He-Man: I Have the Powerrrrrrr … to Apologize

The Prince of Eternia Promised Transformation ... With a Dash of Body Dysmorphia

by Justin Kolber / September 28th, 2024

To all the five-year-old children from 1983-1987: I apologize. You thought I was a futuristic barbarian from the Eternian Tribe and that together we were fighting for justice and adventure? I was a marketing ploy for C-Suite brand managers.

Sure, Mattel already had Barbie, but after the colossal success of the Star Wars action figure lines, they demanded to reverse engineer a boy’s toy. As the Masters of the Focus Group, my catchphrase was meticulously crafted. The most commonly argued-over word of little boys? Power. “No, I have the power!” “No, it’s my power.” My cartoon show He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was created solely to sell the toys. And by Grayskull, I did it—becoming one of the highest-grossing pieces of articulated plastic of my decade, at a record peak of $400 million dollars in 1986.

If I had known 30 years later that millions of men would suffer muscle dysmorphia and eating disorders, I would have at least offered to chip in for insurance coverage. Look, it was the steroidal boom of the 1980s, and shrink-wrapped male torsos were selling all kinds of products like vacuum cleaners and Diet Coke. How was I to know that consuming thousands of images of dehydrated muscles would influence impressionable five-year-olds? To all you men who are cutting carbs to maintain your six-pack, then binging on Funfetti Oreo’s, I owe you an apology.

I promised you transformation—from a whiny privileged punk into a proud humble warrior. Except I didn’t really transform. As Prince Adam I clearly had bulging muscles underneath my skin-hugging shirt. So why did I act so cowardly? Even my voice and haircut stayed the same. The only thing that happened when I raised the glowing Sword of Eternia? Some lightning bolts popped my shirt off. That was it. Everything else was the same. You know what I really should have done with the Power Sword? Cut those bangs.

To those little striplings who now do angry, heavy skull-crushers at the YMCA at 9 p.m. on a Friday night thinking they are sculpting their triceps, bettering themselves, transforming themselves—yeah, that was my bad. I created a generation of ruthless shirt poppers that now includes presidential candidates. You were all chasing my Coridite Crystal curated body—but you know that study that if Barbie were a real human, she’d collapse after six steps due to a waist that couldn’t support a liver or bones? Well, if my ultra-muscularity and near zero bodyfat were also real, you’d be constantly cold, tired, hungry, sick, unmotivated, asexual, depressed, and far too weak to go fifteen rounds with Skeletor (because the kind of low lipids [under 5%] associated with peak bodybuilding shape, if prolonged, results in brittle bones and muscle breakdown). Then again, don’t listen to me. Without a normal range of bodyfat (at least 6-11% for elite athletes, or 15-20% for average healthy males), I’m in a perpetual brain fog. Why am I suddenly scaling Snake Mountain right now?

And yes, even Cringer, my fearful feline was forced into my machishmo scam-a-cadabra, becoming Battle-Cat in a fit of ripped mas-cat-linity. So I guess I should apologize to your pets. I assume they too run on a treadmill at the highest incline to work off the two dozen Auntie Anne’s pretzels they binged all night?

For my crimes against traditional masculinity, I offer to throw myself into the Sea of Eternia. Or at least put a shirt on and eat some bread.FacebookTwitter

RedditEmail

Justi Kolber, a practicing lawyer in Vermont, is a recovered ripped dude, an athlete, activist, and author of Ripped, the first memoir about the dual extremes of muscle and food disorders. Read other articles by Justin.

 UPDATE

India’s Indigenous Peoples Rise up against Evictions from Tiger Reserves

by Survival International / September 28th, 2024

Adivasis facing eviction from Nagarhole Tiger Reserve protest at the park’s entrance. ©Survival

Adivasi (Indigenous) people have organized mass protests across India to denounce forced evictions from their forests to make way for tiger reserves.

Thousands of people facing eviction from their villages, and some already evicted, joined the protests last week and this week at several of the country’s most famous tiger reserves – including Nagarhole, Udanti-Sitanadi, Kaziranga, Rajaji, and Indravati. Many more protests are planned.

