Is Waving a Swastika Flag Worse than the Hammer and Sickle?

[The Consul]

"alt" is so '90s.

I kinda like "alt-Reich"

[SonicG]

Sorry, I was thinking of a different Bob...

[JackRiddler]

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Would you wave either, sir? Which flag would you wave, if any? Why are you asking this particular question? Why this particular binary?

Is waving the battle flag of the Slave Power worse than the Stars and Stripes?

Is the bearer of a Christian cross responsible for inquisitors who judicially murdered thousands if not millions of heretics, or for the Crusades, or for the destruction of artworks at the Parthenon?

I don't know why I'm going to fall for this and bother to answer, except I might come across this sophistry from an honest human being in person later, and so:

As a matter of fact, the answer to the thread question is an unequivocal YES. Incomparably worse. But I don't wave any flags.

The question in the present context of this discussion in the U.S. in 2017 functions once again to apologize for the Nazi terrorists marching on the streets beating and murdering people with approval of your president (apology by seeking some irrelevant comparison to others who supposedly are as bad, blah blah blah).

Repeat: With the approval of your president. At least as far as the elected occupant of the White House is concerned, the alt-right that includes these Nazis is the ideology currently in favor with the executive branch of the United States federal government. Not "Communism," which comes in many varieties but was never very powerful in the U.S.

The basic difference is that one flag has an unequivocal meaning in the Western context (it's not meant as the ancient Indian symbol for life-force) and the other could mean many things, just like the Christian cross.

In 1917 one manifestation of "communism," known as the Bolshevik revolution, took power but failed to achieve its stated ends. This was in the midst of a civil war, while under attack by many foreign enemies. Within a few years of that event, the regime to which this effort gave rise delivered something opposite to what the ideology had promised. Said regime claimed to be representing the same thing, of course, but many communists around the world said otherwise. "Communism" is a broad ideological spectrum of its own (like liberalism or conservatism) dating back to the mid-19th century and describing many related and different tendencies, many of which have always been in conflict with each other. I don't subscribe to any of them in particular, although in the American context I don't really mind it when a nationalist yahoo calls me a "communist," since that's all they know to call me. So coming from you I'd probably wear the name with pride.

Meanwhile, if an Italian communist waves a hammer and sickle flag, I don't care and I also don't think he intends to work you or anyone else to death in a gulag. The meaning of communism is contested.

The 1933 seizure of power in Germany by the National Socialists, a party founded in the 1920s with one Adolf Hitler ("Member No. 7") as its leader, which had appropriated the symbol of the swastika as its flag, is much more specific. They were the only ones in the West using the swastika. Unlike the Soviet Bolsheviks, the National Socialists succeeded in delivering exactly what they promised. They detained and then murdered millions of civilians whom they had announced as their targets from the start. They attempted to seize and then settle vast territories from Slavic peoples, whom they intended to displace and starve to death, in keeping with their call for Lebensraum for "Aryan" Germans, which were programmatic from the start. They started a war to subordinate the other European empires, whom they considered under the sway of Jews, and this was also obvious from the start to anyone who was paying attention.
Making Germany great again! This was all in the program that the flag represented, and this is what remains as the unmistakable meaning of the swastika today: the racial supremacy of an "Aryan" or "Nordic" stock; belief in a specifically "Jewish" world power that pervades everything and must be toppled; intent to exterminate designated enemies and others, since this struggle between races is for life or death; belief that "white" females belong as breeders for the "Aryan" or "Nordic" stock and betray said "race" when they make love with others as they please; etc. etc.

This meaning of Nazism and their swastika is not contested, except when it's time for the apologetics. Then comes the what-aboutism. The original Nazis engaged in the same thing, whenever it was best strategically.

If the subject is Nazis, then stick to that please. You don't get to say, like the Nazis themselves try to do: Yeah, but what about that time when some Hittites exterminated some Mesopotamians, or when mean liberals made Bill O'Reilly fear that Christmas would be banned? Or whatever else unrelated you fantasize would constitute an excuse for the Nazis you seem to want to protect.

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[Elvis]

^^^^ uh...that's what I meant to say. Thanks, Jack.

[JackRiddler]

Thank you, Elvis. Always the King!

[Grizzly]

[Jerky]

To answer the question posed in the title of the OP in this discussion: YES. Nazism is objectively worse than Communism.

[Jerky]

i.e., what Jack said. He's 100 percent right on target.

Thanks, Jack!

[Karmamatterz]

Been super busy with a lot of work projects and haven't had time to get back into this thread. Wombaticus, if you feel the need to ban me for a few weeks go right ahead. I do have plenty of other things to occupy my time.

Why are you asking this particular question? Why this particular binary?"

Specifically because the alt-right flags, including swastikas, were being waved at the same time those with the hammer and sickle. They all represent evil. Some on this board say one represents something a bit less evil. Sorta of like is a child rapist murderer less evil than the pedophile who doesn't kill, but nonetheless still commits immoral acts that destroy lives.

The irony, if it's been lost on you, is incredibly obvious to some who recognize that the Nazis and Soviets were all evil scum. Yet marching around these demonstrations those virtue signaling that they are "good" because they oppose Nazis somehow believe what they are doing is better. Laugh my ass off to no end. The joke is really on the general populace who is not noticing ALL the flags and what those carrying them believe.

