Author: VD

Hashtag canceled

A longtime DC Comics fan explains why he recently canceled his subscription.

Like many kids, I enjoyed comics, but as I got older I gave them up so it had been decades since I’d bought one. In 2016 DC, realizing that their sales were slumping and the effect of SJWs on their comic franchises, launched Rebirth, which was a supposed return to the roots of the characters. I’ve always liked Batman and Superman and decided to give them a shot. My focus here is with the political and moral implications of the various comics, not specific plots, unless they were especially good or bad. The art ranged from really good at times to mediocre but that’s outside the scope of this too. I’m not looking for political perfection in my comics and I expect them to be as far left as the average TV program–which is at minimum center left.

However, I was finally forced to conclude that Rebirth is an SJW bait-and-switch aimed at traditional fans, and that all of the reborn comics will eventually be as converged as they were before. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that Marvel’s big SJW, Brian Bendis, is now coming to DC to do to Superman what he did to the various Marvel lines.

Detective Comics: Read #934-956

The main arc is that Batman assembles a team to help in Gotham which includes Batwoman and even Clayface. The Clayface plot was actually pretty good of why he was a villain and him trying his best to reform his life. A positive highlight was the Victim Squad. They were a group of people who through Batman’s actions in the past were “collateral damage”. They had physical ailments, suffered loss, etc. They collectively decided that since something bad happened to them it justified whatever they wanted to do to the world and of course wanted revenge. I think this was a direct swipe at the victim culture. Another interesting plot is that Batwoman’s father is a military man who is running a black op to take out sleeper agents in Gotham. Batman stops him and moralizes at him, then throws him in jail. All well and good except Batman is dead wrong, the military guy is right, and there are sleeper agents in Gotham. I stopped reading it at Robin’s (Tim Drake) death because it was such a stupid plot device, and the it was obvious they were going to bring him back quickly making his death meaningless. The series has a few lesbians as as friends of the team and mentions that Batwoman was forced to leave the US Military Academy due to her being in a lesbian relationship. I’d say overall it’s center left, but not full SJW.

Titans: Read #1-10

Not much to say here. It’s pretty boring, but the art was nice. I didn’t really care about the characters and I don’t remember a lot of heavy politics by the time I gave it up.

Superman: Read #1-#35

This is the best of what I read. Superman is heroic, always tries to do what is right, including being a good father and husband to Lois. The art is good, the plots are classic, with an interesting twist that Lex Luthor is now a good guy (maybe). The best part of this series is the interaction between Superman and his son. I don’t even think I could nitpick this series if I wanted to as Krypto “Superdog” is even in it and defends Superboy and Superman. This is what comics should be like.

Doomday Clock:

I read the preview and it is 100{75555d9e07a24e4b9ce698107dbbd309d5544f8e8057bab8f219509a7e001883} converged. “Undeplorables”, Russia is the enemy, and William F. Buckley Jr. is a villain. This is the future of DC now, as this event will impact the continuity going forward.

Action Comics: #957-987

This is the series which made me give up on DC. It starts out reasonably well and retells Superman’s origins, death at the hands of Doomsday, and explains how this Superman got here as apparently he died again before this series of illness and this Superman is from New Earth, not Earth Prime on which things happen now. (Confused yet? Welcome to the silliness of comic continuity.) The plot dragged down as Doomsday showed back up but there was no tension because they weren’t going to kill Superman again with Doomsday since started with Superman #1. They high point is where Lois and Jon (Superboy) pray for their father during the fight.

From there it goes downhill plot-wise and the SJWs show back up. First after raising their son in an idyllic countryside about an hour from Metropolis Lois decides that she isn’t fulfilled and a whole lot of horrible rationalizing begins by Lois and Superman of why she needs to go back to work at the Daily Planet, live in an apartment, and Superman of course goes along with all of it. Even though they both admit it’s not necessary monetarily, and Jon loves his friends and where he lives. He complains but they don’t give a shit and move him to a skyscraper because it makes them happy. (Are Babyboomers writing this?)

Then an SJW writer takes over and “the worst evil humans can commit” is brought about by some guy named Dr. Oz which includes a white hunter teaching his son in Africa to poach rhino horns, white rebels in Africa stealing medicine, white sweatshop owners, and a white guy who lost his job to Hispanics – expressly illegal immigrants – tries to gun them down while wearing an American flag bandanna on his head. I stopped reading right then, and got my money refunded on my Kindle. In fact I had purchased a few others I had not read yet and got my money refunded on all of them too.

