Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
More because they've done things like making Magneto a Nazi. Jewish Magneto. Auschwitz survivor Magneto. Then having the PR guys ask store employees to dress up as Hydra to promote the series. That didn't go over well. Some shops responded by dropping all Marvel merchandise.
My problem with what's going on is that the most tone deaf stuff had to go through multiple layers of work and approval to make it onto store shelves. At no point did anyone stand up and say it was wrong? And to compound that with tone deaf upon tone deaf. That's not a gaffe, that's a trend.
I'm not calling for a boycott personally (but at the same time I won't be supporting the brand with my dollars), but whatever became of the "vote with your wallet" mantra?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
They realized that the vast majority of consumers of "product A" want that and only that when it comes to media, and thus boycotts don't work? If you say "don't use this brand of toilet paper, they grind up puppies to make it" then many people will go to a different brand and that might actually work with enough exposure. If somebody says "don't read Marvel because they do x, y, z" then people don't switch to D.C. They still want their Iron Man comic since they can't get Iron Man anywhere else. It's the same with pretty much any media.
Plus the LCS already had to buy the books 3 weeks ago. Basically Marvel won't care if you don't buy there books until at least 3 months later when retailers manage to get their orders down to reflect their sell through. That's assuming the drop off is significantly larger than the usual attrition. Most likely Marvel won't feel an impact until the next event assuming fans stick to their guns and retailers have little reason to order at numbers typical of an event, even then it would have to be pretty low, like less than 30k.
Well yeah, don't buy what you don't want to buy.
When Jack Kirby drew Captain America saluting Adolf Hitler.
The real outrage is that Nick Spencer is recycling storylines.
The real outrage is that Nick Spencer is recycling storylines.
Not even just that.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/331902-trump-eases-ban-on-political-activity-by-churches
Can't wait for the courts to cock block another EO.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/331902-trump-eases-ban-on-political-activity-by-churches
Can't wait for the courts to cock block another EO.
GasBandit
Staff member
Spoiler: They always were.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
Really? I thought you'd love this bill. It reallocates resources from the poor to the rich.
Dave
Staff member
I wondered why you would address something anonymous at an admin.
GasBandit
Staff member
I don't want anything to be reallocated anywhere, at least not by the government.
Oh please, this is companies through and through. The government is just a front for it.
GasBandit
Staff member
That's the problem with a strong government upon which you allow people to be reliant for essentials. The government is always just a front. It becomes a tool for the wealthy and powerful looking to become more wealthy and powerful.
If you're going to say "there's too much corporate influence in politics," then I agree with you. If you're going to say that's a new thing as of this year, then I don't. It's just been a matter of whose hand was crammed up the puppet's rear. Government is a tool, wielded by the powerful. The more powerful you make the government, the more you let the powerful run your life. Sometimes you might not like what the powerful decide to do with your life.
We've been over my political ideology a hundred times. I don't know why people keep forgetting it.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, that last sentence was more for Blotsfan's benefit than yours. When he said
It's a complete misrepresentation of my position. I don't think the government should be used to take from the poor and give to the rich any more than vice versa. It's my opinion the government shouldn't be powerful enough to do either.
Dave
Staff member
Yes. Yes, this government is evil. And they REALLY hate women.
It's almost amusing to me how there can still be republican women after being shown time after time after time that their party doesn't think they have the right to be equal to men.
Because those damn democrats are stealing their money.
Two things:
1. It's easy to make a half-assed analogy sound appropriate, and yet this still fails because hotels don't solicit who is doing housekeeping per room. That's comparison of any association by association, whereas a better analogy would be if a candy company made lots of kinds of candy, but a specific line of their chocolate bars had tiny swastika-shaped razors, would you still buy their other kinds of candy knowing this? There, I pulled that out of my ass and it's applicable.
2. We had a difference of opinion, hadn't communicated about it, and you were going to go off on me? Over nothing? You act like what I reblog and post on my Tumblr is for you, directed at you, has anything to do with you--I don't follow you on there. There is no dialogue; you've got this one-sided antagonism with the shit I post on there for some reason. And I didn't care at all until this moment, seeing that it's influencing you that negatively that you were going to go off on me for some perceived slight. Over nothing.
Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore. I was never trying to change your mind about anything. Think what you want. Regardless of facts or the people you interact with, you were going to do that anyway. But I'm not having any more to do with it. You're showing an obsessive side this year, first with the Trump thread stuff on here, and now this? My only advice is really sad coming from me, because I don't do jack shit, but I'm going to say it anyway: get a life. Find some way around your awful work schedule and get a life outside the internet. Good luck and I hope you find a way to be happy someday.
Because technically speaking it is making the government smaller. It stops paying for poor people to receive health care and lowers the taxes it takes in from the rich. Libertarianism 101.
GasBandit
Staff member
Then your problem was phrasing it in such a way that made it sound like "allowing" someone keep what is theirs is theft from someone else.
Last edited:
GasBandit
Staff member
What's really sad is that people can't see that their torment is brought about mostly through the gaslighting machinations of those who purport to act on their behalf. "Don't let them rip out this barbed hook I put in your guts, dear child! It will hurt you greivously!" Never mind how that hook got put there in the first place, or the self-serving reason for the kind, warm benefactors for doing so.
The only time I mentioned you in particular was that I was *NOT* going to go into your thread over this. It's painfully obvious why that was a good idea. You seem to take great offense about how others do or do not consume your favorite pop culture of the moment. Why else would one person's announcement that they were avoiding the movies over the behavior of others flying the Marvel flag set you off so?
