Gilded/Superstar: Controversial Media Passes Censors | OPEN

[TurtleShroom]

SKIP TO CONTENT:

• The Eternal Gilded Age
• Jesus Christ, Superstar

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NATIONSTATES

• DRY DRY DIGEST BOOK REVIEW COLUMN:

Time Capsule: the Eternal Gilded Age

• GENRE: Non-fiction; print documentary, political commentary, Marxist text
• RATING: CA+-CGBLMX (Compliant-Adolescent, Criticism of Government/Society, Blue Collar Hate, non-Quaker Marxist Literature) – Teen and up. Approved for unconditional public reading. Protected under TS Constitution, Article IX.
• ADVISORIES: Contains advocacy of greed and avarice, indignant; supports blue-collar uprising, organized labor thuggery. Class warfare; class envy; class hatred. Anti-corporate, anti-capitalism. Trotskyite by export of revolution.
• RESTRICTIONS: U (Cleared to be sold in any location that seeks to sell it/unconditional.)
• Archival number 330695-2013AD

The popular, controversial book Time Capsule: TurtleShroom's Eternal Gilded Age, written by a creature under the pseudonym Author Unknown, is the subject of today’s public review, on the petition of one hundred thousand signatures.

The book presents itself as “an insightful criticism of the modern economic and industrial state of the country, contrasting the national economic boom and increased population with the Gilded Age of USA, 1870-1910”.

The book received the second-lowest rating by the Board of Censors (scoring a Holiness Board “CA+”), indicating full compliance (C) but not intended for distribution to pre-teen/sexual-maturation creatures (Adolescent and Up/A+). It was flagged with the warnings of government criticism, of sinful greed and division by inciting hatred amongst different tiers of net worth, of calling for labor riots, and generally existing as a leftists’ manifesto. The Board concluded that its criticism of TS capitalism and successful enterprises (foreign and domestic) equates to criticizing the government’s “hands off” economic policy, and that the book can not be banned or restricted beyond the traditional mandate.


Quotes from the book:

The state of TurtleShroomer society is marked by total corporate dominance and suppression of the labor movement. Convinced that asking for a wage is selfish, the entire populace willingly submits itself to wages below all international and regional poverty marks and suffers under ten hour workdays.

Although the Church is complacent in this issue, I do not believe they are at fault. This is, in fact, deliberate manipulation by big business and fierce lobbying forces that have owned this country since the Industrial Revolution.

As NationStates catapults into the future of workers rights and even the Aashinian Navy, whose men have long experienced the TurtleShroomer labor crises, increases benefits and pay to working-class sailors while overall wages remain stagnant.

Companies that have increased wages have seen immigrant and domestic labor flock to their doorstep for a new job. Mighty B Oil, for example, has expanded its so-called “benefits package” for each tenement in the truck system, and while using Mighty B Oil is an irony to describe salaried pay, it is an example of the slow pace by which capitalism is raising its own pay floor.
However, this process is slower than any chelonian. Average wages have increased thirty Skillets from 1969....

TurtleShroom is a tourists’ and pilgrims’ haven. Glitzy casinos, cuisine, a servile and humble population, etiquette, and an “old world charm”, not to mention the mushroom and turtle population, draws tens of thousands of tourists every week to the country, and they are willing to go by rail because of the price. Jonesboro has never had more traffic or business, and yet the city still refuses to increase spending.

The wealth difference between tourists and citizens is profound. Tourists buy bags of souvenirs and consistently inform others of how “great a deal” visiting TurtleShroom is for them.
Restaurant owners consistently gawk at even lower-class workers leaving one hundred Skillets ($25.00 NS-standard/USA Dollars) for a single meal. Waiters can pay for a complete tertiary education on less than a year of tips…

The richest of the rich are still aligned with the general population that “conspicuous consumption” is wasteful or even evil. Thrift is expected and upper-class creatures rarely exhibit more signs of wealth that a digital wristwatch or a finer suit. Obviously, security guards or some form of wheeled transport is used by these upper crusts to travel extremely long distances, but they exhibit the humility of the common worker, and normally because they were that themselves.

Yet, there emerges a huge new generation of less wealthy, but unquestionably upper class creatures- not limited to humanity –who engage in the very thing their wealthier, more elite brethren shun to their deaths. It is conspicuous consumption. They have wealth and they make it known.

For literary reasons, I find it necessary to differentiate the wealthiest top ten percent of the larger share of the wealthiest elites in TurtleShroom. Only in TurtleShroom are the trillionaires(s) and multi-billionaires are more able to demonstrate modesty. Any TurtleShroomer laughs at the classic joke that the richest TurtleShroomers simply “collect money” and hide it in privately-owned caves for fun.

