Republican Nazi Reenactment

[Paxton]

I'm not sure what to make of this -- what do you guys think?

 

Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?

 

An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.

 

 

Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott's participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign's website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website.

 

When contacted by The Atlantic, Iott confirmed his involvement with the group over a number of years, but said his interest in Nazi Germany was historical and he does not subscribe to the tenets of Nazism. "No, absolutely not," he said. "In fact, there's a disclaimer on the [Wiking] website. And you'll find that on almost any reenactment website. It's purely historical interest in World War II."

 

Iott, a member of the Ohio Military Reserve, added, "I've always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that's incredible."

[calfoxwc]

That reeks of a sensational and self-destructive desire to

 

be viewed as an elitist. Membership, in one fashion or another, in a very unique

 

and all too often extremely strange group.

 

Makes some very weak people feel very strong.

 

This guy is a screwball. I wouldn't vote for him no matter what he says his politics are.

[VaporTrail]

Okay, here's the thing that bugs me about it. If this is a reenactment type group. Where are all the people reenacting the other side? Seems like he's proud of the Nazis. I mean, it's okay to think that, you're free to believe whatever you like, but I think it's xxxxing crazy to let that out of the bag if you're running for public office.

[Westside Steve]

Geez VT, who wants to reinact the other side???

Those ovens are Fu*king hot......

 

Seriously I doubt the Atlantic was interested in the reinactment beyond the political ad.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

This guy was a member of a group - and for years - that did more than re-enact. It honored these German soldiers ...while somehow pretending to disavow the Nazi ideology they believed in and fought for. It says so on their own website, and plainly. They even refer to members of the SS as freedom fighters.

 

They're honoring a SS Panzer division who slaughtered Hungarian Jews - among others, like every Panzer division did - and eventually surrendered to the Americans. A few years ago Nazi hunters found one of the surviving members of this division and wanted to bring him to trial for executing 58 Hungarian Jews at a labor camp. (He died before they could.) If that doesn't give you pause as to what type of guy this is, I don't know what else he'd have to do. I mean, when you've got your own German SS identity, and your own SS uniform, it's gone beyond creepy.

 

This guy clearly has an infantile fascination with war. And despite claiming that it's just because he's a "history buff", he doesn't even know the despicable history of the SS division he's representing.

 

As if the history of WWII would somehow be incomplete if these idiots weren't running around in SS uniforms in the woods of Ohio. Please. This isn't done for history's sake. This isn't scholarship, as every WWII scholar The Atlantic contacted for the piece quickly noted. These guys do this because they enjoy it. Because they're completely misguided and happily misinformed, among other things.

 

Good on the Atlantic for bringing it to people's attention. He wasn't going to win anyway, but it's good to know this guy's career in politics is over, as it should be.

[calfoxwc]

Let it be known, that I Thanked Heck for an excellent, well written post for the first time,

 

which may be the first time he has done it...

[Mr. T]

Good on the Atlantic for bringing it to people's attention. He wasn't going to win anyway, but it's good to know this guy's career in politics is over, as it should be.

 

 

Amen to that brother!

[Westside Steve]

First I wonder who the xxxx thought it was a good idea to run the clown?

Second I doubt he's any more a Nazi than Obama is a Muslim.

Third (and get ready for a Heckisn "So you love NAZIS?????!!!!!")

My answer in advance is a roilling of my eyes and a "jerk off" hand motion.

 

So would Heck feel the same about someone who played the part of US officers in light of the Dresden firebombing or the nuclear attacks on Japanese civilians?

 

I guess that's rhetorical.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

I've always loved your mindless contrarianism.

 

 

[calfoxwc]

Heck translation:

 

"Ha ha, you are right, Steve, but I'm not going to admit it. Ha ha"

[heckofajobbrownie]

This is a very strange place, filled with very strange people.

 

Steve, can you make a distinction between the people who tried to eliminate certain races from the globe and take over the world, and the people who tried to stop that to preserve freedom?

 

Apparently not.

 

So no, I wouldn't feel the same about someone dressing up as a WWII B-17 pilot as I would about someone who dresses up as a member of the SS.

 

I can't believe I had to type that.

 

Nor is the point whether or not the man is currently a Nazi.

 

You are indescribably dense.

[Westside Steve]

This is a very strange place, filled with very strange people.

 

Steve, can you make a distinction between the people who tried to eliminate certain races from the globe and take over the world, and the people who tried to stop that to preserve freedom?

 

Apparently not.

 

So no, I wouldn't feel the same about someone dressing up as a WWII B-17 pilot as I would about someone who dresses up as a member of the SS.

 

I can't believe I had to type that.

 

Nor is the point whether or not the man is currently a Nazi.

 

You are indescribably dense.

 

I figured on that.

Heck you're a hypocrite on sucha monumental level.

 

You and your ilk pretend to be so fu*king pure as long as it pimps your stupid political partition.

No Heck I guess I was foolish to think it might have been wrong on some level to massacre the civilians in Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

After all they're only Japs right?

And gee if we had to look the other way as your buddy Stalin murdered millions oh well.

Hey we finally ended Roosevelts depression right?

 

I forgot part of the Heck doctrine.

War is hell unless there's a Democrat in the white house.

 

Yes you miserable tool, there's tragedy whenever anybody goes to war.

 

WSS

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Where do you get this stuff? Honestly.

 

Holy cow.

 

 

 

 

[VaporTrail]

After all they're only Japs right?

 

The B-17 bomber pilot comparison doesn't even come close. The reason we bombed the shit out of Dresden, Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima, was as a means to end the war. What the SS did. Shit. You can't be seriously comparing the two.

[Mr. T]

Japs, German who gave a shit in the 40's we were at war and needed to kill as many of them as we could.

 

As far as the SS and their cult like following of Hitler and Himmler it mirrors what the Muslims are doing today.

 

Muslim Brotherhood 'declares war' on U.S.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Yes, he is.

 

Steve, the point isn't that Dresden or Hiroshima were high points in American morality. We intentionally targeted civilians and killed them by the thousands. We get it. I know you feel like you're the only one who sees the world clearly and you need to point this out to us, but you really don't.

 

But you can't keep any - and I mean any - unlike things separate in that feeble mind of yours. It's comical. You dragged a conversation about Rich Iott to falsely equating Nazi atrocities with American atrocities, leaving me to point out what the distinction was. You ignored that, and instead went off on a new tangent about how the real explanation for why I don't care about Dresden and Hiroshima is because there was a Democrat in office at the time (Huh? I'm shilling for a guy whose been dead for 60 years now?) even suggesting that I'm all for war that helps the economy. Then you dragged it to Afghanistan (whatever works, I guess) suggesting I'm somehow in favor of that war because there's a Democrat in office. None of this is true, and it has nothing to do with my actual opinions, but that's okay.

 

All in a discussion about Rich Iott being a creep. Which you don't want to discuss. Because you can't bash Democrats. Which you did anyway. And then I commented, and then you could some more! ...Awesome.

 

In other words, I describe your arguments as dense, and then you rush out and prove me right.

 

Relax, my man. Relax. You don't have to lose your shit every time you see my name.

[Westside Steve]

Ahh well,VT at least it proves that morality really is

situational.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Steve, it's all immoral. War is immoral.

 

You're still missing the distinctions.

[Westside Steve]

Steve, it's all immoral. War is immoral.

 

You're still missing the distinctions.

 

 

No Heck, I'm not.

And it ain't worth a long debate.

 

You don't have much to say until this nickel and dime shit comes up. Some free publicity for Marcy Kaptur.

Fair enough.

 

But you decided to attack me over a reasonable enough response.

Remember that you're the one who comes unglued over the idea that I might allow a terrorist to be waterboarded in order to prevent a massace.

 

 

WSS

 

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Well, you're right about one thing - it's not worth a long debate with you.

 

And no, your original post made no sense. It was "I don't believe he's a Nazi", which is hardly the point, and that The Atlantic made a political commercial for the Democrats, those hacks.

 

I guess when the media finds out a candidate for national office has a SS alter-ego and likes to dress up as a Nazi on weekends and belongs to a group that obviously has a strange sympathy for the frontline Nazi soldier, that's the kind of thing they should sit on.

 

Sure.

[VaporTrail]

Ahh well,VT at least it proves that morality really is situational.

 

Why go there?

 

This might support my claim that morality is relative, but it seems irrelevant. You're comparing a terrifying act with the overall goal of getting the war over with to a terrifying act with the overall goal of ridding the world of an entire race of people. I don't think the line between them is that hazy.

[Westside Steve]

Ahh well,VT at least it proves that morality really is situational.

 

Why go there?

 

This might support my claim that morality is relative, but it seems irrelevant. You're comparing a terrifying act with the overall goal of getting the war over with to a terrifying act with the overall goal of ridding the world of an entire race of people. I don't think the line between them is that hazy.

 

 

I guess it depends who's writing the book VT.

And who's reading it.

 

Cleveland Browns player: good agressive hit.

Steeler: Cheap shot.

 

Lemme ask you this, if we'd been on the losing end of that war how do you suppose the descendants of Joe Stalin would write the history?

Or Goering?

Or Hirohito?

Or Il Duce?

 

And lest you forget I like Jingoism as much as the next right wing extremist.

It's just that you lefties bitch about that.

 

Taxation woithout representation!!!!!!!!! Hoo ah!

 

WSS

[VaporTrail]

Who wrote the history books is irrelevant. I have a problem with your inability to discern an act of war from an act of genocide.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Or aggression from defense.

 

Or American B-17 pilots from the Waffen SS.

 

Or contrarianism from common sense.

[Westside Steve]

And the bottom line is Lott likes to play dressup.

Kinda goofy but even goofier is the guys who thought he could take down Kaptur .

 

I wonder how many kids in red face paint and horns this Halloween actually wish to serve the dark master, Lord Satan?

(besides you and Heck )

 

And that in the aftermath of their economic revival the Dems are basically running a campaign based on smearing Republicans as racists and Nazis.

It''s working for Jerry Brown and I'm sure that's one reason the Atlantic went with the story.

 

The relative morality is just an offshoot of that discussion.

 

WSS

[Westside Steve]

Who wrote the history books is irrelevant. I have a problem with your inability to discern an act of war from an act of genocide.

 

 

And as I pointed out our buddy Stalin killed how many?

WSS

[VaporTrail]

I'm only contesting your statement about the B-17 pilot.

[heckofajobbrownie]

And the bottom line is Lott likes to play dressup.

Kinda goofy but even goofier is the guys who thought he could take down Kaptur .

 

I wonder how many kids in red face paint and horns this Halloween actually wish to serve the dark master, Lord Satan?

(besides you and Heck )

 

And that in the aftermath of their economic revival the Dems are basically running a campaign based on smearing Republicans as racists and Nazis.

It''s working for Jerry Brown and I'm sure that's one reason the Atlantic went with the story.

 

The relative morality is just an offshoot of that discussion.

 

WSS

 

No. The bottom line isn't that Iott likes to play dress up. It's that he doesn't seem to think that there's anything wrong with praising soldiers in the Waffen SS, and then putting their uniform on and acting like one. And when given multiple opportunities to distance himself from the actions of the very division - the Nazi war criminals - he's chosen to emulate, he refuses to do so. He even says "we shouldn't judge them" because "we weren't there."

 

Honestly, you don't think the voters should know that he believes this? What else do you not want to know?

 

You simply dismiss what he's doing as "goofy" and "playing dress up", and bringing his behavior to the voter's attention as a smear campaign. You really don't seem to have any idea what the media's function is.

 

I guess when Josh Green broke the Eric Massa story (a Democrat) and wrote that piece that skewered Hillary Clinton and her campaign (also a Democrat) he was just taking his orders to smear the Republican Party.

 

Your arguments don't hold up. At all. They're just attempts to cram everything back into your narrow worldview, where everything is just smears and carping, except when you do it.

 

If this guy were a Democrat he'd have been forced to drop out by now. No question. Zero.

[Kosar_For_President]

Do you think heck and Steve are going to ever have a beer together?

[VaporTrail]

I hope so. I'd drink a beer with all of you fùcking assholes. I asked T if he wanted to grab a beer while I was in NC, but he never responded