Self-Godwinization?

June 26, 2004 2:04 AM

Digital Brown ShirtsBegging the question, WTF? Hot on the heels of this micro-fuhrer furor over the "Gore-Kerry-Hitler" net ad: Gore says something about "Digital Brown Shirts" and some rightwing bloggers adopt it as the new black. (They did decide to remove the swastika from their graphic.) I'm still blinking while I try to fathom this.
posted by StOne (47 comments total)

"Heh heh heh, those liberals are calling us fascists. Let's post pictures of brownshirts and start calling ourselves members of the vast right wing conspiracy on our blogs. That'll show 'em. Heh heh heh."
posted by Veritron at 2:28 AM on June 26, 2004

Who cares? George W. Bush is not getting reelected.
posted by Keyser Soze at 3:03 AM on June 26, 2004

Becoming a 'brownshirt' 3 years after their guy gets in? A bit slow on the draw, aren't they? The real brownshirts would be stomping all over these pansies.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:10 AM on June 26, 2004

I hate Blogosphere Nazis.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:33 AM on June 26, 2004

1) The swastika was offensive to some

Some?
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:37 AM on June 26, 2004

Reminds me of the "Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse." It's just a group making the best of a bad namecalling by turning it into an opportunity to extend their notoriety a bit.

Oh, St0ne, about "begging the question..." ;)
posted by brownpau at 4:40 AM on June 26, 2004

[Whorish self-link approaching] look, I've made fun of the whole Hitler analogy thing for years, and I think it's silly when either side does it. If they want to make light of it, fine. Just don't turn around and feign outrage the next day.

Kerry's statement is dishonest, because that clearly wasn't the nature of Bush's use of the Hitler image. But Bush's team is equally dishonest, because it's from a MoveOn ad that was removed and disavowed by the organization.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:43 AM on June 26, 2004

Begging the question, WTF?

Still, besides being this place in one sentence, it is tagline worthy.
posted by y2karl at 6:40 AM on June 26, 2004

Keyser: that's 're-selected'

I know, I'm sooooo 2000.
posted by moonbird at 6:58 AM on June 26, 2004

Bush, supported by Nazis everywhere!
posted by caddis at 7:02 AM on June 26, 2004

I can't believe any person with even a basic grasp of the history of the Nazi party would sign on for something like this. Of course, that may just be the problem, a lot of people these days don't know what a brownshirt was.

And Gore should be ashamed of himself for comparing people to them in the first place.
posted by CRS at 7:51 AM on June 26, 2004

1) The swastika was offensive to some

Some?

same here, "some" strikes me as really weird.
posted by matteo at 8:22 AM on June 26, 2004

Fuck Midland, Texas...
posted by wfrgms at 8:27 AM on June 26, 2004

I hate to say it, but the infamous quotes by both Hilary Clinton and Gore ("There is a vast right-wing conspiracy" and "Bush is working closely with a network of 'rapid response' digital Brown Shirts") positively beg for satire and ridiculous reactions. Nazi imagery has been exploited by both political parties to shallow, embarassing ends. I see some of you condemn how it's used here, but when it comes time to bring out the now-hoary & lazy comparisons of Bush's actions to Hitler's, some of you truly relish it, acting every bit as silly.

I've made fun of the whole Hitler analogy thing for years, and I think it's silly when either side does it.

Then why doesn't your comic renounce the "bu$h = hitler" crowd?
posted by dhoyt at 8:57 AM on June 26, 2004

dhoyt: It is one thing to say that the other side is a bunch of Nazis. Definitely, this is overused. However, it is an entirely different matter for websites to proudly associate themselves with the Nazis.
posted by caddis at 9:01 AM on June 26, 2004

entirely different matter for websites to proudly associate themselves with the Nazis

I thought it was pretty clear they were taking the original comment and making a dark joke out of it instead of "proudly associating" with any Nazi worldview. Don't get me wrong, it's still lame. But you guys don't really think they literally identify with Nazis do you?

I've got two Cuban friends who always jokingly call each other 'spics' because that's what they've been called for so many years. In a sense, they're using the insult to reflect spite back at the racists themselves.
posted by dhoyt at 9:20 AM on June 26, 2004

I agree with Keyser. Bush may not get re-selected.

I know quite a few people, who have never voted, who say that they are voting AGAINST Bush this coming election. Mind you, I am not crazy or enthusiastic about Kerry, but am happy to know that people, outside the polls and the speculation of the media, are mobilizing almost silently to get that damned boob out of the White House.
posted by RubberHen at 9:27 AM on June 26, 2004

I thought it was pretty clear they were taking the original comment and making a dark joke out of it instead of "proudly associating" with any Nazi worldview.

