Movies Starship Troopers: The bugs did nothing wrong

[ThatZenoGuy]

Again. Where is this said? This is a Federation that has both civilians and citizens of its state. You can have people who vote and those who don't.
But you never answered my question.
What about the Federation makes them fascist?

I never called them fascist, other people did. As Fascism is an antiquated Italian political system it's unlikely Starship Troopers would feature it. It does obviously feature eugenics, and general political fuckery though.

Sky Marshal is not their political leader.

Where is this said?

Burden of proof, show me a line in the film where they call him the supreme leader of the federation.
The film mentions the Federal Council, who is seen shadowed behind the Sky Marshal.

 

[Zachowon]

I never called them fascist, other people did. As Fascism is an antiquated Italian political system it's unlikely Starship Troopers would feature it. It does obviously feature eugenics, and general political fuckery though.

Okay, then how at all is your point where the bugs are the good guy an actual argument?
All I have seen argued is that the humans faked the meteor attack.
But my question would be how the hell did the bugs get plasma bugs so fucking early in the war or even be on other planets if they are the good guys

Sky Marshal is not their political leader.

Burden of proof, show me a line in the film where they call him the supreme leader of the federation.
The film mentions the Federal Council, who is seen shadowed behind the Sky Marshal.

I will jave to rewatch the movie on that one.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Okay, then how at all is your point where the bugs are the good guy an actual argument?
All I have seen argued is that the humans faked the meteor attack.
But my question would be how the hell did the bugs get plasma bugs so fucking early in the war or even be on other planets if they are the good guys

The bugs have been around for millions of years and are smarter than most critters, they've developed the ability to colonize space after all. Even if judging by the number of bug-planets and their locations, its really ineffective.

My question to you, is.

Why aren't you concerned that the 'good guys' are actively pursuing human brainwashing via psychic SS soldiers? Is that not at all a worry for you?

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Well I would start with:

The fact they came for "socialists" doesn't say anything regarding Nazi's socio-economic polices unless you wish to argue Trotsky wasn't communist simply because he had a different view of it than Stalin.

The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy

I'm not sure what you're are trying to prove. Socialists have private property and Big business since socialism is, more or less, the half-way velvet glove to the destructive and chaotic communist revolutionaries. It is all about public-private enterprises to prevent messier and more radical outcomes down the line.

For a modern day example of socialism and Big corporations working hand in glove just look at how big business happily virtue signals to whatever the current leftist cause or belief is.

Were the Nazis socialists? No, not in any meaningful way.

Skimmed that I saw little to no actual evidence. It mentions Hitler partner with big business, which is a socialistic endeavor, and seems to suggest being anti-communist or anti-sematic is somehow incompatible with socialism which suggests the author is either ignorant or deliberately trying to pin Fascism as anything but a heresy of socalism.

 

[Aldarion]

Well I would start with:

Then:
Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2008)
Turner, Henry A. (1985). German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler. Oxford University Press.
Schweitzer, Arthur (1964). Big Business in the Third Reich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

And with a direct link:
The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy
Were the Nazis socialists? No, not in any meaningful way.

Considering what Communists and other socialists did in the 1918 - 1930 period, nobody sane would have defended them even had Tyranids come to Earth. It is easy to be a general after the battle, but back in 1930s nobody knew how evil Nazis would turn out to be... mostly because nobody had read what Hitler had written, just as none of the so-called Communists actually bother to read what Marx and Engels had written.

The Wages of Destruction is a book I have read, and it actually kinda supports my point. And if you want to start with anything... again, start with what Nazi Party and Hitler had actually written. Reality is always a compromise - even Soviet Union had traces of capitalist economy. But Nazis wanted socialism, and they introduced as much of it as they could have.

