Someone bring that dead horse over...

I was actually busy working yesterday, so I missed the whole Captain America #602 kerfluffle. When I finally asked someone, and she told me what it was about, I laughed out loud.

Yeah, I LOLed, that's right.

I think it's no secret that I'm a too-liberal-for-Democrats liberal. Sarah Palin, in her autobiography, calls herself a "common sense Conservative." I consider myself a common sense Liberal, in that if you actually sit down and think about reality, you'd be a fairly liberal person. Or you're more self-interested than human-interested, which is a completely fine way to be. To each their own. Sarah Palin and I actually agree on a lot of things, except that the things she says and the things she does tend not to match up. I'm all about the government not putting their nose in my business, which I think means that I should be allowed to marry whomever I want that my local religious institution (if I have one) will accept. I don't think the government should use tax payer money to bail out large companies. Not because I'm anti-socialism, but because I think we need a total meltdown of our economic system in order to find one that's a little less archaic and better suited for a global economy with, literally, billions of consumers.

But these Tea Partiers. Woo boy. I kind of like them, in the sense that any vocal anti-government group always interests me and I really am a bit of a libertarian from time to time. I'd like them more if they would declare themselves a third party, but they want to latch onto the money and power of the GOP, and that's understandable. (Never mind that if you ask any Democrat in the US, they'd say they hate socialism, too.) They compare our current sitting president to Adolph Hitler, and they don't bat an eyelash. When people compared Bush to Hitler, I disagreed vehemently (despite actual similarities based in fact, not in a fear of socialism), and I will continue to disagree with that. You know who you can compare to Hitler? Hitler.

The kerfluffle I alluded to before was over the fact that Cap doesn't like the militia folk and Falcon doesn't want to mix with them thar angry white folk.

Let's take a look at a picture of an actual Tea Party protest:

Check out the token black guy front and center. Well, at least they all look happy. Except for the guy right next to the token black guy. [Feel free to check out some more from google and let me know what you find out re: the racial make up of Tea Party protests.]

When I read #602, and I actually read it, it reminded me more of a Tim McVeigh type militia than the Tea Party people. Why? Well, they were armed and run by a blonde guy who wanted to blow stuff up. So there's that. Yeah, the signs that Quesada apologized for (sigh), okay. I know it sucks when comics reflect current events instead of outdated things, but there you go.

Speaking of actually reading the issue, did you know that this Captain America isn't Steve Rogers? Most of the people getting up in arms about it don't. It's James Barnes, the kid who was Steve's advanced scout in WW2 (re: little dude that slit peoples' throats) who was brainwashed by the Soviets and became the greatest assassin in the world, before Steve saved him and he (James) took over the mantle of Cap after Steve's death.

Let's take a moment.

Here we have a guy who use to kill people for the American government, then the Soviet government, who now wears the American flag on his body (and, btw, stands up for those 2nd Amendment rights by using a gun where the previous Cap refused to). James has seen communism first hand. James has killed for communism as well as capitalism. James knows way more about socialism than someone who hasn't lived in that kind of society.

And James thinks the protesters in #602 are creepy mofos being led astray by a violent lunatic.

I'm gonna go with Cap on this one.

Oh, also, they're not the supervillains, the mentally unstable (due to an experiment by the American government) ex-Cap is.

And also, every American that is interested in pursuing their own freedoms and/or the freedoms of others and/or a better tomorrow blah blah is a patriotic American. Not just the conservatives.

And also, my liberal bias here is that I read the book, know the context of the characters and the story, and find the obvious non-researched response appalling.

But what's more appalling is that Marvel apologized.

Really? Seriously? You clothe your women in skin-tight, no-way-that-can-protect-you clothing, you let Bobbi Morse get raped and blamed by her husband and then forgive him, you have like two gay characters and only one of them ever actually gets even remotely close to as naked as the straight characters, and you apologize for reprinting actual signs?

Oh, and speaking of signs. There are some awesome ones. I think this might be my favorite (among the signs saying Obama loves baby killing, declaring this a Christian nation - wrong according to the Constitution they supposedly respect so much - and asking for members of Congress to be hanged):


Yup, totally the same. The taxes we pay that fund things like the military, road building, power plants, etc. (along with social programs like education and welfare) are exactly like being taken from your home, shoved into a train, sent to a camp, and then burnt alive.

I can see why Marvel would apologize, and why the gentleman that brought this to everyone's attention thinks that the Tea Party people are being victimized.

No, sorry, that was liberal sarcasm.