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This reminds me of when the story broke that many of Glenn Beck’s production staff are Liberal. That makes as much difference to the (many times offensive) content of Glenn Beck’s show as having Conservatives in upper management at marvel makes to the product that Marvel puts out.

Though conservative, I was perfectly satisfied with Joe Quesada’s explanation of the controversy. But I’m frustrated with how poorly the Tea Party movement seems to be understood here on these boards. It is about one thing; we are taxed too much and congress is wasting our money. That issue can cross party and racial lines. There is not an ounce of racism in this. There were plenty of minorities at these rallies (my wife went to one, and I saw extended coverage of them, yes, on Fox news. And a tea party black man was roughed up at one of them by white SEIU union members).

Free speech is critical. There is nothing about it the Tea Party is against. We are simply expressing concern about being misinterpreted and unfairly maligned as racist, when that is not the case. But sure, go ahead and malign and misrepresent us. That is your right. It is also my right to point out your error.

Rick Ungar, once again, shows what a class act he is. Well done, sir.

i would agree. Rick standing up for what he believes in even thought it ment he no longer has the one job he had with marvel at least he is willing to stand up for free speech . and Marvel should be happy for because of the controversay the issue is becoming a hot item espically since reprints will have what offended the tea baggers removed.

Okay, now who the hell is this jerk? I’m getting real sick of these wanna bes coming out and trashing Marvel, Cap and by extention us. I just got a rather rude email from Mr Weenie Todd Huston on Facebook who seems to think we comics fans are all emotionally stunted.

The thing that also pisses me off is I generally AGREE with people like this. Government IS to big, and spending IS out of control, has been for decades. But these self appointed leaders of the tea party movement are doing a lot of damage to what the movement was started for. They need to shut the hell up and go back to their roots.

Okay, now who the hell is this jerk?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Ungar

You know all those ’90s Marvel cartoons, including the X-Men one so many of us recall fondly? He’s that guy.

“Occasionally, the book tells stories that would likely grate on senior management – but that is what free speech is all about.”

I think, to be realistic, if senior management were to attempt to do something about those ‘grating’ stories (and by extension, their writers) they’d have to cancel a whole lot of books. It’s not like there’s a whole lot of conservative talent out there who could write something more to their liking. I think they’re willing to blind-eye the occasional background poster and characters like Todd Keller, rather than take the risk of losing talent. Hell, they even manage to get some national publicity going for an actual comic in this case.

“There is not an ounce of racism in this”

No offense, and I don’t mean to get too far off topic here, but when you’ve got a former congressman at your national convention giving a speech where he says things like…

“People who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama”

…then, yeah, there’s a bit of racism there. I’m not suggesting you’re a racist at all, but some prominent people in those crowds are and I can see where other people get the impression that there’s a racist element to the whole thing. This is the problem with a political movement defined entirely by anger that resists any kind of centralization or leadership. Yes, some ideas are misunderstood and misinterpreted, but that’s partly because there’s no clear rational voice defining what those ideas really should be and denouncing those who go over the line into racism or hate speech. When you get to the core of it, “lower taxes and less goverment” aren’t ideas; they’re slogans. Nobody’s out there developing a platform of actual solutions and policies that can be debated and discussed, or if they are, they aren’t talking about it much. They’re just yelling a lot. And as long as that’s the case, I find very little credibility in the complaints of those who argue that the rally scene in Captain America was somehow insulting when it accurately depicted signs from a real rally, and I can’t blame others on these boards for misunderstanding what the movement’s about as long as there’s so little clear definition of what it is supposed to be about on a substantive level.

I’m still pissed that when it was all said and done they placed all of the blame on the letter. Absolutely classless. So, they say they never intended for there to be a direct correlation between fictitious and factual groups; well in that case it falls down to only one person in the comics production line to correct and prevent such occurrences: and that one person is the book’s monthly editor, in this case Tom Brevoort. That should be where the blame fell, and accepting their side of the story, I am not accusing Brevoort of any kind of insidious political plot; I am merely saying the man failed to do his job as an editor. What’s he twittering about these days, anyway?

Correction to the first sentence of my previous post:

“I’m still pissed that when it was all said and done they placed all of the blame on the LETTERER.”

