Are you offended by the hammer and sickle?

just posting this because of a big debate in GD:2004 over someone using that as their sig. I say no, it offends me no more than I'm offended by the cross which was used by the Crusaders and plenty of other genocidal actions, but as a Christian I know it doesn't stand for them. Furthermore the hammer and sickle doesn't stand for who used it.

...doesn't help in the cause of getting Dems elceted then yes it offends me.

just out of curiosity, can you disassociate the swastika from the Nazis? Or does it offend you?

Nazism is an ideology based on genocide and racism.
Communism is not. It just so happens that some nations that are Communist have been genocidal, but one can easily be a pacifist Communist (in fact I believe the DUer using it was one)

The hammer and sickle represents the protelariat and uniting of workers, not the genocide of Stalin or Mao. The swastika still represents the idea of a superior race.

the hammer and sickle was the emblem of a political party and regime which, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, murdered twenty to thirty million people. Just as the swastika was the emblem of a political party and regime that murdered ten million under Hitler.

The swastika is an ancient symbol of good luck (in fact, that's what the word svasti means in Sanskrit), not an emblem of hatred and genocide, and is still used as such by Hindus. But you seem unable to disassociate it from Hitler...so why should other people disassociate the hammer and sickle from Stalin? Your stance is rather logically inconsistent.

but not his ideology. Which is still racist.

Also, the ancient swastika pointed the other way.

the "Nazi" swastika appears in many very ancient carvings. There seems to have been no standard for its orientation. The only real difference I can note is that the arms of the central cross seem to have been traditionally oriented in a straight up-and-down configuration, while the Nazis rotated it 45˚.

The Nazi swastika is a symbol of ill luck while the one used throughout the Hindu world is one of good luck. Both symbols were used in the Hindu world, but the one used by Hitler was most definitely a negative symbol.

The Hindus knew all along in World War II that Hitler would lose because he jinxed himself.

Traditionally, when the swastika is drawn facing right handed or clockwise as above, it is a good luck symbol. It is sometimes claimed when it is drawn left facing or anti-clockwise, it is a bad omen and it is labelled a "sauwastika", however there is little evidence of this distinction in Hindu and Buddhist history from which it is supposed to derive. This symbolism has been modified because of associations with Nazism. Hindus all over India still use the symbol in both representations for the sake of balance, although the standard form is the left-facing swastika; Buddhists almost always use the left facing swastika.

In the early twentieth century, a right facing swastika which is rotated through 45 degrees, was used as the symbol of German Will by the German Nazi Party (see below), and it is still closely associated, in the West, with this use.

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika )


I found The Phœnician Origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons by L. A. Waddell, 1924. It has numerous pictures of archeological objects that have swastikas on them – all before a Nazi ever existed. I looked into what this old English professor thought of the "direction" of the swastika, and its probable meaning. I found and counted every single instance of the swastika in the book. I was not "selective", in some pejorative sense. The criteria was that it had to be unambiguously a swastika, wheel-shaped with legs indicating direction (they varied from 2 to 8 legs). The legs could be long, short, straight or curved. This includes the so-called Scottish Swastika (Z lying down) and Sun-wheels. I did not include spirals in the count, though Waddell also used spirals to determine the significance of direction relative to mythical figures to establish context. He found them consistent with the swastikas as to direction.

The first fact that springs from the pages of Waddell is that, contrary to the assertions of the New Agers, the Nazi way is the sun-wise, right-hand way! Waddell clearly shows that the "Nazi" direction is associated with positive themes on the objects. This direction is also much more common – as we would expect in a civilized society, generally speaking, as one is apt to find many objects meant to instill a sense of well-being among the populace (thus, "God Bless This Home"). The non-sun-wise, less common direction was reserved for death/resurrection, and thus was seen on funerary objects in graves. The references are in the above table under Comments, and can be found elsewhere in the text. He mentions the theme in a few other places (pp. 282-3, 310), but one place where he directly associates the "spin" with meaning in the same paragraph occurs here:



