April 19, 2008

Obey Giant Obama

A reader writes about Obama's popular Soviet constructivist-style propaganda poster:

Here is the official poster sold at the Obama campaign website:

It's sold out of its limited edition of 5,000 at $70 apiece.

The artist who created this image is Shepard Fairey.

Apparently, that's his real name.

As Time Magazine puts it, SF is "The man who launched the sticker revolution."

Previously people who did "graffiti art," like Warhol find Jean-Michel Basquiat, spray painted buildings. Even if they did the same image over and over again, each spray painting was unique. Fairey hit on the idea of pre-printing his vandalism as stickers and then covering an urban area with the endless repetition of the same image.

The first idea Fairey had was a sticker of the late professional wrestler Andre the Giant:

AndreTheGiantSticker.jpg

In Fairey's mind, Andre the Giant gets mixed up with Big Brother, since Andrea, is, well, big. This produces Fairey's next sticker campaign: "Obey Giant:"

LARGE SIZED STICKER

Hitting upon Soviet aesthetics, Fairey became a big hit with those who wax nostalgic for the return of the USSR. He founded BLK/MRKT Visual Communications to sell his rebel hipness to Hawaiian Punch. Here's one of Fairey's various Lenin/Stalin posters:


The art side is run out of http://obeygiant.com ...

Here are some examples of that work:

http://obeygiant.com/archives?nggpage=7

http://mkgallery.com/artists/fairey/fairey_2006_3.html

Of course God reminds us not to value this life to too highly by allowing it to endlessly descend to lower and lower levels of self parody. Thus it came to pass, my comrade, that when Penguin Books was getting around to reissue the Orwell "backlist," they picked Fairey to do the covers for "1984" and "Animal Farm" ... i.e., a guy who thinks Stalin was cool will now insert himself into the history of these texts:

http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2008/04/it-was-a-bright.html

Animalfarm_afrmt_2

Here is the NYT article that prompted this all:

What does it all mean? Obviously, the Obey Obama the Giant poster isn't "ironic." Humorless credulity, not irony, is the hallmark of Obama fans.

Instead, the Obey Obama poster just shows once again what Michael Blowhard and Shouting Thomas pointed out recently: Most artists aren't very smart. They like shiny stuff:
"There was a stretch in the '90s when edgy theater artists were showcasing garish colors, laughtracks, snappy pacing, game-show formats and such. The critics were treating themselves to a field day explaining that what these deep, complex, and (as always) "critical" artists were up to was subverting our media-drenched assumptions with their media-based strategies. Vanessa, who actually hung out with a number of these actors and directors, laughed and said to me, "What nonsense. These kids are creating theater pieces that resemble live versions of television because TV is what they really like. They like TV, and they want the theater they create to be like TV.""
So, all these Obama fans are buying posters done in the style of Soviet propaganda posters because ... because they think they look cool. Which explains a lot about their politics, too.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

54 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you know he supports Stalin? Leftists include communists, socialists, anarchists, liberals, and some adherents of Catholic social thought. It's like my saying you guys support the neocons.


I actually think socialist realist posters fit Orwell well in our age of irony.

Anonymous said...

Some nice parodies.

Anonymous said...

"How do you know he supports Stalin? Leftists include communists, socialists, anarchists, liberals, and some adherents of Catholic social thought."

(You left out neocons.) Sailer didn't say Shepard supported Stalin, just that he thought he was cool. There's a difference, sure, but in an era in which a movie about Greeks in leather briefs fighting Persian ninjas is attacked quite seriously as "fascist art", there's no particular reasons to pull any punches on the emulation of the naive, cheap art promoted by the most murderous regime in human history. Or is it okay to admire violent rulers from the 20th Century CE but not those from the 5th Century BCE?

Not "supporting" Stalinism isn't enough. Rejecting Stalinism because it forbids dancing - after helping to install it through a campaign of violence - doesn't absolve anyone of anything, no matter how "anarchist", "socialist", or "Christian" they may claim to be.

Progressives think flirting with Marx/Lenin/Stalin -ism like dancing with a thug at a party, and going home safely after the lights go on. It's actually more like dancing with a leper, and then wondering why your body parts keep falling off.

Anonymous said...

Despite my better inclinations, I actually sort of like those designs....

Anonymous said...

The cult-like behavior of Obama supporters is sickening. If he loses his bid for the Presidency he'll probably resign and start a Mid-Level Marketing scheme.

Anonymous said...

Cult-like behavior? You mean like this?

Anonymous said...

People went ape-shit when Newsweek revealed that the beef industry was using the esthetic from a Nazi propaganda poster for its .. er .. propaganda.

http://commercial-archive.com/node/508

Evidently, unlike Stalin, Hitler did not murder enough people for art inspired by his esthetic to earn a free pass among the bien pensant.

