Trump, the GOP, and the Republican Base

Brilliance is subjective, I guess. Sometimes the originality of something makes it brilliant. But sometimes, brilliance comes from the “duh” factor–something that should have been obvious, finally put into words. Free Northerner recently posted a rant exposing the elephant in the room explaining the support for Donald Trump that we here at Virtual Pulp consider brilliant:

Average Americans have to glance over their shoulders and make sure there are no hostile commissars around before they declare support for a mainstream political candidate. This is happening not in the USSR, but in the USA.

…Before we can speak candidly we working-to-middle-class white men have to quickly make sure no informants are around to rat us out. We have to be careful, because we know that one wrong word or action at work, in public, online, or even in the privacy of our own homes means losing our jobs and being publicly pilloried. It may even mean being persecuted by kangaroo courts, being bankrupted, or having your home raided by police.

We used to think the conservative machine had our back, that you would protect us from political correctness and left-wing pogroms. We working-to-middle class white men are your base, we thought you’d fight for us us. Maybe you’d let a nazi or two twist in the wind, but you’d at least have our backs. But now we’re the nazis for simply advocating what the people who beat the nazis did.

You don’t have our backs. Instead, you sneer at working-class whites. You call us–your fucking base–illiterate, crazy, and stupid. You attack us, the people you supposedly represent, as racist, the same slur leftists use against us to destroy our lives (and against you to score political points, but your heads are too far up your own asses to see the irony of that).

It’s a lot more than just sneering at us. At the beginning of the post, opining from the perspective of the Judas Goat Establishment, FN writes that Trump “would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP.”

lucy football2What consensus is that? Handing Obama and the Treasoncrats every single thing they want? Selling us out  on amnesty, Obamacare, and the TPP? Is there a consensus among Republicans for homosexual “marriage”? For toppling Middle Eastern governments in order to install even worse ones? For provoking Russia toward WWIII even as our own defense is intentionally weakened? For the war on American ranchers (even as beef prices skyrocket)? For wrecking what is left of the economy? For borrowing billions from Communist China so we can give it right back to them as foreign aid? For too many Constitutional violations to list in a Tolstoy-sized book?

There may be a “consensus,” but it is only reached by a cabal of professional politicians. It certainly doesn’t include the working-class Americans who compose their voter base and foot the bill for all the above and more, plus those exhorbitant ever-increasing Congressional paychecks.

We support Trump because we now know that you’re just like the leftists. You have shown repeatedly you do not have our backs, you hate us just as much as the progressives. You will run us out of jobs, you will engage in the public shaming, and when the time comes, you will happily march us to reeducation camps.

…(Trump is) willing to attack leftists, instead of fawning all over them to get invited to swanky DC parties. He’s opening the conversation so that we have slight bit more room to breathe without being purged from society. Through him normal folks have an outlet to speak. He’s standing against those who are trying to destroy us.

We don’t fucking care about your “conservative principles” of hating Russia (the only major power fighting degeneracy and supporting the church), amnesty for invading illegals, corporate subsidies, homosexual marriage, slightly lower taxes, increased debt, and minor hedges of Obamacare. We don’t care if Trump hasn’t been ideologically pure; you (weren’t) when you forced Romney(care) and Amnesty McCain on us. We don’t care if he doesn’t fit in the ever-more-left overton window. We don’t care if his Christian convictions are superficial (it’s been 40 years and you’ve done shit all about Roe vs. Wade; not to mention you’ve done nothing to prevent Christians from having their businesses destroyed by kangaroo courts). We don’t care if he gave money to Democrats a decade ago  (y’all keep importing new voters for them).

We don’t care and why should we when we are living in a country barely above a crowd-sourced communist police state, we are being culturally genocided, our jobs and our future are disappearing, and we are killing ourselves in despair at record numbers?

We don’t care. Trump is fighting for us (or at least acting like he is, but nobody since Ron Paul has even pretended to care about the white middle). We don’t trust your party, we don’t trust your democracy, we don’t trust you, because you have done nothing but betray us.

And they just can’t understand why Charlie Brown doesn’t want to try kicking the football again when Lucy so graciously offers to hold it one more time.

Lucy: the GOP Establishment. Charlie Brown: Republican voters.
Lucy: the GOP Establishment. Charlie Brown: Republican voters.

Despite what some seem to be saying in the “alt right,” the situation we face in 2016 is not all about genetics. Likewise, the Trump campaign isn’t all about white male voters. But the most maligned demographic in America (the white male heterosexual) is standing up and making himself heard. In the process, he has wrecked the Election 2016 designs of the elite puppeteers driving our nation over the cliff.

