Scary Future

"The great task before our founders was putting into practice the ideal that government could simultaneously serve liberty and advance the common good and Government had an important role to play in advancing our common prosperity." - Barack Obama


Barack Obama's actions as our president have opened my eyes.  I was never very interested in today's  politics until recently, which I realize is a horrible mistake.  However, I have occasionally been captured by politics in history.  The above quote demonstrates his desire to increase the government's involvement in basically everything from healthcare to education, which is completely contradictory to the original basis of the United States.  The founding fathers were initially striving for independence because they believed (and rightfully so) that the British Government had too much power.  This led to the writing of the constitution, which I hope we are all familiar with.  You're probably wondering how this relates to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, I'll get there later.  


Obama's policies are contradicting The Declaration of Independence in which every American is entitled to their natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In an economic society, Capitalism is the single way to completely allow for the pursuit of happiness.  The new policies in which Obama is imposing higher taxes on the wealthy while increasing welfare is outrageous and he is beginning to take away our freedom.  Heavily taxing the rich and giving to the poor is an attempt to make everyone the same, which is not what was implied in the phrase "equal opportunity."  It takes away any incentive to succeed financially because the government will take away much of what was earned, while at the same time living off of welfare becomes more appealing.  The Government is supposed to represent the people and protect their freedom.  In regards to freedom, increasing the people's dependency on the Government is counterproductive, not to mention it is steering us towards a government we once promised to destroy, communism.    


"Already, China is graduating eight times as many engineers as we are.  By twelfth grade, our students score lower on math and science tests than most other kids in the world.  And we now have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation in the world." - Barack Obama.


Here, Obama is working his way into the education system.  He is trying to strengthen the educational system while simultaneously decreasing the initiative to succeed by imposing taxes on the wealthy.   Furthermore, the Government should have no involvement in the educational system, meanwhile he is trying to propose where the education system uses the budget he controls, which is demonstrated in the second quote.   


He is also attempting to change the Constitution which, amongst many other things, will impact what is taught in schools in terms of history classes.  Students will be taught about a new Constitution in which some rights are going to be taken away, and they're going to learn to be proud of that new Constitution, which is awful.  In Persepolis, the occurrence of this in revolutionary Iran was referred to as "brainwashing," which is an absolutely perfect term.  Think about Hitler Youth, as an adult one can teach kids anything and they will believe and become it.  


How it relates:  
Creating a government-regulated economy is an attempt to make everyone the same.  This is not much different than forcing women to wear a veil in terms of human rights.  As illustrated in the second drawing of the book and as we discussed in class, those girls were stripped of their individuality.  


Another perfect relation:
Earlier this week House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi proposed an amendment to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights "...that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged by corporations as opposed to individuals" (see link on Nancy Pelosi).  On page 76 in Persepolis, the family had brought Marji to the Oppositional Demonstration for the first time.  It was abruptly ended by government violence. Although Pelosi's proposition is not nearly as brutal, it is a baby step towards censorship.  We should be reacting to this as if we were being beaten with clubs, but the media has delivered her statements as something brilliant and innovative (another form of brainwashing?).  Everyone is entitled to their opinion (except corporations apparently), but I am worrying more and more about where our nation is headed.     


http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-amend-first-amendment - Nancy Pelosi 




http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/barack-michelles-socialist-marxist-communist-quotes/blog-16354/  - Obama's quotes.  

Politcal Agenda in Persepolis

After reading Persepolis, its hard to believe that Satrapi said that the book isn't a political statement, or have anything to do with women's rights.  Reading through the book, almost every other chapter had some different political agenda.  I think Satrapi saying it wasn't a political statement, was just her trying to make controversy rise over the book.  In the above graphic, Marji is talking to her parents about going to a protest, and her mother says "She is coming too, she should start learning to defend her rights as a woman right now!"  The protest was taking place because of the strict laws requiring the women of Iran to wear head dress.  Throughout the book, it is strictly enforced and a heavily discussed topic, whether it be when Marji is in school and she and her friends make jokes about having to wear the head dress.  Or on the street when Marji is stopped by the guardians on the street, "They were guardians of the revolution, the women's branch.  This group had been added in 1982, to arrest women who were improperly veiled, their job was to put us back on the straight and narrow, by explaining the duties of Muslim women."(p. 133)  Satrapi has made a point, that she doesn't believe that women should be required to veil.  The fact that she writes this isn't the only reason why, this book is based on her life and what actually happened in her life.  Clearly, this is her point of view, the protest the veiling of women, and to help in the revolution to overcome to government that has taken over Iran.  The novel is political, in almost every page you read.  The topic she wrote about, is nearly impossible to write about, without getting political, especially since it was a based on events that actually happened in her life, that clearly included protests and a political agenda.