But what can we expect from the sort of people who think that the likeness of a thuggish mass-homicidal sociopath is a valid fashion statement?

http://myteedesign.com/images/Che.jpg

Anonymous said...

It's true that it's easier to get away with admiring and imitating Soviet art and style than to admire Nazi art and style, but isn't the problem here that people are too sensitive about the Nazi stuff? Bryan Ferry, my favorite pop musician, got into some kind of ridiculous trouble for this last year. By the same token, I don't see what's offensive about these Obey images. They are cool.

Reading that back, I guess "aren't people too sensitive about the Nazi stuff?" sounds like a joke, but I mean it. Hitler liked Wagner's operas and so do I. No big deal.

Man, I really don't feel like putting in the obvious and trite disclaimers, but I will paraphrase (in earnest) Bryan Ferry: I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi and Soviet regimes, and all they stood for, evil and abhorrent.

Anonymous said...

I don't think he's that dumb.

Kind of a neat guy when I looked into him.

I wish I could hang out with Love and Rockets and do the Led Zeppelin CD covers.

I like the fact that he proudly states "Propaganda Engineering" at the top of his website where he discusses the Obama posters.

He's a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and not a poli sci or history major though, so maybe no one has mentioned that his inspirations were responsible for millions of deaths.

Cute Asian wife, too.

E. REX said...

I've long bitched that artistic types hid in the subjective art world to avoid being juiced in the objective world. If you're kinda smart but not terribly smart, your parents are doctors but you will never be, the art world is a good place to hide. I see it all the time.

Anonymous said...

Surely you don't deny that Soviet propaganda posters look cool? They do look cool. Like Nazi military uniforms, they have a cool aesthetic. Thinking such doesn't make you a Communist.
I expect the Stalin-Obama poster is half-ironic.

But it sure beats the sickening sight of libertarian Ron Paul supporters comparing themselves to the Guy Fawkes of "V for Vendetta" - the historical Guy Fawkes wanted to re-impose Catholic religious tyranny on Britain; the "V" version a murderous Anarchist, the sort whose beliefs fade into Trotskyism and the most vicious of totalitarian tyrannies.

Anonymous said...

thomas:
"People went ape-shit when Newsweek revealed that the beef industry was using the esthetic from a Nazi propaganda poster for its .. er .. propaganda. "

They didn't just use the aesthetic though, they made an exact copy of the poster! It's clearly the exact same figure in both, given a cowboy hat and with the Nazi swastika changed to stars & stripes. Under German law the Nazi artist's descendants could sue the Beef people for copyright infringement.

Anonymous said...

Granted the Obama print is a little weird, but it does capture the cult of personality well. I think if anything it gives a chill to those of us outside the temple.

The new covers for 1984 and Animal Farm are excellent, much better that an earlier cover shown in the article you linked.

Graphic artists are always searching through old styles for something to update that will have a fresh look. The comic-book look, the retro-fifties look, psychedelic effects, etc. Looking at Fairey's work, I see elements of Soviet iconography in the Obama portrait, but not in the Orwell covers. The latter have a pre-Revolutionary Russian look to their decorative style and color scheme.

Anonymous said...

When I was in London a couple of years back, and the Tate Modern museum there had a whole floor dedicated to Soviet propaganda.

I kind of agree with a poster above that it does have something of a cool aesthetic.

Also, I have to say Obama has the most brilliant logo I've ever seen. This is hard for me to admit as I detest him so much. But his logo, which incorporates the "O" from his name as well as the colors of the U.S. flag and features a rising sun over what seems to be Midwestern landscape is fantastic.

Anonymous said...

It's of course interesting how no one seems to notice how the Commies get a pass and the Nazis get the hook. An alien might very well get the impression that the Nazis didn't kill enough people.

But, what's really interesting is how the left (i.e., the Media & Co.) managed to create such a distinction between themselves and the Nazis in the first place when clearly it's almost entirely propaganda; the Nazis were obviously leftists, not "far right" as the M & Co. would have us believe.

"Neo-Nazis" may or may not really be leftists, but the M & Co. reflexively labeling them as such is pretty funny.

http://tinyurl.com/2eekgq

Anonymous said...

Are we absolutely sure that the poster of Stalin (I mean the one that actually has Lenin and Stalin on it, not the Obama poster) isn't meant to be a parody/mockery of Stalinism? I get the impression that the emphasis of the word GIANT is supposed to allude to Fairey's own Andre the Giant stickers and thereby lower Lenin and Stalin to the level of buffoons. I would need to see more of this guy's work before I conclude that he is actually a Stalinist.

Anonymous said...

