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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I was not aware of an anti-fascist stance in any of those films. The strokes seemed much more broad, good guys vs bad.
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Tolkien may be one of those cases where we apply the 'death of the author' approach, though things like the scouring of the Shire seem pretty clear to me on the point (and others). But George Lucas* and J.K. Rowling have been pretty vocal about their themes about fascism. The third Fantastic Beasts movie has as its central plot a convicted felon and leader of a supremacist movement running for Supreme Leader - which he attempts to secure through corrupt means.

Edited to add: Tolkien has been claimed by pro-and-anti fascist camps pretty much since Fellowship was released.

*In the case of Lucas, that stuff wasn't terribly present in the original trilogy, but was front and center in the prequels.


Edited by Dave Kopperman on 24 October 2024 at 2:29pm
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I mean, this scene from Attack of the Clones couldn't be more direct if Lucas placed a flashing banner on the screen.
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Charles Valderrama
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I wonder what it would be like if the SCOTUS judges were elected.

*******
Given the current political climate, probably comparable to the usual campaigns for Congress... I'd prefer to have harsher penalties.... seems these Justices are above the law. It's ridiculous that Congress has downplayed it for so long.

-C!
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Casey Sager
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I can't believe SCOTUS members are allowed to accept such extravagant gifts, as if the billionaires giving them don't expect anything in return, they just do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

This, and dark money and untethered corporate bribes in the form of donations to super pacs have litterally ruined US politics...not that they were in great shape before.
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I said to a friend that while there was lots of stuff about the 20th century that sucked, we also made an insane amount of social progress.  And it feels like we're just giving all that away.
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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 24 October 2024 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

To quote Paula Abdul, "We take two steps forward. We take two steps back."


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Jason Czeskleba
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Posted: 25 October 2024 at 1:30am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

 Charles Valderrama wrote:
Given the current political climate, probably comparable to the usual campaigns for Congress... I'd prefer to have harsher penalties.... seems these Justices are above the law. It's ridiculous that Congress has downplayed it for so long.
What's amazing in retrospect is that it took so long for the Supreme Court to become thoroughly corrupted and politicized.  Somehow they managed to function with a semblance of ethics for over 200 years, even though there are pretty much no guardrails nor realistic means to hold them accountable.  But that's all out the window now, and we have a group of unelected legislators determined to enact their own political preferences and favor their cronies/benefactors, and who will face zero consequences/accountability for doing so.

If I could go back in time and change one thing about the Constitution, it would be to require a 2/3 majority vote of the Senate to seat a Supreme Court justice.  If that's how many votes are needed to impeach them, that should also be how many are needed to put them there in the first place.  That would make it impossible to seat the sort of extremists with axes to grind that have been added by McConnell and the Republicans in this century.
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David Miller
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Posted: 25 October 2024 at 3:30am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

When Republicans talk about payback for overreaching liberal legislation from the judicial bench, they mean reversing decades of landmark civil rights decisions. The Supreme Court is going to spend the foreseeable future delivering one rude awakening after another to normal Americans aged Gen X and younger who have grown up taking for granted constitutional rights and privileges like mixed-race marriage and use of contraception.   

In his Lawrence v. Texas dissent, revered conservative legal sage Antonin "Nino" Scalia railed against against a moral Pandora's Box that equated same-sex marriage with degeneracies like bestiality, prostitution and perhaps most depraved of all, masturbation. These revered conservative legal sages are all also completely fucking nuts. With lifetime appointments.

It's not just the Supreme Court, either; impeaching anyone of federal judiciary requires the 2/3 Senate vote.
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ron bailey
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Posted: 25 October 2024 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I share your alarm, but call me naive, I think there are a couple in there I don't think anyone has to seriously worry about ...
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 25 October 2024 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Realistically, contraception could be on the block. I don't think they have the balls to undo Loving v. Virginia, and it's notable that Thomas left that one out of his ruling overturning Roe. That was entirely self-serving on his part as he seemed to have no problem de-rightsening any other group, but the GOP in general also doesn't seem to be interested in that, outside of strengthening private schools at the expense of public schools - I tend to think the right's love of private schooling is a response against Brown v BOE.

Possibly "masturbation" (from a legislative perspective, creation and distribution of pornography) will take a hit, and I could see some other obsessions of the Christian right being at least passed in front of the court, but most likely what's going to happen next is a full court press on any progressive social programs going back to FDR. The ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and possibly - if they hold power long enough - Social Security. Remember, Norquist wanted a Federal Government small enough that he could drown it in a bathtub. 

This is the order of things in the Conservative hierarchy. Social conservatives first, then fiscal conservatives. Civil rights, social programs. Labor's gonna get it pretty bad. Probably also eliminate corporate tax and put some kind of flat tax or possibly even the end of Federal income tax.  Who knows?  Some of the more starry-eyed money people would love to dissolve the Federal Reserve.

And fuck the environment, of course.
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 25 October 2024 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

And definitely a federal ban of some kind on gender-affirming care for minors, if not outright. And as Obergefell v. Hodges was also specifically name-checked by Thomas, a federal mandate for all fifty states to recognize gay marriage is gone. Whether Conservatives also would also have the ability to outlaw it depends on their power in Congress.

Edited by Dave Kopperman on 25 October 2024 at 2:33pm
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