Agitprop
For every one of the few anti-militarist screenplays that are made into films, far more are reflexively spiked because their defiant content raises objections from military leaders. The military quietly infiltrating a movie studio . . . the idea might seem like a fantastical plot from a film, but Top Gun: Maverick is a reminder that it’s
Pop Culture
The hotly anticipated sequel to Top Gun, the 1986 movie that made Tom Cruise a star, is raking in cash, great reviews, and even Oscar buzz. Don’t be fooled — it’s the same glorified military recruitment video that the original was. Is it any use pointing out that the first Top Gun was a ludicrous piece of shit?
Capitalism
Capitalism creates social disorder and relies on police and prisons to manage it. Until liberals recognize this link between criminal justice and the economy, their reform programs will be ineffectual — and racist policing and mass incarceration will persist. The racial composition of the American prison system is staggeringly unequal, with black people incarcerated at
Far Right
For the right, kids are no longer off-limits AGAINST THE NAUSEATING BACKDROP of human misery and calculating cruelty that comprised the now-notorious 2018 zero tolerance policy more often known as family separation, there was dark comedy in watching “family-loving” conservatives and a growing web of right-wing influencers twist themselves into pretzels defending the barbarism against families
Democracy
Hi. God here. I am contacting you in response to your prayers regarding the most recent and totally horrific mass shooting in a college/ high school/ elementary school/ bar/ nightclub/ park/ shopping mall/ concert/ movie theater/ parking lot/ church/ mosque/ synagogue. I have listened to your prayers, America, and I have come to the conclusion
Gun Violence
Ritualistic child sacrifice is the price we pay for veneration of gun rights. Year after year, the United States sacrifices children at the altar of gun rights. Since the Columbine shootings in 1999, at least 185 people have been killed in school violence, according to the Washington Post—the great majority of them children and teenagers. The Post’s database