Page 1: A mysterious figure approaches what appears to be a mysterious land (on page 2, the top panel reveals it is the Bronx) looking for the goddess Guabancex. Guabancex was a deity (zemi) from the pre-Columbian Taino peoples in Puerto Rico who was responsible for the climate and weather; a labile goddess with a short temper who unleashed juracan (where the modern term “hurricane” derives its name) which was her wrath onto the Taino peoples. The connections here are obvious even to the novice follower of politics: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is of Puerto Rican ethnicity, not to sound offensive calling her “labile” but she is eccentric to say the least and believes that she can change the weather with powers of legislation.
Page 2: The mysterious sojourner is revealed as Bernie Sanders, who AOC has supported and has inspired much of her politics. I painfully watched several AOC interviews and was seriously impressed at the speed her subtle and flamboyant contradictions come. She frequently tells a story about her miserable existence of working 12 hrs. a day, the amount of time she spent commuting to and from work, and how she just thought that this is the way “life is”. Her epiphany came when Bernie Sanders told her life did not have to be this way. It always kills me when liberals (or anyone for that matter) talk about earning a living on “less then living wages.” How does one live if one does not have the means to do so? If one were breathing with less oxygen than it takes for you to survive, one would not live very long. This is followed up with another liberal paradox, namely, the phenomena that the government can and will be the arbitrator of “fairness” and “equality”, yet, responsible for systemic racism and white supremacy at the same time. This could be unpacked more, but this is the basic jest of the joke in the page.
Then, she goes onto say it is impossible for anyone to get ahead in this country because they spend all their time scraping and scrounging for measly scraps, similar to slaves that built the nation. However, she is the epitome on hard work paying off and the “American Dream”! She is from humble backgrounds, female, minority group, bar tending, working nonstop, graduated cum laude from Boston University with a double major, and went on to beat out an over 10-year incumbent, Democratic Caucus Chair in Joe Crowley, in the primaries with her earth-shattering (non-fracking) grassroots (even with carbon emissions being so low) successful campaign. She is easy on the eyes without her obvious charisma. She is the absolute pinnacle of hard work paying off. How someone as brilliant, sharp, and hard-working as her developed such whacky sociopolitical beliefs… Atabey herself does not even know. However, the wording here is pretty obvious; one can clearly comprehend the hypocrisy without ever knowing AOC.
Page 3: AOC mentions socialized healthcare at the closing of the last page as a segue into a comedic bit about ol’ Bernie’s passion for healthcare. This page was inspired by a random clip that I saw of him on C-SPAN where he was deliberating in some type of official capacity, but the topic he was speaking of had nothing to do with healthcare. He was nonchalant in his position the whole time, but somehow, he got into how people can have differing perspectives on “rights” and uses his “healthcare as a right” perspective as an example. All the sudden, he became completely unhinged, turned red in the face, and repeated his self, “I’ve always said that!! It’s a right!! Said it for years!!,” before becoming completely calm again and concluding his discussion. I was so amused by this, I had to put it in the comic.
My Intro to Global Warming Anecdotal
Me: “Man, I wish global warming would kick in! So tired of these long winters.”
Co-Worker: “Actually global warming is going to cause another Ice Age. That’s why they’re changing the name to ‘climate change’.”
Me: “I have literally never considered any aspect of the theory, read about, or anything, I have only heard of the term and used it to voice my frustration for the winter, but congrats, because you have single-handedly convinced me it is not real.”
