After seeing a poll I saw where over half did not know, I asked my daughter if she knew what Auschwitz is. She correctly guessed what it is as well as knowing what the Holocaust is.
I then showed her the pic I took at Windycon 2008 (that I posted to this blog at that time) where dressed as the Blues Brothers, we ran across a group of people in fake Nazi outfits as the con theme was military and there was an anime with a similar dressed group. When it happened, everyone was laughing and wanting to take pics of us due to the irony of the situation and it was fun.
My confused daughter asked me why I would be posting a picture with anyone looking like a Nazi. I then had to explain what happened in the movie and the crazy timing of the situation.
For most of my life, Nazis have been displayed in movies and on TV as bumbling idiots like Col. Klink, Franz Liebrind, and the unnamed leader played by Henry Gibson in the Blues Brothers or psychopaths like Dr. Strangelove and Dr. Krieger and are designed to be funny but things have changed since that November evening almost 10 years ago.
Multiple times over the last 10 years, a president was displayed in pictures as wearing the mustache sported by the Nazi leader by those who were unhappy with what he is.
Inspired by the 2016 election, people started to proudly march and rally displaying that flag along with the Confederate one proclaiming that they will overcome as well as seeing the US president attempt the same things that were done to bring the Nazi party into power in the 1930s.
Those references and events have made many including me realize that the Nazi party is not really funny anymore and thinking about it, it should have never been. Today, the encounter that happened in 2008 would likely not happen since today con staff would hopefully ask those in the Nazi type costumes to change or leave. To be honest, it is better this way.
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