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“The Militarization of the Police Department – Deadly Farce,” an original painting by Richard Williams from “The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2014″ in Mad magazine #531, published by DC Comics, February 2015.

spaceraptor

Here’s the original, for comparison. And here’s a bit more about the artist and why he created the piece above for MAD Magazine.

pennamerequired

Richard Williams on Norman Rockwell:

“For most people, he was the painter of ‘America,’” he added. “But even he said his vision was what he wanted ‘America’ to be. It was a mythical ‘America,’ a place where all people were decent, honest and full of good will. His work was full of gentle humor that made you feel a little better; even if you knew it wasn’t really true… you just wished it was. My parody of Rockwell’s painting simply says, ‘That myth is dead.’”

1-420-666-6969

I think it’s relevant to add that even Norman Rockwell chose to leave his cushy job at the Saturday Evening Post because he wanted to make artwork that was more radical. The Post had rules that wouldn’t allow him to do artwork depicting black people as anything other than servants. The job paid really well and that was a huge reason he continued on. But he wanted change that and so he moved to Look magazine.

A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.

But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here

Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.

Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:

But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:

We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope. But watch us more closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us. Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it. We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.

batboyblog

I’d just like to briefly say even Rockwell’s seemingly feel good Americana pieces are often more political than people today realize for example

likely the most famous picture of a Thanksgiving dinner ever painted and you see it all the time.

What you may not know is its actual title

“Freedom From Want” it’s a part of a series of 4, including this now famous meme

“Freedom of Speech” These paintings were illustrations of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech where The President laid out a vision that would become what the Allies were fighting for in WWII universal human rights that became a part of the UN charter.

So this homey American Thanksgiving scene was also a bold statement that no one in the world should go hungry

Rockwell’s work was very political, he used that Americana small town America vibe of his work to make what he was saying feel very close to the viewers he was trying to reach and also his optimism of the human spirt but for sure not blind to the need to build a better world.

lastoneout

Sorry to add on to a long post, but I think y'all need to see one of the paintings, bcs this one made me cry the second I laid eyes on it:

Freedom from Fear

theseymourbirkhoff-deactivated2

Andromache of Scythia

knitmeapony

I don’t know what kind of fucking genius suggested to Charlize Theron that she become more and more of an action star as she ages, or if she just reached a fuck it point of having enough star juice to realize her dreams in Hollywood, but whatever reason there is that I keep seeing her looking buff as shit and jaded as hell in monochrome tank tops is enough to give me hope that we are not in The Darkest Timeline. The Old Guard, Atomic blonde, Mad Max, this woman is 45 years old, wearing leather and doing her own stunts. Please give me another decade+ of her slowly getting more jacked until she, Lucy Lawless, Gina Carrera, and Linda Hamilton can give us some kind of super wild John Wick type of franchise that is 90% middle aged women doing hand to hand combat and 10% queer Romance.

caroldanversenthusiast

charlize theron pledging to keep up playing kick ass and queer characters :’) her power

jimmyfury

Sorry wait sorry @knitmeapony did you mean Tia Carrere or Gina Carano (ew) or maybe Gina Torres or even Gina Gershon? Because Gina Carrera was a porn star who dabbled in acting slightly but mostly did porn in the 80s… which would make an extremely interesting addition to the franchise but i don’t know that’s what you were going for…

knitmeapony

I did mean Gina Carano at the time – she hadn’t shown her grosser political bullshit at the time. I suspect I was audio-dictating this to my phone and my brain didn’t click at the incorrect wrong name.

bizarrepotpourri

Good that the other three are still okay.

Also, Geena Davis.

Say what you want, but I liked both “Cutthroat Island” and “Long Kiss Goodnight”.

