Platner says he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazi police.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — His U.S. Senate campaign under fire, Maine Democrat Graham Platner said Wednesday that a tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.

The first-time political candidate said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was in his 20s and in the Marine Corps. It happened during a night of drinking while he was on leave in Croatia, he said, adding he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazi police.

  • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
    91·
    2 days ago

    As soon as a ton of people from all over our corrupted media landscape seized upon some ways they could talk about this person, who is not a Nazi, in a way that really makes it sound like he is a Nazi and that’s the most important thing to talk about about him, then yes, I concluded that he’s definitely an enemy of the establishment which makes him at least okay in my book. The fact that Chuck Schumer doesn’t like him is a bonus too.

    Hey, what do you think of Leon Trotsky? I am just curious.

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      Hey, what do you think of Leon Trotsky? I am just curious.

      He was kind of a counter-revolutionary asshole who also happened to be in charge of killing a lot of anarchists, not a fan.

      In the countries of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Balkans, in Italy, in Spain, in addition to the so-called Southern type, which is characterized by a combination of lazy shiftlessness and explosive irascibility, one meets cold natures, in whom phlegm is combined with stubbornness and slyness. The first type prevails ; the second augments it as an exception. It would seem as if each national group is doled out its due share of basic character elements, yet these are less happily distributed under the southern than under the northern sun. But we must not venture too far afield into the unprofitable region of national metaphysics." – Leon Trotsky in his biography of Stalin

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
          2·
          2 days ago

          He was the war commissar during the civil war, effectively commander-in-chief of the red army, so he’s kind of responsible for what happened to the anarchist factions in it.

          On some level he was going with a party line, but based on how the guy operated and what he was saying I don’t think that was much of a deviation from his actual beliefs.

          I think it’s also telling how many former Trotskyists in the US pivoted to being neocon warmongers.

          • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            He was the war commissar during the civil war, effectively commander-in-chief of the red army, so he’s kind of responsible for what happened to the anarchist factions in it.

            Oh God… this looks interesting but I have not the time to dive into it currently and my knowledge of this part of Russian history is basically 0. At a cursory reading, it kind of looks like the Russian Revolution happened, then elections, then the Bolsheviks lost the elections and announced that they were going to shoot anyone who contested their right to hold power no matter what because I say so, and so then there was more war, and I guess Trotsky was… running the Red Army during that time? Shooting anarchists, because they… wanted elections? Or something? That doesn’t sound right. I will read more when I have time.

            I mean, if Trotsky was the guy who was killing the people who wanted elections, and only decades later turned around and tried to say that raw exercise of power with no attempt at a mandate was not what Communism is supposed to be about (which was what originally made me like him, and also what Stalin eventually killed him for more or less I think, because it made him “counterrevolutionary”)… you may have found a reason to criticize him that I get can behind. Of course the idea that he was shooting anarchists because they supported the Constituent Assembly sounds kind of out of character like I may have misunderstood something.

            It’s too many layers.

            I think it’s also telling how many former Trotskyists in the US pivoted to being neocon warmongers.

            Ah yes, those famous neocon Trotsky fans. Clearly, your grasp of geopolitics is unparalleled, and not at all based on a fuzzy team sports based value system totally unmoored from reality. Which Trotskyist neocon was your favorite?

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
              2·
              2 days ago

              Ah yes, those famous neocon Trotsky fans. Clearly, your grasp of geopolitics is unparalleled, and not at all based on a fuzzy team sports based value system totally unmoored from reality.

              This isn’t my own observation, it’s a well-trod assertion.

              Which Trotskyist neocon was your favorite?

              There’s been a lot of them, most way predating me. For me it’s probably Christopher Hitchens who started out out as trotskyist anti-stalinist and drifted over time to being in favor of the US-led full-scale invasion of Iraq.

              • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not “a conservative of any kind”, and his friend Ian McEwan described him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.[72]

                However, these comparisons ignore anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist positions central to Leninism, which run contradictory to core neoconservative beliefs.[120]

                Yeah, pretty much.

                I read a little bit including his piece about the Iraq War. I think supporting the Iraq War can make him wrong, but I don’t think it makes him a neoconservative. All I can really say about it is, I think these people are making a similar mistake to the one I accused you of. Not every pair of people who support the same thing are obviously intellectually aligned with the same principles, and it is incredibly obvious to me that the person who wanted to overthrow Russian monarchy to install Communism is not the same as the people who wanted to invade the Middle East to install gangster capitalism.

                I actually have a lot of criticisms of Communism as it plays out in practice, but even I would not accuse it of being on the same moral and intellectual level and fighting for the same principles as Bush and Rumsfeld were fighting for.

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
                  2·
                  2 days ago

                  even I would not accuse it of being on the same moral and intellectual level and fighting for the same principles as Bush and Rumsfeld were fighting for.

                  not sure how you took that from my statement, the point is that neoconservatism preserves Trotskyism’s revolutionary posture while inverting its content: the revolution is now for liberal capitalism rather than socialism.

                  • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialEnglish
                    1·
                    2 days ago

                    So anything with a revolutionary posture is Trotskyism? Even if the content and what they stand for is inverted?

                    Y’all are so strange. I don’t really expect anything more productive (like you saying “of course I am not saying that because that would be insane”). Thank you for the pointer in any case, I will read more about the Russian revolution.