That is not so with the lower-rung wealthy. Multi-millionaires and entry-level billionaires are an entirely different breed. They purchase automobiles and use them to travel mere miles; they buy color televisions whose internal workings are housed in chambers as thin as a man’s wrist, and news of thinner imports are followed. They host lavish parties and open their homes for guests every day, living in pampered hedonism as any ennobled, aristocratic Aashinian Commissar. As these men and creatures age and enter the annals of power, this could harm the electoral integrity of the country.

TurtleShroomers hate banks and love their credit unions. It is a rarity that a nation with such unregulated prosperity- seen as an end unto itself –has such a low ratio of banking usage. The economic freedom of TurtleShroom should have allowed banking to engage in its classic actions when sheltered in a plutocracy, and they have, but this hasn’t affected the society as a whole.

The new class of wealthy TurtleShroomers seem to shed the previous “mattress vault” mindset of their richer peers. Banks- not credit unions nor household vaults –have received increased cash deposits into tens of thousands of anonymous accounts. Money has been made there, and banks are encroaching into places that they were unheard of. Their capital and clout are a risk to credit unions as banks can offer larger loans, for a longer time, in a bigger way, to more people.
In banks, large loan interests catering to the poor have had rates finally crossed the government’s century-old definition of sinful usury (twenty-five percent). Credit union loans only reach sixteen percent. While the government has finally forced its hand on parochial interest caps, this is a great fear. The capitalists agree that banking ought to be done by those who can provide the best product and therefore the best loan rates.
Yet, capitalists don’t entertain the argument that credit union tellers have reported having to pay into protection rackets in urban areas, or lesser, but still large towns and jurisdictions have begun using zoning laws in unbalanced manners.
Every for-profit bank is essentially a front for the mob or the Drug Lords. These actions are illegal; where’s our government?

Did you know that TurtleShroom's Constitution allows the government to regulate price gouging? It does, but no one watching the markets would know it. Non-well running water has risen from sixteen Pones (~$0.08) a day to more than thirty two Pones ($0.16) a day. This drove urban TurtleShroomers into having their water shut off or to switch into wells. More outhouses exist in cities than countries. The water companies didn’t care because they went out with enough money to retire.

Wages remain the same while goods go up. This inflation isn’t capitalism, it’s big business. The workers have been taking this for generations, and it is becoming more visible and grander in scheme every day…

The bane of USA is outsourcing. Jobs are being exported to the Deep Orient- and to us –and their workers starve in the streets. We, though, have an uniquely TurtleShroomian problem, which I will address now.

Is the truck system repackaged slavery? Is the enemy correct?

Well: is GEICO tied three ways for the best-selling car insurer as of print?

Let’s face it. This country is a banana republic. We are plutocratic at best and bought-and-sold at worst. Patriotism and nationalism are nice, but nothing separates our de facto control over the state than Azande except for the fact that we remove politicians that get caught! Politicians aren’t even kingmakers, much less decision makers. The Free Market’s upward mobility surpasses the state. Corporations either become subtlety above the law or they corrupt it.

Capitalism is nice, but there is such a thing as too much. The workers have their case and are worthy of a big raise. If the Free Market was to do this, they’d have their raise in say, twenty years or so, assuming salaried employment isn’t removed.

There is no working class more self-loathing and self-defeating then this country. This isn’t humility: workers genuinely believe they are unworthy of calling for televisions to be stocked in common big-box-stores, or that a car is “never needed” when the trains are crowded to hide-in-shell room only. The busses and trains can only hold as much as they want to. When is the last time a bus network was expanded for population? The busses are more and more packed, the trains are denser and denser, but the prices are still the same. We’re being fleeced. You are being fleeced.

Only a proper labor movement can fight this and tick the hands of time forwards. TurtleShroom needs a Samuel Gompers. TurtleShroom needs a dose of the left. TurtleShroom needs a labor movement. It’ll cost blood, but I for one am willing to die for more money at the end of the day. Isn’t bettering your family what you want?

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The paper and this column do not endorse this book. In fact, we hate Marxist propaganda.
It’s a shame so few in TurtleShroom would picket anything. This book is for Marxists, and not the good kind down south!


