Cracked Tackles Racism and Sexism in Film

I sometimes a read Cracked. I tend to stay away from Cracked for the same reason I like to stay away from TV Tropes - I value my time, and I find that if someone links me to Cracked or TV Tropes, I can pretty much sign off on a few hours of my life easily. If I'm bored and I can't find anything to read online, however, I will certainly take a spin down the rabbit hole. I've actually learned some things from Cracked - but only because I was able to go back and double check the sources (okay, call me anal about it. I don't care - I don't like using Wikipedia as a primary source. I prefer to use their sources, which they've so neatly categorized as the bottom of the page for me).

I keep an eye on racism and I talk a lot about racism at length. As I get closer to releasing my novel, I find myself keeping a close eye on the discussion of race in the media. I always find it interesting when, in what seems to be the sea of sewage and  nerdy white-boy American privilege that is the Internet, something rational and sensible raises it's head. It's even more interesting when that something is on a rather large site like Cracked, which is actually part of that nerdy white-boy American privilege on the Internet.

Thus, we arrive at two Cracked articles - 5 Old-Timey Prejudices That Still Show up in Every Movie and Hollywood's 6 Favorite Offensive Stereotypes.

This is Absolutely Amazing

I can't muster full commentary on this, other than how absolutely incredible this video is.

Listen in awe as Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, trashes the shit of this TEA Bagging ignoramus.

Full video found here.

"So be proud to be an American, rather than a wanker whipping up fear"
- Michael D. Higgins

Why can't we have politicians like this guy? Why?

The Third Position of Centrism

In the United States, there is this mythical existence called "centrism." If you listen to our media, or our political parties, there's always a call for bipartisanship. There's always this idea that, if you call the right out for being the frothy fucking liars they are, then you've got to be "balanced" and reassure the population that the leftists are just as bad. You have to appeal to this mythical centrist unicorn; this rare, neigh invisible creature that exists less as a corporeal entity and more as an idea that is aspired to.

It isn't an idea we need to aspire to reach. Centrism is not a good thing. Being middle of the road doesn't make you more "mature", and it doesn't mean you put anymore thought into your positions than someone on either extreme of the political spectrum. A centrist is someone who hasn't decided anything, doesn't believe in anything, and doesn't take a stand for anything. A fence-setter - that is, someone who always answers poll questions like "Do you think the sky is blue" with "undecided" - is a centrist. I'm not saying you need to be an extremist, I'm just saying that centrism is not a state to aspire to. In a way, centrism is every bit as dangerous as extremism.

Centrism is not revolutionary. Centrism is reactionary. Centrism is a toxic, destructive force - it is not "capitalism with a human face." It's "corporatism with a Citizen's United mask".

Why I'm Voting for Satan

Apparently, Rick Santorum isn't running against Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. He said so himself, which likely suggests why he's going to loose. Instead, Santorum is running against the father of all lies himself - himself Satan.

I don't care who he's running against, that's who I'm voting for. Go ahead and pony Carpathescu up here. I'll vote for the dude, so long as he ain't Santorum. Hell, if anything, I know for certain he's got a better grasp of geography than 90% of Americans, because knowing Burma isn't in Africa is EVIL YO. But, in fact, I can make a very strong case why you should be voting for Satan and the Antichrist, not least of all because he isn't Santorum.

World Building Part 2 - the Governing Agencies

In the first post, I took a long look at the way in which I set about starting to build a fantasy world, and explained a little bit about the history that I have with the genre. As is to be expected, I like my fantasy forward thinking - progressive, avant garde, and one where the rules are internally consistent to my specifications. Works where one pines for the good ol' days, when the good king John ruled from the throne and the monarchy made sure the trains rain on time by keeping a highly stratified society in which the shit flowed down hill but not much else is not something I aspire to. There are plenty of different government styles, and as I start to build my worlds, I look to those. Any society that has an autocratic ruler is not likely going to be one that I aspire to by any means.

Far too often, I think, the government style of a fantasy world gets overlooked. "Let's just throw a king or pope or some other autocrat in there and get it over with, and move on." The problem with this is that you end up with so many examples of autocracy the entire genre begins to look anti-democratic. Not helping matters is the notion that heroes can only be "chosen ones" and are "much larger than life." Heroes in fiction aren't necessarily supposed to loom larger than life. Heroes in fiction aren't necessarily supposed to be leaders, nor are they supposed to be demi-gods who discover that they're the lost king. They don't necessarily have to be one of a select few who can wield magic/psionics/whatever.

