TIME TRAVEL IS NOT HISTORY b/w REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD

ITEM: Time-travel dramas are a big trend in mainland China – and the government’s General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television wants television producers to stop making them on the grounds that they’re historically inaccurate.

Which I mention partially because the bridal unit finds this grimly hilarious, given how one of the tenets of the Cultural Revolution was that you had to destroy history to make history (though to be fair, Beijing today admits the Cultural Revolution probably wasn't one of Mao's better ideas).

But it’s also worth mentioning because it’s indicative of how deep-rooted the Chinese govt’s need is to control the narrative. You know that already through their tendency to censor the web and arrest people for straying from the narrative (or, as they call it, undermining social instability and trying to overthrow the govt). But that even extends to fictional poetic license with historical characters.

“This is Official History – are you calling us liars?”

That kind of thing.

On a related note, it’s interesting that the govt’s control-freak status has led to all new adventures in weirdness. Namely, the Phantom Jasmine Revolution.

If you don’t know:

As events heated up in Egypt, China began blocking key search terms like “Egypt” and “Jasmine”, supposedly to keep people from getting any funny ideas. At some point some bloggers began trying to organize protests, but when the police deployed to areas where the protesters were supposed to gather, no one was there but the usual locals, tourists, etc.

So they’re cracking down on it anyway, even though no one knows who’s behind it or even if it’s real.

Details here, but I like Warren Ellis’ summation:

A revolutionary movement that doesn’t exist, but still causes the kind of crackdown we associate with revolutionary movements, generated by persons unknown either to illustrate what would happen to revolutionary protestors, or to foment genuine revolutionary protest. The new fog of war.

Also, imagine the fun if the Phantom Jasmine revolutionaries were time travellers planting disinformation from the future.

The past is history,

This is dF

TRUTH, JUSTICE, ALL THAT STUFF

ITEM: In Action Comics  #900, Superman says he’s going to renounce his US citizenship.



You can see the reaction coming a mile away, can’t you?

No surprise, of course – we’ve been here before when conservatives freaked out over one line in Superman Returns, and my opinion hasn’t changed.

Namely, the only reason Superman was fundamentally American (apart from being invented by Americans) was that he grew up there and took America’s side in WW2 and the Cold War.

Which was fine in the last century. But the world has changed, as has America’s role in it. The rest of the world doesn’t blindly follow our example and take our word for it anymore, and as long as Superman is an American citizen – and technically a vigilante serving in a crime-fighting capacity, dispensing justice with superpowers, anything he does in another country is going to be interpreted as a reflection of US policy. And sooner or later that's going to be a liability whether people like Cal Thomas like it or not.

And either way, it makes no sense for an alien from another planet to have citizenship in just one country out of a couple hundred on an entire planet. As if Superman needs a visa to go anywhere.

Also, a word for Cal: I am a reader of comics and I know perfectly well what the word "construed" means. 

Global citizen,

This is dF