Monthly Archive: November 2016

Ed Catto: Nerd is the New Normal

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Geek culture has come a long way. Half the time, I still don’t think that many of us can quite believe it.

I can’t believe that for Monday night television, I can choose between CW’s Supergirl and a young Batman in Fox’s Gotham. After that choice is made, I can’t believe I can then watch a Vertigo comic, Lucifer come to life the next hour.

And I can’t believe that in the groceries my wife brought home, I just unpacked Avengers cheese sticks.

avengers-hero-twistsGeek Culture is everywhere.

Back In the old days, professing to the world your love of Geek Culture, be it comics, Star Trek, science fiction or any other flavor of nerdom, meant that you’d be subject to ridicule, derision and scorn. The world at large didn’t respect your hobby. Instead they just quietly put you into that “nut” or “weirdo” category and tried hard to forget about you.

I’m one of those comic fans who never took a break from it. Weekly trips for comics have been part of my life as long as I remember. However, that presented some difficulties for me in the late 70s during my high school/college/post college year dating years. In fact, I recall more than a few relationships, usually the third or fourth date, where I’d have skewer my courage and come clean. The conversations would typically go like this:

Me: “I have to tell you something about me that you don’t know.”

Her” What’s the matter, are you a serial killer or something?”

Me: “No, it’s much worse. I read and collect comic books.”

Her: “Oh dear, God….NOOOOOOOO!!!!”

tpautosBut things have changed now.

As I recently related, my family gives out comics for Halloween and that propels us into the “cool house” category. I was recently was invited to be a part of the Marketing Executives Mentoring Program, a conference at Cornell’s School of Business. I was honored to be part of a very impressive assembly of marketing professionals.

Remember that moment in the Star Trek episode when Spock gets married, and Kirk and McCoy remark, in awe, that that the legendary T’Pau is part of the gathering? That’s what this event was like for me – about 40 times over.

With this in mind, you can imagine that I found their reactions to Geek Culture all the more validating. Maybe they were all just being polite, but the executives and the business students were fascinated when I discussed my business and marketing efforts in Geek Culture as co-founder of The Bonfire Agency. They wanted to hear more, not less.

the-caped-crusade-batman-and-the-rise-of-nerd-culture-150x225-6793839And last weekend, it was invigorating to again be the go-to person when the world at large had questions and comments about the newest super hero movie, Doctor Strange.

Like so many Geeks, I enjoy the spotlight and the elevation from outcast to valued expert. It’s a refreshing change.

I just finished an engaging book called The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon. He outlines the many changes of the character, and franchise, called Batman. In particular, he chronicles this story alongside the rise of geek culture.

Weldon writes quite a bit about the relationships between nerds and normals. But that dynamic is rapidly changing. Nerds used to occupy a place in society below the “normal” population. But not anymore. Passionate fans of Geek Culture are now perched in a unique spot in the social structure’s hierarchy. Not necessarily above but certainly not below. And so often they are positioned as experts. It’s a long time in coming, but it’s a nice spot to be in.

Now it’s time for to nibble on one of those cheese sticks.

John Ostrander: Progressions

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“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” — Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

I never took the above quote very seriously. I liked it, it stuck with me, but I had always thought it was just George Lucas pop-pseudo vaguely Buddhisty philosophy.

Now… I’m not so sure.

Now I think I’m seeing it all around me in the wake of Donald Trump’s election this past week. Now it reverberates in me. There’s a lot of fear out there and some of it led to Trump’s winning. That has led to a lot of anger and there is also a lot of hate going around right now, on all sides of the political spectrum.

And I think it will lead to suffering.

The “dark side,” however, is not Lucas’s dark side of the Force. It is a dark side of our country, of us. It’s always there. It’s always been there.

We’re such an odd mixture. We pride ourselves on freedom, freedom for all, but blacks were denied that freedom and it was enshrined in the Constitution where they were defined as only 3/5ths of a person. Women weren’t even mentioned in the document until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified and even today they don’t have equal rights in many cases.

The attitude towards Native Americans, to paraphrase General Phillip Sheridan, was that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. Our wretched track record on treaties only confirms the attitude behind such a statement. It can still be seen in the protest to the pipeline in North Dakota. And this doesn’t even begin to cover the attitude towards Latinos, Asians and the LGBTQ community among others.

It is fear – fear of the Others, the ones not like Us, the ones from Another Tribe. It is the consequence of the zero-sum mentality; for the Others to have more, I will have less. Equality, parity, means I will lose. Whites, and white males especially, are told they are privileged. I know that the first time I heard that, my response as a white male was that I wasn’t privileged. I had little money, little power, and my existence was precarious. I felt I wasn’t privileged; I was barely surviving.