The director of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) sparked outrage among Indigenous communities in July when letters published after a Right to Information request revealed that he had written to Chief Wildlife Wardens in 19 states urging them to evict more Adivasis from tiger reserves.

Almost 700 Adivasi people from 25 villages protested at the entrance gates of Nagarhole in Karnataka state, one of India’s best-known tiger reserves. Close to 400,000 Adivasis face eviction from tiger reserves across India.

Thousands of Adivasis from India’s tiger reserves are protesting. Close to 400,000 are living under the threat of eviction. ©Survival

Leading Adivasi activist JK Thimma said at the protest: “​​Declaration of tiger reserves on our lands is a violation of the law as our people neither consented to it nor were consulted in the process. Today they have put up signs on our lands declaring them national parks and tiger reserves. NTCA is a trespasser on our lands. This violation of Indigenous rights must immediately stop and the conservationist cartels (including NGOs like WWF, WCS & WTI) who are involved in doing this must be punished according to the law.”

The lives of hundreds of thousands of Adivasis in Indian tiger reserves are being destroyed in the name of tiger conservation. The Indian government is illegally evicting them from the land where they have always lived, land which they have always protected.

The big conservation organizations such as WWF and WCS never speak out against the evictions, and claim that “relocations” of tribal people are “voluntary.” But the “relocations” are almost always, in fact, forced evictions.

These Khadia men were thrown off their land after it was turned into a Protected Area. They lived for months under plastic sheets. ©Survival

Survival International’s Director Caroline Pearce said today: “The Indian authorities seem hellbent on sticking with a totally outdated and discredited colonial model of conservation, one still backed by the likes of WWF and WCS, which views Indigenous peoples as trespassers on their own lands, and brutally evicts them.

“There’s a deep-seated racism at work here – the government and conservation organizations view the Adivasis as second-class citizens at best.

“These evictions are unlawful according to both national and international law, and don’t work – the forest, the Indigenous people and the tigers can’t survive without one another. Conservation organizations and tour operators are complicit in this scandal – once the people have been cleared out of their ancestral forests, tiger reserve tourism is big business.”

Survival International, founded in 1969 after an article by Norman Lewis in the UK's Sunday Times highlighted the massacres, land thefts and genocide taking place in Brazilian Amazonia, is the only international organization supporting tribal peoples worldwide. Contact Survival International at: info@survival-international.org. Read other articles by Survival International, or visit Survival International's website.

The Tyger

1794

By William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat.

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp.

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Copyright Credit: Blake, William. "The Tyger." ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Songs of Experience. ​​​​​​​Facsimile reproduction of the 1794 illuminated manuscript, published by The William Blake Trust and the Tate Gallery, 2009, in ​​​​​​​William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books.

 

AIPAC’s War on Democracy

Joint Statement from Veterans For Peace and Move to Amend

by Veterans for Peace / September 28th, 2024

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has produced increasing calls for an immediate ceasefire, while a pro-Israel, U.S.-based group has waged an increasing war on democracy with little public scrutiny and no end in sight.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most politically and electorally influential groups in this country. They have bombarded our “democratic” system spending over $100 million just in 2024 to punish opponents of Israeli policies, including the military assault on Gaza that’s claimed over 40,000 deaths and displaced 2.3 million people.

Our democracy has always been incomplete at best, but peoples’ movements have won voting and political rights for those without property, people of color, women and young people.

But the political and electoral influence of the super rich and their corporations, including non-profit ones like AIPAC, frustrate and preempt We the People who try to have human needs addressed.

AIPAC lobbies for U.S. support of Israel. Its related entities include a regular Political Action Committee (AIPAC PAC), and a Super PAC, (United Democracy Project, UDP).

Regular PACs are limited to contributing $3,300 per candidate per election. Super PACs can spend unlimited sums on elections, but must be spent “independently” from any candidate or candidate campaign.

AIPAC has spent $19.6 million for lobbying in the 2023-24 election cycle (through July, 2024). The AIPAC PAC has spent over $44.8 million while UDP has spent $55.4 million. AIPAC exceeded its 2024 goal to raise $100 million.

AIPAC entities threaten our elections and our limited democracy in multiple ways.

