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So if now SS in this case stands for Scout Snipers, then waving a flag with a Swastika to symbolize peace, should be ok also. Originally the swastika was not a racist symbol.
The whole thing is just silly.
on a t-shirt while touring Pearl Harbor, I wouldn't be overly concerned with his protestations of innocent intentions. No matter how aestetically pleasing the design is.
What makes this especially insulting if worn whiule standing on the bridge that spans the remains of the USS Arizona is that particular flag was the ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The flag of the Japnese Empire is a Red Sun (a red disk) on a white background. The same flag still flies over Emperor Akihito's Japan today.
So they are killing, and dying, for my "freedoms" in Afghanistan? Really?
I didn't know those freedoms were threatened by the Taliban. I thought the Taliban were a fiercely nationalistic tribe that didn't like foreign aggressors waging war on its soil?
If the U.S. military left Afghanistan, would my freedoms still be threatened?
They want it to mean more!! Just people jealous they weren't standing there.
Exactly. Some unfortunate individuals apparently need something to be upset and offended about and when nothing is there they go out of their way to find or invent something.
It is ironic that you state people should understand the history of symbols and then describe the swastika as a Nazi symbol. That is like saying you should learn the history of the Christian cross, a KKK symbol.
The Swastika (BOTH DIRECTIONS) is one of the most ubiquitous symbols across human culture. You find Swastikas in South Asia, East Asia, Pre-Columbian Americas, Pre-Christian and Post-Christian Europe, and even in some old Jewish Synagogues and Qabbalah manuscripts.
So tens of thousands of swastikas, the world over, extending back in time to the last ice age 10,000 years ago should now be relegated to inglorious doom because the Nazis used it for less than 20 years.
It's a good thing the Nazis didn't like kittens.
And that is the exact point I was making. Read what I wrote again, note I mention "idiots being offended", which is a clue to the clarification of the point you make above. The fact is, a symbol is highly dependent on its context of use and those who throw tantrums about a symbol being used outside of that context are simply attention seekers.
Ehm - there were US Marines. I don't think it's entirely unfair to assume they had an idea of what the letters "SS" in lightning runes signify in Western culture.
It's not that I don't get that soldiers will head straight to offensiveness to express their basic badassery - the marching songs we sang back when I wore a uniform were anything but politically correct, for that purpose. It's the feigned innocence that's annoying. "Oh, so the initials SS had another meaning, back when? And those guys used lightning runes, too? Gee Willie, we had no idea!" Please.
I don't think they should care and I think those who would make objections are simply idiots looking to be angry at something.
I don't think they should care and I think those who would make objections are simply idiots looking to be angry at something.
No No No. it isn't that the problem with the letters SS which can have many meanings from Social Security to in this case a US Special Forces Unit. It is the problem with this representation a black and white SS in the Nordic script in the letter "Sieg" or Double Sieg in this case. This representation has a meaning independent of current context that should be burned into our collective conscience. Symbols mean something people and in this case I find the attitude that the person I am quoting displays especially heinous. We must remember what happened over 70 years ago when a monster took a whole nation into the abyss and did so with a popular mandate. Never Again!
That actually makes more sense. I simply see no reason to start condeming these Marines before all the facts are in.
However, if I were a Marine instructor, I would tell them: lose the damn cameras, etc. This is war, not a social media event.
No .. it just makes a nice excuse.
This is a US Naval Base building ... uhh ... how do you explain that? Are Naval buildings constructed without oversight of the Naval Brass ?
This extreme denial needs to stop. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ... it's probably a damned duck.
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