How do the dominant cultural narratives in art and mass media affect our politics?

Very interesting. Thanks!

Indeed! That was a pretty infamous campaign of Huangdi's.

Nah, it's generally a bad idea to go after bankers and lawyers too. Mimes OTOH? Well, Everyone Hates Mimes.

edited 23rd Jan '18 6:51:00 PM by M84

What I found hilarious was that the Freedom Fighter extremists struggling for Democracy and Equality and Free Speech were, in this story, playing the role that eco-terrorists like Ra's or Ivy play in normal Western continuities. Debate and Switch and Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.

Whatever allows your comic to get sold, I guess.

I dont really have a issue with Eco terrorists at all, I think that they can be pretty interesting and cool villains with a sympathetic motiviations, or some that they are just Pure Evil basing themselves on "the laws of nature".

Also, seriously New Superman did that? That sounds problematic, albeit it depends from how is framed.

edited 23rd Jan '18 7:07:02 PM by KazuyaProta

On the other hand, it kind reflect how green aseop or eco concern have drop out A LOT since rhe nineties.....what a Shame.

And now the latest gringo president is spouting his usual crap about "climate change is false" and scorns the very idea of green energy. And making the GOP worship coal.

Meanwhile over in China, the Politburo is cheerfully investing in nuclear power and making their scientists research ways to reduce their chronic air pollution. Their keen interest in green energy is one of the genuinely good things they've done in recent years.

edited 23rd Jan '18 9:44:16 PM by TheWildWestPyro

The cynic in me wonders if the CCP's investments in renewable energy has more to do with addressing China's critical strategic weakness in that all of its Middle Eastern oil imports flow through the Indian Ocean, Strait of Malacca, and South China Sea. After all, it's in their best interest to avoid the fate of the Japanese Empire which had its oil supply lines cut by the US and its allies.

Well if this isn't flame bait, I don't know what is.

Honestly, how many parallels can be drawn between the CCP and Imperial Japan right now?

edited 23rd Jan '18 9:59:16 PM by TheWildWestPyro

Way too many.

Let's see, expansionism, aggressively pushing Han nationalism, bullying its neighbors over feuds that ended decades ago, very antagonistic to the West, total loyalty to the state, worrying about its oil...

edited 23rd Jan '18 10:09:53 PM by TheWildWestPyro

& I actually wrote an entire paper about this: preventing a repeat of the US oil embargo on Japan during World War II is such a hallmark of current Chinese military strategy and foreign policy that Xi Jinping's entire Belt & Road and String of Pearls projects are meant to address it by granting the PLAN facilities across the Middle East oil routes to China◊.

edited 23rd Jan '18 10:13:44 PM by FluffyMcChicken

Does the PLN's primary strategy still center around the Nine-Dash line?

That, but also a general "encirclement" of the Indian Ocean through ports in East Africa and South Asia. The threat of India allying with the US is a very prominent one in the eyes of Xi and his admirals.

That map alone is by far the best I've ever seen on the matter.

It's very concise about it.

Regarding India, there's also the eternal saber-rattling from both nations going on over Arunachal Pradesh, plus Chinese ambitions towards Kashmir, which indicate that the PLA may be looking to sweep into India if things get sufficiently bad enough.

edited 23rd Jan '18 10:31:24 PM by TheWildWestPyro

Wasn't the Empire of Japan a multi-party state, though? I thought the PRC was all about the Communist Party with a bunch of factions but everyone is still ultimately maintained by the Party as best as it can.

But I remember being surprised at hearing there were actually Socialist or maybe Liberal parties getting voted into offices even in Imperial Japan.

Funnily enough, despite being one of the worst governments ever, Imperial Japan didn't ban elections and continued holding them, although the Imperial Rule Assistance Association was to remain in power at all costs. Socialism and liberalism were fine, but communism was to be violently repressed (as with all anti-communist military juntas)

The PRC does have several parties, each which cannot win but have limited power. The KMT Revolutionary Committee owns many properties in mainland China and got grants from the CCP several times, for example.

edited 12th Feb '18 1:17:09 AM by TheWildWestPyro

That's all pretty interesting, especially that part about other, minor Chinese parties. I didn't know that at all.

Thank you.

You're welcome!

The minor parties mostly exist so that the CCP can say with a somewhat straight face that the PRC is a democracy.

The thing about green energy is that being an imperialist regime doesn't have to mean being Stupid Evil. The world not dying from climate change is a thing that's in everyone's best interest. Plus, like, if you're looking to grab more soft power and have more influence over the shape of the world, what better way to do it than your country being personally responsible for ending a global crisis?

Whether you're a brutal dictator or someone with the people's best interests at heart, everyone should be trying to combat climate change. Which is why everyone is, except for a certain dumbass conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is a scam to try and steal money from him.

What I found hilarious was that the Freedom Fighter extremists struggling for Democracy and Equality and Free Speech were, in this story, playing the role that eco-terrorists like Ra's or Ivy play in normal Western continuities. Debate and Switch and Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. Whatever allows your comic to get sold, I guess.

To be fair post IC Firebrand was an asshole.

What I find interesting, is that dictatorships even bother to pretend to be democratic. Democracy has become the dominant cultural narrative of the world, where even those opposed to it pretend to like it.

edited 24th Jan '18 8:59:14 AM by Antiteilchen

There's a reason we have the People's Republic of Tyranny trope.

Heck, the actual name of China's government, the People's Republic of China is pretty dang close to the trope name.

@M84: That's not really a coincidence, either-Communist regimes like China are the Trope Namer for People's Republic of Tyranny. The Trope comes from a general observation that regimes with "People's Republic" and the like tend to be bad places to live with very few exceptions.

There's a few reasons for this, but I'd say it boils down to PR. Oppressive states want to be seen as Not Evil, Just Misunderstood. For example, North Korea wants to portray itself to the global stage as a harmless nation that's being bullied by the US.

Internally, it also helps. If your nation is officially democratic you can just tell people who want democracy "What do you mean? We are a democracy!" The villains in my story do something kind of similar. They're officially an anarchy (a position that's dubious but not an outright lie. Their leadership has impressive amounts of cognitive dissonance). They justify multiple human rights abuses, ironically, by invoking human rights. IE, a common punishment is to dox people. If you argue that this is a violation of privacy, they'll shoot back that they're just practicing freedom of speech.