The War On T-Shirts
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Not satisfied with going after Law & Order over a line of dialogue, the Media Research Center is pissed at an Access Hollywood correspondent for wearing a Soviet sickle on his t-shirt.
Up next: Mary Hart – great legs or socialist agitator?
39 Responses to “The War On T-Shirts”
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Would it have been OK if he had a Confederate flag on his shirt?
Fair enough.
Sure, why not? I watch the Dukes of Hazzard all the time and don’t get worked up about that. My problem is when a state government flies it above its citizens.
JWG -
Are we to assume that you have a problem with this guy’s t-shirt?
I’m with you, Quaker. The less attention paid the better. But I think the larger issue for Newsbusters.org is the liberal conspiracy in the media. Keep chasing the dream, fellas. The truthiness is out there.
This kind of thing is what you choose to get upset about? Geez…
It’s Access Hollywood, ferpetesake. Is the MRC orthodoxy so narrow that they’d enforce a dress code on reporters giving us the latest on Brad and Angelina?
Quaker, if you actually bothered to read the article, you’d see that this reporter also does work for mainline NBC.
If Joe Buck (of FOX Sports) wore a “Brand Republican”-like tee shirt while broadcasting a ballgame, you’re telling me you wouldn’t have a problem?!?
“…you re telling me you wouldn t have a problem?!?”
Why would anyone have a problem with that? At the same time, would you care to articulate your problem with this guy’s t-shirt?
Ferris is on to us, comrades. It was the plan we discussed last Thursday, remember? When we conspired to infiltrate the country using fashion. We wanted to start with Access Hollywood, then get our Hammer and Sickles onto General Hospital, and then through slow indoctrination, to The View. Then our domination would be complete!
But Ferris and MRC caught us. Damn!
I have an idea- let’s get Washington Post to hire us as liberal bloggers, to bring “balance” to Washingtonpost.com. Then we can plagarize – damn! They beat us to that too!
Back to the drawing board.
Well, I will admit that Millard Fillmore isn’t exactly in the same league with Joe Stalin. But, yeah.
Depends. While he’s wearing this hypothetical t-shirt, is he talking about the war in Iraq or the Dodger bullpen?
Either way, no problem here. I don’t watch.
I did read the article, but I don’t see what you claim is there. Tell you what–make it easy on us all and quote the part that says that, willya?
There’s a difference between the Soviet sickle and any Republican insignia…wearing a Soviet sickle shouldn’t threaten anybody, considering that the Russian Soviets no longer exist as a political force of any kind.
This is like getting worked up about somebody wearing a Whig Party tee-shirt.
Except to see this factoid cycled through O’Reilly, Hannity, the Washington Times, and the rest of the right wing media machine.
You see, because conservatives hate that shirt, obviously ALL liberals MUST like that shirt, and therefore LIBERALS are COMMIE LOVING HATE AMERICA FIRST LEFTISTS.
What else? They can’t talk about our success in Iraq, or the administrations success in anything, so they talk about non-issues.
I also noticed that former OW RW butt nugget Ian Schwartz has a blog on the MRC. Color me surprised.
Yes, because the body count under the confederate flag and what it symbolizes is so much better.
The Confederate flag comparison is not best. A Swastika is much more apt. Would it be OK to express revulsion at a Swastika T Shirt?
If not, ‘splain to me the significant superiority of the hammer and sickle over the swastika?
I wouldn’t ban it, but I would call the guy a complete jerk and idiot for glamorizing the symbol of the greatest evil in human history.
Dugger
I think Dugger is alluding to the respective body counts tallied by the Soviets and the Nazis. If one judges by that measure, I believe the Soviets out-evil the Nazis several times over.
I thought Nazis were the symbol of the greatest evil in human history.
What is this “context” you’re carrying on about, frame? Symbols have fixed meanings, donchaknow?
The ever vigilante Dugger refuses to recognize the significant camp/irony value that the hammer and sickle has taken on in recent years. Indeed, most Soviet culture became a parody of itself long before the before the collapse of the Soviet boogeyman. Ever seen an East German musical circa 1968? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061756/
Total kitsch.
Now just imagine the horror of a true Stalinist believer at seeing a fashion victim sporting the hammer and sickle on a show that glorifies vouyeuristic consumption of capitalist imagery. Even a sign of commodified rebellion the shirt makes a mockery of everything “the greatest evil to mankind ever” supposedly stood for. The shirt is, in other words, absolute evidence of capitalism’s triumph.
But because Dugger is also absolutely tone deaf he thinks Access Hollywood is really glorifying gulags.
As to the Swastika, well, it’s all about context. The Producers? “Spring time for Hitler”? Heil-arious.
