In the comment thread here ubu52 demonstrates something I have been saying for a long time. Sometimes people literally cannot “hear” (or in this case read) your words without mapping them into something else which you did not say.
Here is an abbreviated version of the conversation:
ubu52: That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those who wanted to see Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered actually wanted to see that.
And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that.
Right?
ubu52: [Repeatedly says she doesn’t get it. After completely spelling it out for her she finally says she gets it.]
Joe: [In six different contexts I ask, “Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?”]
ubu52: So, who created it? Was it the occupiers? Was it someone Danish? Did they do it under duress or with their own free will? Was it created to mock the Nazis or was it created by someone who agreed with them? Without knowing it’s actual background, it’s really just a piece of 1940’s art.
…
Sometimes, creative people do things for effect. It has absolutely nothing to do with what they really think or feel. You are looking for some sort of deeper meaning to things that may not mean anything at all. (You’re also trying to compare them to people who are mentally ill, but that’s another topic altogether.)
You have such a black/white way of looking at things, it seems that you are incapable of seeing any of the grays in life.
I was asking if it was ridiculous to take the rat poster seriously. This was the work of the most famous genocidal group of all time targeting their most famous victims and she changes the subject to be something about “creative people” doing “things for effect” and claims I’m “incapable of seeing any of the grays in life.”
I cannot fathom how someone could see “shades of gray” in answering the question whether it was ridiculous to take the poster seriously. This poster cannot be interpreted any other way than literally deadly serious. It would be unfathomably ridiculous to interpret any other way than serious.
My question was not verbal, but in written word, repeated six times, and yet ubu52 ignores the question, changes the subject to be a question about the person who did the actual artwork, and tells me I have some deficiency in seeing the nuances of “just a piece of 1940’s art.”
Either she is deliberately trolling me to waste my time or chiefjaybob got it right, “In the end, they are all like Joan. It’s just a matter of degrees.”
She has just convinced me that she is mentally ill. She tried, in that thread, to tell us she didn’t know Cosell was Jewish, and claims to not follow sports. Yet she was able to recognize a man who broadcast sports EXCLUSIVELY, and died almost twenty years ago. Nonsense.
Howard Cosell made over 100 TV appearances on all kinds of TV shows. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0181763/ (see “Self.”)
Laugh In, SNL, the Odd Couple, the Partiridge Family, the Dean Martin Show, the Tonight Show, the Emmy Awards, Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, Dinah, and many more, were NOT SPORTS SHOWS!
Howard Cosell was in a friggin’ Woody Allen movie! A WOODY ALLEN MOVIE!
In a Woody Allen movie as a sportscaster engaged in sportscasting!
BTW, I was aware of Howard Cosell as a kid but I didn’t have any idea that he was Jewish until I was in my 20s. I also wasn’t aware of what a “stereotypically Jewish appearance” meant. The Jews I knew mostly didn’t fit the stereotype.
Or she’s a lying troll. Either way, she should be completely ignored.
I’d go with troll.
Having dealt with people who exhibited similar symptoms I discard “lying”. At least if your definition of lying is something like “deliberately telling a falsehood.”
There were numerous case where someone I knew quite well would claim I said something that was completely different from what I did say (or wrote). I would ask (and frequently I would get so frustrated I was yelling at the top of my lungs) “What were my words?” They would “change the subject” and answer a different question saying, in essence “you meant this.” I would again demand for them to repeat my words back to me. I wasn’t interested in what they thought they heard I wanted to know what words they heard. Sometimes they would concede they didn’t know what I said, but they knew what I meant. One fight that last for three days finally concluded when I asked them to repeat the words back to me. My words were, “If I’m invited then tell me.” They could never repeat back more than three of those six words before faltering and losing it. After five or more seconds they could not remember a single one of the words. But they continued to insist they knew what I meant. When I asked them to explain it they would get it completely, totally wrong. When I insisted they remember the words they earnestly told me, “That too complicated I have to do it my way.”
The same thing would happen with the written word. Words that did not exist in the email would be the central point of the meaning they found in the email.
I don’t believe they were lying when they said they “knew” what I meant. They really believed that.
