Week of 08/10/2020

It’s Damned Hypocritical
– by David Matthews 2

My adopted brother from another mother and father, the American Heathen® RJ Evans, is fond of saying that the hypocrisy always reveals the lie.  He probably should have that statement trademarked.  For almost four years (as of this column’s posting), we’ve been living in nothing but hypocrisy and lies.  A country run under the dictates of a malignant narcissist and enabled by a corrupt party of psychopaths and sociopaths that spent the previous eight years screaming to high heaven of actions that they are now grossly guilty of doing in spades.

And it’s not just this gang of corrupt tyrants, but a whole segment of America that have supported and rooted for these folks that are equally guilty of engaging in hypocrisy and lies.  Following the advice of a certain Austrian-born dictator from the 1930’s and 40’s, they seem to think that if enough people believe the lies that they suddenly become truths.  It actually doesn’t work like that.  Truth is not subject to popularity.  Think of all the people that used to believe that the sun and the rest of the universe revolved around a flat Earth.  Belief in a lie does not make it a truth, even if everyone believes in it.

So maybe it’s time that we start pointing out some of these hypocrisies that people have taken up.

Now let’s get brutally honest here... I’m not expecting the great unwashed to suddenly develop a conscience because of a little ol’ online columnist like yours truly held up a mirror to these Januses.  But maybe some of you who read this column can pass it along and maybe show the others that we’re not alone in seeing these double-standards go unchallenged.

So let’s begin...

It’s damned hypocritical... to see an orange-skinned narcissist spend years complaining about how a president plays golf and then turns around and plays even more golf when he’s president.

It’s damned hypocritical... to see an orange-skinned narcissist dictate from Twitter how a president should take responsibility for pandemics while in office and then proudly proclaim with cameras rolling “No, I don’t take responsibility at all” when a pandemic happens under his watch.

It’s damned hypocritical... for a political party to complain about budget deficits, but only when they’re not in power and only when it involves spending that they don’t support.

It’s damned hypocritical... for a political party to impeach a sitting president from a different party for lying under oath about getting oral sex but then turn around and defend a sitting president from their own party for crimes much worse than that.

It’s damned hypocritical... to complain about the use of presidential executive orders when the White House cannot work with Congress, but then approve of its wanton use when “your guy” is in the White House.

It’s damned hypocritical... for middle-class parents to tell single mothers that they shouldn’t have kids that they cannot afford to raise without government assistance, and then turn around and demand that schools open up in the middle of a pandemic, risking children and adults alike, because they cannot afford to educate their precious little tax deductions on their own or keep them home for virtual education.

It’s damned hypocritical... to condemn “mail-in voting”, but then tell others to file “absentee ballots”, when those are essentially the same thing and use the same delivery mechanism.  And it’s even more damnably hypocritical when you’ve been doing just that over the past few years.

It’s damned hypocritical... to complain about “voter fraud” when it seems that the only traceable instances of fraud are being done by supporters of your own political party.

It’s damned hypocritical... to money-shame people for buying things like Starbucks coffees and avocado toast and big screen TVs and then turn around and demand that people do just that to keep the economy going.

It’s damned hypocritical... to complain about a so-called “cancel culture” after supporting every effort to keep people like Colin Kaepernick from working because he started a form of peaceful protest that harmed nobody and only threatened the sensibilities of egomaniacs like a certain orange-skinned narcissist.

And finally...

It’s damned hypocritical... for an orange-skinned narcissist to molest and dry-hump the American flag while acting and talking like a third-world dictator.  And it’s even more damnably hypocritical for his supporters to see what he’s done and approve of what he’s done and still claim to be “proud Americans”.

I’m sure there are a lot more to point out, and maybe some of my readers will help me with that.  I can only hope that at some point there will come a time when all of these Januses will be held to account for their double-standards, and not just in some concept of a hereafter that we will never see carried out.