That's obviously the intent, but that the original image kept the swastika is pretty surprising. It's one thing to reclaim words that are used to reduce an enemy, like "spic" or "fag", but it comes across differently when the accusation is not that you're worthless but that you're powerful and oppressive.
posted by mdn at 9:46 AM on June 26, 2004

Begging the question, WTF?

Still, besides being this place in one sentence, it is tagline worthy.

Actually, I know I should just give up on this, but "begging the question" does not mean "raising the question" or even "forcing the question." It's a logical fallacy with a specific meaning: embedding the conclusion in the premise.

Here is some reading on the issue.
posted by argybarg at 9:47 AM on June 26, 2004

Oh, brownpau (and, on preview, argybarg), about "begging the question"...

I have no idea why people are so insistent about this particular bit of arcane philosophical vocabulary, unless it's simply about that warm feeling of knowing better than everyone else. But the fact is that "everyone else" determines the language, not you.
posted by languagehat at 9:57 AM on June 26, 2004

Hey, I'm part of "everyone else", so I get to determine the language too.
posted by hattifattener at 10:08 AM on June 26, 2004

Fuck Midland, Texas...

no texas bashing please. or i'll be forced to kick you in your ass.
posted by bob sarabia at 10:20 AM on June 26, 2004

And Gore should be ashamed of himself for comparing people to them in the first place.

Comparison does not imply equivalence.

1) The swastika was offensive to some

Some?

An image is not offensive to me, although the use of a particular image may well be. So since I am not included in the "all" which you imply, "some" is technically accurate.

But the fact is that "everyone else" determines the language, not you.

Which is precisely why it is important to try to influence "everyone else" not to make stupid linguistic errors BEFORE they become dominant.
posted by rushmc at 10:28 AM on June 26, 2004

These people go to a lot of work to show their level of mental retardation.
posted by moonbiter at 10:55 AM on June 26, 2004

Which is precisely why it is important to try to influence "everyone else" not to make stupid linguistic errors BEFORE they become dominant

Quite true, but it's important to realize when the battle is lost, and in this case the battle was lost almost as soon as it was joined. It's one thing to try to preserve the -- shall we say "Fowler"? -- sense of disinterested, which was a useful sense that served for quite a long time, but quite another to try to preserve an arcane philosophical meaning that hardly ever comes up. The phrase has an obvious sense based on the plain meanings of the words in English, and that's the sense it's been used in from the git-go except by people familiar with petitio principii, approximately 0.0001% of the population. So there's no excuse for "correcting" people who use it in what has to be called the normal way except to show off how smart/elite/educated you are, which is an unappealing motive.

On topic: Nazis are bad.
posted by languagehat at 11:14 AM on June 26, 2004

You can talk tough online, but these folks are quite intimidating in real life:

posted by 2sheets at 11:27 AM on June 26, 2004

*ahem* the Swastika is still used in some contexts related to buddhism, such as marking the location of buddhist centers on Asian maps.

On a more salient note. I find it interesting that we are so over-sensitized that one takes quite a bit of risk in appropriating Nazi imagry for satire.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:56 PM on June 26, 2004

Browshirts is sooo 2002, they're the 101st Fighting Keyboarders now.
posted by skallas at 2:00 PM on June 26, 2004

but it's important to realize when the battle is lost, and in this case the battle was lost almost as soon as it was joined.

Methinks you give up too easily. And I must say that I find it a bit patronizing to write off the intelligence/education level of 99.9999% of the population!
posted by rushmc at 3:19 PM on June 26, 2004

Here is some reading on the issue.

You know, that should be a tagline, too.
posted by y2karl at 3:23 PM on June 26, 2004

skallas is right, use a name that takes away their perceived power and laughs at it, rather than builds it up.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:35 PM on June 26, 2004

So there's no excuse for "correcting" people who use it in what has to be called the normal way except to show off how smart/elite/educated you are, which is an unappealing motive.

It is an unappealing motive, but it isn't mine. "Beg the question" is a useful phrase for an important concept. Without it, we're left with, as you demonstrated, petitio principii, which isn't on anyone's lips.

Similar: Why fight usages such as "that literally makes my blood boil"? Because without "literally" there's no way to say "literally." Ditto "beg the question."

And it's odd, because I generally agree, enthusiatically even, that grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes what we say.

What I don't get is why it is unacceptable for people to haggle over meanings and word usage -- to say "let's keep this; it's worth saving," or just to debate and discuss.

Is that sort of debate impermissible? Does it interfere with the "natural" course of language (as if there were some language community that was perfectly naive about its own words)? Must the participants in a language community remain impartial just to keep descriptive grammarians in a pure state?
posted by argybarg at 4:16 PM on June 26, 2004

Google search for "digital brown shirts": 252 hits
Google search for "hitlery": 6,170 hits
Google search for "feminazi": 10,800 hits
Google searching for selective outrage: priceless
posted by CrazyJub at 4:16 PM on June 26, 2004

Then why doesn't your comic renounce the "bu$h = hitler" crowd?

