Once upon a time, or so the story goes, a reporter asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization.
“I think it would be a good idea,” Gandhi is said to have replied.
This story kept popping into my head as I worked my way through the seemingly unending torrent of horrendous Tweets that comprise the #FightForWesternCivilization hashtag on Twitter. I discovered the hashtag last night while looking at the reactions of assorted Internet-famous Nazis and their fellow travellers to the horrific attack in Nice yesterday. (You can see the results of this investigation in my previous post here.)
Even a quick glance at the #FightForWesternCivilization hashtag reveals that these would-be defenders of Western Civilization have a very strange notion of what civilization consists of, with some taking inspiration not just from Donald Trump, their lord and master, but from such historical figures as Adolph Hitler and Augusto Pinochet. The hashtag is lousy with raging Islamophobes and white supremacists, full of violent fantasies of retribution against the Muslim “invaders.”
Never mind that we don’t even know if the apparent killer in Nice was even motivated by radical Islam; neighbors told a French television station that Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was less into religion than he was into women and salsa dancing. Local mosques say he never stepped through their doors.
But his name is Mohamed, so to those posting in the #FightForWesternCivilization hashtag he is not only a radical Islamist but the representative of all of the world’s Muslims.
As many of these self-declared civilization-defenders see it, Muslims are “savages” who need to be expelled from Europe and the US.
#FightForWesternCivilization Deport them. Burn their mosques to the ground. Let them live in the sand and filth best suited to savages.
— Ed Draper (@eddraper) July 15, 2016
https://twitter.com/KAISERHRE/status/753835250497695746
https://twitter.com/DogDuffy/status/753771842427432960
#FightForWesternCivilization means one thing: Expel Islam from the West.
— StoneFree2Rant is a Semi-fascist(Same on Gettr) (@StoneFree2Rant) July 15, 2016
You're either with the #FightForWesternCivilization and Trump, or your with the savages. pic.twitter.com/Uyx7j4zhe4
— Memelord 🐸🇺🇸 (@AltRightMemes) July 15, 2016
https://twitter.com/Toni_Price/status/753846254254206976
One Twitter Nazi suggested that expelling “kebab” would only be the beginning of a broader ethnic cleansing.
https://twitter.com/Fash__McQueen/status/753822780550852608
https://twitter.com/Fash__McQueen/status/753802113440894976
Others directed their animus at “the Jews.”
https://twitter.com/Linkshaender1/status/753773361025646592
https://twitter.com/TakeBack_USA/status/753810908661452800
https://twitter.com/WJudengas/status/753854146894176256
Regardless of their opinions about Jews, most of those using the hashtag seem to see”western civilization” as synonymous with “white culture.” Some tried to wake the “white man” to the alleged existential threat of Islam.
https://twitter.com/FashNova/status/753929139774644225
Others suggested that the honor and purity of white women were in danger:
https://twitter.com/apurposefulwife/status/753762421618020352
David Duke — yes, that David Duke — weighed in with this photo of an angelic-looking young white mother with baby.
https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/753929201267257344
This Tweeter Nazi-signaled by quoting the famous fascist “14 words.”
https://twitter.com/Slugulysses/status/753896510622867457
And let us not forget hot white chicks, who could easily turn into hot white mothers:
https://twitter.com/SergioSarzedo/status/753838010232221696
Others gave big thumbs-up to white people in general:
https://twitter.com/SkinheadNeoNazi/status/753811844939157504
https://twitter.com/SergioSarzedo/status/753835149456924673
https://twitter.com/Hungry_Goriya/status/753809489485103104
Some warned ominously of the alleged dangers of “diversity.”
https://twitter.com/TruthVictorious/status/753795754657853440
https://twitter.com/lama_escondida/status/753879119704752128
https://twitter.com/ExoAmericanus/status/753742235305385985
Others talked excitedly about taking up arms and/or fists against Muslims and various alleged Islamophiles.
https://twitter.com/FUFeelinz/status/753782284243898368
https://twitter.com/FUFeelinz/status/753784772292476928
https://twitter.com/justbrowsing22/status/753846219152044032
#FightForWesternCivilization we are in a war even if the politicians try to convince us to accept Muslims. Get a gun and learn to shoot.
