jimnms, having seen the movie, I can see why people are reacting this positively to it. Have you seen it? Where you have or havent, consider the following.

You are right that this isn't the first black superhero movie. If you ignore comedies starring goofy concept heros, the list of movies narrows. Then, consider movies with black super heros who are not anti-heroes (Spawn, Blade). Why this distinction? Anti-heroes are great, but they aren't characters for a general young audience to aspire to. To notice that the majority of main character superheroes in movies are either partially a joke or a dark/brooding/scary/threatening/antisocial hero might be a drag. especially when you compare it to the pool of white super heroes who aren't (most of them). That's important.

First movie with a mostly black cast? No, but how many such movies arent about slavery, inner city gangs, extreme poverty, surviving racism, genocide or third world conflict. How many are almost purely optimistic blend of science fiction and the beauty of African culture? How many imagine what an African country unmolested by colonialism might look like in the future, where its citizens were allowed to reach their highest potential in terms of culture, government and technology? This is in part what the Afro-futurism science fiction genre is about and its a very rare genre to make it to film.

Especially a film that has a budget of $ 200 million dollars. That budget is important. It says that at this point in history, the largest (maybe?) movie studio recognizes that the public wants to see black characters in this light. That's a big deal too.

And considering how well this movie is doing at the box office, Black Panther is a signal of whats to come. More stories about inspirational black characters told at this kind of block buster scale.

Does that make a bit more sense? I'm sure there are other reasons; one being its a really good movie! Hope this helps.

Third world living issues in a first world.
And so many more hinging on the brink, just trying to keep it together.

I think you are missing the historical context that he came to power in. Yes Trump is a compulsive liar. Feeds on Narrow minded slogans he took from the cold war.

The American electoral system is corrupt as hell, The Democratic primary was rigged. And they are doubling down on rigging it for 2020, and pushing out progressive thinkers internally. Half the states have been gerrymandered in the South for Senate and House races.
People don't seem to realize in the US that most corrupt Illegal practices like bribery, money laundering corporate money to and from candidates, are considered an illegitimate election in third world countries by vote monitors even. The US internally legalized their corruption. Basically bribery is legal.

Sorry, gotta disagree with you @enoch.
First, yes, America is guilty of interference in third world elections, but not so much in free elections.
Second, the level of interference in this election is unprecedented (EDIT: Including evidence the Russians tried to hack voting machines and virus many poll workers, and there's absolutely zero question which candidate they were trying to help).

Third, there is plenty of EVIDENCE his campaign colluded, they've admitted doing so after the election but before confirmation, and that at least he tried hard to hide that fact, and the fact that he has financial ties to them.
There is no publicly available PROOF that Trump himself colluded to steal the election....yet.

There is mounting proof that he has, since the election, at every turn, used the office for private financial gains from numerous foreign entities, which is totally illegal.

Does this translate to undeniable proof that he colluded to steal the election with a foreign enemy? Again, not yet, but the investigation is still in it's infancy, largely due to his interference in it and his stonewalling every legal question. It's far worse than just being a used car salesman abusing his power, it's the "leader of the free world" subverting the constitution for financial gains.

It was actually 17 agencies, and most of them were certain the evidence that Saddam had WMD's was suspect at best, and not credible....they said so, but were drowned out by the few agencies that went along with Bush's narrative...that has been shown fairly conclusively in the intervening years.

Again, I don't believe there was a joint statement about the gassing, that was again Trump's administration claiming certitude about Assad, not the intelligence community.

Not sure what you mean about Gadhafi, he did kill thousands, but again, I don't recall any joint public statement from the intelligence community.

In fact, I recall the joint statement being a first.

That doesn't mean they're right, just that your implication that they are so often wrong is a bit exaggerated and not factual as you wrote it....or at least as I read you.

Unfortunately, the evidence that would be proof is classified evidence...so we may NEVER see it without high level clearance of a bad leak. Not seeing it is no evidence at all that it doesn't exist, you should not be able to see it.

The term "deep state" is an Orwellian term meant to delegitimize ANYONE not in step with the current administration...just call them liberal holdovers and dismiss them...that's the idea...don't buy it. Most intelligence agents are non political....not all, but most.

CNN hasn't been pantsed IMO...they admitted what everyone knows, they are less about reporting important news than they are about ratings. That doesn't make their story wrong or fake, it makes it make sense that they ignore other actual news to talk incessantly about the one story that makes them money/ratings, even with no new information to share. Certainly that detracts from their value as a news source, but doesn't make them Breitbart willing to make up stories out of whole cloth and back them to the end.