 

Week of 08/03/2020

The H.N.S. Trumptanic
– by David Matthews 2

“Unsinkable”.

That was the claim made by the builders of the R.M.S. Titanic over a century ago.  They claimed that they had come up with a cruise ship that was guaranteed to not sink, even if it took on water.  That there were safeguards in place that would keep the ship afloat even if the hull was punctured.

Of course, as history showed, the Titanic ended up on the bottom of the ocean anyway.  On her maiden voyage to the United States, the British ship hit an iceberg, took on water, and sank during a span of almost three hours.  Over 1500 people died on that ship and a little over 700 people survived to tell of what happened.

Numerous inquiries into the how and why this supposedly “unsinkable” ship failed revealed a few things that helped contribute to the disaster.  First, the warning about icebergs in the area from a nearby ship was ignored.  Second, the ship sailed with a grossly insufficient amount of lifeboats.  Third, the crew were inept and untrained in handling disasters like a sinking ship.  Fourth, the vast majority of the passengers – all from the “third class” group – were left to fend for themselves and a lot of them were trapped below and left to die.  And, fifth, the captain was incompetent.  Of course, he wasn’t able to refute that afterward because, you know, he went down with the ship.

There was some speculation that the Titanic could have sailed on through to America even with the damage it sustained had the safeguards that were built into the ship were put in place.  But that would have taken into consideration a competent captain and crew that knew how to handle the situation in the way the ship was designed.  Sadly, that was not the case.

In short, we learned that even an “unsinkable” ship can fail due to the incompetence of those in charge.

Such is the same with the “ship of state” that we call America.

This is a “ship” that has been taken over by its captain and crew and rechristened the H.N.S. (His Narcissistic Self) Trumptanic.  It is under the command of a bloviated orange-skinned buffoon of a captain named Donald John Trump that believes that he is unsinkable, and thus “his ship” is unsinkable as well.

It is a “ship” that has hit an iceberg called the COVID-19 global pandemic.  And it is taking on water.

And here, much like the Titanic, the Trumptanic is suffering from gross incompetence.  First, the captain was inept and did not heed the warnings.  Second, he was slow to respond to the emergency.  Third his “crew”, a.k.a. the Trump Party that control two-thirds of the government, are equally inept and incompetent. 

And now we know that, much like the R.M.S. Titanic, the H.N.S. Trumptanic lack the proper lifeboats.

Yes, Trump and his gang of psychopaths and sociopaths had to work with the Democrats to come up with a huge bailout for America.  Protections to keep people paid while businesses had to shut down.  Help for those out of work so they can keep paying the bills and getting the food they need.  Moratoriums against getting people evicted in the middle of shelter-in-place orders and from businesses from being shut down when they can’t pay the bills due to lack of revenue.  These were all needed to keep the “ship of state” afloat.

But those “lifeboats” were not enough.  They were predicated on a virus that would just “disappear” and everything would be back to “normal” in record time.  Unrealistic expectations on both the virus and the American people, a good percentage of which are still operating on the delusion that it’s just “a hoax” and it would just “go away”.

Not only that, but these “lifeboats” have been badly mismanaged.  No surprise given the “crew” that were put in charge of it.  They made sure their friends in the “first class” crowd got the best and left most of the “third class” folks to fend for themselves.  Ran out of money quickly?  Wow, how did that happen?

So now those “lifeboats” are expiring.  Those protections that kept people employed, that kept the unemployed sustained, that kept people from losing their homes... those have either ended or they will end soon.  The pandemic hasn’t gone away, the H.N.S. Trumptanic is still sinking, and our orange-skinned captain and his crew of psychopaths and sociopaths don’t seem to care about helping out the rest of us.

Oh, sure, there are “ideas”.  The Dems passed a bill back in May that would have addressed the problem.  The crew of the H.N.S. Trumptanic, on the other hand spent that time complaining about the protections they already passed, rejected any thought of enacting more, and then waiting until the very last minute to even come up with a bad idea and then blame the Dems for not rubber-stamping it.

