Joss Whedon launched into a fervent political rant at Comic-Con on Friday in which he savaged modern capitalism and said America was turning into Tsarist Russia.
Whedon began the panel, "Dark Horse Comics," by noting he had nothing prepared because he had been speaking all day, so he opened it up to questions from the start.
Toward the end of the session, one woman noted the anti-corporate themes in many of his movies and asked him to give his economic philosophy in 30 seconds or less.
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Whedon's response?
"We are watching capitalism destroy itself right now," he told the audience.
He added that America is "turning into Tsarist Russia" and that "we're creating a country of serfs."
Whedon was raised on the Upper Westside neighborhood of Manhattan in the 1970s, an area associated with left-leaning intellectuals. He said he was raised by people who thought socialism was a ''beautiful concept."
Socialism remains a taboo word in American politics, as Republicans congressmen raise the specter of the Cold War. They refer to many Obama administration initatives as socialist, and the same goes for most laws that advocate increasing spending on social welfare programs. They also refer to the President as a socialist, though this and many of their other claims misuse the term.
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This evidently frustrates Whedon, who traces this development to Ronald Reagan – the nominal hero of the modern conservative movement. Since then, Whedon believes the country has changed in way that has made it too difficult for regular people to succeed.
And what is the end result?
"We have people trying to create structures and preserve the structures that will help the middle and working class, and people calling them socialists," Whedon said. "It's not Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal […] it's some people with some sense of dignity and people who have gone off the reservation." Guess he's not a Tea Party fan.