"The question in the present context of this discussion in the U.S. in 2017 functions once again to apologize for the Nazi terrorists marching on the streets beating and murdering people with approval of your president (apology by seeking some irrelevant comparison to others who supposedly are as bad, blah blah blah)."

No Jack, this thread's function was not to apologize for Nazis marching around. It was to bring light to the irony of the fascists on both sides acting as thugs. If you believe in free speech you would understand. Don't forget Jack, Trump is your president also. You may have not voted for him, as I did not, but he is still the "president." Only adding that to bring light to your dippshiterry comment.

Have you even bothered to read or watch videos of what the so called Anitfa are doing? They seem to have a lust for violence much like the alt-right Jack-asses. But of course it's okay because one fascist response to other fascists thugs is okay...right? All a bunch of clowns.

Offer up whatever excuses you want about ideology, communism is evil. Dress it in whatever reference you want, it doesn't change the evils committed. The ends did not justify the means. It's disgusting you make excuses for communism, the Soviets etc..., and claim that somehow the ideals were just slightly off kilter so it wasn't as bad as the atrocities the Nazis committed. That is pretty messed up.

"Or whatever else unrelated you fantasize would constitute an excuse for the Nazis you seem to want to protect."

Really Jack, I expected better from you. Did you even bother to read what I wrote? Or was this a knee jerk emotional reaction to someone who as you cling to romantic ideals about enslaving people with totalitarian communist and socialist practices?

You don't have a FUCKING clue about me dude.

I'll chalk it up to laziness that you think I'm a Nazi supporter. Are you that intellectually dull that you immediately believe if someone challenges you they are a Nazi? Or did you just slip into the mainstream media narrative and decide to parrot them? Do you know there are people out there that can see similarities between the so called antifa left do gooders and the alt-right thugs?

Free speech is a great thing, even if you don't support it. Now kindly go fuck yourself.

[mentalgongfu2]

Wait, this is still a thread? Apparently.

So, communists = nazis ?
In terms of moral equivalence, that is.


Is that your jist, karma, or did I miss some subtlelty in your last post? Because I would like to understand what your point is before I consider a response.

Or is it that Aryan supremacy is on par with workers rights? Or that the Raelians are no better than antifa provocateurs? That Russians and Germans both did horrible things during certain periods? Both symbols have histories. The symbol of the swastika going back thousands of years; the hammer and sickle of more recent vintage. But their meanings today, is , I think, what matters in such a discussion, along with who is using them and to what end.

[JackRiddler]

Was karmamatterz' last post supposed to be a response to what I wrote? Fine, I feel no need to add anything.

[JackRiddler]

The symbol of the swastika going back thousands of years

That is so but the specific swastika flag goes back to the National Socialists and still means them and their ideology. There is no contest about that or claim that it in fact refers to some conflicting or alternate tradition.

[mentalgongfu2]

The symbol of the swastika going back thousands of years

That is so but the specific swastika flag goes back to the National Socialists and still means them and their ideology. There is no contest about that or claim that it in fact refers to some conflicting or alternate tradition.

I understand that, Jack. Which is why I said:

But their meanings today, is , I think, what matters in such a discussion, along with who is using them and to what end.

[Elvis]

Be honest now: who has not read The Communist Manifesto?

I read it in college but don't remember much. I'm re-reading it, on the bus.

It's been stated that communism is evil, or are we talking about "Stalinism"?

Cuba is a real, live Communist country. I don't see communism in Cuba as evil. IMO, after 50 years, the Cuban government needs stop protecting the revolution and let go of its controls on political speech. But compared to USicans, Cubans are healthier, happier, better educated, higher employment, longer life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate. Among other cool things, they have the best eye doctors in the world and wtf?!—treatment is free. It doesn't seem very evil.

[Jerky]

Communism is not only not as evil as Nazism, as an ideology, it isn't evil at all.

Some seem to be laboring under the delusion that Nazism = the Axis death toll and Communism = the death tolls under Stalin/Mao.

They don't, and it's ridiculous to think that they do.

You have to approach each system on its own terms, in its own words. Otherwise, you'd have to admit that when it comes to counting corpses, stopping at 1900 is ridiculously arbitrary. And furthermore, if you go back only, say, another 100 years, you'll find that more human devastation and destruction has been wrought in the name of colonialism and capitalism than either Nazism or Communism. Maybe more than both combined. Which means that you might as well argue (like some of my farthest left friends, but not I, sometimes do) that the American Flag and the Union Jack have just as much blood dripping from them as the Swastika or the Hammer and Sickle. Now, colonialism and capitalism have the benefit of not having a single, identifiable bad guy with a memorable moustache to point and shout your rage at, which seems to have gone a long way towards getting them off the hook for some pretty unforgivable atrocities.

Anyway, back to the original point... when it comes to comparing Nazism and Communism, how do you do it? Why not try examining what each wants? Their tenets and beliefs?

Do that, and you will NEVER make the idiotic mistake of equating Nazism and Communism ever again.

Jerky