Trying to push Reset...

EXHAUSTED 
By Alex Ness
September 1, 2026

A PLACE TO VENT

When I chose to create this blog it was give a vent to allow my constant need to write, I meant for it to be an area of ideas and opinions I have. Instead it seems that I've instead used it to consider popular culture media rather than a place to express. That isn't a problem, I mean, I do speak freely here. By doing this article, I hope, will change the trend and return to its chosen roots. It isn't, after all, that anyone is complaining other than me. I am currently frustrated by the modern powers of our world to engage in war as a tool of diplomacy. 

WAR

Our current world features war in Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria, The Congo, and still more. In the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, we dared believe that the world had lived through a violent dangerous time, and that we'd never have to worry in that way again. I think that, for the most part, is true. We understand that nuclear confrontation bears with it egregious amounts of triggers, any one of the many could lead us back to the dark times, and worse. We'd made choices that, for the time, might have made sense. But having experienced that time, and understood the dangers, to return to that period of armed stand offs and nuclear brinkmanship makes no sense at all. 

A time back, I'd the opportunity to speak to a person involved in strategic planning and tactics, who had retired and has since died. He wrote to me about a work I had reviewed and he didn't insult me or the work considered, but said, the writer of that product had no military experience. And he went into detail how the product was a fairy tale, rather than a hard look at the world. We chatted more over email and his commentary led me to perceive our world as being in one that is one hellovalot more dangerous than we might perceive. The desire for peace and kindness is wonderful. It would be wonderful to have those things. But the chance we go to war, or witness an act that can never be fixed, makes me wonder what is the real agenda in the wars of the present.

"Bertrand Russell compared it to the game of chicken: Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls 'brinksmanship.' This is a policy adapted from a sport which, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called 'Chicken!'." (Sourced from Wikipedia from the article about Brinksmanship.)

ENDURANCE

Yes, I am safe in the heart of Minnesota. No, that does not free me from worrying about the focus and aim that the world has adopted. I have had a long time hope that my poetic, prose, and political choice, will reduce the power of the makers of war. There is a difference in my efforts and those of other creatives. My work isn't bound in the power of word, since I have few readers. But when a reader of my poems wrote and said, "Why are you so depressing, you write about nuclear annihilation, wars turning into extinction, and worse. We are no longer dealing with those worries. Why keep bringing it up." I said, as long as people possess the ability to make war with nuclear weapons, the danger exists. And truly, when a society can die due to a mistake, misperception, or direct desire, it becomes something much greater than the facts that describe it.

LINKS

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

THIS LIFE IN A SUBJECTIVE WORLD

PROPAGANDA? WHY?
By Alex Ness
August 20, 2026

STATE INFORMATION UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

In extreme situations, the authority in charge of safety often assumes responsibility for the sharing of information. Sometimes it holds back on information, considering the damage to morale, to their point of view, or to the safety of people moved by false information or molded information. The better the information is baked into the item of news, by whoever has released it, the more it will have an impact upon those exposed to it. 

It has gone on for centuries, actually, millennia. In fact, upon many stones it has been etched a version of an event that maybe didn't happen, or didn't happen in the way the narrator would like you to believe.

For instance, I disagree with modern experts who seek to erase any victory by the Egyptian army under the leadership of Pharaoh Ramses II. His tomb memorials declared the event of the battle of Kadesh to be a perfect case of victory, of extraordinary valor, and success achieving the Egyptian army's aims. Modern history readers have tried to deflate that balloon of bluster. But it wasn't as if the enemy at Kadesh, the Hittites didn't do the same kind of exalted words of greatness.

At Kadesh a large army of four groups led by the Pharaoh and his chariot using elite bodyguard, were moving along the coast of the Mediterranean sea to Kadesh, a site in Syria built up and walled.  It was here that Ramses II had wanted to make a display of power, and restore the territory to Egyptian control. That couldn't be done, because as the chariots and first army group arrived, a mass surprise ambush of Hittite chariots burst through a nearby area of rough and shrubs, and crashed through the newly arriving remainder army groups. It required the chariots of Ramses II and his body guard to respond, destroying many of the enemy's ambush chariot squad. On the walls of his monuments Ramses II had written of his gallantry, and powerful impact. But Kadesh was not regained, and Egypt did not win a victory. It might have achieved a bloody punishment to the Hittites, but they did not, in the end, give up the land Pharaoh had come to take.  Did Ramses II fail? Not like the modern voices would say, many sounding like their feelings were hurt for the propaganda trying to mislead them. It was something done, if not fully achieved, rather painfully ending in a draw. Few would dare to invite Ramses II's wrath with a second battle.