A Depiction of the Loss of Innocence

Being that Persepolis is a graphic novel one would assume that the comic strips that go along with the story are meant to hold some kind of importance. Comparing the graphics at the beginning of the book to the ones at the end, one can see a difference. In the beginning of the novel the graphics that Satrapi uses are much more light hatred. The graphics lighten up very serious situations. On page twenty-two her father is explaining to her how her great grandfather was a king and her grandfather a prince. He tells her that they were overthrown. As this story goes on the depictions to follow become quite entertaining. Satrapi uses these light hatred depictions to show Manji’s sense of innocence. By the end of the novel the pictures become much more serious. In the chapter about The Shabbat, not only does the topic matter become grimmer but so do the pictures that follow. Manji’s loss of innocence becomes much more apparent. Iran is bombed by Iraq killing people in her neighborhood, her best friend. There is no picture to lighten the mood on that page, the only emotion the reader sees and feels is sadness. Her loss of innocence is in-captured by the pictures that follow the story of this young girl’s life.

Through the Arc of the Rain Forest

It is interesting in this book how pigeons are an important part of the community and how pigeons can show people's greed.  This book has things in it that are bizarre to us as readers because the real world is not like the world in which this novel is taking place in.  In the real world people do not fly pigeons like this and pigeons are not made pets, let go far away from the home, and the travel all the way back to the people's home who made the pigeons a pet.  Pigeons also do not go and get messages to deliver to people.  But maybe there is a point that the author is trying to make by having these pigeons play this role in this novel.  I think the message is centered around money and the greediness that can come along with it.  Many people go to Batista and Tania's home to see if they will get some luck by finding out the pigeons message.  If the pigeon brought some message about wealth, the people would go buy lottery tickets in hopes that they would become wealthy.  But those who receive wealth are greedy with it, except for Kazamasa.  He is not greedy even when he wins the lotteries, everyone is actually greedy trying to get Kazamasa's money!  As it says in the novel, "everyone seem[ed] to have an idea of what he or she would do with sudden wealth, but Kazaumasa was a true exception" (Yamashita 59).  Kazaumasa does not even spend his own money, he gives it away and everyone else spends it for him.  Kaxamasa is so generous with his money, but the people take advantage of him because of his generosity.       

Pride of Persepolis

Persepolis is actually the third graphic novel I have read for a college class. The other two were Maus and Fun Home. The former explores racism and the ripple effects of the Holocaust on one family and the latter has to do with homosexuality and a girl coming out to her parents, though there is so much more to it than that. All three of these are memoirs which I feel is an interesting coincidence. Why have so many people decided to write their autobiographies in the form of a comic book? Does it alleviate the pain to tell their stories in cartoon format? While I do think that this is true, I doubt it is the only reason for doing so. One thing I noticed when reading Persepolis as well as Fun Home, is that we get a more immediate and fuller realization of what the character's emotions are. While some people may see this format of writing as childish or shallow, I would like to argue for the importance of the graphic novel as literature.

Last class we were having a discussion about whether graphic novels have any literary merit and if they are just for kids. There are actually several graphic novels, aside from those mentioned above, that are quite remarkable pieces of literature and just because some have to do with superheroes does not mean that they should be overlooked. Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns are two books that are a part of the superhero tradition but their intricate story lines and complex characters allow for scholarly debate. Watchmen was also voted one of Time magazine's 100 All-Time Greatest Novels and of which they say the book is, "told with ruthless psychological realism, in fugal, overlapping plotlines." The characters in these two novels are quite rich and all too human. Especially in Watchmen, it is difficult to really call anyone a black hat villain because no one in it is all good or all bad and they have all done things that have made the world a better place and a worse place. 

My favorite graphic novel of this type, however, would have to be Pride of Baghdad; a fable about a pride of lions that chews up the precious Lion King story and spits the carcass out of its bloody maw. Pride of Baghdad, just like the first three graphic novels I talked about, is also based on a true story. And, like Persepolis, it is very much a politically fueled tale, questioning during the pride's entire journey what the price of war actually is and whether it is worth it. Below I have provided a link to a very interesting article on the book.

http://dorkgasm.com/node/62/