Month: June 2023

Another Discussion on Living in a Banana Republic

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Recent events have provided clear evidence that we no longer live in a representative democracy but rather in a bureaucratic oligarchy.  Some people have dubbed this the “managerial state.”  They control the executive branch agencies and control the real power that runs this country.  And not even an elected president can control them.  A close affiliation of Department of Justice personnel and Democrat appointed judges have the power to destroy anyone they want to.  That even includes a former President of the United States of America who is also a highly popular candidate for the upcoming election to that same office.

Now as distressing as this is, we gain nothing by continuing to shriek at the skies about this being the case.  Practically everyone now knows this.  Sounding the alarm no longer serves a purpose, or at least only a minimal purpose.

But what is purposeful is identifying new ways to live in this changed environment.  So, what is the mission?  Well, basically to maximize your quality of life within this regime and provide solidarity for others like you.  One thing it doesn’t include is providing the regime with an excuse for locking you up in a gulag.  The example of the January 6th protestors is a template of what not to do.  And the first thing to pay attention is where it was done.  Washington DC is literally the in belly of the beast.  In that jurisdiction the chance of a conservative protestor getting equal treatment under the law is nonexistent.  In fact, chances are most of the leaders of the protest were FBI agents leading the lambs to slaughter.

In general, trying to fight against the federal government in a blue state is suicidal.  But that still leaves plenty of leeway for constructive action.  There are many places in this country where conservative legislatures and governors are attempting to hold the line against the madness that Biden inflicts on us every day.  These are the places to flock to.  But even in these enclaves of freedom it’s wise to look at what you can do to reinforce your quality of life.

All the usual warnings about protecting your family from the public schools and selecting a career that eschews the woke corporations and the professions like law and medicine that have been hopelessly captured by the Left apply of course.  These things almost go without saying.  But don’t neglect them.  They have an enormous impact on your life.

But just as important is attending to the social aspects of your life.  “Man does not live by bread alone.”  And work isn’t all there is.  Cultivate a network of like-minded friends in your community.  Spend time with them and their families.  Find out who is reliable and who is not.  Be helpful to them and in this way build up a support system and a community of people you can trust and who trust you.  Hopefully some of these people will be your friends and maybe their children will be your children’s friends.

In a way we have to form communities within communities.  All of the normal social avenues; fraternal orders, church societies, even hobbies have been colonized by the Left and made unwholesome.  We have no choice but to start anew with ourselves as the only standard by which to select membership.  But at the same time, we also get to provide the rules and the content of the associations.  Maybe you’re a gun nut and enjoy going down to the range once a month.  Well, then that tells you what activity you’ll center your social club around.  Or maybe you enjoy a weekly poker night out with the boys.  Well, what’s better than that for camaraderie?

You might be asking what this has to do with being part of the resistance.  The answer is simple.  We’re the party without power.  We’re not going to win back this country anytime soon.  If we’re not going to just give up, we have to have a way to preserve our culture and also maintain morale.  To do that we need to create a network of people like us to provide the social cohesion that will keep our culture alive.  That’s why forming a community is crucial.  Without it we will become isolated, alienated and simply disappear.

Comic Book Movie Redux

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Tonight, I continued my retreat from reality with another super-hero escapist film.  I turned on the 2002 version of Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire.  Now Spider-Man is one of the goofiest comic book characters.  Spider-human genetic mutations that render its victim enormously strong and able to shoot webs from his wrists that allow him to climb and swing from Manhattan skyscrapers is just about as absurd as anything imaginable.  But what you discover if you watch the film is that the movie has heart and despite the ridiculous premise and the even more ridiculous villains, it holds your interest and the characters are likable.

The plot as I said is ridiculous but it follows its own logic and the story arc is your basic quest by the young man to find his inner hero.  But this being a super-hero movie it has much more spectacular episodes than growing up, getting a job and winning the girl.  He has to defeat a super-villain who also happens to be his best friend’s genius scientist father.  Well, of course he is!

