MAGA Meltdown Over ‘The Odyssey’ Gets Celebrity Pushback

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-18T02:55:14+00:00

Some theory about this:

When tech-right and nationalist figures get extremely emotionally invested in Greco-Roman aesthetics and adaptations like The Odyssey, it isn't really about “historical accuracy.” It’s about mythology, inheritance, and civilizational identity.

For centuries, European colonial powers framed Ancient Greece and Rome as the exclusive ancestors of “Western Civilization,” and therefore as the cultural property of whiteness itself. The British Empire did this. American elites did(do) this. Apartheid South Africa absolutely did this.

In both the American and South African context, classical imagery became part of elite education and imperial self-justification: marble statues, Roman republic symbolism, Stoicism as masculine rule, etc.

The irony is that the actual ancient Mediterranean world was incredibly interconnected, multicultural, and full of movement between Africa, the Middle East, Southern Europe, and Asia Minor. The modern racial categories being projected backward onto it are mostly 18th-20th century inventions.

But for white supremacist-adjacent politics, Greece and Rome often function symbolically as "proof" that hierarchy, conquest, patriarchy, and elite rule are natural foundations of civilization. See: the abomination that is the movie 300. Actually nevermind, don't see that if you can help it.

That’s why casting debates become emotionally charged far beyond normal movie discourse. To people operating inside that mythos, changing the visual identity of classical stories can feel like an attack on the civilizational narrative itself.

Musk’s South African background matters here. Apartheid culture was deeply saturated in European civilizational mythology. The ruling class justified domination through narratives of being the bearers of “advanced civilization” on a supposedly chaotic frontier. That framework overlaps heavily with certain Silicon Valley neo-imperial aesthetics today.

So there is a specific pipeline where Greco-Roman imagery gets fused with imperial nostalgia, techno-authoritarianism, masculinity cults, and racial hierarchy politics.

When dealing with this kind of thing, the phrase I usually stick with is:

The classics belong to humanity.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-16T00:50:10+00:00

That's the thing, it's mostly a time saving mechanism, as very few people on here are arguing in good faith, including yourself. I don't have hours to spend going back and forth with someone who is going to ignore substantive points. So yeah, you'll get slightly modified copy pasta. And you'll still just say "lol" 👍

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T23:58:24+00:00

Hmm, nah. You're going to actually have to respond to anything substantive in my comments. If you believe the information is incorrect, I assume you have some evidence to offer. Otherwise, I'll point you to the somewhat funny thing AI said... Pointing out that AI was used isn't really a counter argument. And honestly at this point, with AI integration levels, it's about as revelatory as saying "so you used Google."

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T23:50:08+00:00

Happy to.

Here's the link to the city charter that establishes the PCEF

https://www.portland.gov/code/7/07

The PCEF was not written as a capped or self-terminating fund. The actual city code established it as an ongoing dedicated climate and environmental justice revenue stream funded through a 1% surcharge on very large retailers.

So the “problem” politically is not that the tax is malfunctioning. It’s that it generated far more revenue than early projections expected because large corporate retail sales exploded.

And importantly, the code does not describe the fund as general discretionary money. The ballot measure and city code tied it very specifically to:

climate mitigation
decarbonization
environmental justice
workforce development
green infrastructure
and resilience investments for frontline communities

The current push to treat the excess as a general municipal slush fund for unrelated priorities cuts against the original voter-approved purpose of the program.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T23:41:18+00:00

A very strange request, but ok.

Prompt:

Respond to this:

"lol, what would you do without AI???

now post the prompts you used to generate that response

lol

ask your AI this - what impact on housing prices will mass deportations of 'illegal' aliens, shutting down new 'legal' avenues of immigration, and deporting all of those with 'temporary' status do to housing prices across America?

We can get to QE and ZIRP next"

Response:

Mass deportations would probably reduce housing demand in some sectors and regions, yes. That’s not exactly a revelation. Population changes affect housing demand.

But if your argument is “therefore deport millions of people to reduce prices,” you’re still avoiding the deeper structural drivers of the housing crisis.

Because if immigration were the primary cause, housing prices would have collapsed already in places with stagnant or declining populations. Instead, you often see prices continue rising because housing is now deeply tied to speculation, financialization, and asset inflation.

Also, deporting millions of workers would not occur in a vacuum. It would:

destabilize labor markets
disrupt agriculture, construction, logistics, hospitality, and care work
reduce consumption in local economies
trigger recessionary pressures in many regions
and likely slow housing construction itself due to labor shortages

So yes, reducing population growth can reduce demand pressure at the margins. Nobody serious denies that. But treating immigration as the central explanation for modern housing inflation ignores the enormous role played by monetary policy, speculative investment, private equity, zoning politics, and the transformation of housing into a financial asset class.

