the swastika will always be Nazis for Westerners. our minds reflexively conjure the worst evil imaginable. but lmao at these designs pic.twitter.com/Pd4yYEO8op
— Pam Groovey (@PamGroovey) August 7, 2017
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.
Company's Line Of Rainbow-Themed Swastika T-Shirts Backfires https://t.co/FIvX2UoLke
— NPR Business (@nprbusiness) August 7, 2017
… 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?
Gvg
Why bother? Don’t they have anything better to do with their time?
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.
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.
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.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: You called?
raven
On the Changing History of the Swastika in South Korea”
However, a closer look at the Nazi swastika, and the Korean Buddhist swastika, will reveal that they point in opposite directions. With all things, there are exceptions, but this tends to be the rule. First the Korean Buddhist sign looks like this:
http://koreantemples.com/?p=75
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Also the color, the Hindu/Buddhist swastika is red. Black is never used in religious symbolism.
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.
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.
Otis Freeman
They are also ensconced in 1917 tiles in a physical education building at Indiana University: http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/sidetracked/2012/02/did-my-big-ten-school-endorse-nazis/
I would love to rehabilitate this symbol, but think it might take another century or two. Also, Roy G Biv wants his rainbow back.
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.
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.
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.
rikyrah
This went all the way up a corporate food chain, and nobody said NOPE ?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
“A Best Seller Among Neo-Nazis”
– DailyStormer
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Not just temples, fortune tellers use the symbol as well. They’re all over Seoul.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They didn’t let us south of the Han.
Michael Bersin
Boarded a bus on Sunday from Kansas City to Lincoln, Nebraska to cover the Keystone XL pipeline protest and march before this week’s hearings before the Nebraska Public Service Commission.
March to Give Keystone XL the Boot – Lincoln, Nebraska – August 6, 2017 – more photos
A broad coalition put it together.It was one of the more organized (and visually striking) demonstrations I’ve covered.
Origuy
@Mr Stagger Lee: The Stanford Art Museum reopened in 1999 as the Cantor Arts Center. It’s a beautiful museum, with a wonderful collection of Rodin sculptures. Free admission.
germy
I prefer Chaplin’s sign of the double cross.
(From the Great Dictator)
raven
@Origuy: Was Doc Counsilman there then?
delk
From the interview:
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Typically you don’t wear swastika on your person but draw it on a wall or a door or on the floor. So more an architectural/decorative symbol rather than a sartorial one.
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.
schrodingers_cat
Swastika Tshirt peeps sound willfully obtuse and stupid.
Mnemosyne
@delk:
Uhhhhh ….
raven
@schrodingers_cat: I think Hell’s Angels had a different sense of style.
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…
? ?? 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
trollhattan
@Michael Bersin:
Nice! Hope it gets traction, seems like Nebraska isn’t necessarily on board with the pipeline (a certain part of Canada has a sad).
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)
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.
germy
Two white swastika symbols on an Indian blanket made an appearance in the 1922 Buster Keaton silent movie “The Paleface”.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: I was describing how the symbol has been used traditionally.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Got it.
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.
dm
Swastikas/broken crosses show up on Japanese maps a lot denoting temples.
Baud
Make Swastikas Great Again
germy
Bort
I did nazi that coming. I’ll show myself out….
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.
Another Scott
@Michael Bersin: Great pictures. Thanks for your report!
Cheers,
Scott.
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?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The older parts of Seoul are north of the Han.
LAO
@Mnemosyne: Wow. That’s terrible. I can’t even imagine how your brother must have felt.
SiubhanDuinne
@Michael Bersin:
I understand Charles P. Pierce is there. By any chance, didnyou meet him?
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.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t know anti-symbolism was a thing.
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. ?
LAO
@Mnemosyne: fair enough. It’s definitely an asshole move.
schrodingers_cat
@Joyce Harmon: Its different though, the Nazis appropriated a symbol that predated them by several thousand years. The original users (Buddhists and Hindus) have nothing to do with the 3rd Reich.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: some of the online atheists are hardcore anti-theists. So any religious symbol.
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.
germy
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Was also used as a plot theme in a Gray’s Anatomy episode.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That proves I was never there! We did have this really nice view of the Imjin and North Korea.
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.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Thanks to leaking leakers who leak…
as one of those rare individuals who prefers winter to summer, I could’ve told them that.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: That’s not quite what happened. Here’s The Great Desecration.
He ends with:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
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.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: love how he thinks tearing up a Dawkins book demonstrates something.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
So if nothing must be held sacred, why get upset over some t-shirts with a swastika on them? They’re just t-shirts.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Actually, looking at the map we were North of North Korea!!!!!
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.
raven
@raven: At least part of it.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I have to agree. Using swastikas in Hindu/Buddhist religious ceremonies is different than wearing it on a T shirt. T shirt idea is at best clueless at worst in your face obnoxious.
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.
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.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
feat of strength?
schrodingers_cat
@Tracy Ratcliff: I have only seen a song or two. Not my cup of tea. I say if you want to buy go for the original.
Major Major Major Major
@Ohio Mom: you can turn a swastika into the windows logo pretty easy.
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”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Seems like Festivus comes earlier every year
raven
@Major Major Major Major: It was nice in the Magnificent Basterds when Brad carved it in the Nazi’s forehead!!!
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.
Major Major Major Major
OT: Coke Zero update: So I tried the new Coke Zero Sugar and they didn’t totally shit the bed with it. Yay!
Tracy Ratcliff
@schrodingers_cat: I was hoping you’d know if Tamil was one of the originals, but I didn’t think it would be one of your favorites. Thanks for the input.
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.
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.
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…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven:
China?
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.”
Michael Bersin
@SiubhanDuinne:
Damn. He was? Actually, I met him at the last Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa in 2014.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: well, you know who was a vegetarian…
Viva BrisVegas
Too soon.
Give it a couple of hundred more years and it will all blow over.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Bill Clinton?
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No, if you look at a map the DMZ and Imjin run South of Munsani (looks like Paju is used more now) on it’s way to the Yellow Sea.
Ruviana
@Baud: Good password!
gene108
@Joyce Harmon:
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I don’t really care for that version. The 1923 one is more true to the book.
schrodingers_cat
@Tracy Ratcliff: I would think that the original would be Telugu, since it was shot by a Telugu director with a Telugu lead actor.
germy
Major Major Major Major
@Cpl. Cam: so i don’t know anything about it, but I assumed he did it to show that even our own famed practitioners produce nothing more sacred than words on paper blah blah
Matt McIrvin
@Viva BrisVegas: Maybe they’ll be so horrified at the sight of the Stars and Stripes that waving around a swastika will seem like a minor offense.
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…)
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Did you watch The Naked Jungle? What a trip!
Major Major Major Major
@CZanne: it’s closer to classic but just a skosh. They didn’t adjust the sweetness so much as the… flavor, I guess.
chris
@Another Scott: Thanks for that, PZ’s piece has held up well.
gene108
@Tracy Ratcliff:
Saw Baahubali 2 in Tamil. I thought it had a few dubbing issues, but nothing that compares to English dubbing of Godzilla movies.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Killjoy.
OldDave
Berkeley Breathed is a genius. That is all.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
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!!!
sigaba
Those swastikas are backwards.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Didn’t watch it tonight, but I’ve seen it before. Ants! Those damned ants!
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: oh, that was him? Weird. Like I said, didn’t know anything about it, just had the impression of a slightly less annoying draw-Muhammad-day.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Do you speak Tamil?
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.
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.
sempronia
@sigaba:
sauvastikas
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.