Apparently our old friend Andrea “JudgyBitch” Hardie — oft-banned antifeminist Twitter “activist” and alt-right hanger-on — was once again feeling a bit ignored by the internet, so she bought herself a Nazi t-shirt and made a lovely video.
Despite the video’s deliberately provocative title (“Hello Fourth Reich!”), this is one of the duller “provocative” videos you’re likely to encounter on the YouTubes — at least until Hardie puts on her swastika t-shirt roughly three-quarters of the way in.
Hardie begins the video wearing a different t-shirt entirely — one adorned with the Rising Sun flag of Imperial Japan. Over the course of the first half of the video she offers a rambling, ignorant and often nonsensical take on the issue of populism — or at least the oversimplified and completely ahistorical caricature of populism she’s got bouncing around in her head.
Her main point, insofar as she has one, seems to be that anyone who’s critical of the current outbreak of “populism” is “sneering at the idea that common, ordinary, everyday people are the best people to identify what the problems in their own lives are.”
Well, no. Demagogues like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen may claim the label of populism, but they are in fact racist right-wing autocrats who really aren’t much interested in democracy at all. “Populism” has, historically, always had a dark nativist streak to it, suffused with anti-Semitism and what historian Richard Hofstadter called the “paranoid style” of politics.
But let’s not linger too long on the history of actual populism, because we haven’t even gotten to the real point of the video, which is that Nazi t-shirt.
Hardie starts the t-shirt portion of the video by pretending to be shocked that the Rising Sun t-shirt she’s wearing isn’t likely to elicit the same outrage as a t-shirt festooned with a swastika — even though the Japanese military forces flying that flag did all sorts of truly horrible shit over the course of many years, from the Rape of Nanking to Pearl Harbor.
But those who wear Rising Sun t-shirts in public aren’t generally going to get accused of supporting any of these terrible things. To most people, Hardie declares, the Rising Sun is nothing more than a “fun meme,” and it turns out that’s just fine with her.
“What i want to know,” she asks, “why is this shirt ok, why is the Rising Sun ok, but” — she dons her Nazi t-shirt — “this shirt is not?”
This is a question that could actually lead to an interesting discussion. Why is the Rising Sun, at least here in North America, seen by most though definitely not all people as a rather innocent cultural symbol — much as the Confederate flag was back in the day when it flew unprotested from every southern state capital and adorned the top of the Dukes of Hazzard’s beloved creek-jumping car? Will perceptions of the Rising Sun change, much as they have for the Confederate flag?
But instead Hardie offers a rambling rant even more incoherent than the rant on populism in the first chunk of her video.
After informing us that the Nazis “were socialists; hey Bernie Sanders, hi” she indignantly asks why it’s considered “not ok” for people to wear Nazi shirts, so much so that YouTube probably “won’t let me monetize this video because of this shirt.”
Maybe because most people rightly connect Nazi symbolism with the Nazis and their hateful history? Maybe because virtually everyone who adorns themselves with Nazi symbols is either an actual Nazi or some other related kind of hateful shit? (Or perhaps the ghost of Sid Vicious.)
But Hardie has another theory, albeit one that makes no fucking sense whatsoever: Apparently people get mad about swastikas because they want to demonize true populists who stand up for the people! By “weaponizing the swastika” these evil liberal lefty anti-populists try to make ordinary people look bad!
I’m not even going to try to transcribe this portion of Hardie’s rant; I’m afraid it might damage my brain. Just watch. The video below should start at the beginning of her, er, explanation, a little more than 15 minutes in. Watch for the next two minutes or so, if you can manage it. Feel free to stop when she starts talking about Pepe the frog. Or if your head literally explodes.
https://youtu.be/A3Qi8VKb_dI?t=15m17s
Shortly after her Pepe digression, Hardie informs her viewers that
everyone, at the end of the day, is a stupid violent brute. Everyone. Violence is the only truth.
Huh. That sounds an awful lot like something a Nazi would say.
The only question to her is who controls this violence — evil leftists who actually hate the people, or
the common ordinary people who think, you know what, some of us is dumb assholes and, you know what, those are the first ones we’re gonna shoot. The people have a unique way of taking care of business.
That’s human history. That’s all of human history.