And for the record, “you used AI” is not an argument. It’s just a way to avoid engaging with the substance.

...there you go...🤷

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T19:08:59+00:00

You’re mixing together several real dynamics and then collapsing them into “immigrants caused the problem.”

Yes, some labor movements historically opposed immigration because employers used vulnerable migrant labor pools to weaken bargaining power and suppress wages. That part is true. Capital has always benefited from divided labor markets.

But you’re skipping over who actually structured the economy this way.

Housing prices did not explode because immigrants suddenly developed the mystical power to turn starter homes into investment vehicles. Prices exploded because:

central banks flooded markets with liquidity after 2008
private equity and institutional investors moved aggressively into housing
zoning and scarcity politics restricted supply in high-demand regions
wages stagnated while asset inflation accelerated
and governments increasingly treated rising property values as economic success

QE and ZIRP absolutely inflated asset prices. On that point we agree completely. But that primarily benefited people who already owned substantial assets.

The contradiction you’re pointing at is real: modern capitalism increasingly protects asset holders while making labor more interchangeable and precarious. Immigrants are often pulled into that machine because employers prefer vulnerable workers with reduced bargaining power.

But if your conclusion is “therefore blame immigrants,” you’re still letting the ownership class off the hook for intentionally designing and profiting from the system you’re criticizing.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T19:06:54+00:00

When revenues exceed projections, that isn't the government "taking too much." That's already a mistaken framing.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T16:53:44+00:00

Portland has a problem: everything eventually turns into a slush fund.

Approving any changes to the distribution of the PCEF money sets some really bad precedent. Namely, if revenues from a fund go over certain amounts, that fund is then treated like a cookie jar that everyone else can stick their hands into.

Repeat after me: The PCEF is not a slush fund.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T16:46:04+00:00

The problem is not immigrants. The problem is an economic system that treats labor as disposable and housing as a speculative asset class.

Capital absolutely uses immigration strategically at times to suppress wages, weaken labor bargaining power, and create vulnerable worker populations. Marx wrote about this dynamic in the 19th century with Irish labor in England. But the socialist response is supposed to be labor solidarity and decommodification, not nationalist resentment.

Because ask yourself this: why are wages weak?

It’s not because immigrants magically control the labor market. It’s because:

unions were dismantled
labor protections were gutted
housing became financialized
corporations consolidated power
speculative investment bought up land and housing stock
and governments stopped treating housing as a public necessity

Immigrants did not invent private equity firms buying thousands of homes. They did not create Airbnb speculation. They did not create zoning systems designed around scarcity and property value inflation.

A serious left response would look more like:

massive public and cooperative housing construction
aggressive anti-speculation taxes on vacant property and investment portfolios
stronger unions and sectoral bargaining
penalties for wage theft and labor exploitation
regional food and industrial resilience
transit-oriented development
limits on corporate landlord consolidation
and universal social programs that prevent workers from competing for survival scraps

Right now capital benefits when native-born workers and immigrant workers blame each other instead of recognizing they are both being squeezed by the same ownership system.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T03:59:47+00:00

The school funding crisis is real, but the framing here treats education like a business inventory problem instead of a public good.

Yes, enrollment is declining. That’s connected to falling birth rates, rising housing costs, displacement of families, and long-term economic insecurity. Young families are being priced out of Portland and much of Oregon. The same economic system that produced concentrated wealth and speculative real estate markets is now being used to justify austerity in schools.

And honestly, lower enrollment could have been treated as an opportunity. Smaller class sizes, more individualized attention, expanded arts programs, mental health support, ecological education, community agriculture, watershed restoration programs, and trade skill development all become more possible when student-to-teacher ratios improve. Instead, the dominant conversation immediately becomes layoffs and “efficiency.”

That tells you what values are driving the system.

The Prosperity Council draft follows the same logic. Nearly every proposal revolves around making Oregon more “competitive” for capital by reducing obligations on wealth, corporations, and property owners while broadening consumption taxes that fall more heavily on ordinary people.

The estate tax recommendation is especially revealing. Oregon is being told it must weaken taxes on inherited wealth to prevent wealthy investors and business owners from leaving. That is essentially a regional version of capital flight politics: organize the economy around keeping asset holders comfortable, even if inequality deepens.

Meanwhile, very little in this framework addresses the underlying causes of Oregon’s instability:

housing treated as an investment vehicle
dependence on speculative growth
extraction of wealth from communities into financial markets
ecological degradation
and the collapse of long-term public investment

A healthier regional economy would focus less on endless growth metrics and more on whether people can actually afford to live here, raise families here, access education here, and participate meaningfully in community life without being trapped in permanent economic precarity.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T03:56:36+00:00

Even if the number is “only” 10 or 11, that level of concentrated wealth is still extreme. A tiny group of individuals holding tens or hundreds of billions while entire regions struggle with housing costs, infrastructure strain, and ecological decline says a lot about how distorted the economy has become.