I did learn better. The privilege that I had was that I had more opportunities, even if they didn’t always come through. I wouldn’t be followed when I went to a store because of my skin color; I didn’t face a glass ceiling or made less money for the same work because of my sex or that I was assumed to be inherently disordered because of my sexual orientation. I wasn’t threatened with deportation because of my nationality or regarded with suspicion because of my religion. All because I was born a Christian white male.

However, many people who are barely making it fear that for someone else to get more they must have less and they are barely existing as it is. Politicians and media exploit that for their own purposes. That fear leads to anger, that anger leads to hate, that hate leads to suffering. That’s the progression, that’s real, that’s going on right now whether you’re liberal or conservative. We all are going to suffer, this country is going to suffer, and I honestly don’t know if we’re going to survive as a people or a country. I really don’t know.

If there is a way to escape this progression? Marvin Gaye hit it with his song What’s Going On.

Mother, mother

There’s too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother

There’s far too many of you dying

You know we’ve got to find a way

To bring some lovin’ here today, eheh

Father, father

We don’t need to escalate

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we’ve got to find a way

To bring some lovin’ here today, oh oh oh

Picket lines and picket signs

Don’t punish me with brutality

Talk to me, so you can see

Oh, what’s going on

What’s going on

Yeah, what’s going on

Ah, what’s going on

On the one side, those of us who voted for Hillary Clinton have to see that not every Donald Trump supporter is a bigot, a xenophobe, a misogynist. They have some valid concerns and some real fears and they feel those concerns were not being heard. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Yes, there is plenty of racism and bigotry and plain out hate in the Trump campaign but we have to sort those out and listen to the real concerns.

Those who voted for Trump have to listen, too, to the very real fears and concerns of our side. From what we’ve seen, from what we’ve heard, we see a despot in the making. That’s not just paranoia; the comparisons are apt and are there to be seen. We fear the loss of so much that is important to us – equal rights, the right of every woman to choose, the right to live in this country. We don’t feel we can wait and see what Trump does; we know what he has said and how he has behaved. There is real and valid fears and that leads to anger and that will lead to hate and that will lead to suffering.

What breaks the progression? Martin Luther King Jr said it better than I can.

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.

“So it goes.

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Those great philosophers, Bill and Ted, summed it up quite nicely: Be excellent to one another.

Party on, dudes.

 

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The New Old Local Comic Book Store Conundrum

zone-unshaven-comicsFor those of you who follow my life religiously, you’ll recall there was a time where I considered owning my own comics shop. In the end, I’d determined the barriers to entry and risk of the business was too rich for my blood. But I held out hope that soon, someone more willing than I would take the reins.

My prayers were answered, and to my delighted surprise the new proprietor reached out to me via Facebook to e-introduce himself and to welcome Unshaven Comics back to the Zone Comics and Games, 18107 Dixie Highway in Homewood, Illinois. And there was much rejoicing!

Across several conversations that followed the new owner was truly interested in partnering with my studio in as many ways as we could both conceive, beginning with inviting us to the grand re-opening (we’ll be signing tomorrow at noon in case you’re making the trek out!). Discussions of future workshops are on our collected docket. And to seal the deal with commerce, The Zone went ahead and placed the single largest order of books my little studio has ever seen.

zone-comicsNow, don’t get me wrong: to date we’ve only sold to individuals at conventions. We’ve long contemplated branching out to distribute to stores around our great city. But without a full series to sell (and time between books that is… well… sad), it never seemed appropriate for me to chase down retailers to have them shelve books that their customers couldn’t be sure to return for the next chapter of, the next week. It’s bad business for them, and us. But the Zone has the benefit of us being right in town. So, they’ll push our wares, no matter the time gaps between issues.

With all this support, I kvelved at the notion that finally Unshaven Comics would be considered the comic makers of our tiny burg. While a solid set of kids may know of us from our appearances at local and less-local comic-cons, now we’ll be placed on the front counter in a special display, telling kids that “Yes, some cool dudes in this town are making awesome books!”. It’s given me a feeling of pride that I’ve truly never felt before. Combine this with our recent partnership with our local Parks & Recreation department to offer a “Comic Book Making 101” class in the winter, and 2017 is shaping up to be a rather Unshaven Year.