"This is formed from the simple 'St. George's Cross' by adding to its free ends a bent foot, pointing in the direction of the Sun's apparent movement across the heavens, i.e., towards the right hand and thus forming the 'Swastika' or what I call the 'Revolving Cross.' This discloses for the first time the real origin and meaning of the Swastika Cross and its feet, and its talismanic usage for good luck. This swastika form of the Sun Cross occurs on early Hittite and Sumerian seals and sculptures and is very frequent in the ruins of Troy (see Fig. J J') – where it is very frequent on whorls, used especially as amulets for the dead, with the feet reversed as the Resurrecting Cross." (pp. 293, 298).


This description of the sun-wise cross specifically refers to the forms as shown in Fig. 46, (J) and (J'), so there is no question that he is referring to the direction that is, in effect, the Nazi one. Look for yourself on the graphic above. This is consistent with the numerous references in the table where the Nazi version is directly related to the sun-wise, clockwise aspect. Also, Fig. 54 (h, i) contrasts the two directions, calling the Nazi one (h) "frequent", so we know that Waddell was concerned about direction per se, not just form (shape). Fig. 31 (b) calls this non-Nazi whorl a "reversed swastika". Fig. 50 directly establishes the Nazi direction as clockwise, and thus sun-wise. . This is diametrically opposed to the claims of the post-WW II New Agers. The non-Nazi direction is only typical on grave and funerary objects, where it is associated with death/resurrection and the returning sun.


(source: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/The_Backwards_Swastika.htm , image reffered to in text is on page.)

And you can add Pol Pot and Mao, among others, to that list.

They were perverts and murderers and worse.

But the idea of "sharing the world" at the root of communism andd Marxism is a great one.

I have no problem with the Hammer and Sickle.

Communists are worse then nazis, they killed tons tons more, and still TODAY in our world they hold millions of people hostage in dictatorships.

If any people deserves to die today along with nazis it's communists. Having a hammer and a sickle as a sig is like having a swastika, it's a damn slap in the face to the millions upon millions who died of communism

or the blacks enslaved under it. Yet the American flag doesn't represent those things.

That didn't really happen.

The flag doesn't represent that anylonger

who changed?

To argue that our symbols are ok because we have changed, means that we must consider if they have changed as well.

Ok so they murdered fewer people, yey! And instead of just killing ppl on the double they sent them to siberia instead

nevermind that North Korea, Cuba and China are still totalitarian regimes imprisoning and killing people in their "workers paradise

Even when under benevolent Democratic rule.

In 1963 the Soviet Union was a lot tamer than it was in 1933

Didn't the Soviet union invade like Hungary in the 60s?

but then again, so did the US except we called ours liberations, freedom fights and supporting democracy

The Hungarians had allied themselves with Germany in 1940 and took part in the invasion of Russia in 1941. Russia occupied Eastern Europe because they were tired of those countries providing German armies with a garden path into Russia. We would have invaded a rebellious West Germany if the tables had been turned.

the US had plans drawn up to invade Italy in the late 40s and early 50s to overthrow the government if the people had voted for the communists.

Considering it was basically an occupied nation since the end of WW2. It's revisionist to believe that the entire German population welcomed the Allies with open arms in 44/45, or continued to welcome the presence of an occupying army well into the 1980s. Certainly, the presence of a US-led Western military in West Germany had the feel of an occupation.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Didn't the US invade Viet Nam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Colombia, Honduras, Cuba, Panama, Grenada and many more sovereign nations in the sixties and afterwards?

I'm not making a case against the US, just illustrating a point, Kamika.

The actual icoograpy of the Hammer and Sickle is pure socialist; it takes two basic tools used by the working class (manufacturing and agriculture), and unites them as a symbol of strength, just as the unification of labour leads to a strong nation. It's a pretty optimistic symbol, actually.

One man's sybol of tyranny is another man's symbol of freedom, and vice-versa. All these symbols of nationalism, no matter how idealistic, are only as virtuous as the governments of the nations they represent. The Hammer and Sickle was perverted from their original meaning by despots, just as the Swastika and even Ol' Glory have been, from time to time.