@Gordon,

First off saying people can’t speak or write English isn’t racist, stupid and offensive yes but racist no. Also since there’s really isn’t an organized party it’s hard to attribute one speaker’s word to an entire movement, but both sides like to do it. Let’s call this for what it was, it was a cheap shop by Brubaker at groups he doesn’t agree with. Writers have been doing that for years and since writers and artists tend to be more liberal it’s usually at conservatives’ expense. No biggy, Marvel got called on it and they’ll change it. People that claim this has anything to with freedom of speech or the 1st Amendment are the true idiots here since FoS has to do with the government restricting speech not private companies.

Also no one is objecting to the signs but the script which implies the crowd is racist or would have problems with a black man in their midst. The signs were taken from a tea party protest which would seem to identify the crowd as tea party types. Even if you don’t agree with them I think you can see why they were offended.

Also for your information people are proposing solutions or ideas but they don’t get much play. Look up Paul Ryan’s roadmap, it’s not perfect but it’s a start. Of course, it’s hard to ever propose any real solutions to problems because you’ll get attacked from the other side and the electorate still responds attack ads rather than reasoned debate.

AndyB-
I agree that Tancredo talking about people who can’t read is not, in and of itself, racist – although in the context of the speech, it was pretty clear he was talking about non-Anglos. But I can give him the benefit of the doubt.

However, in the same speech he suggested we return to literacy tests as a requirement for voting. Honestly, that’s as racist as it gets. For many years in the Jim Crow South, African Americans were denied their right to vote by forcing them to take ‘literacy tests’ as a prerequisite to voting. I’m pretty knowledgeable about American history and I have taken a few of the literacy tests to see what would happen. I’ve never passed one yet. I simply don’t know how many Ambassadors to the United Nations the country has sent since the founding of that body. Do you?

As for Paul Ryan’s roadmap, while I might agree that there is some basis for discussion as a starting point, if you read it carefully, as I have, you will find that much of it is hashed over ideas from conservative platforms of years gone by that simply are never going to happen. What’s more, while Paul Ryan appears to be a bright guy, he freely admits that much of his philosophy is informed by his reading of Jonas Goldberg’s book suggesting that the American liberal perspective is taking us down the road to Nazi style national socialism. That’s a bit over the top, even for the most objective among us.

And while I also agree with you that debate is stymied these days by political attack rather than informed debate, let’s be honest – most of the nonsense being fed the voting public is coming primary from one side of the aisle. By way of example, two words – ‘death panels.’

I agree with you that the origins of the Tea Party are different from where things have landed – in less than a year. While I cannot tell you that I found the Tea Party philosophy particularly realistic or based in sound judgment, I don’t believe it came into being as a racist organization. However, this movement has been hijacked by elements that no longer represent the perspective that existed even one year ago. You cannot blame others for seeing the Tea Party as it is rather than what is may have been intended to be.

If the upper management of Marvel is very conservative, then why do they allow so much overt “adult” content (TV-14 cuss words,on panel and fully rendered scenes of bloody and gory graphic violence,and strong sexual innuendos) in many of their mainstream superhero books?

Contrary to the beliefs of the tea party, if any comic should be about politics, it’s clearly Captain America! Cap should be about fighting for what’s right in America, which without using politics would make him the same as any other superhero (he is, of course, not just like an other superhero) Fighting the Red Skull way back when would’ve been relevant to politics back then, but fighting against the Fascists is no longer relevant. What would be the modern equivalent? Well, in my personal opinion, it would be fighting against the real psychos we have here in the US right now like the Tea Party. People seem to think mainstream comics shouldn’t deal with modern issues, but I strongly disagree. To be entirely honest, I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see Cap fighting for gay marriage and socialized medicine (he should be getting equal rights for everyone in the USA like we ALREADY SHOULD HAVE). Getting a Captain America comic censored is quite easily THE MOST UNPATRIOTIC THING I’ve heard in a long time. The mere fact that they were able to get the traction to do this terrifies me more than anything else they’ve accomplished so far.

Especially when it comes to things like Captain America #602 being censored (of course needlessly, as that was a real protest sign), I can understand why many creators prefer to do Creator-Owned work instead of working for Marvel and DC. I hope someday (hopefully now), the big comic companies will actually let the comics creators say what they want. (it’s not as though there are many, if any, eight-year-olds reading Brubaker’s run on Cap) People should be able to decide what they are ok with reading, and if they’re offended by some political beliefs contrary to their own, they don’t have to buy the comic.