For reasons.

knitmeapony

Oh man, I haven’t seen Cutthroat Island ages. Definitely need to get my hands on it

imsobadatnicknames2

U.S. conservatives always talk about creating jobs but get SO MAD whenever anyone mentions banning prison labor like imagine the insane ammout of jobs that would be created literally overnight if companies in your country had to actually employ people instead of using slave labor from people that got caught with weed 10 years ago.

arabian-knight

Daily reminder that the US, who love to scaremonger about "communist labour camps," have legal slave labour if you're in prison

shu-of-the-wind

okay so as much as this post punches above weight on its own i need people to know exactly how many industries in the us are using prison labor, because it is many more than you think:

about 2/3s of prisoners in the united states work and most of those people make nothing for their work. if they make any money it's averaging 52 cents (that's $0.52) per hour and most of the money gets withheld for "room and board, taxes, and court cost" by the prison. some states, including alabama, arkansas, florida, georgia, mississippi, south carolina, and texas, pay nothing. here is a 150 page ACLU report on this that was published in 2022. if you refuse to work you might be sent to solitary or have your parole chances destroyed. there are no labor protections. people get killed. incarcerated people produce billions of dollars a year and almost never get paid.

there are basically three forms of prison labor. the first is labor inside of prisons to keep the prisons running. which means that if they let people out? their admin goes down. which is a reason to not let people out. the second is work release, providing inmate labor to private companies at offsite locations, like poultry plants, cattle and dairy farms, and other agricultural services. (this includes firefighting. incarcerated people are saving your fucking lives for less than five bucks a day.) the third is production of goods for external sale, including farm work, manufacturing, call center, distribution services, and others. and yes, before you ask, this includes immigration detention, which may i remind everyone is made up of civil detainees; immigration violations are not crimes but civil violations and people are trapped and exploited in private prisons and then utilized for profit.

this is legal because of the thirteenth amendment to to the US constitution, which states (and this is a direct quote), that "neither "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the united states[.]"

colorado banned prison labor five years ago but prisoners say it's still going on as of november 2023. there are other state initiatives trying to get prison labor banned, but when the government literally relies on incarcerated people to keep running, it's an uphill fuckin road.

companies which use prison labor or sell products made by prison labor include:

walmart

kroeger

target

aldi

whole foods

mcdonald's

wendy's

starbucks

sprint

verizon

victoria's secret

the dairy farmers of america

dickinson frozen foods

badlands quilting

pizza hut

hickman's egg ranch

fidelity investments

jc penny

american airlines

avis rental cars

the oregon department of motor vehicles

allstate insurance

american apparel

american express

costco

enterprize

fedex

frito lay

hertz

little caesars

kfc

office max

sara lee

xerox

and so many others.

runninghands

The problem and practice is so pervasive it is honestly really difficult to boycott and divest from products produced by prison labor. Sometimes we can search and find out if a company uses prison labor, sometimes it just feels unknowable. Sometimes those companies are your only option for internet service.

queerautism

Companies also love to market a product as "made in America" without clarifying it was made by prison labor. If something says it was made in America but gives zero further details, be very wary of it. Shit that is marketed towards a conservative audience absolutely loves to do this especially.

screechingcollectivechorus

To be clear, abolishing prison labor in conjunction with reducing incarceration rates would probably result in no net difference in the number of employed people, just the improvement of the people's lives, welfare, safety, mental and physical health, and power to contribute positively to society.

But that's cool because "job creators" are a myth anyway.

cock-holliday

The point there is that prison labor is not “counted” as a job. You do not get counted as employed on a w-2. If someone did the exact same work not as a prisoner—even if that person is you the prisoner—as an employee, it “creates” a job. No, it doesn’t create what the job entails—that already exists, but it does create a “job.” There are countless people in prison, in immigration detention, or those that are undocumented or in hiding who are toiling but they are not “employed”. They don’t have “a job.” Creating jobs subjects employees and employers to labor laws (such as they are).

So yes of course it improves everyone’s lives, but it also lets people “count” under a system that bars you from so much if you are not “employed.” Firefighter prisoners trained extensively are not allowed to become firefighters as a job when they get out.

Jobs, yes, are a made up concept but the technicality counts. And in so many places!

Where it also makes a difference is that many laborious activities done by one person would legally have to be done by more, or paid the person more to do that work through OT or risk losing that employee.

