America and Slavery

Back in the Golden Age of videogames there was a weapon gamers were familiar with called a “smart bomb.” When enemy spacecraft began to overwhelm you and your lasers had become an ineffectual asset against the intensity of the attack, you could use the smart bomb you’d been saving, and all the ships on the screen would be simultaneously destroyed.

For the last few decades, in the realm of public debate of a political nature, one side has been resorting to its own smart bomb. When a left-wing collectivist (called “liberal” for PR purposes) finds him or herself being destroyed by the preponderance of evidence and facts presented during debate, they simply accuse racism. All the arguments threatening to overwhelm them are then magically destroyed and they can declare themselves the victor.

racecardSince 2008 the leftists have been using the race card smart bomb at the beginning of debate to preempt any argument the other side may use. Their opponent hasn’t said or done anything racist, but the accusation is enough to invalidate their arguments in the mind of the average boob tube junkie. Unlike videogames, though, the left has an unlimited supply of these political smart bombs. They’ve used them so frequently and indiscriminantly, however, that the race card smart bomb is not as effective as it used to be.

The smart bomb is most often used to assassinate the character of individuals.

Of course the left and the mainstream media (forgive my redundancy) employ the race card selectively. If you’re a Democrat, even a history that includes KKK membership won’t hinder a career in the Senate; and the media won’t bother to scrutinize your true colors until the Clintons and Obamas of the world jump on the bandwagon to make excuses for you.

 

 

But the race card smart bomb is also used to condemn the United States of America as a whole by those who see the USA as unexceptional, at best.

And it’s no wonder that anti-Americans are so desperate: the truth of history is overwhelming.

There has never been a nation in recorded history to offer such opportunity, where prosperity is so taken for granted that the poor here have more than the upper-income in other countries. Of course that’s changing as the free market is strangled, but there are still a whole lot more people trying to get in than get out. In fact, they are using any and every means conceivable to get in, and at a rate that has exceeded the birth rate of US citizens in the border states.

(You would probably do the same if it meant a life-long free welfare ride for you, free education and medical care for your kids, and all you had to do to earn it is vote Democrat once you are anchored inside unexceptional ol’ America.)

But America is not only unexceptional, it’s evil, they say.

Why? Slavery.

If you find yourself in a conversation that goes down this path, there are some implications you’ll pick up on in the anti-American person’s attitude, if you’re astute. They won’t voice these assumptions out loud, of course, but they’re whispering in the subconscious:

  • The USA is the only (or at least the worst) nation to allow enslavement of Africans.
  • Slavery of non-Africans throughout history is of no consequence.
  • Slavery of Africans is the single-most (if not the only) important phenomenon in world history (at least for the duration of this conversation).

With this stuff going on between the ears, all the facts will be ignored if they can’t be, or haven’t already been, twisted.

America was the most prosperous nation in history? Only because the unexceptional Americans had slaves to do their work for them, you see.

That prosperity hit its peak a century after slavery was abolished? Only because we exploited other downtrodden minorities somewhere or other. The Vietnamese–yeah, that’s it.

Obama swore to uphold the Constitution, then immediately went about destroying inewfaceofcommunismt? Well the agenda justifies the treachery because  the Constitution was written by white devils who tolerated slavery, you ignorant flag-waver.

And so on.

Here is some truth about America, Africa, slavery and racism that you rarely ever hear (but might want to remind the next smart-bomber you converse with):