Stan Lee wrote great stories relevant to the real world back in the ’60s, and modern creators should too, it’s the best way to write stories in the Mighty Marvel Manner!

Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Sam “The Falcon” Wilson would have been made to feel welcome at a “teabag” rally? Sure, the letterer shouldn’t have been turned into a scapegoat here, but it seems to me that Brubaker was being consistent with characterization.

“To be entirely honest, I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to see Cap fighting for gay marriage and socialized medicine (he should be getting equal rights for everyone in the USA like we ALREADY SHOULD HAVE).”

———————-

This is exactly why you don’t have Captain America or Superman taking stances. Everyone wants them to be on their side of the argument because they are the biggest names or seen as the wisest man in their respective universes. This was why, when poorly done like in Civil War, it remains a blemish on an individual characters history.

And the way writers come and go from books, why should Brubaker or Gruenwald’s opinions, channeled through Cap, stay canon while the next writer, who may have different views, is unable to do so because he came later and may never be given the chance to be a “classic” run?

It’s one thing for the Falcon or Green Arrow to never shut up about things, another for Supes or Cap to campaign for __________

Nobody needs to give Tancredo the benefit of any doubt. The guy has made his career on being a borderline white supremacist.

Rick Ungar—

So basically you think that the tea party movement is racist because Tom Tancredo (who does suck I admit) made some vague comments about immigration. So using that logic I guess the Democratic Party is racist because Sen. leader Harry Reid and Pres. Bill Clinton have both said blatantly racist things in the last couple of years. Harry Reid said that Obama was a great candidate because he didn’t talk like a “n–gro” Bill Clinton disagreed saying that Obama should still be “fetching our coffee”
So why do these comments not make the Democrat Party racist? Because the liberal mainstream media (including Marvel Comics) is decidedly left-wing and wants to create narratives that agree with their political agenda.

Not that I want to defend a politician but to say taking literacy tests is racist is a stretch for me. I look at it as a great idea. It would certainly prevent those who are here illegally from sneaking into our electorial process as well. That’s how I read his remark.
But those who are saying the tea party movement is racist need to actually LOOK at what the movement is really about. It’s anti-tax and anti- big government spending. How is that racist? I’ll answer for you: It isn’t. The ONLY reason why people are using the term racist is because Obama happens to be in the White House and we are not allowed to question or criticize him, to do so is a racist thing. Even Jimmy Carter (jerk) thinks the only reason people ‘oppose’ Obama is because of the color of his skin. As far as I’m concerned you can put a turd in a box and wrap it up in whatever color paper you want but it’s not going to hid the stink of it.

There is nothing racist about wanting to government to show some restraint in how it spends the money it steals from us. This isn’t about Obama, as much as he likes to make things about him, it’s about GOVERNMENT. The one thing that is bigger than obama’s ego.

If you want to sling the arrows of racism then you need to point them at the Democrats. They opposed civil rights, womens rights and they also had a high raking senator who was a high ranking member of the KKK: Robert Byrd.
Lincoln fought to free the slaves…what party was he from? I forget…

And, Rick, ‘death panels’? You seem to have forgotten when the story broke that the Dems were taking the provision OUT of their health scare plan that gave raise to Death Panel concerns. If they weren’t in there then how could they be taken out?

AndyB: wanting people to speak and write english in AMERICA is not racist, true, but it’s also not stupid and offensive. There is no way to make that argument. When you go to…France, for example, you are expected to know the language. Same with Germany and the Middle East. They aren’t going to coddle you and do everything in two languages because someone is to lazy or stupid to learn the language.
I was once told I should learn spanish so I could communicate with people who don’t speak english…I lived in Portland, OR at the time, a place with a HUGE illegal criminal alien problem. My response was straight forward: Why should I have to learn another language to communicate with someone in MY country? They can’t speak my language then they have nothing to say that I care to hear. Sounds harsh but we need to get our backbone back.

FINALLY…Rick, sorry for the jerk remark earlier…I was wound up because of that jerk Warner Todd Schmuck and his attacks on Marvel which have now become attacks on us fans.

“he freely admits that much of his philosophy is informed by his reading of Jonas Goldberg’s book suggesting that the American liberal perspective is taking us down the road to Nazi style national socialism. ”

I assume you mean Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism in which 95% of the book discusses politics before 1950? The book that details the in-depth history of progressivism and is more of a history book then political commentary. The book where his thesis was that fascism has roots in the left and not the right and had little or no say in current politics. However, I am glad that you admit that Nazis were socialist at least you picked up that much from your brief read of the Huffington Post’s review of the book.

