[0775] Assemblywomen
└ posted on Thursday, 7 April 2016, by Novil
- David: Honey, get a load of this! In the play Ecclesiazusae by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes, women institute a communist regime. They are portrayed as lazy, sex-crazed drunkards who make their husbands’ lives into a living hell.
- Ye Thuza: U-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e!
- David: Allegedly, it was his most popular work since it portrayed views of women common at the time.
- Ye Thuza: Misogynistic pigs!
- David: It was common belief that even the most reputable women would eventually succumb to the temptations of a life of debauchery.
- Ye Thuza: That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard!
- David: You can say that again.
- Ye Thuza: Now get me another beer, sucker!
- David: Yes, honey.
![[0775] Assemblywomen](/comics/2016-04-07-0775-assemblywomen.png "[0775] Assemblywomen")
@ Person:
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’s wearing that shirt ironically. Also, as mentioned further up the comments section, it’d be hard to call the place she ran from anything but autocratic.
Andy Wong wrote:
Thanks for clarification. Will read up on him later. I don’t know about his ideology, leftist, centrist, whatever, but it looks like most people here seem surprised that Ye Thuza supports this fellow due to his somewhat socialist/left wing/pro government power whatever u call it, when she herself comes from an autocratic country with extreme abuse of power (not that so called democratic countries don’t have leaders who abuse power, just not so obvious).
Well, ex-refugee or not, she’s still entitled to her own opinion. I’m more concerned about the context of why she is drunk. This is first time we’ve seen her in such a state. The closest to an irrational Ye Thuza I’ve ever seen is either the Roundabout Arc, or when she kicked David to the couch for cheating at Half Life, both of which she had reasons.
Still, I think I’ll consider this strip a stepup from the damn zootopia strips.
As a parting thought, AUSTRALIANS ARE AWESOME! Speaking as one who studied in Australia as a foreign student. As far as my stereotype Australian are concerned, they’re gutsy with big brass ones for the men and women. Yet laid back and friendly. Then again, I’m influenced primarily by my uncle, whom my mum’s sister married, great guy.
Ye Thuza getting drunk while playing with herself…what will the neighbors think? Hope Cloud and Yuna don’t see her like this.
@ Pony-kour:
The last panel with her hand in her pants reminds me of Al Bundy from Married With Children.
@ Person:
Come on, be an adult. The word “socialist” predates Marxist regimes and Marx himself and includes people who reject dictatorships (Martin Gardner called himself a Socialist and criticized Marxist regimes while the USSR still existed). Sanders is a Socialist in the Western European tradition (like the French Socialists), a defender of the Welfare State and generous public services (you can dislike the Western European system all you want, but they are not “totalitarian” and certainly are more humane and fairer than, say, the “non-totalitarian” American South until the 60’s). Whatever it is oppressing Burma, it is not Western European-style Welfare State.
Xezlec wrote:
I think you pretty much nailed it. Though my impression is that the purpose behind the trolling is to get people to actually think. Not just mindlessly repeat slogans and “truths” they heard from the media, politicians or certain interest groups like a good little drone. But to actually read up on the stuff.
Person wrote:
For this to make no sense and you coming to those conclusions, your knowledge of socialism and what it compasses has to be very limited. No offense meant with that. I’m not saying you are stupid or anything because of it, nor am I implying anything of that sort. Just that you have some reading to do if you want to actually understand things.
Socialism is not something that automatically demands totalitarian regimes or planned, completely state controlled economy or anything like that. There are different philosophies and routes here, most with a whole lot of degrees to them. For example a law demanding that a full time job should earn a worker enough to feed, house and cloth him if he’s working hard at it is socialism. A rule that someone injured in an accident has the right on at least basic life saving treatments even if he can’t pay for them right away is socialism.
