That NYT headline about Musk is really the most NYT-iest thing in the world. Any 10 year old child who has seen even one WWII movie can recognize the Nazi salute. But the NYT is determined to remain utterly baffled. What was Musk trying to signal? What can it possibly mean?
We've known the legacy media have been in the tank for Trump for ages now, but in addition to their belief Trump II will be good for business and good for them personally, I also think they're afraid because this time he's bringing the richest man in the world with him. Musk has already sued Media Matters. So you get nonsense from the legacy media like does the sieg heil salute have some secret double meaning?
Our only hope is to couch all our comments about these losers in such transparently comical terms the we walk on the strength of the freedom to make fun of these jamokes as certified in the Constitution.
What other choice than baffled do they have, though? Calling it anything like an "obvious" Nazi salute is begging for a defamation suit from The Richest Man In The World. Ignore it, write about the controversy. One approach they could take is to write about the undying love of trolling the libs and how this fits that pattern, but that might look like taking sides, wouldn't be prudent.
Elmo OBVIOUSLY had a pocket full of hard candy on his left side which he intended to throw open-palmed at the audience much like Oberscheissführer yeeted his pronunciamento pens to them, but got distracted by the gravitas of the moment.
I'm from Ohio and I hate to tell Mr. Ramalammadingdong - "Indian" is definitely the least favorite shade of brown among the Rubes here in the Buckeye State . You want to get them going, say something about " I had to call the 800 number for parts, I could hardly understand what the guy was saying"
They all have stories. I wouldn't be surprised if someday aliens from the far future discover white people destroyed the world over hurt feelings from a bad callcenter connection.
Snoop and Vivek and Kanye and the rest need to understand that it's a White Power Party.
Gulf of America is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard . We will never live down the shame.
Gulf of North Central America is everso slightly feasible, tho. It's what I'd vote for, if it came to it.
And anyway, Freddie Freeloader doesn't give a rat's patoot about bodies of water (unless he can figure out how to own them and wring every last drop of profit from them); he just gets 'gulf' mixed up with 'golf'.
There's an early Frank Sinatra movie, It Happened in Brooklyn, where he sings a song to the Brooklyn Bridge, which includes this:
The folks in Manhattan are sad,
They look at her and wish they had
The good old Brooklyn bridge
But sorry, Frank, the reason it's called the Brooklyn bridge is because it's how you get to Brooklyn FROM MANHATTAN. If Brooklyn was the Center of the Universe, it would be called the Manhattan bridge.
Maybe it goes back to my childhood, didn't Hope always have a putter with him when he appeared on the Tonight Show? From that, I might have come to associate golf with fatuous, unfunny people.
Hope was good in those Road movies with Bing (not great, but OK), it's a shame he didn't die young in a car accident, people today would probably be remembering him as some kind of comic genius.
Hmmm. Got an update from what we occasionally call ‘round these parts ‘the real world’.
In a couple hours I will be interviewed by journalists from Once, what I’ve been advised is ‘like the Mexican NPR’. They are colleagues of our nextdoor neighbor. This being DC, this sort of thing happens often.
Anyway, what they want to know is what the average American thinks about 47. So I am now sitting on the bike on its stationary thingy, pedaling furiously, thinking about what I think about him.
Sorry Vivek, but Trumpism works for Trump, and mostly doesn't work for anyone else. Ask Dr Oz or Herschel Walker or Kari Lake, if you're not sure about that.
They had those little stickers out of Joe Biden pointing at something. They stuck them on the gas pumps next to the price. On the sticker it said "I did that!"
I need one of those of Trump for the egg case at the supermarket.
You pwned me so hard here, Roy. I was going around to weird search engines thinking "the crazy bastards scrubbed it!" then the light bulb came on, belatedly and dimly.
Of course. And when Trump inevitably appears drooling and demented and completely non compos mentis, they'll simply start showing clips of him from 2016 while narrating over the clip with whatever the officially sanctioned news is.
