Comic Book Resources

Fantastic article, I agree 100%

Well written and argued. Superheroes aren’t just icons, they are people inside the suits. Just because they may have different backgrounds than you doesn’t mean the ideals they represent cannot be universally shared. Interesting to think about not wanting to offend certain religions by not stating one for Superman, but does that mean that he can only be admired by white christians? No, what he represents, though formed from his background, is relevant to all backgrounds.
Plus Cap rules. I have ALL the gruenwald stuff (as I kid I gobbled up his back-issues in the late 90′s) except when he actually fights and gets his suit back from the govt. Good stuff.

Well thought out and a very solid post Greg. I never wondered about Supermans religion that much, just not a huge Superman fan overall. Methodist does make sense though.

I do think you incorrectly lumped all Baptists into one group though. Not all sects of the Baptist faith are emphatic about doorbelling or bearing witness and the intolerance line just kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
The funamentalist branches of the Baptist Church, esp the more reactionary parts of the Southern Baptists seem to get all the press. But there are many fine “progressive” (how I hate that term!) Baptists who don’t fit the description you applied to them in this post. Don’t mean to sound like I’m bitching, just wanted to make that point, it was very intersting post afterall.

Always glad to see some Gene Colan/Joe Sinnott Cap art too!

For the life of me, I can’t see where anyone working on Captain America #602 did anything wrong.

Unless Ed Brubaker is a complete liar (and I see no reason to call him that), then he did not intend for the protesters to be identified as members of the Tea Party movement. He wanted generic protesters.

Therefore, a letterer accidentally clearly identifying them as Tea Party protesters was a mistake.

That’s all Brubaker apologized for.

Quesada went a bit further than that (to suggest that he specifically does not want specific political beliefs discussed in comics from Marvel – and I certainly can see folks taking issue with that notion, fair enough), but even he basically stuck to “We meant for them to be generic protesters and a letterer accidentally identified them as a specific group, which was not our intent, so sorry about that – we’ll correct it in the reprints.”

If they’re not liars (and I don’t believe that they are), then both Quesada and Brubaker’s apologies make sense to me.

Now Quesada’s separate piece about the whole “I don’t want writers to take specific political stances in the comics” deal, that I disagree with, but it’s unrelated to the particular incident which they are apologizing for – something showed up in the story that was not supposed to be there, so they’re apologizing for that mistake and fixing it in reprints.

I live in one of those areas outside of Portland, Oregon and I’ve lived in the area my entire life. When I read Falcon’s remarks in the comic it didn’t stir any reaction in me whatsoever. That’s because his comments about the demographics match perfectly.
When I was a kid we had one African American family in my neighborhood. They were the only African American kids in my school.
The Falcon character has always been political and when he is written more like a superhero than a reflection of society it seems an ill fit. That’s my opinion.

I like your examination of Superman’s spiritual side. Well done.
Being born and raised in the PacNW (Portland Metro Area) I don’t have strong ties to any church or religious organization. That’s common, it just isn’t as prevalent here as the rest of the country. If Superman had been featured going to church every Sunday it would have alienated me.

Fuck yeah!

I’ve seen a lot of fighting over that issue of Captain America on Comics Should Be Good, and this is the first time I’ve seen any mention of it taking place in Boise. Why didn’t anybody think to point that out before?
(I imagine there are probably more Black people in Boise than in most other towns in that area, but still, I know they are just a tiny portion of the population.)

As soon as you started to discuss the possible denominations for Clark Kent I immediately thought ‘Methodist’. It just seems like the best fit. I do think Church Of Christ would be another strong possibility, and I wouldn’t rule out Baptist. I was going to try to correct your stereotypical view of Baptists, but LouReedRichards already did it for me.
I live in rural Oklahoma, not Kansas, but I assume the religious qualities of the area are pretty much the same. There are plenty of families that don’t go to church regularly, but pretty much everybody goes occasionally. It would take a very strong will to avoid it. When you go to school in a small town, your friends WILL invite you to go to church with them, and you WILL go, even if you’re a staunch atheist like some members of my family. Going to church with your friends is a major social activity. It’s what people do.

It often bothers me that TV shows and movies that take place in rural communities in the South or Midwest often avoid any sign of religion. Or they have just one nondescript church in a town with a few thousand people. (That is simply unheard of. A town with exactly one thousand people would most likely have at least five different churches, and quite possibly several more.) I always wonder if it’s because TV and Movies (and publishing) all come from California and New York, and the people there just don’t comprehend the religious mindset of much of the country.

Ed Brubaker… did not intend for the protesters to be identified as members of the Tea Party movement. He wanted generic protesters.

Therefore, a letterer accidentally clearly identifying them as Tea Party protesters was a mistake.

I guess where we differ on this, Brian, is that I don’t see where a letterer using actual reference to help him to finish out a ‘realistic’ protest scene qualifies as an error. It’s not as though “Tea Party” is some sort of trademarked brand name. It’s a general term used to describe exactly the kind of protest depicted in the story. A guy lettering that out would naturally turn to news photographs. Most of the news photographs of these things are billed as Tea Party events, but that’s not on the letterer. It’s not as though he went to some sort of centralized TeaParty.com website and stole all their bumper sticker slogans in an effort to be rude. Those slogans as shown in the story are generally the kinds of slogans you see on anti-government signs these days…. and the ones the letterer used are pretty tame compared to the signs you see showing the President as Hitler or the Joker, which are fairly common as well. To me it’s no different than in the old 60s comics about campus protests and the signs you saw in those stories were all about stopping the Vietnam War. I don’t see it as a ‘mistake’ so much as the letterer being conscientious about what he thinks his best effort to serve the story should be.

If after seeing it in print Ed Brubaker thought, oh hell, I should have told him to keep it generic, well, I guess that’s kind of a mistake… but one worth an apology to the “Tea Party” (which is itself an amorphous non-specific movement built loosely around the idea that “big government” is bad, with no public face, spokesperson, or headquarters? Who exactly is offended?)…anyway, why should they get an apology because someone depicted a fictional protest, that for all practical purposes is exactly like theirs, using photo reference of not even any actual humans, but just a couple of their signs?

I don’t see it.

Greg — It seems pretty clear that Brubaker doesn’t want this group of protesters associated with the actual Tea Party because this group will do bad things or have bad things done to them in the comic at some point. So, yeah, having them represent an actual group of people in America is probably a bad idea. Hence, the apology makes sense. Because he didn’t intend to include that particular group.

But then it leads to this thought: as a WRITER, maybe you should write a scrips that reads: “Hey, Joe, just make up some signs — something protesty. I don’t care what they say.” Alan Moore would have written five page descriptions of each sign in his script.

* “shouldn’t write a script that reads…”

That is why I make so little money as a writer.

When I was a kid, Superman use to worship the Kyptonian god, Kao. Was that ret-conned away?

Keep in mind that a lot of people at Fox News or at least a lot of their viewership assume that most of Marvel’s products are still marketed mostly towards children. From that perspective, a perceived insult becomes a perceived attempt at indoctrination.

When I was a kid, Superman use to worship the Kyptonian god, Kao. Was that ret-conned away?

Rao, with an R, and yeah. More or less. John Byrne decreed that it was silly for Superman to adopt Kryptonian beliefs or customs since he’d been raised on Earth. But even before that it wasn’t really about worship, it was about swearing “Great Rao!”

Rao is making a comeback on New Krypton, but not so much with Superman himself.

Superman was never shown actually worshipping Rao, the Kryptonian sun god, or any other god. He did invoke Rao’s name in the same way that you or I would casually invoke the name of God, such as…”Oh My God!” even though we might not be all that religious. I’m an atheist, and I still find myself doing that. So it doesn’t necessarily mean Superman was a follower of Rao.

I’ve read through several columns and comments on this issue, and I’ve been surprised at the indignation stirred up among so many that Marvel would dare apologize for the Tea Party reference. The underlying attitude seems to be “Why would you apologize to those racists for calling them racists?” It’s become a given that the point of the Tea Party protests is not a push for limited government, a return to Constitutional principles, or a plea for fiscal restraint, but rather a hissy fit that a black man was elected President.

Once you start with that assumption, it’s hard for the facts to convince you otherwise. There are, in fact, several prominent organizers in the Tea Party movement who are black. The first who comes to mind is Alonzo Rachel, but there are many others. Yes, the rallies are mostly white. Conservatives are mostly white. Libertarians are even more mostly white. Those are facts. But the fact that they are mostly white does not mean that they are anti-minority any more than the Million Man March was necessarily anti-white.

To come right out and say in a comic book that a black man would be unwelcome in that assembly just because he’s black is a slap in the face, and it’s a convenient way to dismiss the points raised by the protesters. What if a Captain America had been encouraged to infiltrate the Million Man March, and said to Sam, “I don’t think a white guy’s going to be very welcome there”? Would that not have implied racism on the part of the protesters? How about Cap avoiding going through the black section of town at night? Is this the sort of thing that would be tolerated? In the words of Thor, “I say thee nay.”

What if a Captain America had been encouraged to infiltrate the Million Man March, and said to Sam, “I don’t think a white guy’s going to be very welcome there”?

I would find that a reasonable and in-character thing to say under the circumstances. That strikes me as a plausible piece of snark from Bucky-Cap. At which point Sam Wilson would have the right to maybe get annoyed and there would be an exchange of words about it. It might make an interesting scene. Because, you know, it’s fiction and that’s what you do, you try to come up with interesting scenes.

Would that not have implied racism on the part of the protesters?

Maybe — I think it’s a reach and it’s projecting — but so what? It doesn’t matter because you’re drawing a false equivalency. What you are describing is not the actual case here. We’re talking about a black man being asked to go undercover in a crowd of white people and admitting to being discomfited at the idea. That’s in character whether it’s the Tea Party or a generic angry crowd in Boise and it’s just not ‘racism.’ As for going undercover at a protest, that’s been going on since the 1960s when the FBI used to send agents to student rallies. It’s not a new idea and it’s not an insult. Or it shouldn’t be.

Again, your beef is with how the news covers the crowds, not how people making up stories react to the news. My gripe is not with the Tea Party’s politics. It’s with their disrespect for what artists do and Marvel bowing to that disrespect and passing the whole thing off as a typo. Especially when using reference and life drawing is generally something to be encouraged in a strip that’s trying for a realistic feel.