….Though I must say, this Jonas Goldberg could be a completely different fellow.

One troubling thing happening in the conservative scene today is the attempted rehabilitation of the John Birch Society. Since William F. Buckley helped make conservatism respectable again in the Sixties by denouncing them, it’s hard to see this as a positive development for the movement.

Someone currently of that stature needs to disavow the Birchers, Birthers & the other paranoid elements present in the movement, or they will flourish at the expense of those chiefly concerned with taxes & budgets, discrediting the latter by presenting easy targets for liberal attacks. In a democracy, there is always a need for a “loyal opposition” to the party in power; but it needs to be a sane opposition to make a difference.

And just to keep this relevant to comics, I have to agree with Ken B. As a general rule, I’d like to see individual characters written with politics (or religions, for that matter) that reflect their particular backgrounds. But Cap is a symbol for an America unified against the foes of liberty, and as a symbol of unity, he needs to rise above any partisan identification. This was pretty much the conclusion of the famed Stern/Byrne “Cap for President” story, and I think that conclusion stands.

Skott, I have lived in France and Switzerland, and traveled extensively around Europe. Everywhere I went, people spoke English. Europeans often speak three or four different languages, and they often go to great lengths to ensure that their children speak more than one language, even sending them to special foreign-language schools. I myself speak French, Spanish, and a smattering of other languages (German, Kreol, sign language) and they have come in useful on numerous occasions. The insistence of some Americans that English be spoken exclusively here is not only xenophobic, it’s backwards.

On the other hand, having lived in a country where the default language is not mine, I know how difficult it is to learn another language. I studied French in college, but nothing prepared me for the way people actually speak it (even in Geneva, where they speak slowly and distinctly compared to the French). It took me almost a year before I could understand it. Was I supposed to forgo my civil rights for that year?

Also, your assumptions are betrayed by your initial statement. There are many immigrants who are not here illegally, and they deserve representation as much as any native-born American. (In fact, I believe those who are not here legally should be treated as human beings as well, but that’s a conversation for another day.)

I would think that Marvel did have a commitment towards the First Amendment then I remembered Marvel telling it’s own forum goers that there’s no free speech in the world so don’t bother bringing it up.

Rick Ungar—

So basically you think that the tea party movement is racist because Tom Tancredo (who does suck I admit) made some vague comments about immigration. So using that logic I guess the Democratic Party is racist because Sen. leader Harry Reid and Pres. Bill Clinton have both said blatantly racist things in the last couple of years. Harry Reid said that Obama was a great candidate because he didn’t talk like a “n–gro” Bill Clinton disagreed saying that Obama should still be “fetching our coffee”
So why do these comments not make the Democrat Party racist? Because the liberal mainstream media (including Marvel Comics) is decidedly left-wing and wants to create narratives that agree with their political agenda.

____________________________________

I agree with everything you said Thomas. Many liberal democrats often turn a blind eye to the racist in their own party. Then there are those so called self proclaimed “enlightened liberals” who claim they don’t have a prejudice bone in their body, until a person of color either disagrees with them or doesn’t fall into their personal stereotype of that person of color’s race, and then the racist remarks come out.

There is a huge difference between Bill Clinton and Tom Tancredo. Tom Tancredo’s sole thing is race. That’s it. When you invite Tancredo to speak at your event, you know you’re getting white survivalist nonsense.

There was no Death Panel provision in the health bill. It was a provision that paid for 1 consultation every 5 years with a doctor about end of life decisions. As usual, the right re-named it with words that could be made fun of, then pilloried the provision.

Ian Thal
February 13, 2010 at 6:32 pm

[Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Sam "The Falcon" Wilson would have been made to feel welcome at a "teabag" rally? Sure, the letterer shouldn't have been turned into a scapegoat here, but it seems to me that Brubaker was being consistent with characterization.]

Falcon making a crack about “angry White people” is in character. However, wouldn’t it have been interesting for Bucky Barnes to question Falcon’s cynicism and historical ignorance?