Perhaps there's something there I'm missing since I won't watch a Breitbart story or give it a shred of credence, but not from what I've heard and seen elsewhere. I've not seen any evidence they made things up or lied, just that they are operating like a business rather than an independent news source.

@newtboy
you misunderstood.

respectable investigative journalists gain that respect by being consistent with their reporting.

chris hedges is such a journalist.

but,by your metric,him being on RT negates that respect.now this is an assumption on my part,but i am using your words to come to that assumed conclusion.you have yet to agree or disagree with what chris hedges is saying,choosing instead to attack the medium in which he is saying it.this is your right,i just happen to disagree with you on this matter.

i refer back to one of my original comments,and a point i tried (and i guess failed?) to reiterate:discernment is the key.

so in a sense..yes..it is our responsibility to do our due diligence to vette the veracity of an investigative reporter.

those "reporters" who shill for either the democrats or republicans reveal themselves as the whores they are fairly quickly.

demagogues can almost be instantly identified due to their constant appeals to emotion.(keith olbermans new youtube channel from GQ "the resistance" comes to mind).

and reporters who are simply bad or lazy are quickly revealed as well.by other reporters.

let's take @bcglorf review of chomsky,and how chomsky is singular in his constant criticism of american foreign policy and asks the question "why can't he,just for once,speak on the positives that america has done in the world,or speculate on what could have happened had american not intervened in third world country A or B".(paraphrased)

now this is not an entirely unfair question,and in chomsky's books..he does address the very specifics that bcglorf would like to see chomsky address,but in lectures you are lucky to get a sentence in regards to such subjects.

but notice that while bcglorf would like to see chomsky speak in more broad terms,he never once questions the veracity of the details chomsky is laying down.

do you know why?
because chomsky does his homework,and backs up everything he says.

bcglorf respects chomsky for this,while simultaneously wishing he changed the channel once in awhile.

bcglorf utilized discernment to come to the conclusion that chomsky is a worthy,if infuriating,read/listen.

i do not mean to be speaking for Bc,and maybe i am missing the mark by a long shot using him as an example (if i did,please forgive Bc).

but my basic point is that we ALL discriminate and discern using our own subjective tools,our experiences and ultimately our understandings.

the problem here,and it is the underlying message on this thread,is confirmation bias.

we all know about this,and this election cycle REALLY brought this up to the forefront.

what i find interesting,and always makes me giggle,is how people will point to the "mainstream media" as an outlet for:propaganda,fake news,biased and slanted news ..but..it is NEVER the news THEY consume.the news THEY consume is hard hitting journalism.

so when i see people dismiss a piece that may happen to be on a questionable outlet..i laugh..because MOST outlets are ALL questionable.

so yes my friend,it is up to us to discern what is valid and what is bullshit.secondary sources help.concrete,trackable sources help and discussing and talking with one another is probably the greatest help of all.

but if you reside in an echo chamber,and everybody is just smelling each other farts.then some information may come as a shock.

my faith dictates my politics.
i am a dissident,and a radical.
the dynamic is always "power vs powerlessness",and i am always on the side of the powerless.

so it should be no surprise that on my list are people such as chomsky or hedges.

because they criticize power.

How do you get given 6 weeks to live with a "curable cancer"?

That makes no sense to me. Do americans really live in a society where someone gets a disease that could be cured, but they say "sorry, you can't afford it, so you're gonna die"?

That is.... barbaric.

Seriously. That shit is fucking third world.

The kinds of fraud he goes through are representative of third world levels of manipulation.

We're in the developed world here, son. We don't need those primitive methods when we have the power of propaganda in our hands.

And no, I'm not talking about a conspiracy here, I'm talking about groupthink and class interests, with climate change being only the most obvious example, followed closely by the obsession with "balanced budgets".

Judging by the topics that the gatekeepers of information deem not to be up for discussion, I'd say the election is pretty rigged in its own way.

After taking the Eurostar from London to Paris, using American public transport is like riding on something out of the Third World.

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Sweet Zombie Jesus.
*Fail and *lies at the very first sentence.
Venezuela is not considered by ANY realistic person as a Utopia or a 'holy Grail of socialism or communism', the only people who might say that are right wing nuts that want to burn their straw man. It is a third world dictatorship masquerading as communist socialism. I can't go any farther listening to sweater Jesus' uninformed opinion if he's starting out so incredibly wrong.

Venezuela's economy is almost 100% tied to the price of oil. When oil prices plunged, so did their economy, and it wasn't doing great when prices were high, thanks to poor infrastructure, limited 'customers' for their low quality oil, and ubiquitous corruption. It's really that simple.