  • Slavery is as old as human government. You could call that a longstanding tradition, by the time the colonists in America got around to forming a better union.
  • The United States of America did not exist until the late 1700s, though most anti-Americans try to assign the slavery statistics for the centuries before the Revolution to our national guilt. By sheer coincidence I’m sure, they also habitually omit statistics from 1865 to the present.
  • Slavery lasted about 80 years in some of the states. How long did slavery last in Britain? In Spain? Portugal? Rome? Egypt?…
  • More Africans have emigrated to the USA of their own free will than ever came to this nation on slave ships.
  • The grass roots founders wanted to abolish slavery at the very start, but a compromise was made with the slave states of the South because we were at war with the British.
  • Another compromise was made in the 1940s to arm, feed, and equip the empire of the worst slavemaster and mass-murderer in the world at that time, because we were at war with the Germans and Japanese. Nobody seems to have a problem with that, though.
  • Americans fought, died, killed brothers, cousins and friends to free the slaves in the bloodiest war of our history. This fact is conveniently ignored.
  • Slavery is alive and well in the world outside unexceptional ol’ America today, though you probably missed that while being convinced of how awful America is and how much we need to be transformed into the image of other countries.
  • Chances are extremely high that you patronize modern slavery without even batting an eye, every time you swipe your debit card  at Wal-Mart (and pretty much everywhere else people shop now). Because you want cheap products, and because you vote for policy makers who hate mean ol’ unexceptional America but love her enemies, you buy the exports of the most brutal slave plantation in the world.

Check your hypocrisy.

 

Marvel Comics Gives Thor a Sex-Change Operation

Maybe you heard the same rumors I did about Marvel replacing the god of thunder with a chick. I decided to check this out, and now that I’m done puking I can report to you that, yes, it’s true.

Some of you who have paid attention to the encroaching agenda by the pied pipers of pop culture are not surprised in the least by this groan-worthy development. Others are wondering just what in the blazes is going on. I’m going to list some possibilities.

1. Marvel editor Wil Moss and the writers in the bullpen have an overpowering compulsion to foist yet another amazon superninja on their readership, but simply lack the imagination to create an original character.

There’s a lot of evidence  of this epidemic throughout the leftist-dominated entertainment industry. Hollywood, for instance, is so bankrupt of creative ideas that they can dream up nothing to make movies about besides old TV shows, video games or toys. (Oh yeah, I forgot other movies).

2. Nobody at Marvel is educated enough to realize that the pantheons of mythology are brimming with goddesses they could build another super-character out of.

Back in the early 1960s Stan Lee plucked Thor from the Norse pantheon to style him as a superhero. As natural an overlap (superheroes and gods of myth) as that is, it was an original idea at the time. But then I established the status of original ideas in # 1 above.

3. The white knights at Marvel know a new superheroine on the comic shelves would go over pretty much like Elektra went over at the box office, so they have to hijack a well-established character to make their ubiquitous feminist tropes even more inescapable.

This is the likliest reason for this knee-jerk “evolution.” Deep down they realize their fantasy femme won’t be able to pull her own weight.

4. Series writer Jason Aaron has trouble getting women to pay him any attention and thinks being able to point to this female-empowering achievement will earn him some dates.

This is assuming he is heterosexual, which might very well not be the case. But homosexuals and feminists share a lot, ideologically, so this could still be part of a desperate ploy to amp up his romantic portfolio.

5. Forced feminization of a strapping Nordic stud is a private fantasy of Aaron, or Moss, or the mistress who has their balls secured in her purse. Giving Thor tits is their encoded fantasy for public consumption, but enlightened agents dwelling among the unwashed masses will decode the message and understand that their utopia draweth nigh.

Again, my wording assumes they are heterosexual. But I’d rather not transpose this scenario since I’ve puked enough for one day.

6. Speaking of private fantasies, this development grew out of a masturbatory fetish involving a butch blonde dominatrix in a valkerie costume.

Judging by the obligatory amazon superninjas infecting action adventure across every medium, I suspect this fetish is common among beta and gamma male manginas. And please don’t ask me to speculate on what she does with the hammer.

So what’s next for the social programmers? Marvel also uses Greek hero Hercules occasionally. How does “Herculisa” sound?

Don’t be surprised if they use a heart attack to finally kill off Tony Stark, leaving Pepper Potts to become “Iron Maiden,” and Captain America is sodomized into “Captain Rainbow” or something. (No, actually it would be worse if they left his name the same and just did to him what Brokeback Mountain did to the cowboy icon. ) I understand there’s already a “Spider-Girl.”

Of course this latest gender-bending is nothing new. White Knights all over comicdom got tingles up their legs when Frank Miller introduced a female Robin in the mid ’80s. And Marvel’s Captain Marvel (not to be confused with the original, who got his powers from a wizard named Shazam) had a counterpart called Miss Marvel. Eventually Miss became Captain and who knows whatever happened to that guy once the gamma suits in the bullpen stripped him of his mask and tights.