After all, Bucky fought the Nazis, fascist who murdered people who wanted to speak freely. So, even if Bucky disagreed with the goals of the Tea Party Movement, he’d still defend their First Amendment right to protest government policies.

gordon
February 13, 2010 at 3:31 pm

[No offense, and I don't mean to get too far off topic here, but when you've got a former congressman at your national convention giving a speech where he says things like...

"People who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House -- name is Barack Hussein Obama"

...then, yeah, there's a bit of racism there. ]

Frankly, I know plenty of Black Democrats in my family who would agree with Tancredo that Spanish-speaking immigrants should learn to speak and write English.

So, this is not a simple “White GOP vs. everyone else” scenario.

Skott,

I don’t like taxes either… but literacy tests are, along with segregation, employment discrimination and lynching, pretty much the DEFINITION of racist. Please read up on the history of literacy tests before you repeat the assertion that they are not racist. Because once you say that, no one will take any of your further arguments seriously.

@KirsK

Actually, it was a Black immigrant who inspired Tancredo’s civic literacy test idea:

[The incident took place in July 2007 during Tancredo's presidential run, when he became the sole Republican candidate to accept an invitation to speak before the NAACP convention. "I always joke about the fact that this debate was the only one I won, because I was the only one who showed up," he allows. "They had nine podiums and I went out and stood by the one with my name on it, and took all their questions."

When he flew to Detroit prior to the event, he did so solo. "I didn't travel with an entourage. It was just me when I got off the plane, and I had on jeans and a sweat shirt and a baseball hat. And the people who were putting on the debate sent a limo to pick me up.

"The driver was a black guy, and we started making conversation. He said in very precise English, 'What are you doing here?'" Tancredo goes on, effecting an Indian accent when speaking for the driver. "I said, 'Because they asked me.' He said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because I'm running for president. He said, 'Naaaah.'"

After a laugh, Tancredo continues the tale.

"I said, 'Honestly, I am running for president. I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm really running. And I'm a congressman.' And he said, 'Ah, congress,' and he picks up this sheaf of papers on the front seat and starts giving all these facts: 'There are 535 members of congress, with one-hundred in the Senate and 435 in the House. And the United States flag has thirteen stripes, standing for the original thirteen colonies...'

"I said, 'You're going to take your citizenship test?' And he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'I'll bet we could ask any of the people out there to come over and try to answer questions about what you just said, and I'll bet you wouldn't get ten out of a hundred who would know any of this stuff.' And when I told people this story when I came home, I talked about how immigrants have to know more than people born here have to know, and isn't that ironic, to say the least."]

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2010/02/tom_tancredo_got_idea_for_civi.php

Getting back on topic…

As this “Cap vs. Tea Party” debate intensifies, the following comic strip is quite timely:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cmuir/2010/02/14/cap-n-trade/

Sorry KrisK but asking people who want to live in this country to speak the dominant language, indeed the language of success in this country is NOT racist. There is no way it could be taken as racist unless it’s from someone who sees racism under every rock and in every room.

I don’t like to deal with people who won’t speak English. I don’t like getting an instruction book for my new camera that over 40 pages long and only 17 are in English. I don’t like having to read through a bunch of other languages to find English when I pick on a toy in the store and want to read the back.

This is America. We speak English here. We want the best the world has to offer to come here and be a part of our culture. You can’t do that if you are unwilling to speak the common language and if you are illegal, well, you don’t belong anyway so I really don’t care what you do. As long as ‘go home’ is on the top of that list.

You’re talking about something else though I think. History of literacy tests? Is this something from the 1930′s? That has nothing to do with the need for them today. So, what, we find out some people are stupid, nothing wrong with that, then we know who needs to be helped and where they are. Why would someone be against helping people who want it? That’s just mean. If you fail because you are illegal…shut up and get out. Don’t come back until you want to do it legally like my Grandparents did.

Sounds harsh, I know, but we need people to be willing to stand up and tell it like it is without all this PC ‘don’t hurt anyone’s feelings’ garbage.

As for this whole Cap Vs Tea Party crap, well, NO WHERE in the book is the title Tea Party used. Some signs were similar, big deal. Bottom line is this is just another case of someone wanting an issue where there isn’t one. Marvel should have mocked this Warner Todd Huston jerk and moved on to promoting the next issue.
To think, this whole thing started because some tool who knows NOTHING about the series threw a fit.

