Mwahahahahaha.
The Uncle Sam comic is in my hot little hands. Not OYL Sam, the nineties mini. Yes, the one which informed me there was a female personification of the United States.
Okay, these first couple pages with Sam raving? Both creepy and *heartbreaking*, because I'm hearing where what he's saying is coming from.
Of course, I have the benefit of knowing who and what he is, whereas the people around him do not. So.
Oh. Ow. Okay, so Sam's thinking about how he can *sometimes* remember a lot of things, Buffalo Bill and the bloody blanket Lincoln was wrapped in and "alabaster cities undimmed by human tears and good wars and the new frontier and amber waves of grain and better things for better living through chemistry.
"And a woman in a long gown. And the Alamo and Pearl Harbor.
"Pearl? Was that her name?
"Some of the voices in my head are muffled.
"They're wrapped in the flag.
"But pull the flag away and the words don't make sense."
I'm going to want icons from this book. And, yes, Ilyena, I ship Columbia/Sam. Say nothing.
Ooh. Vicious. Sam's reliving the JFK assassination: "Ask not what your country's done *for* you.
"Ask what your country's done *to* you."
Ooooh. Boy, these guys are *pointed*. Sam's in front of an antique store, All-American antiques, thinking wow, this place has everything. "I *had* everything once. I don't think it helped."
... Yup, still pointed. Not pointed *enough* in my opinion, this time 'round, what with Sam in the antiques shop looking at a wooden Indian flashing back to Illinois in 1832, and an Indian man named Black Hawk tearing him a rightly deserved new one, and Sam's thinking, "I had no motive when I first shook his hand. *I* didn't open fire on this man and his tribe.
"But I let it happen. *Whoever* I am, I know that."
The hell you didn't have a motive, Sam. The *hell* you didn't, Great White Father in Washington. This needs to be scanned, because I can't type in everything I need to.
Heh. More pointed commentary. He's looking at a blackface doll, asking aloud what it was blackface actors said before they started the show, and the doll says, "The crimes of the guilty land shall never be purged except with blood."
And Sam, still looking at the doll, says absently, "Actually, I think it was 'gentlemen, be seated,' but-- "
"Actually, John Brown said that. Right before they hanged him."
*Zing*.
And the shots keep coming, because the next page? Lynchings.
"Ever see a *lynching*? I mean, up close?"
"No, I... I've heard about them... "
"Yeah, I'm sure you *have*."
Spirit of America. Male *incarnation* of America's soul and you've never seen a lynching, Sam?
"But...
"But we gave you your freedom... I mean, eventually... "
"Oh, *did* you? Did you really? Free to enter through the servants' entrance at hotels? Free to get my ass beaten because I have the nerve to want to vote? Well, *thank you suh*! *Thank God Almighty I'm free at last*!!
"When there wars, we fought with you -- in the name of freedom. And when the war was over, we watched you slip the chains and the nooses back on us. And when our cries got too loud, well, there was always Amos and Andy and Aunt Jemima. They never sassed back at you."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you need to *know*! That's *why*! Because you have a tendency to *forget* these things.
"You can put the toy back now. Mister Bones."
Oh. Ow.
Flashback to Andersonville prison, Union boy dying from infection, and he's lying in Uncle Sam's arms, and he says, "Sam?"
"I'm here, son... "
"Was I right in fighting? Will the Union be preserved?"
And Sam says, "I... um... let me get back to you on that one, son."
(Minor quibble of he should've been Billy Yank to that dying boy. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb for that fight, Steve Darnell. Ain't no Uncle Sam.)
This comic is making me sick. Oh, America, you hurt me. Last panel of a series of things that Sam's hearing, things about the way our country works nowadays that, well, are kind of a betrayal of what we're *for* you ask me: "And a scream that sounds like a plea... *Stop breaking down*!"
And then Sam's quoting Thomas Paine to the trash can. Pointed again.