But this leads me to my titular conundrum. You see, I’m not just a maker of comics. I, too, am a consumer. As such, my recent return to buying books monthly lead me to do business with my friends at Past Times Comics and Games in not-so-nearby Niles, Illinois. I shop with them because their manager is a long trusted friend whose original shop was the one where Unshaven first sold a book. I am loyal to a fault, and Past Times has served me wonderfully.

But now, oy, my heart aches. For you see the Zone now has me wondering how to support my comic buying habit as means of supporting their newfound life. After careful consideration? I’ve come up with a plan I think is quite worthy.

I will shop at both stores. From the Zone, I will procure the mainstream brik-a-brak that I’m presently enjoying (The Flash, Green Lanterns, Batman, Captain America, and Titans). From Past Times? I’ve concocted a truly interesting idea. I’ve given them carte blanche to create a package of books for me monthly — totaling no more than $20, and compromised of only non-mainstream books (Image counts. Vertigo, too. Essentially, as I’d told my pal: Just no capes I’d already know.) This way, I win and win again. My local shop will see monthly revenue for my guilty pleasures. My former shop — complete with my trust and blessings — will provide me new windows into the medium which will in turn help me provide new and interesting things to talk about here on ComicMix. As Michael Scott would say, that’s a win-win-win.

Your local comic shop needs the same amount of love. In a world of Lootcrates and the like, local businesses are forces to splinter and bend to the whim of a continually finicky consumer. To be the shop is to be the hub for the non-jocks. In our world where Doctor Strange mints over 90 million dollars domestically, the time to be a nerd has never been better. Our hometown pulp and paper slingers need to be at the center of our nerdy lives.

I’m now doing my part. How about you?

Martha Thomases: Apokolips Now

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As I do so often in uncertain times, I turn to comics. Specifically, DC superhero comics.

Because I do, I have some idea what it will be like to live in a world run by an enormous, self-centered creature who considers himself to be a god. This is a world where every aspect of life is devoted to praising a being who expects complete and total adoration, who expects his every utterance to be praised and obeyed. He runs his world based on his whims, turning his attention from one perceived slight to another.

His inner circle schemes to see who can flatter him the most. They do this to empower themselves, but also to stay alive. Those who displease him are banished to an eternity of suffering.

The people on this world toil endlessly in darkness. No matter how much they praise their lord, he pays them no attention. And they’re better off for it, because his attention arrives with his anger.

Everyone works really hard, every single day. Most of this is physical labor, the kind that combines intense exertion with soul-crushing tedium. The best to which they could aspire was a lifetime of this. There were no wages, or rewards, or respites of peace.

Perhaps this set-up satisfied the god for a few millennia. It’s no longer enough. Now he wants to conquer more worlds, more universes, more alternate realities. When he gets them, he is not satisfied, because he will never ever be sated.

When everything is about you, you can never be sated.

I suppose it’s possible that, for some people trapped in this world, there are moments that are better than others. Perhaps, before they fall asleep, they share a moment of camaraderie with a friend, or a moment of tenderness with a lover. In those moments, they might imagine a better world. They might try to find a way to make their own world better.

Because this world is so hellish, these people never get much farther than that. They don’t have the numbers, or they start to squabble with each other. They’re people, and they’re flawed, and too often, they put their own individual passions and opinions ahead of effective action.

In these comic book stories, there is sometimes a superhero to save them. There is a superhero who can defeat the dark lord, and in doing so, debase him in the eyes of his subjects. If they see him as fallible, they might be able to fight against him more effectively.

Here in our reality, where these stories only exist in comic books and folklore, we don’t have any superheroes. No one person is going to come in and save the day.

In fact, that kind of thinking is what gives power to the dark lord. Instead, we have to find common ground with each other. My priorities will be different from yours. The things that hurt me and make me feel helpless will be different from those things that affect you. This should not make us enemies. We should be able to take our individual, unique experiences and find common ground and common cause. There will be plenty of time to split hairs and determine who was most oppressed when we are all free.

If it helps, we can wear capes, too.

Box Office Democracy: Doctor Strange

I assume at some point in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe we’re going to come across a threat that unites every character in one movie to fight against it in some budget-busting assembly of talent. I am starting to dread this moment because between Tony Stark, Peter Quill, Scott Lang, and now Stephen Strange, I can’t imagine anything could ever get done between giving all four of them chances to show how little they care about anything that happens in favor of getting in some quip or another. Ironic detachment has become the house style in the MCU, and I’m not sure why Doctor Strange was my breaking point but it was. I’m sick of people saving the world by not caring about it.