Tell you what, skippy. You Bush toadies "renounce" the AWOL lieutenant and his draft-dodging VP, who both pretend to be pro-veteran. You "renounce" the right-wing moonbat idiots who stole an election. You "renounce" the incompetents who botched and gutted security before 9/11. You "renounce" the panic-stricken Barksdale buffoon who couldn't tear himself away from kindergarten story time to mount any response to invaders heavily armed with box-cutters. You "renounce" the chickenhawks who've bravely and decisively destroyed two sovereign countries, wrecked any chance for peace in the Mideast, and made a world-wide laughingstock of America. You "renounce" the Bush admin officials whose idea of supporting American intelligence/security organizations is revealing the identities of intelligence operatives. You "renounce" the flight-suited "Mission Accomplished" fuckwit who quibbles and lies ad libertum about "WMDs", "terrorist connections", "sovereignty for Iraqis", "no-more torture for Iraqis" (all with such wonderful results like bringing a nation to the brink of anarchy, wrecking its infrastructure, killing its civilians, and butchering young Americans.) You "renounce" Bush pandering to the economic interests of his "base" (the rich), and "renounce" Cheney pandering to his "former" employers. You renounce the yellow neo-conservative ideology that is dragging this country toward ruin.

Yeah. You do all that (for starters). Then maybe we'll quit rubbing your face in the disturbing little fact that Bush is among the worst and most corrupt political leaders in the past 100 years....or more.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 5:26 PM on June 26, 2004

You forgot the cretinous ~chuckle~

And you're barking up the wrong tree if you think I ever voted for Bush, supported Bush or identify with Republican politics in general, ya little drama queen. I don't support any of the things you listed above, but humorless and whingy as you are I don't doubt you've already cooked up a cartoonish far-right image of me in your mind, so I won't bother to dispel it or to renounce Bush--that's usually accomplished by a dozen other users long before I even enter the thread.
posted by dhoyt at 6:28 PM on June 26, 2004

So, dhoyt, get with the renouncing.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:13 PM on June 26, 2004

I renounce dyhot's refusal to renounce!
posted by eustacescrubb at 7:27 PM on June 26, 2004

I was gonna just leave my joke and run, but couldn't:

Gore was not necessarily making a Nazi analogy (though if he was, what of it? Someone can do something like the Nazis did without being a Nazi, after all... ).

The term "Brown Shirt" does have the Sturmabteilung as the root of its etymology, but the term has been used for years to refer to the rank and file of the extreme right, esepcially those who are narrow-minded and dogmatic. Gore was most likely using the term in this sense, and not as an analogy.
posted by eustacescrubb at 7:35 PM on June 26, 2004

Andrew Sullivan today quotes an FDR speech from 1940 about "weakening a nation at its very roots." Sullivan editorializes, saying, "I wonder what Roosevelt would have made of Michael Moore, don't you?" Andrew Sullivan yesterday linked to a Jake Tapper interview with Michael Moore. Says "Some tough questions to which our very own Leni Riefenstahl has no good answers."

Best use of the swastika in the KirkJobSluder sense: Master of the Flying Guillotine.
posted by CrazyJub at 8:27 PM on June 26, 2004

I know, "begging the question" would be "Have you stopped beating your wife being a grammar Nazi?"

But thanks so much.
posted by StOne at 8:49 PM on June 26, 2004

Then maybe we'll quit rubbing your face in the disturbing little fact that Bush is among the worst and most corrupt political leaders in the past 100 years....or more.

dhoyt is not suggesting anyone renounce calling Bush one of the worst and most corrupt political leaders in the past 100 years or more. This is ordinary partisanship and Bush supporters generally recognize it as such. He is, rather, suggesting people refrain from equating Bush with Hitler. The latter of course being a man for whom the description "one of the worst and most corrupt political leaders in the past 100 years or more" is such a laughably horrific understatement that no one would ever take anything you said seriously ever again if you dared utter it in relation to him. The former... not so much.
posted by kindall at 10:05 PM on June 26, 2004

[with apologies to Jello Biafra]

Blog ain't no religious cult
Blog means thinking for yourself
You ain't hardcore cos you write your code
When a jock still lives inside your head

Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs? Fuck Off!

Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs? Fuck Off!

If you've come to fight, get outa here
You ain't no better than the neocons
We ain't trying to self-police
When you are the cops it ain't community

Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs? Fuck Off!