Of course, the anecdotal is supposed to be funny, but, seriously, who are these “scientists” fooling? First, it’s overpopulation, then an Ice Age, then Global Warming, now it’s all three that are spelling doom, and, I assume, if the “scientists” apocalyptic prophecies do not come true in the allotted time, something else will come up too. Gore, Ehrlich (overpopulation guy, and probably an unfamiliar name), and plethora of other “experts” have been more wrong about the coming apocalypse than Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, in true apocalyptic preacher form, we need to repent, sacrifice, and give ourselves to the government to accept science in our hearts, for when the climate rapture comes, we will be spared from the suffering in the end of days. Speaking of being saved, when does it all end? Is a scientist going to say one day, “We did it! We saved the planet—go ahead and exhale now.” This page is designed to mock the sheer ridiculousness of what they are saying. Go ahead, look at me like a Flat-Earther, but the fact is, universal healthcare (part of the Green New Deal) does not have an effect on climate. It just doesn’t. AOC says as much—more on that later.
Page 4: We arrive at the town hall meeting for the Green New Deal (GND) at the tail-end of the speech, where she is describing the etymology of the GND, and implying America needs it in the same way. Someone who is not libertarian may not get this, but this too, is another hypocrisy because libertarians know that the New Deal was one of the biggest offenders of liberty in American history, a huge step toward socialism, and prolonged the Great Depression. I know this is not the conventional way it is taught, but I’m not going to explain it here because the world is going to end in the next 12 years anyway, according to convention.
Page 5: Questions. The top panel depicts a fragile young adult scared of climate change and pronouns: an unprecedented condition of dysfunction in child development. This is real. There are really people suffering from ecoanxiety. It’s a real diagnosis. I don’t mean to repeat myself over and over, but I really want it to sink in: people are developing mental illness because of the CO2 apocalypse propaganda. However, lucky for the attendee, most of his treatments have been successful and he asks how realistic the plan is. This is inspired by The Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez1MSNBC special on All In with Chris Hayes. I watched the whole gruesome show on YouTube in preparation for this epilogue, and there was one thing that just struck through my nerve—my last nerve, as it were.
Chris Hayes asks how realistic this GND is, and AOC replies openly that it is not. Stunning. Felt like the sky was falling, and a piece of the ozone layer just clobbered me over the head. “We have to do something…” she kept repeating. In other words, we need to make some laws to stop climate change, whether they work, are realistic, or follow science, is not important. This phenomenon is frequented in American politics, especially those on the left. This political position comes from a place of privilege, ironically. The liberal thought of “why not?”, “something is better than nothing”, and that the current way is “not working” is so appalling and ignorant that they should be treated with highest indignancy. Let’s take something less controversial like gun control as an example. This argument comes up frequently in debate/conversation: “Why not?” Well, I’ll tell you why not.
Take the ban on assault weapons. Surely, everyone has heard the “If it there is a small chance it saves one child’s life, we should do it,” argument, which makes sense to the romantics and bleeding heart liberals, and it isn’t just because they don’t follow the thought experiment to the logical conclusion – namely, that keeping kids in cages and never letting them do anything can save one child’s life (not to mention the claim is not falsifiable). It is because they don’t have any, what Nassim Taleb refers to as, “skin in the game”. The area of town and/or suburb they live in is relatively safe and shootings are not common. They’ve never made a choice between potential prison time and protecting themselves from violent peoples in the neighborhood (of course the legislators themselves are protected by people with assault weapons). The assault weapon ban is based purely on appearance and has nothing to do with function (albeit the “military-style” bump stock). The poorest communities usually have the highest crime rate, and no we’re going to ask people to get new guns, inspections, compliance, and whatever else, who does that effect the most? Yes, “Why not?” indeed, new gun laws are absolutely meaningless to you. You don’t know anyone who has been shot, killed, seriously injured, robbed, and/or raped. You are not stop and frisked on a regular basis by police; you do not have a husband/father of your children in prison because he made the decision that he needed to defend himself and his family. You have the means to get a different gun, a different license, and even a lawyer. You don’t care if there is an uprise in single parenthood (a well-known contributor of poverty and cycles of poverty), there is an uprise in prisoners, and there is an uprise in homicides. These socially denigrating findings affect minority groups more than anyone else. So, why-notters, also the people claiming to want equality, want more people locked up, less opportunity for self-defense, and essentially make the people entirely dependent on the police for safety. These are also the people that don’t want policing; furthermore, the Supreme Court rules over and over again that the police are not responsible for your safety (see Warren v. District of Columbia, police are not obligated to protect you), yet you do not want people to protect themselves. People who are never in danger of gun violence, do not know anyone in prison for nonviolent crimes, where single-parent households are not the norm, know nothing about gun functions or even current laws, and are not subject to the police brutality and/or other problems associated with today’s policing think they are qualified to know how fix these problems for the others.
