sindy | team torchstache 🔥

How to Read Comics the Marvel Way #1 (2021)

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

So, we now know on a direct statistical level that Dollar General is literally making the Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness into a part of its core business model.

But to those working class consumers, Dollar General promises to deliver “everyday low prices.” 

In reality, without knowing it, customers are often paying Whole Foods prices for dollar store groceries. 

A More Perfect Union investigation reveals that Dollar General charges premium prices across a range of staple goods—52% more per pound for chicken breasts than its cheapest competitor, for instance—but masks the high cost from consumers by stocking smaller pack sizes.

parenthesis. guns and drugs are two businesses that are deeply connected, you traffic guns in mexico to whom? to drug cartels is a good answer. also, cartels do not only sell drugs, they commit all kinds of crimes. so it's not a big of a stretch to call his family a cartel.

back to the idea. ric is very young when he goes back to Mexico, he's idealistic, he's a little naive thinking that because he's spent a few years in the states honing his fighting skills and his mutant power, which can be very lethal, he can take down his family business (cartel). and here's the thing, HE CAN!! but I don't think he stopped to think of the consequences.

his father implies he's a powerful man in mexico and latam, which means the richter family was probably the one with the most control over the country, and that power is economic but also politic, because for cartels to operate freely the government HAS to be involved.

so eliminating the head of operations doesn't translate into less violence in the country. ric hates guns because of the deaths and violence they cause. however, history has proven that when you go after a cartel the violence increases, not only due to the rivals fighting over the territory to be the new boss, but also because retaliation against the people happens.

so imagine it, ric dismantles his family's business just to see the very few men left start burning cities, terrorizing people as a payback. other families want to take control of the richter territory, and fight over it which causes more violence. the government takes that "victory" as theirs, they tell the public and the world they are fighting crime in mexico, while just making a new deal with the new families in charge under the table. nothing really changed.

ric can't take this, he feels so guilty, he's angry, frustrated and heartbroken, the despair is too much.