If you read up on Borderline Personality Disorder (and probably other personality disorders) you will find this is a common characteristic of them. They won’t put it in these words but what it amounts to is that they believe they can read your mind. This is how progressives find “micro aggression” in innocent speech. This is how they hear “dog whistles” no one else can. This is how they justify the degradation, the hatred, the education camps, and the death camps. They can read your mind and they know you are ignorant, racist, and evil.
They should not be ignored. They are too dangerous. The should be studied, understood, and removed from political power.
“LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER”
When I first saw that bumper sticker, I leaned toward the Left, and I rolled my eyes.
Years later, I saw it again, and I chuckled. At this point, I had grown away from the side of extreme leftism, and I thought this message a bit snarky, but not serious.
Now–after witnessing how these people can ignore every single piece of objective evidence, every single historical and scientific fact, and every single thing we actually say, and replace them with some agenda-driven psychotic delusion– I no longer roll my eyes or chuckle. I realize that whoever came up with that slogan was exactly, perfectly, horrifically….RIGHT.
These people are quite literally insane. God help us.
My first encounter with that phrase was from listening to Michael Savage on the radio at least 15 years ago. He wrote a book with that title too: Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions. He wrote another book which is closely related: The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.
I have not read either of them.
You know, when someone claims they’re ‘doing something for effect’, it usually means ‘I’m trying to get attention! LOOK AT ME!’.
But really, this is par for the course with progressives. They cannot conceive of a situation where a person says what they mean, and MEANS what they say, and will act on it. This is why they are invariably dumbfounded when such people carry through.
I’m reminded of this entry on Smallest Minority when it comes to ubu52. I’d make it a drinking game but I think we all get plastered enough as is.
What is also interesting is that she says : “That’s like saying all those who wanted to see Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered actually wanted to see that.” as though there are not a lot of people who would cheer for such a thing to happen, even if they are not actively seeking to get it literally done for real. The left is constantly blathering on about right-wing hate-speech, saying that violent words and images and jokes directed towards women / gays / muslims / [leftie minority of choice] are hurtful because these words or images will lead to violence. Then they deny the exact same effect when used to target any right-of center person or group, such as Sarah Palin, gunnies, etc.
They simultaneously believe “cause -> effect” and “cause -x- no effect” as it suits them. Extreme double-think.
There’s an article on NRO, I believe, talking about the left’s love of ‘collective guilt’. The irony is that they sure didn’t like it directed at them in the wake of those police shootings in NYC.
Sheesh – earlier, after my somewhat accusatory “lampshade” post, I was re-evaluating my position and made another post. Which was obviously incorrect. I think I’ll just plead for a do-over and go back to my original position. Putting any sort of positive spin on an obvious 40’s era propaganda poster that calls for the extermination of Jews is just not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination – nor is the detailed satirical description of graphic rape of a celebrity (conservative or liberal).
Regarding the historical stuff – do we hide it or burn it? No, of course not – we need to learn from history, just as it’s pretty ignorant to ban or sanitize the reading of ol’ Huck Finn or Uncle Remus. But for anyone to just not “get” the historical and propaganda significance of that person is beyond the pale.
ubu – did you “get” my comment? I figured the context was obvious – you do know that the Nazi’s made lampshades of human skin, right?
Yes, I got your comment.
One thing no one here really knows about me is that I collect vintage photography. I’ve been collecting it for over 40 years so I have a very large collection. Unfortunately, I really don’t deal with WWII much unless I get good images I can sell or they come in an album I want.
You are forcing me to do research on this.
My question is this: Was the poster a product of the Nazis or was it produced by the Danish resistance?
Please note that that black thing in the background really does look like a bird with an “R” and that the rat/man has a little moustache. Is it really supposed to be a Jew or could it be Hitler?
The source of the poster is not very specific. “1940’s occupied Denmark.” And that bird thing bugs me because it’s easy to ignore if you just take the poster at face value. It’s almost like someone tried to hide it in plain sight.
So far, I’ve discovered that the Raven is a bird long associated with Denmark and Norse mythology. Also, I’ve found that the Danish resistance did produce material that looked like it could have been German propaganda. http://digitalpostercollection.com/propaganda/1939-1945-world-war-ii/denmark/
I’ve reached no conclusions so far, but I have a lot of leads.
