A student walked into my fourth period class today wearing a black t-shirt with a huge red Soviet hammer and sickle on the front of the shirt.
I gave the student some semi-friendly ribbing about it because I didn't have time to go into it further, but this student's wearing this t-shirt bothered me greatly. Imagine this student walking into class wearing a t-shirt with a big Nazi swastika on it. In my opinion, there is no difference between the Nazi swastika and the Soviet hammer and sickle. In fact, the ideology behind the hammer and sickle has been responsible for far more deaths than Nazism could ever dream about. Historians differ on the exact number, but the average number of deaths attributed to Communism in the 20th century falls somewhere around 100 million, but most estimates steer more toward 150 to 200 million. Why in all that is good and holy would a student find no problem wearing a shirt that glorifies that carnage? You could chalk it up to ignorance, but again, I doubt the student would unknowingly wear a swastika shirt to school, so it has to be something else. There is also a select group of students at my school who wear the ubiquitous Che Guevara t-shirt. Again, why is that accepted when wearing a Heinrich Himmler t-shirt would not go over so well?
I am being a bit rhetorical here, because I already know the answer to my question. Communism is given a pass because, in typical leftist fashion, intentions count more than results. Too often, communists are looked at as a bunch of harmless fuzzy idealists who only want to help the common man; those are the intentions. The problem is that everywhere communism was implemented, mass slaughter and subjugation soon followed; those are the results.
The ultimate irony in all this is that during the first couple years of World War II, the communists defended the actions of Hitler and the Nazis... until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
14 comments:
"I am being a bit rhetorical here, because I already know the answer to my question. Communism is given a pass because, in typical leftist fashion, intentions count more than results. Too often, communists are looked at as a bunch of harmless fuzzy idealists who only want to help the common man; those are the intentions. The problem is that everywhere communism was implemented, mass slaughter and subjugation soon followed; those are the results."
It is indeed puzzling why the horrendous Communist crimes haven't entered the public's consciousness to he extent Nazi crimes have. I surmise that there are various reasons. There are the supposedly good intentions, as you point out. Then you have the reflexes of the "liberal" elites which were particularly well-oiled during the Cold War. These reflexes tend either toward apologia or denial. Consequently you have precious little artistic treatment of Communist crimes either in the form of film, literature and art. On top of all this, Commies are simply not as photogenic as strutting Nazis in full regalia. Archival footage is also scarcer.
Schools also do a lousy job teaching about Communist crimes. Nazi crimes are de rigueur but ask a pupil about Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. Huh? Who?
Very good points. It is worth noting that the USSR was the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" not the "Union of Soviet Communist Republics" and the Nazis did not call themselves Nazis, they were the "National Socialist German Workers' Party."
In 1939, German National Socialists joined as allies with Soviet Socialists to invade Poland in a pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) to divide up Europe. It spread WWII.
It led to the socialist Wholecost (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million slaughtered under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 49 million under the Peoples’ Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. It was the worst slaughter of humanity ever.
Pledge of Allegiance pictures http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance.jpg and Swastikas pictures http://rexcurry.net/swastika3clear.jpg expose shocking secrets about American history.
Socialists in the USA originated the Nazi salute, robotic group-chanting to flags, Nazism, flag fetishism, and the modern swastika as "S" symbolism for "Socialism." http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html
Much of that history is the history of the Pledge Of Allegiance. http://rexcurry.net/pledge-allegiance-pledge-allegiance.jpg Pledge Of Allegiance photographs expose America’s terrifying past.
Those historical facts explain the enormous size and scope of government today, and the USA's growing police state. They are reasons for massive reductions in government, taxation, spending and socialism.
The "Nazi salute" is more accurately called the "American salute" as it was created and popularized by national socialists in the USA. It was the early salute of the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge was written by Francis Bellamy. http://rexcurry.net/pledgetragedy.html Francis Bellamy was cousin and cohort of Edward Bellamy. http://rexcurry.net/pledgebackward.html Edward Bellamy and Francis Bellamy were self-proclaimed socialists in the Nationalism movement and they promoted military socialism.
They wanted the government to take over education and use it to spread their worship of government. When the government granted their wish, the government’s schools imposed segregation by law and taught racism as official policy. The official racism and segregation was a bad example three decades before the National Socialist German Workers Party, and decades afterward.
The Pledge was mandated by law in government schools for three decades before, and through, the creation of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. http://rexcurry.net/bellamy-edward-karl-marx.html
see photo of Pledge of Allegiance http://rexcurry.net/USA-pledge-of-allegiance-rexcurrydotnet.jpg Pledge of Allegiance.
Many people do not know that the term "Nazi" means "National Socialist German Workers' Party." Members of the horrid group did not call themselves Nazis. In that sense, there was no Nazi Party. They also did not call themselves Fascists. They called themselves socialists, just as their name indicates.
The historian Dr. Rex Curry showed that the early Pledge Of Allegiance did not use an ancient Roman salute, and that the 'ancient Roman salute' myth came from the Pledge Of Allegiance." The discoveries have been reviewed and verified on wikipedia http://rexcurry.net/roman-salute-metropolitan-museum-of-art.html
The original pledge was anti libertarian and began with a military salute that then stretched out toward the flag. In actual use, the second part of the gesture was performed with a straight arm and palm down by children casually performing the forced ritual chanting. Due to the way that both gestures were used sequentially in the pledge, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is an extended military salute via the USA's Pledge Of Allegiance.