— Infidel Investor (@Free_True_North) July 15, 2016
And if you can’t be with the gun you love, just grab a sharp pencil and aim for the eye:
https://twitter.com/GoPandora/status/753790008453111808
One Trump fan suggested that if the Donald failed to win the election in November they would be willing to help him shoot his way into the White House:
https://twitter.com/Jupiter_Giant/status/753839715170684928
Some looked back fondly on the original crusades:
https://twitter.com/AntichampReview/status/753862140474175488
https://twitter.com/Sighter/status/753812772425650176
While others call for a new one:
https://twitter.com/GAlighieri3/status/753815172771254274
#FightForWesternCivilization stop islam 2016. Start the crusades
— BuildThatWall (@wall_that) July 15, 2016
https://twitter.com/ramsesr93/status/753792799510790144
https://twitter.com/Bernietorbustty/status/753919971445571584
Naturally, there were more than a few clucking about cucks:
https://twitter.com/Erik_The_Fem/status/753742424158208000
https://twitter.com/Western_Triumph/status/753798148355723264
https://twitter.com/FantasyNugs/status/753808747747696640
https://twitter.com/ChrisCharabaruk/status/753733055018328064
Brainwashed beta male cucks saying #FightForWesternCivilization is racist are why we are in this spot in the first place.
— Stan Zbornak, Jr (@SouthernDandy55) July 15, 2016
One inventive fellow argued that to win the war for Western civilization, right-minded right-wingers need to take aim not only at Islam but also such wily enemies as Buzzfeed, the long-defunct Soviet Union, Israel, Planned Parenthood and My Little Pony.
We must uncuck the CUCKED. #FightForWesternCivilization pic.twitter.com/7WjnPQ8nLO
— Memelord 🐸🇺🇸 (@AltRightMemes) July 15, 2016
This imagined Western Civilization that these people think they’re fighting for isn’t a place I want to live.
Too bad there isn’t a way to flood this hashtag with just odd and/or non sequitur stuff, say talking about the virtues of hot dogs (and whether they are sandwiches or not), a discussion of the Dada art movement (I’d include the Futurists, but the original Futurist manifesto would probably be too agreeable to these jackoffs), and so on.
Mind you, for me to even start I’d have to BE on Twitter and I can hardly think of any reason to be.
Vanir85 skrev:
Absolutely this. From this not-really-a-believer’s viewpoint, the differences between Christianist fundamentalists and Islamist fundamentalists are largely cosmetic.
Viscaria says:
Or, to put it another way, it wasn’t gays who started teaching gays to hate themselves.
@PI: I get that the ‘homophobes are closet homosexuals’ theory can be used as a form of othering, and I definitely get how the GLBTQI community would see it as an indirect attack. However, it’s not an unreasonable theory to help explain the sheer virulence of some of the language surrounding GLBTQI issues. People tend to be the most irrational when they’re forced into a position with significant cognitive dissonance, and the theory would definitely include that.
I do recall a study I heard about on NPR several years ago (I’m afraid I don’t recall the exact study, but if you want, I could do a pubmed search and see if I can find it) where a group of researchers took a bunch of guys, gave them a survey about their own attitudes to homosexuals, then made them watch gay porn while measuring their penile bloodflow. They found that there was a strong correlation between the degree in which their subjects were homophobic and the degree they were turned on by the porn (or at least, how much their penile blood flow increased while watching homosexual pornography).
Obviously, survey-based research is in no way definitive, and I think they were working from a small, limited sample (if I recall directly, something like 50 men, no women). And, even if it was much stronger data than it is, it would not exonerate heterosexuals from creating the sort of environment where people attracted by their own gender develop what amounts to Stockholm’s syndrome. But it makes one think.
Again, I can see this is something that many people here care deeply about, which makes me think the haters have (mis)used this theory to somehow exonerate themselves or blame the victim, as it were. If anyone is curious, I could spend a few hours trolling around Pubmed and the various medical journals, and see what I can find (I know all of you are fully capable of investigating on your own, but the medical databases are familiar territory for me, and it’s a topic that I personally don’t have a gut reaction to, so it might be easier on my psyche to investigate), but it would have to be tomorrow or Sunday-I’ve got a lot of clinic notes to finish 🙂
Apologies if I’ve offended anyone here. So as everyone knows, my own hobby-horse is avoiding simple narratives. As a rule, I’ve found that simple, easy answers are rarely informative or helpful, but that’s just my experience.
Peace to you all
Pray for Nice (or send warm thoughts, if that’s your thing).
Pray for this whole broken planet.
Dude, the point of the idiotic parenthesis thing is that it’s not immediately obvious what you’re saying!
@axecalibur: I assume you were referring to J^3, but if I’m hurting the thread, I’ll stop posting. This isn’t my space, and I won’t butt in where I’m not wanted.
Actually people selectively disagree with genocides, it usually depends on whether it was their government doing it or someone elses lol
Most european countries have done so, few rarely teach their people about it
Its also interesting that one of the most outspoken groups of people claiming the holocaust never happened are in fact muslims. Another point that is often conveniently overlooked. Whereas most of the dissenters in the west tend to be revisionists rather than deniers.