This is a tactic that the crew of the Trumptanic has played for years, long before their “captain” took over.  They did it during the Great Recession, rushing through a massive bailout on the onset, then screaming bloody murder over it, and then letting further assistance expire, purposely letting Americans suffer before quickly coming up with some quick fix that would also quickly expire and they could play the game all over again.  It is not done by accident.  It is done by design.  The same arguments, the same rationalizations, the same expiring clock.  The only thing different between then and now is the scope.

Let’s get brutally honest here... America’s “ship of state” known as the H.N.S. Trumptanic is sinking, and it is sinking fast.  It is under the command of an inept and incompetent captain, and a crew of sadistic psychopaths and sociopaths that only care about themselves and their friends in the “upper decks”.  All they want to do is shuffle the deck chairs and watch as the rest of us drown in a cold murky sea of misery.

With the protections from foreclosures and evictions expiring, with the unemployment assistance ending, and with people forced to choose between possible disease and death and economic destitution, the economic misery we have already experienced is about to get worse.  Already the United States lost one-third of our gross domestic product in the past quarter, the highest loss ever in the history of the country.  Now add the coming crash of people losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing their money simply because of the incompetence of the captain and crew of our “ship of state”, and you have to wonder if we will even make it to November.

There is one way that the H.N.S. Trumptanic differs from the Titanic, and that is the captain of the Trumptanic will not go down with his ship.  His narcissistic self does not have the sense of honor and duty that a normal leader would possess.  When he does flee like the rest of the rats, you’ll know that it’s too late for the rest of us.  All we could do then is just hold on and try to survive.

“Unsinkable”?  Not with these people at the helm.

Week of 07/27/2020

The CW’s Superman Problem
– by David Matthews 2

As fans of my column and as readers of my “Hero Corner” website know, I am a longtime fan of the DC Comics character Superman.  This goes all the way back to when I was a child.  His was the first comic I read.  And I have read some of his greatest stories, including his crossover encounter with Spider-Man, his fight with the legendary Muhammed Ali, his Red Superman-Blue Superman imaginary story, his original marriage to Lois Lane (on Earth-2), the legendary “Crisis on Infinite Earths” miniseries, his farewell story and his rebooted origins by John Byrne, and, of course, his brutal death and return, and all of the more recent activities.

I also know that that Warner Brothers really hasn’t done him too many favors of late.  “Superman The Movie” and “Superman II” were probably the best representatives of Superman on the big screen, with “Man of Steel” following behind them.  “Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman” was good, but not great.  “Smallville” was a ten-season disappointment.  It would be years after that before the CW network would give us another Superman.  If anything, Warner Brothers did Superman justice in the animated world than they ever could in live-action.

Now, thankfully, there will be another Superman TV show.  “Superman and Lois” will air on the CW network in the start of 2021.  The series will feature the title characters along with their two sons and the stresses surrounding raising children while still keeping secret the fact that their father is Superman.

For this commentator and longtime fan, Superman’s fulltime return to the small screen couldn’t come any sooner.  Yes, Tyler Hoechlin’s version of the Man of Steel has been around since 2016, and, before that, Superman was seen only in vague details for the pilot episode of “Supergirl” in 2015.  But he wasn’t considered a regular in the CW universe.  It would take his participation in the “Elseworlds” crossover in 2018 to convince CW execs that he should be brought in for more.

But now that Superman is a fixture of the CW “Arrowverse”, especially after their version of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, they have some problems with the character that will need some serious fixing in time for his new series to launch.  And most of those problems have a name: Supergirl.