If hitler murder 6 million christians instead of jews, the obama poster might look like 1930's nazi posters. After all, aren't liberals nothing more than goose stepping oppressors

Anonymous said...

I know quite a few artists, and the most successful ones are usually pretty bright. One guy I met recently does commercial graphic design for software companies and can take or leave big money projects. In addition to being an accomplished artist, he is a competent programmer, although he prefers not to write code if he doesn't have to. He also speaks several languages fluently.

Perhaps many artists purposefully avoid what verbal types see as intellectually demanding because they don't have time for it. I'm not a graphic artist, but I can appreciate the amount of concentration and mental energy that goes into quality artwork. Also, I noticed in elementary school that the brightest kids were always the first to draw realistic pictures of faces and objects.

I'm pretty sure artistic ability correlates with intelligence. However, the attraction to the profession may not. But you could say the same about journalism, right?

Anonymous said...

Soviet and Nazi propaganda posters and films are indistinguishable, save for the presence of the Swastika or Hammer and Sickle, you'd be hard pressed to tell one from the other. Leni Riefenstahl (Jodi Foster's favorite filmmaker and hero) could have comfortably worked for Stalin.

Which brings to mind something else.

Artists are lazy, lazier than GWB which is hard to comprehend. This stuff was done seventy years ago, is not very interesting (it's very simplistic in it's graphic approach, lacking any sort of craftsmanship and is the "factory" approach to making graphic design).

Artists just aren't very good any more. They lack the energy and discipline (and Fairey is exhibit A) to do any original and creative work.

He's all hype. "Propaganda" etc. is merely more marketing buzz word cool. He lacks any sort of passion or intensity because like all others of his kind, he doesn't actually believe in anything.

This applies to Obama's cult of morons. They claim to be "new" but they're recycled stuff from seventy years ago, or perhaps 80. It's pathetic.

Guys do this sort of thing, because (excepting David Hockney) they lack skills and discipline and passion to create anything original and beautiful. All they can do is recycle stuff and pose about, or create ever-increasing ugliness and call it "shocking."

Anonymous said...

I have not seen the Obama poster commanding me to "Change." His local compou- er, campaign headquarters has several commanding me to "Hope," with a different but equally grave visage of the Transcendant One.

I shall do what I can to comply.

Anonymous said...

Fairey is the ideal visual propagandist for Obama, not only because of his politics, but because he is an incredible plagiarist as well. Not just Stalin, but the Nazis, too. ;-)

Anonymous said...

But it IS cool. That Soviet realist stuff is not great art, but it has a lot of style and visual appeal.

Also, I suspect that most Obama supporters get the irony. I think it's deliberate - an attempt to emphasize his youth and hipness compared to his rivals. It's similar to, but more esoteric and therefore more desirable than, appearing on a show like The Colbert Report. I also think his staff figures that the people who get the reference will also get the irony and find it cool and amusing. Those who don't get the reference don't matter (literally or figuratively); those who get the reference but object to the theme are probably never going to vote for their man anyway.

One can argue that ironically imitating a style associated with Stalinism trivializes the seriousness of electing a President, but we live in a time when nothing is too serious to be recast as a status marker separating the hip from the unhip. Normally, I find this kind of hipper-than-thou stuff annoying, but I confess to finding the deliberate appeal to people who are both educated and ironic in temperament to be appealing. It's not going to get me to vote for Obama, but it does make me like him more.

Anonymous said...

I just wish I'd bought the poster when I first saw (and was struck by) it.

The limited edition will become a collector's item.

Just shows that prejudice (anti-Obama-ism in my case) can lead to bad decisions.

Ron Guhname said...

Thanks Steve. NOW I understand the OBEY stickers on campus.

Anonymous said...

A gallery opened in my little home town of Woodstock, NY last fall. It called itself "The East Village Collective" and used the red star of communism as one of its graphic elements.

Woodstock, for those of you who don't know, is an outpost of the extreme left.

The term "collective" doesn't have any "ironic" connotations to me. It brings to mind the forced collectivization of the Ukraine... something that I would assume no sane person would want to associate with his business.

The left, for the past 15 or 20 years has been quite angrily outspoken in its assertion that certain types of political expression are beyond the pale... what it calls hate speech.

I found the use of Soviet terms and icons pretty ugly.

In combination with Obama's refusal to categorically denounce his raving Rev. Wright, his association with Bill Ayers, his wife's strange comments, etc., I wonder if the use of Soviet propaganda icons says more about him than that he understands "hip" and "ironic."

Anonymous said...

Artists are lazy

Horseshit. I don't know about the "connected" types (darlings of the glitterati like this guy, or your "modern artists," ), but real artists (illustrators and the like) who are successful are usually so because they're hard workers first, and talented second. You have to bust ass to distinguish yourself, because scads of people think art is "work," not work.

