Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Seriously, Dudes?

Monday Evening Open Thread: Seriously, Dudes?

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Full disclosure: I have a lovely leather-bound ten-volume Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling from the 1890s that I could only afford because there is a certain then-trendy ‘Indian’ symbol imprinted in the gold decorations on the spine… and the used-book dealer didn’t care to advertise to the obvious 1970s market. But as daywear? Uh, all the many nopes.

… In a video posted on its Facebook page on July 12, the company (tagline: “Questioning Boundaries”) says that for thousands of years, the swastika meant something positive: “But one day, Nazism. … They stigmatized the swastika forever.”…

However, there were a few supporters of the effort. Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website, praised the shirts: “I have been trying to do this for years, and I am thankful that hippies are finally getting on-board with that particular project. … I endorse these shirts,” he wrote.

It wasn’t exactly the response KA Design had hoped for. The company responded to the burgeoning controversy first with an about-face, putting out a redesign that incorporated a red slash through the swastika. However, by Monday afternoon, a search on the Teespring.com page for the newly redesigned t-shirts returned only an error message.

On the company’s Facebook page was a post announcing that “Hatred and Nazism have won.”…

Even straining to give KA Design every possible credit, it should’ve been obvious that its announced target market is almost as fearful of cultural appropriation as of the obvious West-centric implication.

***********

Apart from cheap laffs, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

115Comments

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    I know that valued commenter Schrodinger’s Cat has gotten a little ranty sometimes about the fact that the Nazis stole a perfectly good symbol from her birthplace and made it toxic but, sadly, that’s what happened.

  3. 3.

    Honus

    John can confirm that there are several, maybe dozens, of swatikas in the floor tile of the cathedral in wheeling. I remember them from when I was a kid, and was reminded again a few years ago when I attended a wedding there.

  4. 4.

    schrodingers_cat

    The Hindu swastika actually looks different from the Nazi one, also Arya in Sanskrit means pure, So Nazis in addition to their more egregious sins were also cultural appropriators.

  8. 8.

    Shana

    I am just stunned that no one at the company said “Hmm, guys, I understand what you’re trying to do here, but I don’t think it will work.” Many many moons ago when I worked in advertising there were always the people whose job it was to look at the blowback possibilities of anything that was under consideration. I guess that’s another job that doesn’t exist any longer.

    Me, I’ve been back from our vacation since Saturday and I’m still trying to get over jet lag. I don’t remember it taking more than a day before. Is this an age thing? Had a wonderful trip, but jeez I’m tired and tired of getting up at 5:30.

  9. 9.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    There have been attempts to rehabilitate the swatiska, easier to rehabilitate Pepe the frog. I remember the museum at Stanford University had a Buddha with swatiska (Eastern style) of course. Oh by the way, has that museum been reopened? It damaged during the earthquake of 1989.

  11. 11.

    raven

    @schrodingers_cat: Ah, good to know. I just remember seeing them on temples in Korea 50 years ago and thinking wtf?? Of course the Maltese Cross was big for hot rodders and bikers back then.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Some years ago, when I was doing a lot of free-form geometric Bargello needlepoint (basically making it up as I went along) I realised at one point that my random design had turned into a swastika. I destroyed it as quickly as I could, but simultaneously recognised that it is/was super easy to describe a swastika without even thinking about it. The design itself is neutral, but it has such a noxious connotation that we (well, some of us) recoil in horror at the very image.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Only three minutes — that’s pretty good. ?

    I was reading various fantasy romances this weekend, so now phrases like “invocation spell” are going through my head.

  15. 15.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    “A Best Seller Among Neo-Nazis”
    – DailyStormer

  16. 16.

    Origuy

    I was in a Buddhist church in San Jose’s Japantown, built before the war, and the pews had swastikas going one way on one side, and the other way on the other side. I think they were such that the top arm pointed toward the front, but I’m not sure.

    When I was a kid, I took swimming lessons at the Indiana University’s gym, built in 1917. It has ceramic tiles lining the walls. Many of them contain swastikas. I was there a few years ago and they had put up a plaque explaining the original meaning of the symbol.

  23. 23.

    delk

    From the interview:

    We really like the symbol in its shape and aesthetics, and we would love to share the beauty of this symbol detached from the Hatred associated with it. This project only represents the first step of our “master plan”, and we are excited about what the future will give us.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @Origuy:

    Glendale, CA, has some 1920s-era street lights that have swastikas as a decorative border. They have signs up explaining the historical context.

  29. 29.

    Shrillhouse

    I’m aware that the swastika has a non-awful meaning that long predates Hitler, but I’m not sure I’d take it on myself to give people impromptu history lessons with that shirt…

  30. 30.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Mnemosyne:
    I liked the random capitalization of the “H” in hatred. Don’t know if that’s from the journalist or what

  32. 32.

    Keith P.

    Not outraged in the least, to be honest. It’s just some ill-advised publicity stunt, of which supply vastly exceeds demand. You can run across a dozen of these/day if you look (i.e. *want* to be outraged, like it’s a fix)

  33. 33.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Thanks, I left the Bay Area in 1996,and was closed wondering if it would ever reopen. I will visit when I get down there again.

