ConFusion AAR

So what do you do when the fan club that you're a part of has an event at a local con and you have to work, but you can choose your own hours? Well, if you're me you head out to the con and leave early so you can go work. Or at least you plan to, but we'll get there.

If you're reading this and you've never been to a con, you're probably wondering what the point is. The point is simple. It's to have a good time. If you are a fan of Science Fiction and/or Fantasy or any of it's variations (Paranormal Romance and Supernatural Horror both come to mind) then you know what I mean when I say that no one gets it. The jokes, the references, the reason you're scared of a pineapple salad, the just don't know. It's not their fault per se, and I'm not trying to demean anyone, but if you're one of us you get it. We've all felt the frustration of having to find alternate ways of acting and communicating because the general public doesn't get us. Here's the thing: The person standing next to you at a con feels the same way and has been through the same stuff.

If you were the kid who had to endure the taunts (and Lord knows I was) then this is the place to be. You can sit down next to someone you don't know and talk to them about that episode of ST:TOS that still has you confused. (Ok, so that conversation was with the GF on the phone last night, BUT SHE GOES TO CONS!) When someone looks up and says "Luke, I am your father," you can look back at them and say, "That's not the right line," and someone will start cheering.

Listen, I can hear you in the back. You're talking about massive expense and telling me that not everyone is rich. You're right. I've been the guy with no car living in a motel. I know what that's like and I certainly don't want to make you feel bad about yourself. Seriously though, for those of you who aren't at absolute rock bottom it's not that expensive, especially if you live in a metropolitan area. Transportation should be cheap. You can sleep at your own house at night (just don't drink and drive -there are lots of parties at cons) and food and beverages in the consuite are free. Yes, at most cons that includes beer, but I'm not a beer drinker so I won't comment on the quality of it. How much a con badge costs is variable per con, but some have day passes that you can get pretty cheap. Saturday is usually the most expensive day, but it also the longest so there is that to think about. So Saturday is the best day to go if you're only going to do one day and you can afford the extra little bit. If you're only going for one day I recommend against Sunday because it ends early and there's not that much fun stuff. If you can't go then I'm sorry but if you can go then go.

Oh, and yes I know some people dress up in cosplay. That pic above is the closest to true cosplay I've ever gotten. Most people don't dress up. Any con I've been to and/or heard of is okay with people showing up in whatever they like as long as they can't be arrested for indecent exposure. (Yes folks, you do need to keep your privates private.) One of my favorite parts of a con is seeing all of the people in cosplay. I, however, have neither the skills nor the budget for some big time production. I go anyway and it's okay. No one says a word about it and most of them are dressed just like me anyway.

*SIGH*

So how was the actual con, Jimbo?

Why thank you for asking. I had a great time!

The real reason I went is two-fold: One, as a member of The Royal Manticoran Navy, I wanted to help at our recruiting table. Mission accomplished. I actually got one guy to stop and talk to me and someone else signed him up! It was exciting. Two: I love the Honor Harrington books and don't know anyone else who reads them (even though you can download the first two for free from Baen to find out how awesome they a... Uhh... if you like them or not.) and I thought I'd try to sucker someone into talking about the books with me. That worked too. We had a wardroom (you non-TRMN types would refer to it as a "party.") and toward the end there were four of us talking about some of the stuff from the books. So mission accomplished there as well.

But wait, there's more.

If you go to a con with some type of realistic goal you can almost always accomplish it. This is known. But why stop with merely doing things that you went to do? Why not have some extra fun? I mean, you're there. You paid for it (unless you're ghosting which you're not supposed to do, but I uhh.. may have done it at some point). Why not see what else you can do? Here's what else I did:

 I got to listen to oodles and bunches of geek music. Seriously. We had people playing recorders for a bit and had some people playing ukuleles both days I was there. It was a good time.

I hit up the dealers room and some of the people in the fan space. Being a Christian and a geek, I bought a book about Christian geekery. That one kind of excited me. I also picked up a couple of comics and another novel, any of which may appear here once I've had a chance to read them. I hadn't really been planning to spend any money, and there was certainly no requirement to go into the dealer's room at all, but well... Yeah. I am Jimbo. Watch me spend.

(As an interesting aside, Blogger's spell checker doesn't like the word Jimbo. It sucks to be Blogger though because I hereby cast aside the bullying and use my name as I would like to!)

