A take on hard right media and entertainment. by Fremdfirma

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A take on hard right media and entertainment.

POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Sunday, September 13, 2009 08:58
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Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:17 PM

(FYI: A bit ranty and it wanders a bit, but it's been building up a while, mind.)

Yeah, lets us talk about rightwing media a little bit.

See, one of my key inroads to understanding how their nasty little minds work is their literature, you see, it says a lot about them, and frankly, not much of it is very good.

Reason I bring this up, is cause ever since Jim passed away, the remaining folks at Baen have been letting things slip quality wise by promoting hard-right authors that genuinely suck at storytelling, but I'll get to that in a little bit here.

Now, so long as a leash is kept on the strawman politicking, you *CAN* write a pretty good story from a right leaning point of view, Ringo did it with The Road to Damascus and I am of the firm opinion that worked out well *because* he had another author riding shepherd on him to bonk him on the head when he got off the rails.

Unfortunately his popularity went into the anne rice I don't need no editor lunacy and his work got progressively... worse.
The Legacy of the Aldenata rides a serious downhill curve as more and more of of the focus slid away from the story, and into attempted self-validation of his author avatar, Mike O'Neal, probably one of the most blatant MarySue characters since Alucard from Helsing.
And the universally panned Cally's War was so horrific itself, but then...
You know it's bad when even your FANS are saying OH JOHN RINGO NO.

Seriously, this review carries that ball as far as it needs to go, like EVER.
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html

Mind you, THIS is what they read, THIS is how they *HONESTLY THINK THE WORLD WORKS* (or should work!) and how they validate themselves in the private realm of their own mind before coming out into the world and trying to ram it down everyone elses throat cause them that disagree is evil and such...
(rolling eyes and hissing here)

Ringo is of course, an extreme case, but if you think Ringo is bonkers, trust me, don't go reading the stuff Karl Rove wrote!

Lemme just sum that *WHOLE* matter up for you though.
OH JOHN RINGO NO!

Another recent entry into the field, Mikey Z, who actually posted here and the sample chapters convinced me to spring for an Ebook version of his Better to beg forgiveness - which now holds the singular "honor" of the only E-book to ever find it's way into my PC's recycle bin.

Yes, me, the avid bibliophile once asked by a Waldenbooks clerk if I was reading them, or eating them, finally found something SO unpalatable I wouldn't have it even on my virtual bookshelf, a profound statement in itself.

Seriously, Mike, why not just make em a race of ape-aliens called nigroids if you were gonna take it THAT far ?
Certainly couldn't be no less offensive than what you DID do, honestly.
No real motivation, no redeeming qualities, just evil cause they're evil ?
Dude, you got ISSUES about Mogadishu - see a freakin therapist.

When the strawman politicking overruns the story till it EXCLUDES the story, you've lost your audience completely, especially when you write yourself into a corner with it, give no explaination, reason or logical cause for several plot events (deus ex machina), cast away a plot thread that was critical to the story (who was intercepting their comm traffic) by just dropping it entire cause you somehow *needed* to make the only one who could have done it a "good guy" in order to further demonise the UN, who again, are evil-cause-they're-evil ?

Please - shameful that they wasted a tree for this, there's Fanfic better written than this piece of go-se, and it belongs right next to My Immortal in the annuls of shame and blame.

Of course, you do on the very rare occasion get to see one of these guys really handed their head by a publisher or other author, and in the singular case of William Forstchen, a games designer, heh.

His Wing Commander Universe book Fleet Action does it's level best to paint Tolwyn as a shining hero, despite him intended as a self destructive Byronic Type from the very start (up to and including trying to drum Blair out of the service) and from Tolwyns viewpoint he is, sure...

And so... Chris Roberts took that ball and ran with it, to show just where that LEADS.

Actually looked at a certain way, the whole end of the Kilrathi war can be taken as a cautionary tale about how dangerous that kind of thinking is, from Tolwyns right wing faction winding up the Confeds, to Thrakhaths right wing faction winding up the Kilrathi - resulting in a needless escalating conflict that came all too close to annihilating both.

Ironically Earth is saved from biosphere destruction by Baron Jukaga, a "liberal" Kilrathi who unknownst to the characters in the story, gave his very life to prevent it, and later the Black Lance Affair is crushed by Blair's downright "treasonous" actions against the right-leaning elements of his own command.