With the recent Bendis hire, I can only imagine where things are headed. I’m sure Superman will be fully converged soon. I’m a casual fan, so any corrections in the above with regards to plot or characters is appreciated and I’m sure that the serious fans will have a lot of good insights to add which I missed. I’m also curious to know about some of the other series like Green Arrow or Wonder Woman are like, and what state they are in since Rebirth.

The collapsing NFL

TNF: TEN-PIT -36{75555d9e07a24e4b9ce698107dbbd309d5544f8e8057bab8f219509a7e001883}
EDH: KC-NYG -39{75555d9e07a24e4b9ce698107dbbd309d5544f8e8057bab8f219509a7e001883}
LDH: NE-OAK -22{75555d9e07a24e4b9ce698107dbbd309d5544f8e8057bab8f219509a7e001883}

Those are not ratings declines, those are cliff dives. Especially when all three games were featuring elite franchises in the playoff hunt. It’s already being estimated that NFL advertisers have lost over $500 million due to the ratings decline, and that is when they were in the 20 percent year-on-year range.

It’s a little astonishing that no one has ever hired me as an SJW consultant for their business, when it is readily apparent that SJW-convergence is one of the most immediate and pressing threats that ANY business can face.

Diamond is down 20.27 percent year-on-year because SJW. Marvel is down 9 percent year-on-year because SJW – a little surprised it is that low, to be honest. DC is down 10.5 percent because SJW.

SJW doesn’t pay

The saddest thing about this post by a disillusioned woman is that only some corporations view a Gender Studies degree as a negative:

I’m a graduate of UC Berkeley with a major in Gender and Women’s Studies. I had a 3.94 GPA and a 750 on the GMAT. My WE isn’t that good, I’ve been a “Youth Outreach Coordinator” for Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach. I make like 30k a year.

To be honest, I was overly idealistic and extremely naive. I was extremely liberal/socialist, and that got worse at Berkeley, where I thought good intentions and a pedigreed university would empower me to change the world. I was deluding myself of the employability of my Gender Studies degree. It’s actually been a con to some corporate employers. I’m disillusioned.

Social justice work isn’t for me, and I want out. The fact that I’ve learned, is that some marginalized groups are definitely victims of their circumstances, but others are there for genuinely poor decisions, and not all are deserving of unvarnished empathy. I can’t take this anymore. But I haven’t been able to get non-retail or non-low-level sales jobs in the business sector.

My dad was a management consultant at Bain, and I miss my family’s lifestyle and standard of living. I want to go into management consulting now. I’m fine with tier 2/big4/boutiques, doesn’t have to be MBB. What are my options?

Her best option is to get a retail job, get married, have children, then quit the job. A university education is worse than wasted on most intelligent women, being an observably dysgenic and societally destructive accomplishment.

The chief consequence of encouraging women to pursue college degrees is lowering the average national IQ. This is not merely a negative consequence, it is a catastrophic one that future historians will be sure to note played a role in the collapse of various Western societies.

Fake Americans, fake solutions

This article by an early Fake American conclusively proves the power of identity politics even as he attempts to “solve” the problem of them.

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973, the year the first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago—a book that demolished any pretense of communism’s moral authority—was published in the West. The ideological challenge of socialism was fading, its fighting spirit dwindling. This presented a challenge for the Left: how to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable?

No, the beginning of identity politics in the United States can be traced to the mass immigration of Italians and Irish back in the 1800s. But as students of Roman and Byzantine history know, mass immigration and the identity politics that follow from it long precede the existence of the United States.

In 2004, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published Who Are We? Huntington examined the stunning immigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and argued that it was undermining longstanding notions of American national identity. America, Huntington said, has both a creed and a culture. The creed is formulated in the founding documents of our nation and in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The culture derives from the Anglo-Protestant settlers who first peopled North America. Huntington worried about a “hispanicization” of American culture. This book was controversial, to say the least. Nor was it without weaknesses. It is hard for this descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants to accept the notion that America’s culture is monolithically Anglo-Protestant.

Every single time. And why would it be hard for Mr. Continetti to accept a basic fact of American history? Because his name is Continetti. The amusing thing is that he would probably angrily deny my claim to be a true blue Italian despite the fact that by his own illogic, I am more genuinely Italian than he is. Those who deny identity politics while clinging to their own identities will inevitably descend into self-parody sooner or later.

Identity politics is a veneer over the class politics that truly defines our society, and education is the best prism through which to view class in America today. 