  34. 34.

    germy

    Two white swastika symbols on an Indian blanket made an appearance in the 1922 Buster Keaton silent movie “The Paleface”.

  37. 37.

    LAO

    Years ago, I represented a member of the Pagans and being a very junior member of the defense bar, I often attended co-defendant meetings in the federal detention facility. Everyone of these guys was tattooed with swastikas and other racist/anti-Semitic symbols. My client actually (who wasn’t so tattooed) could not have been more embarrassed, he must have apologized to me 100 times.

    He tried to explain that the symbols were “anti authority” not really anti-Semitic. I have no idea if that was true but every defense attorney on that case was Jewish,so I had a good laugh about it.

  40. 40.

    germy

    Chinese tourists arrested for making Hitler salutes outside Reichstag building …
    https://www.theguardian.com › World › Germany

    2 days ago – German police have arrested two Chinese tourists for making illegal Hitler salutes in front of the Reichstag building that houses the German parliament. Berlin police officers say they detained two men, aged 36 and 49, after they were seen striking the Nazi-era pose

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @LAO:

    A similar thing happened with one of my stepbrothers: he got a swastika tattoo on his chest when he was young, drunk, and stupid (and hanging out with bikers) and was very embarrassed when his Jewish heart surgeon saw it 30 years later.

  44. 44.

    Joyce Harmon

    What’s funny, though, is when people try to make the same argument for the Confederate battle flag, and claim a benign symbol of heritage was usurped by the haters. And it’s true that the battle flag staged a comeback and became a popular racist symbol during the desegregation days of the 50s and 60s, but is anti-desegregation really a more noxious doctrine than the flag’s original purpose as a symbol of anti-emancipation?

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, I blame Internet atheist dudebros. When you decide that all symbolism (and especially religious symbolism) is stupid and should be mocked at every turn, this is what you get.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @LAO:

    He felt like an asshole. Of course, he is kind of an asshole to this day, which is why he did it in the first place, so he didn’t get any sympathy from the rest of us. ?

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    People were cheering on one prominent blogger because he stole some eucharist wafers from a Catholic Church and took pictures of himself stepping on them to prove that they weren’t actually holy. So, yeah, making fun of and desecrating other people’s symbols is a thing, unfortunately.

  55. 55.

    germy

    Schooley ✔ @Rschooley

    In our alternate timeline, President Clinton is on day 196 of Jason Chaffetz forcing her to read all of her emails aloud to his committee.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, to put a swastika on top of a rainbow is either extra dickish or extra clueless — I’m not quite sure which.

  59. 59.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Thanks to leaking leakers who leak…

    Government Report Finds Drastic Impact of Climate Change on U.S.
    The report was completed this year and is part of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft and is awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.
    One government scientist who worked on the report, and who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.

    In the United States, the report finds with “very high” confidence that the number and severity of cool nights has decreased, while the frequency and severity of warm days has increased since the 1960s. Extreme cold waves, it says, are less common since the 1980s, while extreme heat waves are more common.

    as one of those rare individuals who prefers winter to summer, I could’ve told them that.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: That’s not quite what happened. Here’s The Great Desecration.

    He ends with:

    By the way, I didn’t want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur’an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. […]

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Gelfling 545

    @Origuy: The Buffalo City Hall (Art Deco, built 1931) has swastika tiles in places. Every once in a while someone notices it for the first time and has a fit and it all has to be rehashed again.

  65. 65.

    Tracy Ratcliff

    Indian film experts: I’m about a half-hour into Baahubali the Beginning, and I’m interested enough to be thinking about buying the sequel. I have the Telegu version of Baahubali 1 but the US iTunes store only has Tamil, Hindi and Malayam, and US Amazon only has the Hindi DVD/Blu-ray for the Baahubali 2. Wikipedia says that it was filmed in both Telegu and Tamil. Could I buy the Tamil version and not be distracted by the combination of dubbing that doesn’t match mouth movements *and* subtitles?

    I’m sure there are more prestigious Indian films but Baahubali scratches both the itches of over-the-top CGI fantasy epic and very hot actors.

  68. 68.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mnemosyne: He can still look into having his tattoo removed, or adding to it and changing it into another design. But it doesn’t sound like he really cares.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: He’s a professor at a university, one who teaches biology and used to attend debates against famous creationists, etc. He’s trying to get people to think, and to fight against the damage that those who want to remove the teaching of evolution from schools are doing.

    I don’t know if he has an opinion about the tee-shirts, etc.

    (I haven’t read PZ regularly for quite a while.)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    cynthia ackerman

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    One of my favorite grafitti of all time was scrawled in black Sharpie on the absolutely enormous marble urinal in that museum: “dedicated to the glory of God and Leland Stanford”

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: love how he thinks tearing up a Dawkins book demonstrates something
    feat of strength?

    Seems like Festivus comes earlier every year

  76. 76.

    No Drought No More

    First and foremost: don’t drag hippies into the mix, you shit-for-brains.

    “But one day, Nazism. … They stigmatized the swastika forever”.

    Yes. End of story. Forever.

  79. 79.