Wait, didn't they already do that through the whole campaign? I never saw a clip of Trump speaking that lasted more than a second or two, the rest was over-narrated: "The former President spoke of his concerns about immigration and the high price of eggs."
Speaking of him speaking, have you ever seen a less charismatic speaker than Trump? He's like some guy a couple of beers in, droning away on his couch. I just don't see what he does as a speaker that gets people amped, and never have.
On a sidebar: The Guardian got up to some world-class Bothesiderism yesterday, reporting that Joe Biden's last-minute pardons 'ruffled some feathers' across both parties... really? Is that fucking necessary? We're plunging headlong into the Dark Ages but that was worth mentioning? Rationality's last gasp will be televised, apparently, and badly. Instead of screaming into my pillow (again) I came here. Hi fellow sane people!
The Guardian is in the middle of a thing, a transfer of ownership from a trust set up to fund it to a very sketchy startup with no apparant business plan for running it. There's a woman journalist from the Guardian on Substack writing about it (and fighting it).
I had the same SMH experience reading the Guardian’s Newsletter yesterday. It went on at length about Tubby’s EOs in a neutral voice, but mentioned Biden’s in that tut-tutting manner that evinces Murc’s Law. Pissed me off royally.
Once the two major parties handling the national government of the United States agreed* that American law is without illegitimacy, we are left with one question: which Reich is it now? Historians** centuries hence will be left to count the Reichs on their fingers, pondering...
I got as far on that last one as "the poem called 'The Snake'" and I immediately bailed because I sensed MAGA lore so deep Alex Jones could pull iodine crystals out it.
Nah. He just read the poem (printed in very large letters across several pages) and attributed it incorrectly to Al Wilson (which, to be fair, is a very good alt. take recording). I mean sure, MAGAs eat that stuff up, and it looked like almost every one of them had heard it before, straight from him. So there was a boredom factor* therein.
*Originally typed 'boredom factory' and I cannot say it was incorrect.
I completely agree with this entire post. I don't quite understand what the big deal is. It wasn't a Nazi salute. It was a Nazi -style- salute. It's in all the headlines that way.
Besides, Musk is a relatively young man-bro and can't be expected to understand what that gesture has meant going back as far as the 1930's. Plus he's a South African and they don't get much in the way of news so he may have grown up completely unaware that such a gesture, even when innocently made as this obviously was, might be misconstrued. Sort of like mistaking a Cybertruck for a dumpster on wheels. They both may look the same but one is "dumpster-style" and therefore completely different.
"Plus he's a South African and they don't get much in the way of news so he may have grown up completely unaware that such a gesture, even when innocently made as this obviously was, might be misconstrued."
"... in July 1986, in order to accommodate English speakers, the SABC began to simulcast the original soundtrack of American series on an FM radio service called Radio 2000. These included Miami Vice (known as Misdaad in Miami) The Six Million Dollar Man, (Steve Austin: Die Man van Staal)"
So, if I've got this straight, you were an English-speaker in SA, you tune your TV to Misdaad in Miami or Man van Staal, then turn on an FM radio for the sound?
I think Musk was trolling and signaling in a particular way. Neo-Nazi doesn't capture it.
He is extraordinarily childish and wholly immersed in an online culture that's surely eating this up. He wants to be the King of the Edgelords. The vile, nihilistic underbelly of the Web will worship him. Imagine the stunts he can accomplish, openly and without consequences. But I think it's important to Musk and to them that he does it all with a characteristic style. Post-sincerity is one element. It's hard to describe. These cats are too cool for skool!
I am convinced his worldview overlaps with neo-Nazis, but he would never deify Hitler anymore than Trump would. They view themselves as bigger and better than Hitler. No losing wars for them, no committing suicide in a bunker. No getting hung up on Jews. The Third Reich was quaint and more than a little embarrassing. So German, so earnest.
Fair. Can we now move on to determine the exact iteration of Reich this is now? We're pretty sure we know when the 3rd was, and I have a strong inclination to believe that installation of Gehlen and the rest of the (surviving) nazi intelligence officers into West Germany's spynet (aided by Bormann's legacy of cash) can be considered the 4th, so for my money we're now in the top of the 5th. What we are forced to hope is that the bottom of the 5th is coming real soon. And the rest of the Reichs be cancelled on account of rain.