Remember guys, this is a comic. In the end, Novil is expressing his art which may or may not truly represent his true views even as he trolls certain real life stuff, like the recent Zootopia or Burmese oppression in the distant past. So let’s not go overboard reading too much into his comics and just enjoy his punch lines and fantastic artwork which has steadily improved since his very first strip.
Healthy discussion should be encouraged but lets not start flame wars just because we do not agree with each other, or think the other person’s knowledge is incomplete.
@ Lukkai:
That’s not necessarily what socialism means, it is socialism at it’s more ideal but not what it will entail, only an ‘can’ entail. Socialism is the redistribution of many or all things throughout a community, state or country. This can include wealth, property, work and responsibility. It is also described by Marxists as the transition from capitalism and into communism(though socialist believers would argue against that statement in the same regard conservatories would argue against being called racists and homophobic) , and one of the biggest flaws to a socialist ideal is that all should share in the wealth and that the wealthy should be forced to give most of what they own to the poor and downtrodden. This is actually more of a hindrance to a capitalist society, not the donating just the removal of their wealth to such a degree by force, and the main problem being is it won’t last very long if people do not excel in life and amass a wealth to redistribute.
If people are not rewarded for hard work or ingenuity then they will be less motivated to do so, this can lead to a stagnation of progress like was viewed in communist Russia and it’s horrible agricultural system during WW2, one thing that can also be viewed is a more controlling and regulatory over the people (like the country she fled from) and all of this in a system that promises to give so many things to the people will break as they are not able to afford all of it especially in a country more then 19 trillion dollars in debt for paying for all the things our country is providing for others already. Capitalism is more akin to Darwinism in that progress is less sympathetic to all cases and less impeded except to prevent company’s or individuals from owning a vast majority or a monopoly on one specific aspect of the market(Apple should defiantly be broken up by said law, but their lawyers argue against that) and offers less control over people and more pruning businesses that are more departmental to individual growth. This does mean that company’s can run more wild then in socialism, but if they do such things and if there is a business that treats it’s employee’s better then they will have the choice to go there and hurting the company and possibly ruining it. There ways this can be abused but our country has gradually gotten some socialist policies in the oddest places, like bailing out company’s contradictory to capitalism and yet people still seem to think America is wholly capitalist and arguing that is why it has failed.
Ultimately Capitalism, when allowed on it’s own, allowed America to prosper for a good deal of time where other countries wanted to take more of their own wealth with more regulations and taxes. The problems contradicting capitalism now are forcing companies to pay large taxes for exporting out of the country and almost none for exporting into the country(free trade that isn’t free) and forcing companies to make companies outside this country and take jobs away from this country thus making more people dependent of socialist promises that will not last long with a flourishing economy.
TLDR?
Socialism only works as long as there are people to redistribute their wealth and Charles Darwin approves of Capitalism.
I am really confused on what this comic is trying to say.
@ The14th:
The14th wrote:
You and me both, but to be honest this comment section is worth it.
Even the brightest woman fall…..
@ ThatGuy:
Capitalism and socialism are opposites, and each can be taken too far. Just like Socialism can be taken too far and cause horrible hardships, so too can Capitalism. Remember, much of America’s early greatness was seizing Native American lands and numerous forms of slavery, from African slaves kept in literal chains, to Irish slaves kept in economic chains. Monopolies, lack of labor laws, and no standardization… that’s unrestrained capitalism where only a tiny few can enjoy the labors regardless of their abilities.
Bernie Sanders refers to himself as a Democratic Socialist, a philosophy that strives to find a balance between the two. To call him a simple Socialist is incorrect and ignorant. Similarly to refer to him as a Communist or Marxist is also completely wrong.
So do yourself a favor and do what you should be doing with everything else. Forget the propaganda and educate yourself on the facts. Then, and only then, can you intelligently debate on the topic.
@ Person:
There’s multiple levels of socialism; many European countries had “socialists” governments of the type Bernie is advocating for, and are still considered democratic and free countries.
