moss_icon [any, comrade/them]
Slop.Roe v Wade was overturned under Biden, correct? And Kamala Harris campaigned on being the “most pro-Israel president” did she not?
Vote blue!
No matter who!
Even if he has -
a Nazi tattoo!
A lib I used to work with literally said the nazis who ran NATO were probably innocent of being nazis because.....they (the former nazis) said they were forced to be nazis
I realized I was getting nowhere explaining to him that OF COURSE they weren't going to say they joined willingly (a consideration I KNOW he had; no way is a basic consideration like this beyond him), and instead had to walk the centrist path of explaining that whether they were telling the truth or not that you don't put people with questionable histories like that in powerful positions like leadership positions in NATO.
I really don't care about the tattoo or establishing knowledge of what it meant etc imo it's useless shit to argue about forever and people are going to argue about it until a video surfaces of platner stating "yes i definitely knew it was a totenkopf and i got it because i love being a nazi" and even then some people might not give a shit since he got it covered up already
IMO his long career as a war criminal and then literal Blackwater mercenary and his apparent lack of remorse over it is all you need to know about him anyway
and even then some people might not give a shit since he got it covered up already
Reddit posts of him saying it was worth it to kill millions of Iraqis to protect American freedom didn't get much traction; all he'd have to do is say it was mistakes from the past; people WANT ~~to forgive him~~ him to win (let's be real actually; they don't see the killing of people from the global South as a crime; for them there's nothing to forgive)
Yeah and that's worse to me than the tattoo thing
IMO his long career as a war criminal and then literal Blackwater mercenary and his apparent lack of remorse over it is all you need to know about him anyway
I'm astounded every time the conversation doesn't start and then immediately end with this
Despite his popularity, I think you're more likely to make headway with a random person who hasn't heard of him by saying he has a Nazi tattoo than if you say he was in the military. Average people don't see the military or its members as willing and active participants in atrocities, if they acknowledge those atrocities at all. But they do get mad at Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute.
Lmao right? It's worse than the tattoo!
Kamala Harris campaigned on being the “most pro-Israel president”
I'm pretty sure that's a trump quote, but she never really separated herself from Biden's policy of unlimited(apart from that one time where the halted one shipment of one type of bomb for a week) support for génocidaires and said stuff like she had "unwavering commitment" to the security and defense of Israel, and explicitly rejected an arms embargo and condition support to israel on them stopping indiscriminate slaughter of innocents
it's just a sick ass skull bro I swear. Absolutely don't read into it whatsoever before you get this ominous thing tattooed on your body permanently.
he got a skull tatted specifically to commemorate his time as a machine gunner. inchresting, i wonder what he was doing with that gun :thonk:
So, to preface, I don't support electoralism and I don't think you should vote for that guy. I don't think you should vote period. But I will say that I think it is entirely plausible he didn't know what the tatoo was at first. He was like a grunt wasn't he? He's not an officer going to officer school who would maybe be exposed to Nazi symbols there. And claiming this is common knowledge just falls flat to me. Other than the Swastika most people don't know what Nazi symbols are. They just don't. Normal people don't research stuff like that. Even if they see it in a movie it's not like they'd remember it.
It just seems like a bad argument to me. They'd be better off arguing that it doesn't matter if he knew or not and saying that getting a tatoo without doing proper research on the symbol shows a lack of foresight and planning. Or if they wanted to ACTUALLY be for real they would point out that he literally got it to symbolize all the innocent people he killed as a US soldier. But they won't do that because people that care this much about elections tend to also not want to insult the US military and call them war criminals and murderers, which they are btw.
I think it helped him funnily enough. People saw him get attacked for a "Nazi tatoo" looked it up and saw it was a skull and cross bones and said "Oh yeah I've got no idea what that is." and then everything else that he could have been attacked over fell flat because of the first big thing seeming silly to them. I do think that a white guy with a Nazi tatoo that is a war criminal, a misogynist, and called himself a communist on reddit, is just about the most Murican thing I've ever fucking seen though. It's kind of hilarious. I fully expect this guy to be the Democratic version of Trump and be running for president eventually. I imagine it will be a complete shit show. Imperial decline is a hell of a thing.