My favoritest Yogimoment (there are many, I admit) is when Don Larson is looking toward Yogi running toward him after the last pitch of the perfect game. Imagine that instant: the reality that in about one second an animated steam engine will crash directly into you...
Berra joined the United States Navy in 1943, and served as a gunner's mate on the attack transport USS Bayfield during the Normandy landings. A Second Class Seaman, Berra was one of a six-man crew on a Navy rocket boat, firing machine guns and launching rockets at the German defenses on Omaha Beach. He was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart medal.
I basically agree as to Elon's "beliefs" -- e.g., he'd rather be the ultimate edgelord than join the Gestapo -- but I also apply Ken White's Rule of Goats:
If you fuck a goat, that makes you a goatfucker. It doesn't matter if you're fucking the goat ironically or to troll someone. You're still the guy who fucked a goat.
Likewise, if you throw up a Nazi salute, that makes you a Nazi. It doesn't matter if you're throwing it up ironically or to troll someone. You're still a Nazi who threw up a sieg heil.
I'd bet everything in my pockets against everything in Musk's pockets that the obscure arm gesture was pure lib-owning, but your point stands. Every public display of approval of Nazisim, ironic or not, nudges the legitimacy of Nazisim a little further along. At best you're a useful dupe legitimzing the tenets of National Socialism.
Fair. But we've all seen how this goes. They will call the gesture an obscure Hindu fertility sign or whatever smug bullshit they come up with. Then we will see all the people at Trump rallies "ironically" throwing up the salute to own those sensitive libs who don't get the joke. And Trump smirks and approves. Then the NYT does a safari: "Some Say This Gesture Is A Nazi Salute. But Here In This Pennsylvania Diner..." And Nazism itself starts to become normalized. As I say, we've been down this road many times during Trump 1.
Which raises the question: how should "we" react? I mean, is anyone suprised? Shocked? That's really counter-productive, because that's exactly what he was hoping for. The more appropriate response is worry, I guess, but thats pretty passive. There's going to be lots more of these self-indulgent lib-triggering displays, and people should find other ways to disapprove than shock and outrage. It hasn't done any good, and it gives them the role of smug superiority they crave. Just wait for the Proud Boys parades, coming to a town near you.
1. Yes, that's what Ohioans want for their governor: a person with no governmental experience, who keeps swastikas around his house and who suffers from Tourette's.
2. We're going to let the fact that there's a person named Faith Gesellschaft go uninterrogated?
After the audio artifact occurred, Rogan asked Ramaswamy, “Did you just say what I think you said?” “What?” said Ramaswamy, “I didn’t say anything.” “I coulda swore you said something kinda, like, harsh,” Rogan said. “I said ‘harsh’? I didn’t say harsh,” Ramaswamy countered. “No,” said Rogan, “I mean the thing you said was harsh, not the word ‘harsh.’” “So you’re retracting your accusation,” Ramaswamy shot back.
This is *specifically* what makes Ramaswamy so repellent: this Bad Faith Meets Debate Club gotcha mongering. Vivek must have been one of those lads, when young, who grabbed another kid's wrist, used it to slap the kid, and demanded, "Why are you hitting yourself?"
Spokesman for the American Academy of Audiology: “I don’t know why you called us about this. What Ramaswamy said was obvious to anyone with normal hearing and you don’t have to be an audiologist to say so.” And the Times prints *this*? Let me dream longer.
Faith Gesellschaft may be a piece of work, but Roy outdoes himself with the character naming.
It’s only a Nazi salute when Greg Abbott does it from his wheelchair during his annual “Dr. Strangelove” cosplay party. The rest of the time it’s an entirely normal Italian Fascist salute.
It's like the end of War of the Worlds, where the Martians are finally done in by bacteria to which we were immune: "It was these, the littlest things, the low-density lipoprotein cholesterols, put here by God in his wisdom, that saved humanity."