Ten guys snark one, what a man
You fight each other, the police state wins
Stab your backs when you trash our links
Trash a bank if you've got real dinks

You still think dropshadows look cool
The real nazis are freeper fools
Teachers, businessmen and cops
In a real fourth reich you'll be the first to go

Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs
Nazi blogs? Fuck Off!

You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
Unless you think
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:40 AM on June 27, 2004

Associating yourself with anything Nazi-related seems implausibly stupid to one's cause, unless your cause is to entertain. And lord knows, there is nothing funnier than a comic Nazi. As a service, I'd like to inform the 101st Fighting Keyboardists of what and what is not humor in regards to using Nazis as entertainment. South Park, Charlie Chaplin, any Jew:

As Hitler's armies faced more and more setbacks, he asked his astrologer, "Am I going to lose the war?"
"Yes," the astrologer said.
"Then, am I going to die?" Hitler asked.
"Yes."
"When am I going to die?"
"On a Jewish holiday."
"But on what holiday?"
"Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday."

posted by ericrolph at 8:16 AM on June 27, 2004

stavros, that was beautiful.
posted by homunculus at 11:33 AM on June 27, 2004

(The back-and-forth about semantics may well be as worthwhile as anything else in this thread, but to address the parent post...or deliver the eulogy, if that's more fitting... excuse the length)

It was a true "WTF?" moment for me which prompted the post. "Humorless handwringer?" Yeah, they've really got me all figured out! Not. But that's of no consequence.
I can see the point they're trying to make, but can they not smell the stench inherent in this funny little brainfart somebody had? If Gore (or Chomsky or some other Emmanuel Goldstein standin) had maligned them as pedophilac serial killers, would they whip up an Insane Gacy Posse badge of honor to wear on their blogs? "It's a joke, duh, we're not really into that! What is your problem?"

To me, it's an unfortunate illustration of how Us v. Them groupthink leads to things like...well, Fascism. I don't brand somebody a racist because they put a Rebel flag on their pickup truck (I'd even get one myself just to be a rebel against PC groupthink), but if they strut around in Klan robes, or get a swastika tattoo, I have to take that at face value. The swastika (albeit a reversed of the Thousand-Year Reich's version) was an ancient Native American symbol, but it's poisoned, toxic, radioactive, like all things Nazi. OK, that's been airbrushed out, but that's still a photo of a Nazi in uniform.

I'm not Jewish and have met very few Jews in my lifetime, but I'd wear a Star of David armband in solidarity, as some Gentiles did during the Holocaust. I'm sure these Digital BSers would too. Maybe somebody can explain to them why this is the Hindenberg of blog-joke-memes.

I'd never been to Jessica's Well before, and have never heard of, let alone ever read, most of the 25 blogs listed (the last time I checked) as "joining" or linking to The Alliance of Digital Brownshirts and who otherwise understand satire when they see it. I was careful to use the phrase "some rightwing bloggers," because I had my doubts that most would clutch this particular asp to their bosoms. I stumbled across this at Wizbangblog, but the post there was made by one Paul, a guest poster whose anti-Dem screeds I habitually scroll past, and not by the site's owner, Kevin Aylward, who evidently has not (as yet) "joined" this little movement, though he hasn't denounced it either.

And incidentally, it was the first I'd heard of Gore's remarks, which are of little interest to me anyway. I rather doubt he heard of these particular bloggers either. The former vice president also said the administration works with "a network of 'rapid response' digital Brown Shirts'' that pressure reporters and editors, a reference to Nazi supporters of the 1930s. (source: Boston Herald) This suggests to me that Gore is unaquainted with Godwin's Law, but not that these obscure bloggers were the target of his remarks, however much they yearn for that kind of attention.

If I had a blog, I might put up a Nazi picture, but the caption would simply read Never Forget. Sad to say, apparently some people have.
posted by StOne at 3:38 PM on June 27, 2004

Fascism - The loose amalgam of aspirations and influences crystallized in the early 20th-century governments of Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and General Franco in Spain. Elements include nationalism; hostility to ideals of equality; hatred of minorities, degenerates, and deviants; elitism; hostility towards the ideals of liberalism, and in particular towards freedom of expression. . . need I say more?
posted by phewbertie at 4:08 AM on June 28, 2004

Aggghhh. That should have been "Never Again," not "Never Forget," but then again, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

And those who (blush, squirm) do not remember even simple things like that are condemned to splash their mistakes upon webpages. Sorry again, about the terminal verbosity™, the typos which eluded my eye, and the whole Sturm-und-Drang tone of it all. Maybe I should think about starting a(nother) blog after all...though I wouldn't want that to get around

(and, yes, stavros' contribution was beautiful. The sort of thing which cries out for a "Heh...Indeed.")
posted by StOne at 6:44 AM on June 28, 2004