But really, the key to understanding hard-right psychology lies in their media, their literature, where anyone not fawningly in agreement with them is just plain evil, every offer of peace or negotiation is a trap, and genocide is the only logical and reasonable answer to disagreement.
And let's for the nonce not even get into the philosophy's view of women and sex... *shudder-twitch*

And while that knowledge can be used in an exploitive, malicous way - to the degree that it *is* actually possible to cause them an irrevocable mental meltdown just by doing so, sad that it is to say...

Understanding the flaws within that kind of reasoning is the key to finding the threads of that mental tapestry which, if gently pulled - will cause the whole bloody thing to unravel and lead them to question their own assumptions.

Because once those assumptions ARE questioned, the whole damn bloody philosophy falls apart like a wet paper bag before a sandblaster.

The question you wanna be asking yourself is - would you rather make em a victim, or an ally ?

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:07 PM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
But really, the key to understanding hard-right psychology lies in their media, their literature, where anyone not fawningly in agreement with them is just plain evil, every offer of peace or negotiation is a trap, and genocide is the only logical and reasonable answer to disagreement.
And let's for the nonce not even get into the philosophy's view of women and sex... *shudder-twitch*

Do you mind if I do? Because recently a friend of mine was trying to tell me about "world driven to apocalypse" fiction story written from the eyes of a military guy. Now, he's not particularly right-wing, nor military, but he likes the gallows humour.

In any case, apparently, the problem in this story began when a woman was elected president. And it wasn't because she was too weak to direct the armed forces, but rather because she was a stereotypical femnazi who was too dumb to listen to her advisors.

Need I say more? I don't like femnazis either, but come ON people, any woman in politics is going to have to be more aggressive and even sometimes ruthless in order to be taken seriously.

For example, I have some very strong suspicions that Sarah Palin is playing a character to garner sympathy: boy oh golly gee, I'm a poor little lady and everyone keeps attacking me. She is as on message and sometimes as vicious with the rumours as anyone in the Republican party. This isn't a woman who does not understand, this is a woman who understands, but is MILKING for all she's worth.

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Saturday, September 12, 2009 5:51 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Do you mind if I do?

Be my guest.

For all that I am not a nice person, imma chivalrous bastard at heart, and not in a patronizing way, neither.

Therefore I can't even *address* the issue without winding up in an incoherent sputtering rage liberally sprinkled with profanity most vile.

You wanna talk about a Lady Politician who's got my utmost respect ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Granholm
And what's she get for it but sweat and regret from assholes willing to burn our state to the ground rather than credit her with a single good thing.

Ain't NOBODY around here forgetting the epic sabotage anyone with an (R) next to em has been doin NON-STOP (phony budget crisis/shutdown, anyone ?) since Engler got the boot.

They ever amend the Constitution to try to slide Arnie into the Oval Office, they're gonna have to deal with this lady, and Arnie will get what Dick Posthumus and Dick DeVos got - squashed!

And yes, the Rethugs ran two guys named Dick in a row, just how many Dicks are IN the Republican Party ?
On second thought, don't answer that...

-F

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 5:05 AM

AG05

So where does MHI fall into all this?

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 7:44 AM

FREMDFIRMA

"Good clean fun"

Larry doesn't take himself too seriously, and MHI is somewhere between Buffy and Army of Darkness, with a side order of Tremors - although written by a gunbunny, it's quite campy and very entertaining.

There's really not much politics in it at all, beyond the usual enforced 'masquerade' that keeps the public from knowing, and the usual antagonism between free enterprise and gov agencies when their responsibilities overlap - even then, while the philosophies between them differ, when it really hits the fan ANY backup is good backup, yes ?

The part that amuses me most is that it was written before drum magazines and extensive modkits (thank you Tapco!

) were available for the Saiga S-12, thus my 'home defense' blaster actually outpowers the Abomination by a significant margin.

-Frem

PS - There really IS such a thing as "too much gun", cause Forquet certainly is, especially when you're 5'6" and maybe 130lbs soakin wet with boots on....

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Sunday, September 13, 2009 8:58 AM