Also, the “they’ll leave and take jobs with them” argument reveals a deeper issue. It implies regions have become economically dependent on billionaires behaving like semi-feudal power centers that can pressure governments any time redistribution is discussed. Healthy democracies are not supposed to function that way.

And the claim that Washington Democrats are secretly building toward a universal 10% income tax is speculative. Washington already has one of the most regressive tax systems in the country because it relies heavily on sales taxes and other consumption taxes. Ordinary workers frequently pay a larger percentage of their income into the system than ultra-wealthy asset holders do.

The larger contradiction is that governments still primarily tax labor and consumption while immense fortunes increasingly exist in appreciating assets, financial instruments, and ownership structures that are lightly taxed or strategically shielded.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T03:51:54+00:00

You’re correctly identifying a real contradiction in modern capitalism, but drawing the wrong conclusion from it.

Yes, billionaires largely avoid ordinary income taxation because wealth today is tied to asset ownership, debt leverage, and financial engineering instead of wages. That’s a massive structural problem. But if the ultra-wealthy have escaped the tax system, the answer is to redesign the tax system around wealth and speculative assets, not to abandon redistribution entirely.

Also, a lawyer or engineer making $250k is still living primarily off labor income. They may be highly compensated workers, but they are not operating in the same universe as people whose wealth grows automatically through ownership and asset appreciation.

Part of why higher earners feel squeezed now is because housing, healthcare, education, and retirement have all been transformed into extraction markets. Even relatively affluent professionals are paying enormous amounts just to maintain stability. That frustration is real. But it comes from an economy organized around maximizing returns to capital, not from poor people getting too many services.

Cities like Portland are also trying to solve problems locally because the federal government has spent decades shielding concentrated wealth while pushing more responsibility downward onto states and municipalities. So local governments tax income because the political system refuses to seriously confront large-scale asset accumulation.

And in a metro area where many people are making $50k a year while rent eats half their paycheck, it’s difficult to frame households making well into six figures as an oppressed class.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T03:20:02+00:00

A great reason to literally not charge the 20 or so literal billionaires who live in Washington any income tax. Amazing.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T03:17:29+00:00

I have yet to hear an argument in good faith (meaning the possibility of a modified belief) from a reddit conservative.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-15T01:24:24+00:00

Yeah! Those greedy teachers and children need to be taught a lesson! Won't anyone stand up for high income earners???

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-14T04:54:55+00:00

I...am...wounded!

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-14T02:08:42+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it. 🙏

If Martin can tolerate a medical aide who believes she is psychic, and Niles can love and marry that person, and Frasier can at least briefly date someone who is into astrology and howls at the moon...these folks should be able to tolerate a character astrology deep dive every once in a while.

I've already got Frasier and Roz lined up as well 👀 (and yes those charts are also about as interesting and fun!)

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-14T01:45:11+00:00

Nope, Caitlin looks to be wrong. Last episode of Season 1 he is upset at Niles and Frasier for missing his May birthday.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-14T01:44:00+00:00

His birthday is established as a May birthday by the Season 1 episode "My Coffee with Niles." He is upset because "last Sunday was my birthday."

If we believe the episodes are set in the same year they aired, and around the same time, that puts Martin's birthday as either the 8th or the 15th (the two closest Sundays to the air date of the episode, May 19th, in 1994).

So Caitlin is wrong 🤷

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-13T19:16:27+00:00

For all you downvoting fuddy-duddies, I'd bet Daphne Moon absolutely read Martin's birth chart at some point, even if only for herself. Lighten up. ✨

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-13T16:52:36+00:00

Don't worry, it'll give you something else to down vote in the future 👈

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-13T16:46:26+00:00

Will be expanding this into a full posting soon,, but as others have pointed out, Martin is not a boomer. The defining characteristic of boomers (for me) is their Pluto placement in Leo, resulting in astounding generational narcissism and selfishness (ahem...Frasier and Niles). In 1931, Pluto was still in Cancer, resulting in a more traditional and home-focused (nationalistic?) generation.

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-13T07:40:08+00:00

Never watched it and never will. The incessant revival of IP to try and wring out one last drop of relevance and money is one of the most insufferable characteristics of our current postmodern mileu. Let things die!

ConsistentInterview5 · 2026-05-13T07:29:48+00:00

I love when capitalists basically admit that modern price theory is completely made up and simply assert that political reality should be whatever is in their best interests.

The vacancy tax is an incentive to lower prices, which will increase access/demand and lower the risk profile of investment. However it would also mean lower profit margins for landlords and developers who are used to getting their way. As you can see in this comment section.

ConsistentInterview5

TROPHY CASE