And this:

https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/OpenAccess/MeskillOptimizing/MeskillOptimizing_05.pdf

As long as the regime was still consolidating power, labor policies largely were concerned with the challenge of conquering mass unemployment. To this end, the new power holders utilized a variety of strategies, including increasing coercion in the labor market. During the first two years of Nazi rule, unemployment fell by more than half, from 35 percent in January 1933 to 17 percent two winters later, and 13 percent in the summer and fall of 1935.30 Still, the recovery remained fragile and uneven: even as the overall level of joblessness fell, alarming pockets of high unemployment remained in the large cities.31 To improve the balance in the recovery, but also—so it was claimed—to serve the regime's longer-term goal of restoring a balance between the nation's industrial and agricultural sectors,32 measures in 1934 and 1935 gave the Reichsanstalt new powers to control the allocation of labor. Two laws allowed the Labor Administration to prevent companies from hiring workers in high-unemployment areas if the workers recently had moved there or if they recently had been employed in agriculture, as well as from hiring young workers (under twenty-fi ve) at the expense of older ones. In 1935, a monopoly law finally brought the remaining independent job placement offi ces, which had been tolerated by the 1922 Labor Exchange Law and 1927 Reichsanstalt legislation, under the control of the Labor Administration.33 While these measures were limited in important ways—applying only to selected cities, exerting largely indirect pressure on employers, or sanctioning a de facto monopoly that had long existed—the extension of the Reichsanstalt's explicit powers still gave a preview of the more sweeping changes that would occur after 1935, in particular, in 1938.

If the rearmament since 1934 already had contributed to shortages among some skilled workers,81 the much vaster military and autarky programs of the FourYear Plan, at a time when the number of school-leavers was still declining, ensured that the scarcity of labor became a major and persistent problem for the regime and the economy. Th roughout the period of war preparation (and during the war as well), the regime's primary response to this challenge was to impose ever-greater controls on the movement of labor, including on the entry of young people into vocations. It is telling that the first directives Göring's offi ce issued for the implementation of the plan pertained to Germany's supply of skilled labor, obliging metal and construction firms with more than 10 employees to train a pro portionate number of apprentices.82 In the short run, this directive, as well as others issued at the same time,83 may have, in fact, restricted the freedoms of employers little, as they were "purposefully elastically" formulated, frequently not enforced by the overburdened labor offi ces, and, in any case, intended more as an "urgent appeal" to the employer's sense of duty than as real limitations.84 Still, it is clear that the employers (and the Reichsanstalt and ministries) correctly interpreted the writing on the wall as indicating that in future, the regime would intervene more directly in firms' and individuals' decisions about vocation and work.

 

[Navarro]

The film mentions the Federal Council, who is seen shadowed behind the Sky Marshal.

Federal Council seems to be their Congress/Senate.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Thanks to the Bugs I'll never get to go to Zegema Beach.

 

[Navarro]

Really I think the problem, why the "obvious" message Verhoven wanted to express failed to register so greatly, is he went very Meta. The movie is essentially supposed to be a "fascist" utopia, how Verhoven thinks Nazi's would present themselves in this great propagandistic war film. So we're supposed to identify with the Bugs *because* the film presents them as one-dimensional villains. We're supposed to look at that and go "Wow, that's exactly how Nazi's would have portrayed Jews/Communists/Gays/Etc" and therefore conclude the Bugs must be the oppressed good guys. And under that rubric of course the Federation looks sinister because obviously a fascist war movie would condone and justify their mistreatment of the "other" by casting themselves in the most heroic light.

No, it's because ... the aesthetics of the civilian side of the movie are very classic Americana. The Federation propaganda in the movie is *directly influenced* by Allied WW2 propaganda such as the Why We Fight films by Capra. And Verhoeven literally lays it out in his commentary in case you don't get where I'm heading with this.

The real intended message of the SST movie is there was no real difference between the Allies and the Nazis during WW2, and America today (in the 90s) is literally the same as Nazi Germany in the 40s. Which is absolutely insane, but this is what Paul Verhoeven actually believes.

 

[Husky_Khan]

The Terran Federation can send the Alphabet people to Quarantined Space now that there's Open War with the bugs and they can finally found their own Ghey homeland. The Federation Council can even give them enough weapons so they can form their own Stonewall Brigade or some shit.

This is the based Terran Federation Fascist Federalism I will make random unsupported fan canon about.

It's like the end of Brave New World where the affable Globohomo Dictatorship sends the free thinking intellectuals to the Falkland Islands for the rest of their lives so they can write their political tracts and whine about philosophy in peace and comfort.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Federal Council seems to be their Congress/Senate.

That still doesn't mean the Sky Marshal is their supreme leader, in the whole film he doesn't seem to actually make any decisions besides starting a war...Which everyone wanted in the first place.

