy oyster boats, shucking solidarity.

SAMPLE SOLUTIONS

Infiltrate Crassus' syndicate posing as fellow traders, destabilize his operations from within while searching for evidence of his crimes. Coordinate with Chronoguard to arrest him in a dramatic sting.

Rally the Oystermen's Union to sabotage future tech and resist the Syndicate's strong-arm tactics. Stage a general strike to force the city to crack down on rogue traders.

Beat Crassus at his own game by cornering the oyster market first. Flood the market with your own supply via time travel, tanking prices and ruining his monopoly.

Cut a deal with Ostreida, brokering a compromise where oysters and humans can coexist across history. Use her power to threaten Crassus into surrendering.

Rescue the Muculent Sibyl and convince her to aid you with her prescient visions. Navigate the fluctuating timeways to always stay one step ahead of Crassus and his goons.

[ultralaser]

see also that like 90% of stocks are owned by the top 10% so like the whole thing is also unapologetically just a pyramid scheme and possibly also an mlm

Ko-Fi prompt from @kayasurin:

Just rant about the stock market, whatever you want to say about it!

'just rant' is such a prompt for uhhhh my distaste.

LEGALLY NECESSARY DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed financial advisor, and it is illegal for me to advise anyone on investment in securities like stocks. My commentary here is merely opinion, not financial advice, and I urge you to not make any decisions with regards to securities investments based on my opinions, or without consulting a licensed advisor.

So here are a few things:

1. Stocks are unreliable.

For the layperson, there is nothing that can be done about the direction a stock takes. Unless you are a majority shareholder, or one of several who can work in concert, you cannot affect the direction a company takes, which means you cannot affect the decisions that might cause a stock to increase or decrease in value. This is a rich man's game. The average investor is just along for the ride, god help them.

Between Random Walk Theory, the dart-throwing monkeys study, and the fact that mutual funds do not beat the market, there is just... it's a crapshoot. Anyone who tells you to invest to make a lot of money is drinking the Kool-Aid. You can invest to make a small return, to keep your money in a lot of places in case your bank gets digitally robbed or whatever your worries might be, diversification is good for safety nets, but for pity's sake, don't expect to become a millionaire, and be aware you can lose a lot, even listening to experts.

2. Stocks can be manipulated, and it's ridiculous and stupid and fucks over perfectly normal companies

Do you remember the GameStop reddit thing? I do. If you don't, please take a quick look at this record of the GameStop stock price.

See that spike in 2021? That was Reddit.

This post did a great job explaining it, but you told me to rant, and so I shall.

A large investment company had decided to make a lot of money for their clients by destroying GameStop. They did this by selling more shares than they actually owned (more than actually existed), force the market to absolutely tank the price, with plans to "buy back" the stock once it was dirt cheap, thereby making a profit for their company. This is a common form of stock manipulation called shortstelling, and investors had been doing it to GameStop for years, without the general public noticing.

Except Reddit did notice. And they decided to Fuck It Up, buying up stock at higher and higher prices, forcing the stock price to skyrocket, and the mutual/hedge funds still had to buy them back, but now it was at a massive loss, and it made headlines across the country because of how incredibly ridiculous it was.

The things to note here is that the market can be manipulated without any regard to the actual profits or health of the company, and that attempts to do so can backfire spectacularly.

3. Returns are minimal

There are two ways to earn money on stocks. The first is returns on capital investment; you buy the share at $10, sell it for $20, and you've thus received $10 profit. This is part of the incredibly unreliable bit I mentioned, because you cannot control the direction the stock takes, and generally can't predict it.

The other way is dividends, which like... profits made over the previous quarter (after paying employees, bank loans, rents, etc.) can be either reinvested to grow the company, or paid out to shareholders. But if you invest $150 in a single share of Walmart stock, your quarterly dividend is $2.25, which is $11/yr.

So unless you're investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, or get really lucky with what you choose to invest in, dividends aren't going to get you much of anything.

And when your stocks do give you healthy dividends, it's because there's money left for shareholders! Which, if you remember a few lines back, is left over after paying employees.

If an investor wants a return on their investment, and they can vote to change policy, and policy that pays employees dictates that they get a smaller dividend, do you think that the investors are going to vote to pay their employees fairly?

Yeah, didn't think so.

4. Rapid, Consumptive Growth

There was a really good post recently that described how and why the Chicago School of Economics, colloquially Reaganomics, has completely fucked over the entire US economy by encouraging the absolute worst state for the market to be in, which is seeking eternal parasitic growth. I urge you to read that one if you can, because the bloggers did a good job. Basically, screw Reagan and screw the Chicago school. The economy still would have been a capitalist hellscape without them, but they sure did hasten it!

[lauralot89]

“You don’t know these people, do you?” [Varney] asked Ruthven on the way up.