One has to wonder what the arrival of a human-looking baby in a spaceship might have done to the Kents’ religious beliefs.

And, again, liberal bigotry rears its head….

I saw plenty of news coverage of the Tea Party protests. The only time I saw pictures even REMOTELY like the ones drawn in the comic, it was from sources with a blatant liberal bias.

In fact, most of the protesters I saw from sources that tried not to show bias, or from Fox (which of course, is biased to the right almost as much as CNN, NBC & CBS are to the left), showed a pretty decent cross section of America. Lots of people that dressed up for the occasion, of all races (still predominently white, but not to the exaggerated extreme as the comic art, or the cherry-picked “worst-case” pics of the leftist side of media). And I DO DISPUTE you claim that “There is no dispute” about the art. In fact, your statement as such affirms to me your bias against people who dare think differently than you – if not downright hatred.

And, how easily the person making the comments about the Obama as Joker or Hitler signs and the like, forgets all the FAR WORSE signs made about G.W. Bush in anti-war protests, and Sarah Palin during the election and since. And, don’t get me started about the recent stupidity on Family Guy – making fun of Palin is fair game – but they should have left the kids out of it.

I hate to break it to you all, but Steven Colbert is a Democrat doing a PARODY (he’s a registered Democrat – that’s public record, from when he made that attempt to get on a state ballot in 08); too many of you think he’s a legit conservative. Meanwhile, the conservatives who watch him do so to laugh at how completely wrong liberals are about how conservatives really think and act. American Dad is deliberately absurdist – yet I’ve met liberals act like most conservatives are like Stan & family. Even South Park, I routinely hear get slammed not by conservatives, but by liberals – the show is deliberately an equal opportunity offender (nothing is safe or sacred), yet the few conservative complaints I’ve have been about vulgarity – all the liberals I’ve personally heard bitch about seem to think that the show is right wing propaganda. In general, it always seems to me to be conservatives that can appreciate a good laugh at their expense, while liberals automatically take offense at everything, regardless of intent, while consider insults of others “humor”.

And, Lord Paradise, you have no clue as to what people who watch Fox News believe about comics. Personal experience, to me, shows a LOT more Fox News viewers collecting comics as adults, playing RPGs as adults, and generally treating the ideas we associate with fandom AS adult activities. Did you not even consider that what population reads comics might actually reflect similar demographics to the area they live in? Heck, until 2008, the local comics store here sold only to adult buyers, with the other half its clientele being for its Teacher Supply & homeschooling supply business – and none of the teachers or parents were buying comics for their students.

Perhaps, one day, many of you will actually wake up and realize that conservatives aren’t the demons you wish them to be – and the wisdom of Homer about being wary of those presenting unasked-for gifts. But for now, hold close to your cherished illusions, lest they slip away….

One has to wonder what the arrival of a human-looking baby in a spaceship might have done to the Kents’ religious beliefs.

I wonder about that too. One of the things I liked about the early episodes of Smallville was that it looked like they were setting up a solid premise to explore some of these ideas, about the burden on the Kents of raising this child, but then the show turned into Dawson’s Creek with superpeople. It’s a shame.

If joe quesada doesnt want peoples beliefts discussed in marvel comics then i think that it doesnt square that some (not all) of his comics are supposed to be for adults. You dont have to have entertainment that is so bland you agree with every word of it that sounds boring to me. I would have defended the creators on the grounds it was fiction and the creators had artistic rights it should be critisiszed for artistic reasons and not political. If you go analyse your comics you will find the interesting ones have political and religious beliefs that you may or may not agree with if their good comics you would still enjoy them.
peace
james?

I DO DISPUTE you claim that “There is no dispute” about the art. In fact, your statement as such affirms to me your bias against people who dare think differently than you – if not downright hatred.

The column you are apparently seeing in your head is not the one I wrote, clearly. But to take the one factual claim you’re making about it I would just ask you, are you really going to tell me that those signs didn’t come from photographic references? Because that’s what I said and I said it because I’ve seen those photos run in news stories about the comic. If you dispute that, what are you suggesting? That someone photoshopped them into the news stories, because of bias? I think my assessment that the signs were present at actual Tea Party rallies and someone took a picture of them makes more sense.

Yeah, you pretty much said what I’ve been thinking, Greg.

One thing: Since I was raised Lutheran, I’ve always entertained the possibility that Clark might be so, too. But if Elliot S! says Methodist, that’s good enough for me.

Since I was raised Lutheran, I’ve always entertained the possibility that Clark might be so, too. But if Elliot S! says Methodist, that’s good enough for me.

In the same interview Maggin says Jimmy Olsen is Lutheran. So you at least placed.

Greg said:

I would find that a reasonable and in-character thing to say under the circumstances. That strikes me as a plausible piece of snark from Bucky-Cap. At which point Sam Wilson would have the right to maybe get annoyed and there would be an exchange of words about it. It might make an interesting scene. Because, you know, it’s fiction and that’s what you do, you try to come up with interesting scenes.

David responds:

But where was Cap’s denunciation of Sam for that knee-jerk reaction? Where’s the conversation? There’s only one side presented, and it’s presented as a reasonable and defensible reaction.

Greg said:

Maybe — I think it’s a reach and it’s projecting — but so what? It doesn’t matter because you’re drawing a false equivalency. What you are describing is not the actual case here. We’re talking about a black man being asked to go undercover in a crowd of white people and admitting to being discomfited at the idea. That’s in character whether it’s the Tea Party or a generic angry crowd in Boise and it’s just not ‘racism.’

David responds:

Sam Wilson is a superhero. He flies fearlessly into the most dangerous situations imaginable, against foes with powers far beyond his. Yet he’s supposed to be rendered knock-kneed at the thought of talking to some white guys holding signs? Come on, now. At least pretend to think about this objectively. The story implies that a bunch of ordinary white people protesting for limited government is scarier than any threat that the Falcon has ever encountered. It’s an insult, it’s a lie, and it’s offensive.

Sam Wilson is a superhero. He flies fearlessly into the most dangerous situations imaginable, against foes with powers far beyond his. Yet he’s supposed to be rendered knock-kneed at the thought of talking to some white guys holding signs? Come on, now. At least pretend to think about this objectively. The story implies that a bunch of ordinary white people protesting for limited government is scarier than any threat that the Falcon has ever encountered. It’s an insult, it’s a lie, and it’s offensive.

Here we get into nuances that we are apparently seeing differently. My reading of that scene, in its tone, is not yours and I think we aren’t going to find common ground on it. You are seeing that it implies fear on Sam’s part. I’m not. I’m seeing more of a buddy-movie moment where the Falcon is telling Bucky that he doesn’t think this idea’s a good one. That it’s impractical. That he feels discomfited. Not fearful.

But either way it’s a valid thing to do artistically. You flip-flop it to make the point that black people would be enraged if those remarks were made about a white hero in a black crowd and that’s not true either. It was a running joke with James Bond in Live and Let Die. I think there were some gripes from the African-American community then but they didn’t get a lot of traction because everyone understood that it was a fictional adventure. James Bond isn’t a spokesman for Britain and Sam Wilson isn’t a spokesman for black America.

And with that I really have said my piece. I feel like I’m just repeating myself at this point. I think I’m going to let the rest of you just comment without responding any further… I’ve clarified my thinking as best I can, I appreciate most of you being civil in your disagreements, and I just don’t have anything else to say that I haven’t said above.

I was looking over the scene again, and I was struck by something. The Tea Bag sign isn’t even the most offensive sign depicted. The rally would easily be seen as a Tea Party rally even without that. The use of the term “tea bag,” especially as a verb, is much more likely to come from Keith Olbermann or some other snarky, obnoxious liberal than it is to come from a Tea Party member.

No, the most offensive sign is on the previous page. “No Gov’t in my Medicare.” Just wow. These backwoods protesters are too stupid to know that Medicare is a government program. Ha-ha. What morons! Obviously they want their freebies from the government, they just don’t want anyone else to have them. So we can dismiss everything they say.

I defy you to show me where any Tea Party protester ever held up a sign like that. I’m not saying they’re all Rhodes Scholars, but my experiences (and those of my friends who have attended large rallies) are that the vast majority of the Tea Partiers are reasonable, prudent people who want the government to live within its means in the same way that they do in their personal lives.

Great article, Greg. It’s nice to see some rationality.

Some Conservative folks are reading too much into it. I’m beginning to wonder if their insistence that they’re being portrayed as a band of racists when no such thing can be inferred from the story is a sign of projection. Are they unsure of their own reasons for protesting Obama? Are they afraid of what may lurk inside them or something?

Hey, when you do undercover work, you want someone who is going to be able to mix into the target group with the least question. Even if there would be a few black folks in a Tea Party protest in Boise (something Greg has made a case for being implausible), it’s more plausible for Bucky to go undercover in such a setting than Sam. Given his background and liberal ideals, it’s also plausible for Sam to think he wouldn’t fit in such a group as Bucky.

Sam may be wrong, but it’s not implausible that he’d think that way.

Sam to think he wouldn’t fit AS WELL in such a group as Bucky, I meant.

I defy you to show me where any Tea Party protester ever held up a sign like that. I’m not saying they’re all Rhodes Scholars, but my experiences (and those of my friends who have attended large rallies) are that the vast majority of the Tea Partiers are reasonable, prudent people who want the government to live within its means in the same way that they do in their personal lives.

Can’t give you a sign, but I can give you a news story from an angry town-hall meeting. Scroll to the bottom. That took less than five minutes.

But again, this is a paper tiger. I don’t actually care about the politics. The point, which keeps getting buried, is that the complaints are all treating the issue as one of journalism. It’s not. It’s one of artistic license and integrity. Enjoy the book, don’t enjoy the book, but to complain that your particular interest group has the right to be represented accurately in a piece of fiction is a silly jihad to embark on. And I say that as a bookish bespectacled guy named Greg. Book people, the bespectacled, and guys named Greg rarely do well in fiction. But I’m not clamoring for an apology for it.

Okay, REALLY done now.

Rene,

First of all, you can leave your psychoanalysis out of this. I could just as easily (and much more plausibly) make the case that liberals project their own racism onto conservatives, because they craft their policies out of guilt for their own racism, and the only reason they can conceive of for conservatives to oppose them is because they don’t like minorities, but don’t feel as guilty about it.

