Symbolic Significance of Subways and Trains in the Class War

Metascript connections between Jordan Neely, The Prophet of Doom, and The Joker...

The symbolism of the subway connects the Jordan Neely drama to the ongoing metascripted-messaging connecting the train derailments beginning in Palestine, Ohio with the failure of the capitalistic economic system. Ohio, “the heart of it all”, was the site of the derailment which represented a “heart attack” of a system bloated by greed and deregulation that puts the wants of the rich above the needs of the poor. Jordan Neely is a symptom of the intrinsic greed the system rewards.

The subway and the train both represent a system that is out of control and destined to derail. The subway in particular is suggestive of the underclass, the unseen underbelly of the class struggle.

Subways, trains, and planes represent facets of this rich versus poor class warfare narrative.

The railways are the arteries and the derailment in Ohio represented the result of its clogged arteries. 

Airplanes, specifically private jets, are an elite privilege and are responsible for a great deal of climate change which disproportionally affects the poor. Again, the wants of the private individual are being weighed against the needs of the public, the collective.

Subway violence has been a staple of right-wing Twitter feeds as influencers such as Stew Peters have been flooding the zone with out-of-context, specifically Black-on-White crimes in subways, in the months leading to the Jordan Neely strangling. This killing is applauded and championed as heroic by the right. Celebrity Kid Rock, Presidential hopeful Gov. Ron Desantis and right-wing podcasts like Mike Walsh and Ann Coulter have all opined that the world needs more Daniel Pennys. 

The subway is central to The Joker, as its the scene where the rebellion against the rich has its start. The Joker shoots some rich bullies and thus becomes a symbol of the poor, the underclass, who have been clowned by the rich their entire lives. The Joker is portrayed as a victim of the rich and his life is juxtaposed with that of the privileged Bruce Wayne, aka the Batman. 

The latest Batman movie begins in a subway where the Batman, vigilante-like, takes out the bad actors. The Left identifies with the Joker, by design. The Right, with the Batman, by design. Even Trump has taken the nickname Batman for himself, and this was seemingly referenced in his threatening message to DA Alvin Bragg, where Trump is wielding a baseball bat.  An attorney known as a rival to DA Bragg is now representing Daniel Penny, who has raised more than $2 million dollars on GiveSendGo. GiveSendGo is the Right’s answer to Gofundme. GiveSendGo pays right-wing crisis actors, Gofundme the left-wing ones.

Coincidental with the latest Batman film was a subway shooting where Frank James, known online as the “Prophet of Doom,” fired 33 rounds into a train. He was demanding better care for the poor and mentally ill, his online videos were directed at the mayor. This paralleled The Riddler, who also fixated on his mayor’s failures, and his own mental health issues. 

On his YouTube channel with 400 subscribers, Frank James identified himself as someone having a mental health crisis, openly talked about struggling with mental illness, and blamed and criticized Mayor Eric Adams. He allegedly shot 10 people on a subway train (having fired 33 rounds).

According to the federal criminal complaint cited, James ranted about too many homeless people on the subway and put the blame on New York City’s mayor.

“What are you doing, brother?” he said in the video posted on March 27. 

“Every car I went to was loaded with homeless people. It was so bad, I couldn’t even stand.” James then railed about the treatment of Black people in an April 6 video cited in the complaint: “And so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting.” - https://apnews.com/article/brooklyn-subway-shooting-business-health-new-york-city-mental-e47315d42b24527339812fa69263e0ba

As Jordan Neely did on that subway train, Frank James threatened violence as a response to his unaddressed needs.

The Batman connection resurfaced recently with US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comparison of New York to Gotham:

“New York is disgusting. I compared it to what I called Gotham City…The streets are filthy, they’re covered with people, um, basically dying on drugs, they can’t even stand up, they’re falling over.”

In “response, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander spoke out on Twitter and stated: 

“NYC is not Gotham. We must not become a city where a mentally ill human being can be choked to death by a vigilante without consequence. Or where the killer is justified & cheered.” Hopefully, the victim will receive some semblance of justice."

The Batman, The Prophet of Doom Frank James, The Joker, and Jordan Neely all feature all subway incidents that highlight the Poor vs Rich class warfare. The Left sides with BLM, their martyrs no matter their criminal history, and the Right sides with the vigilante, no matter the injustice.

The Right’s mantra of “Get out of the cities” explicitly connects to their fixation on inner-city subway violence that has been target-marketed to them via Twitter leading up to the Jordan Neely psychological operation.

The “FREE RIDES" sign behind the choke-hold scene struck me as a communist reference to the poor, the ideal of a social safety net taking care of everyone, and the Right deriding it as seeking handouts or "free rides." 

The subway signifies the poor in the class struggle: underground, out of sight, and out of mind.

The runaway train represents our system upon which we are merely passengers at the mercy of the engineers. The train movie ”Snowpiercer” (2013) contains these same ideas. The narrative is built around an unstoppable train. The lower-class, those at the back start a revolution and fight their way to the front and get to see what the rich have been withholding from them. The train is a microcosm for a capitalist society out of control with the wrong people in charge. 

The subway violence represents the threat of an uprising of the lower class. This is why the Left protested and shut down the subway as the Right championed Daniel Penny and are financing his legal defense. One wants to stop the runaway train, the other wants to defend it. 

Jordan Neely made statements like “I’m ready to die" and “I’ll hurt anyone on this train", as a way of proclaiming his rage against the system itself.  This echoed Frank James in his April 6 video: 

“And so the message to me is: I should have gotten a gun, and just started shooting.” - Frank James

The engineer in Snowpeircer is played by Ed Harris who also plays the antagonist in West World, another movie laden with predictive programming regarding the fall of the West, and, like Snowpiercer, the train plays a big role in it. 

Consider the role of trains in westward expansion. The railroad opened the way for the settlement of the West, stimulated the development of towns and communities, and generally tied the country together.

The Ohio derailments, the subway violence, and the dramatization of a class war in the Batman and Joker movies connect with a bigger story of the West and the knee of Western Chauvinism on the neck of the world’s poor and the world itself.

Joker, Frank James, and Jordan Neely are victims of a closed system that serves the wants of the rich at the expense of the poor, who are demonized like Bob Lee’s death was blamed on San Franciso’s homeless by Elon Musk. The richest man on earth expresses a disdainful attitude toward the victims of his unsustainable life of excess.

The Joker character, obviously struggling with poverty and mental health, becomes a revolutionary by killing some rich bullies. When Arthur takes the train up Gotham Valley, a tracking shot shows that every passenger is reading a newspaper with the headline “Kill the Rich.” 

Another sign says:

“If you think GREED is bad, wait until you hear about CAPITALISM.”

And finally, The Joker gets to air his grievances on live television, during which he assassinates a talk show host. This is the exact kind of violence Frank James and Jordan Neely expressed a need for. They wanted to hit back at their oppressor in some way:

“What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society who abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you fucking deserve!” (BANG)  

This is the story behind the fake story, as life continues to imitate art—all by design. There are no coincidences on the world stage and no significant media events occur in a vacuum. We’re not merely voyeuristic observers in world events but unwitting participants in a participatory alternate reality game.

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Tim Ozman,

IPR HOST