Oh, also, Denmark liked their Jews and tried to hide them. They only had 8000, unlike some of the other countries.
From Wikipedia:
“The success most often alluded to in regard to the Danish policy toward Germany is the protection of the Jewish minority in Denmark. Throughout the years of its hold on power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews.[19] The authorities would not enact special laws concerning Jews, and their civil rights remained equal with those of the rest of the population. German authorities became increasingly exasperated with this position but concluded that any attempt to remove or mistreat Jews would be “politically unacceptable” Even the Gestapo officer Dr. Werner Best, plenipotentiary in Denmark from November 1942, believed that any attempt to remove the Jews would be enormously disruptive to the relationship between the two governments and recommended against any action concerning the Jews of Denmark.”
Wow.
Just… wow.
No only did Joe explain the etymology of the image, but he took the time to explain, in exquisite detail, exactly why your response bothered him so very much, and you reaction is to not only double down on your now-malicious missing of the point, but also to blame him for doing so?
I would like to say it feels nice to be vindicated after all these years, but, honestly, I am just terrified that this whole online persona might not be an act.
How do people like this function in reality? Do they?
You have no idea how much it bothers me. I’ve been having flashbacks, PTSD stuff, all day.
Joe,
Really.
I am asking you to prove this: “This was the work of the most famous genocidal group of all time.” How do you know the Germans produced it? It contains no artist signature, no attribution to a printer, nothing. The book it was published in doesn’t even say that — it merely says where it was found.
I’ve tried to trace the poster back, to see what collection it’s in or where it is located to see if there is more information on it, but I haven’t found anything yet.
If the Germans created it, it’s heinous. If the Danish resistance created it to mock the Germans, it’s a piece of “Onion” art.
I guess I’m just more skeptical than you are because I see lots of “not what it seems” in the business I’m in.
Definitive proof? No. But the context in which was presented at my source location at least makes it consistent with the claim I made:
And although I don’t know for certain it was so in real life and in this particular context but my understanding is that the Nazi’s weren’t known for their sense of humor. And I find it difficult to imagine an poster of this nature getting a laugh out of the Jews, those hiding them, or anyone else.
That you spend so much time digging deeper to find some hidden meaning (or lack of meaning) beyond what was clearly presented an example of exactly the point I was trying to make is very telling.
The PTSD wasn’t caused by you. But these threads have been triggering the flashbacks.
Barb came to me a little while ago and sat on my lap for a while. I told her about the flashbacks which I haven’t had for months and she said, “And to think we went through this every day for so many years…”
Among the things I’ve learned reading (which I don’t mind doing because it sometimes helps me with the vintage photo stuff) — there were not many Jews in Denmark and most people in Denmark viewed them as Danes, not Jews. Because of this, and because of the way Denmark was “occupied” (too complicated to explain in few words), the Germans resisted going after the Jews in Denmark. (That makes the poster even more interesting because, why produce it if there aren’t many Jews and you aren’t trying to go after them?)
The Danes didn’t want the Nazis in their country but they felt powerless to get rid of them because their population was so small. The Nazis viewed the Danes as being Aryan like themselves, so they didn’t feel a need to control them. So there was this spirit of “unwilling cooperation” that took place in Denmark.
If this is “Onion” art, the Danes would have taken a common Nazi theme (Jews are rats) and turned it around (Nazis are rats) in a subversive fashion. Get it? Of course, the other option is that it was done by the Germans.
I get that you are going to extreme lengths to avoid the context and intent of where we found this image. I get that you continue to avoid answering the question I posed to you with this image. I get that you claim to believe the nose hair of the rat is actually a mustache possibly making the rat Hitler instead of a Jew.
What you probably don’t get is that one of the characteristics common to all personality disorders is that the person will not admit they are wrong.
I’m not against admitting I’m wrong. I simply don’t have an opinion at this time and I feel it deserves more study. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
Ouch. Sorry.
The sad thing is that even if the history of this particular image is in question (personally, I do not see it, but that is me), it is not like this is a solitary, isolated, unique incident.
The Nazi regime, in all of its various incarnations, countries, and styles was positively overflowing with examples of “kill the Jews” propaganda, and the question of “should we take this seriously?” is applicable to all of those examples.
