Devilish imagery.

 

That's at the top of the WaPo home page.

The red glow of the photograph is transfixing. If you can tear your eyes away from it and look to the text, you see "Mike Collins" and "KKK and Nazi." Emotional tainting accomplished. There's little potential for your mind to travel on to pull out "former... staffer" and "what appear to be," let alone to click through to investigate whether there's really anything to damage Collins.

Clicking gets you to this article (gift link):

"The San Diego mosque shooters were 'radicalized online,' cops say — as it’s revealed they wore Nazi symbols and etched racist statements on their gear..."

"... as they opened fire outside an Islamic Center, killing three people in the process. The two teens 'did not discriminate on who they hated,' law enforcement officials said in a press conference Tuesday, adding they had recovered over 30 guns and a crossbow in connection to the suspects. A livestream video of the horrific attack, currently being probed by the FBI, shows Cain Clark with a Black Sun symbol, which is associated with Nazi Germany, square on his chest. Nazi SS commander Heinrich Himmler had the symbol inlaid into the floor of the Wewelsburg castle. Another symbol associated with a small online neo-Nazi group, the Atomwaffen Division, can also be seen on one of the shooters’ shoulders. Atomwaffen is the German phrase for 'atomic weapons.' Also seen on the handgun of one of the shooters is the statement, 'race war now,' right above a swastika. Neo-nazis and white nationalists are known for promoting race wars to overthrow the government or create a white ethnostate...."

The NY Post reports, in "San Diego mosque shooters were ‘radicalized online,’ wore Nazi symbols, inscribed vile 3-word message on guns."

"To Those I've Hurt/By Ye Formerly known as Kanye West."

"Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the frontal lobe of my brain. At the time, the focus was on the visible damage - the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed...."

Writes Kanye West, in what is a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal.

It wasn't properly diagnosed until 2023. That medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type-1 diagnosis. Bipolar disorder comes with its own defense system. Denial. When you're manic, you don't think you're sick. You think everyone else is overreacting. You feel like you're seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you're losing your grip entirely.

"In a stunning and hasty reversal, the U.S. Coast Guard announced late Thursday that swastikas and nooses are prohibited hate symbols..."

"... erasing an attempt to soften their definition after the plan elicited furious backlash. The abrupt policy change occurred hours after The Washington Post first reported that the service was about to enact new harassment guidelines that downgraded the meaning of such symbols of fascism and racism, labeling them instead 'potentially divisive.'"

From "In reversal, Coast Guard again classifies swastikas, nooses as hate symbols/The new order came hours after The Post reported the service would instead classify such symbols as 'potentially divisive' under guidelines set for release next month" (WaPo).

Interesting. I note that Trump was asked about the policy at his press conference — the one with Mamdani — yesterday, and Trump said he didn't know about it:

"Priceless crown of Empress Eugénie with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds found broken in Paris."

Imagine a theft so big that you drop a thing like this in the getaway:

I'm reading "Louvre Museum Robbery: Priceless crown of Empress Eugénie with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds found broken in Paris" (Economic Times).

Here in America, on the same day, we were disparaging royalty at our "No Kings" rallies. Many of the home-made signs relied on crown iconography....

So how do we feel about royalty these days? If you accept your little daughter in a getup like this....

... is it like letting your little son sport a swastika armband?

"Liberal French women dress up as Nazis to protest against the so called ‘Fascist Epidemic’ during Women’s Day."

Weird photo, but since I don't want to suddenly thrust naked breasts in your face, I'll send you over to X to see it: here.

"[T]he voyeuristic new 'Portal' street exhibit in the Flatiron District connecting New York City and Dublin with a 24/7 live video feed has already caused chaos..."

"... with mischief-makers on Ireland’s side flashing everything from their bare bums to swastikas and a photo of the Twin Towers in flames on 9/11.... [The] earnest utopian vision proved no match for the pub-lined Dublin thoroughfare, whose Guinness-glugging patrons were quickly drawn to the futuristic-looking exhibit like moths to a flame in videos circulating online. Within hours of the Dublin portal going live, a 'very drunk' woman in her 40s was led away by cops and arrested after 'grinding' her backside against the screen... Adam Nunan, a cruise ship audio engineer originally from Dublin and in New York while the ship is docked here, said, 'That doesn’t represent Ireland very well when you do that. That was everyone’s thoughts back home, there was a lot of people who didn’t want the portal to be built for that reason, that Americans might look at Irish people in the portal doing weird stuff....'"