In my experience, physical labor is easier than doing art for a living. The former's over when you go home. The latter's never over; you're always researching ref, practicing, designing, etc. You have to live and breathe it to be successful, if you aren't connected.

But my experience is colored by my perspective, that of the illustrator end. Design is probably different.

Anonymous said...

That link to Fairey's plagiarism.

All very convincing except for this:

"it was an exact duplication of the infamous logo belonging to the Gestapo"

This referring to a death's head logo. Trouble is looking at the pictures they use as an example, its clearly not an exact duplication. Its merely something similar.

Anonymous said...

(You left out neocons.)
Sorry, you can't discount the people on your side you don't like any more than Jonah Goldberg can claim fascists are liberal. They're for free markets and social regulation; look at Michael Medved on movies. They're on the right, they just happen to have some stupid ideas about immigration and spreading democracy (which fits into conservative ideas about the superiority of Western culture).

Reading that back, I guess "aren't people too sensitive about the Nazi stuff?" sounds like a joke, but I mean it. Hitler liked Wagner's operas and so do I. No big deal.
Technically, it's impossible for Wagner to have been a Nazi, but he was into various volkisch movements that basically served as a precursor.

There's more disdain of the Nazis than the Commies because more of the media's Jewish, but the Commies aren't too popular either and Rammstein's doing pretty well.

And you do have to admit evil people can be stylish; Nazism and Communism were big movements, they could hire good people in design. Albert Speer wasn't a moron; Hugo Boss designed the SS uniform.

As for the Nazi meat poster, it might actually be a coincidence. Some poses just get done over and over again and become part of the general visual lexicon.

Svigor: the Nazis were on the right. They never messed with big business and gave the labor unions very little. They held conservative viewpoints such as wanting women to stay home and raise children and attacked the 'degenerate art' in vogue. And, of course, the racism and anti-semitism; left racists attack majority or powerful groups. Sure you've got lefties loving the Palestinians but that's just because they see the Israelis as having the upper hand.

Anonymous said...

This referring to a death's head logo. Trouble is looking at the pictures they use as an example, its clearly not an exact duplication. Its merely something similar.

There are other totenkopf insignias out there that are exactly the same.

Here is one that I saw that is the same.

Delicious that the guy who did Obama's head so well also admired the SS death's head image.

Maybe he is just dumb.

Anonymous said...

Of course artists and Fairey in particular are lazy. They just copy stuff done decades, or in Fairey's case nearly 100 years ago.

Soviet posters like that date to the 1920's. He's copying stuff 80 years old!

If that isn't lazy I don't know what the hell is.

As far as being "cool" I doubt it. It's about as cool as say, Victorian get-up or the Renaissance Faire. Heck at least the Star Trek Geeks who get up in Klingon outfits are copying stuff that is only 40 years, not 80 years old.

So by that metric, Star Trek Geeks are twice as cool as Fairey, since they're copy stuff half as old.

I think it's pretty dead-on, Artists for the most part are lazy and incompetent creatively. I'm sure they are good technically, but lack the ability to create anything NEW.

Fairey in Particular cannot create anything New. I've not seen a single example where it's not just a copy of stuff done 80 years earlier.

Anonymous said...

Steve, the rumor is that the black woman who made the hoax call leading to the FLDS mess is an Obama delegate. Worth looking into. Are soft Wacos the future of white oddballs like Amish, under Barry the Wonder Black?

Anonymous said...

Hardly anything is new in art today.

Most of the stuff we see is a recycling of stuff from decades past, that itself was a recycling from earlier recycles.

There may be nothing new under the sun, but in some fields there isn't even anything different.

Classical music mostly relies on pieces written from 1750 to 1910. Played over and over.

Turn on your radio. A huge chunk of the market is "oldies." Hell, when I listen even to "adult contemporary" I hear the exact same playlist - played at nearly the same time of day - that I heard in 1978!

1978 was 30 years ago.

In design and music we're hanging on to the stuff our parents and grandparents did. Somehow, this doesn't feel reassuring and traditional (in the healthy sense).

It feels like we live a limbo without a culture, but with memories of a culture, that we keep alive by going through the motions, although those memories get more fragmented all the time.

The big budget movies are such titles as "Get Smart" (60s TV show), "GI Joe" (kids' toy from way back - 2009 release), etc.

Remember the classic film from some years ago, starring Elizabeth Taylor - "The Flintstones"?

Recently MOMA enshrined ("embalmed" is more like it) the "modernism" of the 40s and 50s - which itself was an empty rehash of the art movements of the 1910s.

