Several weeks ago, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle with the American flag flying from the back of his bike and the confederate flag sewn on the back of his jacket. I do not live anywhere near a southern state.
I can't fathom the amount of mental gymnastics it takes to proudly fly the flags of two opposing parties in a major war and still somehow believe it represents your views.
I kinda feel like the American flag itself has taken on connotations that align with the confederate flag.
When I see the American flag in current times, I think of roll coal 'murka fuck yeah sentiments.
I think of it like any expression of non-oppressed identity.
It's perfectly fine to be proud of a non-oppressed identity, as long as it's not something ridiculous or harmful. But the people who feel the need to shout it from the rooftops are often the worst possible representatives of that identity.
Cyclist here! American flags protect you from getting run off the road. I'm serious. My hypothesis is that Jimbos hate woke cyclists unless they stand with 'Murica.
When I see the American flag, I see people proud of shit they had nothing to do with personally. It's no different than sports teams gear at this point.
There are Canadians that proudly fly the confederate flag too. Olympic level mental gymnastics
If I remember right, the rich confederates hid their wealth during the war in banks in Montreal. There were definitely Canadians who were allies with them.
What's wilder is seeing the Confederate flag well outside the USA. I was just in the eastern part of Germany for a wedding, near-ish to Leipzig, and at the venue one of the employees had a Confederate flag plastered on the back of his van.
Ohio? My guess is Ohio.
I just don't understand what makes Nazi idiology attractive to so many people. If I had to guess, I'd say for their "foot soldiers" it might be the strange "logic" of this obtuse ideology that allows people to say: "I'm better than you in every way" - without giving any reasons whatsoever and therefore even if the people in question have nothing at all to show for themselfs. In case of their leaders, the only ones that actually profit, I do kinda understand: It's plain and simple unscrupulous lust for power and influence. In both cases: uncivilized and disgusting.
They like to fantasize about killing people they don't like, and while normal people react to this with horror, other Nazis applaud and encourage them.
Never underestimate group membership and sense of belonging. Add a dash of getting to feel superior to others and seeing a what they think is a solution to what they think are the cause of their woes (i.e. minorities, jews, oddly-shaped rocks, etc.) is a powerful lure (even if those "problems" aren't actual problems, but they have successfully been fooled into so thinking).
In case of their leaders, the only ones that actually profit, I do kinda understand: It’s plain and simple unscrupulous lust for power and influence.
The leaders and vanguard of fascism are typically small capitalists; they've been privileged by society, but at the same time they're victim of the whim of the markets. Such people will never believe the problem is capitalism, since that system rewarded them so much, so they'll grasp at other solutions, such as jews for not doing capitalism correctly, or some vague moral degeneration, or communist saboteurs, or some combination thereof.
Look at the makeup of jan 6ers. There's trade shows with fewer car dealership owners.
Imagine being just the worst fat and ugly white man.
Then you learn there are people who will lie to you that you're better and more handsome than even the most handsome of anyone of another ethnicity.
Idk that's just my guess, as I've never had feelings like that, but a lot of the neonazis I knew of were ugly af and even if they weren't, they thought they were.
So essentially Nazism and the like prey on unhealthy psyches, as there's nothing they could appeal to in a healthy one.
Aesthetically and in philosophy I had sympathies at some point.
To me personally it was the fact that large parts of humanity already carry that ideology. Like people pretty normal about very Nazi things when those are not called Nazi, who'd pretend to be so virtuous and judgemental when someone touches Nazi stuff more openly. And about crimes not unique to Nazis. And other formalism.
So it was just "the world around us is Nazi anyway, and referencing that directly is more honest than what they do". I care more about preventing and defeating evil, and do more to those ends, than people running around judging and exposing others. And I don't like hypocrisy.
that allows people to say: “I’m better than you in every way” - without giving any reasons whatsoever
You don't need permission to consider yourself better than some other person, nor to add any reasons. Neither do they, but if you really consider yourself better, why would you care? If they really consider themselves better, why would they care? Your and their rights remain the same.
So pride is not a bad thing.
