Category: Politics

Pop Culture Squad > Politics
So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man #126: Trust Me

So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man #126: Trust Me

Posted on by Marc Alan Fishman

I’m going to side step pop culture for the week, in a way, and take an oddly specific deep dive into… politics. (note to the editors: if you could maybe cue up a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder here that would be great! -M)

A point of order first: I actually believe politics goes hand in hand with pop culture. So much of what is created for entertainment is not made in a vacuum. It is, in fact, generated through the lens of the author — and their perspective absolutely is shaped (among other things) by the political landscape in which they live. I could pelt you with a 1000 examples, but instead, I’ll give you one. Look at the most recognizable symbol of our dear comic books, Superman. He is the creation of the sons of Jewish immigrants, literally celebrating the American Way—truth, justice, and defending the people living, toiling, and loving one another. Immigrants included. Funny, that. 

With that said? I think I’ve earned my supper. Let’s eat. Continue reading “So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man #126: Trust Me” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Our Favorite Nepojunkie

Brainiac On Banjo: Our Favorite Nepojunkie

Posted on by Mike Gold

“People think its cool cause it’s our law. Think they rebel without a cause. We gotta help the sick and the addicted, but were killin’ ourselves with the new prohibition. Our government’s try to tell you what to do; decide for yourself what’s right for you. If ya go too far and ya get outta hand, then ya take a little trip down to prison land!” From “Legalize it” written by Mojo Nixon.

We’ve been spending the past several weeks talking about comic books, so I thought this week I’d lighten the tone a bit and talk about heroin addiction.

To be fair, heroin use has been a significant part of our popular culture. Aside from state and local laws, including those that only tangentially affected heroin users, the federal Anti-Heroin Act prohibiting the possession of opium wasn’t passed until 1924. Opium, organic and synthetic, is the alluring ingredient in heroin as well as such substances as methadone, codeine, oxycodone and naloxone. This act amended the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 which authorized the importation of the opium-producing poppy plant for medicinal use.

Back in the 19th century, the civilized world was held in thrall by opium and its relations — to the point where Bayer Pharmaceuticals created a safer form of opium in 1898 they named “heroin.” They sold it as a cure for opium addition, alcoholism and for coughs, and they claimed it was more effective than morphine and free from abuse potential. Turns out they were mistaken about that last point. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Our Favorite Nepojunkie” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Will There Be Piece In Our Time?

Brainiac On Banjo: Will There Be Piece In Our Time?

Posted on by Mike Gold

“You don’t possess me, don’t impress me, just upset my mind. Can’t instruct me or conduct me, just use up my time.” From I Talk To The Wind written by Peter Sinfield.

Forever War. Well, forever is a long time, but this Middle East thing has been going on… forever. Of course, all that will stop on Friday, according to President Donald J. “Neville” Trump. Last night as he was getting ready to give his thumbs down to a bunch of steroid-sucking “athletes,” he said this after proclaiming the Trump-Epstein War with Iran to be over:

“I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Straight of Hormuz and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the world, start your engines.”

Holy shit. That certainly must have impressed all those 12 year-olds on his lawn, gawking at the UFC Freedom 250 salute to Gay Pride Month. Children who still think his words actually mean anything.

NPR

As of this writing, we have not seen confirmation from anybody with the capacity to ignore the decree: the various Iranian power clusters, the Iranian-supported Hezbollah, the government of Lebanon, and the Prime Minister of Israel — a man who is almost as out-of-control as Trump… but, admittedly, a much better speaker.

Even in the best of circumstances, this cannot work. Trump’s priorities are not the same as Earth’s. Actually, he only has but one priority, and the past seventeen months show us he’s used Supreme Court Chief “Justice” Roberts’ laminated get out of jail free card to steal billions of dollars from the United States citizens and the blissfully ignorant MAGA storm troopers.

Israel has every right to be concerned about its safety, but under its current regime its prime minister has crossed the line between defender of his nation to batshit war monger. With Hezbollah continuing to attack Israel from Lebanon, the Lebanese people have every right to be concerned about their safety. Iran has attacked some of its neighbors such as Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Republic, all of which boarder on the Straights of Hormuz.

There is no quid pro quo in war.

I don’t think Trump’s most stringent supporters, the Christian Nationalists, would be happy with a permanent armistice. They are under the belief — and “belief” is exactly the right word — that the only way to bring about their eschatological rapture is if Israel were to continue to exist. There’s a seven-year Tribulation period, the “Third Temple” must be built in Jerusalem, and some goofy shit like the darkening of the sun and moon must occur to bring about the Second Coming.

