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Trump mocked over his new design for Space Force uniforms: ‘The evil bad guys from Star Wars’ (www.independent.co.uk)
submitted 2 months ago by [A] to c/world
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[–] 124 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (19 children)

They're doing full Space Nazi, huh? I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.

The graphic says the design is “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform. Modernized for the guardians of the space domain.”

Right wingers are really the undefeated champs at not understanding satire.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago*

    They don't even do anything, they just manage satellite orbits, not even all of the satellites, not even all of the US satellites, they manage a small subset of satellites. The uniform and the actual job are completely at odds with each other.

    In actuality this uniform is going to get covered in cheese puff dust.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (13 children)

    the movie was satire. the book...not so much.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    I found the themes of the book putting a light on a fascist society and the individuals in it.

    Did you read the book as pro-fascist or glorifying fascism?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    pro-fascist.

    my father was a big fan. he was always proud of his "German heritage", if that says anything. growing up he attempted to instill in me the principles in the books. of course I was too smart for that and always questioned authority.

    the benefit being I was inoculated against fascism at a young age.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I read them as absurd depictions, similar to Lolita where the purpose is to show the reader a perspective far away from healthy, normal or sane.

    I read up on Heinlein on wikipedia after my previous comment, and he seemed sincere which is scary. Im looking at it from a scandinavian perspective which is quite far from militarism, and thats probably why I read sarcasm in the text rather than honest philosophy

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

    There's a really interesting multi-part series called Brows Held High: Starship Troopers about the fundamental differences between Heinlein and Verhooven and what each was trying to say, between Heinlein's original and Verhooven's interpretation.

    For what it's worth, I don't think Heinlein was fascist or even fascist-sympathetic. If you read more of his fiction and, my personal favorite, his non-fiction book Take Back Your Government, which is about how and why to get involved in democratic politics, you get a much more complete view of a really interesting guy. Some of his views were fair or even highly-progressive for their time. Some were weird and gross. But he's not one could simply stick a "Fuck That Fascist" pin in and walk away.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    I really should make this a copypasta, with how often it seems to come up:

    No Heinlein was not pro-fascist. That much becomes very obvious if you read, like, literally any of his other books. His politics shifted over his lifetime, but he was broadly an outspoken libertarian, and remarkably progressive for his era.

    He explored concepts in his books through the process of writing them. Starship Troopers was one such book. Stranger in a Strange Land was another, started before and finished after Starship Troopers, and presenting basically the polar opposite political ideology.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    so he explored concepts of fascism, he didn't satirize them.

    yeah...that's better.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    There is a wide realm of literary subtext between "obvious satire" and "full-throated support".

    I don't want to be rude, but it really seems like you heard someone on the internet say Starship Troopers was fascist and Heinlein was pro-fascist for writing it, without really evaluating either of those claims for yourself.

    The concepts explored were not fascism. The main political concept explored was tying voting rights to civil service, and the vast majority of that service was non-military. What about the book made you think it was exploring fascism?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Yeah, ever since reading it, I've been confused by seemingly everyone's complete certainty that Heinlein was portraying the militarism of the troopers as a good thing. I thought it was abundantly clear that we were being specifically shown that the "bugs" these yokels were firebombing were just people, in their homes watching TV, as the alien invaders rocket jumped from rooftop to rooftop, indiscriminately killing anything that moved. IIRC, everyone in the book seemed to have a gut feeling that the original attack on earth was actually retaliatory at least, or a false flag at worst.

    I thought it was about as pro-military as fucking Full Metal Jacket. Yeah, it makes it a big point that there's a deep camaraderie borne out of being forced to do awful things together, but it also looks as deeply into those awful things as it can, while it's being told from the perspectives of indoctrinated "children ardent for some desperate glory"

    Maybe I need to reread it and look for more of the authorial pro-fascism stuff. I don't think that Heinlein put a lot of effort into trying to convince anyone that the troopers were bad, but all the signs were there by authorial intent, IIRC.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (1 child)

    For me it was the part of the book where people didn’t get to vote until their term of service was over, but the people who could vote could vote to increase the terms of service indefinitely, and this was all shown as a good thing. I read it as a perfect satirical demonstration of how limiting the franchise will always lead to fascism, but apparently mine wasn’t the intended interpretation, because it wasn’t satire.

    I never finished Stranger in a Strange Land because I found it shockingly sexist

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    the part of the book where people didn’t get to vote until their term of service was over, but the people who could vote could vote to increase the terms of service indefinitely

    What does that have to do with fascism?

    I never finished Stranger in a Strange Land because I found it shockingly sexist

    Uh, there are sexist characters, but they're supposed to seem backwards and regressive. It's supposed to reflect the sexism of the time in a way that makes it obvious why it needs to be abandoned.

