The Populist position is to tear it all down.
Sure thing grandpa.
I’m just sick to death of having to choose between these evils. Why is it always this? Where are all the decent Americans, and why can’t the DNC get any to run for office?!
But yeah, in a choice between Susan Collins, who will continue to do what she’s done, and Graham Platner, who might perhaps do something different, I would hold my nose and vote for Platner.
It makes me sick.
Yeah… It’s one thing to say, “We need changes,” and then start reorganizing things. It’s another thing entirely to say, “We need changes,” then start splashing gasoline everywhere.
One is trying to bring progress, the other is arson.
Honestly, I’m less concerned about any of those things than about the fact that he seems to have really poor impulse control, judgment, and common sense. I’m not looking to date him and I don’t believe for a second that he’s an actual Nazi, but if I lived in Maine, I would want a senator who was neither dimwitted nor flaky, and I’m seeing some pretty strong evidence that Platner is both. (That is where the perception that he’s going to pull a Fetterman or Sinema comes from, IMO. Erratic people gonna erratic.)
What you are saying about being dimwitted or flaky, I agree with that. It seems like even the excuses being made for Platner use his ignorance as a defense. At this point, he might be the lesser of bad choices, but he still doesn’t look like a good one.
Using Fetterman as an example, if someone asked me if I’d rather have him or his opponent in the last election (Dr. Oz) in the seat, I believe that as awful as Fetterman is, he still votes with Democrats around 90% of the time. So, it’s still better that he won the general election. I wish he hadn’t won the primary, but that’s how you end up stuck with someone like him or Platner.
Guess I’m being called out??? BTW, was backpacking for the past few days to celebrate my 65th bday.
Ok, I was a WW2 buff but had never heard the term totenkopf before nor really had looked closely at SS insignias. Hell, it wasn’t until the thread that I made the connection that KISS used the SS lightning bolts. Color me embarrassed. When the story first broke and in that other epic 1000+ post, first thing I did was look up totenkopf, look at the photos, and look at the smudge on Platner’s chest. WTF, I didn’t see it? Nor any evidence that Platner knew what it was when drunken squaddies got it, learned what it was a “while” ago, and AFAIK has only said he removed it when pointed out that “some” people thought it was a Nazi symbol. So sue me for critically looking at it.
Now, an update FWIW. My hiking buddy is a 50 something German guy that worked in high tech and left germany maybe 20 years ago. So, he grew into adulthood with all the de-Nazification that Germans get. I kinda led the witness slightly by showing him Graham’s shirtless wedding photo and asked if he and most Germans would recognize the tat as a totenkopf, and his answer was “yes”. IMHO, nothing in Graham’s posting suggests that he’s a Nazi (we have his reddit posts, and you’d expect at least a couple anti sematic comments or code words there, no?), nor a Republican trojan horse.
Dunno about you, but I want at least one of the senators making decisions about war powers, war fighting, involvement in foreign wars to be a combat vet that was in the shit. I want someone like Platner and not Collins, someone that is about as authentic as it gets: Graham Platner on the Violence He Saw as a Marine
YMMV, and maybe you want pistol pete Hegseth instead. It’s an easy choice for me. Peace.
Cool story.
Nothing you have said here addresses what you are being pitted for.
You keep claiming that it’s possible the tattoo isn’t a Totenkopf. You go so far as to argue that news articles should not claim it is definitely a Nazi tattoo.
It clearly is. Platner himself accepted it was was one. That’s why he had it altered.
It comes off like wanting to defend Platner so much that you’re willing to actually change the facts. The fact is that he got a Totenkopf, which a Nazi tattoo.
Why he did so, when he knew it was bad, what it means about him as a person: All that is subjective. But the Totenkopf tattoo is not.
So stop arguing that nonsense.
Okay. Is that good enough evidence for you that it’s inarguably a totenkopf?
And happy 65th!
That kind of authenticity really isn’t necessary. A field-grade Army logistics officer would be ideal. They know how shit works.
Semantics. Those in the know, say it’s inarguably a totenkopf. That said, it doesn’t follow that a) Graham Platner and his squaddies knew what it was when they got it, b) he knew for years what it was before altering it, and c) are putting words into Platner’s mouth that he “accepted it was one”. Listen to Platner’s words on the subject at dozens of town halls, or Pod Save America interview where he said something to the effect that when he found out that some people, but not his Jewish American relatives by marriage, thought it was a totenkopf, then he covered it up.
Look at the post 10 photo. At least, my eyes don’t see a clear incontrovertible connection. YMMV.
I see the media going for eyeballs and lowest common denominator with a heavy dose of partisan politics on top. None of us know what was in Platner’s drunken head when he got the thing, and it’s dishonest to claim you somehow do. I may be pathetic but not intellectually bankrupt. So, y’all in the “Boy with a Nazi Tattoo” swift boating camp can go fuck yourselves.
“Semantics” means that it relates to the meaning of words. And the words you are using do not mean what you claim they mean. You are, quite simply, wrong.
You can argue that he didn’t know it was a totenkopf. You can argue that that’s not the reason why he got it. I think that both of those arguments are weak, but you can at least argue them. Hell, you could even argue that totenkopfs are just fine, because the Nazis were fine, upstanding people: That’s an absolutely bonkers argument, but it’s still an argument. But when you start by saying that you’re not even sure if it is a totenkopf, you’re just telling us that you’re not interested in making an argument at all.
You could even argue that totenkopfs are just fine, because not all totenkopfs are Nazi totenkopfs.
ISTM there are 4 pictures that matter.
- What the pic in the tatt studio catalog looked like.
- What the tatt looked like 2 weeks later when the skin had healed.
- What the tatt looked like just before he had it altered.
- What it looked like after somebody worked hard to make it into a shapeless dark blob.
In all this noise, I could imagine somebody believing pic 4 was the original version. Which makes confusion about what pic 1 was pretty understandable. And also goes some way towards supporting plausible deniability.
I know I don’t know the truth. Nor do I greatly care. But my “people are unwittingly talking past each other from dissimilar unstated assumptions” detector is screaming.
Lotta online sources on both sides really want to flood the zone until nobody knows which pics were from when.
Platner keeps putting out press releases bragging about things that have no relevance to his qualifications as a Senator like “he read a 40-volume encyclopedia of World War II.” Basically saying over and over again “of COURSE I knew what the major symbol of the SS was, dipshits.” And of course, everyone knows he knew and this is all just an exercise in the usual edgelord taunting of “what are you gonna do about it, Jew?” as Platner and his DSA handlers cackle over how they’ve made you all debase yourselves by pretending you don’t know he knew. They’re having a grand old time and you’re as happy as a pig in the shit they’ve made you voluntarily eat, because your dignity and integrity matters a lot less than getting to vote for the Operation Fuck the Jew candidate.
Cite? I’d like to see this press release about a 40 volume encyclopedia.
Oh good, I’m glad you’re here, where I can say what disingenuous piece of shit you are. Your posts in P&E are so full of lies and unsubstantiated slander that nobody should bother responding to you. If I thought you were smarter I’d think you were a paid plant; but I just think you don’t give a shit what the truth is, as long as you can stir the shit. Dishonest assholes like you bring nothing to the board and should be banned.
Sounds like what a Nazi looking for plausible deniability would say.
Do I have to post the Wiki that shows that totenkopfs predate WWII again?