And that, folks, explains our foreign policy in a nutshell.

Ah, well. Sunday on the White House lawn, then Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday…

And on Friday, Trump rested.

That is plenty of time for the Painted Traitor to TACO out. In fact, I do not believe there has yet been a thought that Trump has consistently held for five days, outside his murderous lies about the 2020 election and his complete loathing for anybody who objects to his whims. Taco Tuesday might be a few days late this week.

Remember when Trump said he would start no new wars? Yeah, well the President of the United States does not. He’ll go to war with anybody if there’s enough money in it for him.

And he still has Justice Thomas’s get out of jail free card.

Brainiac On Banjo: Ungrateful Bastard

Brainiac On Banjo: Ungrateful Bastard

Posted on by Mike Gold

“There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.” Arthur Jensen to Howard Beale. From the movie Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky.

Screenshot

Seashells? Really? Seashells!

Oh, sure. After about a week of being at the butt end of every comedian’s routine as well as every barroom blather-babble (my favorite type), “acting” Attorney General Todd Blanche said he most certainly has other charges to lay on former FBI Director James Comey, but he was not at liberty to say what those charges are. He’s new on the job, so he hasn’t had enough time to make new shit up.

By the way, “acting,” when used in reference to any Donald Trump appointee, is a euphemism for “Donald Trump.”

All these unending persecutions of Comey are the result of his tempestuous relationship with The Donald back in the beginning of Trump’s first term, when he actually employed a couple people who were smart and courageous. Those appointments, of course, did not last long. The fact is, if Comey did not break with F.B.I. procedure and launch still another investigation into Hillary Clinton and her email servers shortly before the election, she would have won the 2016 presidential campaign. You’d think the Orange Hump would show him a little gratitude!

Please. He becomes an octogenarian in about five weeks. He also needs time to adjust. Earth just ain’t what it used to be before the Fascists lost World War II.

Blanche busted Comey for this photo of seashells that he and his boss both claim is a provocation to assassinate the president of the United States. The shells spelled out “8647,” which became the bank passcode of a great many MAGAts.

Of course, a couple thousand committed truth seekers, a/k/a snotty leftist rabble-rousers, immediately whipped out their phones and searched Amazon for “8646,” which, according to Trump and Blanche, must mean these people were attempting to murder or otherwise inconvenience Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, a/k/a President 46. The products shown on my page are among the many that are still available today.

So, this must be an active conspiracy! Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Ungrateful Bastard” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Who Woke Trek Up?

Brainiac On Banjo: Who Woke Trek Up?

Posted on by Mike Gold

The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime. You shuffle in the gloom of the sick room and talk to yourself as you die.” From Free Four, written by Roger Waters.

“Woke, woke, woke. WOKE, woke, woke, WOKE, WOKE!”

The death chant of the Trumpaloon.

There’s a very loud gaggle of incels out there on the internet who truly loathe nearly all of Paramount’s steaming Star Trek programs. Most of them seem to have two things in common. First, the new shows reject canon. Second, the new shows are horribly, horribly woke.

OK. If they saw the shows, they are entitled to their opinion. I must state for the record: the phrase “I’m entitled to my opinion” is complete bullshit. You are only entitled to an informed opinion. I can’t simply accuse you of being, say, a pederast without something to back it up. Babbling like a crazy, stupid fool remains the sole providence of our current President.

Having labored in the comic book fields for a half-century, I can state from experience that “canon” and “continuity” must be a bit fluid. There is dissension between well-versed experts on a great many issues. You could not remake Star Trek TOS today with those 1960s cardboard sets, the characterizations, and the other limits of that time. So I don’t give a damn about canonical feuds.

However, as for being “woke,” what ever the fuck that is, well, Star Trek always has been woke. TOS was so woke if they changed the Klingons name to “LBJ” they would have been The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Peace, understanding, dedication to science and to not interfering with (most) unique cultures today would get you kicked out of your Proud Boys unit. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Who Woke Trek Up?” →

Brainiac On Banjo: “I’m An Old Man!!!”

Brainiac On Banjo: “I’m An Old Man!!!”

Posted on by Mike Gold

Mr. America, walk on by your schools that do not teach. Mr. America, walk on by the minds that won’t be reached. Mr. America try to hide the emptiness that’s you inside. But once you find that the way you lied and all the corny tricks you tried will not forestall the rising tide of hungry freaks, daddy! “Hungry Freaks Daddy” written by Frank Zappa

I have led a charmed life. Seeing old friends pop up unexpectedly on television (et al) happens with some frequency, and that’s really cool.

