AOC's Chief-Of-Staff Wears T-Shirt Featuring Nazi Collaborator

[Igel]

20. Context matters.

It's like saying, "Hey, you liked Castro. He supported the Soviet GULag system and the invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the backers of the North Vietnamese re-education camps. You like Castro, you support oppression, imperialism, and mass incarceration for indoctrination. You hate a free press and free speech. Support for Cuba is support for government concentration camps. Are you really *that* much a Trump supporter?"

Yeah, I don't find that logic very convincing. Except I don't find the *logic* convincing not because it leads to a conclusion I don't like but because I don't find the *logic* convincing because it's flawed. It's not flawed because it reaches a conclusion I don't like. It's simply invalid.

Indian nationalism is a difficult topic because the polarity kept shifting as necessary--much like Arab nationalism--to achieve the all-important goal. The enemy of your enemy is (provisionally) your friend. That meant that you'd turn to whoever was fighting your enemies in order to maybe, if they win, get freedom. It's why the mufti of Jerusalem met with Hitler--in Hitler's fight against the Palestinian's enemies, there was perhaps room to maneuver to cut a deal. Screw *your* oppressors at all costs. It's why there were connections between the PLO and Sinn Fein. Underdogs always have the choice of being morally clean and ethically pure, but often find that their goals of becoming non-underdogs require getting their morals a bit ignored and their ethical standards stressed. Purists like the outcome of that sort of thing, but always despise those who achieve an outcome by that means. Underdogs also aren't always up on all the latest classified intel held by other countries, and often don't care. We Americans *knew* how bad the USSR was--or should have--by 1940, however biased and blind folk like Durant were. And yet we supported Uncle Joe and bailed his genocidal anti-Semitic anti-democratic ass out of trouble. Because it suited out ends to side with a mass murderer worse than Hitler. ("Hey, FDR, what's that about freedoms?" is completely reasonable ... if you like purist logic.)

https://www.france24.com/en/20190426-video-reporters-hitler-free-indian-legion-subhas-chandra-bose-india-world-war-two isn't bad.

Bose was a nationalist. He believed in armed struggle against the British. He is the natural object of admiration by those who prefer a more aggressive form of liberation. Gandhi was into non-violence. They were on the same side--but quite opposed. Both allied themselves with whoever they could, as long as other moral principles were okay.

The idea getting Hitler's help = support all of Hitler's goals is equivalent to saying "In Afghanistan Islamists got Reagan and Clinton's. Therefore, the Islamists supported not just the anti-Soviet rhetoric of Reagan, but also the ideas of free expression, cruise missiles, welfare reform, and the all-important religious freedom. Osama bin Laden liked Clinton's domestic agenda, and was therefore a neoliberal after a brief fling with Reagan conservativism." Yeah, that doesn't fly.

Look past reasons for condemnation, judgment, and feelings of moral superiority. Wearing a Bose t-shirt is a bad PR move, but these days it's a way of saying, "Fuck cooperation and collaboration with the enemy, and every person should take up arms and go to the barricades!" Think of it as "Gandhi was wrong, non-violence isn't the way."

Notice that Bose also would have had problems with Modi's Hindutva. He was more universalist--while he was Hindu and sought inspiration there, he also tended towards secularism and socialism. He avidly recruited non-Hindus to his fight and, I suspect, would have seen Hindutva as promoting an internal division and therefore Indian weakness, wanting Indian to trump Hindu or Muslim.