Superman and the Politics Of Men Belting Wives and Kids

1938—Superman confronts wife-beater.

My story today at examiner.com looks at the connection between Superman and the current debate (such as it is) about the Aransas County Texas judge who appears to have gotten off without any legal consequence, after his daughter posted a video to YouTube of the judge beating her with a belt when she was 16.

A lot of people have of course denounced the judge. But a lot of people have defended him—mainly in anonymous comments on the various places the video was posted. One can argue some of the pro-beating comments are just trolls and malcontents, but we should be aware of how many Americans, to this day, think beating children into "submission", as the judge describes his mission in the video of him beating his daughter, is a good and healthy thing.

The USA is destroying its soul in lots of ways, and of course it may be one of those nations, like Nazi Germany, that ends up eventually functioning without a soul at all—an automaton state puking evil like vomit in all directions. Many would say it has already reached that condition, having worked hard to get there for a very long time now.

But reducing the questions to a personal level, I would argue that the brutalizing of children, which is such a common experience in the USA, is the first step in training American kids to become enthusiastic consumers and perpetrators of violence. That is very useful to a soulless state, which constantly utilizes the nation's collective terror and rage to perpetrate the most destructive domestic and foreign policies.