Not sure about the others

My mistake, I guess.

The Nicaraguans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Venezuelans, Cubans, and the millions of others who have been harmed by US government policies might have something to say about that...

were killed by one of our daisy cutter bombs.

:thumbsup: ;) :yourock:

My thoughts EXACTLY whenever this type of discussion arises...it's ok to hate THEIR symbols of death and oppression, but not Ol' Glory, by God...:eyes:

Capitalism. What is our symbol? $$$$$$$$$$

How many died for that symbol? I would bet you that more died for that symbol than the other two combined. Of course, it doesn't "really" work that way, now does it? Does it?

Liberalism with small businesess that are responsible is the best thing

The Soviet empire ruled for a longer time and over more people. And let's not forget that little "let's eliminate everybody from race X" thing. Stalin made a honest attempt at the Champion of Evil crown but fell FAR short.

no sane person would put that if they had lived under their rule.

Where did you live?

just kidding :). You've got Pm

There is an interesting point I would raise here...

The Hammer and Sickle was a symbol of a repressive communist regime (for the most part), the cross was a symbol of the Crusaders..

Now, let's supppose.. just suppose mind you, that someone really liked the Nazi swastika...

They weren't a racist or a fascist, they just liked the symbol...

Now what do we do then?

Interesting question though neh?

what the swastika symbolizes is different from the cross and hammer and sickle.

common on Buddhist temples. In fact my middle school (in upstate NY) had a swatstika representing the East on a directional on its wall when it was built (1916). It was chisled off in the 1940s, but one can still see the outline clearly

it's a reversed sign (flopped) that the Buddhist use, pronounced wan loosely translated 'all, 10,000 things, large numbers, a mystic Buddhist emblem of all good fortune and virtue'


dp

The flyfot cross goes the other way from the Nazi swastika. The one on my piece of furniture (19th century) represents good luck while Hitler's represented bad luck.

Hitler's swastika has been a negative symbol as long as it has existed.

but that's a subtilty lost on many.

Thank you for pointing it out

in design, you should have it appraised for historical value.

dp

it may sound great "in theory", but it's track record in the real world is a failure, and that's what counts. Socialism is another story.

Cuba, China, and the former Soviet Union were and are no more communist than Nazi Germany was socialist.

n/t

the no's are winning by a wide margin.

While it is the symbol of a repressive regieme it is also the symbol of a great idea turned sour by political opportunists and power-hungry fools.

The Swatstika doesn't bother me unless it is in the context of Nazism as it is an ancient symbol which has many positive conotations outside of Nazism.

it cracks me up that a person who uses it in a sig can start a vanity thread about how he wants his vote to "mean" something and will vote for the Socialist candidate--IN A DEMOCRATIC FORUM.

Sure, big tent and all, but that's just slightly ridiculous.

I am not personally offended by the hammer and sickle. If you want to be a communist, then by all means, be a communist.

But what kind of scared me was that in another post someone asked our communist friend whether or not he was a Stalinist and he affirmed that. Another poster then made a comment about the millions murdered under Stalin's regime (in a sarcastic manner) and our communist friend didn't deny it, only saying the poster didn't have an open mind.

The symbol doesn't offend me, but if one doesn't reject but embrace the truly terrible aspects of it as well as the good aspects, I start to get uncomfortable.

when those symbols killed more then twice as much people as the swastika

trust me

palestine (we give the israelis the tanks and guns) east timorand then we did kill alot of native americans and how many in chile via pinnochet

Alot less. (and with alot it's probably atleast 50 millions or so)


Kinda gives you an idea of communism

the US has killed far far more

do you have Anything to back that up?