Laborers are already doing the work—the work will not be invented. The title of job provides some minor protections and access to other services in the country.

Politicians bragging about employment numbers means nothing. People being counted as employed where they weren’t means everything.

composerinprogress

Hey now, you’re an all star

listen to what I orchestrated

SoundCloud

YouTube

Instagram reel (please share directly from my own account)

mushroom-through-the-stargate

Mythbusters have 3 categories of myths

the general public doesnt know how physics works

the general public doesnt know how lying works

oh crap this ones real

catgirldragon

4. Turn up the dynamite, let's MAKE it real

hyper-red

I feel like it's fairly common for category 1 episodes to morph into category 4 episodes.

Original myth: "XYZ will cause an explosion."

Mythbusters: "Upon completing our experiments, no, it will not. But we bet it will if we add explosives, let's do this!"

unaloid

strawbebbynya

Gonna scream oh my Gd

digitaldiscipline

doberbutts

Thank you for defending Nazis. They're just little guys. Just misunderstood, with genuine grievances. I noticed you accidentally forgot to defend child rapists. Dumb commies like you are all the same 🙄

Piss on the poor! Also I'm not a commie and never claimed to be one.

doberbutts

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely un

Anyone who is actually genuinely interested to learn exactly how Nazis happened should absolutely read this article written by the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, which sums up exactly what I said on the post that anon is accusing me of 'defending Nazis' on.

After WWI, Germany's economy was in shambles and its people were desperate. Hitler was able to rise to power by promising a solution for their desperation, and leaned into pre-existing bigotries already held by a significant portion of the population. From there his policies became more and more extreme until effectively the entire country was radicalized [Nazis] or contained [in ghettos and camps] as were several surrounding countries.

Understanding how desperation due to social and structural problems within a country can quickly lead to radicalization, especially if pre-existing bias is present and especially especially if it's worsening, is key to understanding the progression of what happened in Europe during WWII but also of how we can recognize the signs of radicalization and how to stop it in its tracks. Point being if either the desperation or the bigotry was missing in this equation, likely it would not have happened to this extreme. Hitler was not initially popular as a politician and it was only as the country continued to fall apart that fascism started to look appealing. Hitler did not start with "mass-exterminate the Jews" because most people would have gone "okay that's a bit much".

I am not defending anyone. I am saying that you have to, you HAVE to understand how radicalization happens, because none of these people were born Nazis. They became radicalized through a very clear process that continues to radicalize people to this day. And the only way we can stop this process from happening is if we understand how and why it happens so that we can step in before it's too late again.

If you think that's "defending Nazis" I strongly urge you to go learn history from the actual accounts of what happened instead of whatever soundbites you've heard on social media.

reikiajakoiranruohoja

(Nazi positive commie?? Anon is a bit confused XD) Recognizing the humanity in the nazi is important because it helps you stop seeing them as heartless monsters and start seeing how easily people can be swayed into atrocities. There are countless stories from deradicalized people saying how they were radicalized by giving a source for their despair in the form of a minority to attack. Moreover, when we think of these people as solely monsters, we are both creating a false moral purity that these people supposedly didn't have. AND we are ignoring the potential in ourselves to become radicalized.

doberbutts

Speaking of countless stories...

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

One by one, Daryl Davis has befriended KKK members over the past 30 years. The more they got to know the African-American musician, the more

This NPR article talks a little bit about this too.

Davis uses a two-pronged approach: he dismantles their pre-existing bigotries and biases, and he addresses their complaints about society. In the example used, the Klansman said "black people are predisposed to violence"- there is bias and bigotry there, but he's talking about a real problem when it comes to violent crime. He's just blaming the wrong thing for it. He thinks it's racial, it's genetic, and that it's inevitable.

Davis turns it on its head- "white people are predisposed to being serial killers". He's also talking about a real problem when it comes to serial killers, but he's pointed to the wrong cause. And the Klansman goes "well that's stupid" and Davis goes "yeah?" And he lets that nugget sit and the guy starts the path to deradicalizing himself because, oh yeah, that is stupid to unfairly blame an entire population of mostly-innocent people, and that doesn't magically stop being true just because we're talking about black people.