    Gelfling 545

    @Mnemosyne: My son in law, when he was 15 just to piss off his mother had Charles Manson tatooed on his arm. She disappointed him by saying “hey, it’s your arm & you have to live with it.” Ol’ Charles was amended with cat whiskers & ears added when my sil went in the army until he could raise the wherewithal to get it removed. And, no, it’s not legal for 15 year olds to get tatooed here but there’s always someone who’ll do it.

  80. 80.

    Matt McIrvin

    In some East Asian markets the Hindu/Buddhist swastika on food packaging seems to mean “vegetarian”. I see it on packets of fake meat made from tofu.

  81. 81.

    Cpl. Cam

    @Major Major Major Major: He didn’t think it demonstrated anything, unfortunately there are millions of creationist Christians out there who are sure that Darwin is considered as Christ among atheists and that Dawkins is his pope…

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    Scaramouche coming up at 10:00 EDT on TCM! Not the Mooch, the excellent 1952 swashbuckler starring Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer.

    Like our own Omnes Omnibus, “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”

  90. 90.

    gene108

    @Joyce Harmon:

    What’s funny, though, is when people try to make the same argument for the Confederate battle flag, and claim a benign symbol of heritage was usurped by the haters. And it’s true that the battle flag staged a comeback and became a popular racist symbol during the desegregation days of the 50s and 60s, but is anti-desegregation really a more noxious doctrine than the flag’s original purpose as a symbol of anti-emancipation?

    Maybe I am reading you wrong, but are you comparing the “heritage not hate” crowds spin on the Confederate flag, with people trying to rehabilitate the swastika?

    The swastika is thousands of years old and used as a symbol of good fortune throughout Asia.

    The swastika has stood for good vibes for ages.

    There was nothing good about the Confederacy, which came into being to defend the practice of slavery and expand it wherever possible.

  96. 96.

    CZanne

    @Major Major Major Major: Is it sweeter than the old one? That’s my concern. I grew up on Mexican Coke, which is less sweet than Coke Classic. Zero fits pretty well into the Mexican Coke profile, and I’m worried they’re making it closer to Classic. (As long as they keep it far, far away from that New Coke flavor profile…)

  103. 103.

    NotMax

    Knew a Cherokee gentleman back when who wore a beaded belt he had inherited which included a swastika among the designs on it as part of the traditional regalia .

  104. 104.

    Michael Bersin

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It reads that he attended today’s hearing. Interestingly, the rally speeches basically foretold the dialogues Pierce described at the hearing. The pipeline opponents definitely knew what was coming.

    Local media reported 500 to 600 at the march and rally. I estimate more than that – but crowd size estimates are nearly always iffy. Earlier in the day there was a “pipeline summit” a few blocks away with about 250 in attendance – activists from South Dakota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, and elsewhere discussed their pipeline opposition strategies and stories.

    I took over 1500 frames at the rally and march. I ran ahead of the march and stood on the outside of the turns (with a monopod holding the camera weight) and photographed the crowd as it passed.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steeplejack: My personal opinion. Please don’t let me be a wet blanket on your enjoyment. No filmed version would escape my criticism.

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Major Major Major Major: PZ’s a good guy. He took a lot of heat in arguing against the Gamergate trolls, and has had his run-ins with Dawkins and Sam Harris.

    He’s not a Rah-Rah Atheist Team guy.

    Too many of the Famous Atheist™ people are like the Engineers Who Think They Know Everything™. PZ is much more careful, and much more progressive and sensible, in his arguments.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    john fremont

    @gene108: I’ve seen people on the intertubes defending the Confederate flag as a Christian symbol derived from the Cross of Saint Andrew so therefore it’s a benign symbol because Jesus! And that makes it beyond criticism. Burning crosses was a symbol of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World so yeah I totally that too. Sheesh!!!

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Scott:

    I know who PZ Myers is. I used to read him back in the Bush years. But his moronic War On Symbolism made me stop reading, because he seemed genuinely clueless why it was bad to stomp on other people’s symbols.

  113. 113.

    gorram

    Whenever people (usually non-Jewish Whites) bring up the swastika and the apparently pressing need to ‘reclaim’ it, I always like to pull up this image of the Navajo nation in the 1950s (60s?) officially rebuking it as an ancestral image because of how it had been used by the Nazis.

    Of course, not every group with millennia of history with that or sufficiently similar imagery necessarily should do what they did, but a lot of (again largely non-Jewish White) people seem very excited about the ones that didn’t have their reaction. As a result, there’s a tendency to forget that some (largely) un-involved non-Western cultures reacted to the Nazis with enough horror to decide to change their ancestral traditions to avoid any implication of solidarity with or support for them. Sure there’s a variety of religious contexts and traditions spanning most of Asia that didn’t do that, but a lot others did… and that bares consideration.

  115. 115.

    cat

    @Mnemosyne: Seriously, when the US Military understands why fucking with people’s sacred symbols is bad (hence why the USAF stopped using a Native American headdress in their Chief Master Sergeant promotion ceremony decades ago), someone as enlightened as PZ ought to be able to take a break from telling four-year-olds about how Santa would spontaneously combust mid-flight and find a clue somewhere.

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