It is telling that the question remains unanswered, days later.
Okay, okay. To answer the exact question Joe asked “And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that. Right?”
The answer would be “Maybe.”
Does that make everyone happy? It’s not the answer Joe wants because Joe wants “Yes” or “No.”
Why don’t we try interpreting a Rothko painting next? I certainly would like to see how everyone reaches a conclusion.
“maybe” you say. MAYBE?
6+MILLION dead JEWS say OTHERWISE.
Yup.
That just sealed the deal for me.
Ubu is either a troll of epic proportions, or straight-up, no-questions asked, not-even-bashful-about-it evil.
Or both. *shrug*
“…the person will not admit they are wrong”
I’m not against admitting I’m wrong.
Good to hear!
“And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that. Right?”
The answer would be “Maybe.”
Since your equivocation is based on the question of who produced it, you are saying that if German or Danish Nazis say “Rats. Destroy them” then it is not ridiculous to think that they meant it.
But that if the Danish government or the Danish Resistance produced it (using Nazi iconography of jews ie your Howard Cosell Hitler) then they really didn’t mean any harm to the Nazis other than perhaps some hurt feelings.
The Danish Resistance did kill people so why do you assume that they wouldn’t try to dehumanize the Germans and encourage people to destroy them?
The attitude that good guys (or often “my team”) do only good things while bad guys (“not my team) can only do bad things could explain your assumption but I’d rather hear your reasoning.
You know stupid should hurt.
But what I have learned is that the social progressives have even modified this consequence… their “stupid” does not only hurt them… it hurts us all.
Looking at ALL of human history and the suffering caused by people like this one…
The cross she bears and doesn’t even know it. Doesn’t even recognize it.
I should pity her and her kind. but I don’t anymore. There’s only so much I am willing to accept from the likes of her and I have reached my limit a long time ago.
I have a “metrics” checklist and her replies hit on just about all of them. I have more respect for a mosquito. At least the mosquito has a purpose in the food chain.
Her reason for “being” is the exact same reason for having a hole in a life raft. Why would any sane adult get into one… and why would any sane adult interact with this person after discovering the “hole”…
Black birds have a long association with German nations as well. I mention this to be your research isn’t just research to confirm your own bias.
Can you expand on the similarities you mention “I’ve found that the Danish resistance did produce material that looked like it could have been German propaganda.”
I knew about the German eagle but I don’t think the beak on the bird looks like an eagle’s beak. Eagles also have rather large heads.
There are other birds too, aside from Ravens — swans (wrong form), ducks (ditto), blackbirds…. Can you think of any others?
Since you asked about other material, here’s something interesting I found.
There was a cartoonist named Gustav Østerberg (you can read about him here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0420.80.s234.4.x/full#f11 )
He produced the drawing in the middle of this page (Stikker) http://airforceamazons.blogspot.com/2008/12/words-for-killing.html along with at least one of the pieces here: http://www.illegalpresse.dk/articles/show/id/21#/_
It’s difficult getting information from a lot of these websites because so much of it is written in Danish.
Ubu, I was going to suggest that the German eagle came in many forms (as a kid I thought the bird in the Prussian flag was a scrawny chicken) but then it dawned on me exactly what kind of bird it is that you describe as “a blackbird wrapped in a chain or necklace with an R hanging off of it … (Does this have anything to do with the Chicago Blackhawks?”
(I include the Blackhawks reference as I hope you’ll reread it and reflect.)
The “blackbird wrapped in a chain or necklace with an R” is Jutland, the landmass of Denmark, with the R and chain being bodies of water (Limfjorden).
“the rat/man has a little moustache. Is it really supposed to be a Jew or could it be Hitler?”
“Rats destroy them” suggests a multiple, not a single person. What mustache? I see nose hairs/whiskers. Do you REALLY think Hitler and Howard Cosell look alike?
“Oh, also, Denmark liked their Jews”
Denmark had its own version of the Nazi party called the DNSAP : Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Arbejderparti (National Socialist Workers’ Party of Denmark). I don’t mean to cast aspersions on the Danes but Russia had many pogroms against the Jews while Prussia didn’t because the Prussians did not tolerate disorder; that doesn’t mean Prussia didn’t have antisemitism.