Does the West since 1950 produce great artists - Beethovens and Michelangelos, Durers and Goethes, even Rodgers and Hammerstein? To ask the question is almost to answer it - unless one thinks this silk-screening commie is a Michelangelo.

There are almost no men doing fresh work in a new unexpected field. We could say: "All the fields have been established." They were saying that before most of them were established.

What do we have fresh in art? Mapplethorpe sticking a whip handle up his ass, and taking a photograph of it? Yeah, that's great work.

The internet has created a lot of good ferment, and I've seen great writing on it (nonfiction), and the YouTube revolution has interesting possibilities (anyone is a filmmaker). The world hasn't run out of gas. It still tingles with new things to do. People have run out of gas.

I believe they don't have common cultural roots, a tradition to work for or against.

Ah well - here, I am an example of what I criticize. I am merely regurgitating the same old criticism that has been made for decades.

Anonymous said...

I think you put what the "image" is about very well, Steve Wood. While it's clever, I don't find it particularly "appealing". It's just another example of the smug elitism of Obama and his people.

For what it's worth, I used to work for a leading contemporary art dealer in London and got to know quite a few "successful" artists. Most were complex, some were very intelligent, others less so, some were very funny, some were very annoying ... but lazy they were not.

Anonymous said...

"Also, I suspect that most Obama supporters get the irony."

What is the irony? I don't get it. I bet few people "get it."

What I see is Obama using group think and tools of pesuasion to inculcate the "true believer." And True Believers is exactly what Obama has in his stable. Who, but someone so discontent with their current existence, could ever support a man who doesn't stand firm for anything?

Obama is a complete empty: decent intelligence, but no personality and little in the way of creativity and curiosity. He is also a weak man at heart, someone who doesn't understand the leadership position a man should assume in the family and civic life. He always ducks the issues; always in the water closet when the time of decision arises.

The posters are nothing more than affirmation that we, as a socity, are but a few wrong steps away from falling prey to something terrible. By enabling nonsense, such as the poster, we deny the animalistic impulses intrinsic to humanity and we set ourselves upon the butcher block of self-destruction.

Anonymous said...

skt:
"When I was in London a couple of years back, and the Tate Modern museum there had a whole floor dedicated to Soviet propaganda.

I kind of agree with a poster above that it does have something of a cool aesthetic. "

Yes, I saw the same Tate Modern exhibition. :)

Anonymous said...

It seems like everytime someone says something that they essentially believe (in this case, the grandiose stature of Obama as a political figure), but dont want to be critized for or associated with the negative consequences of (in this case, Stalinesque portrayal, hero-worship, proto-Dictator type propaganda), and at the same time don't fully grasp the situation they're in (the historical context of this art and U.S. politics), the result is they make statements which are "ironic" - i.e. which could be meant seriously or could just be in jest. In America there are huge numbers of youngsters suffocating in their own hipness- but this poster speaks to another kind of person, I fear the zeal is real.

Anonymous said...

The Nazi movement was almost completely aesthetic. Hitler was an artist. Few historians really fathom what that means beyond as a way to poo-poo him for not getting into the best art schools.

The intellectual part of Nazism makes almost no sense. Mein Kampf is pages and pages of rambling rubbish. Even the political program was a half-baked repackaging of Prussian militarism using sexy pop culture ideas of conquering Aryans borrowed from America and the British, with a few Greek statues thrown in for good measure. Nazism was all about the parades, the ritualistic gestures, the spiffy uniforms, the posters handsome young men and women.

Napoleon said it. People will not fight and die for a few dollars a day. They need something that moves the soul. Aesthetics can do that, and that is art. For good or bad.

No great American artists? Are you kidding me? Walt Disney, Norman Rockwell, Steven Spielberg. They gave us the images that we defined ourselves by. What is "America" around the world? It is first and foremost the images made by Hollywood. It's the Golden Arches. We take it for granted because we have already been defined by it. To people living in mud huts or dirty Third World tenements, that is the modern vision of Heaven.

Why do you think Ronald Reagan was so popular? Not only did he fit that 1950's clean cut all-American aesthetic, he was visually a part of it as an actor. Same reason GWB moved to Texas and succeeded with a good ol' Boy demeanor and verbal gaffs. Even 9/11 worked as propaganda because it was movie magic complete with an ominous looking villain. Art imitates life imitates art.

The art sitting around in museums these days is half high concept stuff that ends up used in advertising aesthetics, and half intentional ugliness to please the intellectuals fomenting over the political uses of art in the 20th century. If you want to see piles of trash or splattered unidentified liquids, you can skip the trip to MoMA and just take a walk through NYC and look around yourself.

Anonymous said...