“Not as far as I’m aware,” said Ruthven. “It’s entirely possible they might have read that godawful Polidori book; in which case this will be extremely embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as Varney the Vampyre, or The Feast of Blood,” said Varney drily. “Practically nothing is as embarrassing as that. Polidori at least wasn’t being paid by the word.”

—Dreadful Company, Vivian Shaw

Who's more out of their mind: James Malcolm Rymer, for writing 667,000 words of Varney the Vampire, or me for reading all of them in ten days?

I have no idea how to feel or to surmise what I've just experienced. On the one hand, Sir Francis Varney may now be my favorite vampire in literature, and whenever this book got me interested, it was sometimes one of the most fascinating vampire stories I've ever read.

I wasn't expecting such an early installment in the vampire fiction genre to be so sympathetic toward the vampire. I definitely was not expecting the vampire to eventually befriend his victims, or to refuse on multiple occasions to kill, or to try and help those he had terrorized as a form of repentance.

Granted, even when I was fully on board with the story, it still had a number of baffling elements. The romantic dialogue of this novel is so atrocious that it makes the Star Wars prequels look like one of Shakespeare's love stories in comparison. The comic relief duo of the admiral and his valet consisted of two jokes only (they speak in sailor slang and fight all the time) which were promptly pounded into the ground. At least six times in this book, possibly more, the narrative stopped so the author could write a chapter just consisting of transcribing what the characters were reading. Because he was getting paid by the word.

Despite all of this, I was fully on board up until Varney's would-be wedding as the Baron failed. After that, we got treated to multiple instances, each spanning several chapters, in which Varney would again pass himself off as some rich guy, try to marry a young woman, and then get exposed and run away. I'm guessing those chapters sold really well and that's why Rymer kept doing those stories? Or else he was just out of ideas. I don't see why those chapters would have sold especially well because they were short on vampire nonsense and chock full of wedding preparations and negotiations. I don't know much about the target audience for penny dreadfuls, but I would imagine they would care more about action than the services hired for a wedding breakfast.

And then once the endless marriages stopped, we got several more chapters of Varney biting a woman, getting caught, and running away. The story only picked back up in the last ten percent of the novel, when Rymer finally did something new by having one of Varney's victims become a vampire herself. Unfortunately, she got finished off pretty quickly and then the novel just ended.

(I am not complaining about the ending. The ending was a hell of a thing and gave me all sorts of emotions. But we could have had Varney's exploits with a newbie vamp instead of Failed Wedding Attempt 875)

Also, I'm assuming that Rymer did not plot this story out before he began? Varney's past changes constantly, sometimes within maybe thirty pages of the last backstory we were given. He's a deceased ancestor of the Bannerworths who took his life a hundred years ago! He's an executed highway robber, resurrected maybe a decade ago at most by a doctor's experiments, Frankenstein-style! He's been a vampire for 180 years and became one by murdering an innocent woman! He lived as mortal during the reign of Henry the Fourth! He lived as a mortal during the reign of Charles the First, and became a vampire after accidentally killing his son by striking him in anger!

If it were just Varney's past that was inconsistent, I'd say he was lying or had lived and died so many times that he genuinely forgot which death was the first one. But there are weird inconsistencies throughout the novel. What was up with the document Varney and Marchdale tried to force Charles to sign? Does Varney have a scar on his forehead or his cheek? Why did one girl who died of Varney become a vampire and the other one didn't? And most importantly to me, the hell was up with the Hungarian nobleman?

Why bother to introduce another vampire if it's going to lead to nothing but a red herring where the reader briefly thinks that the baron isn't Varney, and rather that Varney is the vampire that the baron killed?

Granted, roughly two thousand pages later, when a brood of vampires assemble to resurrect a new vampire, then probably the Hungarian nobleman comes back to speak a whole two sentences to Varney, about how they met at an inn once and also Varney used to hang with people named Bannerworth.

(I need to know more about this vampire group that assembles to resurrect vampire newbs. How does that work? Do they just sense them? Do they get pulled there by vampire power?)

And what was up with that time skip? Did we need to introduce Mr. Bevan as a sympathetic character when the entire Bannerworth family already were sympathetic to Varney?

I just don't know, man.

Also, Rymer hates Quakers. And Jewish people. And Catholics. And evangelicals. And organized religion in general. And Scots. And Americans, I think. Now, this is not at all rare for the time. Stoker and Wilde and many other of their contemporaries would also write their prejudices into their stories decades later. But they didn't write a book longer than War and Peace that had big stretches of nothing except weird diatribes of whatever they disliked.

Anyway.

Can I in good conscience recommend that anyone read this?

Not in its entirety. If someone wants to do an abridged version have at it I guess. Or read it in its entirety over the span of months instead of ten days like I did. My brain is going to explode.

The first half was good. The end stuff was good. I want to wrap Varney up in a number of blankets and feed him some of my blood. And thank God he's in the public domain, because he deserves better than an endless slog of miseries that quickly goes off the rails once he leaves the Bannerworths.