The Social Justice Broadcast System

Jacob Hornswoggler ended the call on his cell phone as he strode through the automatically opening doors of the GBS building. His wife had called him with a minor emergency. She fell in love with a pair of dress gloves and paid a few hundred for them, only to find out they didn’t fit her hands. Hornswoggler assured her he would come up with a solution; but for now he had other matters to deal with.

The world owed an unpayable debt of gratitude to people like Jacob Hornswoggler. The Generic Broadcast Service was making the world a better place thanks to his vision and tireless vigilance.

Still, viewership of his network—especially the news programs—wasn’t as high as it should be. Of course the quota of loyal watchers had nothing to do with anything as evil as profits. It was merely established to ensure that voters citizens were adequately conditioned informed. This was the purpose of Jacob Hornswoggler’s visit to the video editing suites today.

An atmosphere of impartiality settled over the network’s headquarters when this paragon of journalistic integrity graced the multimedia conglomerate’s loyal footsoldiers with his presence.

Hornswoggler stopped by an editing room with an open door and stepped inside. A pimple-faced 20-something from Tarnation University nodded a reverent greeting.

“How’s the homicide beat?” Hornswoggler asked.

“I’m going through the list,” replied his employee. “Trying to find what to lead with.”

Hornswoggler tactfully snatched the list out of his employee’s hands and pored over it with his experienced eye.

Well, he actually used his less experienced eye, too.

“Hmm,” he intoned, “Muggers kill unarmed victims in Detroit; Fast and Furious hit on Border patrol agent; muggers kill unarmed victims in Chicago; rapist rapes and murders unarmed victim in New York…ah, here’s one: a prominent politician’s lawyer found dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.”

The employee rubbed his head uncomfortably. “Um, the prominent politician is a Democrat up for reelection.”

“Obviously a suicide,” Hornswoggler said, and continued thumbing through the pages.

“That Weinburg murder could be sensational,” suggested the employee.

Hornswoggler shook his head and frowned. “Come on, now, get with the program. We don’t run same-sex gang rape/murders. They foment an attitude of fear and contaminate the whole gay rights debate. Not to mention influencing the Boy Scouts’ upcoming vote.”

“The Boy Scouts’ upcoming vote?”

Hornswoggler frowned. “I said: ‘not to mention the Boy Scouts’ upcoming vote.’ Can’t you follow simple instructions?”

The employee blushed and said, “Sorry, sir. I must be crashing from the Red Steer. It’s just that we led with the Peter Puffer murder for all those weeks in a row. I thought homicides involving gays were a priority…”

“Gays are victims!” Hornswoggler snapped. “What are you—a closet homophobe?”

“Of course not!”

Hornswoggler glared at him for a moment, then resumed scanning over the list. “Hmm. What do we know about this homicide in Swampfill, Florida?”

The employee shrugged dismissively. “Not very useful.”

“Well, the victim was from the appropriate victim class…play the 911 tape.”

The employee summarized while cuing up the recording, skeptically. “Jerry Lipschitz was being a proactive Neighborhood Watch patrol person. Throdown Moerage freaked out, attacked him. Lipschitz shot him.”

“Gun violence!” Hornswoggler growled, already fuming at the inherent evil of firearms in the hands of American citizens. The only people who should be allowed to keep and bear arms were federal agents and Mexican drug lords.

The employee turned up the volume. The voice of a police dispatcher asked, “Can you describe what he looks like?”

Lipschitz replied, “About six-three, muscular, wearing a hoodie…”

“Is he white? Black? Hispanic?” asked the dispatcher.

“I think he’s black,” Lipschitz said.

Hornswoggler reached past his employee and stopped the recording, eyes gleaming with journalistic integrity. “We lead with this: racial profiling leads to senseless racially-motivated murder by Christian right-wing gun nut! Edit out the part where the dispatcher asked him about ethnicity, or the audience will miss the racial motivation angle.”

The employee squirmed. “But, um, Lipschitz is a minority, too.”

Hornswoggler stroked his chin. “He’s not an undocumented worker, is he?”

“No. He’s a US citizen.”

“Alright. We can work with this,” Hornswoggler said, too filled with the proper indignation to let this story go untold.

The employee still didn’t like it. “But Lipschitz is, like, Jewish and Puerto Rican or something.”

“Hmm. Jewish Nazi?” Hornswoggler mused, then shook his head. After many years of covering the Middle East, he still couldn’t get that label to catch on.

“You can tell he’s Latino by looking at him.”