Every discussion like this makes me think of Theodore Kaczinksy’s manifesto. Yes, the Unabomber. In his manifesto, he devotes one chapter to his opinions on What is Wrong with Conventional Leftists:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread136173/pg1
Or you can look at any of the many copied versions of the original manifesto online, and see the relevant section. But the whole manifesto is much longer.
As far as I can tell, he is of the opinion that Western Leftists are by and large a disturbing combination of effeminacy, cowardice, paranoia, inferiority complex, self-hatred, and raging, all-consuming, obsessive hatred of Daddy, which they have transferred to any and all persons and institutions that they perceive as having any authority, power, or success–and no matter how much power they themselves have, they always think of themselves as powerless victims, constantly besieged by a vast right-wing conspiracy of sinister manipulators and goose-stepping, flag-waving, Bible-thumping, proto-fascist patriotic yahoo Untermenschen who are so alien to them that they would be more able to empathize with one of those deep-sea tube worms that lives near volcanic vents on the ocean floor (and would probably agitate to bring them here by the millions and give them the right to vote if they could be reliably induced to flop over onto the lever for the straight Democrat ticket).
They hate Daddy, perhaps for touching their special place without even buying them a drink first, and in their sick minds, Daddy, God, America, the church, science, rationality, capitalism, and President Nixon are all smeared together into this enormous undifferentiated black cloud of pure evil that they devote their lives to destroying.
And despite the Left’s great love for politicized psychiatry, and their love for quoting Marxists like Theodore Adorno to accuse everyone else of being a frothing lunatic, Leftists are weak, neurotic, oversocialized, prisoners of herd-think and group-think, filled with spiteful, jealous hatred for the very concept of “rugged individualism” and for anyone who can cope with anything by himself.
They hate the traditions of their own cultures, as well, which is why they champion the abnormal and disgusting and despise the healthy and normal. They love science, and love to mock conservatives as uneducated boobs–even as they engage in the most preposterous shrill doom-mongering over environmentalism, or nuclear war, or pick your doom of the week. And if a scientist questions their prediction that the polar ice caps will melt by 2010 and inundate and destroy all of civilization–why, he’s not a scientist at all, he’s a “denier!” They construct elaborate structures of Orwellian doublethink, and elaborate conspiracy theories to allow them to denounce any scientist whose findings do not support the conclusions they’ve already decided upon as a “shill,” a “racist,” a “bigot,” a “tool of big oil.”
Their main motivation is spite, a desire to avenge themselves on the rest of society for a lifetime of imagined slights no matter the cost to others, no matter the end result. The spite is a projection of self-hatred; they are broken, unworthy, defective, and weak, and deep down they know it (“guns should be illegal, if everyone had a gun people would shoot one another about stupid arguments, I know I probably would, guns are too dangerous”). They want to die, but can’t admit it to themselves, so they seek to tear down and destroy society instead.
Ayn Rand understood too:
“Destruction is the only end that the mystics’ creed has ever achieved, as it is the only end that you see them achieving today, and if the ravages wrought by their acts have not made them question their doctrines, if they profess to be moved by love, yet are not deterred by piles of human corpses, it is because the truth about their souls is worse than the obscene excuse you have allowed them, the excuse that the end justifies the means and that the horrors they practice are means to nobler ends. The truth is that those horrors are their ends.
You who’re depraved enough to believe that you could adjust yourself to a mystic’s dictatorship and could please him by obeying his orders—there is no way to please him; when you obey, he will reverse his orders; he seeks obedience for the sake of obedience and destruction for the sake of destruction. You who are craven enough to believe that you can make terms with a mystic by giving in to his extortions—there is no way to buy him off, the bribe he wants is your life, as slowly or as fast as you are willing to give it in—and the monster he seeks to bribe is the hidden blank-out in his mind, which drives him to kill in order not to learn that the death he desires is his own.”
Interesting. Didn’t know that about the Unabomber.
Sounds like he’s got them pegged pretty well for a crazy guy. Takes one to know one, I guess.
Thanks.
