Quote from Guitarbizarre: "But WW2 and the Holocaust have literally shaped the world we live in today" Those were not unrelated things either.

I love it when somebody is losing an argument and resorts to this amusing s-hit.

Ah, I see. The swastika earned its bad rap. Maybe you could explain to us lesser beings exactly how that happened. Did the swastika attach itself to the Nazi banners and armbands despite all their attempts to remove it? Or perhaps it handed Hitler a typed thesis clearly explaining how to implement the Nazi ideology. As hard as I've looked I cannot find any information on exactly how the swastika earned its bad rap. As far as I can see, it did nothing.

So, then, are we all in agreement--even if somewhat grudgingly--that there isn't any credible reason why the swastika should be reviled in the West?

Someone seems to doubt the swastika below is an Aztec calendar so I include an excerpt from the website I got it from.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/73...f92969c545.jpg
We find here the Aztecan calendar cycle of 52 uncorrected years represented in the form of a left rotating "swastika". The wheel starts with the year 1 Acatl, then turns left to 2 Tecpatl, 3 Calli, 4 Tochtli, 5 Acatl, etc. There is a good explanation of the whole composition in Duran and Seler. The question is, did the Hopi have a real writing system like the Aztecs and did they share the same calendar around the year 1000? Why do they not have a developed writing in the 17th century?
ABOUT SWASTIKA - Esoteric Online

It's really not your place to be telling people what they should and should not be shocked and offended by. The symbol was given a bad reputation because a regime of people who tried to completely erase another group of people from the planet for arbitrary reasons used it on their flags. Being offended by something associated with something that horrible is a completely understandable reaction and you're kind of being a douche for saying it isn't.

What about Mao and his "Great Leap Forward" which lasted for 3 years and killed 15 million people by starvation and that's the Red Chinese govt's own count. Historians both Western and Chinese put it far higher than that. A Chinese journalist put it at 36 million. A Western historian put it 45 million. Even the most conservative estimates by scholars place it at 20 million. A good round number would be about 30 million people that died under the Maoist regime in only 3 years.

But we don't care about that because the media doesn't shove it down our throats all day with movies and books and songs and articles about it. The Chinese-Americans, after all, don't run our media.

I picture Lord Larehip as one of those sensationalist fanatics with a minivan covered in conspiracy theory related stickers. On weekends he hangs out in busy parts of town with a megaphone, picket sign, and a vest covered in pins similar to the stickers on his car. He also has pamphlets. Lots and lots of pamphlets. No one ever really pays much attention...

^ So who DOES run the media.


Say it

It's not that they don't care, there just isn't enough time nor does anyone have enough energy to stand for everything they believe in. Sooo, they pick the things most popular/relevant(generally dictated by the media) and make heads roll.

The government and big business obviously.

Here's 90%:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/554...allofourme.jpg

They should pay some attention. Even if the guy is off his rocker there is some bit of truth to a lot of conspiracy theories. The increasing lack of education and apathy surrounding the decisions our government makes is stripping us of our freedom. I hope I'm dead before it gets too bad.

o i c

I was talking to Larehip

Germany was a world wide threat, the United Nations was formed in an effort to make sure nothing like that happens again, the very least we could do is make sure that whole nazi thing isn't forgotten. You can wear whatever symbol you want but people are going to question it, if you're only doing it for ****s and giggles or just to be offensive then congrats, you'll probably offend someone.

Ah, I see. So if a country isn't this "world wide threat" then it doesn't matter how many millions they kill. Sorry, can't help being offensive.

Lemme try this again.. maybe I won't get ignored.

It's not that they don't care, there just isn't enough time nor does anyone have enough energy to stand for everything they believe in. Sooo, they pick the things most popular/relevant(generally dictated by the media) and make heads roll.

That's the same thing as saying they don't care. If they cared, it would be on their minds. If it isn't then how much can they possibly care? Because the media told them they must care. Isn't that exactly the point I've been making??

This is aside from the fact that opposition to the swastika is a first amendment issue because if I cannot publicly display one without being attacked either verbally or physically regardless of why I am displaying it then that is censorship--plain and simple. If you favor stigmatizing (read as censoring) the swastika then you may as well favor replacing "n-igger" with "slave" in "Huck Finn" and putting parental advisory stickers on CDs. You may as well admit that the people who tried to ban Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" had a point. The displaying of a swastika in public is, in fact, far less harmful than any of these other instances that liberals would immediately jump up to defend.

And if same gendered couples can marry then soon people will wanna marry their dogs. Drawing lines like that is just silly dude, everything is it's own case.