From "NYC-Dublin live video art installation already bringing out the worst in people with lewd displays" (NY Post).

Earnest utopian vision? Why was this invitation to exhibitionism able to be promoted as utopian? And on what basis does the NY Post present the "utopian vision" as earnest? And why does the headline say "bringing out the worst in people" when the article is all about what's happening on the Irish end of the portal? 

"A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."

Wrote Donald Trump, at Truth Social, quoted in "White House rebukes Trump’s suggestion to suspend Constitution over 2020 election" (WaPo).

The post came a day after Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, claimed he would expose how Twitter engaged in “free speech suppression” in the run-up to the 2020 election. But his “Twitter Files” did not show that the tech giant bent to the will of Democrats. 

Trump's "truth" is so hyperbolic and disrespectful of the rule of law that it's idiotic clickbait, only worthy of attention because the man is running for President, and apparently, as polls go, the leading candidate. Sorry, I'm not going to spend every day agonizing over that. We will move on... I hope... I trust... He's so over-criticized that I don't see the point of jumping on him one more time. That doesn't work, and it drives some dedicated believers more deeply into his sphere.

I want to move on to the link in the indented quote — on "did not show" — which goes to "Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ ignite divisions, but haven’t changed minds/The company’s new chief executive detailed Twitter’s decision-making around a controversial story" (WaPo). 

Yesterday morning, I was critical of The Washington Post for not having an article on the "Twitter files," but by the end of the day, they had that. Let's read:

"I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended."

Tweeted Elon Musk, quoted in "Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting swastika inside Star of David/Elon Musk intervenes after rapper posted image hours after airing antisemitic views in Alex Jones interview" (The Guardian).

In case you thought Elon Musk was a free-speech absolutist.

Notice that it's not a matter of rules, but how the rules are applied. Old Twitter kicked out Trump because he violated the rule against incitement to violence, but how close was Trump to inciting violence?

Now, how close was Ye?

"It was brought to the community’s attention that the Buddhist symbols were experienced differently and some individuals experienced harm from their presence on the building."

Said a letter from a "socially and environmentally conscious" California camp called Hidden Villa, quoted in "Bay Area Camp Suddenly Closes After Staffers Quit Over Swastika Scandal" (Daily Beast).

The swastika on the property is there because a couple who once owned the place, Frank and Josephine Duveneck, spent their honeymoon in Asia in 1913, and brought back tiles with various traditional symbols, including a swastika. 

"Graphically, the 'Z' is clearly closer to the swastika than to any prominent Soviet symbol, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer and sickle, or the red flag."

"Its use seems to require a double inversion: first, the people of Ukraine—a nation that suffered some of the greatest losses at the hands of Nazi Germany and one that is currently led by a Jewish President—are rendered as Nazis; then, the Russians, who claim to be fighting for peace and 'de-Nazification,' adopt a visual symbol that appears to reference the swastika.... It took only a week for the 'Z' to become the symbol of the new Russian totalitarianism. But totalitarian symbols are usually created at the top. The red flag and the swastika—the two main visual symbols of twentieth-century totalitarianism—emerged from years of ideological, aesthetic, and even spiritual movement-shaping. The 'Z' is a different animal, a ready-made symbol picked up by a society that has already reconstituted itself as totalitarian."

Writes Masha Gessen in "'Z' Is the Symbol of the New Russian Politics of Aggression/In the days following the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, the letter came to stand for devotion to the state, murderous rage, and unchecked power" (The New Yorker).

"A Russian gymnast has been placed under investigation for wearing a 'Z' symbol linked to support for President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on his leotard while sharing a podium with a Ukrainian rival...."

"[Ivan] Kuliak wore it in place of the Russian flag, which had been banned by the governing body of gymnastics.... The symbol, which has been used as a designation on Russian military vehicles deployed in Ukraine, has become a symbol in Russia of support for Putin and the war.... The Russian Defence Ministry has previously issued a statement saying that 'Z' means victory."