“He’s a white Hispanic,” Hornswoggler declared. “Emphasize that.”

“White Hispanic? Is there such a thing? I’ve never heard of that.”

“Don’t fear change,” Hornswoggler encouraged. “But don’t show his photo too much. Show Throdown—but find some Farcebook pictures of him when he was 12 or younger. We owe it to the public to show his vulnerability.”

“I’m on it,” the employee said.

Jacob Hornswoggler nodded and proceeded to the next door. An obese, androgynous editor from Smithereens State occupied this room.

“How are we doing here?”

The employee grimaced and sighed heavily. “It’s hard to find any real news stories amidst all the whining about unwarranted federal wire tapping, use of the IRS to harass and intimidate political opponents, and indefinite detention without trial.”

“Crybabies are everywhere,” Hornswoggler agreed, rolling his eyes with an enlightened scoff. “To hear them tell it, you’d think that abuses of power are just as wrong under this administration as they were under the previous one.”

They both shared an exasperated shake of the head. Despite all their valiant effort to educate, some Neanderthals just couldn’t grasp the complexities of relative standards.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Hornswoggler said, drawing on his bottomless supply of conflict resolution savvy. “Let’s put together a special report on executive tyranny—which can certainly be a bad thing, you see. Make it hard-hitting, relevant and timely. We’ll call it ‘Looking Back on Watergate’.”

Their exchange of mutually supportive harrumphs were interrupted by a text from Hornswoggler’s wife.

Have you come up with a resolution about the gloves?

The gloves, the gloves. What could be done about a brand new pair of gloves that were the wrong size? He pulled the receipt from his pocket and flicked it with his thumb thoughtfully.

Jacob Hornswoggler was still mulling over this dilemma when he entered the next room.

“Why the long face?” he asked, noticing the dour expression worn by his economic analyst from Sam Hill College.

“I just can’t figure out a way to present these numbers,” the employee replied. “Not in a way that will reflect the superb national leadership we now have.”

Hornswoggler patted his employee on the shoulder. “It’s challenging, but not impossible. First of all, don’t include people who are still jobless but have used up all their unemployment benefits. Put it on a fancy bar graph and call it ‘unemployment statistics,’ just don’t explain that you’re only counting the fraction of unemployed people who are still getting unemployment checks.”

“But I’ve done that, sir,” the employee said, dejected. “The figures are still worse than ever.”

Hornswoggler stroked his chin. “Hmm. Well, remove the state of California from the report. Then re-run the numbers and show a clip of the president blaming the previous administration for the economy.”

Well, that certainly wouldn’t be difficult to find. The employee began to feel a little better. But that wouldn’t fix everything.

“Um, sir,” the employee said, tentatively. “We still have a problem.”

Hornswoggler raised his index finger. “No we don’t. The economy is in its best shape ever. Remember: as of Inauguration Day, the recession became a ‘slow economic recovery.’ Slow because of the previous administration, of course.”

“Um, what I mean is, sir: things like gas prices.?”

“Gas prices?” Hornswoggler boomed. “What about gas prices? People shouldn’t be driving personal vehicles anyway! Everyone should use public transportation…except people in critical positions, of course, such as myself.”

“Well, see sir, during that previous administration, when prices were a buck-seventy a gallon, we kind of blamed it on them, because they had no sympathy for the little guy.”

“They didn’t,” Hornswoggler said. “They were hopelessly out-of-touch—a bunch of cold-hearted elitist pigs who couldn’t care less about poor working class people getting gouged at the pumps!”

“Well,” the employee continued, nervously, “gas prices are now three-fifty a gallon.”

Hornswoggler pshawed. “Just don’t mention gas prices. You just show those jobs figures. Hoo, boy, what an impressive employment graph that will be!”

“Well, the reason…um, I’m not real confident,” the employee said, “is that some bloggers kept records of what we said then, and are comparing it to our silence now.”

Righteous outrage coursed through Jacob Hornswoggler’s body. How dare those amateurs! He was sure this was a violation of his rights, somehow. They should be prevented from spreading their vile hatred amongst the working class morons out there, who were sure to draw the wrong conclusions if exposed to such unregulated vitriol.

“Find out who these bloggers are and expose them as racists,” he said.

His employee couldn’t help but swell with pride for being under the inspired tutelage of a visionary genius like Jacob Hornswoggler.

The entire GBS building glowed with an aura of journalistic objectivity.

Before Hornswoggler made it to the next room, his cell phone rang. He smiled, thinking it was his wife…but then noticed the number was the Virtual Hotline straight from the Capitol.

