…a prominent white supremacist living in Christchurch New Zealand had the nazi sunwheel as its logo. They were selling insulation at $14.88 per metre. And if it weren’t for the Christchurch shootings a few years ago nobody would even have noticed.
Stuff**
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For those unfamiliar- the eighth letter of the English alphabet is H. 88=HH= Heil Hitler.
14 is a reference to the Fourteen Words “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” OTTOMH The Magic The Gathering card “Prejudice” was actually the 1,488th card in the line. The company that makes MTG has since repudiated racism in general, that card in particular and the racist artist who painted the art for that card.
well since I’m being forced to listen to his speech and its Nuremberg in 1933 its no surprise to me anyways
While I initially assumed that this was an unfortunate coincidence, I’m now pretty sure that it was intentional. That change of mind came due to finding an announcement on the National Socialist Movement website (not linking that pile of shit here, so look it up if you wish) dated 4 days before the 2016 presidential election. The relevant portion is below:
Effective November 4th, 2016 we are enacting another change, and it is something that we have been thinking over for a number of years. On how to best launch our Party into the mainstream, and out of the so-called fringes where the system, the media, and the far left would like to see us stay forever on the fringes of American politics. Our European counterparts in organizations like the Golden Dawn of Greece have come from the fringes like where we are, and now hold seats in the Government, and the same can be said of many other European Movements, Nationalism is Rising Worldwide! The NSM is designated even by our enemies as the largest Nationalist Group in America, and our growth has remained steady, but not on par with our European counterparts. Nationalism in the U.S. is rising now as well, with even mainstream politicians using our talking points, and centering their campaigns around issues that we have been hammering on for years. Our time to RISE is NOW, and for us to effectively do that and reach the masses, we are doing a slight re-branding.
The NSM will be ceasing public use of the swastika effective Nov. 5th, 2016. Our flags and banners now bear the Odal Rune, and our patches will soon follow suit. To some this may seem a major change, as we have fought long and hard under the swastika for decades. This change is not up for debate, nor was it done on a whim. The Party Leadership has every intention to bring our Party, our Leaders, our Members and Supporters into the halls of Government here in the United States, and to do that we must reach more of the public. The masses believe exactly as we do, but have steered clear of us due to our use of the swastika. Your Party Platform remains the same, your Party remains unchanged, it is a cosmetic overhaul only.
So yeah, I’m pretty sure they were dog whistling with the stage shape after all.
Not the first time that this symbol has popped up. This is from the Charlottesville march. An actual swastika would have been too on the nose, so I have no problem believing that these folks would do this one instead to provide semi-plausible deniability.
It’s like their stupid OK sign that they do and pretend they aren’t doing.
Stranger
I’m starting to be convinced this was deliberate. This appears to be a more known and used symbol than I thought. I wouldn’t call the GOP the Nazi party based on that. Doesn’t matter though, I already call them Nazis based on their policies and behavior.
I don’t think it’s deliberate. If you look straight-down on the (inverted) stage there are certainly similarities but I think there’s enough difference between the two that a purposeful likeness is only plausible, as opposed to probable.
That being said, I wouldn’t put it past them. I just don’t think they did it this time. If news comes out later that it was deliberate after all, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Personally what I find the most damning isn’t that it could be a coincidence or not, but rather the almost complete lack of backpedaling, apologizing or denial that’s coming out of the CPAC and Republican Party right about now. I mean, the organizer of the event denied it, but no prominent politician or party hack has come out and said “Oh no, it’s a total coincidence! We’d NEVER use a SS symbol intentionally.” or anything like that.
I mean, WTF? Once upon a time, if something like this happened or was even hinted at having happened, the politicians would have been falling all over each other to distance themselves from it and any taint that might adhere from it, regardless of what party it happened to.
Bit rude, given that it’s the name of an African country.
But I’m sure there are plenty of those in CPAC circles who made the same association you did.
Yeah, when I started this thread I was on the fence. But the Hyatt hotel company came out and made a strong and blanket statement. The statement by Schapp was not nearly as strong.
