Summary

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Elon Musk after he made a gesture during Trump’s inauguration resembling a Nazi salute.

Musk and his allies dismissed the comparison, calling such accusations exaggerated.

Ocasio-Cortez, however, called the gesture unacceptable, emphasizing America’s history of opposing Nazis and the Confederacy.

She also condemned the Anti-Defamation League for defending Musk, accusing it of losing credibility.

Her comments sparked broader debate on symbols, gestures, and their implications amid Trump’s return to office.

  • @[email protected]
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    27111 days ago

    If she’s the only one in office that’s willing to say anything about this, we’re in a lot more trouble than we thought.

      • @danc4498
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        6011 days ago

        Democratic leadership is gonna fuck everything up. We need a new branch of the party similar to what the tea party did for Republicans. They may not be relevant today, but I believe they permanently changed the Republican Party (for the worse in my liberal opinion).

        • @[email protected]
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          1410 days ago

          Yeah, they’re still trying to litigate which progressive group to blame, instead of looking in the mirror and saying “holy fuck we really screwed the pooch, didn’t we?”

          The “adults in the room” sleepwalked us into a fascist sweep of the elections, and they don’t seem to see anything fucking wrong with that. The Democratic Party no longer deserves to be a party after this. This will go down as one of the most catastrophic own-goals in the history of the republic, if not the absolute worst. Yes, I am fully aware of the civil war, and the antebellum political context, and my statement stands.

          • @danc4498
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            10 days ago

            They lost to the worst candidate possible two times. This one was legit too. It’s frustrating that Kamala Harris picked a fantastic VP nominee, then sidelined him so she could share a stage with Dick Cheney. That’s why she lost.

            • @[email protected]
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              1010 days ago

              It genuinely beggars belief. Walz had his head on SO FUCKING STRAIGHT. If they’d have used his points instead of the idiot fucking consultant brain trust, I think they would have absolutely cleaned up and won in a landslide. But noooooooo tHe cONsULtaNtS KnoW wHaT ThEY’rE dOinG LeT’S giVe tHEm MOre mONeY ANd gET LiZ cHENeY iN HerE.

              Fucking christ. I’m torn between laughing hysterically and just sobbing uncontrollably. It was so fucking winnable, and the adults in the room just absolutely, thoroughly shit the bed. They have no fucking clue what they’re doing, but they’re STILL convinced they do. Biden is apparently convinced he could have won it if he stayed in, the fucking tool. Schumer just texted me for more money as if he wasn’t a huge part of what fucking got us here in the first fucking place. Harris kow-tow’d to the DNC establishment. Pelosi… don’t get me fucking started. And they’re all fucking pointing fingers at each other and refusing to take a single fucking shred of blame. I’d say they should be fucking outlawed from engaging in politics as a hyperbolic expression of outrage, but Trump is probably going to try to do that anyways, in addition to whatever other political persecution he can convince the DoJ up… AND NONE OF THEM SEEM TO FUCKING GET THAT LAST PART. Their lives are potentially going to be on the line and they’re still convinced they’re playing fucking poker or some shit.

              But anyways. How was your day?

      • @secretlyaddictedtolinux
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        10 days ago

        Really, it’s these establishment Democrats that have made it the party of slow reaction times, large government, and inefficiency. AOC should be elevated, and elevated, and elevated again. She’s an American hero and patriot and should have been given more responsibility long ago.

    • @DarkFuture
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      2011 days ago

      Fascism isn’t coming.

      It’s here.

      And the number of people standing up against it is so small it’s practically the butt of a joke.

      We’re cooked. Buy a gun. Protect yourself.

      • @[email protected]
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        811 days ago

        Build a drone. Learn how to fly it. Even better for long range, are the wood and paper rc planes that are expendable and being used in Ukraine.

        Or designing our own versions of the cardboard ones from all our empty amazon boxes.

  • Convict45
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    14911 days ago

    It didn’t resemble a Nazi salute. It was a Nazi salute.

    • @[email protected]
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      5311 days ago

      Yeah all these media sources keep saying things like “a day after Musk used an arm gesture, twice, that resembled the Roman salute adopted by the Nazis.”

      It’s blatantly obvious that they’re afraid of getting sued. Kind of like instead of saying someone lied, they’ll soften it up to say they made a statement that some fact checkers may disagree with.