“This is Jacob Hornswoggler,” he intoned, voice rich with the nuances of his ethical supremacy.

“We have a Level Three emergency,” the voice on the phone said. “We need you to come in immediately.”

“On my way,” Hornswoggler said, striding toward the door.

Level Three was bad. It meant the March of Progress was being threatened and required a swift, vehement response.

But there was a silver lining in this dark cloud: during the limousine ride to his personal jet, Jacob Hornswoggler played with the glove receipt and smiled through the tinted windows at the sign over the store where the gloves were bought as the limo drove past.

Jacob Hornswoggler knew exactly what to do about the ill-fitting gloves. It was so simple, he should have thought of it from the start…but the rigors of his job must have distracted him. The answer was staring him right in the face the entire time!

All he had to do was make a call to some doctors he knew and have them surgically alter his wife’s hands to fit the gloves.

At various locations around the globe, certain individuals received the Level Three Emergency call, and had to interrupt their important work for an impromptu trip to the White House.

This was Chapter 3 of The Greater Good.

Commies and Traitors and Cucks, Oh My!

Elsa Von Branefuq yawned and stretched. This session of the House of Representatives had been grinding along non-stop for hours, and they hadn’t even voted themselves another pay raise yet.

“In summary,” the Speaker of the House said, “in order to preempt the spread of a potential outbreak of the Zombie Plague, this bill will require the replacement of public drinking water with Compound X-13.”

Predictably, a renegade Congressman from one of the flyover states just had to raise an objection. “Ms. Speaker, it is puzzling why you have this urgency to address a problem which might not even exist by mandating that citizens drink something that contains a deadly poison.”

“With all due respect to the gentleman from flyover country,” Representative Vlad Impaler said, “there’s not one smidgeon of evidence that Strychnine is in the compound, or that it’s poisonous.”

“Every single time it’s been used in substantial doses, it’s been fatal,” insisted the fringe lunatic right-winger. “Why don’t we at least examine the compound before we vote, to settle for sure exactly what is in it?”

Speaker of the House Natasha Polecatsky vainly tried to reason with the radical right nutcase. “We have to pass it before we can find out what’s in it.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Hey, it’s not like we have to drink the same water our constituents do,” Representative Pamien Bendover reminded him.

The wacko began spewing some kind of egalitarian platitude before the learned, elder statesman Neville McRino stood and raised his hands to silence his radical colleague. He turned to address the Speaker. “We have to work together to overcome this gridlock. How about we make it a 50/50 mixture of drinking water and Compound X-13?”

“The learned gentleman from Tarnation insults this august body,” retorted Speaker Polecatsky. “And I’m sure July and September bodies don’t like it either.”

“Very well,” McRino said. “We’ll do 60/40.”

“You might as well sentence the people to the Zombie Plague,” Representative Putzenbum said.

McRino sighed. “Fine. 75/25.”

“When did you become such a hard-liner?” asked Representative Hannover Fiste.

“Obviously this is a very divisive topic,” McRino said. “In the interest of bipartisan cooperation, we should put this issue behind us. So 90 % poison, 10 percent drinking water. And that’s my final offer.”

“Make it 99 parts poison to one part water and you’ve got a deal,” Natasha Polecatsky said.

“Done,” McRino said, and sat heavily back down, fatigued from such a knock-down-drag-out struggle on behalf of his constituents.

“All in favor?” Speaker Polecatsky asked.

“Wait a minute!” Barked one of the religious right extremists. “We have absolutely no authority to tell the people what they must or must not drink!”

McRino shrugged apologetically to the Speaker of the House. “I’m afraid ‘compromise’ is a dirty word to some of these hard-liners I have to work with.”

“The ‘ayes’ have it,” Polecatsky said. “Now that it’s law, we should move onto the next item. We are graced today by the presence of our Education Czar, who has a presentation for us before we vote on the next bill.”

Elsa Von Branefuq approached the podium and addressed the House. “If you’ll direct your attention to the screen,” she said, “there’s a short video you need to see.”

She played the video on the big screen and Congressmen watched with interest. The interviews and polls they saw painted a grim picture.

America suffered an epidemic of reactionism. Narrow-minded bigots, so fanatic about defending their irrational prejudices, were hostile to any new idea or alternative insight which challenged the sacred cows of the traditional worldview.

But enough about academia. Elsa’s video was more concerned with the average Joe on the street.

“You all saw the results,” Elsa said after the first video clip. “There’s a significant percentage of the population that believe freedom of speech should apply to everyone—including those whose opinions are incorrect.”