Other than the Swastika most people don't know what Nazi symbols are. They just don't. Normal people don't research stuff like that. Even if they see it in a movie it's not like they'd remember it.
Yeah I said this before but people are really under estimating the profound ignorance of the american people
Personally I'm pretty sure I was aware of the totenkopf, like, I knew what it was, but I don't think I saw it until I saw it in that Are We the Baddies? sketch. If I hadn't seen it in the explicit context of "look at us and our nazi iconography" I probably wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between it and, like, any other skull and crossbones/similar shit before then
Yeah and it doesn't matter at that point if the guy knew his own tattoo was bad or not. Because if 95% of the voters didn't know what it was they're gonna believe he didn't either.
This is the main point right here. Like you mentioned in the other thread, this community often has a weak point when it comes to seeing the perspective of the average dumbass (in the US or otherwise). I have mentioned before, but if you do any IRL organizing at even the lowest levels (like phone banking for your local socdem mayor), you probably have perspective on this.
And it's hard to say to people without sounding like your just being preachy and yelling, "GO OUTSIDE!"
People saw him get attacked for a "Nazi tatoo" looked it up and saw it was a skull and cross bones and said "Oh yeah I've got no idea what that is."
Come on 'are we the baddies' is one of the most well known sketches of the past couple decades, and aside from the swastika and SS runes its probably the 3rd most well known nazi symbol surpassing stuff like the black sun, sure a lot of Americans are ignorant, but I feel a lot of people did recognize it and thought 'well I only know it because of my super in depth and unique knowledge of WWII history, the rest of these idiots won't'
are you serious? Do you think "are we the baddies?" is well known? That is an internet meme that is in a very specific internet subculture of people who know a lot about politics. The average american does not know what that is. This is a common problem I see on Hexbear where people just don't realize how fundamentally different the average persons life is to theirs. And how uneducated on politics most people are.
Do you think "are we the baddies?" is well known
Yes in terms of comedy sketches its very well known, topped by stuff like SNL and Chappelle but its up there, yeah maybe its confined but to internet users and comedy fans but those aren't exactly small groups
I'm in europe so perhaps our public school education focuses more on WWII and thus consider knowledge of the tottenkopf pretty surface level knowledge
I think its unfair to say I'm out of touch with how the average person's life is, maybe out of touch with the average American but tbh it seem like half of them are out of touch with the other half so I'm not going to implicitly trust your anecdote even if it seems correct
Ok but how was it used in those sketches? If it's just THERE then people are 100% going to see it and think, "Nazi's in the sketch... creepy skull thing... must be something they added in to make it spooky or whatever."
A totemkopf is literally a skull with some bones. That is a VERY common thing in the US (idk about Europe) that is just like a vague spooky thing. Pirates, halloween, etc. Nobody is going to see that on a Nazi uniform on TV and assume it must be a Nazi symbol. They'll just think it's been put on the uniform to make them spooky since they're the bad guys.
Also as someone who went through American public school I'll tell you exactly what was taught. "Hitler was bad. He killed a lot of jews. The Europeans were so scared. Then America came and saved the day. Yay! They were so grateful. Then... dun... dun....dunnnnnn THE EVIL USSR APPEARED! OH NO!"
I would literally bet money that 30% or more of Americans do not know that Germany is in Europe. That is how basic the knowledge of the world is here.
Yeah im online, ive been on this community for around a decade, ive seen the "baddies" sketch a couple of times. I
would not have identified the skull out of context as a Nazi insignia. I'm a dumbass/I dont really put a lot of focus into Nazi insignia and symbology, is what it is.
I don't think you should vote period.
I don't know about this election, but this is not universally true. It's better to vote for a (genuinely) socialist candidate in elections that have one than to not vote at all because it helps to promote socialism, even if they have no shot at winning and the system can't be changed into socialism from the inside regardless.