"We coulda stayed home and enjoyed it fer what it was, but NO! The Big Veggie said 'GO fellow plants! SEIZE and KILLthem! Take joy in the lamentations of their wimmins!'
and what'd we get? Friggin' SALTWATER! Stupid earth!"
British Sci-Fi movies, it's always some "boffin" who comes in at the end with the trick that rids England of all alien infestations, often involving high voltage.
That NYT headline about Musk is really the most NYT-iest thing in the world. Any 10 year old child who has seen even one WWII movie can recognize the Nazi salute. But the NYT is determined to remain utterly baffled. What was Musk trying to signal? What can it possibly mean?
Maude help us: the online page is giddily in for tRump..
We've known the legacy media have been in the tank for Trump for ages now, but in addition to their belief Trump II will be good for business and good for them personally, I also think they're afraid because this time he's bringing the richest man in the world with him. Musk has already sued Media Matters. So you get nonsense from the legacy media like does the sieg heil salute have some secret double meaning?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his lawyer tells him he'd damn well better remain confused.
Our only hope is to couch all our comments about these losers in such transparently comical terms the we walk on the strength of the freedom to make fun of these jamokes as certified in the Constitution.
Right on, Maude!
Melon's political leanings are a mystery wrapped in a burrito.
Hey now...
[San Francisco Mission District burrito army grabbin' muskets]
Sure, but what kind of salute does THAT army use?
¡Saludos amigo! ¿Quieres guacamole con eso?
Helpful hint: Do NOT ask to see their badges.
What other choice than baffled do they have, though? Calling it anything like an "obvious" Nazi salute is begging for a defamation suit from The Richest Man In The World. Ignore it, write about the controversy. One approach they could take is to write about the undying love of trolling the libs and how this fits that pattern, but that might look like taking sides, wouldn't be prudent.
Elmo OBVIOUSLY had a pocket full of hard candy on his left side which he intended to throw open-palmed at the audience much like Oberscheissführer yeeted his pronunciamento pens to them, but got distracted by the gravitas of the moment.
After reading I was left wondering, satire or actual reporting? It’s gonna be a long four years.
Poe's Law, in action!
"Faith Gesellschaft"!!
You never disappoint.(and I quit saying "WTF, ADL?" maybe 15 years back..)
Had to be offline yesterday: and catching up: fighting nausea now.
Well take it easy!
ADL has got to stand for "Anti-Defense League" at this point.
And I wouldn't trust a thing Faith Geheimstaatspoliziei says.
"Israeli Defense Forces" was taken.
Thank you.
I'm from Ohio and I hate to tell Mr. Ramalammadingdong - "Indian" is definitely the least favorite shade of brown among the Rubes here in the Buckeye State . You want to get them going, say something about " I had to call the 800 number for parts, I could hardly understand what the guy was saying"
They all have stories. I wouldn't be surprised if someday aliens from the far future discover white people destroyed the world over hurt feelings from a bad callcenter connection.
Snoop and Vivek and Kanye and the rest need to understand that it's a White Power Party.
Gulf of America is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard . We will never live down the shame.
Incidentally that's what I call him too (when I have to).
To me, he will always be "Vivek Wannasalami."
Careful, he has precedent to treat intentional mispronunciation of his name as libel.
(That said, I go with "Reallysmarmy")
How about Virtual Realityswami?
Better than "Fake Vivek", and the guy who thought of that one for the DeSantis campaign got more money than you and I will ever see.
T'was for a good cause...
Gulf of North Central America is everso slightly feasible, tho. It's what I'd vote for, if it came to it.
And anyway, Freddie Freeloader doesn't give a rat's patoot about bodies of water (unless he can figure out how to own them and wring every last drop of profit from them); he just gets 'gulf' mixed up with 'golf'.
