There's a lot I want to write about on this blog, but I never seem to have the energy or to take the time for that. I am breaking my silence with two topics that have been bugging me recently, both related to Magic: the Gathering. They're not necessarily related to each other, though. Two things happened last month, totally unrelated to each other. Both times, I'd thought that I should write something. And then I procrastinated. Well, earlier this week, I read an article that annoyed me and brought both topics back to the surface of my thoughts.
I don't really know where this is going. I'll probably rant a little. But don't expect a persuasive essay or for this mess to even have a central thesis at all. This is how it goes. I'm rusty at the whole blog thing. It's been like a year and a half since our last little chat.
Event One
In late 2003, I came across a Magic: the Gathering website called "The Casual Players Alliance." A little later, I got my own account there and started participating in discussions on their forum. I've been active at the "CPA" this whole time, for more than 21 years of my life. It could be said that the forum is slowly dying, that our site is a relic of an earlier age of the internet. We're down to about eight to ten active users, and only about half of those seem to be checking in consistently. But I'm one of them, and I've been logging in just about every day.
The main admin, also the most active user of the forum, is in the habit of posting well wishes right before major holidays, especially if he's going on vacation himself and wants us to know he'll be out of touch for a bit. Sometimes he'll pop in after a holiday and create a thread anyway, just telling us he hopes we had a good holiday. Pretty innocuous. So far, so good. Not much to talk about there.
On July 5th, a thread was created for the recent Independence Day. The message was just, "Hope it was safe and grand!" Two of us popped in to echo the same sentiment (we used to have more international members, but all but one of the people I've seen post anything lately have been Americans).
And then we got a post that said, "You're kidding, right?" There was a crying emoji after that. So the rest of us were worried and asking this person what was wrong. The result was this exchange (which I stayed out of). I'll color-code the participants rather than using their user names here. I rather like everyone involved, and I don't want this to in any way appear to be a gripe about them. It's not about that.
No, but [Highland Park, where a mass shooting was perpetrated at an Independence Day parade] is not too far from my house. I'm just more actually depressed
about the way the country's going altogether right now. On the one side
we have the Fascists, who tried to overthrow the government once
already, who've gotten into bed with the Christofascists (a theme
emerges) who've started dictating policy through the Supreme Court. On
the other, a president that tipped his hand way too early on green
energy, leaving himself vulnerable to the oil companies who want him
voted out and will keep oil prices high as long as they can to blackmail
us into abandoning environmental issues. They're pretty much already
there anyway from what I understand, after SCOTUS pulled the EPA's
"teeth" leaving them unable to enforce penalties, but those guys are
kinda vindictive (and more money is, after all, more money) so we'll see
just what happens to gas prices.
And SCOTUS, again, starting to rule on gun laws misinterpreting the 2nd
Amendment (they always forget about the "well-regulated militia" part,
even though it's right up front) and making it okay for idiot punks with
a death wish to buy any weapon they want and all the damn ammo they can
carry and go kill innocent people.
I guess I'm not feeling too patriotic atm...
Mmmm.... I know what you're saying. But from what I understand, it was Manchin who has really derailed/controlled the agenda bc his vote is necessary (since no Republicans are going to cross over) but he didn't go along with it all.
I think it's more the control that SCOTUS has demonstrated, and that we
seem to have no real way to fix it besides impeaching/adding more
justices. I'd love to see them impeach Clarence Thomas (especially after
the bit about going after contraception and same-sex marriage in his
opinion on the Roe travesty), and Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and ACB all lied
during their job interviews, but that'll likely end like Trump's
impeachments did when not enough Reps broke ranks to get a conviction.
And I'm not in favor of expanding the court based on the number of
Circuit Courts, unless you want to change the way the justices are
chosen and have them be representative of their court districts (not a
bad idea, but no way they go for that...lol).
I also think the filibuster serves a purpose, and Manchin isn't entirely
wrong. As much as the thought depresses me, come 2024 if Biden hasn't
been able to fix things things by then we'll be looking at a regime
change. If the Dems lose control the only thing standing between us and
total tyranny might be the filibuster, and since our government usually
ping-pongs between the parties (over the years) it's bound to eventually
happen. Lord knows it's been used against the Dems often enough.