The most obvious problem that has been pointed out by others is that many of Superman’s villains have already been co-opted for Supergirl.  Live Wire, Maxima, Silver Banshee, Metallo, Maxwell Lord, the Cyborg Superman, Agent Liberty, and Lex Luthor were all known Superman villains that were turned into Supergirl villains for her CW show.  While Superman has a pretty impressive rogues gallery and wouldn’t necessarily run out of villains, to have someone like Lex Luthor – who carried a specific hatred of Superman for years – suddenly be a nemesis for Supergirl is a pretty big stretch.

But it’s a little bit more than just co-opting villains.

By the time we see his actual debut in the first episode of Season 2 of “Supergirl”, Superman is already established as Earth’s greatest superhero.  He has years of experience fighting menaces on Earth and beyond.  But by the end of that season, we see him being sidelined.  First, he’s seen as being weaker to his cousin.  Then when he does join in the season’s climactic battle, he’s only on the periphery of the fight.  He’s nowhere to be seen in the following season, when he clearly should have been stepping up to help against Kryptonian menaces like Reign.

During the “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover, Supergirl makes a threat to the Reverse Flash that if she dies, Superman would go after him.  The Reverse Flash, who is supposedly from an alternate future, counters by saying that he’s already fought Superman and won.  This further digs in the idea that this version of Superman really isn’t “super”.

And then, by the time we get to the “Elseworlds” crossover, while we do see Superman take a more active role in the special and working with Green Arrow and Flash, the special ends with Superman officially being “semi-retired” so that he and Lois could stay on Argo City for the duration of Lois’ revealed pregnancy.  This essentially takes Superman out of consideration for yet another year and puts Supergirl in the forefront of world affairs.

Then there is “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, where Superman is finally brought directly into the crossover, and he’s basically regarded as a secondary figure.  This is a character with leadership qualities being pushed aside by Supergirl, White Canary, Flash, and even Brandon Routh’s Superman from “Superman Returns”.  Even his position in the final battle shows how bad that he has been sidelined.  This is far, far, far different from the Superman who took charge in the original comic miniseries, the one who summoned every hero in all of history and led them to challenge the Anti-Monitor.

So for all this time, we have a Superman that has been sidelined, rendered weaker, and had all of his greatness and even many of his villains co-opted for Supergirl.  It might be “okay” as long as you focus all your attention on Supergirl and you have no plans whatsoever to show Superman ever again.  However, with the CW about to launch “Superman and Lois”, and with the lead actress of “Supergirl” being pregnant, possibly delaying the start of her new season even further, the CW have hamstrung the greatest superhero of the DC Universe.

Even worse is this little faux pas... it was established in the pilot episode of “Supergirl” that Superman was around for at least a decade before Supergirl made her debut.  It was inferred that Batman had been around almost as long.  And the same in the world that Black Lightning comes from.  He was a hero who gave it up to become a father to his two daughters, who are now grown-up and heroes themselves.  All three have been merged into the new “Earth-Prime”... and yet at the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the President of the United States makes her public address to the nation and says that the Green Arrow, Oliver Queen, was “the first” superhero.  Superman, Batman, and Black Lightning were around as heroes before Oliver Queen was old enough to party, and yet Queen was “the first”? 

Someone in CW-land have some serious ‘splaining to do about that.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the CW has once again done a serious disservice to the Man of Steel.  First was how they created a non-Superman in “Smallville”.  Then in introducing Superman in the Arrowverse, only to then sideline and gradually neuter him in favor of his cousin.

The lack of classic villains can be easily remedied.  Like I said, Superman has no shortage of bad guys and gals to go after, and he can even pursue some of the other Arrowverse villains for a while.  A more pressing matter is the damage to his character.  Superman is a born leader, the original symbol of hope, and the original encourager of bringing out the best in people.  These are things that need to come out in the new series, and to do so heavily.

This longtime fan of the character hopes that the CW will do right when it comes to the new series.  There is a reason why Superman has endured for almost a century.  It’s more than just having superpowers.  It is the character of the man that has those powers and uses them to help others instead of himself.  A man of humility and also of leadership.  It is time that we have a series that brings that kind of character back to the forefront.