It’s not that Benedict Cumberbatch is the problem with Doctor Strange. I found him surprisingly acceptable playing a native New Yorker. He isn’t bad at doing pithy dialogue and this might be projection on my part because he’s English but he’s masterful at appearing above it all. He does a good job climbing over the mountain of unlikability the script puts in his path. Honestly, I’m not sure at what part of “arrogant doctor crashes his supercar while rejecting pleas from sick people to get help” is supposed to make us think he’s a good guy, but his subsequent petulant rejection of all of the advice of his doctors so he can regain the use of his hands so he can go back to being a jerk of a surgeon doesn’t do it either. Stephen Strange is an unlikable crater in the middle of Doctor Strange, but Benedict Cumberbatch is just reading the words off the page.

I don’t like Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. I don’t like that she’s playing an Asian man and even though they go out of the way to say she’s Celtic, there’s nothing she does in the entire film that isn’t out of the mystical Asian man playbook. I think it’s cowardly that Marvel changed the character from Tibetan so that they could have an easier time accessing the Chinese film market. All the talk of censorship I’ve seen in media these past few years— we get actual government intervention in a movie, and so few people seem to notice.

The rest of the cast is great. Chiwitel Ejiofor is too good an actor for the small part this movie asks of him. He wrestles with his morality over the course of this film and you can see the conflict on his face and in his posture in a way you just don’t see in genre films. He’s deserving of more, and I trust if we get a sequel we’ll get more of him. Benedict Wong is also excellent in a small part. He has a great physicality in a movie dominated by bodies skinnier than a life dedicated to martial arts would suggest. He is the focus for much of the humor in the second act and he carries it well. Mads Mikkelsen wouldn’t have been my first choice for a magical martial arts bad guy but I’m thrilled to have been proven wrong. Because of the magic roots (and the liberal use of stunt doubles) it’s not like he has to carry any of the difficult work himself, and it gives us a gifted actor skilled at playing menaces to carry the heavy weight a villain must shoulder in a superhero film. The best part of the entire film is a quick comedic exchange between Cumberbatch and Mikkelsen, and I’m not sure anyone but Mikkelsen could have made it work.

The story is as predictably lifeless as one would expect from a superhero origin story these days. Bad thing happens, person gets extraordinary power, some sort of betrayal requires that power to be directed against evil, and then there’s a new status quo. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times now and there’s nothing new or exciting about the way it’s written up here. The been-there-done-that feeling also extends to the special effects. I’ve read rave reviews of the visual effects and while they’re nice, there’s nothing here I haven’t seen in Inception or The Matrix franchise. While they’ve turned those visual concepts up to 11 this time out it didn’t particularly impress me; I’m not looking for more and bigger with effects as much as I am smarter and more effective. Doctor Strange looks like someone put a kaleidoscope in front of the projector after it had already been shot rather than having a coherent design.

It must seem like I didn’t like Doctor Strange and that honestly isn’t true. Marvel Studios has gotten very good at making these films and it’s almost impossible to sit through one and not be entertained. I’m just starting to see the strings a little more, the same old things, and the clichés that dominate these movies particularly the origin stories. I had a good time watching the movie but it’s not fresh like Iron Man was; it feels more like watching a movie where a police officer has only one day until retirement. Perhaps as we get in to a round of sequels we’ll see a lot less of this, but until then I’m going to be writing a lot more reviews complaining about a movie that’s honestly above average.

Dennis O’Neil: Strange Tidings

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Doctor Strange and I go way back. He was the first superhero Stan Lee asked me to write when I was a fuzzy newbie, just beginning a long stretch of years in the comic book business, working as an editorial assistant at Marvel. Maybe there’s some synchronicity here: I’d fooled around with magic as a kid and here I was writing about a magician. And more: this conjurer lived in Greenwich village, notorious hotbed of art and creativity and nonconformity, all of which were of powerful interest to me.

And now, more than 50 years later, along comes the Doctor Strange movie, and a satisfying afternoon in the multiplex it is, not least because one of my favorite actors hits all his marks. It is also, no surprise here, a box office success, the fourteenth in a row for the Mighty Marvel Movie Manufacturers.

But, for the moment, let’s not laud the Master of the Mystic Arts. Maybe later. Maybe as early as next week.

Why not now?

Do you know what day it is? Look outside: it’s a beautiful autumn Tuesday. Bright sunshine, crisp air, glorious foliage. The kind of day that gives me reason to live where I do. 140The date, when I exist, a bit earlier than when you exist, unless you’ve traveled into the past and have taken up residence in my computer, is November 8. Ring any bells? Yeah, voting day.

