Incremental progress meets Zeno’s Paradox

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Jack Graham

Jack Graham writes and podcasts about culture and politics from a Gothic Marxist-Humanist perspective. He co-hosts the I Don't Speak German podcast with Daniel Harper. Support Jack on Patreon.

3 Comments

  1. Jacob Nanfito
    August 2, 2015 @ 12:46 pm

    Great stuff, Jack. Glad to see (hear) the Shabcasts going so well.

    Reply

  2. Dave
    August 3, 2015 @ 4:43 pm

    That's the most pleasant morass of bile I've ever had the fortune of wading through. Appreciated Jack's critique of Iron Man (or is it deconstruction? it's really good at being an imperialist action movie, after all, and I figure intent matters if the Pentagon funds it) in particular–wondered if you saw Captain America: Winter Soldier.

    Not as good by half, so not as effective ideologically either, but it uses the same sort of political tactics to inoculate against criticism of the surveillance state. (Captain Justwar Nazipuncher doesn't trust the NSA! Luckily the US imperialism is redeemed because the whole thing was a fascist conspiracy all along.)

    Reply

  3. timber-munki
    August 4, 2015 @ 3:39 pm

    With Winter Soldier the Americans (and by proxy all other Western 'Liberal Democracies') are absolved from blame by the simple expedient that S.H.I.E.L.D. been run by some shadowy cabal, conveniently forgetting diegetically how the governments and other power structures allowed S.H.I.E.L.D. to set up and operate a massive network of highly advanced secret bases in their sovereign territory and extra-diegetically that in the MCU version of S.H.I.E.L.D. the 'H' stands for Homeland, riffing directly on the real life Department of Homeland Security.

    Having said that it is visually well done, far less reliant on CG, which makes sense given the relatively low powered nature of the protaganists and it does have the good grace of been the second best Chris Evans starring comic book adaptation of 2014 (Snowpiercer wins that accolade).

    Re Anti-Stratfordians, (and pretty much any conspiracy theory e.g. the Moon Landings) I always think of the 'well meaning amateur can sort all this nonsense out' trait symptomatic of a lot of right-wing populist thinking (without resorting to horrible stereotypes I can't help feel that they're the kind of person who would use 'jolly well' & *ruddy' un-ironically as turns of phrase at the drop of a hat but that's my pre-conceptions talking). Whilst we shouldn't automatically cede all authority to experts denying them just because their authority makes the conspiracy theorist look dumb and playing to the audience, particularly when said denier is in a position of privilege.

    Reply

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