      • @[email protected]
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        3111 days ago

        I remember Robert Evans from BTB saying that when he worked in journalism, ANY story on a rich person was automatically followed up on by a lawsuit from the person in question, so they’d have legal on a retainer ready to respond.

    • @DarkFuture
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      11 days ago

      Yup. Twice in a row. Exactly as the Nazis did it.

      Stand to attention facing the crowd. Hand to chest, then full extension. Turn around to face the Fuhrer, or if he isn’t there, the Nazi flag. Then stand to attention and sieg heil again.

      He did it. It’s not debatable. Don’t engage in debate with bad actors attempting to rewrite this history. The richest man in the world, who will act in an official capacity in the White House, is openly a Nazi. Because you are a Nazi if you perform a Nazi salute.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 days ago

        He did it better the second time around.

        The first time looked a little awkward (though definitely recognizable as a Nazi salute.) The second one was spot on.

  • @[email protected]
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    12011 days ago

    Behold the one prominent US politician with any principles.

    And for that she will never be allowed near any real power…

    • @Zombiepirate
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      5711 days ago

      It’s one of the reasons reactionaries hate her so much.

      And also that she’s a woman of color who didn’t stay “in her place.”

      And it’s so annoying to hear liberals parrot the same shit because the conglomerates who own liberal media don’t want to change the status quo.

        • @Th3D3k0y
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          2111 days ago

          Only time I think I ever really got triggered about politics was when a friend of mine mentioned voting against Sanders just because he felt condoms shouldn’t be included in universal health care, no other reason.

        • @Scott_of_the_Arctic
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          1411 days ago

          He’s old AF, and a good person. He’ll probably die seeing the country he tried so hard to save slide into full on fascism. He deserves more than that.

          • @[email protected]
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            911 days ago

            We really need him to go full on windy tits and call for action. I’m exactly one Bernie blessing away from being a radical.

            • @Sanctus
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              210 days ago

              If you’re one away, consider it had. We are running out of luxuries here.

    • @taiyang
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      1811 days ago

      There’s a few more, but she’s the most charismatic. It’s a shame too, they tend to win more than their moderate counterparts during midterm races.

  • @Treczoks
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    10310 days ago

    AOC, you personally might hate Nazis, but your country voted them into the White House, the congress, and the Senate. I wish you the best to fight the scum, like real Americans did 80 years ago.

    • @[email protected]
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      1210 days ago

      The ones who don’t aren’t our countrymen and I look forward to the day enough of us recognize it.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost
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        1210 days ago

        My grandfather was in the Navy on the pacific theater. Japanese fascists, German fascists, Italian fascists, all died the same way.

    • @[email protected]
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      110 days ago

      She’s not here to hear you. Send that as an email/voicemail so she knows what you want to say.

  • @[email protected]
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    9511 days ago

    Do we though? Do we really, truly, hate Nazis? The evidence so far is not that conclusive.

    I hate Nazis, but I don’t think the country as a whole hates Nazis.

    • @espentan
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      1911 days ago

      Well, you certainly used to, judging by the efforts and sacrifices 80 years ago, but there’s certainly a lot of evidence to indicate a lot of Americans of today think you were on the wrong side back then.

      • @YarHarSuperstar
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        3711 days ago

        You may want to reread some history, there were plenty of Nazi sympathizers and collaborators (read: nazis) in the US back then too.

        • @espentan
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          711 days ago

          Oh I’m well aware, but push came to show and the better minds prevailed, back then, and as a result, so did the country.

          I’m not convinced the outcome would’ve been the same today.

          • @Scott_of_the_Arctic
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            611 days ago

            The saying is “if push comes to shove” ie if shit gets real /escalates.

            • @espentan
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              811 days ago

              English is not my native tongue, and I knew I was on thin ice with that one…

              • @[email protected]
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                511 days ago

                It’s actually “on thin eyes”, i.e people are watching you closely.

                Nah just fucking with ya.

              • @Scott_of_the_Arctic
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                110 days ago

                Not a big deal, I just prefer knowing if I make a mistake in my second language so I don’t keep making it.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 days ago

            And then those better minds snapped up as many Nazi scientists they could and put them to work for “the good guys”, and burnt a few crosses.

      • @Snapz
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        310 days ago

        See, that’s the issue though, you say they “think you were on the wrong side”… but they don’t think. They put on a hat with the team colors and just thoughtlessly repeat the chants as the organist plays the fight song.