Ironic, that a self-styled conservative would turn to a Marxian analysis in order to deny the identity politics that give him feelbads. Conservatives really have become yesterday’s liberals. Identity politics is not a veneer. It is the inevitable consequence of rival identities. Note that in Singapore, the leadership began consciously managing identity politics and to characterize Singaporeans by citizenship rather than national identity because its population was only 75 percent Chinese, (13.7 Malay, 8.7 Indian, 2.6 various), a percentage they felt to be too low to support genuine nationalism.

To combat identity politics, we must emphasize an American nationalism based on both a commitment to the ideals of the American Founding and a shared love of our national history and culture—a history and culture of individual freedom and religious pluralism, resistant to centralized authority and ever expanding into new frontiers and new possibilities.

Who is this “we”, kemosabe? How is this fake nationalism going to survive when it is based on a commitment that no one has to actually make and a love that is never going to be measured or held accountable? Will those who refuse to commit or simply don’t possess the love be stripped of their paper nationality and expelled? If not, then this is just more high-minded Fake American blather meant to disguise the fact that while they are citizens of the same multinational imperial state, neither they nor their ancestors were ever truly Americans.

UPDATE: So much for propositional conservatism. He has to go back.

The GOP tax bill’s bringing out my inner socialist. The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist. Donald Trump and Roy Moore are bringing out my inner liberal. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

The False Narrative of Churchianity

The Zman rightly excoriates Churchianity and how its false narrative tends to cause people to erroneously reject genuine Christianity:

The alt-right, like the larger dissident right, is a cultural phenomenon, not a political movement. Smart young males, mostly out of necessity, are picking up paleo-conservative ideas and questioning the prevailing orthodoxy. These ideas are being extended to question the core assumptions of modern American political order. It’s more akin to the Scientific Revolution than a political movement. The former was about rethinking our place in nature. The latter is about rethinking who gets to be in charge.

It’s why it feels like the alt-right is hostile to Christianity. It has to be. What is generally understood to be mainstream Christianity in America, has been hollowed out by Progressivism, and is now worn like an animal skin by crackpots and degenerates from the fringes of the Left. Even the more culturally conservative parts of the country practice a form of Private Protestantism than embraces extreme egalitarianism, anti-racism and universalism. It’s not an accident that these churches are deep into the refugee rackets.

I think most big names in the alt-right avoid the subject, mostly because it results in howls about how this is not real Episcopalianism or this is not real Christianity. It’s reminiscent of the days when academic Marxists would say the Soviet Union was not real Marxism. It may be theologically true that the current iterations of Christianity are outside the traditions and teachings of the faith, the fact remains that the people running mainstream Christianity these days look a lot like the faculty of your local gender studies department.

That’s not a small thing. The reason the New Left was able to sweep the field in the culture war, that included deposing the Old Left, is that their thing took on a quasi-religious tone. Humans are built to be believing machines. That’s a part of biological reality our side has yet to face, but it must be faced eventually. Something is going to have to fill the spiritual vacuum if this cultural phenomenon is going to be a cultural and then political movement. An Alt-Right form of Christianity would be a welcome development.

The important thing is to remember that the -ist is not the -ism. If the core tenets of Christianity as encapsulated in the Nicene Creed are true, then it is relevant to the Alt-Right no matter what corrupt Churchians may do in the name of the Lord.

The Alt-Right form of Christianity is no different than the Alt-Right form of science and the Alt-right form of history. It is the true and uncorrupted form that is not being worn by its enemies as a skin suit.

Take away their feminist cards

The women of SNL sell-out their sisters on behalf of Senator Fish Lips Frankengroper:

SNL Women Offer Solidarity  in Support of Al Franken

We feel compelled to stand up for Al Franken, whom we have all had the pleasure of working with over the years on Saturday Night Live (SNL).  What Al did was stupid and foolish, and we think it was appropriate for him to apologize to Ms Tweeden, and to the public. In our experience, we know Al as a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant. That is why we are moved to quickly and directly affirm that after years of working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere appreciation that he treated each of us with the utmost respect and regard.

We send our support and gratitude to Al and his family this Thanksgiving and holiday season.