One of those turning points that jolts America every so often, I think, the end of the longest and nastiest political campaign in our history. Listen, I’m no flag waving naif. I know that the past was not glorious and our founding fathers were not noble. (After all, the venerated Thomas Jefferson paid contemporary journalists to write bad stuff about his rival for the presidency, John Adams.) But mostly they got the job done. After the ugly ordeal that ends today, regardless of who was pronounced the winner, it will no longer be possible to believe that politics is, in any way, about good governance. It is about money and power and ego and the squirmy satisfaction of vanquishing the enemy – that is, the guy who sits across the aisle and attends a different caucus.

Abraham Lincoln made his rivals members of his cabinet. Probably couldn’t happen today.

I don’t think that all politicians are Uncle Scrooges. I’ve had a pleasant conversation with one senator and worked on a charitable project with another and I can think of several more who seem to be genuine altruists. But because of how the system has evolved, it seems that even the best politicos spend more energy on fund raising and getting reelected than on dealing with the intricacies of an increasingly complicated civilization.

The current congress is, by virtually every standard, the worst in history.

So let’s let Doc Strange rest, wrapped in his cloak of levitation, while I go upstairs and eventually turn on the television and, I don’t know…try to decide if I’m depressed?

REVIEW: On Story-Screenwriters & Filmakers on Their Iconic Films

austinfilmfest_bookii_cover-768x1152On Story – Screenwriters and Filmakers on Their Iconic Films
Edited by Barbara Morgan and Maya Perez
247 pages, $20, University of Texas Press

The Austin Film Festival is a great place to watch films and hear from filmmakers as co-founder and Executive Director Barbara Morgan assembles a winning lineup of producers, directors, screenwriters, and performers to come talk about their craft.

Thankfully, Morgan and Maya Perez, producer of the Emmy-winning PBS series Austin Film Festival’s On-Story, have collected an assortment in a too-short collection, On Story – Screenwriters and Filmakers on Their Iconic Films. After a James Franco introduction, we get the best from the last 20 years’ worth of conversations in transcript form.

Among the highlights is the Conversation with Shane Black, David Milch, and Sydney Pollack, where the diverse filmmakers talk character, plot, structure, theme and favorite moments from across their careers.

Similarly, genre devotees will appreciate the focus on comic book adaptations during the A Conversation with Michael Green, Ashley Miller, and Nicole Perlman, who have given us X-Men, Heroes, and Guardians of the Galaxy among other projects. The talk between John Milius and Oliver Stone, sadly, barely touches on Conan.

Callie Khouri provides a lot of details behind how Thelma and Louise came together and the unexpected manner in which is got from handwritten script to studio production and its aftermath for her career and the feminist cause.

Comedy fans will find the creation process for Groundhog Day interesting as Harold Ramis talks on his own and then chats with Danny Rubin, the man who first had the notion that became the film’s core. And for thriller fans, Jonathan Demme and Ted Tally walk you through the writing of Silence of the Lambs.

Perhaps the most interesting dissection of a film is when Ron Howard, Jim Lovell, Sy Liebergot, John Aaron, Jerry Bostick, Michael Corenblith, Al Reinert, and William Broyles Jr., discuss the making of Apollo 13, considering most of the speakers were the astronaut and engineers who actually made history and how Howard used them as advisors.

Would-be screenwriters will find the anecdotes and process discussion fascinating while ore casual students of film will find the majority of the conversations entertaining reading. It’s not a How To book by any means, but a series of discussions on the process and business behind the films. You came away impressed by their thoughtfulness and by how no two films go from idea to screen in exactly the same way.

Molly Jackson: Wonder Women Unite!

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This is probably one of the most stressful columns I’ve ever had to write. It will be published on November 9th but was written prior to the election results being released. Very rarely do I normally stress about the future; I just take it in stride. Writing this is a different story. I yearn to get past the election, to know the results that you already know. You are so lucky.

Since last week I wrote about my ways to avoid the election strains. This week I am going to write about a woman breaking barriers throughout the world. That’s right, I’m talking about the new Wonder Woman trailer. It looks fantastic… and that terrifies me.

So when they announced Wonder Woman was finally coming to the big screen, it was a mix of hope and fear that filled my core. Both trailers captured the excitement, action, and female empowerment that I wanted to see in the first live action Wonder Woman film.

