- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
- Messages
- 82,864
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- Political Leaning
- Progressive
First, what doesn't work:
"Peter Fritzsche’s Hitler’s First Hundred Days makes the telling argument that violence not only silenced Nazi opponents but was also essential to building support. The ongoing violence, choreographed as public rituals of humiliation that portrayed Nazi opponents as weak and ridiculous, turned entertained spectators into accomplices by virtue of their “voyeuristic pleasure.” The “wave of denunciation” that swept over Germany broadened the ranks of complicity further. Fritzsche concludes that “violence preceded acclamation and proved to be one of its key ingredients. It became a regenerative force in the making of the national community.” Many flocked to the Nazis as opportunistic “March casualties,” but for many others the belief in national renewal and a restored Volksgemeinschaft, or people’s community (now understood as defined by racial exclusion rather than political, social, and religious inclusion), was sincere. Swept up in celebrations of renewal and unity, individuals “repositioned and reconfigured” themselves into “ideological congruence” with the Third Reich. Simultaneously, the “‘48 percent’ who had not voted for Hitler almost entirely disappeared from view” as they increasingly seemed “obsolescent” even to themselves."
Link
Then Brooks Brown's revelation
Brooks Brown had a revelation this month when he watched federal agents pepper-spray an anti-ICE demonstrator who was dressed in an inflatable frog costume. At protests Brown has seen and attended in the past, participants had come decked out in protective gear in preparation for tear gas or physical confrontations. Greeted by the even more armored law enforcement, “the feedback loop begins,” says Brown, a Portland, Oregon-based streamer for the philosophy YouTube channel Quarantine Collective. Both sides looking prepared for aggression, in other words, can create a self-fulfilling prophecy or make it easier to fudge the details of who started what. If an officer were to harass a peaceful protester in a wiener-dog costume or a unicorn suit, though, “It just makes the violence really kind of clear, who’s doing it,” Brown says. “Like, you’re trying to call the Insurrection Act on Barney the Dinosaur and SpongeBob?” So late last week, Brown and a few of his colleagues and friends created Operation Inflation, an organization providing puff-up costumes, like Thanksgiving Day parade balloons in miniature, to those protesting the crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In high-profile protest movements, imagery is everything. The world is watching — but, in our era of ever-shortening attention spans, maybe not listening or reading to get all the nuanced details. In the days since Operation Inflation began, protesters in huge, silly cartoon animal suits have been multiplying, adding to a long tradition of strategic costuming decisions in American political protests while giving it a new and whimsical twist. ...the handmaid protesters subverted an image of submissive femininity into something quietly menacing, while anti-ICE costumes inject gentleness and humor into a tense, easily combustible situation. “It’s a way to de-escalate the tension by making it feel more like a performance,” says Jonathan Square, assistant professor of Black visual culture at the Parsons School of Design.
As footage continues to circulate of ICE agents standing by in riot gear while cuddly chickens and raccoons mill around in mild bemusement and dinosaurs twerk, Brown and Operation Inflation are expanding their services to Chicago and other cities. “We’re drop-shipping costumes to there, to New York, to L.A.,” he says. On Sunday, video footage surfaced of a cow, a penguin, Cookie Monster and Winnie the Pooh gathered outside an ICE detention center in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. The images, after all, are vivid and immediate. They transcend language barriers; they require virtually no explication at all. Says Gottula: “We’re not giving this administration the content that they’re looking for.”
Link
"Peter Fritzsche’s Hitler’s First Hundred Days makes the telling argument that violence not only silenced Nazi opponents but was also essential to building support. The ongoing violence, choreographed as public rituals of humiliation that portrayed Nazi opponents as weak and ridiculous, turned entertained spectators into accomplices by virtue of their “voyeuristic pleasure.” The “wave of denunciation” that swept over Germany broadened the ranks of complicity further. Fritzsche concludes that “violence preceded acclamation and proved to be one of its key ingredients. It became a regenerative force in the making of the national community.” Many flocked to the Nazis as opportunistic “March casualties,” but for many others the belief in national renewal and a restored Volksgemeinschaft, or people’s community (now understood as defined by racial exclusion rather than political, social, and religious inclusion), was sincere. Swept up in celebrations of renewal and unity, individuals “repositioned and reconfigured” themselves into “ideological congruence” with the Third Reich. Simultaneously, the “‘48 percent’ who had not voted for Hitler almost entirely disappeared from view” as they increasingly seemed “obsolescent” even to themselves."
Link
Then Brooks Brown's revelation
Brooks Brown had a revelation this month when he watched federal agents pepper-spray an anti-ICE demonstrator who was dressed in an inflatable frog costume. At protests Brown has seen and attended in the past, participants had come decked out in protective gear in preparation for tear gas or physical confrontations. Greeted by the even more armored law enforcement, “the feedback loop begins,” says Brown, a Portland, Oregon-based streamer for the philosophy YouTube channel Quarantine Collective. Both sides looking prepared for aggression, in other words, can create a self-fulfilling prophecy or make it easier to fudge the details of who started what. If an officer were to harass a peaceful protester in a wiener-dog costume or a unicorn suit, though, “It just makes the violence really kind of clear, who’s doing it,” Brown says. “Like, you’re trying to call the Insurrection Act on Barney the Dinosaur and SpongeBob?” So late last week, Brown and a few of his colleagues and friends created Operation Inflation, an organization providing puff-up costumes, like Thanksgiving Day parade balloons in miniature, to those protesting the crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In high-profile protest movements, imagery is everything. The world is watching — but, in our era of ever-shortening attention spans, maybe not listening or reading to get all the nuanced details. In the days since Operation Inflation began, protesters in huge, silly cartoon animal suits have been multiplying, adding to a long tradition of strategic costuming decisions in American political protests while giving it a new and whimsical twist. ...the handmaid protesters subverted an image of submissive femininity into something quietly menacing, while anti-ICE costumes inject gentleness and humor into a tense, easily combustible situation. “It’s a way to de-escalate the tension by making it feel more like a performance,” says Jonathan Square, assistant professor of Black visual culture at the Parsons School of Design.
As footage continues to circulate of ICE agents standing by in riot gear while cuddly chickens and raccoons mill around in mild bemusement and dinosaurs twerk, Brown and Operation Inflation are expanding their services to Chicago and other cities. “We’re drop-shipping costumes to there, to New York, to L.A.,” he says. On Sunday, video footage surfaced of a cow, a penguin, Cookie Monster and Winnie the Pooh gathered outside an ICE detention center in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. The images, after all, are vivid and immediate. They transcend language barriers; they require virtually no explication at all. Says Gottula: “We’re not giving this administration the content that they’re looking for.”
Link