Speechless with dismay, the intellectually superior members of the House shook their heads sadly at the state of national recklessness.

“Some people actually believe that random roadside searches, unwarranted wiretapping and remote monitoring of everyone’s cell phones and social networking violate their so-called Fourth Amendment rights.”

The rational congresspersons groaned at the radical extremism of some of the unwashed crackpots out there.

“And on it goes,” Elsa said. “Not long ago, we had a Hollywood actress, of all people, publicly state that she believed that there’s nothing wrong with a married woman staying home to raise children.”

“Boo. Hiss,” said the enlightened representatives.

Elsa placed one hand over her heart. “I assure you that my professional educators are doing all they can to combat this mass hysteria, but some of our efforts are slipping through the cracks. There’s just not enough reinforcement outside the classroom. Our experts have pinpointed the breakdown in conditioning, and it amounts simply to this: people don’t watch enough TV!”

She pushed a button on the remote and the screen filled with the image of a slick, shiny, modern-looking wide screen television.

“Industry leaders who share our vision of progress have assessed our needs and cooperated with us to develop a new tool to combat this widespread problem. I present: the new Cerebrolave, by Phillips Pavlovox.”

The House gasped and stared at the striking image of technological innovation.

“Now observe the cognitive functions evident after only a few hours of immersion in the patented Cerebrolave technology,” Elsa said, and rolled the next video clip.

An interviewee wiped drool from her lips as she watched the gorgeous wide screen of her new television, then turned to face the camera. “Violent criminals, by nature, obey laws,” she said. “We need more gun control legislation.”

The video jump-cut to a basement, where a 26 year old Occupy protester salivated, eyes glued to his new Pavlovox. “All religions of the world should be respected and welcomed in our society,” he said. “Except Christianity, of course.”

Another jump-cut to a middle class living room. A couple sat watching TV while workmen paraded in and out the foreclosure notice-covered front door and waded through the drool-flooded house repossessing everything they found (except the new Phillips Pavlovox).

The husband said, “You know, the economy isn’t really that bad. And however bad it is, it’s the fault of the previous administration. Anyone who disagrees is a racist.”

His wife, sitting across the couch from him, nodded. “By doubling our national debt,” she said, “our president kept his promise to cut it in half within his first term. While colossal, unsustainable debt was flagrantly irresponsible during the previous administration, twice as much colossal, unsustainable debt under this administration is sound economic policy. The solution to impending bankruptcy is to borrow and spend even more than before.”

The reasonable representatives in the House applauded.

“Thank-you,” Elsa Von Branefuq said. “And I won’t go into all the features of these new televisions, but I’d like to point out that they have integrated cameras. Now the person watching TV can be observed, to determine their reaction to what they watch. This provides an early warning system. Since those with inappropriate responses to various stimuli suffer from some sort of mental disorder, they can now be identified. Once identified, corrective action can be taken, whether it be adjustment of their medication, or removal for private treatment…before they become a danger to themselves or others.”

The House gave her a standing ovation—all except for a few lunatic fringe right-wingers who always tried to throw a stumbling block in the way of progress.

“We need to make it mandatory,” Natasha Polecatsky said, “that every household in the country have one of these TVs in it! I’ll have my assistants begin drafting legislation immediately.”

“Pardon me, Ms. Speaker,” McRino said, “but what about people who can’t afford this TV?”

“We’ll have to penalize them with fines,” Polecatsky said.

“Makes perfect sense,” McRino said.

“Excuse me Ms. Speaker,” one of the fascist pigs said, “but what right do we have to force the taxpayers to buy a television? Or any product for that matter?”

Polecatsky winked at her supporters. “If you’re happy with your current TV set, you can keep it.”

Elsa’s cell phone rang. She recognized the number and turned to the Speaker. “I beg your pardon, Ms. Speaker, but there’s an emergency and I have to leave immediately.”

“Hmmph,” Polecatsky said. “Well, we’d like to ask you some specific questions. Let me earmark a few million taxpayer dollars for a return visit, with hotel accommodations, limousine service…”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted one of the hate-filled religious right monsters. “She lives right here in town!”

“Your personal attacks against the Education Czar prove you’re anti-education and pro-ignorance,” the Speaker of the House concluded. “Next thing you know you’ll be denying school lunches and starving children to death.”

The last thing Elsa heard on her way out the door was Neville McRino pontificating on how they should just get this devisive issue behind them by approving it.

This was Chapter 2 of The Greater Good.

Up Close With a Supervillain

 A chilling wind swept over the barren wasteland.