Secondly, you raise an interesting point about the plausibility of Sam infiltrating the group. If surreptitious infiltration was the goal, then obviously Bucky would go in. The whole point of sending Sam is to cause a problem. That’s Bucky’s “plan.” So now we realize that it’s not just a case of Sam being apprehensive (whether seriously or jokingly) about going into a bunch of white folks. It’s a case of Bucky assuming that Sam’s appearance will cause a scene, and that will somehow further his purpose.

I haven’t read the entire comic in question, so I don’t know how this plays out later in the book. But it certainly seems from the controversial panels that both Bucky and Sam assume that if a black man were to show up at a Tea Party rally, there would be trouble.

Greg,

That was an interesting article. I might argue that the “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” guy may have been a plant, but of course I have no confirmation of that. It’s an obviously stupid thing to say, and if that person really believed it, he has problems.

David

David,

I didn’t read the issue in question either.

But from what I got from other people, both Sam and Bucky played roles in a deception. Sam played the part of a tax collector or something, while Bucky was the conservative truck-driver. And the point of the whole thing was not anything to do with Tea Parties, but to attract the attention of the Watchdogs, a separate (Evil) group that was monitoring the protests, so the Watchdogs could recruit Bucky.

As for your notion that some Liberals may have racist feelings, fair enough. But we’re not the ones protesting too much. In any case, I don’t seriously think many Conservatives OR Liberals in America today have racist feelings. My gut feeling is that many Conservatives dislike Obama not for his race (or for his stance on taxation either), but for Obama’s sleeky big city, week-kneed, socialist, godless ways. They would still distrust Obama if he were white.

Rene,

That makes a little more sense. Sometimes context does help!

The more I hear about this (how the story played out, and the fact that some idiot actually did tell the Government to stay away from his Medicare), I can see why people are actually defending it. I still think that the whole scene betrays an attitude about the Tea Party protests that I find to be extremely biased and condescending, but it doesn’t sound like the comic as a whole was actively slandering them. I just think it’s funny to hear liberals (who are constantly searching subtext to find perceived slights to favored groups) are making fun of conservatives for getting upset at this. It’s impossible to argue that a dig at the Tea Partiers was not intended here (letterer addition aside). It probably doesn’t warrant quite the level of response it got, although I think an apology was in order. I just wish the apology hadn’t been some wishy-washy “blame it on the letterer” obfuscation. They should have come out and said that the author was taking a shot at a group of people for their convictions, and it was unwarranted. That would have been the end of it, I think.

The Falcon needs to get out more. The best education one could have is travel. Meet diverse people with diverse ideas. Mr. Brubaker and Mr. Quesada need to get out more too.

The Rogue Letterer Theory is amusing.

Clark Kent is a Raoist sun-worshipper.

Hatcher, you’re using a convoluted explanation of a non problem to try and cover for the real problem. The fact that the Falcon has always had an issue with most whites is fact (I’ve been reading him since 1968). Not a problem in this story.

The comparison is if Superman went back to Smallville and saw a protest of a religious nature and the signs said evolution is bunk/anti abortion messages/atheists are damned.

That’s not about Superman’s upbringing and where he comes from. It ‘s editorial and generalization about religion and mid-America.

If Marvel or DC want to comment on the Tea Party they should do it outright and not try to sneak things in. Also your comments in other postings clearly show that you have an ideology that would prefer anti Tea Party issues.

Stay tuned for more of our exclusive coverage: “White People Under Siege.”

If the Falcon had a sign that said “No New Taxes” or “Stop The Socialists” the reaction would have been; “Hey, it’s the Falcon! (wild cheering) And he thinks the way we do on the issues! (wild cheering).

Then he would be shoved to the front and asked to make a speech.

He would be judged on the content of his sign rather than the color of his skin.

Greg, I wanted to point out that Smallville wasn’t always in Kansas. That notion came from the ’78 Superman movie. Prior to that, Smallville was on the East Coast within an hour or two’s driving distance of Metropolis.

Zombie X,

You’re exactly right. That’s why I softened my stance a bit when I saw that Cap had him go in as a tax collector. That was designed to tick off the crowd for legitimate reasons (assuming he goes in and says “I want to raise taxes by 50%”). But they could have left out the whole “a black guy won’t fit in there” nonsense. Not to say that he would blend in without attracting notice, but as long as he was espousing conservative principles, the notice would have been decidedly positive.

David

But even before that it wasn’t really about worship, it was about swearing “Great Rao!”

Which is weird, because I don’t think anybody ever accused Perry White of worshipping Caesar’s Ghost.

The whole politics argument is sort of a red herring; there are some right wing protestors who act like those in the comic and other right wing protestors who don’t. Some of the right wing protestors even know which group they belong to.

(For reference, if in the above paragraph you replace the words “politics” with “fanboy”, “right wing protestors” with “comic book fans” and “those in the comic” with “Superboy Prime”, my opinion about the subject stays exactly the same.)

I think the real problem for many was not the sign, but rather the implicit tying of the protesters to the watchdogs. Even if brubaker says the two scenes are unrelated, reading the comic they clearly are.

Of course my problem with the issue is my problem with every issue that has featured 50′s cap since they brought him back as the Grand Director. The only cap to be linked specifically to a republican administration and political figures has been a villain in every comic he’s appeared in for the last 40 years. There is a pattern in comics, not the fault of anyone working on the cap comic today, that tends to make the republicans the bad guys (IE Reagan as a giant snake, Nixon as head of the secret empire, ect ect)

You know David, I just have to point out you’re doing alot of the same stuff you complain of liberals doing.

First of all I’d love to know what “Worse” signs were done for Bush.
To me, comparing someone to Hitler is the absolute worst.

I won’t deny there were those who equated Bush and Hitler, but from what I saw, they were far less numerous, and I know for a fact many folks who disliked Bush and routinely mentioned how they were opposed to signs like that (I know this because I was one of them.)

Also, you mention that a tea-partier who says something stupid like “Keep Government out of my Medicare” could be a plant.

Couldn’t the same be said of all those signs you found horribly offensive about Bush-Palin and all.
I mean everyone we dislike on “our side” is a plant for the other side!

Oh and a picture of someone holding such a sign
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/E/u/2/guvmint-out-of-my-medicare.jpg

Also the comment about tea-bagging and Olberman.
Actually the reason Left started using the term “Tea Bag” was because the Tea Partiers did it first.
The first big Tea Party thing sent out a message that they shoud “Tea Bag Washington before they Tea Bag us”

The left started using the term as a insult almost instantaneously after, but they hardly started the use the term as a verb.

As to the idea the “Liberals” “are constantly searching subtext to find perceived slights to favored groups”.
I’d say The Right are just as guilty of that.

It seems you have the same “It’s fine when my side does it.” and “Bad things for my side could be a conspiracy from the other side” attitude.

Personally, outside of my dislike of GWB, I’m generally politically neutral when it comes to the parties.

I have a handful of issues I agree strongly with Democrats on, and a handful of issues I agree strongly with Republicans on. A whole legion of issues I think both sides are varying degrees of wrong on.

It’s just that you’re doing exactly what you’re bashing the other side for, and trust me, I’ve called it on “liberals” just as much as I have “conservatives”

(For anyone wondering why I use quotes for “liberal” and “Conservative”
It’s because the terms USED to mean “Liberal favors more government power, Conservative favors less”, nowadays BOTH sides are effectively liberals, just for different things.)

The 50s Cap was not part of a Republican administration at all: he was explicitly shown as a Truman-era character, and was put on ice by Truman himself in Captain America v.1 #155. Her didn’t make into the Eisenhower era.

I do think you incorrectly lumped all Baptists into one group though. Not all sects of the Baptist faith are emphatic about doorbelling or bearing witness and the intolerance line just kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
The funamentalist branches of the Baptist Church, esp the more reactionary parts of the Southern Baptists seem to get all the press. But there are many fine “progressive” (how I hate that term!) Baptists who don’t fit the description you applied to them in this post. Don’t mean to sound like I’m bitching, just wanted to make that point, it was very interesting post afterall.

Eh, as someone who was raised Baptist in the south (but not Southern Baptist, there’s a difference), and who’s family is still primarily Baptist, I certainly wasn’t offended in any way by Greg’s comments. In fact, it made me chuckle (although not as much as the ‘We all know people who’ve changed their politics if they thought they’d get laid’ mouse-over – that one made me giggle uncontrollably). Even the more ‘liberal’ branches of the Baptist faith tend to place a great deal of value on witnessing to others… they just tend to be less pushy and more subtle about it.

David, you’ve exposed Brubaker’s writing. His characters are out of character.
“I’m the Falcon, I’ve fought the Red Skull, Hydra, Aim, even Dr. Doom . . . but these are old people and women who have brought their children, and middle age men . . . I don’t stand a chance!”
“Hey everybody, there’s the Falcon!” (wild cheering)
“No, you don’t understand, I’m here representing the tax man, I want to raise your taxes 50%.” (booing)
“But we love you, Falcon!” “Falcon, you put your life on the line to protect us, your a hero!” “FAL-CON!! FAL-CON!! FAL-CON!” “Falcon, we love you in spite of your stand on the issues!” “We love you for who you are and what you’ve done!” “FAL-CON!! FAL-CON!! FAL-CON!”

Zombie X, are you forgetting this is MARVEL We’re talking about?

Marvel citizenry as a whole seems to be rather idiotic and temperamental when it comes to heroes.

They will bash Spider-Man and the X-men as villains while praising Bullseye and Norman Osborn as heroes.

IIRC there was an issue where someone suggest Thor was a nutjob who thought he was a god, while in earshot of Thor, just after Thor had SAVED THEIR LIVES.

In Marvel, you do not rely on “The common people” (regardless of political grouping, social status, location , race, or any other factor) to be even close to being rational.

Now, if they were in DC, a place where even a guy like Booster Gold, who used to freely admit (and now merely claims) to “just in hero for the money” can have a large fanbase in-universe, then yeah, go down to the crowd and talk it out.