Take for example Human Black Box. Chloe, Zira, and Anjali all look larger than life to us right now, but that's because they live in a world where it's possible. The thing to remember is that they're relatively normal, and in some ways, inferior, to others in their world. Chloe, Zira, Anjali and the other characters in HBB are otherwise normal people in this society. The thing is, technology has advanced society so much that even normal people are on a level playing field with the heroes of old fantasy and mythology. For instance, in a recent Eclipse Phase session I had, the players sleeved inside of modified Olympian morphs and reenacted the myth of the Calydonian boar hunt. While something like that is still a bit beyond the capacity of the average individual - the Olympian cost an arm and a leg and the creation of the boar pod that housed the AGI role-playing as the Calydonian boar was itself tremendously expensive - the stuff is there for them. They, for the most part, are not particularly wealthy. They have average occupations, if they have one. They were able to sleeve into a body and relive a tale form Ancient Greek mythology, and in some ways, even outpaced the mythological heroes. Normal people, outpacing mythology. This is what equality and transhumanism is about. Making that technology available to everyone so everyone can do it is what being technoprogressive is about. While it's hard to directly mirror the philosophies in fantasy, the values can carry over with a little work.

Because I can't rely on technology in my setting, and having magic as is usually presented skews the power structure away from the average folk - with industrialization not really helping - I have to keep this in mind. The normal person is where I start when I build a world, because I don't expect my heroes to be much more than them.

Selecting the government style and setting the world up for the average person ensures a world that's deeper and more expansive than one that's built around the heroes first. It also requires a lot more work, but it's not something that's impossible. Selecting the government style first also determines, in subtle ways, what kind of economy you're looking at. Because the economy is scarcity-based, with some things more scarce than others, I'm going to be looking towards the "classical" economic theories, rather than some new, bleeding edge economic theory for a society that's passed the scarcity-level. It also determines in subtle ways the levels of freedom that your average folks - and by extension, the heroes - will have. So with all this in mind, I set about trying to determine what kind of governments I was looking at.

Replacing Human Black Box this week...

Human Black Box will not be posted this week - I'm hoping to get around to posting it next weekend. It's not that I've gotten behind - far from it - it's just that I haven't had the time to post what I have. And tonight, I've got something else on my mind, so next week HBB will resume.

Having said that, I do have a piece of fiction prepared for you. Or, rather, part of a piece of fiction. See, I'm about this close self-publishing (where this close means I'm waiting for the proofing copy, and once I've got that and I'm happy with it, I make it public. Which means sometime before my birthday in June my novel will be for sale). I've been working on this particular novel, and this particular series, for about 6 years now. Now that I've got a starting point I'm happy with, and I've gone through and proof-read multiple times and had multiple other people proof read, I'm going to publish the book.

Tonight, I'll be posting a chapter from that novel, for your enjoyment.

Please note that the material in this post is not under the Share-and-Share-alike license that the majority of my blog falls under. This material is under copyright to me.

Sieg Heil

Women were not expected to work in Nazi Germany . In Weimar Germany there had been 100,000 female teachers, 3000 female doctors and13,000 female musicians. Within months of Hitler coming to power, many female doctors and civil servants were sacked. This was followed by female teachers and lawyers. By the start of the Second World War, very few German women were in full time work. However, such was the skills shortage in Germany, that in 1937 a law was passed in 1937 which meant women had to do a "Duty Year". This meant that they could work 'patriotically' in a factory etc. to help the Nazi's"Economic Miracle". The marriage loan was also abolished in this year.

As housewives and mothers, their lives were controlled.Women were not expected to wear make-up or trousers. The dyeing of hair was not allowed nor were perms. Only flat shoes were expected to be worn. Women were discouraged from slimming as this was considered bad for child birth. Women were encouraged to have a well built figure as slim women, so it was taught, would have problems in pregnancy…….Women were also discouraged from smoking - not because it was linked to problems with pregnancies - but because it was considered non-German to do so.

You know what? I'm at the point where I just don't give a damn about this place anymore.

Hitler's outspoken anti-feminism drove large numbers of women to join left-wing political groups. In October, 1933, the Nazis opened the first concentration camp for women at Moringen. By 1938 the camp was unable to accommodate the growing number of women prisoners and a second one was built at Lichtenburg in Saxony. The following year another one was opened in Ravensbruck.

Call Godwin. Go ahead. At this point, such comparisons are applicable. We're looking at the rise of cryptofacist government that seeks to do ferociously restate the "rights" of old White Christian men, who society would be better off without. This is Virginia. This is Oklahoma. What they tried to do in Mississippi they couldn't do they did in Oklahoma without even having the population vote on it. The same in Virginia.

Sic Semper Tyrannus
*spits*

Hypocritical fuckers.