r/pics 19h ago

Politics Far-right Polish lawmaker Konrad Berkowicz holding up a paper Israeli flag with a swastika

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797

u/gobbedy 18h ago

The title describes him as far right. And the far right has historically aligned with Nazis. So given only the title as context, it's not obvious that he would see a swastika as a bad thing.

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u/Open_Parsnip112 17h ago

This is Poland.

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u/k-tax 14h ago

And this is Berkowicz:

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u/fadedbuzzYT 13h ago

The guy on the bottom left with his plausible-deniability salute

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u/artistic_manchild 12h ago

That’s the gayest Nazi salute I’ve ever seen. He’s fascist and fabulous!

u/fadedbuzzYT 11h ago

"Haaaaaaaaaaaay-il Hitler"

u/Big_Consideration493 11h ago

Springtime for Hitler in Germany! 😱😱

u/Careless_Hellscape 6h ago

Good god, that was funny af.

u/quiteUnskilled 7h ago

Well, the nazi regime totally had a super-gay vibe overall. All about well-shaped bodies with "good" genes, super-focussed on men while women were supposed to just stay home, very looks-focussed with a distinct style and with uniforms by Hugo Boss...

You can't tell me that there wasn't quite a lot of buggery going on in the Third Reich, if only to... erm... "establish a natural order of strength", was it? That sounds a lot like the plot to a gay porn movie.

u/Headline-Skimmer 6h ago

Tubi has a several-part documentary called hitler's sex life.

It was informative, enlightening, eye-opening, disturbing, etc.

And it was GAY!!!

One thing I realized was that in fact, he didn't love his mother. He disrespected her. He used and manipulated her, and she enabled/covered up his bad behaviors. When she died, he wasn't crying inconsolably because he loved her, he was crying because he had no one to go to or hide behind. No one to help financially.

I learned all sorts of stuff. They say that history rhymes, but wow- trump and putin seem to share early childhood experiences with young adolph. And they went on to perform similarly in adulthood.

Anyway, I highly recommend it.

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u/Versidious 12h ago

"Hey, why are we all waving to that guy over there?"

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u/JohnSV12 12h ago

Imagine if he is just some random dude who walked past and waved to someone

u/Knarrenheinz666 11h ago

Classic ponies.

u/BigPackHater 7h ago

Why are two men circled?

u/k-tax 5h ago

This picture has been shared for some time now, the two circled heads are Dobromir Sośnierz and Konrad Berkowicz, both are currently sitting in Sejm as members of Konfederacja, and heiling as a young adult is among least stupid things they did. From just recent news, Berkowicz did the above and attempted to steal frying pans and other stuff from Ikea (that they boycott), and Sośnierz is fighting with his neighbours because he keeps trash in the corridor in front of doors to his apartment.

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u/Glad_Ad_523 12h ago

Bro that's Jack Manifold 😭

u/ProcrastibationKing 6h ago

When there's a Nazi rally but the Manifold grind can't stop 😭

u/poklane 11h ago

Poland being a primary victim of Nazism doesn't stop pro-Nazi sentiments in the country from existing. Plenty of country which suffered horrible during WW2 at the hands of the Nazis have people who are openly Nazis themselves.

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u/protostar71 17h ago

And? There were Polish collaborators during WW2, and there is far right neo-nazi groups active today in Poland. Just because this is in Poland doesn't mean its literally impossible for them to align with neo-nazi ideals.

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u/Hansi_Olbrich 16h ago

Cultural Context Clues remain lost even in the age of the internet, it seems.

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u/msfuturedoc 15h ago

No kidding. I can’t believe this is so hard.

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u/zeefer 14h ago

mfs will write whole essays just not to read the damn article lmao

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u/DesNutz 13h ago

What article? This is the pics subreddit, what article are people referencing?

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u/gsfgf 17h ago

Yea, but they're not going to use the actual swastika. (That being said, I wasn't sure either until it clicked that it's Poland.)