But in Marvel, assume they’re a violent batch of nutcases until proven otherwise (once again, regardless of political grouping, social status, location , race, or any other factor)

“Eh, as someone who was raised Baptist in the south (but not Southern Baptist, there’s a difference), and who’s family is still primarily Baptist, I certainly wasn’t offended in any way by Greg’s comments. In fact, it made me chuckle (although not as much as the ‘We all know people who’ve changed their politics if they thought they’d get laid’ mouse-over – that one made me giggle uncontrollably). Even the more ‘liberal’ branches of the Baptist faith tend to place a great deal of value on witnessing to others… they just tend to be less pushy and more subtle about it.”

Damn, how do you do the italics thing? I never can seem to remember.

I agree with you for the most part Perry. Living in the South makes me a little touchy about the dominance of the more socially conservative Southern Baptist groups. I live in a city that is virtually controlled by them and it’s quite frustrating at times (esp. when my parents joined with them). My wife is a member of a Baptist church that is in direct opposition to much of what they teach. Every time I’ve gone to worship with her I felt welcomed with love and open arms and never felt witnessed to or the need to be converted even in the slightest, even though it’s common knowledge that I’m an Agnostic. I wasn’t deeply offended by Greg’s comment, I just felt it painted the Baptist with an overly large brush that was unfair to a group that has so many different beliefs and practices.

But mostly I just enjoyed the classic Cap art.

Great article. But as much as you tried to make a point with the Superman story, I just did not see the relevance to the Captain America spread and how it portrayed certain Americans as racists. I can see you love Captain America, but so do so many on the right. I understand the writers’ job and how the creative process works….I’m writing a short story myself, and even I have to backspace at certain times. I want to draw in my audience, not alienate a portion of them.

My point is, I would feel less attracted to a character who thinks less of me as a person. For example, I would reject any character who believes me to be a racist. Of course, I am an adult and would know it is not the character but the writer who should be criticized. Whenever you flirt with politics, it’s a sensitive nerve.

If I was an artist at Marvel and I was given this script, I would have turned it down. Why? Because I would be dissing myself in that story. Now that doesn’t make much sense does it? But of course if I had your perspective on things, I could care less about how these protesters are portrayed.

Whether I think they should apologize or not is up to them. I’m not the type of dude to go after people for these kind of things. I simply just spend my investment elsewhere.

Damn, Cap. It’s like that? OK, Peace.

As an English instructor myself, my biggest frustration with this whole thing is that it’s a microcosm of how we think as a society today. We’re not interested in critically thinking about and solving real issues in our society by analyzing and coming to real solutions about data to make the country better.

What we’re interested in is winning every argument, to the point that even a perceived slight that occurs to one side and is so pointless and not worth discussing warrants an apology. Whatever. This was a comic book meant to entertain that was so far away from making a large statement about the relative value of the Tea Party or its members about race that the reaction to it dumbfounds me.

You don’t like the depiction? Stop looking for affirmation of your personal beliefs in everything that is put out there and get that some people may view or see your side of things differently than what you believe. Sometimes, it’s even distributed to the masses. That’s part of living in a country that allows for the right to have free speech, and, in theory, the free exchange of ideas.

Here’s something revolutionary: Conservatives have some good ideas. Liberals have some good ideas. Conservatives have some awful ideas. Liberals have some awful ideas.

Part of a dialogue, in theory anyway, is that we try to take the good ideas from both sides and make progress out of it. But really, we’ve lost that, lost that in a society that has boiled everything down to winning or losing the argument, or at least muddling the argument to the point that the other side doesn’t win cleanly or, even, shouting down the other side.

CKNola, thanks for the perspective.

So at Marvel what Brubaker did was actually considered good writing, and it had to be illogical enough for Quesada to approve it, and then if it gets outside of Marvel readers into the general public, they both have to appologize.

That’s a perfect and hilarious answer.

Mr Hatcher,

Thank you thank you thank you for running that Gene Colan splash page!

Gene the Dean is one of the all time greats!

About Stephen Colbert, Basara549 said:

“…too many of you think he’s a legit conservative.”

Not true. I would wager that EVERYONE who posts in this thread knows that Colbert is doing parody.

David —

Early in the tea party movement, there were indeed people on camera calling themselves teabaggers. Even a couple commentators on Fox Cable News used the term.

David sais:

“But they could have left out the whole “a black guy won’t fit in there” nonsense.”

It was in reference to the Watchdogs group, which was a white supremacist group. In that case, he wouldn’t be allowed at the meetings.

Part of the problem in this whole situation is that some people naively or deliberately thought it referred to the tea party group.

Alan,

That’s interesting. I can hardly imagine that they meant by it what Olbermann and the like meant by it (and I think most of us know what that is). I do know that some of the first signs had tea bags attached to them.

David

Alright, Alan, now you’ve lost me. “Some people naively or deliberately thought it referred to the tea party group”?

That’s the whole point! Sam said that a black guy wouldn’t fit in at the protest, and the protesters were holding some liberal’s idea of the signs Tea Partiers carry. The Watchdogs weren’t the group Sam was supposed to infiltrate, it was the Tea Partiers. By creating a stir at that rally, Bucky would attract the attention of the Watchdogs, but Sam was expressly NOT referring to the Watchdogs in terms of who he felt nervous infiltrating. If there are no explicitly-Tea-Party signs, then it’s a veiled reference, and liberals get a chuckle out of it, and hide behind plausible deniability. But because some poor letterer decided to use the word “tea bag,” the gig was up. They were exposed as directly referencing this group. Your refusal to acknowledge this indicates that you agree that the comment was meant to imply racism on the part of the group Sam was supposed to infiltrate.

Omar Karindu, I think that you need to look a ltlle more closely at C.A. 155. On page 15, panel 5 the the Cap impostor remarks : “The next day was July 27, 1953. The war [The Korean War] had ended.” The fake Cap’s activities, then, begin some time after the Korean Armistice, probably, given the reference to the “Lee School” (17,1), in the Autumn of 1953. The Eisenhower Administration began on Jan. 20, 1953. Although the fake Cap’s initial contacts with the US government might have started under the Truman Administration, his actual time wearing the mask was under Eisenhower. Furthermore, I do not see Harry Truman anywhere in the issue, unless you are assuming that the eyeglasses wearing official on pages 14 and 26 is Truman. He certainly does not look like Truman to me, and given the fact that he is still in office under Eisenhower (assuming that the fake Cap’s initial encounter with the government occured while Truman was still President), I think it more probable that he was a career government official, probably serving in intelligence.

Superman has a religion?! Next you’ll be telling me he has political views!!

>> Greg, I wanted to point out that Smallville wasn’t always in Kansas. That notion came from the ’78 Superman movie. Prior to that, Smallville was on the East Coast within an hour or two’s driving distance of Metropolis. <<

So Smallville was located where…in Pennsylvania? I don't remember that.

Before 1978, I'm not sure Metropolis was supposed to be on the East Coast. It could've been an analogue of Chicago instead of New York.

Mighty God King's take on the Captain America brouhaha:

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2010/02/15/warner-todd-huston-is-angry-about-comical-books/

Brilliant, Greg, just brilliant. This is what I’ve been thinking all along: there’s no reason to cry foul because there simply wasn’t any reason. Just as simple as that.

I do like that idea of Supes being Methodist…gives me an idea for a fanfic story…

This article gets two thumbs way up from me.

It’s true that conservatives have more often been portrayed as villains or jerks in comics (and many other fiction too).

The few heroes who are explicitly conservative usually are of the “lovable jerk” variety, sometimes they’re played for laughs, sometimes they’re a little crazy, sometimes they’re both: Guy Gardner, Hawk (of …and Dove fame), Ultimate Captain America, Rorschach, USAgent, Jack Monroe when he first became Nomad in J. M. deMatteis run was sometimes a more conservative foil to the liberal Steve Rogers, Wally West in the New Teen Titans was also the conservative foil to contrast with the rest of the team, all liberals, when they had to deal with the soviet Red Star (and Wally comes across as an a-hole).

But I never thought leaving politics out of comics or other fiction is the way to go. I’d rather have some conservative heroes presented in a more balanced fashion. Diversity is good, and I am certainly not adverse to reading about heroes who don’t share all my views. Hey, I’m a liberal who distrusts organized religion as any good liberal should, but I thought it was fascinating when Chris Claremont revealed Nightcrawler was a devout Catholic.

I don’t want to be like the dudes who flew into a rage because Shatterstar and Rictor and the original Dr. Mid-Nite were revealed as gay. I can’t accept heroes who aren’t just like me.

Ooops… I meant I CAN accept heroes who aren’t just like me.

“It’s true that conservatives have more often been portrayed as villains or jerks in comics (and many other fiction too).”

The main problem is that writers of a liberal persuasion don’t see conservatism as another point of view. They see it as evil. To most of them, writing a “balanced” conservative character is like asking them to write a “balanced” genocidal dictator.

Your example of Wally in New Teen Titans #18 (1982) is a good one. I read that issue recently and it does a great job of showing both points of view. Kudos to Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

And – Holy cow! – the comic blogosphere is even more liberal than I thought. It’s almost monolithic in it’s political makeup.

You really think that Teen Titans issue with Wally West was balanced, Ice? I thought Marv Wolfman made Wally too unsympathetic and harsh, while Red Star was so obviously noble. But maybe I’m remembering wrong, it’s been years.

I think Ultimate Captain America is the more sympathetic depiction of a conservative superhero (or as sympathetic as an Ultimate can be).

Ice, you do realize “conservative” writers have the same type of bias when it comes to “liberal” characters.

An earlier post mentioned Hawk from Hawk & Dove, take a look at the early issues written by Steve Ditko, pretty much every issue was “Hawk is right, Doves a weak-willed idiot”

The thing is there are so few “conservative’ comics authors that it naturally doesn’t come up much.

“Ice, you do realize “conservative” writers have the same type of bias when it comes to “liberal” characters.”

Oh sure, but is that an excuse? “Other writers write torture porn comics, so I will to!”

“You really think that Teen Titans issue with Wally West was balanced, Ice? I thought Marv Wolfman made Wally too unsympathetic and harsh, while Red Star was so obviously noble.”

I do, actually. Red Star comes off as somewhat noble in the end because of the obvious heart-tugging plot twist on the last page. But keep in mind that the Titans do stop Red Star from killing the woman who is carrying the virus. Although they get there by different routes, the Titans actually agree with Wally about Red Star’s mission. The only thing Wally is wrong about is that the event was instigated by a rogue Russian individual rather than the Soviet government.