Look, I'm kind of a centrist (politically). I think both parties (at
their core) have solid values and bring important perspectives to any
negotiation. I think our government works best when bipartisan actually
happens. This polarization of our parties is just stupid, and it will
destroy us if we let it. And it's getting worse, though the J6th
Committee using lifelong Republicans testifying under oath to tell their
story is meaningful, and may plant seeds that will encourage at least
listening to the other party and maybe even being more open-minded to
what they propose.
I'm so naive...
SCOTUS "only" got that way thanks to the McConnell and the Republican
stranglehold on Senate, which in turn is due to massive gerrymandering,
which in turn is due to the Republican control of the majority of state
statehouses, thanks to them "waking up" after the 2008 elections and
realizing that the Dems gained power and they were about to lose it for
the next decade if they didn't do anything. Which sadly the Dems didn't
realize themselves...
I totally agree that the filibuster should stay and I don't know the
details of Manchin's objection of all of the attempted Dem bills, but he
was pretty much the lone holdout that without his vote, none of them
could pass, like the ones on green energy and environmental issues that
you originally mentioned. I don't know how Biden "tipped his hand
early", as you say, because he realistically only had 2 years to try to
get anything done while the Dems had a majority in the Representatives
and an even split in the Senate, because now there's a good chance the
Repubs will gain back the majority and nothing will have a chance to
being done.
Now, if only we had alternatives to voting besides two parties...
technically we do but the current system is *way* stacked against them
Yeah, thanks to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the creation of Citizens' United it makes it too easy for the two party system to keep Americans firmly divided against each other when we should be working against the actual politicians...
The thing that gets to me here isn't that this was a political discussion. In fact, this forum used to have lots of political discussions, often heated ones. And the people I quoted here were among the more sane, mediating voices back then. And that is the part that gets to me. When the forum was thriving and had far more participants, at the height of the Bush presidency and with all the political crap that entailed, these were the guys who tried to to bring reason, caution, levelheadedness, etc. to the discussions. They seemed grounded back then. They didn't go around calling people fascists.
It's not so much that I disagree with the talking points here (although generally, I do). It's that I remember when political debates came up in other threads 15 or so years ago, these were the guys asking pointed questions, using logic, calling out spurious claims, and such. I don't want to call it "Trump Derangement Syndrome." I think this is all far more complicated than that. But I'm left wondering what the hell happened.
- There hasn't been an attempted fascist overthrow of our government. Fascism is a dead 20th century concept from Italy that became vaguely dissociated from its original definition and became a pejorative in America. Occasionally some idiot will self-identify as a fascist, but that's an idiot talking. There are no fascists in America. Stop using that label.
- Christofascism isn't a thing. Come on, man.
- The Democratic Party has been attempting to use the Supreme Court to "dicate policy" since FDR. It's disingenuous to become mad about it only once they go against that party line. Want to force the Supreme Court to stick to constitutional interpretation and to have the law of the land go through the proper channels? You've not only got me on board, you've probably got most of the Republican Party, virtually all independents, third parties, and probably even most of the justices themselves. Better late than never, I guess?
- "Green energy" is not in competition with oil companies and never has been. Oil companies are some of the biggest, most successful supporters of "green energy."
- Gas prices are practically a red herring. They do matter, but not in the way that either major political party has ever presented them in discourse. Don't fall for propaganda.
- The Second Amendment does not say that the right to bear arms is contingent on the existence of a well-regulated militia. It says that the security of a free state is contingent on the existence of a well-regulated militia.
- Joe Manchin did exactly what he was meant to do. If you think anything else, I've got a bridge to sell you.
- "The Supreme Court did something I don't like. Pack the bench!" What is this? 1937? Are you for real?
- A judicial confirmation hearing is not a "job interview." No one thought that way before the Trump presidency, and it's disconcerting how a stupid meme meant to distort the functions of our government can just spread so easily and infect normal people.
- If you think that one of the two major political parties represents tyranny and the other one represents the vanguard against tyranny, then I'm sorry. You've gone off the deep end. You've been turned into a useful idiot.
- Weird how all the "I'm a centrist" folks are either falling in line with the Democrats at every juncture or insisting that the Democrats don't go far enough. The Overton window. Where's it at?
