Thursday, August 13, 2009

Seepage, Part the Second

Continuing on from the last post, the left is not only in love with weak-kneed defeatism but they are also patently unoriginal. For example: Obama is Jimmy Carter is Huey Long is every other progressive politician. They don't even bother to change the language in their speeches nor observe that their ideology seems to be completely incompatible with a thing known as "real life" that most of them live outside of. In other words, many of these people do not have a single original thought in their head. That's why when they criticize the right, 9 times out of 10 they are just projecting their own shady behavior onto us. They think conservatives blindly follow the latest talking point without thinking because they follow the latest talking point without thinking. They think conservatives have a streak of fascism in them because they have a streak of fascism in them. Which brings me to the subject of this post: they think these health care protesters are violent, astroturfing mobs because their protesters are violent, astroturfing mobs. However, like all the rest of their thoughts, this is not an original one.

I recently started thinking about all of the leftie BS I was exposed to as a youngin'. Comics were a big part of that, only I didn't remember just how bad the propaganda was until I went out to my garage last week and thumbed through a bunch of old issues I've had sitting around in a box for years. Check out the below excerpts from an issue of the Avengers that is almost two decades old (circa 1991).

Our story begins:



Can you guess what real life event this is supposed to represent? It's very subtle and cryptic, isn't it? Let me explain: this is supposed to be like the Rodney King beating. And, just like Rodney King, there is a sober, 15 year old teenager getting viciously beaten by a gang of white cops while handcuffed and offering no resistance. SAME...EXACT...THING, little kids. This leads into a scene of a bunch of people protesting police brutality who are outraged. But look at what happens next:

Oh my goodness! There are white men with blonde hair who are disrupting the peaceful protest with their hate speech! And look: when they are challenged they respond not with civil discourse but by drawing weapons and threatening everyone else! Are they going to get away with this??









Not if the Avenger known as Rage has anything to say about it:


Study this page for a moment. The right wing racists about to spark violence in a tense situation. The formerly normal-looking face of the lead agitator suddenly transformed into something dark and twisted with the beady red eyes and almost fang-like teeth. The "constitutional rights" in air quotes. Can't you just see the smarmy, prog writer scribbling all this down with a smirk on his face, all the while thinking, "Yes...yes...oh yes...this is effing fantastic!" And above all notice the resolution: someone with superhuman powers needs to swoop down from on high and save the day. The ordinary people can't do it on their own. He effortlessly breaks their weapons and intimidates them into leaving.





Thus is order restored to the peaceful protest (after the obligatory Nazi reference is made, of course).

I mean, COME ON!! Is this not the absolute perfect illustration of what goes on inside a leftist skull?! People are out there, legitimately angry about being preyed upon by someone they are powerless to fight back against, in this case the police. When it seems that they might be getting their message out and turning things around, though, a tiny radical right wing group shows up with violence, hate, racism, and fear-mongering to stop the righteous revolution. The people are powerless against this threat, as they are powerless to do anything for themselves. Something or someone is desperately needed to step in and save the day. We may not have anyone with superhuman powers in our world, but we do have the government. Just replace the racist mob with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and replace the Avenger Rage with the fairness doctrine: same result. A great power swoops in, breaks their weapons (in this case, microphones) and silences them so the rest of us can get back to living in peace.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! During the story, Rage pleads with the other Avengers to get involved. He says that they should be helping out in situations like this, though it is a little unclear exactly what it is he wants to do. Beat up the cops? Beat up the racist protesters? Captain America and the Falcon tell him that this sort of thing isn't what the Avengers are supposed to get involved in, and Rage storms away in, well, a rage. Luckily, a reason is discovered for the Avengers to take action:

Now don't you see, kids? Something has been wrong with this radical right wing group all along, the characters just haven't been able to place their finger on it. Through tireless and possibly illegal background snooping, though, the truth has been smoked out. The leader of this group is much more than he seems. He has been involved with professional hate groups in the past. He owns guns! He is not merely some "average guy" as he wants us to believe. He is probably being sponsored by monied interests and a secret puppet master pulling the strings in the background. Furthermore, he is recruiting average citizens that would otherwise be harmless to lash out in blind hatred and become part of the problem. Perhaps if there was a flag@avengers.gov all of this could have been avoided before things got out of hand?

Finally, proof positive that these "protesters" are more than meets the eye:



Not only are these right wing extremists evil, violent thugs, they are not even genuine protesters. They are astroturfing! Their "special friend" has mailed them boxes of everything they need to carry out their dirty deeds.

In the end, it is discovered that this whole situation was brought about by some mutant that is capable of amplifying people's hatred. Isn't that the only possible progressive ending, though? The dissension is not real because it is astroturfed and also carefully controlled by some diabolical mind. If it weren't for that one person polarizing everybody for their own personal reasons, and the police, everything would be fine. Did I mention this comic was published almost twenty years ago?