-DRY DRY DIGEST

[Crystal Spires]

Turtleshroomer Book "Time Capsule: the Eternal Gilded Age" Becomes Unexpected Bestseller in the Spires


Orin Sameus, SAP

CALTRIS, Crystal Spires: After the resolution of the Turtleshroomer war, the media from Turtleshroom has become more visible to the Spirean public and with it has come more controversies, among which is the "Time Capsule" book which criticizes the power of Turtleshroomer Business and the steps the government has been taking in its attempts to grapple with righteousness and the ability of hard working Turtleshroomers to meet their needs, comforts, and obligations to society. The anonymous author speaks very tongue in cheek about the troubles that the average turtleshroomer struggles with and the lavish consumption of the Lower Upperclass and the draconian greedy hoarding, but not spending, of the capital collected by the hypercapitalist upper upper class. While the view is that this is "Modest Living" seems to resound with the author and the common Turtleshroomer, the Spirean public sees this as merely dragon hoarding, as if one hoards and gathers wealth, but does not spend it, then they are impoverishing the lower and working class and stalling the economy. To not spend responsibly and to not practice fiscal restraint but consume is reckless, but to not consume and to exercise complete restraint causes stagnancy and recession and in the case of Turtleshroom, full out economic depression. Such a thing kills jobs and kills productivity, and the Upper Eschelons of Turtleshroom seems to delight this rightful revulsion of conspicuous consumption, but then neglects to mention that the money gathered by these moguls do not return to the starving and struggling working class in any visible or invisible way, causing the market to be fixed against the working class which is also discussed by the brave author. Consumption is not merely 'greediness' nor is it lack of humility, but to gather capital is prohibitive to social mobility, and this social mobility restriction has caused shame and much troubles to the common Turtleshroomer with the Author describing a witness to another Turtleshroomer who felt completely unworthy of means despite having worked ten hours, hard labor for their slave drivers and for a paltry sum while their slave drivers run away with the profits of that self-loathing worker and then proceeds to not spend any of it, which never returns to the economy of the Turtleshroomers.

"There is no working class more self-loathing and self-defeating then this country. This isn’t humility: workers genuinely believe they are unworthy of calling for televisions to be stocked in common big-box-stores, or that a car is “never needed” when the trains are crowded to hide-in-shell room only. The busses and trains can only hold as much as they want to. When is the last time a bus network was expanded for population? The busses are more and more packed, the trains are denser and denser, but the prices are still the same. We’re being fleeced. You are being fleeced."

The outcry from this statement has made many Spireans sympathize with Turtleshroomers, organizing charities for raising the working class consciousness in Turtleshroom, and to provide fiscal counseling to the Common Turtleshroomer and Spiritual Comfort in hard times. Pastor Denys Bakeman after reading the book posed his own response openly to the Turtleshroomers:

" Let us never forget that God has said that it is easier for a camel to enter through a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. It has nothing to do with false modesty which your rich compatriots perpetrate in their daily lives. That is only hypocrisy and false modesty in FEAR of God, due to their desire to reach for God's grace. If they do not wish to be cast in fire before the Judgement, they will remember Jesus enabled rich people to willingly surrender the riches which should otherwise exclude them from grace, and in Luke 12:33, He has commanded that the rich should give all their possession to Charity, and in this way they may receive God's grace. Matthew 19:21 reconfirms this Truth that only Jesus was willing to save those who had given up their worldly possessions to the poor and needy and it was this reason alone that the rich man was spared Hellfire and Damnation. Know Ye these warnings, for the LORD offers his Grace only to the elect who accept Jesus Christ, and follow his words and warnings. Surrender to salvation and know Jesus's words well Turtleshroomers, for God loves you and He has sent His only begotten Son to banish your sins and save your souls, but only if you accept the Word."

The response has also triggered several viral responses which have taken the Pastor's words and edited his fire laden sermon with Carmina Burana's O Fortuna into the background. The tonal melodies and harmonies along with the strong choral background has proven to make it an even more intense sermon than it was before. The Book continues to be #9 on the bestseller's list despite the controversy, and responses and reviews to the book continues to flow in from Caltris and Merlon.

Momiji Inubashiri of the SAP Contributed to this Article
Published on the 28th of Eventide
Explore related topics: Featured,Pastor's Viral Fire and Brimstone Sermon to Turtleshroomers Bestseller's List,

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Savenbloth
Hey guys come see this Pastor Preaching Fire and Brimstone on this Link!

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[TurtleShroom]

NATIONSTATES

THEATRICAL SCREENING FOR “JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR” ENTERS THIRD DAY

• DRY DRY DIGEST
“JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR” DEEMED ‘THEOLOGICALLY ACCURATE’ BY CHURCH, CLEARED FOR TURTLESHROOM SCREENING FORTY YEARS LATE

Teens have packed theaters in the recent days to see a film that has been banned in this country for forty years. The lighthearted, flamboyant, yet parochial musical, “Jesus Christ, Superstar” overwhelmingly passed the rigid “Bible strict scrutiny” test of the Spiritual Advisory and its ecumenical team of theologians, with delegates representing every Christian denomination in TurtleShroom.