The sheer implausibility of alledging America has massacred as many people in 250 years as either Stalin or Hitler during their 10-20 year reigns is ludicrous.

just the soviet union (not counting china etc) killed over 100 million ppl (probably more)

perhaps you ought check your history

An estimated 200 Million Dead alone, that's genocide. The occupation of the Phillipines. The war(s) with Mexico.

as well as setting up Pinochet in Chile, The Duvaliers in Haiti, The Shah in Iran, Dozens of African Dictators. Wars against Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina fought directly or by proxy, which ahd a trememndous civilian loss of life.

That's just the beginnings

200 million natives dead? do you have ANYTHING to back that up?


I doubt it was more then 20 million TOPS

(talkin about north american indians)

It's 50 million

The Europeans who came to America believed in "manifest destiny"; they believed that they (the white man) had a God-given right to this land, and that the native inhabitants were heathens who were simply in the white man's way. Of course, the two groups came into conflict; during this conflict, it is estimated that 50 million Native Americans were killed through war, starvation and disease. This number is equivalent to the number of soldiers that were killed on both sides during World War I and II.

http://www.ccsf.edu/Resources/Tolerance/lessons/native01.html

Though I have seen higher estimates, can't recall the place. Have you read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, you'll be shocked

stuff like Plan Puebla de Panama and Plan Colombia

there are many many things I missed, that's just stuff off the top of my head

using the World Bank and IMF to pressure other nations into imposing neoliberalism.

And the creation of a global economic structure where the rich get the riches and the poor lose the value of their work.

Who knows how many thousands (or millions) have died from such things?

I was going for direct killings though first

it killed.

thereby the stalinist are more evil than the nazis, who are more evil than the capitalists. :eyes:

which is a paragon of virtue and light. I'm not defending the evils of Soviet or Fascist extreme's but saying we have a rather large log in our own eye to remove

amusing to read responses that imply that we'uns is the good guys cause we'uns didn't slaughter nearly as many people as those horrible nazi and commies.... :)

There were a lot of other nationalities involved as well.

if it were only the US, there would be no "who knows" after.

The Dutch killed a few too. But the estimate of NA killed by the US is around 200 Million

I can't for the love of me believe there ever existed that many indians

as there were Europeans, in fact some estimates say more.

http://members.lycos.nl/Shades/nativeamericans/titlepage.htm

http://www.tridenttech.edu/english/felty/201_Pre-Columbian_Dates.html

I'm certain you could find more. Stop going with your assumptions or the falsehoods taught you in your history classes. learn for yourself

?

less than the number of NA

another book to read would "lies my teacher taught me"

DId you know that Hitler based his treatment of the Jews on American policies towards the NA?

The collapse of native populations in the Americas was the greatest demographic calamity in human history. I'm including ALL Indians. It is impossible to know how many Indians were living in the Americas before the European arrival, though, to give you some idea of what it might have been, Mexico's native population before European conquest was somewhere between 8 and 25 million. In a single century, that number dropped to little more than a million.

How many people does it take to die before a symbol becomes unusable.

Keep in mind that just because a symbol is used by a ruthless group that kills does not necesarily make that symbol bad, its abused. But it is understandable that considering the scale of death which was imposed using these symbols that the symbol will be associated with the crime, without considering the context.

I cant fathom how many people have been killed under our flag (mid east, slavery, indians) ,the christian cross (crusades, others), the union jack (imperialism), etc...

It all depends within the context of which you present these symbols.

These symbols have a much more mixed record than the Swastika. Great advances and improvements in many people's lives took place under these symbols. A society went from very backwards to a world leader under them. It's not so simple.

....a corrupt dictatorship with a tenuous grasp on its own ideology did.

that said even though i don't find the hammer and sickle personally offensive, i wouldn't begrudge, say, my hungarian friend who lost his father during the soviet crackdown in 1956 his understandably visceral reaction to the symbol and what it represented.

...totalitarian despots kill people. You might want to learn the difference between communism and Stalinism.

for those that had to live under it.

The billions who still live in slavery under totalitarian Communist regimes provide more than enough reason to hate the symbol.

And NOT an argument against communism. The two are completely unrelated; one is a system of government, the other is a system of economics.

