You Can't Make This Stuff Up

https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2022/09/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up.html

Sep 08, 2022

We live in a time where leftists and communists are being labeled as Nazis and real Nazis are being labeled as freedom fighters standing up against fascism. We can't make this up. --Kris Legion

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

by C.A. Matthews

After I read this headline, both my mind and my stomach started to churn:

Jon Stewart and the Pentagon Honor Ukrainian Nazi at Disney World

Disney World? "The Happiest Place on Earth"? Jon Stewart? Welcoming Nazis? Really?

Yeah, really. From The Grayzone:

During the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”

Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun. (...)
...Even the US government propaganda outlet Voice of America [has] acknowledged the Azov Battalion’s embrace of Nazism. Right Sector group has been similarly identified as a fascist organization. Since the invasion, however, Western corporate media has downplayed the presence of Nazis in the Ukrainian armed forces as groups like Azov have taken on prominent front-line roles. (...)

An unlisted YouTube video by the Invictus Games on YouTube offers a close-up of Halushka working out with Nazi Black Sun symbol tattooed on his left elbow clearly visible. Halushka opted to cover the fascist symbol during photo ops at the Warrior Games.

Halushka has never been shy about his ties to the Azov Battalion. During the Invictus Games this April, he whipped out an Azov flag as he accepted a gold medal, which was hosted in The Hague – where war criminals are normally tried, not awarded. Likewise, in Orlando, Haluskha wore an Azov Battalion t-shirt as he accepted a gold medal for indoor rowing. He was honored days later as the “heart” of his team. (...)

It is difficult to believe that Palevska and Halushka are the only members of Team Ukraine that have belonged to neo-Nazi groups.

A photo posted on the team’s official Facebook page show five team members performing a fascist salute in front of a Warrior Games banner.

In other photos, a member of the team wearing a Warrior Games t-shirt can be seen holding a Right Sector flag; and seven veterans associated with the team bear the flag of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a WWII-era Nazi military formation made up of Ukrainian nationalists.

American taxpayers have already forked $60 billion over to Ukraine since the war broke out in 2014. They are therefore entitled to know whether the Department of Defense paid Team Ukraine’s travel expenses.

The article provides plenty of video links and photos that clearly show these individuals with Nazi symbology tattooed on their bodies and proof that they belong to Neo-Nazi militias such as the Azov Battalion and Right Sector. (More about The History of Nazism in Ukraine here.) There's no doubt that Ukrainians have a thing for fascists as their own postage stamps attest:

So… Disney World welcomes Ukranian Nazis. Bad enough Disney Corp. welcomes the US Department of Defense (more like Department of Offense) inside their fairy-tale-themed, family amusement park, but they're okay as well with individuals and groups who agree with Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and his favorite person Adolf Hitler, the man who had 6 million people murdered in his gas chambers during World War 2.

You know, this incident gives me a completely different take on “The Magic Kingdom.” I can imagine a Teutonic tour guide in a near dystopian future giving us a rundown of its attractions...

“Velcome to DizNa World! It's zee magical land where everyting is kept spotlessly clean by our slave labor. No ve don't pay them low wages--ve just don't pay them at all! Ha ha ha! It's what that sign Arbeit macht frei (Work sets you free) outside the front gates means.”
“Over here, you will see our most popular ride, It's A Small World. Really, it is! We only allow a few northern European countries to be featured on this ride because… Well, you know why. We only want blue-eyed, blond persons in our fairy-tale land. No other colors or non-European religions need apply!”
“Speaking of which, you might have noticed that DizNa's Princess Jasmine character is now also blue-eyed and blonde. Just like Republican Jesus!”
“The Swiss Family Robinson tree house is, of course, still here. We like the Swiss, especially their bankers who kept our gold for us during World War 2. The Robinson home has been tastefully redecorated in red, white, and black.”
“Whatz dat construction over there? Oh, that’s a new attraction being developed. It’s called The Showers. It’s not for everyone. In fact, if you are Aryan you don’t ever have to worry about it.”

Yeah, the whole “Magical Kingdom” aspect of Disney World has been flushed down the drain for me. I can’t see why celebrating any persons who associate themselves with a Nazi organization is a wholesome thing to do at a family amusement park anywhere in the world. I just don’t.

Here we have Biden sending billions of dollars in aid and armaments to these Neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine while millions of Americans are going without health care, rent assistance, and even food. We have millions suffering under the burden of medical and student loan debt in this country, but we can’t do a thing to relieve their pain. Jackson, Mississippi, and Flint,Michigan, still don’t have safe drinking water, and our federal government can’t lift a finger to help these citizens out. But somehow, we can finance an all expenses paid trip to Disney World for a bunch of Nazis.

Hmm… Jackson and Flint are cities with predominantly African American populations. Could that have something to do with it? Biden doesn’t have any problem sending billions of dollars to white Europeans to run a proxy war, but when it comes to helping out fellow Americans of a different ethnic heritage in need of drinkable water he’s got nothing?

Funding and rescuing Nazis is nothing new to the US government. Remember NASA’s rocket scientist Wernher von Braun? He was one of the 1,600 “nice Nazis” who America kept from the hangman’s noose at the Nuremberg Trials and secreted into the US along with their families in Operation Paperclip. The US government was fine with these scientists' Nazi sympathies as long as they worked hard to give us the edge we wanted over the Soviets’ space program. The US would do anything to best the “Russians" during the Cold War, up to and including inviting avowed Nazis into our country.

The more things change… Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

I don’t think I could feel more disgusted or more embarrassed than I do today at the antics of the US Department of Defense and the military industrial complex as a whole. Many Americans have parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who fought the Nazis in World War 2. Many Americans have relatives who survived the tortures of the Nazi work camps, POW camps, and the bombings of their cities. Some older Americans themselves are survivors of Nazi atrocities. And now Americans politicians and entertainers openly welcome Neo-Nazis with their words and actions.

All I can say is what Captain America said in his original 1940s comic book serials: Punch a Nazi!

DizNa World is the dark world neoliberals like Biden and company dream of, maybe even celebrities like Jon Stewart. Perhaps it's time for Jon to retire? He seems out of touch with reality. Nazis were only funny on TV sit-coms like Hogan's Heroes and the British classic comedy series 'Allo, 'Allo! where they were portrayed as bumblers, not the racist killers they really are.

Either way, it’s not the world our loved ones who died fighting fascism would have ever imagined. Neoliberals will do anything to make money selling weapons so their stock portfolios of arms manufacturers continue to grow. It's all about their wealth, their health, and their propaganda machines churning out stories about how great the Azov Battalion is and how the US is all about "freedom and democracy." (Read last week's blog about how that fictitious labeling of wars for resources comes about.)

Ugh. I don't know about you, but I'm never going to consider taking a vacation at Disney World, Disney Land, or any of their related amusement parks ever again. They've convinced me that Mickey Mouse and friends aren't the sort of fictional creatures I want to hang out with.

Heck, forget Disney+ and all their movies and online streaming channels. Let the white supremacists support them. There's gotta be enough of them to keep Disney Corp. in the black...and red.