And yet people like Ubu have no problem at all reading between the lines, and parsing out “dog whistles” and “hidden meaning” in nearly every utterance of those on the right, no matter how innocuous. Scientist wearing a shirt with female images on it MUST be a misogynist and a hate-filled meany, etcetera, ad infinitum. They have no problem imputing the worst of motives and the most scurrilous of aims in everything from the right, yet demand overwhelming proof presented to them every time someone challenges them on everything, and try to portray it all as mere happenstance, not a pattern to be seen, and they are OK demanding proof again for every phrase, every time.
Such an amazing double-standard and douible-think is just amazing….
I’m a little surprised that no one here, as far as I can tell, has commented on the point that struck me first —
ubu52: That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those who wanted to see Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered actually wanted to see that.
Allow me to rephrase:
“That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those people who wanted to eat chocolate actually wanted to eat that.”
Yeah, yeah, I know that’s almost certainly not what ubu52 meant. The actual meaning — I must be careful here, in light of the discussion of “hearing what I want to hear” etc. — is, I suspect, something more like “that’s like saying all the people who SAID they wanted Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered, really MEANT what they said”.
You know what? I don’t care. Among mature adults, if you want your words to be taken seriously, you have a responsibility — to yourself, first and foremost — to speak/write clearly. If you tell me that you want Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered, I will take it to mean exactly that. If you insist afterwards that you didn’t mean what you said literally, I will cease taking you seriously. If you say it was just a joke, I will assume you are lying — for tarring and feathering is no laughing matter. If you say it’s my fault for not understanding the words you did not say, I will point and giggle — at you.
And let me point out that ubu52’s original comment — “That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those who wanted to see XXXXX actually wanted to see that” — is a perfect example of this. Ubu52, your example, supposedly of something ridiculous, is a tautology. In short, in trying to make the argument that people don’t always mean what they say, you yourself said something that cannot be taken seriously.
Joe, regarding the issues these threads have been causing… could I interest you in a late Christmas gift? Cabela’s has a really good summer sausage sampler I could send you. I got one myself this year and I find the elk salami’s really tasty.
Just trying to brighten your day.
My day is just fine. Barb sitting on my lap and talking is far better than supplying food which would only encourage the bathroom scales to lie even more outrageously than it already does.
Thanks for the thought though.
Well, I can’t argue that last bit 😀 Not for nothing does Mom call the holiday season the ‘fat months’.
But I’m glad you’re feeling better.
Let me add, in the name of simplicity —
Mr. Huffman, I believe the point you were trying to make, stripped to its essence, was that, when Nazi posters equated Jews to rats and called for their extermination, this needed to be taken seriously — and that similarly, when people call repeatedly, in ways ranging from subtle to extremely blatant, for all civilian-owned guns to be confiscated, this too must be taken seriously.
(Please don’t hesitate to jump in if I’ve misrepresented your intent.)
For what it’s worth, I couldn’t agree more. It’s very easy to claim that such statements aren’t meant literally — as ubu52 seems to be saying, about others and about her own words as well. But it’s irresponsible to assume that people who say such things don’t mean it, particularly when they also use extremist rhetoric to describe law-abiding Americans who exercise 2nd Amendment rights. The historical record has also shown, to my mind at least, that wholesale confiscation of civilian-owned firearms has, just about always, been followed by slaughter of the disarmed — meaning that statements to that end MUST be taken seriously.
(I might add that, if you say something inflammatory, and then claim that those words should not be taken literally, you are refusing to take responsibility for your words. That’s not what an adult does; that’s the action of a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.)
You got it exactly correct. Thank you.
That last bit is the best part, in my opinion. Progs LOVE to use inflammatory rhetoric, but when called on it, will try and weasel out of responsibility. Excuses I’ve seen and heard include ‘out of context’, ‘you don’t grasp the nuance’, or ‘it’s just a joke’.
I’d love to put this before ubu52: if progressives tell us over and over ‘we want to take away your guns’, why on Earth should we not believe them? Either they are lying, which means they are simply spouting bullshit like idiot children, or they are telling the truth, in which case they seek to piss all over the 2nd Amendment and leave us vulnerable to the ferals and criminals.