In all directions, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but desolate emptiness. In such a dreary location the imagination tends to wander and one can’t help wondering if maybe there was, at some point in time immemorial, an advanced, thriving civilization long departed for some unknown reason, all evidence of its achievements in culture and technology now buried under the ruin of time.

But enough about Detroit. This story begins far to the north, and quite a ways west.

The large, steel-hulled ship steamed through the icy waters, between the frozen steppes of Siberia on the left and the frozen tundra of Alaska on the right. A man sitting alone in his private cabin watched the godforsaken scenery slide by.

Tyrone Tirikeldaun didn’t necessarily have to become a supervillain. He could have just as easily become a healthy, positive contributor to society…like an actor, community organizer or Occupy protester.

He had a promising start—watching network television, playing video games, complaining a lot and letting his parents support him while waiting for his first welfare check.

Then, to the detriment of all that lives, he got an idea.

Instead of watching TV and playing video games, he worked on the idea and it grew into a business. But not a socially responsible business that loses money or, at best, breaks even. Once all his expenses were covered and bills paid, he had some money left over. To compound this unethical behavior, he kept that money for himself, reinvesting it in his business.

It was a slippery slope from there. Before long, he was looking for tax breaks to take advantage of, gleefully hoarding as much of the money he earned as was possible.

Villainy was like a drug to him. He couldn’t get enough. The compulsion to oppress the working class and destroy the environment only grew stronger, the more people bought his products.

Tyrone Trikeldaun’s eyes sparkled with a villainous glint as he gazed out over the North Alaskan coast through the cabin porthole in his ship, the SS Unfair Advantage. If only I had time, he thought, I could murder a whole bunch of cute little animals. I could drop anchor, set up some oil drilling equipment and watch multiple species frightened to extinction by the sight of a man-made object.

He sighed and sipped from his decadent 64 ounce Big Glunk. Maybe, as a consolation, he could take a landing party ashore on the way back and swat some protected species of spotted mosquito or something. There were no trees from the Brazilian Rainforest handy to slash, burn, or otherwise take his villainous sadism out on, so he would have to make do.

He pushed the intercom button and asked, “How long until we’re in the Arctic Circle?”

Henchman 34 replied, through the speaker, “We’re about to cross into the Arctic Circle very soon, now.”

“Oh. I mean that other circle, then. You know—the one that’s like a hundred mile radius from the North Pole. I pointed to it on the big map display in my underground lair when I was explaining the plan.”

“Right, sir. We should be there within a week, depending on how thick the ice is.”

Arctic Circle, schmartcic circle. They’d have to think up a different name for it soon. He laughed maniacally and rubbed his hands together.

Continuing the series on Superheroes and The Narrative, this is chapter One from my short e-book The Greater Good.

Daredevil on Netflix

So far, there is only one season’s worth of episodes on Netflix. I watched them all to the end without puking. I do admit to some groans and eye-rolls, but grading on the curve, that’s an A+ for a superhero (or, frankly, any) TV show these days.

First of all, in a genre with more reboots than a week’s worth of using Microsux Winblows, the series was fairly faithful to the source material. Remember, Daredevil hit the crimefighting stage in the 1960s. So first of all, everything had to be transposed to this millennium.

I’ll get the eye-rolls out of the way first.

SpidermanKingpin

(BTW, I remember the Kingpin being one of Spiderman’s enemies. Maybe Frank Miller switched him over?)

In today’s obsession with gray areas, flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, I guess it was just too tempting for the writers not to try to show the Kingpin’s humanity.

Sometimes these apologetics work. In this instance it was really unnecessary.

Some villains are just crooked, okay? The darker side of human nature is to lust after wealth/ power, and to build one’s own twisted version of morality in order to justify those lusts. The scumbags of the world either see themselves as heroes or victims (often both), and always have an excuse handy for what they do. You don’t need to help them make excuses.

Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?
Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?

I’ll only mention one more annoyance: the creative team behind Daredevil obviously felt obliged to lament the revolution in media every chance they got. In fact, the reporter character (Ben Urich) really serves no better purpose in the series.

He’s an icon–a symbol of journalistic integrity that the left-wing propagandist tools of the mainstream media would have you believe motivates them. The great tragedy is that since the flow of information has been democratized via the Internet, people have options and are turning away from the Lapdog Press; perusing alternative sources looking for the truth.

The truth that the mainstream media routinely attempts to suppress (and before the Internet, they were consistently successful).

The Daredevil writers (via their Ben Urich character) whine about the demise of Marxist (“mainstream”) newspapers, and complain that inferior proletarian slobs “blogging in their underwear” are responsible. They also seem to believe that those unwashed bloggers are getting filthy rich from doing it.