There's an early Frank Sinatra movie, It Happened in Brooklyn, where he sings a song to the Brooklyn Bridge, which includes this:
The folks in Manhattan are sad,
They look at her and wish they had
The good old Brooklyn bridge
But sorry, Frank, the reason it's called the Brooklyn bridge is because it's how you get to Brooklyn FROM MANHATTAN. If Brooklyn was the Center of the Universe, it would be called the Manhattan bridge.
GULF OF BIGLY GOLDEN FREEDOM
Gulf of yooge n' oily spills
Remember when Bob 'BIG SHILL FOR TEXACO' Hope hit a golf ball offa the oil rig? Claimed he hit it a little short?
Not particularly good times, no...
I knew there was a reason I hate golf.
Maybe it goes back to my childhood, didn't Hope always have a putter with him when he appeared on the Tonight Show? From that, I might have come to associate golf with fatuous, unfunny people.
Hope was good in those Road movies with Bing (not great, but OK), it's a shame he didn't die young in a car accident, people today would probably be remembering him as some kind of comic genius.
I read the Ohio thing as just an attempt to save face after getting booted from Doge.
Re the gulf thing, the best response I’ve seen is we should petition to rename the US “North Mexico” for the next four years.
Mexico is at least as entitled to refight the wars of northern intrusion as Russia is re: the unpleasantnesses to the west.
Hmmm. Got an update from what we occasionally call ‘round these parts ‘the real world’.
In a couple hours I will be interviewed by journalists from Once, what I’ve been advised is ‘like the Mexican NPR’. They are colleagues of our nextdoor neighbor. This being DC, this sort of thing happens often.
Anyway, what they want to know is what the average American thinks about 47. So I am now sitting on the bike on its stationary thingy, pedaling furiously, thinking about what I think about him.
Should be…
amusing…
Well, I will be waiting to hear how Bern puts average over.
Yeah me too
I hope it's a video interview then.
Lights, cameras, action?
This Americans thinks he's an asshole.
That's pretty abrupt but to the point.
Radio producer makes that "stretch it out" gesture.
Hearted, but in the context of what you actually wrote...yikes.
Sorry Vivek, but Trumpism works for Trump, and mostly doesn't work for anyone else. Ask Dr Oz or Herschel Walker or Kari Lake, if you're not sure about that.
1. Rename Gulf of Mexico
2. ???
3. Grocery prices come down
They had those little stickers out of Joe Biden pointing at something. They stuck them on the gas pumps next to the price. On the sticker it said "I did that!"
I need one of those of Trump for the egg case at the supermarket.
Speaking of Snoop, my friend Eugene S Robinson had a good take on that: https://open.substack.com/pub/eugenesrobinson/p/snoop-dogg-did-us-wrong-or-did-he?r=ilo2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
You pwned me so hard here, Roy. I was going around to weird search engines thinking "the crazy bastards scrubbed it!" then the light bulb came on, belatedly and dimly.
Don't speak too soon https://bsky.app/profile/edroso.bsky.social/post/3lgavpbpun22n
Of course. And when Trump inevitably appears drooling and demented and completely non compos mentis, they'll simply start showing clips of him from 2016 while narrating over the clip with whatever the officially sanctioned news is.
Wait, didn't they already do that through the whole campaign? I never saw a clip of Trump speaking that lasted more than a second or two, the rest was over-narrated: "The former President spoke of his concerns about immigration and the high price of eggs."
You know it. https://edroso.substack.com/p/doody-cant-fail
Speaking of him speaking, have you ever seen a less charismatic speaker than Trump? He's like some guy a couple of beers in, droning away on his couch. I just don't see what he does as a speaker that gets people amped, and never have.
Well, you and I hate him, and that's enough for some people.
Small minded people gonna small mind.
Nom compost mentis
Santiago de Compost Mentis
Mint compost is trending!
A mind is terrible thing to compost!
His mind wants EVERYTHING comped!
SAME! I have to go reread it now. Lol
On a sidebar: The Guardian got up to some world-class Bothesiderism yesterday, reporting that Joe Biden's last-minute pardons 'ruffled some feathers' across both parties... really? Is that fucking necessary? We're plunging headlong into the Dark Ages but that was worth mentioning? Rationality's last gasp will be televised, apparently, and badly. Instead of screaming into my pillow (again) I came here. Hi fellow sane people!