SIGNED BY
1.Jill Baylor, Production Assistant,1991-92
2.Shannon Gaughan Bowman, Writer, 1988-89
3.Beth Einhorn, Script PA,1987-1988
4.Cindy Caponera, Writer, 1995-98
5.Jane Curtin, Not Ready for Prime Time Player, original cast, 1975-80
6.Tracy Cooper Drippe, Script PA/ Script Supervisor,1986-1991
7.Suzy Drasnin, Production Staff/Photographer,1986-90
8.Juli Pari Frankel, Script PA, 1984-1985
9.Julia Fraser, Script Supervisor, 1978-1985
10.Tara Gardner, Writers Assistant, 1990-95
11.Iris March Gross, Broadway Video/SNL 1977-1985
12.Marcy Hardart, Assistant to Lorne Michaels, 1987-1990
13.Lori Jo Hoekstra, Writer’s Assistant/Weekend Update Producer, 1990-1998
14.Sheila Kehoe, Costume Dept, 1976-82
15.Marci Klein, Co-Producer, 1989-2014
16.Franne Lee, Costume Designer, 1975-80
17.Laila Nabulsi, Schiller’s Reel 1975-79; Associate Producer, 1985-1986
18.Laraine Newman, Not Ready for Prime Time Player, original cast, 1975-80
19.Mary Ellen Mathews, Show Photographer, 1993- present
20.Cristina McGinniss, Assistant to Lorne Michaels (25 years);Broadway Video,1979 – present
21.Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Writer, 1975 -1994 (intermittently)
22.Dinah Minot, Associate Producer,1985-1989; Co-Producer, Broadway Pictures,1989-96
23.Evie Murray, Assistant to Lorne Michaels & consultant, 1983-1994
24.Sarah Paley, Writer, 1979-80 (& The New Show 1981-82)
25.Sandra Restrepo Considine, Script Supervisor/PA – 1987-1993
26.Suzanne Rosenberg, Coordinating Producer/Weekend Update, 1983-2003
27.Suzanne Ross, Script PA, 1991-1993
28.Karen Roston, Costume Designer, 1975-1983
29.Mary Salter, Film Producer, 1977-1987
30.Claire Shirey, Script Coordinator, 1982-present
31.Rosie Shuster, Writer, 1975-1980;1984-88
32.Kiki Kazanas Steele, Script PA/Script Supervisor, 1985-1990
33.Pam Thomas, Consultant, 1980s
34.Bonnie Turner, Writer, 1986-1993
35.Christine Zander, Writer,1987-1993
36.Liz Welch, Talent Coordinator,1981-89

Truly pathetic. One would think that the fact that they were following in the Dunham Horror’s footsteps would have been sufficient to give them pause. It’s an interesting line of defense too. Perhaps the next bank robber charged with robbing a bank should consider requesting letters of support from all the banks he didn’t rob.

Besides, it’s not going to save him.

CBS Fires Rose.

Richard Scarry, converged

Remember, there is nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, the SJWs consider too sacrosanct to soil. In fact, the more sacred you hold it, the more eager they are to destroy it.

A much loved children’s story book has had a revamp to make it more politically correct, including placing a male bunny in the kitchen helping his wife. ‘The Best Word Book Ever’ by US author Richard Scarry was first published in 1963, but over the years the illustrations have been gradually tweaked to bring the book up to speed with modern times.

The colourful illustrations of rosy cheeked pigs in police uniforms and rabbits getting the children ready for school are very much the same, but ‘policeman’, ‘fireman’ and ‘handsome pilot’ have been changed to unisex titles such as ‘firefighter’.

Male characters are also pictured looking after children and cooking, whilst female characters have been given careers such as farming and labouring.

I wonder what was the purpose of this atrocity against history? Ah yes, that old standby, inclusivity!

SJWs always lie. Tell a friend.

Lower IQ, declining productivity

More of the unseen benefits of mass immigration altering US demographics:

Evidence from the American Time Use Survey 2003-12 suggests the existence of small but statistically significant racial/ethnic differences in time spent not working at the workplace. Minorities, especially men, spend a greater fraction of their workdays not working than do white non-Hispanics. These differences are robust to the inclusion of large numbers of demographic, industry, occupation, time and geographic controls. They do not vary by union status, public-private sector attachment, pay method or age; nor do they arise from the effects of equal-employment enforcement or geographic differences in racial/ethnic representation. The findings imply that measures of the adjusted wage disadvantages of minority employees are overstated by about 10 percent.

White men are more productive on average. This isn’t news to anyone who actually works in the labor force or is familiar with national productivity statistics. The good news is that at least it isn’t racist. White women are less productive too.

But it is one more piece of evidence showing that immigration is NOT good for the economy. It is, however, good for white contractors.

Subway-repair contracts had to be issued and work performed as emergency repairs to every leg of the DC Metro train system this summer. Populated 92{75555d9e07a24e4b9ce698107dbbd309d5544f8e8057bab8f219509a7e001883} Black, every maintenance job up to the most specialized engineering positions are held by Blacks, who cannot perform said work. Like women in the Navy, they hold the job, knock down the pay and benefits, but someone else has to do the work under contract.