There was one similar rant in Arrow that I remember, but in this series, once was evidently not enough.

The series is just sloppin' over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain't bad, either.
The series is just sloppin’ over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain’t bad, either.

If you can ignore elements like those two eye-rolls summarized above (and I’m sure 99% of folks do), then this is actually a decent series so far. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple and the other supporting characters are likeable. The action is mixed in well. The fight scenes are not bad for TV.

SInce the dark days of the 70s, Marvel’s efforts at live-action adaptation has undergone a tremendous overhaul. The Daredevil series certainly meets current Marvel Studios standards, and is an immense improvement over the big-screen effort of a few years ago.

Of the three different superhero-inspired series I’ve critiqued this month, this is the only one I intend to continue following.

SJW Wars: The Book Review Front

I’m interrupting the series on superheroes for breaking news that’s relevant to the latest battles in the war for our culture. If you follow Vox Popoli, you are probably already aware that Goodreads has banished him and others associated with the Rabid Puppies. The reason? Non-violation of non-policies. Meanwhile, those of the correct political affiliation are allowed to violate stated Goodreads policies at will, and only those who point the violations out are punished.

Truth is treason in the Empire of Lies, from the Obama Administration down to the People’s Democratic Republic of Goodreads.

Virtual Pulp has covered the efforts toward SJW convergence at Amazon before, but below is a recent attack on a review I posted there. Mind you, it’s obvious that I read the book, and the review is detailed enough for any reader to determine whether he would like it the book or not. Here’s the review of Breeder I posted on the old Two-Fisted Blog, before paring it down for Amazon.

(Note: That review resulted in my e-meeting the author. Afterwards we became correspondents. I also reviewed a handful of his other books and he reviewed two of mine. All because I was a fan of his nigh-forgotten men’s adventure spoof.)

I am now going to use my psychic abilities to locate the offensive passage from my review that inspired this Social Justice Warrior to attack (and vote my review “not helpful”…the only vote it has received, BTW):

…From the very first time I read this novel, I dismissed the Master Race aspect of the plot as silly, simple, and off-the-wall. After all, no tinkering with the American gene pool has been necessary to bring us to the brink of financial ruin (to name just one calamity that we now face). All it has required has been Pavlovian conditioning, softening, and dumbing-down of the electorate over a couple generations.

But then, Europe is rapidly transforming into a Muslim continent as I write this, and this paradigm shift is taking place in the womb.There is a political power base here in America that hopes to forge an ironclad monopoly over the three branches of our government, and one method they’ve been using to great effect (besides the aforementioned Pavlovian conditioning, softening and dumbing-down) includes tactics like refusal to enforce immigration laws, granting of amnesty to illegals, and the encouragement of “anchor babies” through redistribution of taxpayers’ money. Again, the key to victory, for some, is considered to lie within the womb.

So maybe the whole Master Race plot is not as silly as I assumed…

Want to piss off SJWs on search-and-disqualify destroy? Speak the truth about immigration. Here is his (?) response:

May have been an interesting review – minus all the clearly rightwing wingnut agenda based propaganda that seem to appear out of thin air (by the reviewer) based upon some wistful interpretations of a couple non related statements by the author (in a novel yet).

Even the Reviewer admits that “In any event, I don’t purport that this was Jim Morris’ attempt at an Atlas Shrugged” (but seems to sure wish that was the case).

Interestingly, the author has worked strongly with the aiding of non Christians pagan Montagnards from Vietnam into the United States (as well as other Hill Tribes, Nungs, Cambodes, etcetera) by the thousands (and many initially illegally). It would be interesting to see what the author would feel about those comments of this Reviewer in that regard.

But there was one correct comment: “There is a political power base here in America that hopes to forge an ironclad monopoly over the three branches of our government, and one method they’ve been using to great effect” (Only that Party has been the Republicans and the vehicle used has many scare tactics, disinformation, misinformation, The Big Lie, and other propaganda techniques that the best known fascists would have been proud of).

Leaving political agendas out of a book review that is a book of satire and immense tongue-in-cheek would have made it much better.

How about a read of the author’s “Sheriff of Purgatory” and show an interpretation of the main character’s clearly liberal character is actually another Ayn Rand one (without guns or personal killing this time).

I would find that interesting.

 

SJWs see what they want to see, whether it’s there or not. That’s why he/she/it can proclaim, with a straight cyber-face, that my “right-wing wingnut agenda based propaganda” was “based upon some wistful interpretations of a couple non related statements by the author (in a novel yet).”

