Nazi Salute vs. Raised Fist

and whatabout Lenin and Mao

Our lefty friends love to play the race card or the Nazi card. And this week they were fainting in the halls because Elon Musk gave a Nazi salute when making a speech during the inauguration.

Of course eevil conservative racists soon showed photos of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and AOC using Nazi salutes, but That’s Different.

They say that the Nazi salute comes from the old Roman salute, but this expert says that the Romans didn’t have a salute; it was moderns that wanted to boost their revolutionary regimes by connecting them with the Roman Empire that invented the Roman Salute.

But whatabout fascism? That comes from the Roman “fasces,” a bound bundle of wooden rods. It was used by Roman magistrates as a symbol of “full civil and military power.” There is a fasces in the US House of Representatives.

So when Mussolini started his Fascist party in Italy after World War I it made sense to use the fasces to connect with the glorious past. Thus also did Hitler & Co. in Germany after World War I try to connect with the past and the supposed Roman salute and the ancient swastika symbol. “Swastika” comes from Sanskrit, meaning “conducive to well being.”

Do you see that Mussolini and Hitler were being rather creative, trying to connect their national movements of renewal with old, respected symbols? Of course it all went wildly wrong, as things tend to do on this Earth, and fascism and Nazism and Roman salutes, experts agree, became the worst thing in the world.

But whatabout the commie raised fist? For some reason, known only to experts, the raised or clenched fist is nothing like as scandalous as the Nazi Roman salute. The raised fist, according to Wikipedia, was first used by labor unions in the 1910s, although it possibly was used in the Revolution of 1848.

The use of the fist as a salute by communists and antifascists is first evidenced in 1924, when it was adopted for the Communist Party of Germany's Roter Frontkämpferbund ("Alliance of Red Front-Fighters"). In reaction, the Nazi Party adopted the well-known Roman salute two years later.

So, in Germany in the miserable hyper-inflationary 1920s — a consequence of Allied reparations imposed upon Germany mainly upon the insistence of France — the competing factions of street fighters also competed with contrasting salutes. But look. Here is a photo of Lenin giving a Nazi salute in 1919. What does that mean?

But then, of course, since Lenin was the first leader of socialism in one country, we could say that he was really a National Socialist, so it makes complete sense that he is delivering a Nazi salute.

Hey! Whatabout Mao, here saluting the Chinese Navy:

The question is: when our lefty friends are all fainting in unison because someone has used a Nazi salute, which Alinsky Rule for Radicals are they using:

5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon, or

6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy, or

7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag, or

8. Keep the pressure on, or

9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself?

I’m confused. Perhaps some experienced lefty activist can help us out here.

But of course, we eevil far-right insurrectionists could never make the commie raised fist into a scandal and embarrass lefties that use it. Because we are really not that interested in power, and not that interested in politics.

And really not that interested in Alinsky’s Rules, although we do like a good meme, like a President working as a McDonald’s fry cook or driving a garbage truck.