Yes, I can picture Mick Jagger jumping jack flashing up and down on that stage while singing “Sympathy for the Devil”.
Which is a perhaps too convoluted way of saying that it looks too deliberate to me to be coincidental, so I add that to make it clear. I live in Germany: that symbol is forbidden here, it is the symbol of the 7th SS Division of Voluntaries “Prinz Eugen”. I know you don’t forbid nazi symbols and propaganda in the USA because of your first amendment, but I also know that the nazis rose to power in Germany exploiting that kind of loophole and what they derised as the stupidity of the tolerant liberals.
I hate to have to inform you that “modern” nazis evolve: the new enemy is no longer “the Jew” (although they still can defame Soros and the like with gusto, atavisms persist); the real new enemy is the muslim. And Israel is an ally in that fight, Netanyahu is great, Kushner is jewish too and Ivanka converted, at least pro forma.
And still Trump can bow to Saudi Arabia, the first country he visited as president. They are not afraid of contradictions. They seem to use contradictions as grounds for deniability.
Nazis in the 1930s and today knew all about talking out of both sides of their mouth. They aren’t troubled at all by their leaders appearing to appease the sheeples.
A couple years ago, my union adopted an informal logo: black heart, with a red fist in the middle of it, and the slogan “Strong children, strong schools, strong communities” (or something like that) over top of it. Right-wing idiots started saying we were secretly Stalinist, because they found an old Stalinist symbol with a red fist on a black background (sans heart).
Uh, obviously not. We were obviously not going for the secret Stalinist vote. But they thought so little of us that they were convinced the similarity was deliberate.
Based on that experience, I’m really leery of saying this was deliberate. At worst, some soldier of 4chan in stage design thought this would be a funny joke.
And I would not put it past most the people at CPAC to have been obliviots about it… and then when it was pointed out, deciding to go for the “hur, hur, libs triggered” reaction instead of the “well that’s embarassing” reaction. Because that’s how they roll. Of course whatever it is that they do, say, or display, why that is just what normal Americans would casually do/say/display, it’s we who make things complicated…
There are different versions of the Othala Rune, as it sometimes includes “wings” or “feet”. Do you think the below symbol (with “feet”) differs significantly from the stage?
The GOP spends hundreds of millions of dollars on political strategists, branding advisement, electoral polling and forecasting, and advertising. Sometimes this backfires on them, but it is never accidental or the result of “a funny joke” someone snuck in like a disgruntled Disney animator. Literally hundreds of people must have been involved in setting up the CPAC conference and reviewed the primary staging, and yet we’re to believe that not a single one of them noted the resemblance to that peculiarly-shaped stage with dangerous fall zones built into happened to look like a fascist rune-symbol which is not at all obscure or ambiguous? If Republicans were all this stupid, they wouldn’t win elections.
Stranger
The idea that people controlling large, public-facing organizations give hints about their nefarious agendas by including coded imagery in their various corporate media/advertising campaigns/product packaging is notably crazy. It’s not something a rational person would believe.
It’s also the sort of belief that’s really common among the people organizing CPAC. If they think this sort of thing is rational, and they’re in a position to do it themselves…
At first I thought it was possible to be a coincidence or even the left looking for things that aren’t there. But there’s a lot of coincidences with Trump. The OK/White Power thing coincidentally shows up in a lot of pictures. He ‘accidentally’ scheduled a rally on Juneteenth. He reversed a policy Michelle Obama had put in place to bring healthier food into schools, but he accidentally did it on her birthday. The Stand Back and Stand Down thing I still think is something said by accident because he can’t think on his feet well and has a real problem being told what to do (and he had two people telling him to denounce the proud boys). But it’s just another accidentally racist thing he did. The list goes on and on. Honestly, if he had led otherwise normal republican presidency and then the stage thing happened, it would be different, but this was far from his first ‘accidentally’ racist thing.
I think all us on the left should feel considerably less bad apologizing for Social Justice Warriors as just an obnoxious fringe group that you don’t need to worry about. Heaven forbid, they make the world more inclusive for minorities and marginalized groups.