1. AIPAC’s PACs have spent millions of dollars supporting conservative Democratic challengers running against incumbent progressives in Congressional primaries, especially candidates of color – who are the strongest supporters of VFP’s calls to stop the war on Gaza and of Move to Amend’s We the People Amendment, HJR54 that will end the insane doctrines of corporate “personhood” and money is the same as speech. In the recent primaries, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, members of  the progressive “Squad,” were the latest victims and there will be more. UDP targeted $14.5 million to defeat Bowman in July and another $8.6 million to take down Bush in August. Bowman and Bush are HJR54 cosponsors and two of Congress’s most vocal critics of the Israeli war on Gaza.

2. Such massive corruption of elections includes paying for Congressional delegations to Israel and an army of lobbyists who peddle a peace and democracy narrative for Israel while pressing for massive arms shipments, including the recent U.S. decision to provide $20 billion more in weaponry. AIPAC lobbyists are joined by U.S. weapons makers as a “force multiplier” with no Palestinian counterweight. The Arab American PAC spent $36,200 in the 2021-22 election cycle and 0 in the 2023-24 cycle.

3. AIPAC-entity donors include super rich Republicans, some of whom are billionaires, such as Paul Singer, who bankrolled a free luxury vacation trip for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and later had cases before the High Court.

AIPAC’s clear goal is to defeat every progressive Democrat it can this year. AIPAC also supports many Republican Congressional candidates, including many who voted against certifying the 2020 election. How exactly does all this further democracy?

4. The enormous sum of expected AIPAC spending, especially in the primaries, has been too much to overcome for many progressive incumbents. J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group that defended candidates against AIPAC in the 2022 primaries, can’t compete with AIPAC and has sat out the 2024 primaries. AIPAC often  doesn’t mention Israel in their targeted ads, but rather attacks incumbents on personal issues or on their progressive voting record.

It’s not just AIPAC that has invaded and is occupying our elections and democratic spaces. Corporate entities and the super rich have waged war on our elections and in Congress, causing injustices, mass violence and environmental carnage.

Simply passing laws calling for greater financial disclosure or campaign finance “reform” isn’t enough to end the war on democracy by AIPAC and other corporate entities.

Enacting the We the People Amendment to abolish the constitutional doctrines that “money equals speech” and “a corporation is a person” is essential to create authentic democracy and to reduce the military industrial complex drive for perpetual wars and occupations. The latter is not only applicable in elections, but across the board as corporate entities have hijacked multiple constitutional amendments permitting them to preempt democratic efforts to protect people. communities and the natural world.

AIPAC, like so many other corporate-funded groups, will no doubt continue its assault on the election process in 2026.

It’s ultimately up to us to go beyond merely resisting the violence and harm they cause, and take appropriate actions that can stop the corrupting, anti-democratic and violent impact of the super rich and their corporations that have captured  elections and public policy.FacebookTwitterReddit

Email

Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985 by military veterans opposed to the Reagan administration's war against the people of Central America. It includes men and women veterans of all eras and duty stations spanning the Spanish Civil War, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, other conflicts and periods in between. Read other articles by Veterans for Peace, or visit Veterans for Peace's website.

 

On Harris, Hawthorne, and Fears of Smart, Strong Women for Political Offices

by Barbara G. Ellis / September 28th, 2024

It was a shock to some of us progressives when Liz Cheney—once a rising, strong Republican star in the U.S. House—recently declared she was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president, and would campaign and spend millions on it in battleground states.

As Cheney put it after a speech at Duke University: “Those of us who believe in the defense of our democracy and the defense of our Constitution and the survival of our Republic have a duty in this election cycle to come together and to put those things above politics.”

But even more mind-blowing to us (and Democratic leaders) was that father Dick Cheney , president George W. Bush’s powerful, two-term vice president, supported her decision and also endorsed Harris. Trump, he said: “can never be trusted with power again.”

Moreover, the Cheneys’ endorsements say something far, far deeper about human relations in this fractious election crisis. It might lead to millions of men changing their minds about voting for a woman president—or any woman seeking public office. Smart and strong women have existed elsewhere in the world for centuries from Cleopatra and Golda Meir to former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Or most men believing a vice presidency doesn’t qualify Harris for the White House, despite predecessors like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. They, like Harris, were U.S. Senators and experienced on how the White House operates in handling foreign and domestic affairs great and small.

