Elemantary - Dear Watson said:
I am not justifying the use of the image, I know that is wrong, what I am justifying is the mistake made, and why the marines involves should just take it as a learning point and not be punished.
See, that's fine then. I don't see why you disagreed with me. I'm only uncomfortable with people trying to outright justify this. My point was actually that since James Amos has issued a public apology and asked his people not to use the symbol, I'm personally willing to forgive and forget and let this whole thing slide on that assurance. I don't even necessarily think the people in question need to be punished, as they've apparently agreed that it was a mistake and have promised not to do it again.
My only reservation to that was that I really can't blame other people for feeling differently. I'm not a holocaust survivor and neither is any member of my family, but there are a lot of people whom this will have raised terrible memories and they have a right to be angry about it, not to be told that they're being silly and blowing out of proportion.
Elemantary - Dear Watson said:
I can honestly say that they do make mistakes like that, and honestly don't realise at the time, it's all great you sitting at home with all your further/higher education, but some people just dont make connections like that!
I understand. I still think, assuming that I'm correct in saying that this was purchased from a specialist memorabilia dealer, it was a pretty enormous lapse of judgement, but as mentioned I'm personally not in favour of bringing punishment against the people involved. They've apparently acknowledged that it was wrong, that's enough for me.
However, trying to justify it or protect people from legitimate comment within the media or by individuals displays a pretty repulsive lack of empathy. I know it's easier to believe that people just don't like the military and they're being mean than to accept that they might have a legitimate point, but I think they do have a legitimate point, and the way to respond to it is not to tell those people that they shouldn't be angry or that it's not a big deal, because you personally don't get to decide that, but to accept that it's a fuck-up and some people will be legitimately upset.
Elemantary - Dear Watson said:
So to summerise, I am not justifying the use og the logo, I am justifying that the Marines CAN honestly make errors like that, where you want it to be or not, and I am not caomparing the immoral events of history, I am just pointing out that people are overreacting over a simple error.
Who says that people are overreacting?
I for one
know it's an error, but people can still be held to account for an error of judgement. When a professional footballer (that's soccer player to you, I guess) makes the nazi salute to the crowd, noone cares if he knew it was the nazi salute, he's still going to be dragged through the shit because of how his symbol would have been interpreted. When a police officer describes arresting a black man as 'frying a ******', noone cares if he knew it was inappropriate. The point is that people in certain jobs can be held to particular level of conduct, it doesn't matter if they fall short of that standard through ignorance or through wilful malice, it's still falling short of an acceptable standard.
If nothing else, the sig rune is still in common use by far right supporters around the world today. You have to be able to see the problem with a military organization adopting it, right? It's the same reason we wouldn't let Muslim soldiers write the shahada in arabic on a flag and then pose with it. The fact that it's important to them and they personally identify with it is meaningless next to the fact that it's also the flag most commonly used by Islamists and Jihadists worldwide. It would be offensive to people and contrary to the supposed ethos of the organization itself.
This is also, for the rest of you, why no ammount of pointing to Kiss and Slayer will ever matter. Look, here's Slovenian Industrial band Laibach wearing SS-styled uniforms:
Why can they do this? Because they're artists and not soldiers, they aren't held to the standard of professionalism and political neutrality to which we would hold a public servant receiving money from the state to do a very important job, and most importantly because they are't out there wielding the power of life and death over people every day.
Also note that if any of them were actually wearing a sig rune, it's extremely unlikely that picture, or indeed the band, would still exist. Heck, even in comedy sketches or other media where absolute accuracy is not required people tend to deliberately omit the sig rune from the SS uniform. It is a big deal.
And if you think that musicians or artists are somehow exempt from criticism, observe the following:
Kiss had to redesign their German logo because of criticism over the resemblance to a sig rune. They didn't just go 'naahh.. fuck you, you're overreacting', they changed it because they knew it would hurt their public image not to.