Did I mention the party? We had a party. I didn't do much drinking because I didn't have a room (see, I practice what I preach) and I didn't want any problems getting home. So I stopped drinking at like ten and didn't drive home until three. I hadn't really consumed that much booze to begin with, so I was good. A good time was had by all and most of the attendees were not members of the TRMN but we never expected them to be. I will say this much though: If you ever visit a TRMN wardroom and you have a chance, drink a missile pod. It's a fun experience, although the shot itself is kind of girly and sweet.

I hit up the Consuite for free grub and free drinks. I don't drink beer ever (not my thing) so that was out. I did, however, get down on some free tacos for lunch and my share of a free party sub and salad for dinner. I drank lots of free Faygo too. The consuite volunteers were extremely helpful and actually gathered up some cans of Faygo so I could get this pic for my GF who lives out of town and wants to try some Faygo when she visits.

So thank you ConFusion staff! I'm trying to talk her into coming with me next year. Wish me luck!

I also geeked out and did some stuff with my TRMN buddies to try to get myself promoted within the organization. With any luck, I'll be an ensign soon! I also qualified myself for Communications, so if my promotion goes through (wish me luck again) I'll hopefully be the new Communications Officer and do most of the writing for my ship. That was more skull sweat than I've expended since my college days but I enjoyed it and it was worth it. How many other people can say they've been an officer in a fictitious navy?

Oh, and I talked to people. The Little Red Reviewer was super cool and she has a Kickstarter going.I think I might steal her idea. Do you guys think anyone would buy a book of my best posts so far? It's worth looking into I think. I also go to talk to a guy in a super-cool cosplay that I didn't quite recognize, but it was a full suit of futuristic armor with a gun and it glowed in spots. I had to stop him and recognize him for his hard work and let him know how awesome it looked because AWESOME!!!! Actually, there were lots of other people I talked to as well, but I need to get out the door and go to work.

And that, for me, was the con. Veni, vidi, vichi or sumfin'. All in all , it was a great time and I'm already planning to go back next year.

Somebody Help Me Out Here

Okay, so I just don't grok something. I tend to think of myself as a pretty smart guy. I've got a decent IQ. I did well in every subject I've ever studied except handwriting and I'm told that that's because smart people tend to sign quickly and without putting a lot of thought into it. That's one of the reasons that doctors are known for poor handwriting. They tend to be pretty smart people. Here's my thing: I just don't understand something here and it's Science Fiction related in this context so I'm going to write about it: How in the BLUE HELL is the society of Panem, found in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series considered to be a rightist culture? It is true that Ms Collins has been interviewed multiple times and considers herself to be a leftist. I respect that. She has the right to be a leftist. But seriously, I just don't get this. Let's go over the evidence as it is contained in the text and someone here, anyone here, please explain to me how this adds up to a rightist society. I'll start with the most obvious reason that this is a leftist government and go from there.

All economic activity is controlled by the government.

Seriously. All of it. The first thing that happens in District 12 when it gets a new mayor is that they close down the Hob. Why? Because unregulated economic activity takes place there. It's not taxed or controlled. People meet and exchange goods freely and the powers that be see this as a bad thing. It is literally illegal for people to have a freaking flea market because the government isn't getting their cut. Listen, I get the necessity of a certain amount of taxation, but seriously why shut it down? At worst there could have been some taxation put in place. The fact of the matter is that the government in the Capitol couldn't stand the thought of someone making money that they weren't taxing and would rather burn something down that allow the people of the District to profit by it. That's a leftist thing folks. The Hob is a free market. That's what those of us on the right support. Burning it down and punishing the dealers there is the mark of a Communist, not a rightist.

And yes, I get the fact that the people of the Capitol are rich. Guess what? Josef Stalin had five dachas and a chauffeur driven car. He was the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Yes, my friends, the leaders of Socialist/Communist nations have always been rich. "From each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs" is the Marxist idiom. It's weird how the leadership in a Marxist nation always "needs" more than the family of four in the three hundred square foot apartment.

Religion has been eradicated

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

It took me a minute to realize what was missing in the books here. Religion has been killed so thoroughly that it's not even brought up as a taboo subject. Seriously, we don't get so much as an "Oh God" when a tribute is wounded or a quick prayer by that one weirdo when their friend/child/brother/sister/whatever gets chosen as Tribute. There isn't even a crumbling old church that has been abandoned for a generation or generations. There is literally no trace of religion whatsoever. The Marx quote above says it all where that's concerned. The father of the Communist movement hated religion and so do his followers.