"But it sure beats the sickening sight of libertarian Ron Paul supporters comparing themselves to the Guy Fawkes of "V for Vendetta" - the historical Guy Fawkes wanted to re-impose Catholic religious tyranny on Britain"
Sickening sight? Must be why the media ignores him mostly, as the media just can't do sickening. On no, not they. Meanwhile, he's about the only candidate who arouses any passion in thinking people and the only one to inspire posters in all of Pennsylvania, from what I've been told.
As for Guy Fawkes and the "V". I believe this refers to the fear of "False Flag Operations" -- you know, like the Gulf of Tonkin, that Northwoods idea, Pearl Harbor, that fire the Nazis blamed on the Communists. This is how governments have operated from time immemorial. Sometimes you just have to create enemies or give them false power in order to get the population to risk their lives in getting rid of them.
Supposedly Parliament found out the nefarious Fawkes and his Catholic followers were planning to blow up Parliament and the Queen. The Plot was discovered in a Nick of Time, disaster averted, Queen and Parliament were safe and ready to go on serving their people to the best of their ability. The Catholics and various allies were effectively revealed as ultimate traitors.
I THINK this is why Ron Paul supported invoke the memory. Somehow it resonates today.

Anonymous said...

The Guy Fawkes/Gunpowder Plot has been revealed as a false flag operation. That is why it has been used recently to illustrate the possibilities of any number of currently controversal situations.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

......, the result is they make statements which are "ironic" - i.e. which could be meant seriously or could just be in jest."

I agree. Smug irony seems to be the only idiom that people born within the last thirty years can muster. They're lousy with it. Ultimately it's the boomer's fault - they don't seem to have taught their kids to believe in anything. And by that, I don't mean to believe in something, but rather to believe in the right things - which after all it used to be expected that parents would do.

Anonymous said...

the Nazis were on the right.

The Nazis instituted wage and price controls and massive public works projects (to reduce unemployment); meddled heavily with foreign trade; pursued an economic policy usually described as Keynesian; gradually merged big business and government (business was clearly there to serve the state and the volk, not the other way around); created for Germany their own brand of Christianity (when they weren't trying to stamp it out altogether) and were themselves heavily into the pagan thing; created conservation zones for endagered species, banned animal testing, vivisection, and trapping (and otherwise went nuts in pursuit of protecting animals); banned smoking (Hitler was a teetotaler, non-smoker, and vegetarian), and were as big into eugenics as the rest of the left (the latter's subsequent turn away from eugenics is probably in the main due to the Holocaust narrative and eugenics' association with Nazism, at least ostensibly); were obviously collectivist, statist, progressivist, and totalitarian.

Sounds pretty leftist to me. The only metric by which they could be considered rightist is vis-a-vis race (i.e., on the internationalism vs. nationalism scale) - if one considers European dissolution to be leftist, and European preservationism to be rightist, then yeah one can make the argument that the Nazis were on the right. But otherwise and in general, no.

Anonymous said...

And neocons aren't really rightists, either, except in the facile party-membership sense. They're a Trojan Horse, not a genuine conservative movement. The only thing they're conservative about is the same thing about which Jews generally are conservative - The Fatherland.

Anonymous said...

Ron Paul and Guy Fawkes: No, no, no, this is a nerd culture thing. Geeks like Ron Paul (or at least did until the newsletters came out, was the general consensus at a scifi con I was at a few months ago), and geeks like V for Vendetta, so they use the masks for their candidate. It's the same reason the Church of Scientology is getting hassled by dudes in Guy Fawkes masks; they tried to censor something on the Internet, and the expected people took offense.


And neocons aren't really rightists, either, except in the facile party-membership sense. They're a Trojan Horse, not a genuine conservative movement. The only thing they're conservative about is the same thing about which Jews generally are conservative - The Fatherland.
The few I've met seem to genuinely believe they're rightists, and apart from the immigration issue they hold the expected conservative positions. War in Iraq was supported by fundamentalist Christians who wanted to spread Christianity as well; the majority of conservative people signed on for the war. I'm not saying you can't be a real conservative and oppose the war, but you have to keep in mind that 'the Right', like 'the Left', is less a set of core principles than an umbrella of movements that happen to have interests in common (more market, more Christianity, and non-paleo libertarians call the second one into question). It's not like Europe where everyone gets their own party, so parties have to be much more diverse. You can't just call everyone else a Leftist; heck, I'll tell you, I'm a liberal, and I've known anarchists, liberals, and wine-sipping Upper West Siders, and nobody I know would ever call the neocons lefties! I think with this Iraq war they've gotten to the point where neither side wants them; kind of like the Nazis, actually.

The Nazis weren't for European preservation. The Nazis weren't white nationalists, they were German nationalists. They liked Nordic groups like the Norwegians and Danes (who hated their guts), but they were perfectly willing to kill white Poles and Russians by the millions. Hitler hated Poles almost as much as he hated Jews.

