Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

If Louis XVI died by Mr Sparky instead of Mr Choppy we’d be using Mr Sparky

― Canon in Deez (silby), Tuesday, March 9, 2021 7:29 PM (fifty-five minutes ago)

Yeah, but, let's say Louis died by Mr. Noosey ... you might have second thoughts about using a noose as a symbol ... maybe Mr. Choppy is polysemous

If Cromwell had left Ireland alone we could be trading memes about the great axe they used on Charles.

execution toyline for kids

Mr Sparky
death pops out of my mouth

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/35/0d/00/350d00e740b13d49a62443e8f67a2b27.jpg

I see this has become a fantastic celebration of the death penalty.

Tbf it's still legal across the border and very few people seem to give a fuck about that.

France abolished it in 1981.

Tbf it's still legal across the border and very few people seem to give a fuck about that.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, March 9, 2021 11:44 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wouldn’t fit with the online revolution LARPing just yet.

Who will think of the poor divine right monarchs?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsq3H_6XuFA

Who will think of the poor divine right monarchs?!

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Tuesday, March 9, 2021 11:49 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Travel beyond your country and read about the guillotine in Algeria.

I don't recall any guillotine imagery in the uprisings in 1968 in Paris and elsewhere, and I definitely haven't surveyed a representative sample of French people about their perceptions of it. ... Honestly, though, I see the guillotine graphic above as less a signifier of a guillotine and more of a second order signifier -- a sign representing the guillotine-themed meme campaign of various left factions on social media during the run up to last year's elections, of which members of this faction are now in power in Nevada. ... Idk, this could easily turn into a classic stupid ilx argument where we debate the accuracy of our opinions of other people's opinions.

No one's referencing the guillotine in Algeria, though, so that particular concern troll appears to be falling flat.

If the DSA establishes a chapter in Tunis, that would be a good time for reappraisal.

VHS's point is that some people might think of the history of the guillotine in Algeria and how it was used against revolutionaries during the French revolution and cringe. I doubt the vast majority of Americans would think this, because we are provincial like that.

brain zap, I mean DSA-Algiers

It might just be akin to the infamous ronaldinho bottle opener incident, where the market for said bottle openers was oblivious to how cringey the design was.

I don't recall any guillotine imagery in the uprisings in 1968 in Paris

Death penalty was widely debated during the Mai 68. If that is what you are refering to.

If you feel comfortable with a signifier of a machine which only function is to kill, and that been used primarely by dictatorships, colonial powers and heavy dury right wing governement that’s between you and your conscience. If you want to apply some selective history about it (it’s only about Louis XVI) then that’s also your choice. If you don’t want to think why is has not been used as a symbol of anything positive by the left in the country from which this death machine come from, fine. I’m french, it entails my hystory, and I find it super odd and gross.

Death penalty was widely debated during the Mai 68. If that is what you are refering to.

I was saying that I don't recall the guillotine being used a pro-revolutionary symbol in 1968 -- like, a lot of the DSA talking points (or memetic points) echoed some 1968 rhetoric, which is why I think the guillotine imagery, esp. in the context of it being problematic in France, is kinda ... idk. Doesn't quite sit right with me, personally, but this is just my semiotic nerdiness.

I don't feel like trying to convince people to feel the way I do about it. I just think, "well, their hearts are in the right places more or less" and leave it at that

Heh I don’t think I’m going to convince someone like milo about anything. Just that to see a symbol for the death penalty used as symbol of a progressive party, one that is foreign, is personaly repulsive and I felt the need to express that.

On the one hand I’m going to have to grudgingly admit you have some degree of a point but on the other hand you’re kind of pissing into the wind with this one especially when the opposition is using Nazi symbols to represent being Nazis

On the third hand, chop chop

I don't have the Algerian association with it (although that seems like a reasonable objection), but I do have the association of "radicals who went off the rails in a bloodbath of infighting and paved the way for the next autocratic ruler." Which is maybe not the signal the DSA wants to send. But w/e.

Well I always felt we ought to be smarter than this particular opposition.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-politics-idUSKBN1HI1VR

Idk the DSA aren’t exactly a brain trust, let alone vaguely left-aligned meme accounts fantasizing about lining up billionaires

Do I think it would be good to peremptorily execute billionaires? Who knows. Let’s not rule it out.

Need to raise the estate tax first tho.

The guillotine is a second-order piece of iconography - it's the most famous symbol of the French Revolution for Americans (the Phrygian cap didn't have a good nickname), which in turn is most strongly associated with cutting off Louis's head. Americans have been writing negatively about French Revolution hand-wringing for at least 100 years (when was A Connecticut Yankee published - 1875ish?), the giddy thrill of cutting off monarchs' heads is deeply ingrained.

The guillotine as used is not a "symbol for the death penalty" - it is a symbol for the overthrow of the ultimate power, purposely provocative (and very much as gallows humor about what it might take to actually overcome the billionaire oligarchs). In another context it might be a reference to the Nazis executing Sophie Scholl... but that's not the context.

If you feel comfortable with a signifier of a machine which only function is to kill, and that been used primarely by dictatorships, colonial powers and heavy dury right wing governement that’s between you and your conscience. If you want to apply some selective history about it (it’s only about Louis XVI) then that’s also your choice. If you don’t want to think why is has not been used as a symbol of anything positive by the left in the country from which this death machine come from, fine. I’m french, it entails my hystory, and I find it super odd and gross.

choppy bois are for billionaires, mon ami

it's very easy not to qualify for one

You are right that context is important, in another context it’s a symbol of being unable to think beyond dank memes and using the history of other nations without seeing how freaking shortsighted and tragicaly ironic it might be.

unable to think beyond dank memes

No one built a guillotine to take along on the Bernie campaign bus.

personally I always saw the resurgence of guillotine imagery as a reflection of powerlessness and not a literal endorsement of mass decapitation

no, clearly everybody means the worst possible thing and there is no other interpretation allowed

personally I always saw the resurgence of guillotine imagery as a reflection of powerlessness and not a literal endorsement of mass decapitation

― stimmy stimmy yah (Simon H.), Wednesday, March 10, 2021 12:56 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sorry to turn to what the only thing the machine has ever done and was meant for.

blame the Wizards of the Coast

Everyone making guillotine jokes should instead use the hammer and sickle, which I'm sure would not cause any fuss.

would that it were so simple

Many xposts

I was bitten by a neighbour’s German shepherd when I was 4 and that dog did me a favour in a roundabout way, because the medical exam I got at the hospital following the bite flagged up swelling that turned out to be cancer. No way on Earth I’d be alive today if Hans hadn’t bitten me.

Whoever got bit at the White House might want to have an MRI, just to be sure.

The big thing about the guillotine is it's so fucking dorky larping

yeah. like "hahaha just kidding! this thing doesn't actually work officer come on!!"

I would love to see a gaggle of chapo fans who can't change a tire try to assemble a working guillotine

lol

yea those IKEA instructions are often confusing

no, clearly everybody means the worst possible thing and there is no other interpretation allowed

New board description.

Good morning!

I will go on record as saying that I think every billionaire's (and billionaire+'s) head should be chopped off and their assets distributed to people in the global south.

I don't even think that's controversial, tbh.

I'd give them a chance (like 1 month...) to give up 99.999& of their wealth outright but after that *makes throat slashing gesture, is flagged*