No. Actually, to anyone with reading comprehension above a Ninth Grade level, it is clear that my observations were not based on some “statements” by the author in a novel.

The entire plot of the novel hangs on the premise that the USA can be taken over by breeding a specific type of progeny. I once considered this a silly idea, but in the review I pointed out that it’s hardly a silly concept, because current events demonstrate that genetics/breeding is one tactic being used right now in an agenda to take over the USA (and Europe).

What actually came “out of thin air” was this ankle-biter’s word-vomit about pagan Montagnards and Nungs, which is completely irrelevant to anything in the novel, or my review of it.

But having learned my lesson about speaking in Dialectic in debates with those who can’t understand it, I resisted the urge to shoot back with a point-by-point refutation based on observable truth. I returned fire with rhetoric–at least I tried to keep it rhetorical. You can read my response here.

Gotham on Netflix

Continuing with my superhero miniseries, I now turn to the latest reboot of the Batman mythos.

First off, as I pointed out in Superheroes and The Narrative:

…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).

That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.

Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, Batman Destroys the Monkproperty-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.

You can’t get much more right-wing than that.

And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.

The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals--"a superstitious, cowardly lot."
The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals–“a superstitious, cowardly lot.”
A kinder, gentler vigilante.
A kinder, gentler vigilante.

So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.

antigunBatmanSince at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)

So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.

It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.

Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.

PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.

ThePenguin_01
The classic Penguin–that paragon of perfidy with a parasol…that bumbershoot bandit with a belly…

CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?

Tim Burton's Penguin--basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.
Tim Burton’s Penguin–basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.

PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.

CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.

PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.

CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?

Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.
Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.

CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.

Now here's a villainess to wrap your arms around.
Now here’s a villainess to wrap your arms around.

CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.

The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..

The Flash on Netflix

Smallville paved the way for Arrow, and The Flash spun off from that. If you noticed that Smallville became increasingly ridiculous and unimaginative after Season One, you might suspect that the same writers are churning out episode teleplays for the spinoffs.

The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.
The Flash TV series is not without its assets, on display here.

The Flash does have something going for it–namely special effects and an 8+ babe in the regular cast.

Unfortunately the directing does not raise the bar for superhero adaptations. So many times the Flash is shown moving at super-speed, but repeatedly the actor is instructed to stand around and wait to get punched or shot or zapped when the script calls for a reversal or increase in dramatic tension. This is much harder to forgive in live-action than it is in the panels of a comic book.

Also, Barry Allen, as depicted, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag.

The first few episodes suffered from overacting and desperately over-dramatic writing. The actors and writers settled down a little after a while, but it became painfully obvious soon thereafter that this is just another example of a comic book stalwart being hijacked by SJWs and transformed into just another chapter of The Narrative.

Here are two factors that were final nails in the coffin for me:

The Obligatory Sympathetic Homosexual Character

This time they made him a police captain. The creative team are simply/dutifully following Step 1 and 4 of “The Overhauling of Straight America.” (The other steps have been followed so religiously that the cultural svengalis can just maintain The Narrative now–it’s already been programmed into Millenials, Gen X, Gen Y and most Baby Boomers.)

The Obligatory Amazon Superninja

One of the villains (I can’t recall his moniker) could turn his entire body into iron or something. He was a very similar character to comic book villains like the Sandman, Clayface, the Molten Man, etc. In this series the Flash is a lousy fighter and gets his butt handed to flashgreenarrowhim by nearly every opponent (except Green Arrow–Barry Allen suddenly and mysteriously knows how to fight using his super-speed when a feud between him and Oliver Queen is contrived). The Iron Baddie is no exception–always able to transform into iron faster than the Flash can move.

The diversity-by-the-numbers team at Star Labs (Hispanic scientist; female scientist; ostensibly handicapped evil genius white male scientist) tap their keyboards a few times and decide that the way to take out Iron Baddie is for Flash to deliver a punch while running faster than he’s ever run before.

So our hero gets a running start and tops out at like 800 MPH before

This is Hollywood's vision of a badass ultimate fighter.
This is Hollywood’s vision of a badass ultimate fighter.

nailing Iron Baddie right on the button. Iron Baddie recovers and comes right back at the Crimson Chump the Scarlet Speedster. Ah, but never fear: the aforementioned 8+ babe (Iris West) steps in and knocks him out with one punch. She has no superpowers (unless you count hypergamy) but is obviously superior to ANY man, even the superpowered ones. Because vagina.

Need I waste more verbiage on this series?