I watched some Justice League cartoons with my son recently. Couldn’t help noticing a couple items there, like how Hawkman has been replaced by Hawkwoman, and how she (though she has no super powers unless they’ve changed that, too) is depicted in a way that makes even Superman look ordinary, if not an inept wimp, in comparison.

No, this “evolution” is nothing new. It’s just more in-your-face than ever.

No-Frills Japanese Mythology?

Is it mythology or embellished history? I’m not sure.

This film had great potential. The visual component was breathtaking, the acting solid, some of the plot ingredients tantalizing. For the first half hour it was shaping up to be a top-notch epic.

One of the main characters (played by Keanu Reeves) is a “half breed” who is also a boy partially raised by “demons.” For both those reasons he is an outcast among the clan he is imbedded with.

During a visit of the Shogun, the master of the clan is framed for a dishonorable crime by a witch working for a rival clan. The Master (Asano) commits seppuku, leaving his samurais without a master (the textbook definition of ronin).

This was all a plot by the rival master, Kira, and the witch Mizuki to have their clan take over the province, which they do. You can probably guess where the story goes from there–which is not a criticism, necessarily.

What is worthy of criticism is the gaps in character development; outright neglect in character building in some cases, and a choppy, rushed execution of the narrative.

Some probably would complain that the film is too long already, but I believe some more screen time was necessary to make it flow. There were some cultural insights and other expository requirements left out which could have saved it for a western audience. With a big budget historical epic there’s just no excuse for cutting corners in the screenplay.

The story concept was much more interesting than Dances With Japanese Wolves The Last Samurai. However (and it hurts me to say this) ruthless adherence to formula, as in the Tom Cruise vehicle, might have been an improvement.

I don’t remember any nudity or sexual content, so this aesthetic adventure might be a candidate for Amazon Instant Theater with the kids. Despite being a one-time fan of Akira Kurosawa, I haven’t seen many samurai films by other directors, and know nothing about other versions of this movie. Nevertheless,  I’m including a couple links below.

Pirates Be Advised: Yer A$$ is Mine!

Thanks yet again to David in Sausalito, California for a nice review of the Tier Zero audio book. This is the sequel to Hell & Gone and an unabashed throwback to the glory days of men’s fiction–as the cover suggests.

Here’s what David said:

Great sequel! The badass band of homicidal misfits are back together for another testosterone-feuled adventure through the pirate infested oceans, cities and jungles of Indonesia. In this sequel to “Hell and Gone” Henry Brown really sharpens his writing with a much improved “flow” and a much improved story arc. “Tier Zero” is much more character driven (and developed) than its predecessor, focusing a little more on the people rather than the action but don’t worry, this is a Henry Brown book–there’s still enough blood, bullets and guts to keep even the most hardcore action junkies drooling – just look at the cover art. These books have a kinda old-school “pulpy’ feel to them that I really like but don’t see (or hear) that much of anymore. The narrator did another outstanding job with the characters both male and female. Don’t worry if you haven’t read “Hell and Gone”, this book can easily be read as a stand alone. Awesome book overall!

Recorded books are a godsend for me, as my time to sit and actually read anything is pretty scarce. But there’s still a lot of times I can listen to something without breaking stride. And Audible downloads to your listening device are painless.

Equalibrium

 

This action sci-fi thriller is set in a dystopian future in which emotions have been made illegal.

You read that right. More on that below.

I don’t know what (if anything) the film makers have said about their stylistic vision for this film, but visually it is identical to the Matrix trilogy. The plot, however, is built on a different platform of fears.

In the future, emotions are controlled by a mandatory drug citizens are required to take periodically. Anyone suspected to be foregoing their dose is turned in to the authorities and executed.

The Christian Bale character is a model cop (called “cleric”), as upon finding his partner with a book of poetry (all stimulus which might induce an emotional response, or “sense offense,” are illegal), he takes him down with all the poignancy of the Orkin Man stepping on a cockroach. We also get flashbacks which show his own wife was terminated for sense offense as well.