The London Times reports.

If would be trivial and not worth saying, but because we are talking about symbols and victory, I will add that the Ukrainian gymnast, Kovtun Illia, won the gold. The Russian was on the podium to pick up the bronze. 

Is "Z" supposed to be the Roman letter Z? It doesn't look any of the letters in the Russian alphabet. If you were using that shape to mean something other than a letter, what would you be trying to say. Perhaps it means "anti-Nazi" — half of a swastika.

At the London Times link, there's a photo with the caption: "In Kazan, Russia, terminally ill children and their parents made a Z formation at their hospice to show support for the invasion."

At the Clear Speech Café...

... you can be as subtle as you like.



Meade took those photos today on University Avenue — the main thoroughfare on the West Side of Madison.

This headline is idiotically miswritten: "Rep. Wasserman Schultz calls on VA: Replace headstones with swastikas."

Is it wrong to laugh about the idea of the Veterans Administration yanking out gravestones and installing swastikas? No one could have thought of such an idea. It could only be created unintentionally by a writer's ineptitude. But can we laugh, or are swastikas too serious of a matter?

I'd prefer to talk about the actual proposal, reported in The Jerusalem Post:

Earlier this week, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation called on Veterans Affairs to replace the headstones on the graves of German prisoners of war who died in US internment camps during World War II. Two are in a Houston cemetery and another is in Salt Lake City. In addition to the swastikas, the tombstones include the phrase “He died far from his home for the Führer, people, and fatherland.”...

In response, a VA spokesman cited an agency policy “to protect historic resources, including those that recognize divisive historical figures or events.”

“I call on the VA to eliminate this antiquated policy and immediately replace these inappropriate and insensitive headstones,” Wasserman Schultz said.

So there are 3 tombstones — in all of the cemeteries tended by the VA — and they stand over individual bodies of young men who died — long ago — as prisoners of war.  Is it an "antiquated policy" to leave these old monuments alone? Respect for the dead, for their (or someone's) freedom of speech, and for leaving historical things as they are — what is "antiquated" about these reasons?

"At some point during the winter break last month, someone covered the playground of a public school in the Rego Park section of Queens with swastikas and other anti-Semitic sentiments."

"Either poor spellers or unfamiliar with the exact phrasing of the Nazi salute, whoever was responsible inscribed the words 'Hail Hiter' on the ground in chalk. Several days later, two boys were arrested and charged with aggravated harassment. They came from the neighborhood, one that has long been predominantly white and Jewish but grown more diverse in recent years with an influx of Asian immigrants.... In this case the face of hate was the face of two children of color — one black, the other Asian — who were 12 years old.... [Maybe] they learned that it is perfectly fine to express a mischievous, rebellious or playful side through the use of such cruel and divisive imagery. This generation of children has grown up with constant screen time, inundated with an endless stream of images that eventually renders many of those visual signifiers meaningless, where Nazi symbolism is just processed as more cartoonish provocation.... We do not know whether the two boys arrested in Queens understood the weight of their actions, whether what they were doing was an act born of loathing or stupidity.  In big cities where neighborhood demographics are so often changing and gentrification is often compelling those changes, a truly holistic approach to preventing acts of racial and ethnic bias.... would be proactive rather than responsive. The police would keep from reflexively criminalizing ignorance."

From "Two 12-Year-Olds Drew Swastikas on a Playground. Is That a Hate Crime?" (NYT).

"Readers Accuse Us of Normalizing a Nazi Sympathizer; We Respond."

The NYT has a third article about that one Nazi/"Nazi" it found in Dayton, Ohio. We're already talking about the first 2 articles, the first one, which didn't make much sense, and the second one, in which the author said the editors challenged him to make some sense, but he couldn't. I said:

But why was he important enough to drag into the spotlight in the first place?.... The answer must be that he serves a purpose for you and the NYT. You could put some effort into self-examination: Why are you using him?

In the comments, Matthew Sablan — anticipating the subject matter of the third NYT article — said:

I don't understand. The NYT takes someone everyone thinks is an extremist and does everything they can to make him seem evil and wrong, and people STILL think the NYT is trying to make him look like a regular Joe? They go out of their way to try and downplay his every day Joe-ness, even burying the fact he wasn't even AT Charlottesville.* Anyone who thinks the NYT is defending or promoting Nazis needs to re-read the piece and figure out how they misread it so epicly bad.

