- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Elon Musk after he made a gesture during Trump’s inauguration resembling a Nazi salute.
Musk and his allies dismissed the comparison, calling such accusations exaggerated.
Ocasio-Cortez, however, called the gesture unacceptable, emphasizing America’s history of opposing Nazis and the Confederacy.
She also condemned the Anti-Defamation League for defending Musk, accusing it of losing credibility.
Her comments sparked broader debate on symbols, gestures, and their implications amid Trump’s return to office.
You must log in or register to comment.
The elections after 2050…
Mr (reuse last name of current or past presidents) was only raping the teens (plural) for five minutes at a time so deserves recognition for that is for winning our elections this year twice! 100% of electoral votes and a huge 5% of all Americans voted in Alabama so he got 67% of the vote plus or minus 350%
National identity is imaginary, powerful and useful. What she’s choosing to claim with hers is badass. It’s brash, in-your-face, heroic. Anti-apathy. And our world needs tonnes more of it.
As an activist irl, and someone targeted daily by nazis for years, AOC has no illusions about the current state of fash in the USofA, nor the history and current state of slavery and genocide in the world. Nazis (and other misogynists) will tell you she’s ignorant and deluded, but you know she’s not. She’s manifesting, and the irony is lovely.
If you want to live in the country she does - against all the opposition activists for the common good constantly face - claim it as she claims it. Go find your allies irl and stop letting powerful men tell you there’s no point trying anything. Your enemy says you’re not a real person, but a thing God put on earth for them to use or destroy.
Tough love: Hope is hard work. Apathy is an easy trap that flatters your intelligence while it kills your spirit. Trust yourself and make a choice: who is your enemy and how are you going to treat them?
Yeah. I’m a fucking American. A real American who takes pride in national heroes like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and many others who fought and died opposing fascism
TIL! That’s what’s up. People acting like this is all brand new lol…
Here’s a lovely bit of spoken word from Utah Philips as thanks for the link.
Are people acting like this is new? We’re living in extremely precedented times. Hell even “social condervativism is on the rise while the climate changes catastrophically” describes the situation of the reign of king James the misogynistic of England and Scotland (most notable for his Bible translation, his witch burnings, and his unification of Scotland and England and colonization of the americas and acrually a lot more), at the beginning of the little ice age
Also for anyone interested in very left wing very American media, there’s a podcast called “Alice Isn’t Dead” that’s basically a radio show of a woman driving a truck looking for her missing wife, filled with musings on America and it’s nature. It’s by the nightvale people and it’s good enough that I have less radicalized friends that enjoy it
I heard an interview with the sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson, and he said something that I love: “pessimism is almost a dereliction of duty.”
If we want the world to be a better place, we have to make it a better place.
Lewis or Chesterton had something similar, that optimism and pessimism were both dishonest, but patriotism was necessary to existence. Probably Lewis
Thank you, this comment section has some of this cynisim already. Yes she’s saying very eviden things but the other side is winning precisely by creating a culture of fear and overwhelming toxicity and locking you in echo chambers that eat at you by making you think their normal is The normal. It’s not lying than to project what you want into the world until enough people are in on it and pressure bad elements into hiding or into changing path.
Fuck, dude. Maybe I have become too cynical. I’ve become a little dejected these last few days/weeks/months, but that was actually inspiring.
I should follow your username’s advice more lol.
Nothing wrong with being cynical and dejected given the givens imo. I’ve worked with immigrants and refugees in Canada for over a decade, and my wife and I put our Go Bag together last year for when the nazis come to kill us and take our shit. She escaped one war already and knows what’s up. The threat is real.
But the enemy LOVES it when we sit and stew in our sadness and rage. They literally study how to make us give up, and these screens we’re constantly touching are totally part of it. Don’t believe the hype. We have allies and options.
snip from the last good thing I read on reddit:
The term “disinformation” undersells the problem. Because much of Russia’s social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.
Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that’s how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.
As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it’s not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,
Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. … According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.
Extremely well said.
In This Country, We Hate Nazis
Lol! No they don’t.
The US has always loved fascism. It’s the only one of two political ideologies it endorses.
Nazism is almost an American export, even. See, for example, How the Nazis were inspired by Jim Crow.
We love nazis so much we saved half of them after WW2 and brought them back home.
Just the most brilliant
…and the other half was left in Germany to fill up West Germany’s intelligence services.
and all the remainders that survive mysteriously ended up in Argentina.
Latin America was essentially a retirement resort for fascist war criminals after WW2.
It turns out that the dictators who was friendly to US corporate interests was also raging Nazi sympathizers. It must be a complete coincidence though and totally not related at all.
And the other is passive fascist enablers.
I wish that were true
‘In this country, we hate Nazis’
I wouldn’t be so sure. Trump didn’t win the election in a packet of cereals…
Her peers cordially shaked hands with them well enough… Nevermind the richest members of the oligarchy who funded and paid respects to their coronation personally.
Weeeeellllll… some of us do.
Demonstrably not, AOC.
Most based AOC, I wonder if the hate-thirsting over her will begin again now that she’s becoming such a needed voice in these trying times.
Only asking because the memes about Ben Shapiro wnating her feet pics were funny as hell.
But seriously, can it actually not? I low-key hated all the “Let’s just tell dumb blonde jokes with AOC instead of the dumb blonde.” memes, cause it’s like… when we call Trump dumb, we can point to shit he actually did (like turn every American into a woman because he’s too transphobic to know how to read), we aren’t just saying it to say it.
Ah yes, but that doesn’t stop many of us from voting for them.
No one voted for Elon Musk, but here he is in the White House marching around doing the goose step.
Meh. 25% or so love them, another 25% couldn’t be bothered to care.
25% of people who couldn’t be bothered to care are still considered Nazis as far as I know
Nobody could have predicted him to be a bad person. Really, that came was a surprise for everyone 🤡
You think the numbers are that low? I’d say tops only 33% of the US still hates nazis. The remainder are split between loving them or being indifferent
i never realized that in the final battle between the forces of good, evil, and indifference that the indifferent would be by far the largest and most dangerous faction
Really? Because it always has been. Or did you forget the classic quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I know it’s crazy
i guess the ancestors tried to tell us about the banality of evil, how badethings happen when good men do nothing, and that the path to hell is paved with good intentions
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr
He got it
My Grandpa hated some Nazis in other countries, too.
Same. Nazi killing practically runs in the family at this point.
Not even gonna bother with a ‘brown shirts will be shot’ sign.
R I P S
AND T E A R S
until it’s not even started
Do we though? Do we really, truly, hate Nazis? The evidence so far is not that conclusive.
I hate Nazis, but I don’t think the country as a whole hates Nazis.
Well, you certainly used to, judging by the efforts and sacrifices 80 years ago, but there’s certainly a lot of evidence to indicate a lot of Americans of today think you were on the wrong side back then.
You may want to reread some history, there were plenty of Nazi sympathizers and collaborators (read: nazis) in the US back then too.
Oh I’m well aware, but push came to show and the better minds prevailed, back then, and as a result, so did the country.
I’m not convinced the outcome would’ve been the same today.
The saying is “if push comes to shove” ie if shit gets real /escalates.
English is not my native tongue, and I knew I was on thin ice with that one…
It’s actually “on thin eyes”, i.e people are watching you closely.
Nah just fucking with ya.
And then those better minds snapped up as many Nazi scientists they could and put them to work for “the good guys”, and burnt a few crosses.
See, that’s the issue though, you say they “think you were on the wrong side”… but they don’t think. They put on a hat with the team colors and just thoughtlessly repeat the chants as the organist plays the fight song.
Ohh, sick rip bruh, he’ll never recover from that!
