A group of nearly two dozen people waving swastika flags and chanting antisemitic rhetoric marched on the Wisconsin state Capitol grounds Saturday afternoon, performing a salute originally used by Nazis at political rallies, often called the “Hitler salute.”
How did all those cops get off of work?
performing a salute originally used by Nazis at political rallies, often called the “Hitler salute.”
Lol! They say this as if we aren’t familiar with it and didn’t see thousands of Trump fans doing that just a few years ago…
I think they are starting to write this way, because there’s huge numbers of Americans who do not even know what the Holocaust is and that it happened let alone the basic facts about it. It’s shocking when you read the recent polls which demonstrate the levels of ignorance we are dealing with around this.
Edit:
I’m surprised that people don’t know about the ignorance of the Holocaust. Here is some reading for our collective edification.
- Kovac, Adam. “Almost half of Americans don’t know how many Jews died in the Holocaust, AJC survey says.” Forward, 2023. https://forward.com/fast-forward/533204/ajc-poll-holocaust-knowledge-americans/
- O’Kane, Caitlin. “Survey finds ‘shocking and saddening’ lack of Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen Z.” CBS News, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocaust-lack-of-awareness-millennials-gen-z/
- “Most Americans lack some basic knowledge about Holocaust — poll.” The Times of Israel, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/most-americans-lack-some-basic-knowledge-about-holocaust-poll/
- “What Americans Know About the Holocaust.” Pew Research Center, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2020/01/22/what-americans-know-about-the-holocaust/
It might seem unbelievable to see how ignorant people are of the Holocaust, but what you and I find common sense and basic facts of history which we all know are unfortunately not generally known to be basic facts of history and we do not all know these facts. Less and less of us know these facts.
It’s alarming and it’s good that publishers are writing to state basic facts for an ignorant readership. Because of this we shouldn’t see this style of informative writing as a fault but rather as a boon to ignorant readership.
because there’s huge numbers of Americans who do not even know what the Holocaust
I’m afraid that’s not it… it’s liberal media doing their normal “enlightened centrist” thing and pretending that the US isn’t a fundamentally white supremacist state. They want to pretend that neonazis are some kind of “aberration” in the (supposedly) “democratic” US - when in reality the people filling up the top echelons of the political and economic institutions have always held beliefs that are perfectly compatible with fascism.
Yes. One only has to point to the business plot. It happened almost 100 years ago now. No one involved ever faced any consequences. They’ve been regrouping and slowly gaining power ever since then. And have made enough progress that one of, if not the only candidate for their fascist dictator had both his son and grandson achieve the presidency.
Of course during world war II, many wealthy Americans were on the side of Hitler, and their businesses had lots of dealings with him. That’s not even mentioning the fact that we turned away. Many many shiploads of Jewish refugees. Because of the open widespread anti-Semitism in the United States at the time. It wasn’t just anti-Semitism of course. It and all the other forms of bigotry and racism were some of the very core of early America. Slavery, genocide of native peoples, etc. Etc etc. things that we do not teach about properly in American history and never have. Because a lot of it isn’t just history is still current events.
It’s not the Hitler salute anyway, it’s a ceaserian salute or Bellamy salute. Amusingly it was a common way to take the pledge of allegiance in the United States and many other countries. It only lost is popularity after Germany and later Italy used it in fascist/authoritarian/nationalistic movements.
…and the swastika is just a Hindu good luck symbol.
I’m sorry, but sometimes someone horrible takes a neutral or good thing and does something so profoundly evil with it that it forever changes that thing, tainting it by what has been done. Doesn’t matter what the salute was originally. Now it means only one thing.
Swastika is very very slowly being reclaimed in some media. Every time I see it though, I have to consider which meaning it was intended.
I thought Bleach, an anime, was using it in the Hindu manner, but many of the newer character designs made me wonder.
I was surprised and ready to compliment a Republican governor for coming out against white supremacy and racism. That would have been a brave move.
I’m still happy he did it, but I shouldn’t have assumed Wisconsin had a Republican governor, and should have known better than to think one would.
Fun fact about Wisconsin: the Republicans were furious that a Democrat was going to be elected after Scott Walker’s fascist stint, so they rushed through several legislative changes to limit the powers of the incoming governor as a final middle finger to democracy.
Yes, because taking exclusive executive power away from the head of a government and giving it to the legislature to vote on instead is famously anti-democracy.
The legislature took that power for themselves because they had gerrymandered the everliving fuck out of Wisconsin’s electoral districts and held solid majorities with 47% of the vote.
They made this move specifically to counter the will of the people, so no I don’t think it’s very democratically-minded of them.
I hate Wisconsin Nazis.
Looking forward for when Nazis get the pirate treatment.
I think there’s a fundamental difference there. The pirates did a lot of bad shit, but they’re cool because rebels and criminals are cool. Tyrannical governments aren’t. Al Capone is cool, but Jefferson Davis isn’t.
