Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Just as many people died on the side of Zeon (both sides lost roughly half of their entire populations). They were also meeting for peace talks when Gihren decided to Death Star Degwin and General Revel. Indeed, as Axis Zeon shows, the Zeon were perfectly capable of continuing the fight for years longer. It's just the puppet government of Zeon didn't want to.

And as we show, Zeon terrorism created a police state that existed to oppress Spacenoids and eventually led to genocide of a colony.

Re: Soviet Revenge-ish feeling

I think the Federation had actually been filled for that for most of the One Year War, it's just that just escalated the conflict. At some point, something would have to give and exhaustion set in.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 7:16:00 AM

Operation British alone should have erased any sympathy for Zeon.

Sieg Puppet Zeon then, that's by far the most reasonable choice. And while the Titans were awful, they were far from a actual police.

I really don't think the revenge would banish in just a year, the Federation's leadership was shockingly merciful.

I have less than 0% sympathy for the Federation given, again, they used atomic weapons and other WMDs to slaughter half of their enemy's population. After you have engaged in genocide, even against a genocidal state, you're still a bunch of genocidal psychopaths.

Mostly I object to the idea the Federation actually won, at least in the larger canon, as the Republic of Zeon (Side 3) was independent as a result of the treaty. Mind you, the Federation planned to dissolve it back into Earth's control.

https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/Republic_of_Zeon

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 9:01:38 AM

It's only later materials that paint the Federation in a worse light. Not coincidentally later materials also whitewash Zeon.

That's the consequence of more Gundam writers being Imperial Japan apologists.

Zeon in the original series was very much the Black in Black-and-Gray Morality.

Zeon surprise attacked the Federation by targeting civilian populations with chemical drops, dropping colonies, they also used nukes...

Let's not forget they didn't stop at just trying to "liberate" space either — they attacked Earth and conquered most of it before the Federation turned things around.

Edited by M84 on Sep 14th 2019 at 12:13:20 AM

I feel like the original Mobile Suit Gundam was fairly unique in its time for the fact the enemy WASN'T a bunch of cardboard cutout monsters. This is the same time as Space Battleship Yamato and Gatachaman after all where the villains were repeatedly played as one-dimensionally evil.

Zeon by contrast had episodes where the Zeons checked on refugees, Garma's death played as a cruel tragedy, Ramba Ral and his wife/girlfriend, and Lala Sune all there to humanize the Zeon so that the very young audience didn't dismiss them as just a bunch of evil psychopaths. We also have Dolze shown as a devoted family man. This is all pretty revolutionary for the time.

Gihren was the war monger and the evil that needed to be destroyed.

Frankly, I'm not sure where the idea the Federation was portrayed very flatteringly was shown either.

Yeah, Zeon is pretty unambiguously the bad guy. It’s not a coincidence the writers who got into all the Zeon apologia and the “well the Federation is just as bad” stuff happened to be Imperial Japan apologists too.

And the writer threw in all those decent people and humanizing scenes for what then?

I’d refer you back to my above post. Writers who have tendencies towards imperial apologia tend to like the whole “Zeon isn’t so bad and the Federation is just as bad” slant, as Zeon is often seen as representing Imperial Japan.

My understanding with Zeon is that there's a bit of Running the Asylum going on there; Zeon became increasingly more sympathetic as it gained more and more fans.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Sep 13th 2019 at 9:48:19 AM

One issue is that Tomino wanted to both criticize Nazis and Imperial Japan while also getting across that War Is Hell.

He wanted to get across that fighting war, even one where your side is in the right, means killing people. And that changes you. It's easier to reinforce that by portraying some of the enemies as actual people instead of puppy kicking monsters.

It doesn't change the fact that the Space!Nazis were the bad guys in the OYW.

It is odd to despise the Federation for committing atrocities while sympathizing with Zeon who committed the same and worse atrocities first.

Edited by M84 on Sep 14th 2019 at 12:54:56 AM

Pretty much. Gundam UC is the epitome of Running The Assylum.

To show that killing, even in a unambiguously justified war is hard. That even the most evil nation has some decent people that don't deserve to die.

The EF vs Zeon conflict is basically not just Western Allies vs Japan, but also Modern Japan vs Imperial Japan. The EF is a bureaucrating, corrupt and inept government and yet despite all of their flaws...they're a clear improvement over the horrors of Imperial Japan (This is also the root behind Tomino's "The Youth is the future" messages, UC Gundam has hope for the next generations, it's a pessimistic hope that can easily fail, but it's something to strive for).