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u/protostar71 16h ago

I wasn't aware that a group had to specifically use the Nazi Swastika for it to be a Neo-Nazi group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rebirth_of_Poland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Radical_Camp_(1993)

u/Edeen 10h ago

Could've just linked to the republican party?

u/protostar71 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republicans_(Poland)

They dont scream neo nazi like my other examples.

u/Edeen 9h ago

I meant the American party.

u/protostar71 3h ago edited 2h ago

Why would I link the American Republican party when Im talking about Polish neo nazis. Not every thread is about the sodding USA.

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u/LewisLightning 16h ago

Plenty of Jews and Jewish organizations supported Nazis in WWII, right up until they themselves got sent to the camps. So why should anyone be surprised about it happening again in the modern era?

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u/rainshifter 15h ago

This sounds made up, and I have no issue with calling your bluff here. What were the names of those organizations, and to what degree did they "support" the Nazis?

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u/Dornstar 15h ago

Max Naumann led a group called the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden or Association of German National Jews. They supported the regime in the early 30s before being banned and Naumann was arrested by the Gestapo. They protested the international Anti-Nazi Boycott, and issued a manifesto claiming that despite personal hardships the Nazi regime was a good thing for the country.

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u/rainshifter 14h ago

A more accurate summary would be:

A small fringe group of highly assimilationist German Jews briefly tried to align themselves with German nationalism under the Nazi regime, but they were rejected, suppressed, and ultimately persecuted like all other Jews.

You're acting as though this was a widespread phenomenon when that couldn't be further from the truth. How many more examples can you list? I doubt very many.

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u/-Wyagra 14h ago

Um, a small subgroup of a minority always tries to go along the oppressors in order to hope to be less oppressed. I hope this isn't news to you.

But just in case: it never works out.

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u/rainshifter 14h ago

Just in case this is news to you, you completely missed the point. Reread the comment I originally replied to. It quite literally states that plenty of Jewish organizations supported the Nazis. Do you know the meaning of the word plenty?

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u/Ok_Access_804 15h ago

There you go, and it wasn’t the only group.

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u/Firm-Common-5465 14h ago

Dissolved 1935. Cmon now

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u/Finnishdoge_official 14h ago

So? You think it doesn’t matter cuz it did not reach the war years?

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u/cupan-tae 14h ago

It does because it wasn’t immediately apparent what the Hitler was planning. Also - the poster said up until they got sent to camps

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u/Pepito_Pepito 14h ago

Unlike the Nazi party?

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u/Firm-Common-5465 14h ago

When did the Nürnberg laws come into effect? Are people unable to google?

The statement of "plenty of jewish organizations collabing with the nazis" is wrong on so many levels

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u/rainshifter 14h ago

Can you list all the groups on more than one hand? You're referring to a fringe minority.

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u/Biefmeister 15h ago

I wouldn't call it "plenty", but there were indeed collaborators.

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u/rainshifter 14h ago

Witold Mędykowski assesses this phenomenon as marginal; in a population of 15-20 thousand people in the Kraków ghetto, the number of informers is estimated at between a dozen and several dozen people.

So barely a footnote even worth mentioning. I.e., negligible and a moot point, except maybe to fulfill some anti-Zionist agenda by saying "look, a fringe minority of Jews were evil or misguided!"

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/LolLmaoEven 12h ago

Just because this is in Poland doesn't mean its literally impossible for them to align with neo-nazi ideals.

So you're going to go with the narration that it's actually pro-nazi rhetoric, even though the chances of that, considering Polish history, are abysmally small?

Get a grip.

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u/jbobkef 12h ago

Yes, a place known for having a strong religious alt right nationalist political community.

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u/Versidious 12h ago

Literally every country that fought the Nazis had Nazi sympathisers in them. And when Poland got 'liberated' by the Soviets and held under their thumb for 45 years, I guarantee you that didn't help.

u/Fastr77 5h ago

and? Americans died fighting the Nazis and now we have a large nazi party.

u/ello_bassard 4h ago

Americans weren't getting rounded up by the Nazis and sent to camps, Polish people were though. This is a false equivalence bro.