You should have more faith in your country, and not believe that having Bernie Sanders as president would turn it into a Burma-style authoritarian communist dictatorship ^^
@ Anya Moore:
Very nicely put.
Also why would anyone support trump a vocal idiot whos supporters constantly do stupid shit, vilify Mexicans and Muslims.
oh and PS lets not forget that a ex-Nixon staffer came out and said that the war on drugs was to vilify blacks, and hippies his most vocal opposition thanks republicans.
Gee what does that remind ya of, lets pick a group and Vilify them blame all the “problems” on them.
Crude joke but hey, Penny Arcade has been getting by on penis jokes for the last decade or so.
AlexHalstead wrote:
To be fair sex is the bonobo’s answer to everything
AdamNewTA wrote:
Izek Miller wrote:
You are reading too much into this. It is much more simple: She is throwing a beer can and wearing a “Bernie” T-shirt because she is a “sex crazed dunkard” female that “succumbs to the temptation of a life in debauchery”.
I am sure another strip will follow where a character wears a pro Trump t-shirt that will convey a similar message.
See, I see this and think “Hm…Is Ye Thuza left handed?”
Pax wrote:
It’s more like she drops the can on him.
Sarusig wrote:
Or German …
@ nicktyrong:
Most of the world’s political language is messed up. Right wing originally meant royalist, and left wing meant everything but. In the modern US, the right wing is a fractious mishmash of people who want to preserve individual liberty, evangelicals, and big business types while our left-wing is for replacing the Federal system with a top-down centrally-directed system in the name of taking care of people. It’s practically reversed.
Europe’s is even worse. Since their governments don’t do shared powers the way ours does, they lack the individual vs. state dimension, and left wing and right wing only serve as markers of globalism versus nationalism.
@ Anya Moore:
The failure point of Socialism and Communism is the same failure point of Fascism: Planned economics, or the idea that a small elite can manage the economy more efficiently than the “invisible hand” of spontaneous human interactions. This idea has been tested time and time again, and has failed miserably every time and produced mass graves like nothing else in human history. More people died as the victims of Communist and Socialist regimes in the last century than in all major religious wars in human history.
I know modern society isn’t fair, but we’re not living in a free market system right now, and that’s a big part of why. Our level of regulation and government economic “management” is a thing straight out of Mussolini’s writings. When politicians and the biggest businesses work together to rig the system in their favor and hedge out competition, that’s Fascism. In a normal free market system, these big businesses everyone hates would have dozens of small competitors, and it’d resemble a cow in a piranha tank. By stacking the regulations and other laws in their favor, they’ve given themselves a structural advantage that shouldn’t exist.
@ Anya Moore:
I don’t recall referring to Bernie Sanders as a socialist in these comments, nor calling him a Communist or Marxist.
You appear to have made a connection to what I was describing about socialism to Bernie Sanders and then made an emotional response of attempting to declare that my words have no credibility in order to discredit what I typed here by saying I cannot participate in an ‘intelligent debate’.
Much like any accusation brought up against anyone I would like to believe there would be evidence presented to support accusations about someone.
And as for history I can only reply that mankind has a history of doing bad things to people who didn’t deserve it, it happens all over the world. All we can really do is try to learn from it so we don’t repeat it and stop it when we see sign’s of it popping up again, but one of the biggest names I would recommend looking into to draw comparisons to current problems our country is facing would be Mao Tse-tung and his Red Guard for a look into how extremist socialism can end up.
ThatGuy wrote:
The point is not that socialists killed many people or incited wars. The point is that despite their history, they still constantly acccuse *others* of wars and racism :O It simply doesn’t fit together: Their ideology created the worst warmongers, the worst dictators, the worst racists – and they still roam the streets holding demonstrations against war and racism – of others :O
I mean, if they would just say “sorry” for Mao & then try to come up with a better type of “socialism” I would even constructively discuss that. But all I ever hear from them is accusations that others are much worse then them. They have no idea whatsoever how to create a better society, they just blame all the time liberalism or nationalism, even for their own faults.