WW2 is the perfect example of the phrase “history is written by the victors.
The russians actually killed 80% of all german combatants killed in WW2, and lost around 30 million people doing so in one of the most astounding examples of an exodus and complete recreation of manufacturing capacity ever seen. Which rarely even makes a foot note in history
It was also the russian arrival of around 5 million men preparing for a mainland assault on japan that caused the surrender too, not the dropping of the bombs. Infact the US and UK premiers met with their russian counterpart to ask him to hold back on his assault to give them time to showcase the new weapons offering him incentives they later didnt honour. Japan had been known to be willing to surrender for months prior to that but the west knew they wouldnt do so unless the emperor could remain in power, so they repeatedly denied that concession until after the bombs had been dropped.
And the emperors response to being told what the nuclear bombs were was along the lines of “if you drop a hundred bombs to destroy a town or one bomb to destroy a town the town is still destroyed”
As genocide was brought up, the americans operated the morganthau plan, which was designed to eradicate the german gene line and didnt start until after the war had ended with the setting up of the rhine death camps, something an amazing amount of americans have never even heard of.
The admiral of the pacific fleet on several occassions also asked for permission to completely exterminate the japanese people down to the last man woman and child but was denied.
But he still continued to carpet bomb japan with incendiary bombs systematically only leaving the two towns that the nukes were to be dropped on, niether of which was a military target. And all of which occured after it was known japan had no further ability to fight or even defend itself
Things are rarely as black and white as we are led to believe, and very few western countries on earth havent committed equally abhorrent acts but ones which rarely get taught in schools
As for the holocaust itself, I still think the figures are inflated to be perfectly honest. The 6 million figure was being thrown around as early as 1921 in jewish newspapers as it allegedly has some significance to the jewish faith. And despite the holocaust commission itself being forced to admit that several “death camps” were never death camps to begin with, another one had its number of gas chambers lowered from 6 to only 1, and rather than the 24/7 gasings claimed its now officially less than an hour a day to explain the lack of zyclon B staining and identical levels as found in the officers quarters the death toll has barely moved
This despite the russian jews finally being found to have taken and hidden the records from the camps which were claimed to have been destroyed by the nazis which show a massively lower number of deaths during a the almost 20 years or so the records covered including the war years.
To claim nobody died is just utter stupidity, but to blindly accept claims which have time and time again been shown to have been based on outright lies is no wiser
One of the biggest being the frequently made claim to explain why remains were never, and still have never been found was that 4 bodies were cremated to dust in 15 minutes and this was done 24/7. But even with modern computer controlled ovens which work at a much higher temperature and are far more efficient one body takes around 2-2 and half hours to cremate one body, and if you put an extra three in with it the time increases proportionately. Which can be verified within seconds by a search.
So to have cremated so many bodies with the number of ovens available would have taken several decades even with 24/7 operation and not allowing ANY time between loads.
So as much as I am sure it will herald an avalanche of vitriol I call bullshit and believe that the figures are still massively exagerated.
Another reason I doubt the claims is that the germans were 110% convinced the enigma code was uncrackable. And as such had no qualms about sharing the most vital intelligence using it.
This included detailed counts of deaths from all camps throughout the duration including the cause, without a single mention of gasings.
British intelligence questioned the claims about the “death camps” several times because of this, and ariel photographs of the camps contradicted the claims too. As the vents that were alleged to have been at auschwitze were not seen in any photographs during the war. But it was later admitted by the curator of the auschwitz museum on camera that they were added after the camp was liberated for “authenticity” despite not having been caught on any photographs before its liberation.
British photographs also showed that absolutely none of the vegetation had been disturbed for the entire duration of the war at the sight of another alleged massacre where countless people described a mass grave being dug, bodies piled in and burnt and then covered over. Yet not only had not a single bush or tree been disturbed but they had also grown as would have been expected during the period
So nah, the claims have more holes than swiss cheese, which is probably why so much fuss is made about anyone scrutinising the claims.
Our message to Fascists:
You’re so big and bad? COME AND GET US.
Let the Trump fans try a coup.
My apartment will be just like my namesake.
Mike : fuck off, again. I am fed up with your revisionism. The death camps are fact who is only contested by scatterbrained people.
And I would let you know that french school actually teach everything about french genocides, the most important one being the Terror.
@Mike Mckay
I don’t generally respond to trolls, but as someone who wrote his thesis on WWI and post-war Europe, I can’t stand by while you pass off your garbage person biases as historical fact. Literally none of your post is true.