Eh, I was just making sure, trust me I’m opposed to both sides turning the other side into strawmen to make them easier to tear down.

Huh – - I don’t knwo why I’ve always thought that was Truman the 50s Cap was speaking to in Cap v.1 #155; maybe I just expect the President to be Captain America’s contact in DC. I suppose it also helps that I associate the Korean War, which figures in the plot, far more with Truman than with Eisenhower. Weird.

That said, it’s weird that Engelhart’s story seems to contradict some of its apparent political intentions. The 1950s Cap wasn’t really linked very closely to the Eisenhower administration, mainly since he never got to actually act as Cap in any official capacity according to modern continuity. He’s a satire of McCarthyist and “reactionary” politics, but fights genuinely Soviet supervillains who really are trying to topple America right up until his mental breakdown.

It’s a bit of a muddle, really.

David,

The bit about the infiltration had to do with the Watchdog group.

Yes, there was a scene with the tea party group, but it was a separate scene, not part of the Watchdog group. The part about Falcon not fitting in referred to the Watchdog group, which was all white people.

As to your comment about my “refusal to acknowledge this”, I am not sure what I am refusing to acknowledge. Maybe I AM NOT seeing your point, but it is not deliberate. At least, not in this case.

Damn, how do you do the italics thing? I never can seem to remember.

(i)Stuff you want in italics(/i) – except that you use instead of ().

And of course, I screwed up showing the code:

(i)Stuff you want in italics(/i) – except that you use >< instead of )(.

It isn’t just liberals that think that many of the tea party types are driven by racism: noted conservative bloggers like Andrew Sullivan, Charles Johnson, and others have been pointing out how convenient it is that we didn’t have these kinds of protests when Bush was overspending.

I’m actually all for being fiscally cautious and keeping the government in check, but this is something else entirely, and anyone with eyes can see it.

“noted conservative bloggers like Andrew Sullivan”

Andrew Sullivan? Andrew Sullivan?!?!?!

About 3 years, or maybe more, ago this kind of thing would have probably stirred up a reaction in me. The politics and politicians of this country (US) have saddened and jaded me somewhat, the only politicians with a voice are the ones on the far ends of each side. Maybe I’m just not listening hard enough.

Man…that came off emo.

I tend to agree with most of what the Tea-Baggers claim to stand for in their published statements. But that ain’t reality.

Even if you only watched the Fox News version of events, you’d have to recognize that these people don’t even understand what they think they are talking about. “Keep the government out of my Medicare!”

Just watch the news. Go to the Fox News website and look at the pictures of the Tea Parties. The pictures that they themselves are promoting. It will make you puke. Or it should, if you are an American.

My favorite moment, which I saw on Fox, was when a female Tea-Bagger said that Progressives had destroyed the Constitution and that we should go back to what our Magically-Perfect Founding Fathers first wrote.

You know, that document that made them second-class citizens who couldn’t vote.

To be fair, it was state laws that banned women (and Blacks and Indians) from voting. The original Constitution didn’t say a word about such things, only that the states should decide their own voting rights. Of course, if they had decided to include votings rights in the Constitution back then, I’m sure they would’ve explicitly banned women.
(By the way, New Jersey actually allowed women to vote back then, but it was by accident. They restricted the vote to property owners, who were nearly all male, but since a few women did own property they were allowed to vote, too. As soon as the State realised they left in this loophole, they changed the law to ban them specifically.)

On the topic of superheroes and religion, I’ve always found this site fascinating:

http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html

My favorite quote from the site is from Batman writer Chuck Dixon: “Graham Nolan and I had an ongoing argument about whether Bruce was raised Catholic or Protestant. I recently conceded to Graham than he must be Catholic. No Protestant ever suffered guilt the way Bruce does.”

Just found another priceless quote from the Adherents site:

Paul Newman is half-Jewish and so, some people have reasoned, Hal Jordan must be Jewish as well. One strike against this reasoning is the fact that Hal Jordan is not a direct Paul Newman analogue. Jordan may have been drawn to look like Newman, but there are also many differences between the two. For example, Paul Newman has never possessed a power ring given to him from a crashlanded alien, while Hal Jordan has never won an Academy Award.

Omar Karindu, regarding Steve Englehart’s very specific chronology for the 1950s Cap, I think that he was trying to follow the publication history. The Cap revival occurred in Young Men Comics #24, which has a cover date of December, 1953. Englehart seemed to think that the publication date should, in a metafictional way, exactly match the character’s fictional timeline. Of course, this notion is subverted by the fact that YM#24 would actually have been on the stands considerably prior to Dec., 1953.

Regarding the muddled politics, with the McCarthyite 1950s CA fighting real communist enemies before he went mad, I think that Englehart is actually displaying a fairly sophisticated awareness (for a mainstream, 1970s comic book) of political realities. The pre-madness CA fought the genuine communist threat that the USA faced. In this sense, he is responding, in a fictional context, to such genuine traitors as Alger Hiss or Burgess and Maclean (for a British equivalent). The sane Cap, then, represents the appropriate response to a real threat. The later, insane Cap, in contrast, represents the excessive, McCarthyite response, which saw subversion where none existed.

It would have made for some pretty cool yarns had Clark Kent been raised Snake-Handler: “I want Ma and Pa to be proud of me, but if this rattler tries to bites me, everyone in the congregation will know that I *choke* am really Superboy!”

Hey Greg,

Great Column. Think you’ve nailed it (albeit a bit wordily). In Brian’s column about Rampaging Hulk there was a good debate about stereotyping versus verisimilitude.. This falls clearly on the proper side of the line (Shooter, well….)

This comment nails it succinctly.

Michael P
February 27, 2010 at 9:12 am
Stay tuned for more of our exclusive coverage: “White People Under Siege”

No matter how right you are, you can’t fight the conservative biased media establishment in America, which like Keyser Soze has convinced its most devoted followers that it doesn’t exist.

First of all I’d love to know what “Worse” signs were done for Bush.
To me, comparing someone to Hitler is the absolute worst.

I won’t deny there were those who equated Bush and Hitler, but from what I saw, they were far less numerous, and I know for a fact many folks who disliked Bush and routinely mentioned how they were opposed to signs like that (I know this because I was one of them.)

As someone who lives in NY and has seen a TON of liberal protests, signs equating Bush as Hitler were NOT far less numerous. AT ALL. It was one of the most common protest signs by liberals against Giuliani, against Hitler, against the Republican convention, etc. The problem is that the people who make liberals look bad are not constantly profiled by the liberal media like CNN and NY Times. Whereas with the Tea Partiers, the media actively searches out the wackjobs to make the movement look as bad as possible. Just because you SEE less coverage of the wackjobs in a liberal protest, don’t actually start believing liberals have less of them:

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612

I tend to agree with most of what the Tea-Baggers claim to stand for in their published statements. But that ain’t reality.

Even if you only watched the Fox News version of events, you’d have to recognize that these people don’t even understand what they think they are talking about.

Yes, because if a movement has some stupid soundbytes in its midst, it obviously invalidates the WHOLE movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgfA2b9YSag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVX-c07uefc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uyJSXCZRpc

If you guys want to play the game of “Look, I can show evidence of a stupid Tea Partier therefore this scene if okay because it’s accurate,” I’ll gladly come back with tons of scenes of stupid liberal protesters and stupid Obama supporters at rallies, If the people in the clips I included above were portrayed in a Marvel comic as theTYPICAL, AVERAGE face of liberal rallies or Obama voters, you guys KNOW you’d be pissed. Which is why I can’t see why you can’t understand the opposing view.

This comment nails it succinctly.

Michael P
February 27, 2010 at 9:12 am
Stay tuned for more of our exclusive coverage: “White People Under Siege”

No matter how right you are, you can’t fight the conservative biased media establishment in America, which like Keyser Soze has convinced its most devoted followers that it doesn’t exist.

It’s not a conservative biased media establishment that has convinced people a conservative biased media establishment doesn’t exist. It’s something called reality.

or from Fox (which of course, is biased to the right almost as much as CNN, NBC & CBS are to the left),

Hahaha

Almost?

HAHAHAHAHA!

Good one.

Sarah Palin works for them, and the Tea Party was pushed onto the national stage due to work from Beck and Hannity.

It’s not even up for debate – Fox is a right-wing news station.

And, don’t get me started about the recent stupidity on Family Guy – making fun of Palin is fair game – but they should have left the kids out of it.

No, she should have left her kids out of it.

Notice how people don’t really make fun of politicians kids when the politicians kids weren’t used as part of their campaign?
She constantly held up her child, and it’s down syndrome, as proof of her good character, and as an argument against the legal procedure of an abortion.
She brought the kid, it’s disability and the issue into the public, so not only shouldn’t she cry about it, no one else should either.

too many of you think he’s a legit conservative.

Nobody thinks that – he spun out of the Daily Show, and is on COMEDY CENTRAL.

Besides, Glenn Beck is much funnier.

The use of the term “tea bag,” especially as a verb, is much more likely to come from Keith Olbermann or some other snarky, obnoxious liberal than it is to come from a Tea Party member.

Well, it was Fox who first referred to them as Tea-baggers, and the Jon Stewart got a lot of mileage out of it, and they stopped referring to them as that, probably because they hadn’t realised the words had a pre-existing slang useage.
Dirty minded lefties, or out of touch righties?

And… http://moderateleft.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/teabag.jpg … it’s an actual sign.

It was of course referring to throwing the tea into the water, as at the time, the protest was to throw out tea bags as a symbolic gesture of the dumping of the tea in Boston.
Thus, it meant throw out the liberals before they through us out – get them out of power before they use it to get rid of us.
So, it was real, and it probably wasn’t meant to be dirty.

(Very odd that on the other side of the world, with my politics very far to the left, I seem to actually know more about that movement than you, who seems to identify with it, just through scanning the papers and the odd bit of the daily show).

I might argue that the “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” guy may have been a plant, but of course I have no confirmation of that. It’s an obviously stupid thing to say, and if that person really believed it, he has problems.

Don’t hurt your own arguments by even entertaining the notion that the guy is a plant – he wasn’t.