When you understand that radicalized people usually have a problem that left them hurting for a solution, and pre-existing bias they're leaning into to make their logic make sense, you can also understand how to get them to stop doing that. It's not always possible with a conversation over dinner and drinks. But damn if that's not a good place to start.

We've seen that in real time with Trump and his stupid wall. The people who support these policies are afraid of real problems- drug cartels, sexual predators, and violent crime. They also have a lot of pre-existing racism and xenophobia they're leaning into to justify their logic and explain their fear as rational. I've personally watched people's rants putter out when challenged directly on why immigrants should be considered as uniquely dangerous when we have plenty of violent, sexual, and drug-related crime coming from our citizenry. It doesn't always deradicalize them and it certainly doesn't do it right away, but it often does stop them in their tracks and really make them consider what they're saying.

It's not enough to say "well these ideologies are evil and bad" because honestly? People are still falling for them so in order to prevent escalation it's important to understand why people are supporting ideologies that most as a collective *know* are evil and bad. How does someone get on this track, and is there a way to get them back off? Is it as simple as saying a single sentence that shakes their whole world, or is a more overt push necessary to nudge them into a better direction?

But the flip side to that is that when radicalization is left unchecked, it can turn even your previous allies against you. A friend of mine transitioned medically as a minor, surgeries and all. Obviously, that means his parents were supportive of his transition. Unfortunately with the rise of Trump and related politicians, his parents are now QAnon supporters regurgitating some frankly evil talking points. And he was talking to me the other day about his realization that if he was transitioning now, as an adult in his 30s, his parents would likely disown or even attack him instead. This has left him pretty hurt and confused, to watch these folks who once told him that he'd always be beloved and it was his choice to do what he would with his body and live how he wished, now talking about the transgender cult and rapid onset gender dysphoria and how trannies need to be pre-emptively jailed because they're all pedophiles and how sex offenders should get the chair.

His folks did not get this way overnight. Zombie mind viruses are not real, they were radicalized through a very similar process. Slowly but surely their concerns about the difficulties accompanying medical transition in the 90s, as well as sexual crime, were given a scapegoat to blame and then from their the logic became more and more extreme.

My friend is too close to the situation, so he has a hard time having any sort of conversation With them about it without feeling very hurt by it all. And that's fair too- I don't think everyone should go out and hug their local bigot. But I do think it is important to understand exactly how this happens, because it will keep happening if we continue to do nothing about addressing the cause. And radicalized people will continue to escalate until they cross whatever point of no return exists in their ideologies.

Remember, Jonestown did not happen in a bubble. Radicalized people will escalate and escalate and escalate until either their "enemy" or their whole population dies. The phrase "drinking the koolaid" is used when people are regurgitating dangerously radicalized talking points for a reason. Quite a few of the people attending- *most* of them- knew that koolaid was poisoned and voluntarily drank and fed it to their kids anyway. Those who resisted were too outnumbered by those who believed it was the right thing to do.

Jonestown's residents were primarily black [70%] with a significant portion being black women [43%]. Jim Jones claimed to hate the US due to its capitalist and imperialist structures, calling Jonestown a communal socialist paradise. The location of Jonestown was deliberately chosen so that its significant black population would have relative safety from racism. Legitimate complaints, pre-existing bias, and a tragedy that resulted in the mass murder and suicide of over 900 people including children and babies.

Understanding how people become radicalized like this is imperative because no one is immune to it. And recognizing that is the first step in preventing it from happening again.

vaspider

It's important to recognize that anytime you dehumanize a group of people - when you literally turn them into not-humans, monsters, vermin - those are the same tactics that fascists use. Literally the exact same things Trump is saying now.

That doesn't excuse harmful ideology. It recognizes that those people are people, and by understanding that they are people who were radicalized, we can, if nothing else, inoculate ourselves against similar harmful radicalization. If you think that you, o random Tumblr person, can't be radicalized into thinking that there are entire classes of people who should simply be, let's say, dragged out into the street and shot without due process or charges, boy do I have a post full of notes for you to read!