The film has become the second best-selling film in TurtleShroomer history, surpassing four billion one hundred twenty-five thousand Skillets (< $1,031,250 USD) in revenue. Only “Passion of the Christ”, TurtleShroom's only totally uncensored or unedited film and the best selling film in TurtleShroomer history (revenues exceeding ten billion Skillets and still screening, < $2,500,000,000).

The film was aired in grayscale (“black and white”) for compatibility issues with small town theaters. The move was to ensure max screening and was considered very wise to attract poorer TurtleShroomers that can not normally reach the cities or towns.

It was initially argued that the film could cause un-Christian interpretations of the Bible or the Gospels and could lead weaker believers astray. This argument was strongly dismissed by the Spiritual Advisory and theologians alike, who reasserted that nothing in the film contradicts the Word of God. (Press release is included.)
To aid Christians with lower spiritual maturity levels and knowledge of the faith, the Southern Baptist Convention penned a long series of subtitles citing Biblical passages and directly explaining each song or scene where it was deemed needed. These subtitles were directly entered into the film for all viewers.

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In what has been a recent slew of controversy and open-minded unorthodoxy from the usually restrictive and reclusive state, the TurtleShroom Board of Censors received the Green Light from the Spiritual Advisories (including Cardinal Icfella) for screening.

Unlike most motion pictures, which must go through only the Holiness Board to be screened, TurtleShroomer law requires all theological, or otherwise Biblical retellings, depictions, or interpretations, to pass a strict scrutiny by the Church and the pastors, preachers, theologians, and Biblical experts of the Spiritual Advisor and his accompanying staff.

“There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts the themes and message of this musical number. Flamboyant and silly as it is, the motion picture cannot be rejected on the grounds of blasphemy or spiritual inaccuracy. While some denominations will find heresies- especially in the Protestant depiction of the Last Supper/Eucharist –the Biblical principles are never in error.

In fact, we find several scenes of the picture to be compelling and even moving, in particular the musical rendition of our Lord’s prayer on the mountain prior to His Crucifixion, where Christ’s full humanity and full Godliness are beautifully and eloquently expressed in our Lord’s all-too human aspect of fear in drinking the Cup that God had presented Him.

We believe that several aspects of this film would actually compel deep Scriptural research and personal analysis of the Gospels, and invites believers old and new to revisit often forgotten, but just as critical, aspects of the Gospel that are missed.
For example, there exist Christian denominations in TurtleShroom that venerate Pontius Pilate as an innocent part in the story (and even some who hail his wife as worthy of canonization), and theologians have debated for millennia the good and evil of Judas Iscariot.

The most significant aspect of this film is its depiction of Judas Iscariot as a corrupt, but well-meaning, disciple of Christ who neither understood nor could grasp Jesus being the true Messiah. His motives were by no means whatsoever pure or noble, but some argue that Judas Iscariot was, for example, wanting to back Jesus into a corner to unleash His great power, or as this film argues, did not believe in Jesus being the Son of God, but rather a prophet in a horrid time, where the slightest insurrection would end both Israel and the institutional might of the Pharisees. The sinister argument of the Jewish establishment is unquestioned, but Judas’ involvement is worth a second look because both are Biblically sound.

We assent this film for commercial screening.

Defeating expectations, the final cut of the film did not remove any songs, and only removed several scenes during the Temple Money Changers’ song. (The shock factor of one specific moment in this film was nearly accepted in waiver of rules concerning buttocks, drugs, and wild women because it emphasized the Bible’s reference to evil and black hearted souls converting God’s Temple into “a den of thieves”.)\

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Said one Universal Film Manufacturing Company staffer:
“Honestly, I don’t even know where in NationStates a country called ‘TurtleShroom’ exists. I think it’s that fundamentalist Russian despotic land that the Southeast re-colonized.”

Said a second:
“The fact that a forty year old film can achieve that kind of success, even surpassing the movies we export today, speaks volumes about the low expectations of the people or their lack of contact with twenty-first century technology, like Cuba. There is no doubt that this issue must be exploited there.”

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With screening to continue for several more weeks, “Jesus Christ, Superstar” has made its foreign creators a shocking flow of income that they said “came out of the blue”. Criticism from the Church has been very minor, primarily consisting of nitpicks such as Pilate possessing his wife’s dream and the immodest choreography and unclean costumes of the dancers.


-DRY DRY DIGEST PRESS

SCREENSHOTS FROM THE TS FILM SCREENING: