The eagle is clutching arrows, representing a fasces, the root of the word fascism, representing the power of the state. Traditionally depicted with an axe at the centre, a fasces was a tool used by the roman armu to discipline soldiers. An axe for decapetation, rods for beating.
these things are everywhere un modern nation states, but I’m told it’s not important, it doesnt mean what i think it means.
it is also the root of the word f*ggot, a bundle of sticks.
:3
Eh, the fasces has a different meaning when you don’t include the axe. Unless you think fascism is when people work together.
Just because he idolizes the nazi military doesn’t mean he’s a nazi. He is of course. But that’s not why, everything else he does is why.
Nazis were a lot more competent and did drugs that improved their performance (in the short term)
Ahh , so that’s what the testosterone is all about.
Honestly the Nazis were not this Uber competent group. Tons of in-fighting, poor strategic and logistical choices, and they did not run the government nor country in this rigid orderly way that is and was projected by their propaganda.
I would say they had a very good propaganda campaign that’s still ongoing and paying dividends. Once you look under the surface some and start learning more about how the country was governed it becomes clear there was plenty of room for improvement.
I mean, think about it this way, they chose to commit an industrial genocide on a hellacious scale wasting men, material and destroying the soul of a nation. How much more manpower would they have had if they didn’t commit these crimes against humanity and instead had drafted these folks.
Like I know it’s not a great comparison or awesome though experiment and lacking any nuance but I think it makes a point.
Nazi economy was dependant on war. Their propaganda that Nazis have fixed the economy was so good that it lasts to this day. While the person responsible for it was ingenious his policies went all against at the time rules of economy and for a reason. It was just masking the problem which could be hidden only as long as there was war. In defense of the economist it was not his plan unlike other nazi’s to expand the war, but to stop pretty early compared to what happened. I would love to answer any questions but even after spending 90 minutes on a 30 minute video I was not able to understand it completely.
The German economy under the fucking Nazis was a Ponzi scheme and the German worker was earning less than the incomes from late 1920’s. That is f’ed up and MAGA continues to guzzle down their Orange Kool-Aid.
Yes, they controlled inflation by controlling unions and ceiling prices.
Yeah that dividend still pays out, it’s insane. Take a country that ruins itself so badly so quickly, and the propaganda works anyways ??! The human brain is wild.
There’s a reason the regime collapsed in less than a decade.
yeahhhhh but just barely, hitler was just ass much of a fucking nut-job as trump… he advised his generals to read less sun tzu and more karl may; a children’s book author, who wrote stories about cowboys and indians, who had never even visited the US.
this would be like trump telling hegseth to read more harry potter to figure out how to strategize better in the straight of hormuz…
fascists are always incompetent, because they are fucking clowns…
I remember back when Cracked was good a writer doing a number of articles aiming to dispel the “mystique” of the Nazis as some sort of genius-level evil and expose their incompetence. Iirc, documents have shown that the Nazis would’ve imploded on their own due to their own idiocy.
Growing up I heard all this “the German people are the smartest people in the world and Hitler was able to pursuade them through his charisma to create this insurmountable enemy that we were blessed and lucky to defeat…” Hitler won mostly through election interference and their own bloviating stupidity was a key factor in their downfall. Fascists are stupid. Deadly and dangerous, yes. But ultimately really stupid and we need to not allow any mystique saying otherwise to crop up. Fascism always fails. It hurts a lot of people in the meantime. But it will always fail.
Department of war
The new name is oddly truthful, really not in line with their common stance on truth.
for being a ‘department of war’, one would think they’d actually be good at it.
Yeah, but the mask is now off, the bar is lowered.
Interestingly “ministry of war” used to be quite frequent names for these institutions. The “defense” euphemism only came later in many countries. Austria-Hungary also had a “Kriegsministerium” (“war ministry”). It also had a much more badass double headed eagle bolted onto the building. Well, the building still has, after the country started a big war that was also the last thing that ministry did.
I mean, I get and like the honesty. But keep in mind the administration that’s doing this; it’s different when a fascist country says “ministry of war” from when, say, a country like New Zealand or some other innocuous country like Norway or Portugal or current day Japan.
When the current fascist-US admin says they’re going to be ultra aggressive, they not only end up being ultra aggressive, but they end up being ultra ultra aggressive and fascist.
I get your point, but Austro-Hungary started WW1, not nothing either. The reason I was mentioning it is that the US might just as well be in its late days imperialism. One of these wars might actually end the days of US Empire.
Will end the days of US empire. That’s the plan.
trump is not your typical fascist strongman. He is an intentionally destructive force, sent in to make the country insolvent and unmanageable. So the old structure can be saddled with the debt of the people and organizations that are destroying it, and its physical resources can be parted-out.
When I had the misfortune of travelling in the US one of the many things that were striking to me was the use of fasces in monuments, including engraved in marble on a war monument in Washington Square Park in NYC.
Of course it’s far from the most fascist thing about modern day America, but it was fascinating to see how blunt it is. I’d jump if I saw the same thing in Europe.
Many in Madrid in Spain too. So there’s that, I sure thought it was weird too.
Huh, I missed them when I was there. At least it makes sense historically, and considering how Spain deals with the memory of Franco I guess it makes sense that they wouldn’t erase symbolism from public spaces.
Will pay attention next time I’m there!
I feel like there’s a term for this sort of backwards misattribution of a symbol’s later meaning onto examples which predate their modern connotation, but I can’t think of what it would be. The war memorial you’re referring to was dedicated in 1920. Considering fascism as a political ideology had just started coalescing around Mussolini in Italy circa 1919-1920, it strains credulity to link the two. In a similar fashion, you wouldn’t suggest the presence of swastikas outside a Hindu temple indicates support for Nazism by default.
Fasces have represented the strength of the state dating back to the pre-Roman Etruscan kings. Therefore, seeing it on the national architecture of a Western nation which fancies itself as a descendent of Greek and Roman civilizations shouldn’t be that surprising, nor taken as a tacit endorsement of capital-F “Fascist” ideology. Case in point, do you know what’s prominently featured on the cover of every French passport? It ain’t a baguette, I’ll say that much. Heck, in 1953, France elected to keep the fasces as part of their diplomatic emblem, despite their very recent experiences in WW2 under Fascist rule. If we can give France a pass for continuing to use the symbol after post-war, surely that can extend to a 1920 Revolutionary War memorial in America. Unless every example of nationalism is equivalent to Fascism (and I readily grant that nationalism is a core tenet of that ideology, but allowances should be made for nuance), sometimes a fasces is just a fasces.
All of which is not to say that America is fascism free. Obviously not. Just that the above comment made me roll my eyes when there are so many better examples to cite, like the roving gangs of brownshirts disappearing people into nebulously legal holding centers.
To a degree, fair enough. I hadn’t studied a French passport.
But also, it was always a symbol of the strength of the state through violence. It is fundamentally fascist in nature. When France still embraces it it’s the same France that is currently beating the shit out of schoolchildren and harming them for life for wanting to receive education. Like most western countries France has a huge cultural problem of state violence.
So I still think the historical use of this symbol does not align with pretending fascist ideology is something new in a society. And anyone giving France a pass is not paying attention.
I don’t disagree with you in any particular part, and almost wrote a paragraph clarifying that the swastika and fasces are not 1:1 equivalences specifically because the Nazis divorced the swastika from its original meaning for their own purposes, while the Fascists selected the fasces as their core symbol because of its already established symbolism.
However, you can understand that the circular logic of calling something “fascist” which predates the codification of “Fascism” is doing my head in. If you want to counter that that’s a semantic argument which doesn’t invalidate your point, I tend to agree, with the significant caveat that this entire discussion is semantic in nature, so it’s more relevant than usual.
Long story short, I don’t equate every example of a state using violence to achieve its purpose as fascism, though it’s certainly a necessary ingredient, so I won’t yuck your yums if you do. To me, a war memorial is an appropriate venue for the fasces to appear, given its martial and reflective nature (as in, reflecting on the past), whereas including a fasces as the centerpiece of the nation’s diplomatic emblem is significantly more concerning as a forward looking statement of intent (so to speak).
Oh. If it always has been, then why fight it
If you’re diagnosed with cancer, or a rare genetic condition, would you sit and wait to die?
The genetic condition is the better analogy than cancer. Cancer develops you’re not born with it.
Well, when you are american…
Nah, here in America if you have a fatal disease or become crippled physically and you sit there half the nation will call you lazy for not getting on your feet 18 hours a day to work for slave wages, not even making a dent in your cost of living, not able to even get treated still.
What the USA is doing right now is unique to her history and it does the gravity of what’s happening a disservice to pretend otherwise.
What a surprise 🙄
Obama raised his Hand like Hitler while waving. It was only for a few moments. What are we even going at atp?
Not even close but ok, keep apologizing for Nazis there buddy
Pretty sure I didn’t though…
You did, though.
Yes you can interpret this. I tried to tell you that I didn’t or especially didn’t mean too.
Yeah, you did
You’re either disingenuous, or dumb
Yes interpreted indirectly. No, didn’t mean to and never will.
Always with the whataboustism.
Alright, let’s play.
A guy who hasn’t been in charge of anything of consequence in a decade once did a thing where he raised his arm.
Whatabout ICE murdering people. Whatabout violating the constitution and trying to get rid of right of citizenship. Whatabout violation of the constitution about detainment without cause. Whatbout pulling aid from organizations that kept children alive, causing their deaths. Whatbout violating arms length financial dealing rules. Whatabout deragulating climate policies and making the world objectively fucking worse. Whatbout starting a war that was settled before someone had to put their eensy mushroom stamp on it and caused a global financial meltdown. Whatbout the fucking rapes. Whatabout the fucking cons and grifts.
But yeah… Obama raised his arm…
I could go on for hours whatabouting.
Instead I will say everyone in that administration is a garbage human being supporting a garbage human being and anyone who thinks they are OK or handwaves away their atrocities is also a garbage human being.
They all deserve to burn in the hell they claim to believe in.
Edit: I will also add, anyone who tries to whatabout away atrocities is also a garbage human being.
Yes my comment is sh’te, yes I didn’t care for the humour in this post, yes I decided to engage in this post. Everything you just said SHOULD though be taken seriously, 'cause it is not just a massive problem but just grotesque, against human rights and absolute fkery.
So, what I’m going at, my comment deserves the hate, but not 'cause of my supposed world views, but rather 'cause I just didn’t care for the joke for once.
I’m not going to delete my comment 'cause I know I would do the same as you all.
Pretty sure it is 'cause I’m just pissed off of my fellow leftists doing extreme / just dumb things and saying extreme / just dumb things.
Cheers
Always with the whataboustism.
More a vulgar critique of asthetics without regard for material policy.
I might go with “Hitler Also Invaded North Africa” if I wanted a proper comparison. But you’ll get mega-yelled-at if you draw a straight line between Operation Odyssey Lightning and Operation Sonnenblume.
anyone who tries to whatabout away atrocities
President Obama, who hoped to sow peace, instead led the nation in war
Deflecting to a guy who has been out of power for a decade is still whataboutism. I don’t give a shit about litigating Obama’s record when we’re actively dealing with someone far fucking worse right now.
a guy who has been out of power for a decade
You keep bringing up this Adolf fellow, but he hasn’t been in power in a long time. So why would he be relevant?
Nobody in this thread brought up “Adolf” except you, one comment ago.
Imagine trying to smugly lecture someone on history only to get completely clowned by your own post history two inches above your reply.
Arguing with your own hallucinations must be exhausting.
I’m not saying this image is generated, but it is at least a little bit weird that a reverse image search only shows this specific comparison. I even tried Google Images for a “Visual Match” instead of just Tineye, and nothing.
That, and Hitler’s eyes look weird, and the folded Nazi flags in the back look garbled. Circumstantially, it’d be extremely fucking weird if whoever planned this layout put a plant obstructing the view of the symbol on the podium.
It’s definetly slop.
So we’re all going to mass downvote the slop so as to deter further slop, right? Right?
I guess
spreading disinformationdunking on the opponent everyone already hates is more important than standards concerning slop. =.=
The bottom right looks like the top of a heart, it’s a screengrab from a video
It’s definitely not a good sign when we’re talking about a picture of Hitler being a Nazi is AI generated, but it’s a given that Hegseth being a Nazi is legitimate.
Hegseth probably did the AI himself.
The image of Hegeseth is real, at the 5 second mark in this video
The image of Hitler may be altered
The image of Hegeseth is real
Sorry, I should’ve been more clear; I was never questioning the Hegseth image.
The image of Hitler may be altered
Generated, not altered. I don’t think this speech footage/image existed at all. The angle is weird along with the other points.
It’s very clearly generated. None of the flags make any sense, there are so many odd things that are AI specific details.
There has to be some image that’s similar to this though.There probably is, but to OPs original question, if you’re going out of your way to find footage of Hitler that matches Kegsbreath, then it probably is a coincidence.
Yeah pretty sure it’s generated. Look at the flags in the background, the black in the centre doesn’t make sense on a lot of them. And the people in the bottom left corner also look strange. Another strange point is the swastika below the eagle: the upper arm seems to be a bit shorter than the others. And the style of the eagle itself looks strange to me, but I’m not a historian, so that is just feeling,not knowledge.
The Swastika is somehow completely flat but the flag is folded. It’s a not real image
Nazi reichsadler + Spanish fascist arrow symbol.
Hegseth is a Hitler loving alcoholic who is actively ruining America and the world, but the eagle motif was present far before Nazis were a thing. Arrows are also a pretty universal symbol. I’m not saying you can’t draw parallels, but it’s not like he designed the seal.
I’m not saying they created them, but I’m still not convinced at all that their use of fascist iconography is coincidental. The combination of symbols and presentation reeks of it. It’s a dogwhistle like so much of what they do.
Yeah the US was using eagle and fasci symbolism long before fascism was a thing, because fascists and the founding fathers were both Romaboos. Also before anyone says the founding fathers were fascists id argue they weren’t simply because the fascism of their era was the absolute monarchies, they were assholes and hypocritical jackasses though.
Proto-fascists.
Proto would imply that there’s a direct line between them and fascism but it’s more like a deranged series of foot paths that are just as likely to lead to anarchism. Reminder folks from John Brown to Ho Chi Minh had respect for the revolutionaries even with their own critiques, also as I noted there is a far more direct line from the institutions of feudalism and monarchy to fascism. But political ideology at the time was weird and hard to classify within taxonomy, for example the Utopians who were the proto-socialists explicitly were also pro-slavery because they couldn’t think of other ways for mass manufacturing.
There is a direct line, the US helped to fund, create, and embrace fascism. After the defeat of the Axis powers the US went on to spread fascism around the globe. This, in my opinion, is not really up for debate unless you are an apologist or someone who is in denial.
My point is moreso that while the modern US is at best fascist aligned at worst outright fascistic the first 50 years or so fall into the same category as Rome, the Carolingian empire, or Babylon wherein it was far enough in the past that our modern descriptions don’t quite work due to just how different the world was. For context it wasn’t until the latter half of those first 50 years that steam power starts to refine enough to be usable let alone viable.
I try to caution inflicting modernism unto the past and that includes describing ideologies and tendencies that at the time didn’t exist, because you get weirdness like how Julius Caesar was technically to the left of Mamdani when it came to food distribution and rent increases for context Caesar stopped the collection of rent outright and gave out free grain in quantities enough to feed a family.
The modern US is clearly neofascist, but did have strong fascist roots as well. Hitler based the final solution on the genocide of the Native Americans. US industrialists like Ford bankrolled the Nazi and Italian Fascist empires. He even went so far as to build factories in Germany and let them keep them and all the profits. US companies such as IBM gave material support to the Nazi helping with the census of Jews and the logistics of sending them to the death camps.
I find it funny that you caution against bringing modernism to the past, but then bring up a lot of ancient history to link to present time. Obviously, we view all history through a modern lens. This is a good thing though because it lets us see past the bullshit rhetoric and propaganda like liberty and freedom for what they really were.
For instance, the reverse of the US quarter for quite a number of decades:
It’s just that in this case they decided to stylize this one to make it look extra Hitlery.
The one behind him is actually specifically for the department of defense (he calls it war).
Ctrl+F blue seal on this page: https://www.war.gov/Brand-Guide/
He did initiate a rebranding, but the straight wings have been a feature of this seal since before his rebrand.
It’s a coincidence that someone ai sloped a pic of hitler to look like keggy boy?
What you don’t think that there is historical photography of Hitler doing that?
Lemme know if you find one.
Cmon, it’s a really common pose
Not sure the pose is the primary issue here…
Symbols are for the symbol minded - George Carlin
The thing that makes this regime similar to the Nazis isn’t the way they draw eagles.
This regime is symbol minded though, they do this shit on purpose.
Just as the greased back hair seems to be popular in the cabinet and therabouts.
Hegseth is just a greasy bitch though. He is no leader.
In fairness, Hitler was a greasy little bitch too.
But he was a greasy little bitch who could inspire with words.
You don’t find:
No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.
To be inspiring? 🙈
Look, I could shit out a more inspiring speech after a night of heavy drinking. The fact that he repeated parts of it tells me he thinks it’s clever… Which, although I didn’t think it possible, does make me somehow think less of him.
How is it possible to be not just demoralized but also negatively inspiring?
I’ve always thought the stylized eagle was an odd choice.
"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country…
“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”
-Benjamin Franklin
he says all that but we all know its because he thought they were making fun of his baldness
Bald Eagle takes food from the Fishing Hawk like USA takes oil from any country who has oil. Seems Bald Eagle is a suitable mascot for USA. Although with all of USA’s other bullshit, probably a huge insult to the Bald Eagle.
I saw the op and was going to add something but you managed to say it more smarter like.
Suits the US to a fucking tee.
It’s not odd. It’s a perfect fit for them. It’s intentionally on brand
We must be more critical as a people of political images these days, the hitler image is AI… :/
How much do you want to bet he studied that exact photo to get the iconography and pose right?
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