Therefore, “Why not enact a bunch of laws if it helps the environment?” Because it hurts people. It violates human liberties/individual rights; can anyone deny that? Then, in an effort to sound completely absurd, AOC blames the “free market” for the failure to intervene on behalf of the environment. This is when famed historian Tom Woods, who is out walking in the market minding his own business, gets walloped with the claim. The CO2 in his blood increases and makes him almost self-combust (because CO2 holds heat).
Page 6: So, Tom Woods steps up to the mic because he is a lover of people and loves to teach, but, also, would hate for her to be embarrassed about what she said and explains that there has not been a free market in oil “since Rockefeller”. This is true, by the way. The “Robber Baron” myth perpetuated in pseudohistorical institutions is inaccurate; it is not just the trashy Zinn revisionists either (although, conventional teaching fail to describe how the consumers benefitted), but it is that the government had everything to do with the oil industry. For instance, it said that Henry Ford favored alcohol over oil combustion engines (the two engines were used almost equally used for machines at the time) until prohibition came and made his choice a little easier. I am not talking about actual measures taken on behalf of Standard Oil or Rockefeller to manipulate law (for instance, the largest lobby group for prohibitionist was funded by him); I am talking about the government actions that have benefitted the big corporations and held down the independent small businesses. (Alcohol, by the way, does not leave CO2 when it is burned and is cheaper and easier to make—alcohol, made by fermenting sugars; oil is dug out of the ground and sent to refinery, which is more expensive.) Where is alcohol fuel in the GND? In most states, distilling spirits is still illegal.
However, he digresses and asks about how these drastic changes will be implemented financially. In the All In MSNBC, AOC admits the GND is unaffordable, but states it will create an economy – its own economy. Which there is no reason to believe they can’t do that, the CIA did in the U.S. with crack cocaine, if you can excuse my sarcasm. He challenges her and she brags of her education in economics. The implication being she knows more than him about economics.
Page 7: This plays on the Contra Krugman podcast everyone misses, which typically starts off with Woods summarizing a Krugman column, and then (or at least some point in the show) Bob Murphy (the other personality of the show) says, “I think you hit all the points, but just to elaborate on…” In our story the hero starts to elaborate, and AOC loses her patience, ripping off her mild-mannered clothes, conjuring up a hurricane to stop the two from putting so much CO2 in the air, and proclaiming 97% of scientists agree on man-made climate change.
Page 8: The dynamic duo’s true identity is revealed and their powers reflective of their personalities and relationship, which is somewhat inside jokes that patrons of the show would pick up on but not (necessarily) pertinent to the story. (Also, an alternate cover.)
Page 9: The quarrel ensues. Bob’s words are from an article he wrote on Mises.org concerning the myth of the 97% agreement on man-made climate change perpetrated by media and others. Of course, she successfully disperses with Bob’s words of logic using lightning and wind of illogic. Tom notices what is happening, and decides they need reinforcement!
Page 10: Bob’s comment is meant to be funny as, in closing each Contra Krugman episode, Bob says, “Can I just say one more thing?” It’s a running joke on the show, and, in fact, it may have been the last show or close to, where Woods just says “no” and the show ends. However, Woods is in too much a hurry because he knows AOC is too powerful to be affected by their logic and arguments.
Find out in pt. 2, AOC vs. CO2 2, if our heroes or the environment will prevail!!!
To be continued…
1. Hayes, Chris (2019). The Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. All In. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoFaQ9foV8I on 9/6/2021.