AOC Rips Elon Musk: 'In This Country, We Hate Nazis'
www.huffpost.com
"I still am not rocking with anyone sympathetic to Nazis," the Democrat said. "And I will do that until I am six feet in the ground.”

Summary

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Elon Musk after he made a gesture during Trump’s inauguration resembling a Nazi salute.

Musk and his allies dismissed the comparison, calling such accusations exaggerated.

Ocasio-Cortez, however, called the gesture unacceptable, emphasizing America’s history of opposing Nazis and the Confederacy.

She also condemned the Anti-Defamation League for defending Musk, accusing it of losing credibility.

Her comments sparked broader debate on symbols, gestures, and their implications amid Trump’s return to office.

  • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
    75·
    22 hours ago

    National identity is imaginary, powerful and useful. What she’s choosing to claim with hers is badass. It’s brash, in-your-face, heroic. Anti-apathy. And our world needs tonnes more of it.

    As an activist irl, and someone targeted daily by nazis for years, AOC has no illusions about the current state of fash in the USofA, nor the history and current state of slavery and genocide in the world. Nazis (and other misogynists) will tell you she’s ignorant and deluded, but you know she’s not. She’s manifesting, and the irony is lovely.

    If you want to live in the country she does - against all the opposition activists for the common good constantly face - claim it as she claims it. Go find your allies irl and stop letting powerful men tell you there’s no point trying anything. Your enemy says you’re not a real person, but a thing God put on earth for them to use or destroy.

    Tough love: Hope is hard work. Apathy is an easy trap that flatters your intelligence while it kills your spirit. Trust yourself and make a choice: who is your enemy and how are you going to treat them?

    • Anahkiasen@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      14·
      19 hours ago

      Thank you, this comment section has some of this cynisim already. Yes she’s saying very eviden things but the other side is winning precisely by creating a culture of fear and overwhelming toxicity and locking you in echo chambers that eat at you by making you think their normal is The normal. It’s not lying than to project what you want into the world until enough people are in on it and pressure bad elements into hiding or into changing path.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      21 hours ago

      I heard an interview with the sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson, and he said something that I love: “pessimism is almost a dereliction of duty.”

      If we want the world to be a better place, we have to make it a better place.

      • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        20 hours ago

        Lewis or Chesterton had something similar, that optimism and pessimism were both dishonest, but patriotism was necessary to existence. Probably Lewis

    • Randelung@lemmy.world
      11·
      20 hours ago

      Fuck, dude. Maybe I have become too cynical. I’ve become a little dejected these last few days/weeks/months, but that was actually inspiring.

      I should follow your username’s advice more lol.

      • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
        1·
        54 minutes ago

        Nothing wrong with being cynical and dejected given the givens imo. I’ve worked with immigrants and refugees in Canada for over a decade, and my wife and I put our Go Bag together last year for when the nazis come to kill us and take our shit. She escaped one war already and knows what’s up. The threat is real.

        But the enemy LOVES it when we sit and stew in our sadness and rage. They literally study how to make us give up, and these screens we’re constantly touching are totally part of it. Don’t believe the hype. We have allies and options.

        snip from the last good thing I read on reddit:

        The term “disinformation” undersells the problem. Because much of Russia’s social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

        Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that’s how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

        As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it’s not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

        Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. … According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.