Please stop

Starting? We’re not “starting” to hate them. And the rules of the game are what they are. Kurt Schlichter very somberly warns the Left that if they don’t stop doing what they’re doing, he’s going to have to warn them even more somberly again.

Liberals have chosen to coarsen our culture. Their validation and encouragement of raw hate, their flouting of laws (Hi leakers! Hi Hillary!) and their utter refusal to accept democratic outcomes they disapprove of have consequences. What is itself so surprising is how liberals and their media rentboyz are so surprised to find that we normals are beginning to feel about them the way they feel about us – and that we’re starting to act on it. If you hate us, guess what?

We’re going to start hating you right back.

Cue the boring moralizing and sanctimonious whimpering of the femmy, bow-tied, submissive branch of conservatism whose obsolete members were shocked to find themselves left behind by the masses to whom these geeks’ sinecures were not the most important objective of the movement. This is where they sniff, “We’re better than that,” and one has to ask ,“Who’s we?” Because, by nature, people are not better than that. They are not designed to sit back and take it while they are abused, condescended to, and told by a classless ruling class that there are now two sets of rules and – guess what? –the old rules are only going to be enforced against them.

We don’t like the new rules – I’d sure prefer a society where no one was getting attacked, having walked through the ruins of a country that took that path – but we normals didn’t choose the new rules. The left did. It gave us Ferguson, Middlebury College, Berkeley, and “Punch a Nazi” – which, conveniently for the left, translates as “punch normals.” And many of us have had personal experiences with this New Hate – jobs lost, hassles, and worse. Some scumbags at an anti-Trump rally attacked my friend and horribly injured his dog. His freaking dog.

So when we start to adopt their rules, they’re shocked? Have they ever met human beings before? It’s not a surprise. It’s inevitable.

You can always tell a conservative who still hasn’t quite fully embraced the new reality. He just can’t resist the urge to issue dire warnings to the Left, desperately trying to convince them of the error of their ways or else. He still has to proclaim his preference for the older, more genteel, more civilized way. It’s tiresome. It’s tedious. Most of all, it’s pointless in a time of identity politics.

And yet, it shows that he is gradually getting where he has to go. He is starting to hate. The Alt-Right is inevitable; the ultimate success of the Alt-Right will be when the name disappears and the greater part of the 16 Points is simply synonymous with what it means to be Right.

Most of us aren’t “going to start hating” the Left. We started that a long, long time ago. I can’t even honestly say that I hate it anymore, at least, no more than I hate mold. The point is, you either get rid of the mold or you move somewhere else to get away from it. The one thing you do not do, the one thing you cannot do, is try to warn it, fix it, or coexist with it.

Conservatives simply don’t grasp that “please stop” is no more convincing than “please clap”.

Sales of books, candles, rise

It would certainly be amusing if Scott Van Pelt was numbered amidst the many coming ESPN layoffs:

ESPN will lay off more than 100 staffers after the Thanksgiving holidays, multiple sources tell Sports Illustrated. The layoffs, which were described by a person briefed on the plans, will hit positions across ESPN including front-facing talent on the television side, producers, executives, and digital and technology staffers. The SportsCenter franchise is expected to be hit hard—including on-air people—given the frequency of the show has lessened considerably on main network ESPN.

The network declined comment to SI on Thursday afternoon…. ESPN continues to be impacted by the changing habits of consumers including cord-cutting and cord-nevers (those who have never purchased a cable subscription) as well as the rising costs of sports rights. The network has dropped in households from 100.13 million in 2011 to an estimated 87.5 million households today.

Notice that all these SJW-infested companies are in double-digit decline. I was told this evening that Marvel is going to try to turn things around, but the problem is, they are either going to have to clean house almost completely or their new editor-in-chief is going to find himself at war with nearly 100 percent of his current writers and artists. And I find it impossible to believe that Disney, of all companies, is going to engage in full-scale deconvergence operations.

Regardless, I will bet that within 24 months, either Marvel or DC will be asking me to work with them in some capacity. Because we even do SJW better than they do, as you will see later this week.

In the meantime, ESPN has new policies designed to try to prevent their more outspoken SJWs from attacking their viewers: “Communication with producers and editors must take place prior to commentary on any political or social issues to manage volume and ensure a fair and effective presentation.”

It’s far too late for that. They’re not fooling anyone.