(For the recoed, I don't particularly advocate communism, but it would have been interesting to have seen someone TRY it.)

it is the symbol of a political ideology that is not at all evil.

just because some real jerks appropiated this ideology doesn't make it bad.

we cant have any commie pinko lefties postin on our site!!

:)

Just as I find the swastika a repellent and evil symbol, so do I view the hammer and sickle.

Anyone claiming to be a Stalinist is most likely extremely young and unaware of all the vile, hateful things that name signifies. At least I would hope youth and ignorance are the reason.

how is it much different from our default Karl Marx avatars?

or our Che Guevera ones? I bet some Miami Mafia Cubans are offended by Guevera.

Marx wrote the book about communism which in itself was a sort of great society where everyone was happy etc etc, he was never a part of the brutal communist regimes

it represents Marx's ideology. Not the regimes that appropiated it.

?

but they were created by his followers, long before the formation of the Soviet Union.

As stated by someone above --- communism is not equal to dictatorship. Communism is an economic system, an ideal that hasn't succeeded well in most places outside Cuba. In itself it is not evil except to those who want to keep their wealth by continuing to exploit their employees. The hammer and sickle represents the worker.

Or a pro-KKK avatar? Acceptable? Maybe burning Twin Towers to symbolize a blow to American economic and cultural imperialism? Where do you draw the line? I find all of these appalling possibilities, but then I don't believe in total "freedom". You need limits, preferably voluntary, but sometimes not.

We mostly all adults and we mostly all have enough sense to act appropriately and maturely.

the third is irremovable from the event that spawned it. the hammer and sickle is not racist, nor is it neccesarily supporting Communist regimes. I don't see it as any different from the cross or American Flag.

isn't the little "ethnic cleansing" Stalin conducted in Georgia racist?

The Confederate Battle flag could legitimately be argued as a symbol of southern cultural heritage. I would not do that, but a plausible case could be made.

"The third is irremovable from the event that spawned it"...Sorry, don't get what you mean here.

All that said, I don't give a damn one way or another. I. personally, consider it to be immature and embarrassing to the website but its not my website. I'm sure if the Admins agree, they'll stop it. If they don't, more power to guy who uses it. Many more important things to get angry over.

I'm offended by the hammer and sickle.

I'm offended by the swastika.

I'm offended by the rendition of the US Flag that has corporate logos instead of stars.

Being offended by those things is my choice. I do not ask that they not appear on this site. They will, however, most likely influence my opinions about the people using them, which will in turn, most likely, influence how I tend to respond to what they write.

That's what symbols do. They stand for something. When they are powerful symbols, they evoke all of the weight of whatever is behind them, usually the most recognizable and best known characteristics of whatever is behind the symbol. Since most people associate the swastika with the Nazi regime, it stands for tyranny and genocide. Since most people associate the hammer and sickle with Soviet communism, it stands for oppression, restriction of personal freedoms, totalitarianism, etc. When someone exhibits those symbols, flies those flags, they may think they're announcing one statement about themselves to the world. The world may very well be receiving another.

So, I may very well choose to be offended by the symbols you choose to use to represent you. On the basis of your choice of symbols, I may choose to come to a judgment about you that is or is not the truth, but is the truth that is evoked by your choice of symbols. It's all about choice.

And I'm all about freedom of choice.

If you look at the situation in Russia ( or in Cuba, or in China, etc.) prior to their Revolutions, it was a horrifying life for those who were not privileged. People have always strived to make lives better for all, and I think that was probably the intention of Marx, et al, and perhaps of other "Freedom Fighters, but unfortunately utopian goals sometimes end up translating into horrible violence and fascism.

Read some Milan Kundera ( or any of the Eastern European Soviet bloc writers) and it will give you a inner glimpse of good intentions gone horribly and soul-suckingly awry. Robert Lifton's books about Communist ( ie,The Life of the Last Chinese Emperor ______ name escapes me) and other forms of brainwashing are also quite the eye-openers.