For example, a week ago Saturday, I awoke to the sight of comics and s-f retailer Greg Ketter on MS Now’s Ali Velshi program, perceived as left-wing by those who are too insecure to think for themselves and are cool with the recent murders of Minneapolis citizens. What I’ve seen on his show is truth.

I first met Greg some four decades ago at various midwestern conventions. Even well after I moved out East and degenerated in age and attitude, at the very least, I would go to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, a swell weekender where a couple hundred old fogies would gather to drool over the great stuff imposed upon the remains of slaughtered flora. Given the likelihood that I was the second youngest person at the show, I thought better of going into that small, ill-conditioned dealers room during Covid.

I said “second youngest.” Greg Ketter is a couple years younger than me. After bloviating with a bevy of friends like George Hagenauer, Anthony Tollin, and Jim Engel, I’d make a beeline to Greg’s table. I enjoy talking with him immensely, but I enjoy gawking at his wares all the more. It is a sea of wonderful science fantasy books, astonishing fantasy art tomes, and strange and heretofore unknown publications. I always had so much fun that when I would be short on funds I never even considered boosting a few items. This fanboy can offer a retailer no higher praise.

Greg runs DreamHaven Books, an amazing bookstore in Minneapolis that handles his stock in trade, including comic books. He’s been at it since, I believe, 1979 — I had been to his store a couple times, but I believe it was in a different location.

No doubt you noted the words Velshi, Minnesota and murder, and you know exactly where I am heading.

DreamHaven Books is very close to the site where George Floyd was murdered, and the subsequent demonstrations caused some damage to the store; damage from which Greg fully recovered. Things were a little tense in town, as eleven people were killed by police between 2010 and the fatal Floyd knee drop. Since Minneapolis is perceived as the starting point for the Black Lives Matter movement, I guess Trump and his fellow fascists think less of the town, as evidenced by their recent activities.

After the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, Greg decided to join his fellow citizens in a show of anger that continues to be exhibited today. Ketter is 71 years old, a time when a many of us tend to look like hippies, and he was quoted as saying he was just an old man who had had enough. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: “I’m An Old Man!!!”” →

So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man 104: Bobby Drake Needs to Change His Name

So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man 104: Bobby Drake Needs to Change His Name

Posted on by Marc Alan Fishman

I badly wanted to write about pop culture this week. I have loads of hot takes on things like Absolute Batman, the newest album from Robbie Williams, my current (always behind the times) obsessions, Only Murders in the Building, and Welcome to Wrexham — and any number of other gripes and japes around all things in the zeitgeist.

Alex Pretti – ICU Nurse killed in the streets in Minneaoplis on 1/23/26

But you already know what happened on Saturday, January 24th in Minneapolis. The same thing also happened on January 7th. Same city. Same reason. I could fill my entire column with my outrage. But that won’t bring back the dead. It won’t remove ICE from Minneapolis. It very likely wouldn’t change a single person’s opinion — which these days is already immovable as Fred Dukes. You pick your side, and you bend rationality like Wanda Maximoff… until it suits the team whose colors you brandish.

Sadly, we live in a time where our published opinions can come back to haunt our professional lives. Never mind your station, if the powers that be should ever hear one peep from someone pointing their finger at your shared ire, that can become grounds for dismissal. It’s why multiple friends of mine working in education have stifled themselves — due in part to being made to sign documents at the top of the school year that prevents them from oversharing on social media. Seriously. Luckily for me? I’m merely a pixel pusher in an unrelated business, and am near certain not a single one of my coworkers reads a word I write unless it’s on Slack… denoting to them their project is ready for review. Consider this my rolling of the dice. But I digress.

Like many in my social circles… I’m past the stage where I’m joking when I consider the very real possibility of things like World War 3, or Civil War 2. I’ll admit I clicked on more than a few ads about emigrating to a Tim Hortons until the current administration takes their last unnecessary aspirin. Sad when a double-double, maple bar, or brain aneurysm are my current pipe dreams, eh? Were my family and best friends not here in the states, I would be a bit more zealous on Zillow.  Continue reading “So Long and Thank For The Fish, Man 104: Bobby Drake Needs to Change His Name” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Snow Job Day

Brainiac On Banjo: Snow Job Day

Posted on by Mike Gold

“Do you really enjoy living a life that’s so hateful? ‘Cause there’s a hole where your soul is should be. You’re losing control a bit, and it’s really distasteful. Fuck you. Fuck you very, very much. ‘Cause we hate what you do and we hate your whole crew.” From Fuck You, written by Lily Allen and Greg Kurstin.