Outrageous! http://www.cafepress.com/esangha/517093
From the Newsbuster story:
“On Monday, for the second straight weekday, Access Hollywood’s New York correspondent, Tim Vincent, a veteran of the BBC, sported a hammer and sickle T-shirt …”
The second straight weekday? What’s stunning about this is just how lazy Access Hollywood’s wardrobe people are. I’m totally shocked.
I wouldn’t be offended if Fox News used the confederate flag as its logo. To me that would represent a private company enjoying its free speech rights in a completely honest manner. To hell with political correctness. Show me who you really are!
As OW said, though, the line is drawn when a representative government uses such a banner.
Hindus use the swastika all the time the othe way round. Tim vincent used to present “Blue Peter”, the poshest kids show on TV in the UK.
I have a mate who made a good few pounds flogging soviet memorabilia in Camden Market, London which he used to import over for virtual peanuts. Viva capitalism!
frame,
Either symbols count for something or they don’t. If they do, the hammer and sickle is evil incarnate. Same with the crooked cross.
The man shows his ignorance and should be called on it. How great for the left media if they had first done it instead of leaving it to Brent Bozell. He looks good, they look bad.
Dugger
As Bryan points out, Hitler didn’t invent the Swastika. He took a symbol that already existed and perverted its meaning to the point where most people don’t know that it ever had a different meaning. The same thing can happen to the meaning that Hitler gave it inthe right hands. Nothing like satire to take the puff out of power and symbols like the Swastika are the bulls-eye of any good satirist.
Bozell looks like the crazy crank that he is. Even for a rightie the man is loony tunes. He’s got that Cynthia McKinney quality to his look.
“Either symbols count for something or they don t.”
No doubt. And the power of every artist, designer, writer, filmmaker, average human being is to seize those meanings and smash them to pieces, recontextualize them, rework them, sap their power, redirect it, comment on and critique it, ignore it or laugh loudly at it. If you want to live your life as slave to ideology and the symbols that give it its power fine. That doesn’t mean the rest of us do.
“If they do, the hammer and sickle is evil incarnate. Same with the crooked cross.”
I might add that you are absolutely 100 percent wrong. A symbol only has the power that people give it. Symbols aren’t “evil incarnate,” the people who hold them up to dominate and destroy are. Sort of like guns don’t kill people … Stop feeding the boogeymen in your head, Dugger, then maybe you’ll be able to sleep without a nightlight again.
Newsbusters is a sham. Their view of liberal bias is to ever show anything non-critical of liberals, especially gay liberals. They posted, as an example of liberal media bias, that HBO showed the Rosie O’Donnell documentary about her cruise for gay families and how the Today show did a segment on it. Even showing that is bias to them. Freaks.
Okay someone please fill me in as I do not make a habit of following what offends the clueless right.
What line of dialogue from which episode of Law & Order has them up in arms?
Context? I don’t see no stinkin’ context!
Before we claim anything as outrageous, you must have a basic understanding of the symbol. The swastika is a holy symbol in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. In Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of abundance, prosperity and longevity. In that store, its a left facing swastika, a buddhist swastika. Nazis swastika is right facing. For more info on the sybol of swastika in Buddhism: http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/symbols/swastika.htm
frameone Says:
April 18th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Outrageous! http://www.cafepress.com/esangha/517093
“What line of dialogue from which episode of Law & Order has them up in arms?”
I think it was this (from cnn.com):
The controversy centers around Wednesday’s episode in which a police officer investigating a murder of a federal judge suggested putting out an all points bulletin for “somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt.”
“I can only assume last night’s slur was in response to comments I have made in the past about the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary, as prescribed in our constitutional system of checks and balances.”
DeLay has been an outspoken critic of what he calls “activist judges,” recently saying Congress must take steps to rein in an “out-of-control judiciary.”
Either symbols count for something or they don t. If they do, the hammer and sickle is evil incarnate. Same with the crooked cross.
Okay, so tell me why I should have to constantly deal with the symbol of someone being crucified on a cross? Especially if I consider it offensive?
And the number of those who have been murdered under that symbol is vastly greater then either the sickle and hammer or the swastika.
One time at a county fair in Coshocton, Ohio, I came across a trucker hat with an American flag on it and the words “White Christian American” beneath. Now, removed of all context, there’s nothing objectionable per se about any or all of those things (speaking as a white Christian American). But in the context of other hats like “You’ve got your X, I’ve got mine – under a dixie battle flag” and various other Confederate apparel, I started to feel like I was in Bosnia instead of the rural midwest. Also, why is it that in Nashville or Birmingham I hardly ever see Confederate stuff, but when I’m in Ohio, I see it everywhere?
“This is like getting worked up about somebody wearing a Whig Party tee-shirt.”
Spot on
“Outrageous! http://www.cafepress.com/esangha/517093“
Um…I was joking…