(Conical hat tip to Reed Richter.)
88 Responses to Ooh, A Tough One
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What does this say? | BLOGDIAL -
April 20, 2008
[…] You KNOW what it says, in every way, since you read BLOGDIAL. The original. The post I snarfed it from. Linked from Lew Rockwell. […]
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Re:Generator Magazine » Blog Archive » Good question, dumb hippie… -
April 20, 2008
[…] I have a question of my own: Ever hear of Jesse Owens? These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
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Too Perfect • Griffin & Hoxie -
April 21, 2008
[…] Looks to be from a rally in San Francisco. Pretty much sums up the Professional Protester. I’m one of them sympathizers that sits on the curb making fun of these folks, which makes me no better than the idiot with the sign. Maybe worse. Hard to say who’s doing more harm. (via) var currLayerId = “show”; function togLayer(id) { if(currLayerId) setDisplay(currLayerId, “none”); if(id)setDisplay(id, “block”); currLayerId = id; } function setDisplay(id,value) { var elm = document.getElementById(id); elm.style.display = value; } Show the comments (0) and/or leave a comment Hide comments […]
The shameful myth that Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens has prevailed, except for an occasional filter of light revealing a glimmer of the true story. Most of the media deliberately twisted, if not outright lied about, the ’36 Olympics, and they still do. Owens rejected the media propaganda that Hitler had snubbed him, and the black athlete contradicted how many writers described the events. Years later, Owens often remarked that it was FDR, not Hitler, who actually snubbed him.
I think you’re all being a little too quick to jump all over the sign maker. Granted, the Nazis did host. But in 1936, no one knew the Holocaust was coming. 1936 was two years before Kristallnacht, for instance. What the world knew of Germany in 1936 isn’t what the world has known since 1938, 1945, and later.
Today, however, we do know what the Chinese are doing.
I’m not saying the sign maker knew what he/she was talking about, but had we known in 1936 what was coming, there’s no way the Olympics would’ve been given to Germany.
Yet we’ve given them to China.
Errr.. ” … had we known in 1931 what was coming …”
How ironic.
It’s Photoshopped. Compare the shadow of the bit which sticks out from the top of the sign (down and right) with the shadow of the baseball cap the man on the bottom right is wearing (down and left).
Looks like the original was here (uploaded by the photographer):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dead-ro/2403957312/in/photostream/
Jesse Owens was not snubbed by Adolph Hitler and was lustily cheered by the overwhelming German spectators at the 1936 games in Berlin. Owens was never invited to the White House after his victorious performance.
Read history instead of spouting mindless slogans.
Roderick:
Someone submitted this post to reddit, hence the popularity:
http://reddit.com/info/6g9hj/comments/
Perfect. Brought by the Queen City of the Land of the Fruits and Nuts.
@ A
I’m Jewish and I’m dying to know how the Olympics “fueled” the holocaust? If sporting events help “fuel” genocide maybe we should all just stop playing sports.
Maybe the sign maker is being ironic?
Still, in Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, when Jesse Owens wins, Hitler looks annoyed (at least as I recall — it’s been a while).
“Personally, I think the one thing that matters is that the Han are industrious and make things work, while Lama-country had always been medieval and still would be without the Han Chinese.”
Yeah, Its not like the Tibetians are Slaves, right?
Besides, PRC military is right there and ready to wake a fellow up, get him to work on time and tuck him in at bed at night.
Is China a great country or what? I’m sure the PRC has plans to make sure the rest of the world is just as industrious and productive.
[Fake Steve reader writes…]
Pre-Nazi: Clearly, the protester (or the Photoshop artiste, whatever) means ‘Nazi’ as in the architects and engineers of the Holocaust, which is presumably not what ‘Nazi’ meant, not obviously at least, 1936. The point is good, even if they are not on top of their history.
‘We’: The most constructive emphasis-reading here, which the champagne radicals reading this clearly don’t see in their urge to sound radical while not getting heated up by bothering to bother China (very much the trend these days – power is such an annoying thing to deal with), is the following: Would WE give the Olympics to Nazi Germany? Rather than Would we give the Olympics to NAZI G? Ask THAT question, and not only does the historical point become moot, but it turns the question from a rhetorical peacock feather into a pointed question about you and me and our governments (including the ‘governance’ of that cesspit of patronage the IOC). Well, come on, would you? And in considering that, we are invited to consider the circumstances of China’s Olympics.
Carpenter 1: You cover a riot of ignorance with a veneer and sneer of über-intelligence. But no books support your blend of fact and assertion. One phrase for you: pre-sovereign states. In quasi-tribal, pre-formal-nation-state, histories, nation state concepts are not appropriate. And your ‘facts’ about eye-gouging: are you sure you can find a single source for that other than Patrick French? Do you actually know what you are talking about?
Carpenter 2: On the main point, you argue China is all about progress. Okay, so now you ice the cake of your ignorance with moist crassitude. Progress – did no-one tell you? We’ve, um, progressed beyond the idea that progress is, you know, just more industry, propped up by mass labour. But let’s focus on Tibet. Let’s imagine Tibet is a messy home, dust and even a few dishes laying about, heating a bit broken, but the family is okay-happy, spending a bit too much time in front of the spritual TV (meditating, spacing out), rather than cleaning or earning. But they’s cool widdit. If the home – preposterous, but hang with me – was yours, would you welcome some guy (even the landlord, which is your argument about what China is vis-à-vis Tibet) smashing the door in, permanently kneecapping you with a wrench, raping your wife, kicking your kid in the head…and then fixing the boiler? Fuck that. Progress, even if we believed in your absurd version of it, sovereignty, even if it made any remote sense in relation to China’s domination of Tibet, does not justify genocide. Or maybe it does: but then when I ask you for a bill for fixing your plumbing, after destroying your family, stop frickin’ whining? K?
It seems to me that the sign (real or not) serves better as a statement on America’s policies and beliefs than China’s.
Would we have let Berlin host the games? We did. Would we do it again knowing what we know now? Probably. Is China 2008 the same as Germany 1936? Maybe, outlook unclear, ask again later.
Ummmm…. How was Jesse Owens treated when he got home? It’s easy to poke fun at some history-challenged protester with a placard. Not so easy to acknowledge the systemic racism of the time and its echoes today.
has anyone ever heard of sarcasm? am I the only one who thinks that the sign holder was well-aware that the nazis held the olympics, and is trying to make a point that we shouldn’t stay silent again…..
If it is a counter-protestor’s sign then it is quite clever.
If is a protestor’s sign, well, then not so clever.
We cannot really tell from the picture where the sign is in relation to the main body of protestors.
Goddamn. Take it for what it is. A statement you can respond to. Don’t get mad just because you aren’t used to sarcasm.
I suspect photoshop actually. The light seems a bit off and who shoots in black and white?
Statistically, i think it’s more likely that the hundreds of people passed the person with the sign and didn’t know about 1936 or were too embarassed to point it out than that someone has such a developed sense of humour. People have a tendancy to turn a blind eye to things they find uncomfartable… speaking of which, “they-didn’t-know”?? my arse! They knew Hitler was an antisemite, so what if the rest came after the election or after 1939? What they knew was enough, what we know today is enough.
Enough God damn it!
Actually the Olympics were held in Nazi Germany in 1936. That is where Jesse Owens won a medal.
For more info: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/