So the readers over at the NYT — according to the third article —  found the story offensive:

“How to normalize Nazis 101!” one reader wrote on Twitter. “I’m both shocked and disgusted by this article,” wrote another. “Attempting to ‘normalize’ white supremacist groups – should Never have been printed!”...

But far more were outraged by the article. “You know who had nice manners?” Bess Kalb, a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live, said on Twitter. “The Nazi who shaved my uncle Willie’s head before escorting him into a cement chamber where he locked eyes with children as their lungs filled with poison and they suffocated to death in agony. Too much? Exactly. That’s how you write about Nazis.”

One reader characterized the profile of Hovater as "glowing." Why didn't the NYT pick a more obviously evil American Nazi to profile? It says it didn't intend to "normalize" Hovater but to show how "hate and extremism have become more normal" than we want to think. That is, the NYT claims to be showing what is, and the readers are saying Don't do that. You're helping them. You must keep them as monsters, make them toxic.

The NYT says the idea of the article was to figure out "Who were those people" who marched in Charlottesville last August:

"I could have hit him, I could have hurt him ... but something in me said, ‘You know what? He just needs love.'"

Said Aaron Courtney, a 31-year-old African-American high school football coach, about why he hugged a man who was wearing a swastika T-shirt. At the link is the viral video of the hug, with Courtney saying "Why don’t you like me, dog?"

“I had the opportunity to talk to someone who hates my guts and I wanted to know why. During our conversation, I asked him, ‘Why do you hate me? What is it about me? Is it my skin color? My history? My dreadlocks?’” he told the Daily News.

But the man simply looked off into the distance and brushed off his questions as Courtney pleaded with him and grew increasingly upset.

It should be noted that before this happened, the man, Randy Furniss, was "surrounded by a crowd of protesters who screamed, punched and spat on him."

“After beating around the bush, and avoiding my questions, I asked him, I pleaded with him, I almost broke out in tears, growing increasingly angry because I didn’t understand,” he said.... The crowd around them immediately reacted and when Courtney pressed him again, asking “Why do you hate me?” Furniss finally answered, “I don’t know.”

“I believe that was his sincere answer. He really doesn’t know,” Courtney said.

Furniss was surrounded and in a physically dangerous situation. What could he do? And that hug was a big physical encroachment on him. Even loving hugs should be consented to, but it's not clear — I've seen the video — that the hug expresses love. I think if I were in that situation — not that I'd wear a swastika T-shirt...

... I would experience the question "Why don’t you like me, dog?" as threatening.

I am not so naive as to believe that a distinct line exists between love and hate.

Swastikas, "Antifa sucks," and "Trump rules" were spray-painted next to the Gates of Heaven Synagogue building at James Madison Park in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports.

We don't know who did it, but what do you think? Based on past incidents, I presume things like this are false flag.

CORRECTION: The post title is updated — with "next to" replacing "on" — because spray painting wasn't on the building itself but on a monument next to it. The monument is a stone with a plaque honoring the Americans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War).

With Twitter, you can get your message out.

There's this:



Additional Trump tweets about the statues (without the hijacking GOP swastika image):

...can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also...

And:

...the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!

"The Furry Raiders’ leader, a man named Foxler who dresses in a fox suit with a Nazi-like armband (no swastika, only a paw print)..."

"Foxler claims he’s not trying to evoke Hitler, never mind his name (a combination of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller”), his Nazi-like armband (he says is based on a character in an old video game), or pictures of him throwing his arm up in a Nazi-like salute (an accident, he said).... Fascist furries are nothing new, but until recently, 'they were rare individuals who were more interested in uniform fetish than espousing Nazi ideology,' Deo, another furry told The Daily Beast. But the rise of the alt-right has ushered in the #AltFurry, a hashtag under which right-leaning furries can organize, and the uninitiated can encounter more cartoon rabbits in Nazi uniform than they possibly expected to see in their lifetimes...."

The Daily Beast is keeping up with things that might matter in "Neo-Nazis Are Tearing the Furry World Apart."