Skott: While the Voting Rights Act of 1964 allowed for the use of literacy tests to be administered to adults who had less than six years of formal education., the Civil Rights Act of 1965 suspended the use of literacy tests with regards to voting and the Supreme Court has upheld the legislation. Under current law, it is illegal to force prospective voters to take a literacy test..

Literacy tests have been used, particularly in the region in which I was born and raised and within a year of my birth, to disenfranchise people of color and the foreign born in order to maintain white power and hegemony. This is not ancient history to many people.

It doesn’t matter if a person of color (whether foreign born or not) suggested that Tancredo champion the return of literacy tests, the goal of the readoption of literacy tests is to disempower the people who threaten white privilege and power. In the past, African-Americans were perceived to be that threat; today, portions of the Anglo-America perceives its privileges to be threatened by Latinos, Muslims and other “scary” people for whom English is a second language and who are in some way dangerously different. In Europe, Jews were considered to be threat, while in the fictional Marvel Universe, Mutants have filled that “other” role in the allegorical narrative.

For the record, my family’s presence in North Carolina predates the American Revolution. Where I am now in the American Southwest, there are hispanic families whose presence here goes back to the 1500s. There are Native American tribes locally who have been here for thousands of years before the Anglos or Latinos. Not everyone who speaks Spanish as their primary language is either illegal or an immigrant, and lack of fluency in English is not a sign of stupidity (except perhaps for some people for whom English is the primary language).

Attempts to sanitize what Tancredo is calling for cannot remove the ugliness of what he proposes. One doesn’t have to see “racism under every rock or in every room” to see this for what it is. Maybe it helps to be a Southern White Male brought up within the first decade post Civil and Voting Rights Acts by people who pined for the loss of Jim Crow in addition to a knowledge of history and personal experience of the rationalizations and tactics racists use to disguise their personal racism.

Originally posted by TGWSS
February 14, 2010 at 3:28 pm

“There is a huge difference between Bill Clinton and Tom Tancredo. Tom Tancredo’s sole thing is race. That’s it. When you invite Tancredo to speak at your event, you know you’re getting white survivalist nonsense.”

I agree that there is a huge difference between Bill Clinton and Tom Tancredo. Bill Clinton is the second most powerful politician in the Democratic Party and the only living two-term Democratic President. Tom Tancredo is a largely unknown failed presidential candidate/Mr. Roper lookalike who most conservatives have never even heard of. If Tancredo defines the Republican Party then surely Bill “fetch my coffee” Clinton, Robert “KKK grand wizard” Byrd and Harry “no n-gro dialect allowed” Reid define the Democratic Party.
BTW one of the most popular politician in the Tea Parties is Marco Rubio, who also happens to be Latino.

@jordanbeard Fighting the Red Skull way back when would’ve been relevant to politics back then, but fighting against the Fascists is no longer relevant.

You must not be aware of “liberal facism”, also known as socialism.

@jordanbeard Getting a Captain America comic censored is quite easily THE MOST UNPATRIOTIC THING I’ve heard in a long time.

Nothing has been censored.

@jordanbeard People should be able to decide what they are ok with reading, and if they’re offended by some political beliefs contrary to their own, they don’t have to buy the comic.

No doubt. People should be able to criticize what they don’t like.

@
Ian Thal Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Sam “The Falcon” Wilson would have been made to feel welcome at a “teabag” rally?
Yes, I’ve seen many black people at Tea Party rallies and I’ve seen black people as speakers. I’ve also seen a conservative hip-hop duo at a tea party also and the crowd cheered and sang along with them.

@Fred2
thanks for the link, funny stuff.

Donald G, I’m not talking about tests to vote, although considering the large number of uninformed voters we had during the American Idol Presidential Elections in 2008 it might not be a bad idea to give some kind of test to ensure people are more informed when voting I’m talking about being a citizen. That goes hand in hand with speaking English if you want to be here legally.

But, after re-reading many of these posts, including my own, I feel we’ve wandered from the original topic. Warner Todd Huston and his attack on Marvel, comics and us fans. He honestly thinks we are stupid and uninformed. Naturally this thread and others prove him wrong as there are a LOT of well thought out arguments here on both side (and unlike Huston’s rather lame view, not all comics readers are leftists.)
But I think we need to keep this left/right thing separate and focus on this disgusting man who thinks we are stupid. This should be one time when comics fans on both ends of the political spectrum pull together and stand against a common enemy.
I’m more than willing to stand side by side with my fellow comics fans who are also liberals during this. Besides, it’s what Captain America would want us to do. (yeah, I know, if Weenie Todd sees that line he’ll use it saying ‘See! they even use fake characters to try to inspire themselves!’ but I don’t really care what he tells his hundreds of readers)

Just saying.