Media coverage about the discoveries continues to grow http://rexcurry.net/audio-rex-curry-podcast-radio.html
Fan mail for work exposing the Pledge’s poisonous pedigree is at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_heart.html
And listen at http://odeo.com/audio/1747108/view
The Pledge's early salute caused quite a Fuhrer/furor. The dogma behind the Pledge was the same dogma that led to the socialist Wholecost (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million slaughtered under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 49 million under the Peoples’ Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. It was the worst slaughter of humanity ever.
People were persecuted (beatings, lynchings, etc) for refusing to perform robotic chanting to the national flag at the same time in government schools in the USA and Germany (to the American flag, and to the German swastika flag).
American socialists (Edward Bellamy teamed with the Theosophical Society) also bear some blame for the modern swastika http://rexcurry.net/swastika3clear.jpg Swastikas became overlapping S-letters for "socialism," all shown in the research of the noted symbologist Dr. Rex Curry. Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, its use was altered to alphabetic symbolism in modern times. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-swastika.html As German socialism's notorious flag symbol, the swastika was deliberately turned 45 degrees to the horizontal and always oriented in the S-direction. Similar alphabetic symbolism is still visible as Volkswagen logos. http://rexcurry.net/swastika-audi-logo.JPG
The bizarre acts in the USA began as early as 1875 and continued through the creation of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German Nazis or NSGWP). American soldiers used the swastika symbol in WWI (against Germany) and the symbol was used by the American military during WWII. http://rexcurry.net/45th-infantry-division-swastika-sooner-soldiers.html
The NSGWP had clear roots in National Socialism promoted by socialists in the USA. Amazing graphic images that prove the point are at http://rexcurry.net/theosophy-madame-blavatsky-theosophical-society.html
The USA is still the worst example in the world of bizarre laws that require robotic chanting to a national flag in government schools (socialist schools) every day for 12 years. It has changed generations of Americans from libertarians to authoritarians. The government bamboozled individuals into believing that collective robotic chanting in government schools daily is a beautiful expression of freedom. Frightening photographs are at http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html
Tinny Ray is obviously not in California, where the pledge of allegiance is (unfortunately) *not* required in schools. Additionally, by order of the US Supreme Court, no student is required to recite the pledge of allegiance, or even to stand during its recitation.
Also, the swastika has a long history, even here in America. It was a good luck symbol for one southwestern US tribe (Navajo?); heck, on my blog I posted a picture of a slot machine--made in 1909--with a swastika as one of the symbols. Tinny Ray, what point are you trying to make?
There's a difference between a swastika and the communist sickle.
Communism is a type of government. That's it. However you may feel about it, however it may have been flawed in past executions, the idea is not inheritly evil. People died as a result of botched attempts at establishing this type of government - partly because that's the nature of large-scale revolution, just like when the United States was formed, and some because of corrupt leaders and the difficulties associated with trying to make a new, radical idea reality. Completely aside from whether or not it could ever work, I don't think this shirt is offensive. To stifle it is to avoid conversation about a legitimate, if failed, philosophy.
Nazism, on the other hand, specifically targeted groups for extermination. It was evil from its birth, it was designed to be evil.
There are many serious academics and thinking people who will have real conversations about communism, and its failures, and yes, its sucesses. Nobody's sitting around talking about if "it's possible to make Nazism work".
Further, the United States has plenty of blood on its hands. You can debate the details, but nobody can seriously claim that our country has never messed up at the cost of lives.
But there is a key reason that communism and socialism are given passes relative to national socialism--it's because violent racism was a fundamental party line of the latter, where the deaths caused by the former were rooted in economic and political rather than racial causes. People died in the rise and fall of communism because of revolution, just as they died in the American revolution. Because revolutions are bloody when you're trying to throw off the yoke of an oppressive incumbent system. People died in Nazism sometimes because they were in the way of a revolution but more frequently because they were perceived as inferior and inhuman.
Don't get me wrong--I'm staunchly both pro-capitalism and against violence, but I'm also confident that there's a big difference between calling someone wrong when their opinion of the optimal economic and political system is different from yours and when they claim that everyone different from them is sub-human. Am I wrong?
Communism is given a pass because, in typical leftist fashion, intentions count more than results.
Don't forget Solidarity of All Good Comrades, i.e. "Hooray For Our Side!"
Several million indigenous people were the victims of United States expansion into what are now the Western States. Civilians were abused, diplaced, subjegated, raped and murdered.
These extra stars on our flag can be seen to grace many a patriotic t-shirt.
Doesn't anyone who truly cares about history, as it seems that this blog does, acknowledge that the US was created through forced expansion and genocide?
At my school, lots of kids wear things like this and other demonstrations of outlandish rhetoric. In most cases, I find, the students don't have the foggiest notion for what the emblem on their shirt stands.
It raises another issue of what parents are willing to allow their kids to leave the house wearing or if they're aware of the issue at all.
Thank you all for your comments. I had quite a response to write, so rather than write it here, I created a brand new post. Check it out on my blog under the title: Communism Chic revisited.
If your school's administration had the huevos to create a mandatory dress code -- shirts with collars and NO visible political or religious statements/symbols of any kind -- this never would have happened. The child's parents obviously have no taste and need "rules" instead. Fourth grade is not about teaching the ins and outs of Communism; isn't it still about basic math and California missions? (Catholic school IS; kids in Catholic school don't wear weird t-shirts to school either.)
He sees no problem in wearing the Swastika shirt because the Holocaust DID NOT OCCUR. Once you understand that the "Holocaust" was made up by Zionist Jews, then you can see why National Socialism (Nazism) is a great system. He's proud of his race and Hitler was one of the greatest men to ever live. Remember, I say Hitler is great because of the many good things he's done. If the 'holocaust' ever happened, I would believe him to be evil. But it didn't occur. Thank you.
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