I’m not going to review this movie.  No one needs the plot of yet another Spider-Man movie.  What I’m trying to do is show that even something as silly as this movie can be a good movie.  But maybe the most important part of the movie is when it was made.  In 2002 it was still possible to make a movie where race and gender weren’t the defining characteristics for selecting cast and plot lines.  Peter Parker was still allowed to be a white kid from New York City and he could still have a crush on a good-looking white girl.  Currently there is a quota system in Hollywood and that combination of ethnic and sexual choices would violate the intersectional imperative.  Either Peter would have to be black or his love interest would have to be a boy.  And that’s just the way it is in 2023.

And that sums up the problem with Hollywood today.  They’ve eliminated fun from movies.  The new super-heroes have to be joyless women proving that they’re every bit as good as Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones only politically correct, incredibly smug and completely boring.

This has already been the undoing of the Star Wars franchise and from what I’m hearing it’s about to put the last nail in the coffin of the Indiana Jones saga.  And the Marvel Cinematic Universe is also being transformed.  When you eliminate Iron Man and Captain America and replace them with Captain Marvel and whatever other screechy girl characters they dream up like She-Hulk or Thor-ette it goes without saying that boys and young men will stay away in droves.  It’s almost as if destroying the fun for men is more important than making money.  And it is.

But the good news is that the old movies are still there to see and enjoy.  And eventually when Disney has finally committed cinematic suicide there will still be creative types who will know how to use these old films as templates for how to create entertaining and profitable movies.  After all people haven’t changed.  Hero slays the dragon and wins the beautiful princess has been around at least as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey.  It certainly will survive the Woke Wars.

I hope.

A Meditation on Iron Man 3 – Or Why Sequels Suck

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I won’t frame this post as a movie review.  I won’t synopsize the plot or provide a detailed opinion on it as a movie.  Instead, I’ll use watching the movie as the launching pad for a rant.  Because rants are fun (for the writer).  Unloading on a movie that disappoints and especially one that trades on the good reputation of an earlier installment feels like a noble action.

I’ll start out by saying I really enjoyed the original Iron Man movie.  Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges and the supporting cast; Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow, provided plenty of entertaining content to this comedy/adventure movie.  That movie was fun, exciting and highly entertaining.

Alternatively, Iron Man 3 is none of those things.  It’s a complete waste of time.  The plot is confusing and essentially meaningless.  All of the characters are annoying and uncompelling.  Even Downey’s Tony Stark is surprisingly uninteresting and poorly written.  He is suffering from anxiety attacks based on his experiences in the Avengers movie that occurred before this film.  He has several of them during the movie and they just seem so contrived and pathetic that it feels like really lazy writing.  So, by the end of this movie, I’m feeling fairly unhappy with the time I’ve wasted watching this crapfest.

So, this is what you get with these movie franchises.  The first one is probably very good.  There’s good writing, good acting and an original idea.  But two or even three sequels down the road you end up with a crappy director, hack writers and a much less talented supporting cast.  And voila, an awful movie.

Now it doesn’t have to be this way.  There have been movie series where the quality was more or less maintained.  Downey, himself for instance, was in one such.  His two Sherlock Holmes films were almost equally interesting and entertaining.  But in general, Hollywood has an equation where sequels are a money-making strategy where quality is abandoned after installment one.

So, what’s my point?  Well, there isn’t one.  Except that I was so annoyed watching this movie that I wanted to carp and moan about my outraged sensibilities.  Robert Downey Jr. is an amusing actor who can carry a picture to great effect if you give him a decent plot and some good lines to recite while he mugs for the camera.  It would have been entirely possible to allow his character to carry this movie without any expensive supporting cast if they had only invested in an actual story!

And so, the takeaway is “caveat emptor.”  Do your homework when it comes to sequels and make sure you don’t pay for a movie that is just a pale shadow of its predecessor.  Luckily, I watched this for free on my cable service.  But I did waste more than two hours of my, at this point, limited time left on this mortal coil.

And shame on you Robert Downey Jr.  You’re better than that.  Now go make the third Sherlock Holmes movie.  And don’t let them phone it in!