Who doesn’t go Nazi?

Marvel Comics needs a refresher course on their Dorothy Thompson.

Read the article linked above first, if you’ve got the time, and then keep that in mind when you read all about Marvel’s decision to bring Steve Rogers back from the dead just to have him Hail Hydra.

There’s some speculating that this is a “long con” by the character to infiltrate and destroy them from within. My own thought is that actually killing Cap wasn’t enough for the Gatekeepers, who have decided that they have to desecrate the corpse as well by trying to kill his ideals.

It’s being passed off as a political commentary, of course, but whether through willful writer’s malpractice or a woeful lack of craft, they’ve only betrayed their own thoughts about America – and shock of shocks, it’s that America sucks. And I don’t buy for one minute that this has anything to do with the political rise of Donald J. Trump, official GOP nominee for the Presidency. They felt this way going into it, and they’d be doing the same thing if Ted Cruz took the nod. The writer has already gone on record in saying that the Republicans are all evil, so why not ruin their favorite freedom-loving symbol as well? It insults them AND ruins the guy who has (until now) unapologetically loved his country, to the point of punching Hitler in the face in his first comic.

Too manly, too decisive, too patriotic, too violent… this is Fifty Shades of Triggering to our self-appointed betters.

Given my druthers, I (and many others, I suspect) would rather amend the US Constitution to make fictional characters eligible for elected office.

Alas, we have a lot of cultural rot to overcome, as detailed in this discussion of the topic at John C. Wright’s blog. It may seem like mixing topics at first, but this is where I’d refer you to e-migo Morgan and his many writings about Architects and Medicators, about people who define things vs. those who refuse to. If we can’t define Captain America as being a captain of America and its noblest ideals, then what in the world are we doing here? And does anyone think that this sort of thing is of benefit to our country or anyone who lives here?

If I may be so bold as to self-quote:

“A society that behaves this way can’t survive. What I had missed before, but now realize, is that it isn’t meant to. These poor deluded young’uns are cannon fodder in this conflict – their masters don’t mean for them to be the keystone to a new, better world, but as the kindling for the old. And when the pyre is built and ready to light, they intend to lay upon it themselves. For their rage against anyone trying to flee the torch is nothing next to their rage at themselves. Those who want to set out on this journey only reinforce that there is an escape available to them that they reject. They hate the reminder because it means that they need not perish so shabbily.”

So, no help from our mentors. And none from our peers, either:

“The reason is simple – crybullies aren’t really on each other’s side. They’re like a school of fish, in that they are safe only in vast numbers. Their signaling is designed to recruit bystanders into joining them in isolating the target, meting out punishments for defending the target or being seen with them. It’s also designed to signal internally that they’re all in step. They pressure is on to push into the center always, so they’re not caught out of step and gobbled by sharks.

Well, when fish push into the center of the ball, who are they pushing out? Exactly – their fellow fish. THEY ARE NOT ON EACH OTHER’S SIDE. They say so but in practice, better that someone else gets gobbled.”

This is high-grade, weaponized nihilism. If challenged, no doubt, they’d whine about how it’s just a comic book – man you people take such silly things so seriously, ell-oh-ell! Hey, let’s look at the crypto-fascists trying to control comics! Don’t be fooled by this any longer, if you ever were. THEY are the ones who take this deadly in earnest, which is exactly why they won’t ever leave well enough alone. If it were “just” a comic, then they’d write their own instead of corrupting the ones created by people of real skill and talent. And if it were “just” a comic, just a movie, just a (fill the blank), they wouldn’t go on and on about how important it is for them to be ideologically pure – to make Cap a Nazi, to make Thor a lady, to give Elsa a girlfriend, to cover Tracer’s well-drawn cute tush.

There is nothing crypto about their fascism, because it is a fascism of thought and will: they must have all of it and you may be permitted none of it. You will read what they write, and write nothing of your own. You will play their lousy games, watch their preachy boring TV and movies, listen to their screeching music, wear their ugly clothes, eat off their insipid menus, learn their solecisms and propaganda, exploit each other and form no true friendships, and speak only as a machine or a parrot. You will not create, or dream, or enjoy, or laugh, or cry, or wonder, or love, or live. You will merely exist according to specs, and if you deviate from accepted parameters, you will be treated as any other malfunctioning unit.

I  can think of no better reply than Cap’s own.

It also doesn’t matter if his own comic tries make right and wrong trade spots. Marvel – YOU MOVE.

Tagged: Captain America, comics, gatekeeping, House of Eratosthenes, John C Wright, sci-fi, the thinks you can think, who goes nazi