Like, if nothing else, understanding how people are radicalized can help you spot those tactics when people try to use them on you.

mewvore

pyrrhiccomedy

so judging by how astonished people are by it every time we explain it to anybody, it seems like my wife and I might really be onto something here

during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."

when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.

"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.

it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.

like idk it's a small thing but it's made our lives so much nicer, so if you and your partner/roommate are both people who sometimes need total privacy in order to recharge, maybe try it

wizzard890

I'm the wife in question and I cannot recommend this enough. When I told my therapist about astronaut time, she asked if she could share it with the couples she councils, so even the professionals give it two thumbs up.

neil-gaiman

hi niel. i have a very important question:

if you were being attacked by an infinite number of chickens, how many do you think you could kill before the chickens overcame you?

Couldn't I just climb a tree? Or get in a car and drive away? I bet I could finish out my lifetime before the chickens caught up with me.

oh-good

This is INFINITE chickens, Neil. Chickens have taken over every space. Unending chickens. And they're angry at you, Neil. We ask again! How many chickens could you fight off before those descendants of the dinosaur defeat you and rule the Earth once again?

neil-gaiman

Infinite chickens? Nothing but chickens? No cars, no roads no houses? And the sea has obviously gone too because I'd otherwise suggest just heading out in a boat, as chickens can't swim. But without the seas I land or water I'm going to die of starvation and thirst pretty soon anyway.

Where are the infinite chickens coming from? The earth can only hold a finite number chickens after all.

fridathedahlia

THEY ARE INFINITE CHICKENS. ITS FANTASY.

neil-gaiman

Okay. How deep is the earth covered in the infinite chickens then? How many miles up does the chickening of the Earth gog? I would be killed immediately under the weight of infinite Chickens or even under the weight of millions of chickens, obviously. Do they reach the sun? Have they put out the sun? Is the universe, then nothing but infinite chickens, able to function in the airless cold and vacuum of outer space because this is a fantasy?

demigirlboss2girlrotboogaloo

Let's say instead of infinite chickens it is a number of chickens which is practically indistinguishable from an infinitely self-renewing supply of chickens. Existing infrastructure does not get replaced by chickens. However, no one except you exists any longer, as they have all become chickens. What is your strategy, and how long can you survive the chickpocalypse? Also these chickens are capable of swimming, so as to maintain the initial conceit of the question, that being that the chickens are not meaningfully escapable.

neil-gaiman

I'm not seeing the word "barehanded" anywhere in the original question or in any of the follow-up questions, so I assume I am allowed a weapon.

And that I need to view these chickens as a self-sustaining poultry apocalypse.

Assuming that the chickens have replaced humans, then my weapon of choice were a 100 megaton Atomic Bomb, and that I could explode it over a city populated entirely by Chickens, I firmly believe I could immediately kill about 13 million chickens, and that radiation sickness would account for the death of a few million more chickens.

So about 16 million if the birds have replaced us.

punkpinkpower

Wow what an interesting way to say "countries with strong employee protection laws aren't at the mercy of tech billionairs in late stage capitalism" but with a real boot licker angle.

only-tiktoks

sherryzade

scratch-meowt

same, Phyllis. same.

gayshitanddadjokes

despite staff's recent changes, we're... winning??????

neil-gaiman

Hi Mr. Gaiman, I've seen a few tweets and posts about not crossing the picket line for the WGA strike but nothing actually explaining what that entails for this strike? Is it not watching streaming services since that's one of the main issues? All tv? TV and movies? only new stuff or reruns too?

No, it's to not cross the picket lines literally. If there's a writers guild picket in place, you don't cross it. (But you can always join it -- especially if you are in LA or NYC.)

The WGA hasn't called for a boycott of streaming services or TV or anything like that, and until and unless they do I wouldn't push for that.

What the WGA would like is for people to make their support for the writers clear and loud -- write to the networks you watch on and tell them to treat their writers fairly, post your support on every social media outlet you can. Let the producers know that public opinion is against them.

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