The main catalyst for the plot is when the cleric begins to experience emotions of his own.

I would say the acting is good, but then with the wooden personas of law-abiding citizens in this flick, that’s hard to argue. And of the few emotions displayed throughout the film, most were displayed by the last person it made any sense to have show them: Bale’s even colder new partner, played by Taye Diggs.

Either Diggs was auditioning for a toothpaste commercial, or the director had a huge blind spot. All his mugging actually annoyed me with its anomaly. We’re supposed to believe that Bale is in danger because Diggs suspects he’s “sense offending” when it’s Diggs who is the obvious sense offender from where the audience sits and Bale hides his emotions fairly well.

There were some suspenseful scenes and plot twists, so if you can suspend disbelief, it truly will be a “thriller” for you.

The “gun katas” practiced by the clerics look kind of neat, but are rather silly as a combat technique.

That’s not far from descriptive of the movie as a whole: looks neat, but rather silly.

I recently saw Pleasantville, so I’m becoming aware of a new apparent phobia spreading among the Hollywood elite: that fascistic bullies are plotting to take over the world and suppress their feelings.

The symbol dominating this police state is intentionally reminiscent of the Swastika (I guess the film makers never watched film footage of the Nazis,  because it’s kinda hard to miss how emotional/passionate Hitler and his followers were.)

The movie gets really heavy-handed when the Clerics find an illegal kennel and decide to kill off a bunch of puppies.

I’m stopping here. I’ve already spent too much time on this flick.

SOF Over-Representation in Pop Culture

Don Pendleton’s “Executioner” character, Mack Bolan, may have been one of the first Special Forces veterans to undertake fictional adventures for public consumption.

In the movies, Billy Jack was the first such character I can think of.

Eventually comic books got in the act. Marvel was “inspired” by The Executioner to create The Punisher. (Anyone who’s read both probably suspects that Frank Castle is really just Mack Bolan with a jones for skintight costumes.)

But the trend didn’t stop there. It seems like every Vietnam veteran character in a film or novel up to the early 1990s was also ex-Special Forces. To judge by popular culture, you’d think the entire conflict in Vietnam was fought exclusively by “Green Berets.”

It got so ridiculous that in Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One Lieutenant James Gordon (Before he becomes Commissioner Gordon), observing a crooked cop on the Gotham PD decides, “He moves like he’s had Green Beret training. It’s been a long time since I had to take down a Green Beret…”

 

I probably need to emphasize that I’m not just talking about action heroes (or villains) here, or characters in other genre work who might need the skills they picked up in SOF in a given storyline. I’m talking about characters (sometimes secondary, sometimes who the readers/viewers never even “meet”) who could just as easily have been a clerk/jerk in Saigon, a supply sergeant in DaNang or a motor pool mechanic at Fort Ord. Nope–SF soldiers were the only ones writers had heard anything about, so by Barry Saddler’s Ghost, everybody gets a green beret.

Finally this trend has changed. Now, it seems, (judging by novels and movies) every swinging richard deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan was a Navy SEAL. Or fought with the Recon Marines.

True, I stacked my military thrillers with  Special Operations Force vets, but I had good reason to. Some missions require such men.

Most don’t.

I could probably dissect this subject at length, but in a nutshell I chalk it up to writers’ laziness.

What makes elite forces elite is that not every combatant is asked to do what they do, and not every combatant could, if asked. Having spent most of my active duty at Fort Bragg, NC (the Special Forces Mecca), I’ve probably seen more green beenies than 99% of writers out there, but I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to represent regular soldiers (and sailors, marines, etc.) more in my fiction from now on, unless special missions are necessary. Special Operations play a crucial role, but it’s regular GIs who win wars and I’m gonna try to remember that, despite what everyone else is doing.

BTW, I can’t help wondering if this pop culture conditioning played a part in the US Army’s decision to let every swinging richard (and split-tail) wear bloused jump boots with their Class As and the black beret of a Ranger.

The younger guys probably aren’t even bothered by the Everyone-Is-Elite image because it’s been this way for a while now, but to me this is like letting every athlete in every league call themselves an All-Star, every recording artist have a platinum album and (closer to home) every author claim to be a best-seller.