Maybe the Big Money people who aren’t involved in the day to day creation of Marvel Comics are conservative, but surely he isn’t talking about the 90 – 95% of the creators who make or edit them, right? Because the
he’s just confused, or misinformed.

He’s both. Honestly, I don’t see to much of personal politics being injected in many of the books I read. I think writers, REAL writers not blogger hacks like Huston, know to keep personal politics out of things that are meant for mass consumption.

Look, I don’t usually get into this sort of thing, but really? The Tea Party Protests are just about being taxed too much? Then why are they happening after taxes were lowered for the vast majority of Americans, and not during the eight years when we spent our way into a recession? Tea Party Protests are just about Congress wasting money? Then where were they during the eight years of support for useless abstinence-only sex education, at least one unnecessary war, no-bid contracts to political cronies, and the largest expansion of the federal government in recent memory? Tea Party Protests aren’t about race? Okay, you’ve got me there. There’s Absolutely no racism to be found there.

Tom Foss Wrote:
“Look, I don’t usually get into this sort of thing, but really? The Tea Party Protests are just about being taxed too much? Then why are they happening after taxes were lowered for the vast majority of Americans, and not during the eight years when we spent our way into a recession? Tea Party Protests are just about Congress wasting money? Then where were they during the eight years of support for useless abstinence-only sex education, at least one unnecessary war, no-bid contracts to political cronies, and the largest expansion of the federal government in recent memory? Tea Party Protests aren’t about race? Okay, you’ve got me there. There’s Absolutely no racism to be found there.”

The idea that conservatives oppose Obama’s agenda because he is black is pretty absurd. I think that everyone forgets that the leader of the Republican Party is also an African-American. And if we were to use your logic we would assume that you are a racist because you oppose Michael Steele’s agenda.

Racism in our society has become something of a gotcha game. Anyone who makes the slightest slip or generalization tends to be accused, especially by people who are themselves already accused of racism. Sadly, bigotry is out there, and as someone who lives in the South, I know this and see it. I meet people who still think Obama is a Muslim terrorist, or say, without irony or humor, that a “White man belongs in the White House.” That’s real.

Is it fair to say everyone in the Tea Party is racist? Probably not. The group seems to be too disparate to make such generalizations. Tom Foss is correct that most of the fearmongering about fiscal responsibility and liberal fascism is silly, especially in light of the Bush years, but I suspect that if Obama were white and didn’t have an unusual-sounding name, the Tea Party types would still hate him, simply because he’s a Democrat and he’s theoretically spending their money on things they don’t like. The fact that he’s black just happens to bring out bigoted elements as well, and since people often find the worst elements of their opponents, many left-wingers conflate the Tea Party with its bigoted side. Me, I don’t care about that. Accusing someone of racism is a big deal, and it’s such a charged topic that little rational can actually be accomplished once it’s out there. Not that it should never be discussed, mind you, but when the debate turns into a “You!” “No, you!” style argument, no one’s listening, and no one’s winning.

“agree that there is a huge difference between Bill Clinton and Tom Tancredo. Bill Clinton is the second most powerful politician in the Democratic Party and the only living two-term Democratic President. Tom Tancredo is a largely unknown failed presidential candidate/Mr. Roper lookalike who most conservatives have never even heard of. If Tancredo defines the Republican Party then surely Bill “fetch my coffee” Clinton, Robert “KKK grand wizard” Byrd and Harry “no n-gro dialect allowed” Reid define the Democratic Party.
BTW one of the most popular politician in the Tea Parties is Marco Rubio, who also happens to be Latino.”

Are you trying to make my point for me? Bill Clinton is a huge figure in politics, was a President for 8 years, and has a huge legacy (both good and bad) who made a single comment that will not define him in any tangible sense. Nobody is going to book Bill Clinton to give a speech expecting a bunch of racially-tinged rhetoric.

Meanwhile Tom Tancredo is a nobody EXCEPT for racially tinged rhetoric. So when you sign him up for a speech, you’ve got to expect the same. Because he’s a one-trick pony. Except now he has picked up the word “socialist” as well.