There are also opportunities to vote directly on policy, it isn't all about candidates.
I also think socialists should be invested and voting for positions in their local community, regardless of how "liberal" it is.
Agreed on the first point. On the second point, I think it's generally detrimental to socialist organizing to pump up the perceived popularity and electoral viability of liberal politicians, if that's what you mean, but I don't think we're going to get anywhere trying to debate it.
Ok... so when Xi Jinping runs for public office in the US I'll register to vote again.
You're being silly. There are socialists running for office all the time, they usually just have no shot at winning.
Where? Cuz I'm in Trump country. And there certainly aren't any around here. The only one I can think of that was on the ballot here was PSL and I did vote for them I just unregistered right after so I wouldn't get mailers and phone calls.
My suggestion if there really is no one and the "lesser evil" is liberals under the discipline of the DNC, then voting in that case is usually just detrimental. The thing to be concerned with in that situation is agitating under a socialist banner, appealing to things like materially improving people's lives, and while I wouldn't consider the electoral element to be that important, these things can be a basis for socialist candidates running and trying to appeal to people sick of the GOP and Dems, which more people voting for neither would benefit.
People try to play the "harm reduction" game in various ways and I think we have decades of history demonstrating that that's a political dead end, and the only way to even potentially get by is by having the courage to start small from an independent socialist banner rather than give the Dems more power while ultimately getting consumed by them. If your only justification is that the liberal will bail a tiny bit of water from a sinking ship, that is inadequate because you are simultaneously feeding into their project of keeping the ship sinking, and I can only really imagine an exception in the case of them being -- to a high standard of evidence -- both willing and able to advance policy that will directly benefit socialists in a positive sense, not just by being "not the Republican". An example of this that some Dems do campaign on is ranked choice voting; if you have someone who is credibly dedicated to and credibly capable of establishing that, then I think voting for them is fair.
How does ranked choice voting help socialists? Bougie Democracy is never going to be fixed by electing socialists. elections are just a way to gain PR before the revolution.
Winning elections is a way to gain PR through before the revolution.
He got the tattoo in 2007. He tried to re-up to the Marines in 2009. Even if he didn't know in 2007 - he 100% certainly knew in 2009 because the Marines told him his tattoo was a big no-no. So his wife certainly knew too.
I think it helped him funnily enough.
It certainly did. If he told the truth even partially that would have been politically fatal for him. But lying and lying and lying has worked like a charm for him. If his tattoo was a swastika - he would have been cooked.
If he had gotten a swastika, he just would’ve claimed that it was because he was going through a Hindu or Buddhist phase in his life, even if it was the wrong swastika. And libs would just say “but trump.” I’m not joking about this.
That's actually a S-wasn't-ika?.. It's ironic?..
Too complicated of an argument. I feel like people are getting upset with me because they think, despite my comment being very clear to the contrary, that I'm defending this guy. I'm just saying the argument is shit. If you need more than a sentence to explain something most Americans aren't gonna listen or understand what your saying. You do make a good point about it and I didn't know those things personally. Since I don't really follow this stuff closely. But yeah the average american isn't gonna take all that into account. I still think its a better strat to just say him not knowing doesn't matter and attack him on other things.
If you want a sentence - there is one and it's very short too. He's full of shit.
That is a much better argument yes. It's not the best one, but its atleast something I think would gain more traction. Not all this debate lord nuance bullshit liberals love to do. People tune that out. You can be right all day long and it doesn't matter if nobody listens to you. I'd think leftists, more than anyone, should understand that.
Ok, so he's a fucking moron that didn't know what his tattoo meant when he got it. How about the next 20 years when he was a big fan of studying modern military history?
did he actually say he was a military history buff thats funny af to do while also claiming not to know what it was. I am now more convinced he is the democratic trump lol
He was like a grunt wasn't he
So a fascist then yes. Glad we agree.
ya i thought it was pretty clear by my comment i thought he was a literal baby killer