Economic recovery was made by the deflation policies of Hans Luther, who introduced the land backed Rentenmark, which became the gold-backed Reichsmark in 1924. While Hitler was in prison for the Beer Hall Putsch. There were no “banker allies” (you code word for ‘Jews’, obviously) organizing hyperinflation – because doing so would keep them from getting reparations due to the disparity in exchange value. The Reichsmark was never a world currency, and was not particularly strong during the Third Reich because, you know, the Great Depression.
Public infrastructure (particularly the Autobahn and massive rail networks), worker’s rights, and a social safety net were all done by the Republic between 1919 and 1927 – years before Hitler. Additionally, the Nazi party, it’s misleading name aside, was backed by conservative elements of German society that actively sought to roll back those “marxist” changes you incorrectly ascribe to them.
The Haavara Agreement (the “transfer agreement”) basically boils down to Hilter allowing persecuted Jews who had their possessions confiscated and given them back in British Palestine on the condition they bought imported German goods – with the duties going back to the Reich.
German unemployment levels and poverty were higher under the Reich than the Weimar, because, you know, that Great Depression thing again. Once more, you incorrectly ascribe social programs that started when Hitler was still an Austrian living in Munich to him.
Germany started WWI by violating Belgian neutrality (triggering British involvement) to invade France. The Schlieffen Plan called for a strike through neutral Belgium – which Germany was told would cause England to enter the war. But they did it anyway. Serbia did not trigger any larger war – the western front opened with the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 (Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman goes into this in great, well researched detail). German goods were not in demand after 1933 (when Hitler took power) – no one’s were. Plus the Anti-Nazi Boycott of 1933 further erode demand for German goods.
Lots of terrible people have been on the cover of magazines. Doesn’t mean anything except the publishers thought it would sell magazines – 1930’s clickbait. And the “jewish assassin” is pure Nazi fantasy, created, like the “stab in the back” legend, created to justify German violations on military size, conscription, etc by painting the Treaty as one the allies themselves didn’t think they should adhere to.
And no one pressured them into WW2. They signed a pact with fucking Stalin, their hated enemy, in order to allow them a stable eastern front because they knew their aggressive expansion was provoking the west (Britain and France) to act. If anything they pressured the Allies into fighting back instead of appeasement with their aggressive tactics. Oh, and yeah, the invaded France, not the other way around.
Seriously, read an actual history book and stop pretending this blatant propaganda is anything other than 100% bullshit
Unrelated : IIRC, swiss cheese don’t have hole. Might be something most in translation here, but the french word for swiss cheese definitely designate a cheese who don’t have holes, despite being used as a metaphor for having a lot of holes.
I guess it’s appropriate here.
That “revisionist bullshit” as you call it has resulted in the alleged death toll at auschwitz being reduced from the “completely factual” number of 4 million down to only 1.1 million
its also had several camps claimed to be death camps now admitted that they never were
Its had another camps 6 totally factual gas chambers dropped to just one being claimed now
Its caused the admission that lampshades made out of human skin
and soap made from human fat were lies
Its caused the anne frank diary to be admitted by her own family that most of it was written by relatives after the war who had never been in any camp
Its caused the story about the girl throwing an apple a day over the fence to the man she later married to have been admitted on camera in a TV interview to have been completely fabricated and that the woman lived 200 miles from the camp and the man wasnt even there
All of those changes and many others are corrections by the holocaust commission itself so hardly “bullshit revisionism” at all just a search for actual facts, rather than alleged ones
The levels of Zyclon B found in independant tests caused the holocaust commission to change the 24/7 claims of operation to now only an hour a day in auschwitz and 30 minutes a day at other camps but with only marginal drops in the alleged death tolls despite a 98% drop in gasing time and around an 80% drop in the number of alleged gas chambers
So rather than “bullshit” it has led to many lies being uncovered and the truth to be known.
Everyone of those changes isnt a “theory”, its an actual change made by the holocaust commission itself to the official story and is all easily independantly verifiable rather than just chastising it because it goes against the dogma
None of that however means that it was all lies, but it certainly doesnt give any one of sound mind a reason to blindly accept any of the other claims without equal levels of scrutiny either
Vincent Price, in his cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes, included, among recipes for such delicacies as chicken in champagne sauce and pressed duck, one for bacon-wrapped stuffed hot dogs. The text accompanying it speaks of the simple joy of enjoying a hot dog during a baseball game at Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine, and it’s weirdly adorable.
Of course Mike, the troll who thinks a female Ghostbusters cast is a travesty thinks the Holocaust isn’t that bad because Hitler ran an efficient economy. Of. Fucking. Course.