When Bush came to my country I went to protest, and a bunch of people had signs up for things I didn’t agree with, but I didn’t assume they were plants.
(Socialists for instance – just because I’m a leftie, in no way means I want socialism, any more than it means someone on the right wants fascism.)

The Rogue Letterer Theory is amusing.

The idea there is a conspiracy is baseless and pathetic.

T., do you think liberal protesters are really seen in a more positive light in fiction than Tea Partiers? Trying to remember the times I’ve seen liberal protesters depicted in fiction… they’re almost always the well-intentioned but immature teenage rebel son or daughter of some other character. Sometimes they’re older than teenagers, but still defined by immature, stubborn rebellion. I don’t really remember any instance of a liberal protester being depicted as just a normal person, much less as heroic.

T
Eh, I’ll give you that comparisons to Bush may have been just as numerous (although I will continue to note I rallied against them at the time), and I will fully acknowledge there are idiots on both sides.

But you’re mention of the “liberal media” and bashing of the idea of a conservative bias just made me laugh.

Remember Presidential Candidate Obamas pastor makes comments about how “G.D. America” for it’s history of racism and such, and it’s on EVERY major news channel.

Now, compare that to the level of “outrage” the networks had for the pastor who McCain had sought and received the endorsement of, who said New Orleans devastation was due to it’s acceptance of gays? (Which I personally find more offensive, considering 1-I’m from New Orleans, and 2-It’s talking about a real tragedy that happened, not some theoretical blessing or damning)

Outside of MSNBC (which is admittedly liberally biased) it didn’t get NEARLY as much airplay.

I’m not saying I believe in some “Conservative conspiracy” in the news…I’m just saying there’s just as much, if not more, evidence for such a thing than there is for a “Liberal” media bias.

The truth is the mainstream media will go strongly for ANY sensational story they think can prop up their ratings.
While Bush is in office, you get tons of stories about how his administration is “failing”
While Obama is in office, you get tons of stories about how his administration is “failing”.
When whoever goes in next gets in office, well, take a guess.

It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with one party or the other, the bias isn’t political (Atleast outside of MSNBC and FOX) , it’s that negative news gets ratings, and positive news doesn’t.

“Clark Kent is a Raoist sun-worshipper.”[sic]

Every Christian ever is a sun-worshiper, they just don’t realize it. See the first third of the film “Zeitgeist”.

Christianity is directly cribbed from early Egyptian religion. Early Christians didn’t even try to disguise or hide it.

Stepping off my soap-box now, thank you.

Am I suggesting that this should be incorporated into the comics, that Clark Kent should start going to church? No, not really, though that might make for an interesting story, especially since I think Lois Lane is probably an atheist (really, I think Lois is one of those pragmatic workaholics who never considers questions of faith at all, her work is her religion.)

In a recent (kinda) Nicieza penned story, he lost he stopped going to church after his powers developed, around 14 or so, as it was making him aware of the hypocrisy of the congregation as he could hear what they were doing, and how they lied about it/lied to themselves on Sunday’s.
He also seemed to be portrayed as an agnostic.

I find that newsweek list a bit odd… Aunt May may have been Protestant, but Peter clearly isn’t – as an adult, religion is a choice, not an inheritance, and I’ve seen little indication that he’s a man of faith, or particularly cares for it.

At least until he sold his soul to the devil.

Someone took Zeitgeist seriously?

That movie was the biggest load of shit. Forget Christians for a moment. Ask a pagan that worships the Egyptian pantheon. They’ll tell you the truth* about their gods, which doesn’t even come close to matching what’s in the movie.

*relatively speaking.

Just for reference, here’s a set of photos from a recent tea party rally in Dallas.

http://s951.photobucket.com/albums/ad352/JustAlBlogger/Dallas%20Tea%20Party%20February%202010/?start=0

Yeah, Sam Wilson would have felt verrry uncomfortable there.

Hey David, that’d be more effective is the same guys photos weren’t littered with stuff of Obama as Hitler/Lenin and such.

Wow, they took SOME pictures at a rally and included a few black folks, surely that proves the tea parties are all a wonderful friendly atmosphere right?

By that same sort of logic, do these pictures prove that all tea parties are inherently racist?

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j186/DonaldDouglas/Americaneocon/obama-witchdoctor-muck.jpg
http://washingtonindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/teapartypic.jpg
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1398/slide_1398_20115_large.jpg
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1398/slide_1398_20072_large.jpg
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1394/slide_1394_20035_large.jpg
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1394/slide_1394_19997_large.jpg

But wait, let me guess, those signs are all really liberal plants!

(And yeah, Huffington post is biased as hell, but hey, so is your picture source)

Just because you found a tea party that perhaps didn’t have racist undertones, doesn’t mention NO Tea Party protests do.
Just like the fact some tea party protests DO have strong racial undertones (or overtones in some cases) doesn’t mean everyone at every tea party is racist.

Thanks Perry

now if I could just remember to put my name on it.

David said: “my experiences (and those of my friends who have attended large rallies) are that the vast majority of the Tea Partiers are reasonable, prudent people who want the government to live within its means in the same way that they do in their personal lives.”

The problem with that thinking is many of these same people are just as deeply in debt as the country. These same people also harp incessantly about cutting spending, then cry bloody murder when THEIR supply of pork is targeted for elimination. You can’t have it both ways.

Ed said: “The problem with that thinking is many of these same people are just as deeply in debt as the country. These same people also harp incessantly about cutting spending, then cry bloody murder when THEIR supply of pork is targeted for elimination. You can’t have it both ways.”

First of all, I doubt that you have specific knowledge of the financial situation of the Tea Party protesters. For all you know, every one of them is living debt-free, with substantial savings, prudent investments, and copious charitable contributions. Probably not, but you don’t know any differently.

But I have a real problem with this line of reasoning. Ideas should be measured on their merit, not on the merit of the person presenting them. If you are right, and every person there is up to their eyeballs in debt, cheating on their taxes, and profiting enormously from government spending, it doesn’t change the fact that calling for fiscal responsibility is the right thing to do. What’s your solution – just keep spending because there are people out there who want the government to give them things? Ignore the Tea Partiers because they aren’t perfect? If that’s the case, no idea could ever meet the standard.

The government, and by extension the people, can not afford the entitlement programs and other spending that we have (and yes, that includes the two never-ending nation-building exercises we’re mired in), much less take on something as huge as what’s proposed for health care reform. We will need to seriously tighten our belts, or we’ll end up like Greece is now. That’s not what I want for my country.

The problem I have with the Tea Partiers is, well, why didn’t they care about fiscal spending and all during the last 30 years? or atleast the last 8?

I mean spending freaking skyrocketed under Reagan, and under Bush, but these folks didn’t come out then.
So it’s not about spending, if it was they would have been marching with the Bush protesters back when he was in office.

You really think they didn’t care? Of course they cared. They didn’t like No Child Left Behind or the Medicare Drug Benefit or a hundred other things. But nothing was quite egregious enough to get them to take time away from their lives to go stand at a protest. Plus, it’s harder to get your dander up about one issue when you agree with someone on many others. I was never a Bush fan, but I would never have attended an anti-Bush rally, because that would mean siding with people who are diametrically opposed to me on many, many issues. So I groused about it at home, because what’s the alternative? Was there really going to be a Republican primary challenger who could beat an incumbent president during his first term? Was there going to be a third party candidate who had a chance at winning? If not, voting for a Democrat would have (in my eyes) just made things worse.

Now, Tea Partiers are in a position where everyone who is responsible for the new spending (which threatens to dwarf the Reagan-Bush spending, and in some ways already has) is on the opposite side of many other issues as well. And there’s a reasonable chance that the Tea Party movement can inspire (or require) the Republican party to return to conservative principles that it has long abandoned, at the same time it returns them to power. The hope is that these newly-rededicated conservatives will not allow the cesspool of Washington to corrupt them, and will actually follow through with the tough decisions that need to be made in order to put the country on sound financial footing.

Is that a reasonable hope? Maybe not, but it’s worth trying. And the emergence of Paul Ryan and Mitch Daniels on the Republican radar is encouraging, as they seem to be truly committed to the principles that the Tea Partiers hold dear.

The left wing of the Democratic Party is attacking Obama now from the other flank, as his proposals don’t go far enough for them (single payer, withdraw the troops, etc.). The right is horrified that he’s leading us to Socialism and a loss of military supremacy, and the left is horrified that he’s not leading us there more quickly. I’m actually astounded that single payer health care didn’t sail through both houses before the Brown uprising. I also astounded that there are still troops in Iraq, more troops in Afghanistan, and still prisoners at Gitmo. I actually wish he had pulled the troops out, but on the rest of it, I can only express relief that he’s been so ineffective at his job. If he was competent, this country would probably already be damaged beyond all hope of redemption.

Now, since none of this post has had anything to do with comics, let me add this: Someone upthread posted that he didn’t think that liberal activists were generally portrayed as heroic in comics. May I mention Green Arrow?

The thing is, if you weren’t outraged enough to speak up about it before, it evidently wasn’t really important to you.

You said before ideas should be judged on their own merit, not who is saying them.
So should opposition.

To me, you can’t say “This idea is inherently flawed and will hurt the country, but since it’s my party doing it, I won’t say anything. I’ll wait till the other party is in power, and since they’ll do it too, THEN I’ll speak up so it’ll hurt them”

That’s not caring about your country, that’s caring about your party.
I don’t give a crap if it’s a democrat doing it or a republican doing it, it’s wrong.

If you think something is wrong, you SPEAK UP

To quote Cap.

“This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.”

If people aren’t going to stand up for what they believe in because it’ll hurt whichever political party they like more….then all hope is lost, regardless fo which party you think is “better” than the other.
THAT is the biggest problem with America (and the world as a whole)

“It’s wrong, but it’ll make us look bad, so I’ll keep my mouth shut”

But, anyway, it is very evident nobody is going to change anyone elses mind here, so I’m just going to stop contributing to dragging the whole thing off topic.

Although I will add as a counterpoint to your earlier tea party pictures, that anyone with a google search can find a few various signs that are either explicitly racist or violent, or can atleast be construed that way.
(Obama was witch doctor, signs with racial expletives or such) .

This isn’t meant to say “All tea parties are full of racist people” but merely to point out that there have been some that YES any person of a darker skin tone wouldn’t exactly want to walk into.