Anyways, millions of people died in some of the worst ways human beings have ever died under a flag with a swastika on it. Why is it so frustrating to you that someone would be upset by seeing such a symbol? Yeah, you might be wearing it because you choose to interpret it as something else but other people shouldn't be expected to do the same. The fact is, swastikas are now and forever associated with human tragedy and people have every right to see it that way.

Honestly, you're pushing people's buttons by making light of the symbol, as though people don't have a right to be offended by it because it "used" to be used by other civilizations in a positive form. At the end of the day, most people will be upset about it because it represents the most evil of human nature because of the Nazi regime during WWII.

Exactly. The sooner Larehip gets it the better this thread will get.

How often does someone have to have a given topic on their mind to justify them caring? You seem to be asking of us what isn't humanly possible.

I don't donate to any causes. To steal from a famous quote, I try my best "to be the change I want to see", and to me that is plenty. I support the fight against animal cruelty by not beating animals. I don't think about it regularly or contribute in any other way. That doesn't mean I don't care.

the first amendment gives you the right to freedom of expression. it doesn't dictate how people will react to your expression. if someone physically attacks you for it then that is illegal. if they just get offended and call you a racist dick then that is not. your rights are not being violated here.

I'm not really into symbols and stuff but I agree with the poster that started this thread. Modern people do not know history worth a ****. This symbol has been used by many ancient cultures and most weren't even white. Yet our history books leave out this tid bit of info to solely focus our attention on Nazi Germany that made it such a horrible thing. The swastica did not commit the crimes of Nazi Germany, Nazi Germany did.

Before Nazi Germany, the swastica was known as a sign of peace and prosperity ( its why Hitler chose it, likely propanganda) but because modern humans have been dumbed down by their government , history books, the media etc, so people associate with something horrible despite its origins that predate Nazi Germany by thousands of years.

Essentially, people have been brain washed. Nothing new really since this has been going on forever. I'm not advocating running around with a swastica on the front of your T-shirt, just to recognize that one ******* has imprinted the wrong association with this symbol. A symbol that truly stands for peace and prosperity and not what Nazi Germany used it for.

Yeah, keeping the stigma on swastikas is kinda like wanting to keep pot illegal because a few idiots got into car accidents.

nobody disagrees with that. the thing is you can't really revive the original swastika in a western setting because nazis in all western countries have made it their symbol. so it will usually be associated with racism. maybe if you go to india and include it in the way it was traditionally included, then nobody will care.

sort of like the 6 point star that almost got rick ross killed. it was originally a jewish symbol but because it has been co-opted by a gang it has a different meaning now in certain places. but in other places its just the star of david.

Again, the question remains - Why do you care about reclaiming this symbol?

What do you gain apart from a sense of smug self satisfaction?

I don't really care about reclaiming it but it would be nice if people were more aware of its history so others who it means something else to could use it without worrying about offending someone through ignorance.

I think people are aware of its history. I just think they either don't care, or recognise that those meanings are small niches of meaning in comparison to a woven tapestry of genocide.

A better question is, what do you lose? The swastika being stigmatized in western/european culture does not have any positive effects that I can think of.

Even if he is only doing it to feel a sense of "smug self-satisfaction" at least it has positive effects for other cultures. We don't need to keep the symbol stigmatized, there are plenty of other things to remember what happened in WW2, all of which have no negative effects on unrelated cultures.

What's smug is when people don't want to accept things changing that do not concern them at all. Just like all the people crying over gay marriage.

hitler also ruined the charlie chaplin mustache for everybody

Not everybody.

http://www.kindofcreepy.com/wp-conte...che-hitler.jpg

that guy looks evil

I should not be reviled because I choose to wear a swastika. It's my business why I wear it and no one else's. It doesn't hurt you or anyone that I wear one. If I physically attack and hurt you, I should be reviled for that and not because I attacked you while wearing a swastika. Censoring a swastika for what the Nazis did is like censoring happy faces because of what the happy face killer did.

#ripcomedian

So do symbols have meaning or do they not have meaning?

yes symbols, like languages, are not fluid and never change and hwæne béonne ic síþ hércyme cwéman ádón fullæst

They have to have meaning to be regarded as symbols. But who calls the shots over what meaning a symbol gets? It's the mainstream and what is the mainstream? It's the official version of culture that the State wants us to adhere to. When ideas are introduced to public discourse that run counter to this official version, then the State must suppress it through trivialization or ridicule. It can then be controlled and reintroduced to public discourse in a sterile, "harmless" form so that it goes from iconoclast to pariah.

In the case of the swastika, you have a fresh idea that challenges a long held tenet of the mainstream discourse--namely, the swastika is not a symbol of evil or terror.