@ Thiago Ribeiro:
I am not saying that he is a totalitarian, nor am I saying that in real life, if Bernie Sanders is president that the country will become a totalitarian state, I am just saying that Ye Thuza wouldn’t support such a candidate on the basis that welfare states have often been hugely abused in the past to eventually end up as systems that greatly benefit those that are in charge instead of the people that it is supposed to be supporting. It just seems out of character for her. Soviet Russia never actually followed Marxist beliefs, they just used it as a guise to get more power over the people (some leaders of course did try to reform it to be an system of Communism that actually did support the people, but that did not usually have lasting effects.)
I understand that the oppression in Burma was not caused by some election like this, but I am saying that Ye Thuza would be distrusting in a man that wants a much stronger central government. That does not seem like something she would support, no matter the reason behind it.
AdamNewTA wrote:
You know he’s not going to give you free beer, right?
@ Half-Life Zim:
Yeah, how about we pick the group that’s been in charge of the country for the last decade, and fully in charge of cities like Flint, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and East St Louis since the last 60’s, and blame them for what they have done. Hint: it’s not republicans.
Incoming butthurt Bernie voters
@ Arent:
I don’t see why an American Socialist should apologize for what Asian Socialists did. It’s not like they’re an hive-mind. If someone abused the ideology to gain power and oppress others, that doesn’t invalidate the ideology as a whole.
Furthermore, many Socialists/Communists nowadays would agree these so-called “Republics of People” or whatever hardly represent how a Socialist/Communist country would be run, except from an economic point of view. European/American Socialism is about welfare, rather than a small elite making all the decisions. Heck, the fact these left-wing dictatorships are all led by small elites is enough evidence to claim they’re not really socialists/Communists (dictatorship of the proletariat, anybody?).
Silly Name wrote:
Nope, if your ideology has produced so much bloodshed, you are not anymore entitled to point a finger and call other people warmongers or racists, especially if their only “fault” is that they are anti immigration or pro guns. They can call you a warmonger and a racist.
Ideologies/religions define groups of people and usually also aggression against other groups of people. In the case of socialism it social groups, for example “the poor” and “the rich”. And of course socialists do not care whether the “rich” obtained their riches through hard work (Aka true, actual “working class”) or fraud. In fact, if you listen closely, you notice that being rich itself is a fault, no matter how it was gained.
In fact, I would argue socialist parties or media in western Europe are not “social” or “socialist” at all. Being “social” means that one honors the work of people and what people do for the whole of a society. Being “social” would mean to honor soldiers that sacrifice their life for a society, honoring the true, actual “working class”, regardless of how “rich” they are, and asking whether the “poor” are the victims of circumstances and therefore deserve help – or simply did not want to learn in school, to contribute to society or to work. Which means, “welfare” and “help” for such people would be *exploitation* of the working class.
@ Arent:
Point 1: That’s a fallacy. My moral standing doesn’t invalidate my opinions (if a mob boss told you rape is wrong, you wouldn’t say he’s wrong just because he’s a mob boss).
Also, again, what other people that loosely fit in my group did is not my fault. If my classmates killed somebody, and I clearly stated that I think what they did is wrong, are you going to call me a killer too?
If a Socialist clearly says “I do not agree with what was done in the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, and any other so-called ‘communist’ country”, are you going to blame him for what happened in these countries? The fact Stalin, Mao and everybody else twisted the ideology in something that has nothing in common with communism but the name doesn’t invalidate communism as a whole. You’re free to tell me you don’t agree with communism/socialism, but your logic can’t be “because people used it to do bad things”. Practically everything has been used as a pretext to do horrible things, from religion to politics, from science to nationalism, from philosophy to gender.
Should I tell every Christian I meet to apologise for witch trials et all before they tell me their opinions on a subject? Should I ask every white man or woman to apologise for racism, even if they aren’t racist and can in no way be connected to racism or racist people? Should I ask every male to apologise for misogyny? Every straight person for homophobia? That logic leads to all opinions being invalidated.