 

[King Arts]

That still doesn't mean the Sky Marshal is their supreme leader, in the whole film he doesn't seem to actually make any decisions besides starting a war...Which everyone wanted in the first place.

Why would you see the sky marshal? This isn’t a political thriller like house of cards the politics of the federation aren’t shown in a war movie.

What you are saying is as dumb as if I asked how do we know the president is the commander in chief of America in Saving private Ryan because we don’t see him.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Why would you see the sky marshal? This isn’t a political thriller like house of cards the politics of the federation aren’t shown in a war movie.

What you are saying is as dumb as if I asked how do we know the president is the commander in chief of America in Saving private Ryan because we don’t see him.

I mean in context you'd think a hyper propagandized nation would probably use their supreme leader a lot, unless they didn't want people to know who's actually in power.

It'd be like Kim Jon not showing up in the newscasts in North Korea. If he's so important why isn't he regularly talking about his policies and whatnot.

In any case the Wiki appears to agree with me, "All eligible candidates are put infront of the advisory board, which consists of military strategists and retired Citizens. The board would simultaneously vote on the Sky Marshal."

So yeah, they're hired by people who themselves aren't even voted in.

 

[King Arts]

I mean in context you'd think a hyper propagandized nation would probably use their supreme leader a lot, unless they didn't want people to know who's actually in power.

It'd be like Kim Jon not showing up in the newscasts in North Korea. If he's so important why isn't he regularly talking about his policies and whatnot.

In any case the Wiki appears to agree with me, "All eligible candidates are put infront of the advisory board, which consists of military strategists and retired Citizens. The board would simultaneously vote on the Sky Marshal."

So yeah, they're hired by people who themselves aren't even voted in.

Link? Also dictators don’t show up in every propaganda video.

 

[Bassoe]

It's like the end of Brave New World where the affable Globohomo Dictatorship sends the free thinking intellectuals to the Falkland Islands for the rest of their lives so they can write their political tracts and whine about philosophy in peace and comfort.

That’s what the dictatorship claims anyway.

 

[Aldarion]

The real intended message of the SST movie is there was no real difference between the Allies and the Nazis during WW2, and America today (in the 90s) is literally the same as Nazi Germany in the 40s. Which is absolutely insane, but this is what Paul Verhoeven actually believes.

Well, it is true that differences were far less than what some people would have you believe... it was a war essentially of alliance of lesser evil and greatest evil against alliance of middle evil and great evil.

World War II basically created modern "good vs evil" narrative, but the last actual war fought in Europe that could be said to have been "good vs evil" were probably the Ottoman Wars... even the French Revolution wasn't it, considering the opponent of the Revolutionaries were modernist absolute monarchies.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

 

[Husky_Khan]

But Quaritch became an alien in the sequel. It's like if the Federation brought Rasczak back as a Tanker Bug.

Or Dizzy as a Zerg Broodmother.

 

[Blasterbot]

But Quaritch became an alien in the sequel. It's like if the Federation brought Rasczak back as a Tanker Bug.

Or Dizzy as a Zerg Broodmother.

I will never forgive them for what they did to my boy.

 

[prinCZess]

But Quaritch became an alien in the sequel. It's like if the Federation brought Rasczak back as a Tanker Bug.

Or Dizzy as a Zerg Broodmother.

I will never forgive them for what they did to my boy.

...
Having watched the Starship Troopers sequel and now number 3, the ominous tones I read these in worry me about the animated features which lie ahead.

On the other hand, while 2 was a dive into blandness, 3 bounced back with a dramatic boa around its neck while singing a musical number, so maybe my taste will find this ominious forewarning appealing...Starcraft wasn't a bad story with Kerrigan, and I can live with a knockoff plotline in a dumb action-movie...

(Vaguely on-topic, #3 if you care to watch it DOES make the Federation's screwed-up status as authoritarian warmongering dictatorship/oligarchy more front-and-center albeit in decidedly campy overdone manner (which oddly FITS with the first film even as it blows past it in the camp factor), with protestors getting the rope, the government committing false flags to keep certain people in charge and frame disliked dissidents, and the government coopting religion for propaganda by the end).

 

[Husky_Khan]

That’s what the dictatorship claims anyway.

Speaking generally in regards to dictatorships or about the Brave New World government specifically?