Final mob count: 11

Final failed vampire wedding count: 4

I should have kept track of all the times Varney died and/or got shot, but I forgot

Three stars

[uboat53]

One thing that's been wild to watch in the wake of the killing of UHC CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week has been how the reaction has created an unusual fissure in America, a class fissure.

It's been noted for over a century now, but America has one of the lowest levels of class consciousness in the world. Despite the fact that we have no more class mobility than just about any other country (and far less than many), poorer Americans overwhelmingly think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who are just one stroke of luck away from making it big rather than as everyday working people. Because of this, Americans tend to be far more supportive of policy that's favorable to the upper (capital) class than in most countries.

That's led people, particularly the wealthy and those in the capital and executive class, to think that Americans love the wealthy and powerful. That's evident in the surprise with which those classes have reacted to seeing the fairly powerful support enjoyed by the man who just deliberately killed one of their own.

And why wouldn't they be surprised? They're in a country where wealth and power are admired, where the opinions of the very wealthy and those who hold corporate office on matters of the day are sought out and given special attention, a country where prominent wealthy people who deign to engage with the public like Elon Musk rapidly develop their own devoted followings. And there are certainly a great deal of Americans who feel this way, but this misses the broader feeling that lies underneath.

Underneath, Americans are not unaware of how the wealthy and powerful are using them. Americans may want to be wealthy and powerful, but most Americans don't actually idolize them. The minority that do is large enough that it can make itself feel overwhelming if you are in the middle of it, but the majority of Americans are deeply unhappy with and resentful of the class of people in power.

Every American knows someone who has had necessary health care denied and an estimated 68,000 per year (one every 7.5 minutes!) die as a result of that denied care. Every American saw companies post record profits while raising prices in the last few years. Every American has seen drug prices rise to the point where patients are forced to choose between medications and utilities. Every American has seen the way that politicians dance to the tune of major corporations and donors even as major issues of public concern go unaddressed.

Americans may think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, but that doesn't mean that they LIKE the people who are currently millionaires and billionaires. When politicians get massive applause for their statements that "they are taking advantage of you", who do you think the "they" are? Certainly there are some racists who would say Jews or some anti-intellectuals who would say university professors, but the vast majority of people are thinking of the rich people who have been hoarding a greater and greater proportion of the wealth in this country. The average person may not know the statistics, but I'm sure none of them would be surprised to hear that the wealthiest Americans now hold more of America's wealth than the robber barons of the turn of the 20th century like Andrew Carnegie and John Jacob Astor did.

As for the specific case at issue here, the common refrain is that what Mr. Thompson did is perfectly legal while what his killer did was not, but this confuses legality with morality. When wealthy, powerful, or just plain immoral people are able to shape the law, it can quite quickly deviate from what is actually right, and it's fairly clear it has done so in this case. What the American health care system does to Americans, and UHC is one of the worst offenders in this regard, is nothing short of murder on a massive scale; the fact that the executive and capital class are able to abstract their role in it such that they do not directly take part in any individual death in no way makes them less responsible for the results of the system they create, operate, and profit from. In other words, neither of these individuals, in the actions for which they are now known, showed particular care for the value of human life.

The wealthy and corporations have, over the last several decades, increasingly used their influence, both political and market influence, to force Americans to pay more money for basic goods and services while at the same time closing off legal options for anyone who is taken advantage of. When there are no legal options to right a moral wrong, especially a moral wrong that kills people and is committed dozens of times a day, it is unfortunately, inevitable that someone would break the law in an attempt to address it. I may oppose this action, but I would be lying if I said that there existed no circumstances that could drive me to it and I suspect most people would as well. Ultimately, law cannot perfectly match morality, but it also cannot be allowed to drift too far away from it; if it does, the incentive for obeying it diminishes, often to nothing.

And that's about where we're at. Most people probably couldn't put it precisely into words, but there is a deep and broad hatred of the executive and capital class in this country based on the way they have twisted the system such that it works for them and against the majority of people. The executive and capital class have kept themselves largely unaware of this by primarily associating with the minority of Americans who idolize them in hopes of joining them. Only now, when the pressure has grown to the point where it can no longer be contained, has that hatred been given words and taken on a form that the capital and executive classes can no longer ignore. It is no longer a problem that can be made to go away with money.

Where do we go from here? I'm not sure. If history is any guide, the instinct of the wealthy and powerful will be to clamp down on it, but clamping down on something when the pressure has already built so high will probably just make it worse. Copycat attacks are pretty common after something like this and it's clear that there's a good deal of public support for this kind of thing, so it's likely that we'll see at least a few more attacks like this in the next year or so.

In the end, though, the only thing that can end this situation is for the pressure to be released. A century ago, a wave of violence against bosses and the owners of companies came to an end with worker protections and union rights. This time around, consumer protections will likely be necessary as well. If we're fortunate, they'll come relatively quickly. If not, things are likely to get a lot worse before they get better.