The Tea Party (not the Republican party) has been connected to various fringe organizations and have to fight a perception of racism. Most of them aren’t, of course. But that element is there…and they played right into it by inviting Tancredo to give their opening speech (which was fantastic according to one of the organizers)

Another point to show that the Tea Party folks aren’t exactly being classy is that Brubaker apologized, Quesada apologized, and they’re taking the offending quote out of subsequent books, yet these people are basically refusing to accept any of the apologies. What do they want? The obvious answer here is someone to grandstand against, so that they can look like the offended minority being pushed around by the Lihbrull Meedyuh. Moral grandstanding and righteous indignation do drum up numbers better than acting like rational human beings and giving others the benefit of the doubt, after all.

Jesse…It seems that mainly Warner Todd Huston has a problem with this, and much of that problem seems to stem from the fact that he realizes we are NOT all leftist liberals, I’m a proud conservative who’s is full support of the original intent and purpose of the Tea Party movement, an idea that is becoming less and less known because politics is infect it as well. He doesn’t seem to be able to handle people who can not only oppose him but can continue to do so with facts and reality.
Reality is not all of us are liberal, though we conservatives are generally trashed here for reasons no one can say other than it’s ‘popular’ to hate conservatives. The reality is comic books ARE a legitimate form of are and literature. This has been proven time and time again through any number of books including, but not limited to, Maus.

He is one of these FAAAAAR right so-called conservatives who is little more than a typical ignorant, fat, angry with jerk who has to find some way to make himself feel better and smarter so he attacks groups he feels are beneath him.
I’m a Conservative who doesn’t put up with that crap even when it’s from someone ‘on my own side’

And, Warner Todd Huston, you still have to tell us…how many readers do you have?

TGWSS wrote:
“Are you trying to make my point for me? Bill Clinton is a huge figure in politics, was a President for 8 years, and has a huge legacy (both good and bad) who made a single comment that will not define him in any tangible sense.”

But see that’s the problem– it will never define him in any tangible sense because the left-wing media will provide cover. If a Republican had said the same thing, the media would be all over it and said politicians career would be over. And to correct the record, it wasn’t just one example of Clinton “misspeaking”, it was a pattern of racially tinged comments including a reference to Pres. Obama as a “thug”.
What I am trying to say is that for all of this talk about Republicans being racist, the only racism I have been seeing lately has all been coming from the Left. First it was Joe Biden who said that he liked Obama because he was a “smart and clean” African American (as if it were some kind of anomaly) Then it was Bill Clinton saying that Obama should be fetching his coffee instead of running for president. After that we had Harry Reid praising Obama because he didn’t talk like a “negro” (implying that “negros” talk in an inferior manner). And most recently MSNBC’s Chris Matthews who praised one of Obama’s speeches by saying “I almost forgot he was Black” (again implying that there is something wrong with being African-American).
So why doesn’t Sam “the Falcon” Wilson go after any of these phonies?

jesse wrote:
“Moral grandstanding and righteous indignation do drum up numbers better than acting like rational human beings and giving others the benefit of the doubt, after all.”

OK but it’s Brubaker who’s doing the moral grandstanding. It’s Brubaker who has politicized one of the greatest characters of all time in order to make a cheap political point.

Brigid Alverson
February 14, 2010 at 4:52 am

Skott, I have lived in France and Switzerland, and traveled extensively around Europe. Everywhere I went, people spoke English. Europeans often speak three or four different languages, and they often go to great lengths to ensure that their children speak more than one language, even sending them to special foreign-language schools. I myself speak French, Spanish, and a smattering of other languages (German, Kreol, sign language) and they have come in useful on numerous occasions. The insistence of some Americans that English be spoken exclusively here is not only xenophobic, it’s backwards.

Since you brought up France, this news should interest you, “France has right to protect its culture”

Check this part of the article:

[The BBC reports that France's Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced an initiative to preserve France's national identity. Newcomers will be required to sign a declaration of values as well as fly the French flag and sing the national anthem "La Marseillaise" at schools to promote patriotism. They will also have to study French.

Fillon said the emphasis of the new initiative is to promote respect for the values of the Republic, particularly the principle of equality between men and women. The announcement came a week after France's immigration minister refused to allow a Muslim citizenship because he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.]

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=893770

If France can demand that immigrants respect its culture and laws, then why it is xenophobic for America to expect its immigrants to do same?

Just something to ponder.