Oh, and Sam Truth, share that “get over it” with a few Holocaust Survivors and WW2 Veterans who lost their rellies and buddies to the Nazis.

Get over it.

Oh, and it spins both ways in India.

Case in point: Do any of you remember the Ayds Diet Plan candies? They were supposed to make you lose weight. However, even though they were “there first” with their product name and marketing, the company couldn’t withstand the association with AIDS, and the way many of ITS victims withered away.

Sometimes you have to move on.

Erika — didn’t look at the website, but I’d think it’s fair to say that in the Raelians’ minds (such as they are), that their plan worked.

Sam — I know a lot of people who hit the yard sales and house sales to buy old cooking pots and pans because the vintage American stuff from 50 years ago is still in better shape than most of the garbage you buy now in the stores. I’m not personally sure how modern hand tools/power tools stack up to the old ones, but I’ve been told a lot of the older ones are better. Most of my hand tools are 100+ years old (out of grandparents’ attic). I like their look and they still work fine. As for new sewing machines versus old, up until it finally gave out, I was still using my great grandmother’s Singer, which had been fitted with an electric motor (it was originally a treadle machine). The poor thing was 125 years old when it finally died! (I’d say that my great grandmother, bless her soul, got her money’s worth!) The machine I bought to replace it crapped out in five years.

So much for product quality today.

Terry

Shadow Wolf — I also agree with you. As a Wiccan, I do occasionally wear a pentagram necklace–under my clothes. It simply isn’t worth the bother to try to explain to most people (like my neighbors) that it isn’t a satanic symbol. I do wear it to the local Renaissance Faire; it’s highly interesting how many people will, if they notice it, greet me with “Blessed Be,” or “Bright Blessings.” (The ren fair is lousy with Pagans, which is part of its charm). It’s also amusing how one can wander around, wearing blatantly Wiccan-based t-shirts, big, showy pentacles, or even dress, head to toe, in “traditional” witch attire, and the “normals” who are attending the fair smile and congratulate you for “being in character.” Definitely good times!

And, of course, anything Celtic (e.g., knotwork, zoomorphic designs, mythical creatures) can be worn just about anywhere, even though much of it has strong Wiccan/Pagan connotations (at least for Northern European/British Isles oriented practitioners).

Sam — since I periodically wander through old manufacturing facilities, I have also come across swastikas stamped on equipment and piping. These actually ARE third-Reich related markings for the 1930s. Prior to World War II, Germany did a lot of business with U.S. manufacturers and, in some cases, conducted quality audits, which resulted, if the manufacturer met the requirements, with the Third-Reich’s own Good-Housekeeping-Seal-of-Approval-from-Hell stamped all over the place. Strange, but true (and sorta freaky; one also runs across Masonic symbols and, in one case, a 1920s era “Workers United” type of Art Deco-influenced wall mural complete with hammers and sickles.

My brother and I also ran across a notary public stamp (or maybe some other type of stamp — I don’t remember) from the 1930s that was used by some Chicago Alderman that for some reason included a swastika and some German lettering that my brother, who reads German, said suggested that he was involved in the U.S. Bund. I always wondered what happened to the guy and if he quit the Bund, lost his re-election bid (or not, depending on his utility to City Hall) after the United States entered the war. It’s amazing what you find in antique shops!

Bigots.

It is an interesting phenomenon, considered how worldly and seemingly jaded modern Americans are that some symbols simply hit us at such a deeply emotional level that, even if we know, intellectually, that something has a whole other history to it that is positive, we can’t get passed the very, very negative associations.

I suspect that what we are all experiencing and talking about is basically at the heart of hate crimes and hate — acts, ideas, or symbols that go beyond simple intimidation or violence and that, in fact, strike true psychic dread in those against whom they are used.

Shadow Wolf — I am also quite familiar with the use of the swastika in Native American design and regret that the Nazis did such a number on this symbol that people sometimes react with outrage when they see it on old Native American pottery, rugs, blankets, or jewelry. Way to go, nasty Nazis!

Its basically just a more elaborate version of a teenager drawing a swastika on their notebook to be outrageous.

Currently, I would not use a swastika of any kind.