This film was literally decades in the making. Every time someone wanted to make a female-led superhero flick, they pointed to a few flops (including other DC films) and said nope to the risk. It didn’t matter that women-driven films started to become more common. It didn’t seem to matter that superhero films developed in quality drastically. And for a very long time, fans’ wishes for female-led films were ignored.

DC’s movie universe hasn’t been stellar. Or great. Or particularly good. And at times, not even coherent. So I’m scared. If this film isn’t good, will studios be able to stop female superhero films again?

With everything happening in the world, this step for women is important. We have a woman as a serious candidate for one of the highest offices in the country. We need geeks to have that equal representation on the big screen.

So people of today’s future, there you have it. I can only hope that when I catch up with you, we have a strong leader ready to enter the White House and not a tire fire. Until then, I’m going to keep my hope alive for. It’s Wonder Women – Hillary and Diana.

Addendum. After Election, Wednesday Morning

I am flabbergasted and distraught at the results of yesterday’s election. A significant portion of the country’s population has spoken and in doing so, validated the wave of hate that is sweeping throughout the country. In short, a rebellion occurred and it feels like we had no warning. The polls failed to convey anything like this.  I attended the official Hillary rally in NYC and I felt the mood change from exuberant to despondent and confused. I don’t know what happened last night but I know what we need to do now.

I may have been a little lighthearted about Wonder Woman when I wrote this, but the truth is we all need to be superheroes now. We need to stand up together against hate and inequality.  Wonder Women and SuperMen need to unite right now. We need to protect and take care of each other, not because of our race or gender or religion or sexual identity.  We need to protect and take care of each other because we are members of the human race. We are all equal and deserve basic human rights and respect.
Time to stop living through superheroes on the pages of comic or on the silver screen.  Now it’s time to embody those unshakable morals and ethics ourselves.

Mike Gold: A Negro and A Jew Walk Into A Bar…

schwerner-chaney-goodman-missing-fbi

Michael Davis wrote this election day column for ComicMix, which we published on election day, which was yesterday. It’s a very powerful piece, one of the more important we’ve run in the past 10 years. After I read it, I put aside my plans to wax poetic about the Doctor Strange movie. There’s always time to do that. If you have yet to read Michael’s column, I urge you to do so.

m-l-king-mississippi-burningI will say this: I’ve known Michael for the better part of 30 years. We have talked a lot. He had never shared that story with me.

And some people say nothing good came out of Donald Trump’s campaign.

What he was talking about, if I might be allowed to define it, is the strategic concept of “divide and conquer.” Often attributed to Philip II of Macedon, it means exactly what it says. Instead of a long-winded explanation of the time-honored concept, I’ll offer an example that is in keeping with Michael’s column.

Back in the early days of America’s ongoing civil rights movement, a lot of Jewish American students from the north went to the southeastern states to stand and march side-by-side with Black Americans in that critical struggle. Many stuck around to help organize. Some got killed. Check out U. S. vs Cecil Price et al., or watch the movie Mississippi Burning.

This could not be tolerated by some. Blacks could not be tolerated, Jews could not be tolerated and together they constituted a genuine Justice League of America that had to be stopped in order to protect state’s rights and, therefore, the American Way. And it was very successful: by rumor, by innuendo, by subterfuge, blacks were frightened by stories about Jews and Jews were frightened by blacks. Jewish doctors injected black children with the HIV virus. Black thugs burnt down Jewish stores. Jewish bankers kept black citizens poor. Blacks singled out Jews for violent attacks. Blah blah blah blah blah.

mississippi-burningSince hatred of Black Americans is as American as hatred of Jewish Americans and vice versa, it wasn’t hard to sell these concepts. After all, we are all Americans.

As the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan (et al) took major positions in support of Donald Trump’s campaign, blacks and Jews felt our collective Spidey-Sense tingling. The polite analysis was “Oh, shit, not again.” And then “Oh, shit, this isn’t good at all.”

It’s ironic that Trump campaigned on the anti-PC platform. It is the concept of political correctness that has prevented a generation of discriminated Americans from seeing the snipers in the trees. I’d much rather a hater called me a kike to my face than be surprised that the same person was a closet hater. I’d rather see them coming.

Divide and conquer works best from the shadows. Or, to be more specific, from under a rock. Remove that rock and expose the haters to the light of truth. While stumping for office, Donald Trump and his supporters never used words like nigger or kike, at least not in public. But Donald Trump ran the most discriminatory race in the past half century.

Let’s light the light of truth.

As Michael’s editor, I say “great column, Michael.”

As Michael’s friend, I say “thank you.”

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