The conflict here arises only with people without dignity, who consider your pride a violation of their personal space somehow. Or that if you are better than someone, you have right to rob them and kill them. Where I live many poor people are like this, sadly. But it doesn't mean this perception is acceptable.
Which leads us to the point that this perception is exactly how real Nazi-like movements exist. It's people who want to find an excuse to rob and kill others. Thus they look for any sign that they are better and can do that. They are also cowardly and always seek for some power to back them. Be it real or imagined.
This is also why they like conspiracy theories - every visible conspiracy theory they throw at others has an invisible counterbalance, the conspiracy theory they imagine of the power behind themselves or one they are trying to create. It's projection.
As you may have noticed, this is something very loosely connected to ideologies. There are many such people with Communist views too, not only Nazi, for example. It's just people who think that robbing and killing is the only way to gain something.
It stems from poverty and lack of opportunities for honest personal development. You might have heard the saying that "poverty is a mental disorder"? What I'm describing is the subset of poverty that is not a result of real mental disorders. ND people usually don't think the way I've described, and they usually have impaired social connectivity, while this inclination for violence as explanation is something typical for people whose only strong side is social connectivity.
Of course not all such people are poor, just those I've met were.
What I really wanted to say is that genuine pride does not fuel this ideology, it's the opposite.
So if everyone claims to be a Nazi they would stop being Nazis/j
Same with 'blonde, blue-eyed Aryans' in Nazi idiology. Aryan weren't those nordic god-like heroes they'd like. They were Indo-Iranian. So more likely black/brown haired, brown-eyed people.
Tells a big story about those 'proud people' back then and now and their brainless idiology.
That one always puzzled me. That was what they wanted yet thier leader had none of those qualities.
And he wasn't even German.
Standing in America and saying "I am that which Americans brag about killing" has real "that's a bold move, Cotton" energy.
Deport traitors that hate our freedom. Don't like it? Leave it.
Whereto though? The rest of us don’t want your scum either, we have enough of our own, that think going back to the political climate of 1933 would be swell.
Russia said they would take them.
Send them to Singapore, I wanna see them complain about all the shit they've been crying wolf over for years now
ahem American here, right?... So why are you thinking I think that's my problem?
But yes, seriously, I think, where should we escape to?, and it's populism everywhere.
Zero connected brain cells.
looks like a neurodivergent elbow. no breading for you.
Does anyone have her onlyfans? Is it @klausbarbiedoll?
How much nationalism do you have to believe to like this meme?
If America is going to own “those wars”; as fucking hilarious as that is, it should also own the genocide it committed against the natives and it should also own the slavery and disenfranchisement of black Americans that lasted centuries.
Dumb fucking Americans.
We do. Why do people keep writing this shit? It's been taught in schools for decades and we discuss it endlessly.
Its like people see our media blast a person for trying to censor/deny it and instead of seeing the well reported criticism as the typical American stance, they decide everyone MUST be siding with the villian of the story.
Actual idiot take. Go back to school.
As a European I'm fascinated to know where you're from that has done more to face upto and move away from its past?
America has a complex history but one which it very much faces, it has current problems but ones which it struggles to overcome and right. It is not perfect or pure but nothing ever had been nor ever will be, it's certainly doing more to grow into a moral and just place than anywhere else I know well.
But the Confederate States of America were also American. It was a civil war after all
The Confederate States were fighting against America, quite explicitly. It wasn't even a matter of "The Royalists vs. the Parliamentarians" sort of thing where the sides disagreed on who should rule America. The Confederates wanted their land to no longer be American, and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the attempt.
It was an American civil war between two sides of Americans, the Union and the Confederacy.
It wasn’t even a matter of “The Royalists vs. the Parliamentarians” sort of thing where the sides disagreed on who should rule America. The Confederates wanted their land to no longer be American, and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the attempt.
Separatists and in this case especially those with family history of separatism can have those different identities, as part of the grander "nation" and that of regional separatist one. I haven't heard of CSA having a separate sentiment from that, thinking them completely separate from the American identity that encompassed both prior to the civil war. From what I know it was more of a political affair than feeling like the south was a separate "people".
