I feel like we can forgive him, right? He seems like a cool guy?
Allegedly Lucas is making movies for himself. Prince made a lot of albums that will never get released too.
I like when someone talks about compassion, some burger brain immediately goes “socialism!?” in a derogatory way, not being aware how much they’re telling on themselves.
It is pretty funny in a macabre way that every time we appeal to decency or kindness it gets called socialism. If you are walking with a loaded gun and I am walking with a loaded gun toward you? Is our mutual agreement not to draw and shoot socialism?
The prequels were about a liberal democracy collapsing into fascism, which is a very good concept, too bad Lucas can’t write for shit.
The Jedi are also (probably unintentionally) portrayed as an unelected group of moralistic weirdos lording over everyone. Their moral code really gets shown for what it is when they’re willing to negotiate with a slave owner. ”Oh, you don’t take Republic credits, I’m sorry, let me get you some other money”, fuck that, John Brown his racist caricature ass.
i don’t think the problems with the jedi are unintentional. They’re shown to be short-sighted, stagnant, and the source of many of the problems they’re trying to solve. I think sometimes that doesn’t come across well because jedi are weird and mythical to most characters in Star Wars, so most of what gets said about them comes from Jedi themselves.
The prequels show them getting easily tricked into being military leaders for Palpatine to consolidate power, and then they’re rapidly liquidated once they’re no longer useful.
I’ve always thought Sanders brazenly adopted it because his opponents were going to label him that way anyway. A lot of progressives of the past have had to either spend a lot of time side-stepping labels of socialism, or have to confront it constantly. Conservatives called Obama a socialist for 8 years, remember? And here comes Sanders with a noticeably more progressive platform, a history of connection to leftist figures like Parenti, and he’s on camera praising Cuba. He had already been calling himself a socialist as mayor of Vermont for decades too.
Also I don’t believe Sanders was running in 2016 expecting to win or even do well. He had the advantage then of running against notoriously unpopular Hillary Clinton and complete unknowns Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.
Before 2016 all I knew about him was that one weird Senator from that tiny New England state that shouldn’t be a state anyway, listed as (I) whenever it was voting time. But he voted with the Dems anyway. On the rare occasion he came up, it was stated he was a socialist, and I chalked it up to a lily-white state’s liberals just being what they are.
I first heard about Sanders from this 1986 Murray Bookchin essay. I think I read it around 2009? Bookchin is really harsh and calls Sanders a Reaganite of all things.
really just confused the already furrow browed American public even more.
I think it’s always more useful to talk about what you want to get done, how you want to get it done, when you want to get it done, and why you want to get it done. Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, and part of a bigger project. If it’s more expedient to eschew labels altogether in order to gain allies to what is fundamentally a cause that you share while disagreeing about what to call it, then do so. Loyalty to a signifier can only get you so far.