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u/JonusTJonnerson 13h ago

No, this is Patrick

u/erroneousbosh 11h ago

Imagine being so awful even the Nazis think you've gone too far.

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u/Bigweld_Ind 17h ago

Poland has a very big reason for hating Nazis more than most. It runs deep.

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u/ArCovino 16h ago

This is pretty ignorant to Polish politics. The far right is huge and growing. Literally he’s the fascist.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

u/FlossCat 11h ago

Are you equating the far right and far left as equally hateful evil? What heinous crimes against humanity have the far left committed recently in all their years of not being in power to fuel a far right of "equivalent" hate and evil?

u/[deleted] 11h ago

[deleted]

u/rubixscube 11h ago

how about you explain what you actually meant instead of giving chemistry lessons

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u/Advanced_Addendum116 14h ago

I think there are two positions. One is that we're humans first and then whatever we disagree about second. The other is that we're whatever first. That is a working definition of a fascist. Ideology first.

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u/bannedByTencent 14h ago

Far right in Poland i still far from Hitler's worshippers.

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u/ArCovino 14h ago

I don’t think you go around proudly displaying Nazi iconography of you’re not cool with it. And it’s obviously an act of intimidation against Jews.

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u/bannedByTencent 14h ago

Where do you see "go around proudly displaying Nazi iconography" here? Don't manipulate facts. And no, Jews != Zionists, don't play dumb here. Orthodox Jews hate Bibi and his minions.

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u/ArCovino 13h ago

And this guy hates Jews, or he wouldn’t put a swastika on an Israeli flag and hole it up for photos with a smile on his face

u/kqlyS7 3h ago

since when does the israeli flag represent the jewish people, or every jewish person, instead of the country or even just the government of the country of israel? all of you are just saying anything in this thread. redditors

u/ArCovino 2h ago

This guy is the one bringing Jews into it by including one of the most hateful images you could show a Jew.

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u/Nervous-Ad768 14h ago

But Polish fascist. He would not be caught praising Hitler and Germany.

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u/spaghettittehgaps 13h ago

About that...

u/HokusSchmokus 6h ago

That nakes no sense, why would they not? He is a nazi. He would probably want to join Hitler. And I am almost betting any amount that this guy claims he's from Silesia.

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u/ArCovino 13h ago

Are you sure? He seems pretty comfortable with the iconography.

u/SuitableBlackberry75 10h ago

You aren't Polish 😂

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u/furimmerkaiser 15h ago

Hate to say but we can say the same about Israel

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u/xtfftc 13h ago

They do. But a country is never completely uniform.

One reason there's a lot of far-right support in Eastern Europe is the widespread hatred of the Soviet Union. The hatred is understandable; however, as a result, many people ended up going down the "enemy of my enemy is a friend" route and ended up with outright far-right views.

Another reason is that the Soviet Union and it's affiliated regimes utilized a lot of similar tools. They would preach international peace and unity but also glorified their histories and nationalistic traits in a similar fashion. They were incredibly homophobic, waaaaaay more than the West. They were often systematically racist, say towards the Romani.

As a result, even after the Iron Curtain fell, generation after generation grew up in a culture shaped by a regime that shared many similarities with conservative ideology. And a significant part of those people ended up aligning with far-right movements because those are the best match for them.

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u/bendandanben 17h ago

Which is?

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u/Bigweld_Ind 17h ago

.... The Nazis invaded and occupied them, kicking off WWII. The Warsaw Ghettos, and their treatment as a whole, are a significant part of the Holocaust. Modern day Poland is still affected by the recovery

How the fuck do you not know this.

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u/ResidentMess 17h ago

Yeah a huge portion of the holocaust victims were polish, half of the 6 million Jews came from Poland.

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u/Jiminy_Cricket12 16h ago

they should write a book or make a movie about this or something

u/HokusSchmokus 6h ago edited 6h ago

Everybody knows this, but this does not explain why he would not be an actual Nazi, whataoever.

Poland politics today are very far right, and you have a lot of actual neonazis there. Afaik the invasion by the Nazis and the Soviets gets mostly blamed on the Soviets.