As for the Nazis: depends on what you mean by left and right, I guess. You're right that they subordinated business to the state, and as for the animal protection and eugenics, as you point out, they weren't so clearly coded as left points of view back then. So there may be a difference between 'right-wing' in 1933 and in 2008. The best argument I can make that Nazis fit the 1933 definition of right-wing is that they generally made alliances with conservative and nationalist groups such as the DNVP and were opposed by left-wing parties such as the SPD and KPD. (Who hated each other and whose disagreements helped Mustache Guy rise to power, but that's another story.) There were individuals such as Strasser who wanted to take the NSDAP in a more 'leftist' direction, but they got killed on the Night of the Long Knives along with Rohm.

Anonymous said...

"Also, I suspect that most Obama supporters get the irony."

What is the irony? I don't get it. I bet few people "get it."


The irony is in using a style associated with totalitarianism in a small-d democratic political campaign. The irony is also found in using a Soviet style in American politics - we used to be enemies, after all. Either you find that sort of thing clever and funny in a somewhat obnoxious, snobbish way (because only culturally literate people will "get it"), or you don't. There's nothing else to explain.

Smug irony seems to be the only idiom that people born within the last thirty years can muster. They're lousy with it. Ultimately it's the boomer's fault - they don't seem to have taught their kids to believe in anything.

The boomers started the whole irony thing. Once the rebellions of the 60s collapsed, boomers had nothing left but sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. Excesses of the first two proved to have unfortunate consequences; RnR continues to be sacred music to that generation, but it's not much to build a belief system on. All that's left is a cynical cocked eyebrow. You can see the trend in boomer culture from the mid-70s onward, from SNL to Seinfeld: Nothing is to be taken seriously; no emotion is to be expressed straightforwardly. As Babu Bhatt would say, they are "mocking, mocking, always mocking." It's hardly surprising that their children, who have grown up in this irony-drenched society, would have taken it to new extremes.

Anonymous said...

Neocons trend their party left on domestic (i.e., non-Fatherland) issues - Trojan Horse. Of course they're adamant about immigration - that's pretty much the only thing leftists are adamant about (some yak about multiculturalism, some yak about assimilation and an "ideational nation," but one way or another they all insist on demographic destruction for Euros).

The Nazis weren't for European preservation.

Yeah, they were rabid German particularists, but Germans were Europeans the last time I checked, so they still violate the "no European preservation" rule of the commies and leftists in general. Obviously we're just talking past one another a bit on this point.

(There's no white nationalism in Europe because there's no white in Europe - everybody hates everybody over there)

So there may be a difference between 'right-wing' in 1933 and in 2008.

Duh! Stand still and the Earth moves...

they generally made alliances with conservative and nationalist groups such as the DNVP and were opposed by left-wing parties such as the SPD and KPD

Yeah, in the sense of party loyalty they were on the right, insofar as the right opposed the commies during Weimar. But, both planned to destroy the republic all along (because they were all utopian progressive leftists).

Anonymous said...

The Gunpowder Plot happened during the reign of James I. Although it's true he was a queen ...

One could argue that the Nazis didn't recognize Slavs (untermenschen) as being "white".

Yes, about irony. It involves "playing" with image/iconography.

Anonymous said...

"The Gunpowder Plot happened during the reign of James I. Although it's true he was a queen ..."
yes, true. But it was on the heels of Queen E 1st. And we've had the second so long now, i can hardly imagine an English monarch who's not queen. Not there's anything wrong with that.

Anonymous said...

Wow! What genius! Because someone likes an art style that mocks the Soviet authoritarian aesthetic, that person must be commie! Such genius!

Let's see, this logic equates to...

If John Smith is a member of the Catholic Church that is led by a former member of the Hitler Youth, Mr. Smith must also be an acolyte of Adolph Hitler! Right?

Or how about Suzie who like to listen to Elvis Presley? Suzie must advocate the use of large amounts of illegal drugs and food to medicate life's pain! Right?

Steve, go back to school to learn basic logic!

Gee, aren't we all lucky that the GOP brain trust has run the U.S. for the last 7 years? Global warming? Not real! Gas prices at $4/gallon? All the fault of the Democrats! Super deficit? It's all good! Global food shortage? Don't worry! Be happy! Mortgage crisis? Pshaw! The Democrats caused it! Debtor status to China? Hey, that's capitalism at it's best! Chinese dictators deserve to make a profit, too! Cover-ups of rapes of American women by KBR? Puh-lease! What's a little abuse, rape, and torture of women who show patriotism for their country?

Just think what another 8 years of GOP rule could do for America!