Also, socialism/communism doesn’t (or shouldn’t) hate on the rich, but rather be against any class distinction. It matters not if you’re rich, poor, or middle-class: the end goal of socialism is to abolish all classes, not a specific one. Engels, Marx’s best buddy, came from an actually well-off family: he still agreed 100% with Marx, they were close friends and collaborators, and Engels did his best to apply Marx’s theories in the factories he owned.
The only moment a socialist should call out rich people is when they use their richness to oppress the lower class further. A rich man who earns his money through hard work and honest means, and helps those in need, and doesn’t put himself above the lower classes can go along perfectly well with a socialist. Same goes for soldiers: I am a pacifist. That doesn’t mean I hate soldiers: I hate to people who declare war (and who never go on the battlefield) and send those soldiers to slaughter.
Also, the dictionary definition of working class is “the class of people who work for wages usually at manual labor”. So, no, while a business manager can work hard and earn his pay-check, he is NOT working class.
@ Random:
Planned economics have pretty much proven to not work. Regardless where and by whom they were implemented.
That being said, a completely free market without any regulations, where it has been tried, lead to a very few (that went in being rich from the start usually) profit immensely. A small group in technical and supervising positions having a decent life. A portion of the population working as farmers. And the vast majority being a huge lump of exploited and often oppressed working slaves.
The problem with “if their competition offers better work conditions, people will just quit and go there” is, that with the big companies, not enough competition will actually do so to turn it into a problem. For it to work, it would need mostly empathic, generous and unselfish, altruistic people in the lead of those companies. But it usually goes big way towards the opposite. The reality of big business is actively fostering people who are neither unselfish nor empathic. And only altruistic and generous with money they earned by shortchanging the majority of their workforce.
If past experience has told us anything, then that both free capitalism and communism are myths. That might sound good in theory, but don’t work in practice. A decent system for real life has to be found somewhere in between.
Silly Name wrote:
Arent wrote:
He didn’t say it invalidated your opinion, just that if you deny or ignore what the worst on that same ideology have caused while accusing those of different political or moral ideology it would be very bad for your credibility. I’d also say cite your sources, but I think that’s something that most anyone should do to help prove a point with or without good credibility.
@ ThatGuy:
Well, he did say this:
Which is basically saying that because people abused the flag of socialism in their powergames in the past, socialist are to be disdained and not allowed to point out other people’s faults anymore.
Of course you name any kind of ideology and chances are high that we’ll find at least one war started over it (or it being used as an excuse for starting one) within fifteen minutes. Which means the above quoted statement would invalidate the opinions of just about everyone. It’s thus pretty obviously utter bullshit.
@ Lukkai:
Am I correcting someone over a reply where I corrected someone?
“Nope, if your ideology has produced so much bloodshed, you are not anymore entitled to point a finger and call other people warmongers or racists”
I’m pretty sure given the -Context and the way the Words are arranged- are possibly meant to convey information. I believe it is safe to assume the intention was not to stop all forms of debate or disagreement but instead to say that they can’t just make random accusations of horrible and severe things without any proof, especially with a ‘holier then thou’ attitude. Given how common that is nowadays I think that it is a safe bet that was the intention.
Especially since it’s commonly directed at right-wingers and doubly especially Trump supporters, you know I really should quote something I said to someone after Obama was first elected.
“Has he destroyed the country yet?” Reply-No
“Has he saved the country yet?” Reply-No
“Can you see the future?” Reply-No
“Can I see the future?” Reply-No
“Then I guess if we can’t confirm or deny then all we can do is speculate and critique during and after” Reply-Yeah.
For the record I believe that Trump is the best bet and I also believe there are a lot of people who support him and won’t show it outside a voting booth for fear for what others might say or do to them, which might explain his success and why he is successful.