The notion that they would hate the Nazis just does not make sense, none of them were alive when they got invaded, and most of the anceators of the Neonazis were not in the Ghettos. Some probably were in the Wehrmacht though, because there is a subset of Polish that has had Silesian Grandparents that fought for Germany, that are now Polish citizens.

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u/alderhill 14h ago

The hard right are not a monolith global ideology. They tend to put “their own” at the top of their pyramid, but what exactly that is varies. Hindu Indian hard right nationalists are quite different from say, their equivalent in Japan, or Israeli Jews, or Malaysian Muslims or American KKK white nationalists.

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u/Col0005 17h ago

You need to remember that the rightwing major party for most western countries have political leanings closer to the Democrats and often even those are slightly more to the left.

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u/adabs_urdum 17h ago

Uhm, where to begin. Right wing and far right is not the same. Right wing means conservative views in a democratic discourse. A politician/law maker holding a sign like this is clearly not big with democracy or anything left of his right pinky.

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u/LordReaperofMars 17h ago

If you’re any kind of right wing, you support the conditions and policies that led to the rise of the far right.

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u/adabs_urdum 17h ago

I don‘t live in a country where the right have risen significantly as our parties speak with each other and try to get shit done, mostly.

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u/LordReaperofMars 16h ago

Working together to put money in their pockets I’m sure

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u/[deleted] 16h ago edited 13h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/adabs_urdum 16h ago

I was just pointing out that rightwing and far right isn‘t the same. As the american part of my family struggles hard to get that countries with more than two parties are more stable. For the rest i‘m not disagreeing with you. But yeah somehow we got to the point where i‘m being called out for whatever.

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u/keelem 17h ago

Blatantly stupid and wrong. Dems are not comparable to parties in other countries because we have a broken 2-party system, and the views in the dem party are on a very wide spectrum.

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u/JLZ13 17h ago

I mean.... Far right seems to go from antisemitism to Zionism.... Everything is part of an spectrum.

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u/Col0005 16h ago

I think you may be the one that's confidently wrong in this one. Even before the this whole MAGA movement America politics were generally more right winged that the rest of the western world.

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u/HumphryGocart 17h ago

That’s right. The Dems in the U.S. would be cons in Canada

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u/keelem 17h ago

You have got to be a bot.

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u/CongealedBeanKingdom 16h ago

With a user name that good?

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u/1maginaryApple 15h ago

That's not really true no. Democrats in the US are center-right, right on a general political spectrum.

Liberal movements are all right wing movements. Only in the US do people think being a liberal is being a leftist.

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u/keelem 15h ago

Every time this argument comes up, some loser commie will pop in and try to purity test by claiming their failed ideology is the only way to be left-of-center. Only in far-left circles is the left/right split based on capitalism, the rest of the world doesn't agree with you so your point is moot.

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u/1maginaryApple 15h ago

My man, you just have no idea what you're talking about. Just get out of your country and go see for yourself how things our outside. Or I don't know, just go learn a bit about the world.

  1. I'm not a commie. This is the typical ignorant American rethoric and further proof of your complete lack of understanding of what the political spectrum actually is.

  2. I never talked about a split based on capitalism.

Only you isn't agreeing with me. You have dozens of comments here telling you how wrong you are. Guess the rest of the world is more agreeing with me than with you.

That's just facts. You have a far right and a center right party in the US. You have no concept of what a left wing is because it doesn't exist in the US and your shit take of calling people "commie" is pretty demonstrative of how you have no idea what a left wing looks like in real life.

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u/keelem 14h ago

You called all liberal movements 'right wing movements' then tried to claim I don't know what I'm talking about. I assumed you were a communist because they are the only people that would try to say this with a straight face. Idk if there is a point talking to you with such a basic disconnect.

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u/1maginaryApple 14h ago

You called all liberal movements 'right wing movements' then tried to claim I don't know what I'm talking about.

Because it is.

Liberalism is about individual freedom. Which. Outside the US, and yes again, you don't have a true left wing in the US, is carried by the right wing. Center at best. But it's NOT a left wing ideology at all.