Oh, Columbia in the Dust Bowl. Ow. "This land was made for you and me, Sam.
"And we had it coming."
Oh, man, it's kind of beautiful that fake!evil!Sam is the Uncle Sam the real Sam remembers. Tall and proud and strong, striding across the sky with jets around him, "the great arsenal of democracy."
Sam hearing the speech of the winning candidate underneath the actual/'actual' speech hurts me. Ow. Ow.
(Excerpt of spoken speech in italics, what Sam hears in normal print.):
"But most of all, we couldn't have done it without *you*, the people of this great state! You are the life-blood of our nation! You cynical, apathetic, ignorant, beaten-down sheep!
"If there's one thing I've learned about the people of this country, it's that you care *fear change*!"
Oh, this *comic*, this *comic*, Dust Bowl and Black Hawk and lynchings and union strikes and. Ow. Everything that makes me stare in disbelief when people say America is the greatest nation on earth.
Sam. *Sam*, honey, get yourself to a patriot (if you can find one), because I can see the shadows of what you used to be under the plain, plumb crazy and you're only as strong as the country you symbolize.
Oh -- God. No, God, no apologies this time, I think it's deserved.
Panel of a slave ship, with, I think, better conditions than most of the actual ships had, and the text "There are those who insist that criminals don't come from poverty or abuse. That some people are just *born that way*.
"But when crime *increases* --
"Their only solution is more jails.
"And when the jails are *built* --
"They discover more and more people are just *born that way*."
Oh, dude, quoting is not good enough for the pages with Sam and Britannia. These need scanning and posting, because, just, *dude*. When *Britannia* says that "when [Sam] fall[s] it'll make what [she] went through look like a bloody *cricket match*," that is a good moment to flinch, kids.
Shay's Rebellion, kids. Oh, this *comic*, I am with Ilyena here, I want to send a copy to Senator Obama. Actually, I want to send it to a lot of people, but the Democratic presidential candidate needs a copy of this book.
Because *we* have a tendency to forget these things.
Oh, *Columbia*, I am a little bit in love with you and these are more pages that need scanning. Quoting not good enough!
Okay, no, I have to quote a little. Columbia is trying to help Sam, trying to show him the dream he used to be along with the times the dream failed, and one of the last things she says is, "Now, that Constitution wasn't perfect, of course. I know because *I* tried to vote in 1880. But we were allowed to change it... maybe even improve it. And if America sometimes fouled up along the way -- and it *did* -- that was the fault of the *dreamers*. It wasn't the fault of the dream."
Oh. Oh, the Russian Bear and Uncle Sam. Oh, ow. Kids, the Bear is breaking my heart over here.
The other page I want to scan in? Britannia and Sam and Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, personification of Liberty and Reason. "Believe it or not, Sam, she was luckier than most.
"She had five whole years of 'liberty, fraternity, equality." Then *bang!* -- it was off to the Reign of Terror."
I want Marianne fic. Because she's still *here*, she isn't dead, and oh, the look on that woman's *face*. Ow. Ow. I want the meeting of the two Mariannes, the bare-breasted, fighting ideal and the bourgeois woman in quiet clothing with wheat and a plough as her symbols.
Oh, this comic, this *comic*, I want to punch the air and go off and do political activism and think of it as punching fake!evil!Sam in the face, and I want to print out the fight pages and hand them to every politician in the country and refuse to let them take office until they read the scenes and understand.
Until they get everything this country is, all the good old days with the shit and the blood and the maggots and the death and the dream. The one we fought for, the one we died for, the one we betrayed, the one we kept safe and secret in the back of us.
This comic desperately needs to be in a political studies course. I want to teach the political studies course built around this comic and the works and events it references.
I am not actually in tears in the middle of the library, but that's because I need to be able to see to type. Oh, *comic*. Oh, Sam.
Oh, my country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty mostly well-intentioned mistakes and some truly cruel serious fuckups, of thee I sing.