All this snow on the ground — it’s still falling, as of this writing — should promote relaxing inactivity. I’d bet my last dollar my pal Bob Harrison is reading a ton of comics, and I hope to watch the last part of Judd Apatow’s wonderful documentary on Mel Brooks. But, given our current realities I’m finding it very hard to maintain focus on entertainment.

It’s not just that I’m pissed at the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good and the kidnapping and deportation of hundreds of human beings that are here legally, including many United States citizens. It’s not that the United States government has deployed thousands of masked armed storm troopers to purge our cities of non-white people, although I guess the murders are a nod to the United States government’s use of lethal methods to achieve some sort of equal opportunity. All that is horrible enough. More than horrible enough.

It is the gall of these monsters to assassinate the characters of their victims, both dead and alive-but-disappeared. Every brown and black person, according to our federally funded murderers, is labeled a child rapist and a drug smuggler and a person of infinite violence who must be removed from America under any circumstances, as well as those hundreds of thousands who are pissed at these lethal efforts and are willing to stand in a foot of snow in temperatures well below zero to protest and document our government’s walking concentration camps and the ill-dressed SS thugs who love their jobs so much. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Snow Job Day” →

Brainiac On Banjo: May Auld Annoyances Be Distraught

Brainiac On Banjo: May Auld Annoyances Be Distraught

Posted on by Mike Gold

“I get a sound of thunder, it’s like a heavy gong. I hear a storm warning on every tongue made of silver, every heel made of high, every dress made of tight, every look, every sigh.” From Dose of You, written by Nick Lowe.

Hey, Happy New Year! And while I’m at it, can you do me a favor?

Please do not say “2026 can’t be any worse than 2025.” Last year really sucked, but please don’t even think it can’t get any worse. I fully trust the Lords and Ladies of Irony to do their job, and regardless of your native tongue they speak pure sarcasm.

January 1st was just the way I wanted to start the new year. It was a bright and sunny day, a bit chilly by local standards and few people were on the road. I sailed through my trip to the supermarket and I drove home with the news President Trump’s doctors told him to cut back on the aspirin. He refused, saying “I want nice, thin blood.”

I couldn’t ask for a better way to start the year. And I hope Del Close will forgive me, but… yes, but…

It’s going to take a shitload of stamina to make it through 2026.

Leading this nation into hell is a comic book villain with blatantly obvious mental, emotional, behavioral, and developmental disorders. A habitual liar, a rapist, a person who by his own words protects people who rape children. A man who is so xenophobic he wants to deport everybody who isn’t a white Anglo-Saxon, including American citizens. He rips children from their families, and in all too many cases these families never see their children again.

I wonder. What happened to those kids? We know some are no longer alive. How did they die?

Trump is very pissed that Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize, and he didn’t. That’s not even his most jejune stance. He ripped down a large chunk of our White House to build a throne room that cannot be finished in his lifetime, a mausoleum in his own “honor.”

But, then again, his illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, kidnapping its dictator, and then declaring that he now runs Venezuela makes him a conqueror — perhaps Putin has dibs on Poland. But FIFA’s gonna have to schedule another game if Trump wants a second “peace prize.”

It’s become so bad that its getting through to a few MAGAts. Not many in Washington except (now) former Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who came out against Trump for failure to advance her Christian Nationalist agenda. To be fair, she. almost alone among her peers, seems upset about all that pederasty stuff. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: May Auld Annoyances Be Distraught” →

Brainiac On Banjo: “We’re Just Going To Kill People”

Brainiac On Banjo: “We’re Just Going To Kill People”

Posted on by Mike Gold

“I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.” — Donald J. Trump, president, United States of America, October 23, 2025.

Photo: Chicago Sun-Times

How many of us thought the primary cause of global warming would be the President of the United States setting the world on fire?

Yeah, this week’s blather is going to be a bit personal. As you may know, I’m a proud and vocal Chicagoan. I am reminded of what we used to say back in the 1960s. Chicken Little was right.

I grew up in a neighborhood called Albany Park, on my city’s mid-northwest side. Like most Chicago neighborhoods, its character and personality evolved with the various ethnicities who lived there each generation. It was largely Ashkenazi-American when I was a kid, and as my group moved to other neighborhoods over time their apartments were rented by Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Arab-Americans, and all kinds of folks who marked their turf by establishing amazing restaurants. That’s why Chicago had such an amazing public transportation system.

Earlier this month, Trump’s Troopers invaded Albany Park as well as several other neighborhoods as they sought out anybody who looked or acted the least bit Latino. They tear-gassed people, beat them, and arrested them regardless of their citizenship or its status or any evidence — let alone indictments — of criminal behavior. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: “We’re Just Going To Kill People”” →