Er, there are are forms of government that don’t involve whatever group is in power just going out and shooting everyone they don’t like.
And all the swastikas in the world aren’t going to change that.
No. They’re going to make that sort of thing more likely. That’s why most people FUCKING HATE NAZIS. That’s why people tend to get mad when idiots put on Nazi shirts and make videos defending other idiots who put on Nazi shirts.
If you need to clear your head a little after watching that video, this might help.
@yazikus
Yep.
Not to mention this:
Andrea! You’re drunk, at home! Stop filming!
Shorter Andrea Hardie:
Hey, Nazi guyz! Those are my breasts behind the swastika — does that turn you on?
Hope so!
Um, try displaying the Rising Sun anywhere in Asia that has been occupied by the Japanese during WWII. Try it. My family is from Taiwan and as much as Taiwan has a good relationship with Japan, that symbol would NOT go down well by anyone there. At all.
Swastikas on the other hand, are common in Asia because it has always been considered a religious symbol, and since the nazis never made it here it remains fairly untainted. There’s no attempt at reappropriation because as far as most people are concerned its meaning was never taken from them. In Japan for instance, swastikas are so innocuous it’s the symbol for Buddhist temples on maps. In Taiwan they are occasionally used for hospitals.
Of course, I could argue that it’s even less of an issue because nazi swastikas aren’t even the same as the original, but that’s a different story.
It’s all about history and context.
Just like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic, as was the German Democratic Republic.
OT: Comey got fired, but because of the shitshow surrounding Hillary’s emails, not because of any investigations of russians. Interesting times, to be sure.
So, can we finally declare that the dividing line – if there was even one – between neofascists and MRAs has been removed wholly and that they have finally revealed themselves as yet another tedious set of white supremacists?
(oh, the comey thing was already on the other thread. serves me right for reading the new one first)
Yeah, nice try, Hardie – you’re gonna have to cobble something less lazy than this together if you want to rattle people’s cages, become a well-known alt-right figure, and generally have people pay attention to you again. At least Heartiste puts actual effort into his clickbait.
I’m half Japanese, but I wouldn’t recommend wearing a rising Sun T shirt in public! Obviously it’s not going to have as negative connotations as the Swastika, because it was and still is used for many things, but it’s still potentially going to offend a lot of people because of its use in the war. It should really only ever be shown in context.
That being said, I would just like to say both the Axis and Allies did absolutely horrible things, especially to women. We shouldn’t excuse one side just because they “won.” In war there are no winners.
Also, is Andrea even relevant any more? She’ll do anything for attention and acceptance by the internet’s misogynists. Not long ago it was shooting feminists in the face with a crossbow, then it was saying women shouldn’t have the vote, then sharing her spanking fantasies, and now it’s……Nazi T shirts? She stepped her game down a bit, I must say. Hang in there JudgyBitch, we believe in you…..
@Moggie:
It’s not surprising she’s so politically illiterate that she just assumes appropriating the term “socialism” means they must be socialists. Instead of, y’know, using it as a means to make their fascist ideology more palatable to people who may’ve been attracted by the ideas of actual socialism.
Corporatists and proponents of neo-liberal economics did that with “libertarianism” to the point it has become erroneously synonymous with them now, despite being a left-wing anarchic philosophy that has little in common with them.
I found this bit pretty blood-boiling:
Oh, boo-fucking-hoo!
What is it with these people on YouTube who think anyone’s obligated to financially support them? I’ve noticed this from The1Janitor and Comicbookgirl19 too – both who made the absurd claim it was “censorship” (which it in no way, shape, or form it is). Then there’s PewDiePie acting as if losing his sponsorship deal over was everyone else’s fault but his own like an immature child.
I’m not fond of Patreon but, if you can’t monetize your videos or find sponsors, there’s always that site. Unless someone not choosing to contribute is also, somehow, an act of “censorship”…
I was gonna reply to the last post but this one came up!
and I can’t believe I had the stomach to go through some of Andrea’s videos after that posted one. Not all but some. And I seriously need to just.. sleep. She’s beyond the word disgusting as a proper adjective.