You will always have a home with us, Doc
You get that pillow from the King?
LOL
The Guardian is in the middle of a thing, a transfer of ownership from a trust set up to fund it to a very sketchy startup with no apparant business plan for running it. There's a woman journalist from the Guardian on Substack writing about it (and fighting it).
Yeah, enjoy it whilst you can.
I thought that was the Observer? The Guardian is still owned by the foundation, the Observer is a Sunday-only print paper, I think.
You are correct, sir! as Ed McMahon would say. The woman is Carole Cadwalladr.
Where's a cad-walloper when your need one? So many cads about, in need of a good walloping.
If only the wallopings worked. But Ms. C. is on the job (most prominently, going back to Cambridge Analytica). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Cadwalladr
Her reporting on pretty much everything she chooses to report on has been consistently great.
I thought it was a two-iron. Learn something new. . .
She's missing an "E" which I assume Elmo ground up and snorted
Wow, thanks for the intel.
As SteveB corrected me, its the Observer, not the Guardian. Check out Carole Cadwalladr on Substack.
I do not rule out bleedthru from the one t’other. Everything is now transactional.
Ah, you didn't use the online translator, I see: In England, "ruffled some feathers" is the equivalent of "chinga tu madre" in Spanish.
Dos markies!
I had the same SMH experience reading the Guardian’s Newsletter yesterday. It went on at length about Tubby’s EOs in a neutral voice, but mentioned Biden’s in that tut-tutting manner that evinces Murc’s Law. Pissed me off royally.
Once the two major parties handling the national government of the United States agreed* that American law is without illegitimacy, we are left with one question: which Reich is it now? Historians** centuries hence will be left to count the Reichs on their fingers, pondering...
*Either by their actions, or inactions
**HA!
For alla you reptile lovers:
The original, and still the best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNr5sWMbdEc
Update for these times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VeRO2eE1iU
and this, from the Snake himself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrOXvoNLwg
ReichForce Five, Electric Exploding Car Boogaloo
The Brown family's response to the unauthorized use in video #3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yix7MJ9Wsio
I got as far on that last one as "the poem called 'The Snake'" and I immediately bailed because I sensed MAGA lore so deep Alex Jones could pull iodine crystals out it.
Nah. He just read the poem (printed in very large letters across several pages) and attributed it incorrectly to Al Wilson (which, to be fair, is a very good alt. take recording). I mean sure, MAGAs eat that stuff up, and it looked like almost every one of them had heard it before, straight from him. So there was a boredom factor* therein.
*Originally typed 'boredom factory' and I cannot say it was incorrect.
Never heard of this poem. Did Don Prudhoe write it?
The great Oscar Brown composed the song and wrote the lyrics.
I completely agree with this entire post. I don't quite understand what the big deal is. It wasn't a Nazi salute. It was a Nazi -style- salute. It's in all the headlines that way.
Besides, Musk is a relatively young man-bro and can't be expected to understand what that gesture has meant going back as far as the 1930's. Plus he's a South African and they don't get much in the way of news so he may have grown up completely unaware that such a gesture, even when innocently made as this obviously was, might be misconstrued. Sort of like mistaking a Cybertruck for a dumpster on wheels. They both may look the same but one is "dumpster-style" and therefore completely different.
When the dumpster catches fire it transforms (magically!) into a cybertruck...
"Plus he's a South African and they don't get much in the way of news so he may have grown up completely unaware that such a gesture, even when innocently made as this obviously was, might be misconstrued."
Periodic reminder that South Africa didn't get television until 1976: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_South_Africa#Introduction_of_television
From your reminder alone, it seems like they may have HAD television, they just didn't GET it.