Gun Control is absolute

"Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the party." - Mao Zedong

Read the books. Watch the movies. Owning a gun, or even a bow and arrow, carries the death penalty. The reason for this is simple: An unarmed society is a society full of slaves. The Districts are Hitler's labor camps writ large. (And yes, the leader of the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party was a leftist.) Would anyone with a gun put up with the government seizing their child to fight in some sick game? Taking the guns out of the hands of the people and placing them all into the hands of the government is a common tactic of every totalitarian government and was pioneered by the Left. Oddly enough, gun control in the United States started as Jim Crow laws that sought to keep blacks from owing firearms. Yep, you guessed it. It's easier to lynch a man that can't shoot back to defend himself. And those are the same laws pushed for by the Left in the states today, only now it's the state doing the lynching and the general citizenry, as opposed to just one race of it, that is forced into subjugation.

Even in the Hunger Games, where the entire POINT is to kill everyone the Capitol still doesn't want anyone getting funny ideas about guns. I don't see that as just a coincidence. The fact of the matter is that guns are dangerous to oppressive governments and the Capitol knows that. What if the kid with the gun won and told other people how to use guns? (And for the record, no that's not as easy as the movies make it look.) They're scared of guns. They're scared of what the people will do if given the ability to resist. They're communists.

Media production and consumption are controlled by the Capitol

"A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organizer." - Vladimir Lenin

Leftists have always understood the power of the media, whether in their hands or the hands of their enemies. I wish I saved the notes I took for a paper on the effects of nationalism on the troops serving on the Eastern Front during World War II. The Capitol uses the media both to inform and to terrorize. Forcing people to watch the Hunger Games every night is an intentional reminder of the war they have lost. It is also a reminder that things will be worse if they rebel again. Snow states as much in his office. He uses the games to take hope away.

Media control is thought control and it's something that every Communist government has used. Lenin, yes, but also Ma, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, the list goes on. Control the media and you control the message. Control the message and you control belief. Control belief and you control the people. It's simple really. It's what the Capitol does. It's what Communists do.

The Peace Keepers are Ubiquitous

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." - Barack Obama

One of the defining characteristics of a fully developed Communist state is it's ability to react overwhelmingly to threats within its own borders. The media controls the mind, the national security apparatus controls the bodies. Whether it's the secret police ala the KGB or its forerunner the NKVD or tanks rolling on Tiananmen Square, a  hard left government must always have the means to crush an uprising should they lose control of any aspect of the society for one to develop.  The Peacekeepers are clearly that force. They're feared by the populace. They're never shown serving the public, but simply in keeping it in check. Would you call a Peacekeeper to help you find your lost child? Neither would I.

Oh, and let's talk about District Thirteen for a second. Don't they beat people up for the "crime" of over-eating? They're more Communist than the Communists. And who does Katniss execute at the end of the series?  President Coin of District Thirteen. The one who allows this to happen. So, we execute the Communist who is more Communist than the Communist and this is a book a rebellion against a rightist government? Huh?

So here's my question:

Why is it that an avowed leftist has written a book where the central government is controlled by leftists? Where food is withheld from people to enforce obedience and given to them in reward for government service ala the zeks in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago? Could it be because, even to an avowed leftist, a truly leftist government is the scariest thing she cold come up with? That her villains are ultimately the very thing she claims to support? I mean, how much proof do you need? When your own supporters think that you're the worst case scenario isn't it time to back up and evaluate what you're doing?

At the end of the day, I think that a work (series of works?) like this reveals the problems better than anything else in fiction could. Yes, there are real world examples of why this doesn't work. Some have happy endings, the death of Nicolae Ceaușescu being the most obvious example. Others still don't. North Korea is still imploding. China is still nominally Communist while working toward a free market-ish economy. It should be noted that the lives of the people are improving.

There is a disconnect here and it bothers me. I don't get how to get my head around the fact that a supposedly leftist individual can write a book that's all about a rebellion against an obviously leftist government and this is supposed to make sense. Now, don't get me wrong. I love the books. That's why I put the effort into A.) reading them and B.) writing about them. I just don't get it. Any help figuring this one out would be appreciated.

The books and movies of The Hunger Games series are available at the links below: