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ICE mercenaries serve king death. They are evil incarnate. (quokk.au)
submitted 8 months ago by [M] to c/peoplemastodon@quokk.au
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https://todon.eu/@CrimethInc/115897566257403078

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[–] 5 points 8 months ago* (7 children)

The symbol in the photo is different from Totenkopf. The German Totenkopf is easy to recognize, and copying it would be a no-brainer. Totenkopf also rather explicitly has the bones on it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    Yes, its derived from it, not identical to it.

    They've replaced the crossed bones beneath the skull, with a crown on top of the skull.

    But it is used as a 'challenge coin', which is basically analagous to ... a medal on a uniform, a medal from placing in a competitive sporting event.

    Both the totenkopf as a symbol and the concept of a challenge coin both have their origins in militaries, or at least organized armed groups.

    Many militaries give out challenge coins for various acts or participation in or completion of various kinds of things ... most of them don't give out skull medallions though, due to the extremely bad reputation of the totenkopf.

    More history and examples of mostly military challenge coins:

    https://www.coinvaluechecker.com/rare-challenge-coins-worth-money/

    Note about numbers 8 and 13

    Yes, the Trample the Weak coin does have a skull, and that is in fact pretty uncommon. The 173rd featured heavily in the MACV SOG during US operations in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia... they were the covert force often sent into countries the US was not officially at war with, to try and cut off the Ho Chi Mihn trail.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tailwind

    They... may or may not have used some kind of mixture of tear gas and ... some kind of sarin-like nerve agent, in that operation.

    ... pretty uncommon, by US military standards, arguably the existence and most operations of the unit itself... just were some kind of warcrime.

    Now for coin 13... well, thats Jocko Willink's unit.

    He is exactly the kind of extremely far right person I am talking about. Friends with Dan Crenshaw, Tulsi Gabbard, Jordan Peterson, ... super MAGA Trump guy... has a whole glowing piece about him at the Heritage Foundation, an extremely well funded and extremely far right political think tank / network ...

    https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/can-jocko-save-america

    It may infact be literally him, Jocko, who... literally coined the crowned variant of the skull, that we see more closely resembles the ICE challenge coin.

    More lately, last couple of decades, various LEOs (law enforcement agencies) in the US and Canada have also begun to and more frequently given out challenge coins of varying kinds, same with PMCs and other private security outfits, for ... carrying out various tasks or completing certain kinds of training...

    But when its a skull, the symbolism there has long been a ... semi-plausibly deniable Nazi dog whistle:

    If you can find an instance of a group giving these skull mediallions, totenkopf adjacent coins out, you're nearly 100% certain to find many of the members / leaders of that group also have and use other kinds of Nazi / White Supremacist / Hyper Religious Conservative imagery, symbolism, rhetoric, tattoos, etc.

    Its... well known that ICE has literally 0 hiring standards, and its also pretty well known that a whole bunch of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, fascist militia types, gleefully joined up with ICE after Trump got elected again.

    Symbols grow and change over time, similar to how language does, how online image memes do, people reuse and remix them... but you can trace a lineage of how symbols evolve and change, who uses them to mean what.

    Maybe the best modern example is how so, sooo many LEOs and their back the blue fans have adopted and remixed the Punisher skull.

    The Punisher is a comic book character who murders corrupt cops and government and officials and basically anyone he feels has fucked him over in some way, abused their powers... but the symbol has been paradoxically adopted by cops, who are themselves quite often abusive, corrupt, and break any law they think they can get away with breaking.

    They're the people the Punisher would be killing, but they can't see it. They like the skull imagery because 'death', 'badass', 'i'll fuck you up', 'you can't stop me' ... and, also, because ... its a skull, fits well into the already existing set of Nazi related imagery.

    As I mentioned in another reply, the Swastika itself is not 'the original', its a mirrored version of the original symbol, which now has... extremely different connotations and implied meaning than it did before the Nazis appropriated it and gave it a new meaning and reputation.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

    They’ve replaced the crossed bones beneath the skull, with a crown on top of the skull.

    Indeed, the same way as if you replace the blue in the French flag with green, turn it 90°, and slap the Nishan Rasmi symbol in the middle, you get the Iranian flag, which means that France is a Muslim state.

    Claiming that any and every skull is Totenkopf is as empty-brained and deranged as saying that Hamlet is Nazi propaganda because of the Yorick scene, and every biology classroom is Nazi-affiliated because of the skeleton model in it. There are better reasons to hate ICE than making up random shit on the web. Especially since the OP claim has rather thin proof to it.

    Your BBC style of one-sentence-per-paragraph ramblings also raises severe suspicion of a mental illness.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    Ok but actually, speaking as a person who studied flags, its not actually far off. Obviously not the France being muslim part, and whether or not the Iranian flag has any influence from the french, Idk, but there would have been a good chance you would have been right if you threw a dart at a map. Although more accurately most tricolor flags are inspired from either the red, white, and blue or the orange, white, and blue Dutch flags. Some of them in really roundabout ways.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago*

    Firstly, obviously someone invented tricolor flags, it's not much of a revelation.

    Secondly, if you studied a bit more, you'd know that the colors of Iranian flag aren't random, but are typical for Muslim countries and are a subset of the pan-Arabic colors. Green represents Islam in Muslim symbology both in flags and elsewhere.

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