@Latte Cat
Could you clarify what sort of horrible things the allies were involved with, especially to women? I’m familiar with a few specific atrocities commited by axis powers, such as the rape of nanjing, but I wasn’t aware that there were equivalents on the allied side, too.
Bless, its like she’s competing in a high school debate, but without their sense of professionalism.
Speak for yourself, Andrea Hardie.
And might I add,
Live. Love. Laugh.
I’ve never understood Andrea Hardie’s brand name, Judgy Bitch.
Yeah, I understand the “bitch” part — although I consider it to be a slur against some of the cutest, fluffiest, sweetest creatures on planet Earth.
But “judgy”? Is she actually judging others?
She hasn’t got a leg to stand on.
@Pie:
“Antony Beevor describes the Soviet rape of German women during the occupation of Germany as the “greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history”, and has estimated that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia alone. He asserts that Soviet women and girls liberated from slave labor in Germany were also violated.”
French troops were reported to have freely assaulted Italian women, and in France civilian men assaulted French women thought to have been collaborators.
American troops stationed in Britain had issues with assaulting local women, as did British troops in Italy.
Was it as bad as genocide? I don’t think so. Did it involves hundreds of thousands? Yes.
Shorter: Power imbalances get abused, and in wartime abuse is normalised.
Re swastikas, one of the oldest in the UK is to be found on Ilkley Moor – it’s probably Iron Age, and a few different theories have been put forward to explain it, including that it’s a boomerang!
Perhaps slightly OT, there’s a shirt I’ve seen people wearing in the UK that makes me quite uncomfortable – the company is called Boy London, and the design mimics the Eagle standard of the Nazis.
I’m not suggesting that anyone who wears one is a Nazi, in fact I suspect many people wouldn’t have a clue, but I find the ‘normalisation’ of Nazi imagery unsettling, and a worrying precedent.
The relative offensiveness of various symbols in various cultures is a weird thing. For example, this was a popular t-shirt in Thailand in 2012:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/02/article-2108828-12010F42000005DC-102_306x423.jpg
(Image: a t-shirt with a stylised cartoon picture of Adolf Hitler.)
Would it be acceptable in the west? Hell no. Is there some symbology which is acceptable in the west which Thai people would recoil from? Almost certainly.
Similarly, I’ve heard stories of Africans wearing t-shirts with the Confederate battle flag on it, because it looks “American” and “tough”, but I can’t find a picture.
@Steampunked
@Pie:
The Red Army carried out mass rape, both as a weapon of intimidation and as a way to reward their troops. Although the true numbers were not recorded and will likely never be known, historians have estimated that the number of German women raped by Soviet soldiers was as high or higher than the number of German men killed by those Soviet soldiers.
There really were no “good guys” on the Eastern Front; and as Pavlov’s House has vividly reminded us, that was the front that mattered.
Edit: Ninja’d by Steampunked.
Also, mass bombing of cities.
Given how modern warfare is done, I wish thoses had been seen as war crimes. It’s likely the war atrocity who have been scaled up the most since WWII.
@ fujimoto
Carl Sagan hypothesised that the Swastika was meant to symbolise a comet as seen head on. Hence its universality.
@EJ
What’s the context for that Thai t-shirt? I’m kind-of, sort-of okay-ish with caricatures and mockery of Hitler, in a Fougasse style. Or Hellboy punching some Nazi monkeys, that’s fine.
But the Boy one seems mockery-free, and just seems to be an attempt to rehabilitate fascist design. Which I appreciate was certainly striking (beautiful would be going too far); but making a fascist-style symbol desirable as a consumer object seems a slippery slope, to me.
I thought she believed in the MRAs obsessive idea that women should be typical suburban 50s housewives. Get back to cooking, cleaning, taking care of your husband and children Andrea and leave the internet alone FFS!
Violence is the only truth?
No, Ms Hardy. It may be all you understand, but that doesn’t make it “truth”.
No, we aren’t all brutes. You certainly are, but you’re a shitty, shitty person. Most people aren’t hilariously inept neo-Nazi wannabes.
She really isn’t good at anything she tries is she? She’s a horrible amateur philosopher. She’s a spectacularly bad writer. She’s a lousy provocateur. She says she’s a domestic, but I bet her pie crust is as bland and tough as her internet persona. Her split ends are probably flakier.