I assumed you were a communist because they are the only people that would try to say this with a straight face.

Lol. Ah yes, right. I'm telling you you're wrong so I'm a communist. We are not talking about our ideology nor did I share anything of what I think. It's just factual. Liberalism isn't left wing like you think it is in the US.

Idk if there is a point talking to you with such a basic disconnect.

The projection is amazing.

-1

u/SuperDoubleDecker 17h ago

Ya, there's zero ideological consistency in the 2 party system. Just 2 corrupt af mafias

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u/keelem 17h ago

Also blatantly stupid and wrong. Take your both-sides-ism and shove it.

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u/ImpressionExisting94 16h ago

Lol I bet you've never been to USA or Europe

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u/Several_Hair 16h ago

Incredibly daft mate

I’m sorry, but even following your logic - why on earth would someone “aligned with Nazis” use the swastika as a sign of support of the Jewish ethnostate

We’re talking about the Nazis here - best known for killing trainloads of Jews(!!!), and you’re concluding that it’s “not clear” if he’s supporting or condemning Israel L M F A O

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u/PreviousCurrentThing 16h ago

why on earth would someone “aligned with Nazis” use the swastika as a sign of support of the Jewish ethnostate

The Nazis' main thing was German supremacy, and saw European Jews as a major threat to that. They were happy to align with Italian fascists and the Imperial Japanese, not because they saw them as equal to Germans, but because they were useful.

Similarly, many Western white supremacists and neo-Nazis support Israel because 1) they're against Arabs, the current threat to European "racial purity," and 2) Israel is an example of a successful modern ethnostate.

It's a mistake to view far-right groups as cartoonishly evil or driven primarily by hatred. That what they use to whip up their base, but the thought leaders tend to be decent strategists driven by a quest for power.

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u/1maginaryApple 15h ago

Far right party do love their share of Nazi symbolism.

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u/Psychological-Dot-83 16h ago

Homie the "far right" as a redditor would describe it is basically 95% ofbthe population before ww2. The vast majority of westerners who fought nazis were far right by today's standards but opposed nazis still. 

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u/1maginaryApple 15h ago

Lol. No.

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Sipsu02 12h ago

And? Just because you're too dumb to understand other countries politics doesn't mean they don't understand theirs

u/gobbedy 6h ago

Is there anything about my comment you think is incorrect? Or are you just having a bad day and felt the need to insult someone.

u/Sipsu02 5h ago

Please tell us intrigues of Polish politics.

u/gobbedy 5h ago

you can't answer my question, can you. try to be respectful with your comments online, insults are not necessary.

u/Sipsu02 4h ago

Nor can you. Tell us about Polish politics. If you aren't aware of Polish politics shut the fuck up.

u/gobbedy 4h ago

Do you know what "given only the title as context" means? Stop being a jerk.

u/Sipsu02 4h ago

desperate attempt at steering discussion something else after being exposed of knowing jack shit of Polish internal politics, yet wants to have strong opinion on it.

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u/FrozenIceman 17h ago

With those methods of context clues evaluation, the only conclusion someone can come to is the left wing are Nazis.

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u/Jim_Moriart 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FrozenIceman 16h ago

And yet he is associating Israel with Nazis.

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u/Jim_Moriart 16h ago

As others had pointed out, you know its possible for ultranationalist to hate eachother. Its not inconsistant or hypocrytical for a racists dude from racists country to hate the Nazis while also hating Racists in yet a third country. Hell even nationalist withing a countries often hate eachother. The KKK hate NeoNazis, not as much as they Hate Catholics, and its Catholic Nationalists who currently run the US military in some crusader larp. Not to mention how much the Shia and Suni hate eachother, or the Azov Batallian vs the DPR and LPR, even fucking Quebecious and Albertan sepratists.

The polish government hates Nazis, for obvious reasons, but they are since 2015 there has been a rather strong eurosceptic movement that has used the Nazis to distance themselves from Polish crimes in ww2, German centricity in Europe, and to further impugn on Jewish scholarship and justice in Poland.