(The use of the Soviet-style is supposed to be ironic, comparing the similarities of the Soviet human rights abuses to those of American political and business interests. Most people with an ounce of common sense would understand that the use of that art style is not an endorsement of Soviet politics! Duh! Duh! Duh!)

Anonymous said...

Gunnar: I agree, but this is a right-wing website. Don't go in waving an Israeli flag at a Rammstein concert. (And yeah, I dig the band. Feuer Frei!)

Yeah, in the sense of party loyalty they were on the right, insofar as the right opposed the commies during Weimar. But, both planned to destroy the republic all along (because they were all utopian progressive leftists).
My understanding was that the SDP was pro-democratic and the KDP was pro-revolutionary and this was one of their reasons for hating each other. The only parties to support democracy were the SDP and the Catholic Zentrum, I think. (I actually rather like Catholic social thought.)

Neocons trend their party left on domestic (i.e., non-Fatherland) issues - Trojan Horse. Of course they're adamant about immigration - that's pretty much the only thing leftists are adamant about (some yak about multiculturalism, some yak about assimilation and an "ideational nation," but one way or another they all insist on demographic destruction for Euros).

No, that's the topic they're adamant about that pisses you off most. Lefties are more concerned with environmental destruction, economic inequality, or reproductive freedom(in America); the common denominator of the left in eras far before immigration became a big issue was representing the working class. Socialism and communism weren't about racial assimilation, they were about equality for everyone.

Yeah, they were rabid German particularists, but Germans were Europeans the last time I checked, so they still violate the "no European preservation" rule of the commies and leftists in general. Obviously we're just talking past one another a bit on this point.
Could be, and I think we do have different definitions of the terms. (Though I do think it is amusing that nobody wants to claim the Nazis; heck, the BNP supposedly dropped antisemitism specifically to weaken the mental ties people have between them and the Nazis. Causing WW2 makes you unpopular...and, yes, Germany definitely had legitimate grievances after WWI, they got stuck with all the war debt and the Sudetenland and Alsace should have been theirs. I think if they'd had a center-right coalition running things they could have just taken back all the Germanophone areas, rubbled Paris, and been happy. Heck, if they'd persecuted some other group they might have gotten the Bomb (Einstein, Fermi, Bohr...). But I'll leave the alternate histories to Turtledove.)
But if the Nazis violate the no-European-preservation rule, doesn't that make them less likely to be leftists?

(There's no white nationalism in Europe because there's no white in Europe - everybody hates everybody over there)

Anonymous said...

Because someone likes an art style that mocks the Soviet authoritarian aesthetic

In logic what you are doing is known as begging the question. Whether that style mocks the Soviet aesthetic is precisely the point at issue.

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna draw me a picture of Hitler. And plaster it right on the side of your building. Hey, I'm no Nazi. How do you know I support Hitler? It's called irony. DUH.

If someone paints a leftist politician in the style with which such politicians have long been associated, then the onus of proof would appear to be, not on the people taking the painting at face value, but instead on the people asserting that the painting is ironic. That is common sense. It's up to the Obamamaniacs to show that this particular poster of their man isn't what it looks like.

I have to go paint my ironic Hitler now...

Anonymous said...

'm gonna draw me a picture of Hitler. And plaster it right on the side of your building. Hey, I'm no Nazi. How do you know I support Hitler? It's called irony. DUH.

If someone paints a leftist politician in the style with which such politicians have long been associated, then the onus of proof would appear to be, not on the people taking the painting at face value, but instead on the people asserting that the painting is ironic. That is common sense. It's up to the Obamamaniacs to show that this particular poster of their man isn't what it looks like.

This is one of those cultural differences between lefties and righties; lefties are big into irony. Look at Paula Cole's 'Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?'. She doesn't want a cowboy.

The proper analogy wouldn't be a picture of Hitler, but a picture of McCain in Nazi style, with big heroic muscles etc. But they'd just go after you for being a Nazi. Yes, there is an asymmetry in that referencing Communism is much more accepted.

Anonymous said...

by using a constructivist presentation which was largely utilized by bolsheviks, the artist is attempting to force the viewer to consider many ironies, including the irony inherent in the ideal situations portrayed in soviet realism and soviet constructivism and the terrible real-life conditions that many people faced in the soviet union; as well as the irony of portraying an american candidate in a mostly free republic in a manner in which previously hated enemies of the usa portrayed themselves--causing the viewer to consider the contrasting values behind the people being portrayed in such a medium or style; and the irony that a piece of soviet propaganda by a one party state could conversely be used as a campaign poster in a country with relatively freely contested elections. with your understanding of art, you ought to host a entartete kunst exhibit.

Anonymous said...

and george orwell was a socialist. he even fought with communists in the spanish civil war. try reading more than just two orwell books.