StoneToss: Episode 45

 Comic Name: Branded

Description: Hey, at least their wifi is free.

Mouseover: ant-iPhone

Originally Published: 1/8/2019

What The Comic Is: A black man strolls down the street wearing a MAGA hat. A member of Antifa, looking at his iPhone and drinking Starbucks, strolls up the street. The two meet with a surprised glance. The Antifa guy points a finger at the black guy, calling him an "Uncle Tom".

What StoneToss Actually Thinks: Antifa dislike black people who support Trump.

Why It's Fucking Stupid: StoneToss is trying to illustrate a world where a black man is unable to support Trump without being insulted for it, or having his legitimacy as a person questioned. An 'Uncle Tom' is an insult leveled towards black men who are considered to be servile or overly submissive towards white people. Uncle Tom is derived from the novel of the same name, wherein a saintly and moralistic black slave named Tom forms an uncle-like relationship with a young girl whose father owns slaves. Her father also buys Tom. Tom is depicted as very subservient in his role as a slave, despite the novel's overarching abolitionist message. 

Obviously calling a black man who supports Trump an 'Uncle Tom' would be to delegitimize his agency as a practitioner of politics, suggesting he only supports Trump because he's subservient in his unbalanced relationship with white people. We can call this fair enough, and perhaps all agree that labeling people for their political affiliation is inherently a negative thing (if not always inaccurate, at least). Let's instead focus on StoneToss's inability to never, ever not be petty about dumb shit. You want to make a comic about a black guy being called an Uncle Tom because he wears a MAGA hat? Okay, sure, whatever. Could've left it at that and it would've been a harmless comic. I mean, it still would've been fucking dumb, but harmless enough. This isn't good enough, though, and StoneToss has to whine about Starbucks and iPhones again for some reason. 

The black guy is sporting a MAGA hat, but the Antifa guy has an iPhone and Starbucks. The name of the comic, "Branded", therefore has a double meaning. That the two men display their own 'brands', the black guy is wears "MAGA brand", while the Antifa guy 'wears' Starbucks and iPhone brands. The black man, however, is branded as an Uncle Tom for his choice in political affiliation.

What, exactly, does this mean? Who the fuck knows for sure. StoneToss seems to be likening an iPhone and Starbucks as a leftist's version of the MAGA hat, but what point he makes with this observation appears to be either known only to StoneToss himself, or is entirely nonexistent. StoneToss once again calls people bugs for buying iPhones, just in case his constant childishness and failure to make intelligent arguments wasn't clear enough for everyone. 

Comic Name: First They Came for the Fascists

Description: First they came for the fascists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a fascist…

Mouseover: In war, if you let your front line collapse, then YOU get to be the front line. 

Originally Published: 1/10/2019

What The Comic Is: An Antifa pajama man wielding a baseball bat proclaims the motto of 'bash the fash'. A man, overseeing the proclamation, muses that it's a good thing he is not a fascist. He is then struck in the head by a baseball bat.

What StoneToss Actually Thinks: Recognizing fascism is a slippery slope and eventually people who aren't fascist will be labeled as being so and will be attacked/killed/harmed in some way.

Why It's Fucking Stupid: Look, I'll be the first to agree that there's such a thing as overzealously tossing around accusations of fascism. It's seemingly a human nature to jump to conclusions. However, this comic (in a similar manner to the one above) goes extra miles to be especially stupid. First of all, the comic's title is a reference to the poem 'First they came...', written by German pastor Martin Niemöller. Following the end of World War 2, Martin wrote the poem as a confessional concerning the German intellectual and religious leadership and their failure to oppose the rise of Nazism (Martin himself included in the poem). StoneToss has latched onto this poem before, as he likes to literally 180 its context and apply it to bigots like himself. A popular abridgement of the poem is as follows;

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

It's basically as poem about the mistake of viewing man as individual and, if nothing else, makes a selfish argument for defending your fellow people. Those victimized by the Nazis did nothing as others were victimized before them, for they themselves were not yet victims. It's a cautionary tale in standing aside as others, who may not yet be you, are harmed. Of course it's thoroughly and completely anti-Nazi, but that doesn't stop StoneToss from being a stupid asshole and twisting it to defend neo-Nazis!

The comic's description does two things. It uses Martin's poem as a device to frame Antifa as being the real Nazis, and StoneToss uses it to claim that he is not fascist. Ergo, he's painting the targets of Antifa (who are fascist) as not being fascist (himself included), while also trying to lump everyone else in with him and his fellow fascists. It's basically him saying "Hey everyone, look how crazy Antifa is! They think we're all fascists, can you believe that?!". The mouse over text reaffirms this. StoneToss is calling the targets of Antifa (i.e., fascist political figures and individuals) as being the "front line" against the tyranny of Antifa, that everyone else needs to stand by in order to avoid becoming victims of Antifa themselves. 

The thing that StoneToss fails to understand is that he and Martin Niemöller are not kindred birds of a feather and that Martin's poem is in no way relatable or applicable to StoneToss and his beliefs. In fact, it is fully the other way around. Martin's poem was not written for people like StoneToss, it was written against them. StoneToss's co-opting of the poem does not legitimize his status as a victim, it only makes him look like a dickhead.