Only a dissembling nazi apologist would split hairs on whether apparent nazi propaganda was really produced by nazis or was a false flag product made to make nazis ‘look bad’.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Smallest Minority blog, but ubu’s bizarro hair-splitting reminded me of some of Markadelphia’s weirder posts there (before he was asked to leave, anyways).
I read all of Kevin’s posts at The Smallest Minority. I know Kevin pretty well. We attended the Gun Blogger Summer Camp together. We have been to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous together several times. And he even attended Boomershoot once.
I know of Markadelphia of course. But I don’t read the comments at TSM very often.
*grin* Well I figured YOU knew Kevin, Joe. I was making sure Burnt Toast did 🙂
An excellent point! One must remember the context of the time. People were scared to death of the Nazis, and for good reason; you did not have teenagers with PhotoShop making snarky images intended to make the Nazis “look bad”.
(As I recall, right up into WWII, making anti-Nazi *political cartoons* was frowned upon; American newspapers would, as often as not, censor them, out of a desire to appease Hitler. Charlie Chaplin’s movie “The Great Dictator”, released in 1940, was very much an act of courage. Please note that no other movie-makers had the guts to make fun of Hitler while he was still in power.)
Daniel,
This past year, IIRC, it became public that Germany actually controlled Hollywood to an amazing extent during Hitler’s rein. I find it doubly ironic, when one sees the broad reach of Jews throughout Hollywood since it’s early days. From producers, directors, actors, writers, to the financial backers, they were well represented, and yet they refused to say or do anything that might impact the money flow from German areas. An interesting study of avarice over morals, religion, and family.
I didn’t notice that the newspapers were in lockstep with them. The 20’s to 40’s were an odd time.
I am familiar with that one, supposedly a teacher, rarely added anything of substance.
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I find it mind blowing that Ubu is latching onto the provenance of this one particular image, when we have other well documented examples of nazi propaganda that display this exact sentiment. A simple search leads to lots of well documented propaganda that explicitly calls for the death of Jews. (I would reccomend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda#Anti-Semitism , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Jew_%281940_film%29 , and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007819 as starting points.)
It is like she is saying that the Nazi’s never actually wanted to kill all the Jews, and never produced any media that would support that statement. I guess in that one regard Joe made a mistake, as he could have picked an image that was well documented, instead of one that has a more obscure origin, but that is nitpicking. Most people know that the Nazis wanted to kill all the Jews, so the origin of any one particular image is not worth arguing over.
Of course this is overlooking what actually happened, which was a total derailment of the original conversation, along with a complete deflection of any answers that may have come from it. She successfully avoided any questions about her questionable taste in literature (and any deeper meaning behind it) by deflecting the conversation onto your choice of imagery. I am not saying this new direction is any less insightful (the fact that she is debating if the Nazis *really* wanted to kill the jews, or if it just kinda happened that way is a real eye opener) but it definitely is a change in topic.
I don’t know for certain like I do with a person I spent decades dealing with but the data I do have indicates ubu52 doesn’t consciously change the subject. Their brains are wired differently. They will literally not hear what you said or wrote. They will either be unaware that something was said or interpret it completely differently. They will have exceedingly creative interpretations and you cannot pin them down. They will get angry with you and they will bring up things (imaginary or real) that occurred decades earlier. They will even engage in preemptive attacks against you when they did something thing wrong.
As Stacy told me, “They never did anything wrong and will refuse to change their behavior.”
This preemptive attack behavior is something we really need to watch out for. Political leaders getting caught in scandals may result in them attacking their enemies with trumped up charges. Think of what the media said about the Tea Party when the Tea Party attempted to complain about Obamacare and the debt. It’s easy to see how innocent people get sent to concentration camps and Gulags.
Oh, it is a mental problem for sure, it just seems to me we made a tactical error by letting the argument follow the line she wanted (province of the picture, etc.) instead of focusing on the original observation (she likes erotic writing that degrades people she does not like). She did not like where the original discussion was going, so consciously or unconsciously she decided to talk about something else, and we all just followed along.
Again, I am not saying that it was not a fruitful and enlightening diversion, but we did stray off your original point quite a bit. I just wanted us to be aware of the fact that it happened so we can watch out for it, especially in other contexts where it can take us from an important area of discussion to a trivial one.
Agreed.