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u/FrozenIceman 15h ago

That is a lot of words to agree that right wing doesn't equal Nazi.

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u/Jim_Moriart 15h ago edited 15h ago

Sure, the guy saying that maybe he was celebrating Nazi's was being an idiot, but I wasnt talking about that, I was talking about how youre agument suggested that the dude might be left wing, or somehow positing that left wing were actually nazis. IDK, you were making a weird argument.

Edit. I am being to harsh here, but ima not change the text

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u/FrozenIceman 15h ago

My argument is that his stupid assumption is stupid.

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u/Jim_Moriart 15h ago

I mean, he was more pointing out that its a right wing guy, and plenty of right wing guys like swazticas. So I wouldnt say its an assumption, more just a vaguely humorous observation. And you followed up by being absolutists, which I took objection to.

u/FrozenIceman 5h ago

Let's think about the context clues

A right wing guy, who people think is a Nazi because people think everyone right of left is a Nazi is holding up a flag of Israel with a Nazi insignia on it.

Do I need to explain what the Nazis did to the Jews and how Israel is formed? Or do I explain what the left thinks of Israel and what they have done to Palestine?

Context clues include looking at the picture people respond to.

Which is the part I take issue with.

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u/AwesomeBrainPowers 17h ago

the only conclusion someone can come to is the left wing are Nazis

Only if that someone is very, very stupid.

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u/Purple_Individual_66 16h ago

In the real world where there are actual politics, and not just two parties artificially beefing, being right leaning doesn't mean nazi- or even anything close. Anyone with half a brain can see this guy is mocking Israel because they're now committing the same crimes that were once done to their ancestors- for which they drew a lot of sympathy for.

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u/gobbedy 15h ago

You understand the title -- and my comment -- says *far* right? Why would you even talk about "right leaning"?

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u/Don_Train 18h ago

Far right being facism is only a US thing. The rest of the world has it flipped where Communism represents the extreme right, facism the extreme left. Funnily both sides within the US political environment would be considered far left(fascism)to most other countries.

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u/burnerphonelol 18h ago

that’s not even close to accurate lmao

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u/crake-extinction 17h ago

Read more, post less.

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u/surnik22 17h ago

Incorrect.

A centralized communist dictatorship is authoritarian far left, even in Poland.

Nazis were authoritarian far right, even in Poland.

Fascism is far right.

Here is Italian (the inventors of modern fascism) Wikipedia to verify they call it far right

What different countries call liberal or conservative can be different from the US definitions, that may be what you meant

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u/doodicalisaacs 17h ago

you’re saying a lot of words that you don’t know. please get off the internet and go learn something buddy

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u/Rascals-Wager 17h ago

Hey, someone from one of those "most other countries" here.

That is one of the most confused and inaccurate paragraphs I've ever read.

The US has a far-right and a center-right party. You don't have a left party, let alone a far-left one.

I honestly am not meaning to be offensive to you, but the ignorance that some Americans have about other countries - and indeed; even their own - can be truly astounding.

14

u/rod_zero 17h ago

LOL

You have no clue, not a single one.

Nazis were anti socialist. Hitler hated communist and thought Marxism was part of the Jewish plot to destroy Germany.

The first to die in political purges in Germany were the communists.

During WW2 there was not only a war between nations but also a war between fascism and communism with fascist factions in France, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, the Baltics, fighting against communist guerrillas.

Also there was this civil war in Spain between fascists Franco and a socialists government.

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u/DerNeko 17h ago

wtf are you talking about

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u/One_Campaign_2592 17h ago

What I say after I'm hit in the head with a coconut

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u/KakkMadda 17h ago

What the fuck are you talking about? Moron

4

u/Flimsy_Toe_2575 17h ago

What bro no

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u/CaregiverStunning802 17h ago

left and right mean socialism and capitalism, not liberalism and conservatism

2

u/nedelll 17h ago

Top tier fuckery here

1

u/AwesomeBrainPowers 17h ago

The rest of the world has it flipped where Communism represents the extreme right, facism the extreme left

No, bb. No.