Yes, I am using the icon of American Soldier. For, uh, certain values of the word.
Okay, these first couple pages with Sam raving? Both creepy and *heartbreaking*, because I'm hearing where what he's saying is coming from.
Of course, I have the benefit of knowing who and what he is, whereas the people around him do not. So.
Oh. Ow. Okay, so Sam's thinking about how he can *sometimes* remember a lot of things, Buffalo Bill and the bloody blanket Lincoln was wrapped in and "alabaster cities undimmed by human tears and good wars and the new frontier and amber waves of grain and better things for better living through chemistry.
"And a woman in a long gown. And the Alamo and Pearl Harbor.
"Pearl? Was that her name?
"Some of the voices in my head are muffled.
"They're wrapped in the flag.
"But pull the flag away and the words don't make sense."
I'm going to want icons from this book. And, yes, Ilyena, I ship Columbia/Sam. Say nothing.
Ooh. Vicious. Sam's reliving the JFK assassination: "Ask not what your country's done *for* you.
"Ask what your country's done *to* you."
Ooooh. Boy, these guys are *pointed*. Sam's in front of an antique store, All-American antiques, thinking wow, this place has everything. "I *had* everything once. I don't think it helped."
... Yup, still pointed. Not pointed *enough* in my opinion, this time 'round, what with Sam in the antiques shop looking at a wooden Indian flashing back to Illinois in 1832, and an Indian man named Black Hawk tearing him a rightly deserved new one, and Sam's thinking, "I had no motive when I first shook his hand. *I* didn't open fire on this man and his tribe.
"But I let it happen. *Whoever* I am, I know that."
The hell you didn't have a motive, Sam. The *hell* you didn't, Great White Father in Washington. This needs to be scanned, because I can't type in everything I need to.
Heh. More pointed commentary. He's looking at a blackface doll, asking aloud what it was blackface actors said before they started the show, and the doll says, "The crimes of the guilty land shall never be purged except with blood."
And Sam, still looking at the doll, says absently, "Actually, I think it was 'gentlemen, be seated,' but-- "
"Actually, John Brown said that. Right before they hanged him."
*Zing*.
And the shots keep coming, because the next page? Lynchings.
"Ever see a *lynching*? I mean, up close?"
"No, I... I've heard about them... "
"Yeah, I'm sure you *have*."
Spirit of America. Male *incarnation* of America's soul and you've never seen a lynching, Sam?
"But...
"But we gave you your freedom... I mean, eventually... "
"Oh, *did* you? Did you really? Free to enter through the servants' entrance at hotels? Free to get my ass beaten because I have the nerve to want to vote? Well, *thank you suh*! *Thank God Almighty I'm free at last*!!
"When there wars, we fought with you -- in the name of freedom. And when the war was over, we watched you slip the chains and the nooses back on us. And when our cries got too loud, well, there was always Amos and Andy and Aunt Jemima. They never sassed back at you."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you need to *know*! That's *why*! Because you have a tendency to *forget* these things.
"You can put the toy back now. Mister Bones."
Oh. Ow.
Flashback to Andersonville prison, Union boy dying from infection, and he's lying in Uncle Sam's arms, and he says, "Sam?"
"I'm here, son... "
"Was I right in fighting? Will the Union be preserved?"
And Sam says, "I... um... let me get back to you on that one, son."
(Minor quibble of he should've been Billy Yank to that dying boy. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb for that fight, Steve Darnell. Ain't no Uncle Sam.)
This comic is making me sick. Oh, America, you hurt me. Last panel of a series of things that Sam's hearing, things about the way our country works nowadays that, well, are kind of a betrayal of what we're *for* you ask me: "And a scream that sounds like a plea... *Stop breaking down*!"
And then Sam's quoting Thomas Paine to the trash can. Pointed again.
Oh, Columbia in the Dust Bowl. Ow. "This land was made for you and me, Sam.
