
About Face: Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men - mml
https://popula.com/2019/02/24/about-face/
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caramelsuit
A wonderful exercise in forced narrative. A pastiche of turgid ramblings and
half-glimpsed reasoning. A tour-de-force of self congratulation and
confirmation biased wrapped in the used-toilet-paper-sheet of ideological
agenda. As emetics go I can not recommend it highly enough.

~~~
subjectsigma
Exactly. You can tell how badly the author wants this demographic of people
not just to exist, but be some credible existential threat, the evil white
man-child alt-righter set out to destroy everyone else.

Of course people like this exist - they are by no means representative and
they haven't ruined the world yet ...

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alexandercrohde
Started out interesting, got out-of-hand pretty quickly.

I've been noticing lately how politically-motivated clubs constantly need to
incense their base by exaggerating the problems of the era. This is true right
or left. Be it "war on Christmas" or "polluting black punisher pickup-trucks
of death" (i.e. this cartoon). I see it in newspapers, youtube videos,
podcasts (even more balanced ones like Joe Rogan).

Of course, really in the end you can't put the blame on the pedagog. People
opt-in to following angry blow-hards for a surrogate sense of purpose in their
otherwise dull lives.

~~~
ericmcer
The cartoon does get pretty silly, but there is a real danger to a large
segment of the population having dull, lonely lives. They are full of
discontent and ready to be lead.

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lsh
urgh - so simplistic and completely without nuance, just merrily spinning it's
own logic and coming to weird ultimate conclusions. This stuff is seductive
because of it's format, but conspiracy theories also layer the logic on slowly
until it's so thick you don't know where to begin to pick it apart.

~~~
86carr
I agree that it's conspiratorial but I do like the attempt to analyze this
shift in a sub-section of men's fashion. So many men are "operators" operating
operations nowadays. I get the attraction to the aesthetic but it just seems
so out of context in every day life.

~~~
Junk_Collector
This isn't a new phenomena in that it's really no different than say, the dime
store cowboy or the popular 90's thug look. It crops up whenever people are
bored and or disaffected and want to feel "tougher."

~~~
lsh
That's an interesting point. I read the Preacher comics waay back in the day
(also 90s, I think) and after I finished them it really did seem to play up
Jessie as the tough cowboy-thug-alternative-grunge-priest thing. I enjoyed
reading them in the moment but was ambivalent immediately afterwards.

I was impressed with the illustration in OP but it was paired with this
emotionally unsophisticated/immature narrative that was just so jarring. There
are one-man bands that are similar, where the vocals or music may be top
notch, but the rest is cringeworthy.

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Para2016
That was a giant logical leep pretty early in, I had to stop reading. He says
his father was in the military which allows him to claim some kind of
inherited expertise. That's not how it works. Making sweeping generalizations
about uniform of the day when he isn't even familiar with that term is absurd.
Tangential pathologic mental processes are going on here.

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wooboo
Not at all what I was expecting, but a great read nonetheless.

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occamrazor
Are there really police forces in the US with large punisher skulls on the
hood of their cars? Or on their uniform?

~~~
burfog
There have been a few. One ended up removing it for copyright/trademark
reasons.

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unionemployee
Loved it.

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squozzer
If you liked this, you should read Art Spiegelman's Maus.

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ambicapter
Could use some editing but brings up some interesting points.

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TaylorGood
Wow. What a different website compared to most styles.

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grayed-down
I really enjoyed reading this piece right up until he labeled Steve Bannon a
fascist. Because this comment is so wildly nonsensical, I lost interest in the
rest of the piece and hit the back button.

~~~
barnhouse
seems like a pretty widely held view?

~~~
grayed-down
Perhaps widely held by a very small and very loud group of people.

~~~
anentropic
how would you describe him?

~~~
burfog
Well, to start, almost anything but fascist. I think being non-globalist is
literally the only thing in common. About the only description more incorrect
would be to call him a communist.

Bannon sure doesn't sound at all like Mussolini describing fascism. Think
about who in the modern world comes closest to agreeing with what Mussolini
says:

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

“I declare that henceforth capital and labor shall have equal rights and
duties as brothers in the fascist family.”

“God does not exist—religion in science is an absurdity, in practice an
immorality and in men a disease.”

It's definitely not Steve Bannon or anybody associated with him.

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squozzer
FWIW, my tastes in military attire run a bit old-school.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cavalry_Regiment_(United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cavalry_Regiment_\(United_States\)#/media/File:The_American_Soldier,_1836.jpg)

Oh, and the illustration of the poor peds being mowed down by the big truck -
Bravo!

Long, slow, sardonic clap follows...

Funny how a complaint against dehumanization resorts to dehumanization.