"... in July 1986, in order to accommodate English speakers, the SABC began to simulcast the original soundtrack of American series on an FM radio service called Radio 2000. These included Miami Vice (known as Misdaad in Miami) The Six Million Dollar Man, (Steve Austin: Die Man van Staal)"
So, if I've got this straight, you were an English-speaker in SA, you tune your TV to Misdaad in Miami or Man van Staal, then turn on an FM radio for the sound?
Glad somebody understands this important distinction, it's like the difference between racism and "racially-tinged comments."
Racism vs. a little light racialism as a treat
Where have you been?
The wheels are bigger on the CyberDumpster.
It holds more junk, too
I think Musk was trolling and signaling in a particular way. Neo-Nazi doesn't capture it.
He is extraordinarily childish and wholly immersed in an online culture that's surely eating this up. He wants to be the King of the Edgelords. The vile, nihilistic underbelly of the Web will worship him. Imagine the stunts he can accomplish, openly and without consequences. But I think it's important to Musk and to them that he does it all with a characteristic style. Post-sincerity is one element. It's hard to describe. These cats are too cool for skool!
I am convinced his worldview overlaps with neo-Nazis, but he would never deify Hitler anymore than Trump would. They view themselves as bigger and better than Hitler. No losing wars for them, no committing suicide in a bunker. No getting hung up on Jews. The Third Reich was quaint and more than a little embarrassing. So German, so earnest.
Fair. Can we now move on to determine the exact iteration of Reich this is now? We're pretty sure we know when the 3rd was, and I have a strong inclination to believe that installation of Gehlen and the rest of the (surviving) nazi intelligence officers into West Germany's spynet (aided by Bormann's legacy of cash) can be considered the 4th, so for my money we're now in the top of the 5th. What we are forced to hope is that the bottom of the 5th is coming real soon. And the rest of the Reichs be cancelled on account of rain.
It might be our 6th:
1. Articles of Confederation
2. Constitution
3. Reconstruction
4. Jim Crow
5. Civil Rights Era
6. Whatever hell this is
In France, they count the Republics, they're on their fifth (and I'm on my first fifth of the morning.)
It's like Yogi Berra said: History is like a double-header, it doesn't repeat but it rhymes.
My favoritest Yogimoment (there are many, I admit) is when Don Larson is looking toward Yogi running toward him after the last pitch of the perfect game. Imagine that instant: the reality that in about one second an animated steam engine will crash directly into you...
Yogi fought the fascists.
Berra joined the United States Navy in 1943, and served as a gunner's mate on the attack transport USS Bayfield during the Normandy landings. A Second Class Seaman, Berra was one of a six-man crew on a Navy rocket boat, firing machine guns and launching rockets at the German defenses on Omaha Beach. He was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart medal.
Three, Four, Many Reichs!
Insert edited Ally Brosh “All The Reichs!” cartoon here.
Fifth Third National Reich
OK, OK...how 'bout we just go with Reich of the 47th?
All the fashy, Katie
I basically agree as to Elon's "beliefs" -- e.g., he'd rather be the ultimate edgelord than join the Gestapo -- but I also apply Ken White's Rule of Goats:
If you fuck a goat, that makes you a goatfucker. It doesn't matter if you're fucking the goat ironically or to troll someone. You're still the guy who fucked a goat.
Likewise, if you throw up a Nazi salute, that makes you a Nazi. It doesn't matter if you're throwing it up ironically or to troll someone. You're still a Nazi who threw up a sieg heil.
I'd bet everything in my pockets against everything in Musk's pockets that the obscure arm gesture was pure lib-owning, but your point stands. Every public display of approval of Nazisim, ironic or not, nudges the legitimacy of Nazisim a little further along. At best you're a useful dupe legitimzing the tenets of National Socialism.
Fair. But we've all seen how this goes. They will call the gesture an obscure Hindu fertility sign or whatever smug bullshit they come up with. Then we will see all the people at Trump rallies "ironically" throwing up the salute to own those sensitive libs who don't get the joke. And Trump smirks and approves. Then the NYT does a safari: "Some Say This Gesture Is A Nazi Salute. But Here In This Pennsylvania Diner..." And Nazism itself starts to become normalized. As I say, we've been down this road many times during Trump 1.