Although I can easily understand the attraction to these symbols and what they were intended to represent, even those Happy Worker Soviet and Chinese realist propaganda paintings sometimes make me feel emotional.

were a hammer and sickle as a fashion state ment but my flag it is a political statement art peice

did you make the flag or get it somewhere?

I think it's really well done. BTW, can u list all the corporations? I can list all but a few...

That doesn't mean someone might not be offended by it. Isn't that much of the point of political art?

If you will read my post, you will note that I firmly supported your right to create and display that piece of political art. I also support my right to choose my response to it and to express that response in a respectful manner.

I like the corporate flag, I think it is very honest. We have to take a look at what we are becoming.

Burn the flag? Who cares, does not affect me at all.
Wave swastikas all around... don't like it, but don't care to stop them.
hammer and sickle? same thing... they are gone.

What the * mis-Administration has done over the past 3 years is far more dangerous, illegal, and far-reaching than any person or group who chooses to use a symbol, destroy a symbol, or make a new symbol could ever be.

Worry about the real problems, and the stupid ones will take care of themselves.

I fully understand that some seriously murderous things occurred under this flag, but I just don't viscerally react to it.

flag too...

Just ask...
Indians
Blacks
Union Organizers
Mexicans
Italian Immigrants
Irish Immigrants
German Immigrants
Torries
Veterans exposed to toxic substances... Dioxen/Radiation/Germs
Koreans
Vietnamese
Afhanis
Iraqis
Kurds
Turkmen
and
last, but certainly not least...
Women

I've been told my whole life Communism is evil and it kills people. I know we do not. We only kill people when neccesary. We don't just go around murdering people like Soviet Russia did.

/Sarcasm

before I scrolled down.

Yeah, those Commies were quite the terror to the world, huh? They were so busy killing, spying, and imprisioning their own, and yet the US was "afraid" of them for 50 years.

And we question whether our Intel is adequate now?

Yeah.

it didn't off me when the USSR used it to represent themselves. Using it now just seems more geared toward being in your face and can only hurt the Democrats.

It's symbolic toward workers rights. Last I checked true liberals were FOR workers rights. There is NOTHING wrong with my sig. I'm for the communist belief of workers rights and I'll die fighting for it.

:)

;)

For one, im suprised that a debate of this maturity is in the lounge?

OK:

I voted no, although I certainly understand why people could feel offense, Ill bet some indians arent happy with our flag. Same way with some people who survived the imperial UK and their union jack.

I see a common argument that suggests that they should not be used due to the shear number of deaths, yet many other symbols which have seen death are stil allowed (American flag, cross, union jack, nearly any other imperialist countries flag etc...).

The mistake I see is associating a symbol with an given action that the symbol was not originally intended to represent. Many times, ruthless folk use and abuse symbols and key words as propaganda to promote and impose there regime. We all know that Stalinism was NOT communism, no more than was the Nazi party Socialist, although they called themselves that.

Just because a symbol is used by a group that imposes mass murder does not mean that symbol represents it, using a symbol to promote ones own craziness is an abuse of the symbol, bc it is made to associate with your lousy actions than what it did before, and we must remember not to immediatly do that when we see a symbol like the hammer.


It all depends on the context the user desires of the symbol. And since I suspect the people here who would use the hammer sickle entend to promote the ideals of communism (which has really never been praticed, and probably never will), not Stalinism or Fascism.

What offends me is people continuing to repeat old RW cold war anticommunist talking points.

I owe you a drink! :)

You ain't been doing nothing if you ain't been called a Red.

:toast: :yourock:

:toast:

I'm a middle aged white guy. The worst thing I was forced to deal with in the Cold War was Disco. I would imagine there are a lot of Eastern Europeans that feel differently, though.

I would suggest checking the net and finding out if there are any updated post-modern graphics that would allow you to promote your beliefs without bringing back bad memories to those who were forced to live under Stalinism.

I'm surprised by the number of people at DU who have Marx avatars who are so invested in one primary candidate over another that they constantly attack others' candidates. I thought Marxists considered electoral politics to be bogus. Guess I was wrong.

the Communist Party of the USA has said they'll endorse the Democratic candidate over Bush.

