This comes in response to news that I’ve heard of recently. Goes to show if you value your posthumous requests, organize them wisely.
The concept we generally call “dying wishes” are a staple in how we think of society. Just look to the ancient play Antigone for that. However, things don’t always go as planned, especially in the wrong hands. What’s the biggest difference you’ve seen between someone’s “dying wishes” and what actually ended up happening?
A) The Nazi thing goes much deeper than that
B) The image of him throwing a sieg heil is literally banned in Germany
C) Don’t defend Nazis
D) All of the above
I’m definitely not defending Nazis. They can be blasted into the sun for all I care. I’m just saying we can’t assume someone’s intent and speak for them, even though we can 100% distance ourselves from others based on their impression. Don’t forget the salute came from an old Roman greeting, just as the swastika famously came from the manji (something Japan has never stopped using, even in anime and merchandise).
It’s not only the salute but other things as well.
It’s about him being able to do plausible deniability, the salute taken alone could be a mistake from a stressful situation speaking in front of thousands of people, or a badly executed heart gesture, or whatever excuses people are saying.
But the salute + pepe the frog + kek + plenty of other signs = a trail of shit.
Separated they are only unimportant signs that those who knows knows, the rest will just dismiss them. But all together they form a message.
Besides, the salute was debunked by who ? There’s plenty of historians, journalists and whatever in the world saying that it was indeed a nazi salute.
Hell even US neo nazis said it was a nazi salute, they celebrated it.
Well of course Neo-Nazis would be expected to call it a salute. They’re known for being so eager or desperate to make their case that they’ll jump at the opportunity to put words in the mouth of a person of power and say they’re on their side for leverage.
I remember when the Black Panther movies came out, white separatists alarmingly claimed en masse it “proves” white separatism since that school of thought isn’t hierarchal but tries to claim life is better under forced separation, and Black Panther had only two caucasian characters in it who were explorers while everyone else was African. They then claimed Marvel was engaging in this phenomenon we call plausible deniability since a few of the actors are from actual cults with heavy racial undertones (actual cults tend to use their power to worm people into prestigious roles which increases their power, it’s not just a Scientology thing), since the cast as a whole is selected for attractiveness, and since the in-universe mythology is Norse mythology. I mean, yeah, when I explain it that way, that’s definitely what it looks like Marvel is doing, but it’s still just a temptation to think that. Same approach with Musk, who I don’t think highly of for other reasons (mainly the fact he’s not good at what he does and it spills over in some ways, but one other reason being, yeah, some of his ideas sadly breed what we accuse him of, as someone pointed out). I also didn’t think citing a message on something Musk owns as a gesture of emphasis would be seen in an anti-US-politics community as synonymous with supporting Musk.