If I believed it would have that effect, I could support that.
Unfortunately, I don't believe Americans would ever get off our swollen asses, turn off our TVs, and actually DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE, even while our country disintegrates around us.
And even if we could manage it, we are so fractured as a society, the end result at best would be somewhere between 4 and 50 new countries, most of them with despotic leaders and draconian theocracies, and all born from a devastating civil war. There no way in hell we could manage to have a revolution that ends with a single, unified country.

In reality, what's more likely to happen if he's elected is a few large protests that get broken up violently with many protesters 'disappearing', new harsh anti-protesting laws, and President for Life Trump will become the richest man in the world while we become a third world country, bringing the world economy into the toilet with us, which is what the Economist warned against when they just listed him in the top 15 most pressing dangers to the world, ranking a Trump presidency just as dangerous to the planet as fundamentalist terrorism.

wow, as much as the wood gave under the truck, those rickety looking anchors weren't budging. Not his first time over it for sure. Of course I would have cursed him a million deaths if he did wreck the bridge. Things like those in third worlds can take months to rebuild, and whole towns rely on them.

@newtboy

i do not think your solutions will have the easy results you imply.

contrary to the propaganda WE are fed,groups like ISIS are far more sophisticated and culturally savvy,as this video is evidence to and one of the reasons i posted.

it is easy to buy into the media-concocted trope that ISIS members are a bunch of un-educated,backwater,third world countrymen who are just religious zealots pining for the good old days of a world caliphate from 700 years ago.

but to believe that you would have to ignore the disturbing number of westerners who are joining ISIS.these folks benefited from western,secular education etc etc.

religion,like nationalism,has always been an extremely effective tool to manipulate,control and justify.

islam is not the cause of violence,barbarity and war.
it is the excuse used to justify that violence and barbarity.

the simple and disturbing truth is that propaganda works,nationalism works,religiousity works to get normal folk to engage in violent acts against their fellow man.

america has been perfecting their propaganda system for over a century.perfecting their art of unending war and conflict.

considering how we have injected ourselves in the middle east since the 50's.it appears our middle eastern friends have learned from us,and become quite proficient at emulating the very thing we excel at.

so you would never see this on any cable tv channel or news outlet,but i think its important to see just how well they have become at utilizing media to get across their message.

using americas great gift to the world:marketing.

Obviously, since I have called snuff on many a video to have them removed, no, if his neck was snapped it would not be A-OK.....

BUT....

You continue to completely ignore the clearly stated issue put forth, which is that you labeled this video in such a way that there's absolutely no warning you are going to be seeing any such disturbing thing. I expected to see a man to get his hair or head bitten and watch him be tossed by a camel, not a terrifying (for the camel) poorly done third world live butchering of a large animal. If the title had said any such thing, I would have just ignored the video, since you STILL have up the title, knowing full well that it's tricking people who don't want to see animals be butchered alive into watching, you deserve far more than a downvote in my opinion.

As to your whine that I could have said something about the title before downvoting, well now I and many other people have spoken up and you still have the same no-warning title, so my only regret is that I have but one vote to downvote it with. Clearly speaking up made absolutely no difference. Besides, it's not like I inappropriately downvoted your pure fact comment...like you did to @charliem, I properly downvoted a video I didn't like with a title that tricked me into seeing it at all.

And will you please go learn what censorship is before whining about it again. Being asked to retitle something many people find offensive that you titled with a 'completely misses the point' title is not censorship.

Yeah he embarrasses her with his stupidity, as he embarrasses me. So fake news picks a naive college student to debate, and when she starts putting her thoughts together to make a point he interrupts her like the condescending asshole that he is.

I'm sorry, but you wouldn't need the top 1% to pay nowhere near 90% in taxes to cover education. Just a made up number to make her look stupid as she didn't know how to answer it.

With a higher percent of more educated people, they as a whole would be making more money to contribute to the tax fund, increasing revenue.

And really Neil, rich people would leave the honey hole because we taxed them more? How about we start taxing and putting tariffs on companies that go into these third world countries for cheap labor to export products back here. Fuck em if they want to leave, they will no longer be "hoarding" the money and it would allow other companies to fill the void and thrive.

And her point that was so rudely interrupted was spot on, "There is a population that is doing nothing to contribute to the progression of society"

And lastly, these are all moot points if we just quit dumping all our money into the military, and it's not even going to benefit our veterans, but to the select few who own these government contracts. Why do they NEVER Talk about that? Why do we have to continuously be engaged in some kind of war? Oh, that's right to convince people we need a bigger military budget, more spying...blah blah blah...unpatriotic if you don't agree...blah blah...scare people into some kind of threat..

I'm sorry this particular girl wasn't ready for this debate, she probably had a speech prepared they told her she could give.