A lot is made of the hammer and sickle, especially by those whose understanding of communism was gleaned from a pamphlet produced by the FBI or John Birch Society. Here are a few facts about it:

The first use of the hammer and sickle came well after Marx's death -- around the turn of the 20th century. It was used primarily by Social Democrats (at that time, all socialists/communists/Marxists called themselves "Social Democrats") in colonial and other states where the working class had to form a unity with peasants in order to defeat capitalism.

The Russian Bolsheviks most aptly utilized the hammer and sickle, but not until after the victory of the 1917 October Revolution. The first, formal use of the hammer and sickle by the Russians was in 1918, when it was codified in the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic as the coat of arms and seal of the new republic.

Over the next couple of years, the hammer and sickle became a common symbol/logo for the new Communist parties that emerged and affiliated themselves to the Third (Communist) International. Prior to that, Socialist and Social-Democratic parties used other symbols and logos that were meant to signify the unity of working people around the world (e.g., the symbols of the Socialist Party -- "Hands across the globe" -- and the Socialist Labor Party -- "Labor Omnia Vincit" -- both of which are used to this day).

There are, in fact, a number of similar variations on the "hammer and sickle" theme, where different implements are used to signify the unity of workers. The Socialist Unity Party of the German Democratic Republic, for example, used the "hammer and compass" to signify the union of mental and physical labor. Other variations include the "gear and hammer", "gear, hammer and sickle" (as seen in the logo of the Communist Party USA), "hammer and hoe" (more of a North America thing), "gear and wheat sheaves", etc.

Am I offended by the hammer and sickle? No. Why would I be? I am a member of the Socialist Party and consider myself a democratic communist.

But some people here obviously are -- mainly, it seems, because they buy into the Cold War propaganda. Whether they quote Joe McCarthy or the so-called "Black Book" (which every historian and Sovietologist has denounced as a "hack job") is irrelevant. They still buy the Big Lies.

"One hundred million dead"? American capitalism cleared that hurdle in the slave trade alone. If one takes into account all the wars, the campaigns of conquest, the economic and political aggression, "Manifest Destiny", environmental exploitation, etc., the crimes attributed to "communism" or "socialism" pale in comparison. (This, of course, is said neither to either apologize for nor to excuse what the Stalinites and their allies did.)

But I must admit that I find myself laughing out loud when I read posts by whiny anticommunists about Stalinism and its actions. After all, when Stalin was framing up millions, purging and staging show trials in the 1930s, most liberals went right along with it. Only a few standouts, like Dewey, actually defended those who were victims of the GPU. So, yeah, I find it rather ironic that the children and grandchildren of those who gave a pass to "Uncle Joe" in the 1930s want to claim the moral high-ground, when it was their political fathers and grandfathers who looked the other way when Stalin staged the trials.

To put it bluntly, the liberals have more blood on their hands in this case than we who are anti-Stalinite socialists and communists.

Martin

Tens of millions of people were killed by communists! Have we forgotten about that? Look guys, I'm a liberal on most issues, but I am NOT a leftist and I do NOT support communism at all; I despise it. And any Democrat who thinks that the hammer and sickle is "no big deal" is simply, well, nuts. We'd get SLAUGHTERED in November if there was even a hint of Democratic support for communism.

I swear, between this and the other ridiculous poll showing Kucinich beating Kerry among DUers, I think it's about time that this place change its name to Leftist Underground. Because it sure as hell doesn't seem like Democratic Underground anymore.

Don't really get what you're complaining about.


It's not like Kerry is super rightwing himself

if someone put a confederate flag in their sig. My guess is that they would be banned immediately.

I don't understand why, it's just a symbol. (sarcasm) The old South had many positive qualities and admirable cultural traits. So they practiced slavery, lots of societies have practiced slavery, we don't get all excited about their cultural symbols.(major sarcasm)

Communism, and specifically Soviet communism was an experiment that failed miserably.

yet most replies seem to say yes. odd.