Obsessing? A conversation that lasts five posts at best over the course of an hour? Opinions were shared, barely a cross word was said, and the world moved on. Until you came storming in all stompy and shouty long after everyone else had gone home.
What's sad is you weren't even the "someone else" I was even talking about. I unfollowed your blog days ago. Did any of those "wonderful people" crying about how messing with Marvel now only hurts them ever stand up and say NO? Did they ever actually go to the editors and sales, and publisher and tell them how bad of an idea this was?
Marvel doesn't care about you white knighting them. They don't need you. And I don't need you hate following me.
The conversation was long over before you stumbled in. I've certainly got bigger worries than Marvel or how my not liking Marvel might set you off again. I'm done here. I need to try find a new place to live.
How's THAT for finding something else to do outside the internet? Happy now?
GasBandit
Staff member
Look, I know you both must think I'm a complete and utter monster for saying that. Let me say that I am not in favor of "Trumpcare" and I wish it had not passed. But you know what else I was absolutely mortified to see pass? Obamacare. I knew it for what it was - the barbed hook I speak of, that put us inexorably on the path to single payer "socialized" medicine. I was disgusted to see the largely fabricated "crisis" played out in the media about "42 million uninsured" that had more asterisks next to it than Barry Bonds, how we're told it's too much for us to handle - let the government take care of people because they clearly are incapable of taking care of themselves, and how when appeals to emotion didn't work and when procedural politics got in the way, backroom deals made sure that hook got set in our gullet via backroom deals in the dead of the night on christmas eve when nobody was looking. I saw it for what it was - exploiting fear to increase government power, and dependence on government. People need health care. If the government controls your health care, good luck to standing up to government in any reasonable way. Some people say things like "better to die on your feet than live on your knees," and others just hope for comfortable kneepads.
And so I mourned the next step of the decline of this country, another step down the path of turning a free people into serfs. The last bastion of individual liberty on Earth was and is in its death throes. Beholden, for a time, to those who told them they were too weak to stand on their own, and believed them, and so their legs either atrophied or never grew strong in the first place.
And then some blustering dullard thoughtlessly yanked the barb out with no concern for the damage he was causing.
Yes, I despise him. But I also remember who set the hook.
Those who sabotaged and undermined the free market system, then pointed to their handiwork as proof that it can't work when the truth is it hasn't even been tried. Those who tried to legislate the indigent into homeownership and cried racism at any objection until those who saw the coming collapse were drowned out - and then blamed the serpent they themselves put in the crib for the fate of the bitten child. Those who made sure their cronies were deemed "too big" to be allowed to fail rather than let market forces take their course and correct. Those who paid lip service to decreasing government and spending, while going on to do exactly the opposite. Those who preached liberty in the streets while criminalizing it in the privacy of home. If you're confused about who I'm taking about at this point, it's all of them.
They are all villains in Washington, every last one of them. Some are just not as sneaky and manipulative about it.[DOUBLEPOST=1493956183,1493956081][/DOUBLEPOST]
Or maybe the problem was that insurance was so expensive because health care was so expensive because three generations had grown up used to the idea that it was someone else's job to pay for their health care, so who cares what it costs?
I'm not saying there weren't problems to be addressed. I'm saying the politicians never intended for there to be a solution to the problems - unless it was one that kept them in control.
And so I mourned the next step of the decline of this country, another step down the path of turning a free people into serfs. The last bastion of individual liberty on Earth was and is in its death throes. Beholden, for a time, to those who told them they were too weak to stand on their own, and believed them, and so their legs either atrophied or never grew strong in the first place.
And then some blustering dullard thoughtlessly yanked the barb out with no concern for the damage he was causing.
Yes, I despise him. But I also remember who set the hook.
Those who sabotaged and undermined the free market system, then pointed to their handiwork as proof that it can't work when the truth is it hasn't even been tried. Those who tried to legislate the indigent into homeownership and cried racism at any objection until those who saw the coming collapse were drowned out - and then blamed the serpent they themselves put in the crib for the fate of the bitten child. Those who made sure their cronies were deemed "too big" to be allowed to fail rather than let market forces take their course and correct. Those who paid lip service to decreasing government and spending, while going on to do exactly the opposite. Those who preached liberty in the streets while criminalizing it in the privacy of home. If you're confused about who I'm taking about at this point, it's all of them.
They are all villains in Washington, every last one of them. Some are just not as sneaky and manipulative about it.[DOUBLEPOST=1493956183,1493956081][/DOUBLEPOST]
And yet thousands failed daily to fall dead in the gutters, despite it having been the case for literally ever beforehand. Maybe all was not quite as you describe/remember?
Or maybe the problem was that insurance was so expensive because health care was so expensive because three generations had grown up used to the idea that it was someone else's job to pay for their health care, so who cares what it costs?
I'm not saying there weren't problems to be addressed. I'm saying the politicians never intended for there to be a solution to the problems - unless it was one that kept them in control.
What I remember is "you only have the right to as much health care as you can afford," as your mantra. By that standard, the middle class and below can get fucked in case of catastrophic illness or injury, hmm? Need chronic long-term care that costs five times your yearly salary per month? Too bad.
And that was before the ACA. After that I wasn't having to look at monthly premiums taking a third of my paycheck or more. Someone working full time should not have to decide between health insurance and food. Before the ACA I was doing exactly that.
And that was before the ACA. After that I wasn't having to look at monthly premiums taking a third of my paycheck or more. Someone working full time should not have to decide between health insurance and food. Before the ACA I was doing exactly that.