Fast forward to present day. Same script: there is something wrong with these Obamacare protesters. If any of them were ever normal people, they have been whipped into a mindless frenzy of hate by Glenn Beck and Fox News. The Democrats are trying to get out their side of the story and the people want to hear it, yet this tiny minority of the population keeps showing up in town hall after town hall, disrupting everything, causing chaos and near violence and wearing swastikas all over the place like Nazis. How can they be in seemingly all of these places at once? Is it because they are genuine local citizens who know what the Democrats are trying to do and are legitmately angry about it? No way. They are being trained, coached and bussed all over the country to these events by people with ties to radical right wing organizations and corporations. That is, shadowy puppet masters pulling the strings in the background. The leftists know this is true, even though they can't find any evidence for it whatsoever. That's why all citizens are needed to report to flag@whitehouse.gov. There must be evidence out there somewhere and we will find it eventually, at which point we will scream out, "I knew it! I KNEW IT!" just like the Avengers' computer lady did. It doesn't matter if the method of finding the evidence is a little shady, either, because the ends justify the means (as long as George Bush isn't in office). And then, once the evidence is uncovered and laid bare, who will come to save us average and unworthy citizens in our darkest hour?


"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!"


It's up to us to heed His call. That is, the real grassroots activists:

6 comments:

  1. I was never much of a comic fan growing up, so most of what I'd heard about this tendency towards the left were secondhand.

    It came as a bit of a surprise, since I'd associated the belief that violence, while unfortunate, was sometimes necessary in the cause of justice with the opposite side of the political spectrum. It never occurred to me that they compensated for this by simply making the villains more cartoonishly hard-right.

    In my limited experience the only vaguely conservative comic-book hero I know of offhand is Rorschach, and they played that whole "emotionless, unreasoning extremist" card to the hilt on that one, too.

    This is why I dig J. O'Barr's The Crow. No political games, just a straight-up revenge story.

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  2. BTW, good article, I'd like to see more of these dissections.

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  3. Thanks. I do have more, unfortunately. It's a wonder I was able to grow up with my head on straight.

    I'd imagine the defense of this from the left would be that it's not news-worthy, it's just a comic book, why am I trying to make such a big deal out of it, etc. Well, the guy who wrote this was an adult, and it was going out to kids (and okay, probably some adults). As far as I'm concerned, it's propaganda pure and simple.

    In going through all of these old comics, I now vidily remember why I stopped reading. In the early '90s they got really political, as you can see. It wasn't just the Avengers, it was ALL of them. One by one I dropped them and stopped reading because even though I was a kid I could still recognize what they were trying to do and I didn't want to spend my money on this crap. When someone is incapable of telling a story w/out clubbing you over the head with their ideology, it's just not entertaining. That's okay, though, because if I had kept reading them I would have officially been "too old". The people my age and older that continue to read them bothers me, though. If I was bored with them around age 11, what on earth could grown men find so fascinating about them?

    I have read the Watchmen graphic novel, and I must say that even though it was written by a liberal I thought that Rorshach came off well. Either that or the message was supposed to be if he had just compromised, everything would have been okay. Since it ends with his journal being discovered, though, I take it to mean that Ozymandius was going to have justice done to him and you're supposed to be glad about that. Speaking of Ozymandius, is he not the perfect progressive thinker? A little mayhem and death, perhaps, but all for the greater good, right?

    I did not read the graphic novel of the Crow, but I did see the movie. I liked it except for the completely pointless joke the Crow makes about Jesus. That's the sort of thing that sticks in my craw and I can't understand why the writers felt it necessary to put that there. It doesn't add anything to the story and is mainly a form of flamethrowing. Just like the smarmy writer I described above, it's hard to imagine how the writers decided on inserting that line into the movie. I can only imagine they were like, "OH dude, that Jesus joke is hilarious. Oh yeah, let's put it in this scene. That's perfect! Oh boy, that's gonna piss Christians off, LOL!!"

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  4. After reading Watchmen, I kinda got the idea that although Rorschach might come off well to you or I, he wasn't really intended to. His conservative inflexibility had no place in a modern world. And yes, Ozy definitely had the uber-prog mindset. And sure, he might have won through at the end, but the discovery of Rorschach's journal was just a reminder to all good progs that even when they've won, they have to keep an eye out for that sneaky conservative mentality.

    The movie was good, but you really should read the Crow graphic novel. I think you'll find it's a much, much different experience than the film.

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  5. Whew, your fisking of the comics makes me glad that I read The Adventures of Tintin while growing up instead.

    All I could think of while I read your sharp analysis was the mindset of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Moving past that event, they now truly believe that there is a dark organization that is pushing any protestors, funding the success of Fox News and Rush, and spreading lies about the healthcare plan. It has infected what brains they have left, making a filter through which all news must pass. Even though they got their Obama and have a Dem packed Congress, they are still seeing shadows everywhere, whenever everything doesn't go just the way they think it should.

    Of course, they'd say the same about us, that we've bought into the LIES, MAAAAAN.

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  6. "I kinda got the idea that although Rorschach might come off well to you or I, he wasn't really intended to. His conservative inflexibility had no place in a modern world."

    You're probably right, considering the writer also did the V for Vendetta story that was supposed to be anti-Thatcher. It's probably a warning that anyone who likes Rorshach is also out of place in a modern world. The other humorous thing was that Ozy's plan hinged upon the entire world believing in some sort of inter-dimensional alien invasion, yet not even one country can fully believe that muslim terrorists really did carry out 9/11.

    And yes, Hiro. I'm sure someone else out there that read that comic as a kid is watching all of these protests now and thinking, "Hey, this is just like that Avengers comic. These right wing nut jobs really are all like that! Those writers are brilliant! They saw it all coming 20 years ago!"

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