In our society we have these competing, safe-for-mass-consumption views that want to impose themselves over the other. This is done mainly to paralyze society into a kind of zombie state. The state where you get up, drive to work and, if you even bother to reflect on it, don't remember a damn thing about your drive into work. You're just a nameless, faceless cog in the State's machinery serving the purpose it wants you to serve. Leave the thinking to others who have the brains to navigate the quagmire.

It then becomes necessary to invent an enemy that proves how this mainstream zombie state we live in is much better than anything else. This enemy is called terrorism but it has corollaries as "Nazi" or "Hitlerian" or "anti-Semitic" for example. So this symbol of the swastika has become useful as the representative of this imagined enemy.

The mainstream brainwashing is astonishing once you start looking at it objectively instead of (falsely) believing you have a stake in this thing. I was watching the news last night and there was a kind of point-counterpoint segment between a white conservative and a Muslim who publishes a newsletter in Dearborn (called the city with the second most amount of terrorist connections by some report or other). The conservative tells the Muslim: "Your publication deserves to be called terrorist because you call Hamas freedom-fighters. You are anti-Semitic!"

He presented the mainstream view. Somebody is a terrorist not by what he's done but by what he believes about Hamas. As for being antisemitic, have you ever looked up what a Semite is? An Arab IS a Semite. Here's a white man calling a Semite an anti-Semite. Moreover, Semitic refers to a linguistic group and yet somehow we have allowed the Jews to appropriate the word as though they are the only Semites. If you are anti-Arab you too are an anti-Semite. Since most Jews are of European descent today, you are more justified to call them anti-Semitic than an Arab who hates them.

Mainstream discourse has turned the truth on its head because truth is inimical to it. Truth is an obstacle to mass consumption and mass consumption is the name of the game.

Symbols are potent tools either for mass consumption or for truth which is why the State must not be allowed to dictate the meaning but it is difficult to get this across because the mass media is so seductive.

I know this response is going to generate a bunch of "tldr" crap but your question is profound one deserving of a detailed answer and not a safe-for-online-consumption word-byte non-answer that online communities encourage.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/23...47e55b79ca.jpg

Woman Claims She Found Butter Swastika On McDonald’s Chicken Sandwich « CBS Charlotte

Some woman in North Carolina got a wild hare up her ass about the butter on her McDonald's whatever-it-is laid out in the shape of a swastika. She states, ”Many people died because of that symbol....” Really? Actually NOBODY died because of that symbol--not a single, solitary person.

And somebody got fired for it. Did it ever occur to them that it could have been unintentional?? Some teenaged kid gets told to punch out and don't come back and he probably has no idea why. I mean, I'm sure he didn't have a shaved head and white power slogans tatooed all over him when they hired him (or her).

I'm more offended that people even eat at McDonalds at all. They serve crap. Being this was North Carolina, I wonder what her reaction would have been if I made a big row about how the butter on my hurlburger looked too much like a stars & bars flag and how that flag enslaved an entire continent of innocent, unoffending people. I have no doubt she'd say, "It's just a symbol of Southern pride--shut up and get over it!"

So just shut up, stuff that piece of processed garbage in your mouth and eat it, lady.

That does not look like an accidental swastika to me.

If I am recalling history correctly the majority of American slaves were purchased from Africa where they were already enslaved.

More on topic, I find it pretty unbelievable that the butter just happened to end up that way, but I also don't know how they make their food. Could it have been pre-made at a factory and frozen? So no one from that McDs is actually responsible.

If the kid did actually do it I think he deserves to be fired. Even though I mostly agree with you on the symbol having no power and not being offended by it, I also understand that some people do not share the same views and it is highly offense to a large population. We are the minority here.

OP:

BOOHOO I CANT WEAR SWASTIKAS BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL GET OFFENDED AND I FEEL LIKE I HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL EVERYONE WHAT THEY SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT BE OFFENDED BY.



Obviously the symbol didn't do it, dude. But the symbol represented a group of people who did. How is that not enough for you to understand that someone might inherently associate a swastika with Nazism, even if they're well aware of it's history before WW2? I don't care enough to delve into it's meanings to different cultures of the centuries but am still aware it means something else to a lot of people. But in the western world? It's Nazism.

My point is that the stars & bars flag had nothing whatsoever to do with the enslavement of people in Africa. It's bad history. It's not worth getting offended over. One of my neighbors flies one on his porch. I don't care, doesn't bother me.

Suppose he did it deliberately. So what? May be he meant it as a good luck symbol as in "good luck trying to digest that f-ucking piece of garbage you just ordered."

This.