WOW at the swiss cheese thing
Not being a fan of cheese in general, or more acurately an unadventurous cheese eater I just took it “as is”. Kind of tempted to do some googling now to see where the saying originated then if its inherently inacurate.
perhaps it was origionally intended to show antipathy like the saying “military intelligence” tends to signify.
Cheers for that little snippet 🙂
Off topic, for those who aren’t aware: There is currently a military coup in progress in Turkey. The Army has taken control of Ankara and Istanbul, and announced that they will be imposing a new constitution. The not-very-popular President has appealed for people to take to the streets in his support. Details are sketchy thus far. There have been reports of gunfire.
My thoughts are with the people of both cities and elsewhere in Turkey. May it not come to bloodshed.
Is it getting very Gishy in here, or is it just me?
My grandfather was one of the soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen. Not the first wave of liberators, but the second. There were still victims there when his unit arrived. I don’t even know what exactly he saw because it was so traumatizing for him that he never, ever spoke of it. Maybe his experiences are more believable to fuckfaces like Mike than the experiences of the victims and their families because my grandfather was 100% Norwegian, blue eyed, pale skin protestant?
Then again, maybe Mike can just go fuck off.
Is full-on holocaust denial considered an adequate justification for removal of posting privileges on here ?
Being exactly as fair to Mike McKay as he deserves, those assertions sound like ones I’ve heard and believed.
Another one I can believe. To say US policy toward Japan during the Pacific War was racist AF is an understatement right up there with the Showa Emperor’s eventual admission that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”
That one, on the other hand, would be a little easier to swallow with some sauce on it. Or, to put it less politely: [citation desperately needed]
@mike
Okay I was going to debunk all your bullshit but you gish galloped over too many.
You can say it was “exaggerated” and “The allies did bad stuff too” all you want. It doesn’t change the basic fact that Hitler started the second world war by invading other countries that had done nothing to threaten his and that he tried to kill as many Jews, Roma, disabled people, lgbt etc as he possibly could.
You can say “he did good stuff too” but a German leader who wasn’t a Bigoted megalomaniac could have done just as well, probably better with murdering anyone.
My grandfather was a Dutch Jew and the only member of his family to survive the war. On his behalf please fuck off and gain some empathy and humility.
My Swiss cheese has holes. And is delicious.
Holocaust denial and revisionism is terrible.
@Mike McKay: as someone who’s seen both footage from the camps, interviews with survivors, and interviews with some of the soldiers who liberated the camps and who still couldn’t speak of it without crying decades later: fuck right off.
You are not clever or edgy or some sort of original thinker, you are just a despicable person.
How is pointing out ACTUAL ammendments made by the holocaust commission itself comparable to “denial”? lol
As I said, each of those things are ACTUAL ammendments the holocaust commission, the primary source of information about the holocaust had made and as such they are the new facts as currently claimed pertaining to each of those things.
Well except for the cremation times, but that is easily verifiable with a simple search and the admission by the family of anne franks in a TV interview. But feel free to find their email them and call them a liar if you want for what its worth.
I get the emotive aspect of the holocaust for many, but I dont think that “feelings” trump facts. Nor that uncomfortable possibilities should be used as an obstacle to scrutiny nor verification for ANY occurence.
A lie, regardless of its intent is still a lie and shouldnt be treated as a truth merely for someones sensibilties.
Actually I wasnt trying to claim that hitler was “on balance” a good guy lol
it was in response to someone asking why anyone would use hitler as a symbol of western civilisation, so I was merely outlining the reasons that someone might have considered him to be that. As the war aside he achieved some quite suprising things in germany between the wars and had it not been for the war there was an immense potential for germany paving the way for similar rights and social advances elsewhere.
As for him starting the war, yes he fired the first actual shots. But at the closing of WW1 when one of the european generals saw the unfair terms of the treaty he was forced to sign he said it wasnt an end to the war, it was a 20 year armistance, which turned out to be true to within a few days
There was also a quote by someone who I cant recall going around western governments trying to get the west to initiate the war themselves who said something like “You cant beat germany with trade ships, only war ships” and claiming that if the west didnt go to war with germany that their rapidly growing manufacturing and economic stregnth would negatively impact on their standards of living and their economies.
This was also echoed by one of the western leaders, possibly Churchill who said before the war had even started that war was going to germany whether they wanted one or not.
So theres no disputing that germany actively started the war, but there was quite a lot leading up to the war commencing that looked like the west would have started a war itself if germany hadnt. So who knows, maybe it was just a case of getting his retalliation in first as we in the west have now also adopted as a valid modus operandi
And you havent just attacked it with a black and decker to disprove the previous poster? 🙂