  • @DarkFuture
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    8211 days ago

    We used to kill Nazis.

    Now we cheer them, shrug them off, or make excuses for them.

    This nation is pathetic.

    I wonder how many conservative’s ancestors fought the Nazis and now they’re voting for Nazis.

    Hey 2A enthusiasts. This is the moment you’ve been saying you need your guns for your entire pathetic lives. Where you at?

    • @[email protected]
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      2611 days ago

      Assuming you’re American, you do understand the irony of America taking in the most nazi elite and scientists for their own personal projects right? Also if you read mein kampf you’ll find it fascinating how much he was inspired by American legalised racism and ethnic cleanings. America is a nation built like how Israel was, through ideological and legalized genocide, racism, fascism and racism. I’m starting to comprehend how the soviet did the real nazi killing and suffered the real consequences of the Nazis unlike America.

      • @[email protected]
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        611 days ago

        Yeah, the people who see this as a significant deviation from the norm aren’t exactly incorrect, but I wonder to what degree they really understand the total history and scope of america as it has existed for basically all of it’s span. What we’ve done, in this country.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 days ago

        WW2 was between Russians and Germans. All the other stuff was barely a side character subplot compared to the Eastern front.

        For example, in the Western front the German forces dealt more casualities to US and UK troops than the Allies did to the Axis by quite a lot too. Reading stories and diaries of American troops they would remark how astonishing it is that their German POWs were all either very young, or very old, either way remarkably unfit for combat. German command in the Western front was in shambles, because the vast majority of their efforts were going to the Eastern front. More Germans died in the battle of Stalingrad alone than in the entirety of the Western front. There were sieges in the Baltics that made Omaha Beach seem like a pretty lucky bet. The Belarusian grassroots genocide by Germans is hardly talked about, yet were just as brutal as they were against jews. The Siege of Leningrad is the type of nightmare fuel, hell on earth that Spielberg would never dream of touching. The West puts so much self importance about their fight against the German Nazi Machine, meanwhile it was the communists who did all the work while Western capitalists profited every step of the way since the beginning. And as you pointed out, America had and still has a strong Nazi following, also curiously backed by billionaires.

        Now the collective West is the new Nazi party, and like it or not it’s up to Russia and China to stop them again.

        EDIT - Just wanted to point out that a lot of the horrors of the Eastern front is equally blamed on Stalin too, Baltic people hate Germany and Russia the same for WW2. Every side of WW2 sucked horrendous ass, and nobody won in WW2 (except for capitalists)

        • @[email protected]
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          310 days ago

          Now the collective West is the new Nazi party, and like it or not it’s up to Russia and China to stop them again.

          I was expecting hexbear or .ml for this sort of claim

          • @[email protected]
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            110 days ago

            Who do you think will stop them then? Are you counting on Americans to “rise up” like the average German moderate in the 1930’s did?

              • @[email protected]
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                110 days ago

                I don’t get it though, I don’t even read Marx. The fact that it was Russia and China who stopped fascists last time, and might have to do it again because the West is doing the opposite of stopping fascism, how is that Marxist? It’s literally what happened.

                • @[email protected]
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                  110 days ago

                  You have no idea how “Now the collective West is the new Nazi party, and like it or not it’s up to Russia and China to stop them again.” sounds tankie as fuck?

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆
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      11 days ago

      Hey 2A enthusiasts. This is the moment you’ve been saying you need your guns for your entire pathetic lives. Where you at?

      They’re apparently calling for gun control in the threads discussing LGBTQ+ people arming themselves.

      • @DarkFuture
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        211 days ago

        Sounds like they’re still cowards. Well, at least they’re consistent. Enemies that are consistent are easier to study and destroy.

    • @xenomor
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      810 days ago

      Kill Nazis. Kill Nazi CEOs twice.

    • @[email protected]
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      711 days ago

      That moment for 2A enthusaists came when Alabama banned abortion (before Roe v. Wade was overturned) and when Trump was putting children in cages. They didn’t then… they were the Nazis all along. The same people who just wanted to be the Brownshirts, but with their own personal firearms and not something issued to them.

      We’re seeing a similiar bullshit in Israel with West Bank illegal ‘settlers’ carrying M4 pattern rifles with them to the ‘homes’.