If I ever get my hands on a Bernie t-shirt, I’m so doing this.
I’m not sure my girlfriend would appreciate the reference, though.
What the hell has been going on in this comment thread?
From an European viewpoint, Bernie is pretty much a centrist, no matter how he calls himself a socialist.
Ye Thuza is logically a supporter of Bernie, as Rand Paul is no longer relevant, so the whole spectrum of anti-authoritarian ideologists have Bernie as the guy closest to them in political views. Reminder: everybody else, no matter Democrat, Republican, or Trump, advocates for a more totalitarian government. The details differ, of course, Trump at least does not advocate for foreign interventions, but the common threads of internet censorship, more policing and more focus on safety over freedom are there. Compare this with Bernie’s policies. Frankly, it’s only in the minds of some Americans that “socialism” is identified with “totalitarian government”.
For me, this goes a step more, making a joke with the fact that communists in the beginning of the last century generally considered themselves to be freedom fighters, trying to bring down a perceived tyranny. This “trying” included stuff like one of the bloodiest terrorist acts in history – at least before the towers – whose anniversary was ironically yesterday. So, take Ye Thuza, and make her a Bernie supporter just so that you can remind us of these criminals swimming in blood, and how we live in a much better world, where people view a centrist like Bernie as the most radically left thing to have ever turned up on the American political scene.
I haven’t even touched yet the communism = feminism thing in this page, mind you. It’s hilarious by itself.
Now, stop reading if you don’t care for my word vomit on topics unrelated to the comics.
Never assign blame to a whole collective of people. “The socialists” are not at fault for anything. Neither are “the nationalists”, for that matter. There are certain individuals with bad ideas. Examine while these bad ideas find receptive audience, and do something about the problems making the audience think these bad ideas aren’t so bad, but do not blame the whole collective, go only after specific ideas and individuals. And no, socialism is not specific enough, attack specific ideas that you perceive as ingrained in socialism.
By the way, try also not to call Trump supporters racist or sexist or whatever. These people have their legitimate issues, and are nearly forgotten by the ruling class of the country, they just choose an authoritarian candidate to support. I understand how Trump looks like a good idea on the background of feminism, but I don’t really understand how people don’t manage to mentally separate themselves from this background and decide whether Trump standalone is a good idea. I mean, even if they do consider feminism a bad idea (with some reason for it), they shouldn’t just replace one bad idea with another bad idea.
The main issue with Socialism is that it’s so much easier to become a totalitarian system than one framed on individual liberty. Even if the founders of said Socialist ideology have nothing but pure intent and high moral fiber, they will eventually be replaced by someone who will have the power without any of the needed ethics to keep them from abusing it.
Remember that the Nazi state began as a democratically elected National Socialist party… one billed to resolve the issues the German working class were facing after World War I. (the party’s platform called for mandatory profit sharing and old-age pensions, state sponsored higher education, women’s health care centers, elimination of child labor, and the death penalty for anyone convicted of war or industrial profiteering… all under one guiding principal, “Common good before individual good”)
Once the State has the power to “get things done” without strict limits on their authority, what can stop those same officials from abusing the power for their own gain? Socialist systems are simply too easy to become corrupt by their nature of centralizing authority in the State rather than the individual. The authority to take wealth by force of law without restriction consumes until there is nothing left. The theft of wealth is one of the worst crimes a State can commit because it not only discourages success it is virtual slavery of those it pretends to protect the most. Money is nothing but a representation of labor, which is a little piece of life of the person who earned it. Thus, when the State confiscates people’s money, what they’re really doing is stealing a bit of that person’s life… i.e. institutional slavery.
TLDR: The opposite of Socialism isn’t Capitalism, it’s Individualism. Socialism is too easy to corrupt to be trusted in the hands of corruptible human beings. Confiscatory taxes are equal to slavery of those with the least to give.
But that’s just my opinion. YMMV. 😉
well mad respects for David tho, must love her down fo core to accept her with all this XD