Just a side note..

[Xvall]

It is at this time, and It might change later. But it's a hammer and sickle. Mind you, I'm not 'patriot' of the Soviet Union. I just believe that it represents the workers, as the hammer and sickle being instruments and tools of production. I in no way support Stalin, and prefer to reflect upon the USSR to learn from it's mistakes, rather than hold it as an ideal. Just felt like clearing that up for anyone who was wondering....

- Drake Dracoli

[Guest]

kinda like if a neo nazi used a swastika as his avatar, but to inspire reflections on the mistakes of the third reich, i get it.

[Moskitto]

My avatar is the ultimate symbol of rebellion

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/avatars/personal/Moskitto.gif

[Xvall]

Guest, sorta..
But I have no goals to opress or manipulate people, let alone go around in a military uniform beting up immigrants. It's a symbol of the workers. And actually, the swastika is supposed to be a budist symbol for tranquility.

- Drake Dracoli

[Moskitto]

The Swastika is used my many cultures, It isn't exclusive to one culture.

It's the Hindu symbol of Peace
It's also used is Greece, The Baltic states, Scandinavia and the Native American cultures, It's pretty widespread.

[Xvall]

Indeed Moskitto. As much as I hate Nazism and Fascism people need to understand that these things are just symbols, and culd represent anything. Just because a person has a red star doesn't mean he's a stalinist, and just because a person wears a swastika doesn't make them racist christian fundamentalists.

- Drake Dracoli

[Guest]

as geometric shapes they are without meaning, but once something is appropriated by a group like the nazi's or bolsheviks it is fair for it to be continually associated as such. For instance no one would argue that a cross carries christian or a crescent holds moslem symbolism. likewise while a sickle and a hammer are in and of themselves just "tools", they explicably have a conotation derived from the USSR and what it, in turn, represented.

[RedRevolutionary87]

the sickle and hammer express unity of all workers, it had nothing to do with stalin he just kept it!

[Guest]

thats like saying the swastika represents eastern thought, it has nothing to do with hitler, he just took it.
Certainly the swastika was not invented by the nazi's, but their use of it, within the scope of history, is an appropriation and now it is rightly associated with nazism. Likewise for the sickle and hammer.

[PunkRawker677]

well then.. it would be appropriate to say if you wear nike clothes, or gap clothes, or almost any clothes manufactured in the US then you agree and support child labor...

i wear a cross, i am an athiest.. i love the symbol, its beatiful and serene.. that doesnt make me a christian..

my best friend has a red beret.. that doesnt make him a communist..

my dog has teeth, that doesnt mean he'll bite you.. just cause other dogs with similar teeth have bitten people..

so.. your wrong.. just cause something has been represented, that doesnt mean that wen you use the same thing you are representing the same thing..

catholics and christians both use the cross (as do many many many other religions) yet they believe MANY different things..

so.. it would be wrong for a native american or budhist to have a swatsticka somewhere on themselves or in there home?? even though it represented something for them BEFORE the nazis used it? does a white star automatically represent one of the U.S. states? likewise, if i eat a hamburger does that automatically mean i got it from mcdonalds?

??

(Edited by PunkRawker677 at 2:29 am on April 5, 2002)

[Kez]

Hammer and Sickle was not:
a)made by USSR
b)hence not in control of stalin to do anything about it

stupid guest, go home

[RedCeltic]

What total crap guest! Five years of war cannot be allowed to wipe out five thousand years of sacred history... the Swastika is an important symbol used in my religion... and we aren't going to stop using it just because of the Nazis... that would be like not using the pentagram any more because Satanists turn them upside down and use them...

the Hammer and Sickle shouldn't be seen as anything more than simply the symbol of worker's solidarity...

Kamo's right... go home.. :)

[Guest]

crit reading skills. Association is understandable, I know very well that they didn't invent such symbols, but the connection in peoples minds is justified. If you see the swastika, and see it absent of any context of nazism then you're fooling yourself. When neo nazi's spray paint swastikas on a synagougue do they do it to enlighten jews to eastern spiritualism.

[RedCeltic]

A symbol can have diffrent meanings according to what context it's being used in... take the cross for example... behind an alter in a church... a cross represents Jesus Christ. Painted on the side of a Messerschmitt, it symbolises Nazi Germany... placed beside someone's name in the obituary, it means death, painted red on an ambulence, it means humanitarian aid (red cross)... etc...