But, both sides of the story? State secrets, important information is not always wrong, sometimes it was important to beat the drum, to move a people from one passive view, to that of an active one. Other times it is about clarifying reasons, and making clear the reason to be willing to support war, the most destructive action of a nation.

The four sets of propaganda works from the Second World War shown below feature something disturbing. It is more than saying, our side is right, The Empire of Japan and the United States of America both use racism and demonizing of the enemy in their posters. The Nazis and British Empire used inspirational images and words to encourage and inspire determined entry on the side of the maker of the poster art. I suspect that both Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom and the British Empire had already been to war, heavily, in the previous 20 years. Therefore, maybe it wasn't so easy to demonize and much easier to lead others into the fight for the life of the nation in question in those cases.

SOME GREAT BOOKS ABOUT THE SUBJECT

Some use neutral language about books about propaganda. They call it media regarding the conflict. Or such. But the books shown below include some of the best written and cultivated in the subject. While many aim at Nazi propaganda, which is fine, it is important to point out, not only did the Nazis use it, they used it against the enemy, for the state, and to use as force to use force against the enemies within. 

John Dower has written many excellent works, as has Saburo Ienaga, about just how the war was practiced. In fact, while the Nazis pretended to use logic, the Japanese and Americans cast aside all reason and logic faced with the war at hand. Learning how both sides saw the conflict as a contest of racial parameters. The dimensions of the war led to horrible war crimes, and use of tactics that have since been illegalized in the rules of war. This is less to say what not to read, if done well all works can help achieve a narrative. But those works that are aimed at a narrower focus might miss some other issues that weren't included. It is true that ideologies can infect propaganda, so if one reads about propaganda from a Left wing or Right wing perspective, the information may still be true, but stained a bit by going into the paradigms of power and economic justice in addition to the mechanics of changing minds and hearts with words and pictures.

MOVIES MADE FOR A PURPOSE

The films that were meant to inspire soldiers of the fight, did not always tell a story about the specific fight ongoing. The Battleship Potemkin was aimed at mobilizing soldiers, sailors and workers to taking up the cause of the state. The Triumph of the Will was a supposed antiseptic story of a lone man who would speak to gathered thousands, in agreement with the lone man, the messianic sort of speaker. Why We Fight was the work of Frank Capra, an expert cinematographer. He used the images of the American war, then being fought to create the evidence to explain America's movement from isolationist to active, choosing to embrace the need for a policeman of the world. It was a study in emotional response to a violent war, and made its profile known as a just power. Rightly or wrongly. In Which We Serve won an Oscar. It was the British version of making its case for war showing a British destroyer being bombed and the survivors thinking upon the paths that led them to war. It is not the equal of Triumph of the Will nor Why We Fight, but it is a better film as films go. Or at least, it feels less like propaganda.

LINKS

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

WHY I LOVE COMICS

A LOVE FOR COMICS
By Alex Ness
August 14, 2026  

I began reading comics when I was very young. My brother was reading books and comics all the time. He was 2 years older than me. He was my role model, my first friend, and my defender.  Life was often less than fun. Over time we shared those summer days when chores were done, reading through all of our comics. 

We had more DC comics than Marvel, with about a dozen Turok, Son of Stone from Gold Key. We didn't keep our comics separated by ownership, we did separate them in terms of publisher. I worked from 12 years old on, I had a total of 3 jobs, and had two temporary jobs where I cleaned offices, shoveled walks, or mowed lawns. As such, I saved money and would weekly buy many more comics. I didn't let my father or mother know about my nest egg, since I deposited most of my earnings into a college fund. And college certainly drained it.  

My kind of comics included, post apocalyptic, WWII, Prehistoric, Super heroes.

As I grew older my preference of comics began to skew towards the creative talents who created the comics. Jack Kirby, Dave Cockrum, Paul Gulacy & Doug Moench, Roy Thomas and more, all became part of why I would buy the comic. With my growing ability to buy comics, I developed regular books to buy. 

Oh, and one more, artist/writer I followed Mike Grell. Due to my loving the Legion of Super Heroes, the art became a central feature, as most of the stories were shorter than a Superboy lead story. While I loved Dave Cockrum's LSH, Grell was a very good replacement, and was eventually much better on that book. The Cockrum X-Men and LSH were among my favorites.

I love Japan, and have since I read a number of books about WWII, Japan, Samurai, over a summer. I read well above my grade level, and whether my parents approved of my reading choices or not, they couldn't question my choices. I rarely shared that information. As an adult I continue to read comics, but mostly as TPBs after they ran long enough as single chapters/issues to establish a story to follow. I love manga, or Japanese comics, different than American or European comics, but still, stories told sequentially, with more conventions of the art form.

LINKS

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.