They also killed the same Colonies that they claimed to Liberate, you really can't get more Imperial Japan than that.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 18th 2019 at 10:52:47 AM

And they specifically gassed at least one colony just so they could use it for a Colony Drop.

As one of their opening acts in the OYW.

That act alone more or less destroyed any moral high ground Zeon could have had. And they didn't stop committing atrocities after that either.

Nah, you definitely can. Just have Zeon also commit brutal mass rape and murder of the captive civilian populations too.

Edited by M84 on Sep 19th 2019 at 12:04:33 AM

To be """""""""fair"""""""", Zeon's occupation didn't seemed that brutal, unlike WW 2 where the Occupation was what killed more. However, it likely is in that way because Censors (and because a WW-2 like occupation would get the show into issues)

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 18th 2019 at 11:26:00 AM

It's telling that even Zeon at its worst couldn't quite measure up to the sheer brutality of Imperial Japan.

Honestly, learning more about Imperial Japan can lead to nightmares.

Edited by M84 on Sep 19th 2019 at 12:18:07 AM

I wouldn't say worse or better in this case, Zeon's fondness for Weapons of Mass Destruction is massive. Thought Imperial Japan certainly was trying their best in that regard (Biological weapons, Imperial Japan really liked their biological weapons, they certainly used some of them in China and planned to use them in USA)

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 18th 2019 at 11:25:58 AM

Shit, Imperial Japan even tried to start a nuclear weapons program like every other major power in WWII.

I have no doubt that if Imperial Japan could gas an entire city with the same horrifying efficiency as Zeon's G3 Gas, they would have.

Edited by M84 on Sep 19th 2019 at 12:31:11 AM

That's why I didn't mention the Nuclear program, everyone tried that. And yeah, they would certainly have loved to gas entire cities.

I have returned from a discussion that was held in my university (PUCP) about the perspective of the mining industry/academia over one of the many extraction controversies in Peru -in this case, Tia María- and I come back home with a...peculiar phrase that one of the two engineers mentioned in the sadly not much attended talk that resumes part of the problem.

Apparently, being pro-mining is currently what can be considered politically incorrect in the present political discourse.

Well, aside from that, the two engineers spoke of the various problems about the mining activity in the country and while they accepted that the mining industry is partially to blame for its ill reputation, they also pointed out how part of the problem is also ideological in its roots. They even mentioned how Cultural Marxism has influenced the current conflicts to the point that even objective arguments will not be heard.

What are your thoughts? I couldn't see many students or members of the humanities branch show up to the talk, so I would like to hear your opinions.

Cultural Marxism kind of isn't a thing. It's more of a dogwhistle for other things. At least that's what it is in Western (read: USA and Europe) culture.

Maybe they were talking about actual Marxism?

Edited by M84 on Sep 19th 2019 at 10:31:16 PM

It's kind of an overlap, there is history of far-left elements that do blend in these sorts of conflicts and flare up the controversies to push their agenda.

However, there are also elements that do not follow the ideology of communism/marxism that still push a oppresor-oppressed narrative for political gain.

@unknowing and @Robrecth mentioned that Cultural Marxism is indeed a thing, it takes away the economic aspect of the struggle of classes but it keeps the idea of the clash of privileged vs disposed and translates it to other mediums.

Edit: Well, apparently, I'm in the part of Western culture that it actually is a thing.

Edited by raziel365 on Sep 19th 2019 at 7:39:09 AM

"Cultural marxism" is a far-right dogwhistle with antisemitic origins (a very similar term was used by the nazis) and connotations, and at best it's just whining from right-wingers about how research and facts taught by and uncovered from universities don't line up with how they believe the world does or should work.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 19th 2019 at 10:38:15 AM

There are a lot of antisemitic dogwhistles out there. It's been rather unpleasant finding out what all of them are these past few years.

The use of "Cultural Marxism" actually has its roots in the Nazis. They started using the phrase "Cultural Bolshevism" (Wikipedia entry) and "Jewish Bolshevism" (Wikipedia entry). wasn't kidding about the antisemitic origins.

Edited by M84 on Sep 19th 2019 at 10:43:59 PM

Except that in this particular case the research is indeed at favour of the subject at matter (mining).

I'll grant you that the mining industry does not have a good track record in the eyes of the public thanks to genuine incidents and the lack of marketing on the benefits that the mining industry brought. This however does not detract from the point that, at least in the context of Peru, it is still one of the primary components to create a better country thanks to the earnings it gives.

Aside from that, there are ways to do it in a manner that does not contaminate or affects the environment in a drastic way.

Edit:

All right then, what term should I and the rest of the people who are not aware of that use?

Edited by raziel365 on Sep 19th 2019 at 7:45:57 AM