    • @secretlyaddictedtolinux
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      111 days ago

      As an LGBTQ+ person who supports the NRA and believes we need substantially more guns in America and to repeal all gun regulation, I really hope all LGBTQ+ and allies not only are armed, but realize the benefit of owning a variety of firearms.

      Since conservatives are trying to say some or all LGBTQ+ people are mentally ill, and mental illness is often used to justify disarming people, it’s really important for LGBTQ+ people to be aware of these issues.

      In the US, gender dyphoria is classified as a mental illness under the DSM and so technically any trans person who has seen a doctor is mentally ill and not allowed to own guns.

      Therefore, trans people will hopefully realize the important of being armed prior to disclosing their trans status to a doctor and decent people should do their best to not only the discredit the DSM as the pseudointellectual biased phrenologyesque crock of shit that it is, but also to have gender dysphoria removed as a psychiatric issue and labeled for what it is, a medical issue resulting from brain differences that requires treatment.

      • @Snapz
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        210 days ago

        LBGTQIA+ folks aren’t magical unicorns… They can have garbage takes just like anyone else.

        You support the NRA?

        You want to repeal all gun regulation?

        Defend both of those immediately or show yourself here as a troll aiming to sow discord along an oddly narrow path.

        • @secretlyaddictedtolinux
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          10 days ago

          if you look at my post history, which is filled with unmitigated pro 2A pro-NRA posts, you’ll see I’m not a troll.

          We would live in a much more polite society if everyone were armed.

          The fact that 2A can be limited if a person gets diagnosed with depression makes it more likely people, especially men, avoid mental health treatment (and then eventually commit suicide).

          Gender dyphoria is considered a mental illness and is already a potential large attack surface for conservatives to disarms trans people (to use a software metaphore).

          The NRA is in favor of repealing needless pointless gun regulations which ahve horrible secondary effects and reduce the safety of all.

          I also disagree that all LGBTQI+ people take out the garbage.

      • @DarkFuture
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        210 days ago

        Those phantoms are in our government and marching in our streets.

  • @StopTouchingYourPhone
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    8111 days ago

    National identity is imaginary, powerful and useful. What she’s choosing to claim with hers is badass. It’s brash, in-your-face, heroic. Anti-apathy. And our world needs tonnes more of it.

    As an activist irl, and someone targeted daily by nazis for years, AOC has no illusions about the current state of fash in the USofA, nor the history and current state of slavery and genocide in the world. Nazis (and other misogynists) will tell you she’s ignorant and deluded, but you know she’s not. She’s manifesting, and the irony is lovely.

    If you want to live in the country she does - against all the opposition activists for the common good constantly face - claim it as she claims it. Go find your allies irl and stop letting powerful men tell you there’s no point trying anything. Your enemy says you’re not a real person, but a thing God put on earth for them to use or destroy.

    Tough love: Hope is hard work. Apathy is an easy trap that flatters your intelligence while it kills your spirit. Trust yourself and make a choice: who is your enemy and how are you going to treat them?

    • @Zombiepirate
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      2011 days ago

      I heard an interview with the sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson, and he said something that I love: “pessimism is almost a dereliction of duty.”

      If we want the world to be a better place, we have to make it a better place.

      • @BeMoreCareful
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        510 days ago

        Lewis or Chesterton had something similar, that optimism and pessimism were both dishonest, but patriotism was necessary to existence. Probably Lewis

    • @[email protected]
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      1510 days ago

      Thank you, this comment section has some of this cynisim already. Yes she’s saying very eviden things but the other side is winning precisely by creating a culture of fear and overwhelming toxicity and locking you in echo chambers that eat at you by making you think their normal is The normal. It’s not lying than to project what you want into the world until enough people are in on it and pressure bad elements into hiding or into changing path.

    • @Randelung
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      10 days ago

      Fuck, dude. Maybe I have become too cynical. I’ve become a little dejected these last few days/weeks/months, but that was actually inspiring.

      I should follow your username’s advice more lol.

      • @StopTouchingYourPhone
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        9 days ago

        Same. The enemy literally studies how to make us give up, and these screens we’re constantly touching are totally part of it.

        snip from the last good thing I read on reddit:

        The term “disinformation” undersells the problem. Because much of Russia’s social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

        Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that’s how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

        [edited for going on at length]

    • @Snapz
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      510 days ago

      Extremely well said.