"Nazism itself starts to become normalized"
[June Foray voice]: "AGAIN??"
Which raises the question: how should "we" react? I mean, is anyone suprised? Shocked? That's really counter-productive, because that's exactly what he was hoping for. The more appropriate response is worry, I guess, but thats pretty passive. There's going to be lots more of these self-indulgent lib-triggering displays, and people should find other ways to disapprove than shock and outrage. It hasn't done any good, and it gives them the role of smug superiority they crave. Just wait for the Proud Boys parades, coming to a town near you.
I think maybe he felt like "Damn it! SOMEBODY's gotta do it!"
Yeah.
C'mon, as the ADL correctly points out, not like he's some college student calling for divestment from Israel.
Look, that wasn't a cease-fire, it was a "cease-fire-like-gesture"
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-begins-operation-west-bank-city-jenin-2025-01-21/
Oof.
1. Yes, that's what Ohioans want for their governor: a person with no governmental experience, who keeps swastikas around his house and who suffers from Tourette's.
2. We're going to let the fact that there's a person named Faith Gesellschaft go uninterrogated?
After the audio artifact occurred, Rogan asked Ramaswamy, “Did you just say what I think you said?” “What?” said Ramaswamy, “I didn’t say anything.” “I coulda swore you said something kinda, like, harsh,” Rogan said. “I said ‘harsh’? I didn’t say harsh,” Ramaswamy countered. “No,” said Rogan, “I mean the thing you said was harsh, not the word ‘harsh.’” “So you’re retracting your accusation,” Ramaswamy shot back.
This is *specifically* what makes Ramaswamy so repellent: this Bad Faith Meets Debate Club gotcha mongering. Vivek must have been one of those lads, when young, who grabbed another kid's wrist, used it to slap the kid, and demanded, "Why are you hitting yourself?"
Spokesman for the American Academy of Audiology: “I don’t know why you called us about this. What Ramaswamy said was obvious to anyone with normal hearing and you don’t have to be an audiologist to say so.” And the Times prints *this*? Let me dream longer.
Faith Gesellschaft may be a piece of work, but Roy outdoes himself with the character naming.
We've transitioned from the era of MAGA to the era of MANGA (Make America Nazi Germany Again). USA!!!111!!!
We've secretly replaced America's democracy with Folgers Fascist Crystals. Let's see if they notice!
"Don never asks for a second cup of fascism at home..."
2 cups!
We've overtly installed President LSMFT (Lying Shithead MotherFucking Trump! Recommended by Dr. Ronnie Jackson!
I think Prez FFFF (First Fkg Fascist Felon) works.
Fascist Felon Fingerer, if you don't mind, let's not forget the rape.
It’s only a Nazi salute when Greg Abbott does it from his wheelchair during his annual “Dr. Strangelove” cosplay party. The rest of the time it’s an entirely normal Italian Fascist salute.
That's SPARKLING Italian Fascist Salute.
Fascisti Supmante S.p.A.
Hey, speakin' of Joe Rogan, he's on the job, with the TRUTH that BIG CANOLA doesn't want you to know:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jan/21/sweetgreen-seed-oils
Didn't Jonah Goldberg have something to say about Whole Foods/foodies and the F-word? How quaint: fascism and "health food," both bad.
OTOH, we can hope the meat consumption and exclusively use of animal fats does its stuff.
It's like the end of War of the Worlds, where the Martians are finally done in by bacteria to which we were immune: "It was these, the littlest things, the low-density lipoprotein cholesterols, put here by God in his wisdom, that saved humanity."
[Triffids nodding sadly]:
"We coulda stayed home and enjoyed it fer what it was, but NO! The Big Veggie said 'GO fellow plants! SEIZE and KILLthem! Take joy in the lamentations of their wimmins!'
and what'd we get? Friggin' SALTWATER! Stupid earth!"
British Sci-Fi movies, it's always some "boffin" who comes in at the end with the trick that rids England of all alien infestations, often involving high voltage.