- I said myself, after the 2020 elections, that regardless of whatever else happened, the Democrats effectively had a mandate. I didn't mean a moral one, just in the practical, political sense. And the corollary to that was that whatever they fucked up, we'd all know it was them fucking it up. They couldn't blame Republicans. Not this time. Well, how's that going?
Of course, I didn't say any of that. Not in the forum, anyway. But it's what I was thinking. Have I gone soft? And if I have, is that a bad thing? I don't know.
Event Two
That first one is only related to the game of Magic because it happened on a Magic-related website. This one deals with the game itself. On June 10th, 2020, Wizards of the Coast made an announcement castigating seven of their own old cards for "racism." There were some circumstances surrounding this at the time and I delved into this topic pretty exhaustively back then, just not on this blog. I'm not inclined to use this space for recapitulating the whole affair. If you're curious, feel free to ask for details.
On July 21st of this year, Wizards of the Coast announced that they'd been including freshly-opened packs of archival 1994 product in the upcoming set (which releases next month). This brought the "Salty Seven" cards and the allegations of racism back. They didn't actually come out and say that more cards were racist, but they did publish a list of cards that would not be included in booster packs. Four cards on that list were from the existing list of seven "racist" cards. No surprises there. But the implication seems to be that the other twelve cards they have elected not to seed into the new booster packs are also deemed offensive. Since they've remained silent on the why, there's been rampant speculation on the matter.
I don't know if it's a coincidence, but this coincided with the introduction of a new column at the Commander's Herald website called "Beyond Rule Zero." The topic for the first article in the series was tame, tepid, and generally something I'd agree with. It also set the tone for the rest of the series. These articles seem disjointed, rambling, and lacking in a central thesis. Whatever structure is present seems haphazard and possibly edited in afterward at the last minute. Sort of like this blog post, actually. But yeah, that first article offered primarily points I agreed with or was neutral toward.
The second article? Not so much. It was about creating safe spaces, and much of the article seemed focused on the idea that local game stores should post codes of conduct for public viewing. I wanted to dispute almost everything in the article, but I kept silent. Like I said, I think I've gone soft. The third article dealt with the notions of "racist" cards, though. So here we go again! Well, kind of. The article brought up several cards, but the biggest focus seemed to be on a card that the author didn't really understand, and I don't mean that in some disparaging or condescending way. The card is called "Reparations." It has some unusual artwork, and discussions of what the artwork means or implies have come up in the past. Even the guy who wrote the flavor text for the card was confused by the artwork, and he originally wrote the flavor text as a gag based on this, but then it ended up being used in the final version of the card. The story has come up before in various places. Since this article seemed to go with the notion that the art and flavor text were one offensive package, I chimed in without disputing any of the stuff that bugged me, but simply clarifying this bit about the flavor text. I guess that I thought it might be informative. I might have also been using that as a way to keep myself from arguing with the article. If I just stick to the facts and leave it at that, then I can feel like at least I've done something.
All this left me pondering why I'm inclined to bother. A company that publishes a game decides that one of its old game pieces from 1994 is racist. I disagree with their conclusion. So what? It's just a game. It's their game and their decision anyway. So what if think they're wrong? I think that lots of people are wrong about lots of things all the time. I don't usually spend much time on it. It's a game, not a lifestyle.
I've built 31 EDH decks this year, at a rate that would be one per week except I missed a single week back in January. I've piloted those decks at tables in a local game store every Wednesday evening, and I take some time to write about them too. I've been playing Magic for over 25 years. Between all the time I've dedicated to playing decks, testing decks, building decks, writing about the game, talking about the game, reading about the game, sorting cards, trading cards, buying cards, collecting cards, and organizing it all, I've spent more of my time on Magic-related activities than some people spend on their religions. Of course it's not my religion, but have spent more time on it than a lot of people do. So yeah, I know it's "just a game." I don't think that I've lost sight of that. It's also a game I'm invested in, financially, creatively, emotionally, etc.
Also, there's this bit in that article.
There is this pervasive thought in spaces like the Magic community that politics should be kept separate from the general dialogue. When they say politics they often mean anything involving what is often categorized as identity politics. That is to say the issues revolving around marginalized ethnicities and identities. Because let's be transparent - there is no real worry about a thread opening up in the Magic subreddit on local election primaries or the philosophical differences between socialism and communism. They just don't want to hear the minorities get uppity.
And there it is. Tell us how you really feel.