      • @captainlezbian
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        29 days ago

        Also for anyone interested in very left wing very American media, there’s a podcast called “Alice Isn’t Dead” that’s basically a radio show of a woman driving a truck looking for her missing wife, filled with musings on America and it’s nature. It’s by the nightvale people and it’s good enough that I have less radicalized friends that enjoy it

        • @captainlezbian
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          29 days ago

          Are people acting like this is new? We’re living in extremely precedented times. Hell even “social condervativism is on the rise while the climate changes catastrophically” describes the situation of the reign of king James the misogynistic of England and Scotland (most notable for his Bible translation, his witch burnings, and his unification of Scotland and England and colonization of the americas and acrually a lot more), at the beginning of the little ice age

  • @cabron_offsets
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    7311 days ago

    Meh. 25% or so love them, another 25% couldn’t be bothered to care.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 days ago

      Nobody could have predicted him to be a bad person. Really, that came as a surprise for everyone 🤡

    • @T00l_shed
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      1911 days ago

      You think the numbers are that low? I’d say tops only 33% of the US still hates nazis. The remainder are split between loving them or being indifferent

      • The Quuuuuill
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        2311 days ago

        i never realized that in the final battle between the forces of good, evil, and indifference that the indifferent would be by far the largest and most dangerous faction

        • @Seleni
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          2811 days ago

          I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

          Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

          -Martin Luther King Jr

          He got it

        • @Passerby6497
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          1311 days ago

          Really? Because it always has been. Or did you forget the classic quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

          • The Quuuuuill
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            911 days ago

            i guess the ancestors tried to tell us about the banality of evil, how badethings happen when good men do nothing, and that the path to hell is paved with good intentions

    • @[email protected]
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      1511 days ago

      25% of people who couldn’t be bothered to care are still considered Nazis as far as I know

  • @[email protected]
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    7211 days ago

    In This Country, We Hate Nazis

    Lol! No they don’t.

    The US has always loved fascism. It’s the only one of two political ideologies it endorses.

    • @A_Random_Idiot
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      2511 days ago

      We love nazis so much we saved half of them after WW2 and brought them back home.

      • @[email protected]
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        910 days ago

        …and the other half was left in Germany to fill up West Germany’s intelligence services.

        • @A_Random_Idiot
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          610 days ago

          and all the remainders that survive mysteriously ended up in Argentina.

          • @[email protected]
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            610 days ago

            Latin America was essentially a retirement resort for fascist war criminals after WW2.

            It turns out that the dictators who was friendly to US corporate interests was also raging Nazi sympathizers. It must be a complete coincidence though and totally not related at all.

    • @Ultraviolet
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      1011 days ago

      And the other is passive fascist enablers.

  • @CharlesDarwin
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    7111 days ago

    I love AOC but I sure hope she has a really good security team. Most of us hate Nazis, but a whole lot of Republicans are actually Nazis and they hate and despise her.

  • @[email protected]
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    5711 days ago

    a gesture (…) resembling a Nazi salute

    Fuck off with that shitlib overcautiousness, HuffPo! The only way it could have been any more obviously a Nazi salute would have been if he had screamed “sieg heil!” while doing it!

  • @[email protected]
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    11 days ago

    ‘In this country, we hate Nazis’

    I wouldn’t be so sure. Trump didn’t win the election in a packet of cereals…

  • @BigBenis
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    4911 days ago

    I want to live in the country she thinks she’s living in…

  • @_wizard
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    3211 days ago

    I greatly appreciate her frustration and look forward to her being the largest voice in dissent.

    • @[email protected]
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      211 days ago

      She’ll be MLK Jr’d before she becomes any sort of real voice. We can’t rely on idolising individuals anymore, that’s what fascists do.

  • Noxy
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    11 days ago

    Fucking preach.

    I really hope AOC considers a 2028 run for President.

    Edit: please fuck off about the uncertainty of 2028 elections, I’m excruciatingly aware, your reminders are not helpful.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 days ago

      Bold of you to assume there will be a 2028 election

      Edit: commenter made a good point. It’s foolish to abandon any potential avenue of change, even if it seems like a lost cause

    • @Scott_of_the_Arctic
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      -811 days ago

      It’s hilarious that you think you’re getting another election before Vance dies of old age. I hope you’re right of course but I’m pretty sure your future “elections” will be performative. You’re going to have to take that right back.

      • Noxy
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        1511 days ago

        Part of fighting for it involves planning in case the fight is successful, and that planning includes picking candidates, so my original comment stands.