You can’t put up a few pictures, be they positive or negative, and pretend they are what EVERY protest is like.

Remember Presidential Candidate Obamas pastor makes comments about how “G.D. America” for it’s history of racism and such, and it’s on EVERY major news channel.

Now, compare that to the level of “outrage” the networks had for the pastor who McCain had sought and received the endorsement of, who said New Orleans devastation was due to it’s acceptance of gays? (Which I personally find more offensive, considering 1-I’m from New Orleans, and 2-It’s talking about a real tragedy that happened, not some theoretical blessing or damning)

Obama was an ACTIVE MEMBER of that pastor’s church for 20 FREAKING YEARS. I read Obama’s autobiography and he actually cites in full an incendiary, anti-white speech by the pastor Wright and says that speech is what made him join the church. He claimed that Wright was not just his pastor but a “father figure,” “mentor” and “spiritual adviser.” Of COURSE the media makes a bigger deal about that then they did about McCain’s situation because it was a totally different type of relationship. And even then they didn’t dwell on it as hard as they would have if it was a Republican.

Just for reference, here’s a set of photos from a recent tea party rally in Dallas.

http://s951.photobucket.com/albums/ad352/JustAlBlogger/Dallas%20Tea%20Party%20February%202010/?start=0

Yeah, Sam Wilson would have felt verrry uncomfortable there.

And here’s a Youtube video made by minority Tea Party members who were tired of being ignored by the liberal media so that the liberal media could continue to focus on more racist members of the Tea Party and paint the redneck narrative they prefer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdPTpOyUk4

Based on those pics from Dallas TX, there are black people who feel perfectly comfortable at Tea Parties. And since based on what I’ve seen in this thread a few pictures is fair enough basis to categorize a whole movement, these pics should be enough to debunk the idea that blacks can’t attend tea parties. Funny how the media never seems able to capture those types of pics though, eh?

Uh ok, look what these global warming advocates just did:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1254619/Baby-girl-survives-shot-chest-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html?ITO=1490

Under the “one link condemns a movement” rule, environmentalists are obviously suicidal kid-killers. If Marvel ever does a comic where a character is scared to bring a child around environmentalists, they haven’t done anything wrong, right?

T., you’re giving them too much credit. All they’ve pointed to is stupid signs. If they can find one instance a black person being physically or even verbally harassed for their skin color at a Tea Party rally, then I could buy the verisimilitude (thank God for spell check!) argument. Unless and until that happens, I consider the offense to be an outright lie, rather than just an unfair generalization.

Just for reference, here’s a set of photos from a recent tea party rally in Dallas.

That’s more proof they aren’t particularly smarts though – what does the sign about ‘Where will Canadians go to get their health care’ even mean?

Do Canadians cross the border for health care?
Reports I’ve read suggest it’s Americans who go into Mexico and Canada for treatment.
Also, why is someone in Texas even concerned about Canadians?
Not really an issue for their state.

That’s more proof they aren’t particularly smarts though – what does the sign about ‘Where will Canadians go to get their health care’ even mean?

Do Canadians cross the border for health care?
Reports I’ve read suggest it’s Americans who go into Mexico and Canada for treatment.
Also, why is someone in Texas even concerned about Canadians?
Not really an issue for their state.

Yes they do. Here’s a recent example.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/02/01/nl-williams-heart-201.html

The waits for major surgeries can be so long in Canada many people come into the United States where wiaiting times are often shorter. My wife is Canadian and had to do this once herself.

Although I fail to see what any of this has to do with my original point.

“But nothing was quite egregious enough to get them to take time away from their lives to go stand at a protest.”

Until the president was black.

Yes they do.

Is it as many as the Americans who jump boarders?

The waits for major surgeries can be so long in Canada many people come into the United States where wiaiting times are often shorter.

Ahh…

Reading up on it after a quick google, US hospitals charge a lot of money for people who can afford it to come over and use their services – so I’m not sure what the guy was protesting, it’s a commercial decision by the hospitals to make money.

Also worth noting – waiting lists are only for non-essential surgery – you don’t wait for a bypass.
(Just pointing that out as I’ve seen people try and twist it).

Although I fail to see what any of this has to do with my original point.

David posted some pics to show how good and racially equal a Dallas Tea-Party protest was.

I was just pointing out that didn’t stop them from being idiots.

Speaking of David…

Unless and until that happens, I consider the offense to be an outright lie, rather than just an unfair generalization.

Cool.

I’m not as clever as you are, so can you tell me how to phrase it to make it sound like it happened, without it actually having happened?

Like…”Racism, is much more likely to come from Rush Limbaugh or some other snarky, obnoxious tea-party member than it is to come from an liberal.”
Or maybe I could argue that an non-white person is a plant, to make it seem like there was diversity?

Wow, I feel so honored. Captain America himself came back from the dead to lay the smack down on my fascist ass!

So the position you’ve drawn here, Mr. Rogers, is that opposition to Obama’s policies is automatically presumed to be racist unless you can prove that you were against those policies in any degree in all earlier administrations. The theory that certain things which were distasteful but tolerated before have now become so exaggerated that they are no longer tolerable doesn’t hold water, eh? Speaking of water, the tea partiers are like the proverbial frog in the water on the stove. The water gets warmer, he doesn’t move. It gets a little warmer, he doesn’t like it, but it’s bearable. It gets a little hotter, and he can’t take it anymore so he jumps out. Your contention is that he only jumped out because the last guy to turn up the heat was black. Makes a lot of sense.

FGJ,

You’ve completely lost me with the “phrase it like it happened without it actually having happened” thing. Either you misunderstood me, or I’m misunderstanding you.

As for Rush Limbaugh being racist, it all depends on your definition. If you define racism as mistreating someone because of the color of their skin, or denying them access to opportunities for that reason, then I think you would have a hard time proving that Limbaugh is a racist. I’m no fan of his, even though we share similar stances on many issues, we part company on several others, and I’m not a fan of his “arrogant blowhard” character.

If you define racism as failing to treat someone preferentially because of the color of their skin, or leveling any criticism at a member of an ethnic minority without adjusting for centuries of oppression, or believing in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome, then yeah, I guess Limbaugh is racist. And you can throw me right in there with him on that one.

You’ve completely lost me with the “phrase it like it happened without it actually having happened” thing. Either you misunderstood me, or I’m misunderstanding you.

You’ve lost me – I was just saying that what happened, and what didn’t happen, hasn’t affected some of your posts – the origins of ‘tea baggers’ and silly people on your side being plants – so why does it have to affect mine?

I picked Limbaugh as a random name from the right, as that’s how it seems you picked Olbermann.

If you define racism as failing to treat someone preferentially because of the color of their skin, or leveling any criticism at a member of an ethnic minority without adjusting for centuries of oppression, or believing in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome, then yeah, I guess Limbaugh is racist. And you can throw me right in there with him on that one.

Your mixed up man, it’s meant to go like this:

1) You don’t criticize a member of an ethnic minority because of the colour of their skin.

2) Some preferential treatment is given to African American to adjust for centuries of slavery and oppression.

That’s how the left see’s it – it’s funny how that rascally old Rush changes things around to make his own agenda seem less pre-historic.

When it was pointed out to me that there was some actual precedent for some of the comments that I had thought were manufactured, then I quickly acknowledged them. I did not repeat assertions that had been proven incorrect. And I never claimed that the man who said “keep your government hands off my Medicare” was a plant, I just said he could have been. Do you think it’s impossible that he was a plant? Do you have factual knowledge that he believed what he was saying?

But, as T. pointed out, a handful of crazies hanging around a rally does not change the overall tenor of the event or the movement.

Do you think it’s impossible that he was a plant? Do you have factual knowledge that he believed what he was saying?

I don’t need it – there’s absolutely no evidence he is, except that you’d rather he wasn’t on your side.

The big protest I went to, when Georgie came to visit, I’d have rathered there weren’t people with pro-socialist signs, but I didn’t assume they were plants.

Heck, I wished there weren’t people with pro-gay marriage and ‘leave Chavez alone’ signs – not because I disagree with them, but that’s not what we were there to protest.

FGJ,

You’re drawing a false comparison. What if someone had showed up at an Anti-Bush rally with a sign that said “Al Qaeda didn’t do nothin’ to us!”? Something that appeared to be supporting the anti-war cause, but betrayed a complete ignorance of the facts and issues, mirrored the snarky talking points of the opposition, and got play on Fox News as an example of how stupid and out of touch the liberals were.

If you saw someone with a sign like that, wouldn’t you tell them to put it down and read a book? And if they continued to proudly display the sign for the cameras, wouldn’t you at least suspect that they were a conservative plant, designed to disparage the movement?

There are people at tea party rallies with signs that espouse positions that I may not agree with. I’m not a big fan of the “Taxed Enough Already” signs, because I think taxes are going to have to go up in the short term to start to work down the national debt. It can’t all be done with spending cuts, especially when you start to look at where we actually spend our money. I don’t mind paying taxes to support the legitimate functions of government at the national, state and local level. I just want those government to stick to their constitutionally or otherwise mandated roles, and perform their functions as efficiently and effectively as possible. But that doesn’t look as catchy on a sign.

There’s a difference between someone expressing a viewpoint that you’re uncomfortable with and someone expressing one that completely invalidates everything the movement stands for. And there’s a difference in how you think about those two hypothetical sign-holders.

David posted some pics to show how good and racially equal a Dallas Tea-Party protest was.

I was just pointing out that didn’t stop them from being idiots.

I posted those pics. And my point wasn’t to say that the Dallas Tea Party was a kum-ba-ya racial utopia. It was to say that there are also plenty of positive pictures one can choose from if one wanted to find Tea Party images. So for every negative picture that people in this thread are posting from Tea Parties to justify a sweeping negative generalization, I can also find a positive image, so does that mean I can now making sweeping positive generalizations?

My point was never that there are NO idiots at Tea Parties or NO racists, but that you can’t make sweeping generalizations based on one image, positive or negative. You totally missed that point however by doing exactly what I was criticizing: “Uh look, I kept looking and I found an idiotic sign. See? There are idiots there.”