"And we had it coming."
Oh, man, it's kind of beautiful that fake!evil!Sam is the Uncle Sam the real Sam remembers. Tall and proud and strong, striding across the sky with jets around him, "the great arsenal of democracy."
Sam hearing the speech of the winning candidate underneath the actual/'actual' speech hurts me. Ow. Ow.
(Excerpt of spoken speech in italics, what Sam hears in normal print.):
"But most of all, we couldn't have done it without *you*, the people of this great state! You are the life-blood of our nation! You cynical, apathetic, ignorant, beaten-down sheep!
"If there's one thing I've learned about the people of this country, it's that you care *fear change*!"
Oh, this *comic*, this *comic*, Dust Bowl and Black Hawk and lynchings and union strikes and. Ow. Everything that makes me stare in disbelief when people say America is the greatest nation on earth.
Sam. *Sam*, honey, get yourself to a patriot (if you can find one), because I can see the shadows of what you used to be under the plain, plumb crazy and you're only as strong as the country you symbolize.
Oh -- God. No, God, no apologies this time, I think it's deserved.
Panel of a slave ship, with, I think, better conditions than most of the actual ships had, and the text "There are those who insist that criminals don't come from poverty or abuse. That some people are just *born that way*.
"But when crime *increases* --
"Their only solution is more jails.
"And when the jails are *built* --
"They discover more and more people are just *born that way*."
Oh, dude, quoting is not good enough for the pages with Sam and Britannia. These need scanning and posting, because, just, *dude*. When *Britannia* says that "when [Sam] fall[s] it'll make what [she] went through look like a bloody *cricket match*," that is a good moment to flinch, kids.
Shay's Rebellion, kids. Oh, this *comic*, I am with Ilyena here, I want to send a copy to Senator Obama. Actually, I want to send it to a lot of people, but the Democratic presidential candidate needs a copy of this book.
Because *we* have a tendency to forget these things.
Oh, *Columbia*, I am a little bit in love with you and these are more pages that need scanning. Quoting not good enough!
Okay, no, I have to quote a little. Columbia is trying to help Sam, trying to show him the dream he used to be along with the times the dream failed, and one of the last things she says is, "Now, that Constitution wasn't perfect, of course. I know because *I* tried to vote in 1880. But we were allowed to change it... maybe even improve it. And if America sometimes fouled up along the way -- and it *did* -- that was the fault of the *dreamers*. It wasn't the fault of the dream."
Oh. Oh, the Russian Bear and Uncle Sam. Oh, ow. Kids, the Bear is breaking my heart over here.
The other page I want to scan in? Britannia and Sam and Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, personification of Liberty and Reason. "Believe it or not, Sam, she was luckier than most.
"She had five whole years of 'liberty, fraternity, equality." Then *bang!* -- it was off to the Reign of Terror."
I want Marianne fic. Because she's still *here*, she isn't dead, and oh, the look on that woman's *face*. Ow. Ow. I want the meeting of the two Mariannes, the bare-breasted, fighting ideal and the bourgeois woman in quiet clothing with wheat and a plough as her symbols.
Oh, this comic, this *comic*, I want to punch the air and go off and do political activism and think of it as punching fake!evil!Sam in the face, and I want to print out the fight pages and hand them to every politician in the country and refuse to let them take office until they read the scenes and understand.
Until they get everything this country is, all the good old days with the shit and the blood and the maggots and the death and the dream. The one we fought for, the one we died for, the one we betrayed, the one we kept safe and secret in the back of us.
This comic desperately needs to be in a political studies course. I want to teach the political studies course built around this comic and the works and events it references.
I am not actually in tears in the middle of the library, but that's because I need to be able to see to type. Oh, *comic*. Oh, Sam.
Oh, my country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty mostly well-intentioned mistakes and some truly cruel serious fuckups, of thee I sing.
Yes, I am using the icon of American Soldier. For, uh, certain values of the word.