At the heart of male prejudice about strong and smart women’s competence for any political office seems to be the ancient cultural fear of being stripped of power by those perceived as inferiors.

Perhaps the only two times fear of such women dissipates and true equality begins is either at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or between proud fathers and those strong, smart daughters. For example, King Henry VIII and daughter Queen Elizabeth I and Pelosi’s father, Baltimore Mayor and House member Tommy D’Alesandro Jr., in wielding public power.  A true kinship of respect, political training, and love—and tough  decision-making—is the reality. It should overcome bias against women seeking public office.

Interestingly, Author Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America’s greatest authors (1804-1864) focused largely on this subject of foolish fears about strong and smart women.

Brought up in penury with two sisters by a young widowed mother, he knew economic and social chauvinism and trivialization of women firsthand, doled out by men of every class. He married an intellectual and emotional peer, and fathered two outspoken daughters. In college, he also appears to have studied the revolutionary ideas by Jean-Jacques Rousseau about equality at all levels.

Moreover, as the descendant of a harsh judge in the Salem witchcraft trials  of 1692-93, he probably would have agreed with author Virginia Woolf. She believed such women were hanged or set ablaze not for religious error, but because they threatened men’s desperate need to control other men, but, most of all, powerful and defiant women. Then, by labeling them witches. Today, it’s “bitches”.

To Hawthorne, such women were equal companions, not threats to men. He never viewed them as unimportant or as threatening Delilahs, but, rather, as men’s vital emotional, intellectual, and spiritual partners. As a writer, his mission seemed to be overcoming most men’s deep-rooted fears of the strong and smart. Yet to carry such a message in the literature of his day was a monumental undertaking.

He laid the fundamental cause at ending men’s monopoly on control and power. His novels and short stories were the first in this country to focus on the rigid second-class roles assigned women for life. Initially, he disguised this view in allegorical short stories. He finally threw that cloak aside with his 1844 masterpiece “Rappaccini’s Daughter” about the usual tragic result of male fears. The allegory was poison.

Rappaccini is a brilliant and famed botanist with an experimental garden of toxic plants tended by daughter Beatrice, now immune to their poisons and up for a university post in that field. She is spotted by Giovanni, an older student, from his boarding house balcony who is struck by her beauty as she feeds and waters the deadly garden. It becomes love at first sight for both. He enters the garden despite her warnings. Soon, however, he becomes frightened of losing domination expected of men over all women, powerful and brilliant though they be. Made immune to all the poisons, he accuses her of killing him. There may be no finer breakup line than Beatrice’s heartbroken:  “Was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?”

That allegoric lesson applies to most biased and fearful men when it comes to women and seeking public office. Put the case another way:

If they had daughters running for any position in the upcoming elections, wouldn’t they proudly tout them to friends, neighbors, work cohorts, and the cashier and line-mates at the supermarket? Maybe help finance their campaigns? Or put up yard or window signs and paste bumper stickers on their cars? Do phone banking? Canvass the neighborhood? And with any action, wouldn’t they insist their daughters were as capable for office as male opponents?

In other words, if fathers—and mothers,too—don’t fear powerful daughters, why fear smart, strong women candidates on November 5? They’re somebody’s daughters, too, and just as worthy of fair consideration as any male on the ballot.Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D, is the principal of a Portland (OR) writing/pr firm, a long-time writer and journalism professor, a Pulitzer nominee, and now an online free-lancer. Read other articles by Barbara.

 

German Police Chase a 10-year-old Boy with Palestinian Flag in Berlin

by Dissident Voice Communications / September 28th, 2024

Seems Germany is doing whatever it can to descend into increasing irrelevance as a state.
A video was circulated on social media showing German police chasing a boy, said to be 10-years-old, carrying a Palestinian flag during a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin.
Activists stated that the child had been detained.
The child’s fate or whether he has been released is, at present, unconfirmed.

FacebooTwitter

RedditEmail

Dissident Voice Communications (DVC) is a non-profit meta-company in the public interest (well, depends on which public), we aim to challenge the hegemony of Big Media by communicating... all sorts of stuff. Read other articles by Dissident Voice Communications.