There are idiots in ANY crowd. I pointed a ton of links to idiots in left-wing crowds in links as well to show the futility of resorting to that tactic. That’s why I say I don’t see the point in you pointing out an idiotic sign. After all I pointed links to a bunch of idiots in Obama rallies and a link to global warming idiots. Are you willing to apply the same criteria to them and lump both movements in with Tea Parties now?

T., I posted the pics, and you even referenced them in a post a little later. You posted YouTube videos. Don’t steal my thunder!

Wow, David, pointing out that none of the teabaggers cared about government spending until there was a black president really got to you, didn’t it?

Boy, Steve, I love that line of reasoning. I’m going to call you a racist. If you don’t react, it means you agree. If you deny it, you’re protesting too much and I clearly struck a nerve. It’s like “when did you stop beating your wife?” It’s an all-purpose no-win situation for the accused. Except, of course, that it’s not true.

David, I didn’t call you a racist. I simply noted the incontrovertible fact that the teabaggers didn’t care about government spending until there was a black president. And then they started ranting about his birth certificate and blaming his election on the lack of a civic literacy test and carrying around pictures of him with a Hitler mustache and talking about how they wanted the country back to where it was when the founding fathers created it and black people couldn’t vote and only counted for 3/5 of a person.

Sorry this upsets you so much. Why might that be, David?

Teabaggers, in your view, didn’t care about government spending until there was a president whose wife enjoyed sleeveless shirts. That has about as much relevance as his race. And you know it.

Well, no, David, it doesn’t. If the teabaggers merely had an aversion to a first lady who sometimes wears sleeveless shirts they probably wouldn’t also be ranting about President Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship, making baseless charges that he’s some sort of secret Muslim, circulating racist images of Obama as a witch doctor, making calls for a civic literacy test to allow people to vote at the teabagger convention, and the like.

Why do these facts upset you so much, David?

Hmmm, let’s understand why people have raised those issues, shall we? He was probably born in Hawaii, but his full, long-form birth certificate has never been released. His father was a Kenyan citizen. He was raised for a period of time in Indonesia by a Muslim stepfather, and attended schools that may have included Islamic instruction. I haven’t really spent any time examining these things, but there’s certainly a lot for a conspiracy theorist to sink his teeth into. There’s a lot of smoke.

Do you really think that the only reason these questions have come up is because of the color of his skin? Are that biased, or are you that dense?

David, thank you for exposing yourself as a birther.

I am far from a birther. Couldn’t care less. Even if he was born in Kenya, it’s not like they’re going to have a do-over of the election. I’m just pointing out that there are legitimate reasons why the issue came up, other than the color of his skin. The fact that you see that as the only impetus for any of those questions is telling as to your thought processes.

I continue to assert that it is liberals who seek to base their opinion of someone on race, not conservatives. It is liberals who believe blacks and incapable of achieving anything they want, not conservatives. It is liberals who use welfare, affirmative action and race-baiting to keep minorities dependent on them for handouts. It is liberals who consider themselves superior, and think that minorities should thank them for the scraps they give them out of noblesse oblige, while conservatives want to give them the opportunity to compete on equal footing and achieve their own successes, which will take them far beyond the level that handouts ever could.

Should be “blacks are incapable,” not “blacks and incapable.”

T., I posted the pics, and you even referenced them in a post a little later. You posted YouTube videos. Don’t steal my thunder!

Sorry, you’re right, I thought he was referencing the videos. My bad.

Wow, David, pointing out that none of the teabaggers cared about government spending until there was a black president really got to you, didn’t it?

Gee, I thought it was because the guy’s government spending was unprecedented. Now I know it’s because he’s actually black.

David, anyone who claims President Obama has a secret hidden birth certificate that will say something other than what the birth certificate he’s released says is a birther. Yes, you couch your birtherism in the “questions remain” sort of dodge, but a birther you remain.

I wonder, is this related to the reasons why you’re so upset by someone noting that teabaggers didn’t care about government spending until there was a black president?

If you believe that there is no legitimate reason to raise some of the question that birthers raise, then you’re not just a non-birther, you’re blind or an idiot. Perhaps both. There may be nothing at all to the conspiracies, or some may be true. Don’t know, don’t care. But I will say this. Compared to 9/11 Truthers, birthers are working from both a solid base of evidence and the moral high ground.

David, no one but you is talking about 9/11 truthers. But since you’re a birther, I wouldn’t expect you to do anything other than flail about blindly when confronted with your birtherism.

By the way, this is neither here nor there, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. The two greatest modern economist/philosophers, in my opinion, are Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. I read and enjoy every article they write. They are the intellectual elite of the true conservative movement. Check out pictures of them sometime.

David, what does that have to do with your birtherism, or the reasons why you’re so upset by someone noting that teabaggers didn’t care about government spending until there was a black president??

You know, I would raise the issue of conservatives going apoplectic over Clinton’s spending initiatives, ushering in the ’94 GOP revolution, but you’d just counter with “But Clinton was the first black president.”

posted those pics. And my point wasn’t to say that the Dallas Tea Party was a kum-ba-ya racial utopia.

You posted the pics as David?

Proof the right is a giant hive mind!

T., I posted the pics, and you even referenced them in a post a little later. You posted YouTube videos. Don’t steal my thunder!

Too late David!

The secret is out!

If you saw someone with a sign like that, wouldn’t you tell them to put it down and read a book? And if they continued to proudly display the sign for the cameras, wouldn’t you at least suspect that they were a conservative plant, designed to disparage the movement?

Not really, no.
As probably no one at the rally did.
Someone acting distinctly differently to the crowd, or trying to incite a riot, and I’d consider they could be a plant – I’ve never been to one, by why do G20 protests always end in riots, but the person who starts the violence never caught? The protestors are hippies, and it’s always that specific event – but just someone with stupid or off message sign?
Probably not.

It’s ridiculous to even float that assertion with no other evidence.

Much like the ‘Where will Canadians go for health care sign’, it’s just a person who doesn’t really understand what’s going on.

while conservatives want to give them the opportunity to compete on equal footing and achieve their own successes, which will take them far beyond the level that handouts ever could.

Equal footing?

By starting from a long distance behind?

If then tea-party had to put up with a government doing this: http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-announces-309b-funding-takeover-of-public-hospitals-20100303-phnp.html?autostart=1 , like the Australian government is, would there be enough tea in the world for them to throw in the water, even as a symbolic act?

FGJ,

I don’t follow Australian politics, but that article made it sound like the federal government is just taking money they were giving the states for the states to spend on hospitals, and instead giving the money directly to the hospitals, because the states were hijacking the money for other purposes. In other words, the government (at various levels) already took over most of the health care industry, they just cut out one of the middle men. The protest should have happened long, long ago.

As for your comparing ‘Where will Canadians go for health care sign’ to “Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” I have to say….really? Didn’t you see the story about an official in Halifax or some such that came to the US for a specialized treatment? Yes, there were hospitals in other Canadian provinces that he could have gone to for the surgery, and I don’t know what his reasons were for going to Miami, but still – it’s a news story. Plus, apparently there are a large number of Canadians who come here for procedures to avoid the wait times in their country. There’s a procedure in place for them to get reimbursed by the Canadian government under certain circumstances.

I also know that US citizens try to import prescription drugs from Canada because they’re much cheaper there. However, the pharmaceutical companies are willing to sell at a loss in Canada and elsewhere (having no choice because of government mandates) since they can make their profit in the US market. Our health care costs are high because we are subsidizing the socialist countries whose governments have forced providers to provide service at a loss. If we were to adopt the same stance as Canada and others, there would be no place for the drug companies and other health care providers to go to make a profit. They would shut down. Then the government would start to hire the doctors and the scientists, and the loss would be buried as a drain on the public coffers. And we would have the same motivated energetic service at the hospital that we now enjoy at the post office or DMV.

I agree that our health care costs should be lower. There are three ways to accomplish this. 1) stop letting the rest of the world dictate artificially low prices with the US making up the difference, 2) reduce consumption, and 3) provide what’s consumed more efficiently.

The protest should have happened long, long ago.

Well, you’ve missed what they are actually doing – instead of each state running it’s hospitals, it will be a unified body, which will make it easier to fund.

But I was just posting it to show you what other countries with actual universal health coverage get up to – this is the sort of debates we have, and no one has ever taken to the streets to try and stop money being spent on our hospitals.

Plus, apparently there are a large number of Canadians who come here for procedures to avoid the wait times in their country. There’s a procedure in place for them to get reimbursed by the Canadian government under certain circumstances.

For their elective surgeries?

If anything that’s probably why you should want government health care – if the hospitals are renting out their beds and doctors to whomever has the money to cover it – they would charge extra to foreigners – you’d probably want someone to be pushing the rights of US citizens at US hospitals.

Our health care costs are high because we are subsidizing the socialist countries whose governments have forced providers to provide service at a loss.

HAHAHAH!

More fool you!

I mean, that’s not true in the slightest – they still make money in countries where the government enforces price controls on pharmaceuticals, just not as much.

But imagine if it were true?
You’d currently be in the dumbest country ever!

If we were to adopt the same stance as Canada and others, there would be no place for the drug companies and other health care providers to go to make a profit. They would shut down. Then the government would start to hire the doctors and the scientists, and the loss would be buried as a drain on the public coffers. And we would have the same motivated energetic service at the hospital that we now enjoy at the post office or DMV.

Ha!

Again, if only it were even vaguely true.

Why would a private company sell it’s goods to another country, if it had to operate at a loss?
They wouldn’t.
And as such, they don’t.

I agree that our health care costs should be lower. There are three ways to accomplish this. 1) stop letting the rest of the world dictate artificially low prices with the US making up the difference, 2) reduce consumption, and 3) provide what’s consumed more efficiently.

Or, do what the rest of the world is doing, and not let private companies dictate how much things cost.

(And again, the US isn’t making up the difference on drugs or treatments – that’s a baldfaced lie. They may make a lot more profit there, but they aren’t operating at a loss anywhere, except maybe in third world countries… I mean, 80% of their research budgets, collectively, is spent on erectile dysfunction and hair loss treatment – so unless the biggest problem in Africa is baldness and limpness, I wouldn’t even look to them for your high costs).

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/09/does-the-us-really-account-for-so-much-pharma-profit/24465/

FGJ,

Above is a link to an interesting article and comments discussing the issue from multiple angles. You might get something out of it. I know I did.

David