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    • [–] 93 points 2 months ago (11 children)

    What if the Nazis had won? - type shit

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    hate to break it to you, but they indirectly did win. took a few decades but their ideals are here and have won. Hell they won so hard even the people they wanted to exterminate said "you know, their ideas weren't so bad"

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    • [–] 55 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    For people who just want to see the fucking picture:

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  • [–] 30 points 2 months ago* (5 children)

    I mean the AI is heavily trained on star wars and 40k imperial imagery which is unabashedly space nazis so it tracks

    edit: Oh it says its inspired by the space nazis from starship troopers my bad

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Starship troopers was a parody of fascism, the whole movie is about how fascism always needs an enemy, and how they can never actually be allowed to win the war because if they did the entire society would collapse.

    Turns out that the actual fascists have such pathetic media literacy skills, and in the case of Trump general literacy issues, that they're actually using it as a basis of inspiration

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    Starship Troopers novel would seem not to be a parody. Until, of course, you're old enough to recognize real irony and not Verhoeven's kindergarten monkey shit throwing.

    Even Nazis and other fascists today are more often than not grotesque deliberately, using that as a protest or as some postmodernist distortion of symbolic language.

    Heinlein there is not being grotesque, he describes an ideology and society built from all the right things, somehow devolved into military rule despite military people not being allowed to vote and take state posts until retired (meaning survival till retirement during perpetual galactic war), despite that society being libertarian and libertine and democratic and cosmopolitic to the extremes and despite the system having been instituted first and foremost to avoid war and fascism and civil violence. He literally shows fascism built on common anti-fascist tropes. Some usually directed at future (say, fear of another world war thrashing most of our world), but in his book already in the past.

    While reading it you don't even understand that it was effectually fascism, that seems too simple and also the very thing it's not supposed to be. Militarism, society built on duty and all that - yes, fascism - not.

    It's a very good book, more similar to Vacuum Flowers than it seems.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I was thinking of Starship Troopers when I saw it. But I just looked at some images from SS Troopers, and somehow those uniforms looked less fascist that the space force uniforms to me.

    So the Space Force uniforms are too fascist even compared to a Paul Verhoeven satire of a future fascist society.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    It looks more Star Wars imperial officer than Starship Troopers, IMO. It's even got the single seam on the left side of the tunic like Star Wars.

    I guess Trump thought he would seem less Nazi if he claimed his inspiration was the more obscure reference.

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    • [–] 53 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    I wonder what prompt was put in to generate this, looks obviously ai generated

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I got pretty close on the first try with a very simple prompt: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a9ea9cf-b7e4-83eb-9ff6-d9ceb5df9420

    Not gonna waste resources by iterating, but I'm confident it wouldn't take much to get almost the same result.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    Not sure why you wouldn't just screenshot instead of linking to ChatGPT.

    PromptCan you make me a realistic poster for the United States Space Force that highlights the new officer uniforms which should be black and modeled after the Star Wars Empire officer uniforms, but with US Space Force iconography

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    • [–] 48 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Very . . . Hugo Boss.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Mummy is very right wing now after all:

    Hugo Boss: https://youtu.be/rmg7HZJNRx0

    Right wing: https://youtu.be/8bE2-ggRxsg

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    • [–] 42 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    It is uncanny

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Not pictured: the fuzzy pink slippers he was wearing on set

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Please tell me you're serious 🙏

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    • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I guess when you're a fat pedophile and the economy is tanking, you've lost a war, you've been rolled and made to look like a fucking moron by multiple foreign leaders, and your construction projects are as much a failure as your governing - it's logical to focus on vanity. Pretend like your multiple failures and embarrassment aren't a problem and draw some AI gi-joes to make yourself feel better. This fat pedo can't die fast enough. Thanks to every fucking moron magat who voted for this clown.

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    • [–] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Hopefully a realization coming to a MAGA near you.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    They could all be herded into conscript trucks and still not put 2 and 2 together.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    They could be taken to one of those ice detention centers, and in the lobby they watch a presentation on exactly what went down at places like Auschwitz, then continue the tour with comparison signs along the way, and they'd still buy a hat or T-shirt in the gift shop on the way out.

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    • [–] 20 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    AI generated Concept art for "what if the Star Trek federation were nazis"

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    • [–] 18 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    https://theasc.com/article/visual-effects-spaceballs/

    Other than fucking Nazis, I pictured this immediately

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    • [–] 18 points 2 months ago

    Oh my Gods it isn't a parody. I thought for sure this was a joke.

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    [–] 17 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The villains can't help it.

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    • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (11 children)

    Is space force a real thing with real people working there? I just assumed it was a tax fraud thing.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    It has always been, but it was just part of the Air Force. Trump insisted on splitting it because it sounds cooler. But the only real reason to do it is to ensure the budget doesn't prioritize air projects over space projects.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    They deal a lot with satellites. There's 10k+ US satellites in orbit, and a ton of non-US ones as well. It's legit, and it makes sense to branch off a bit.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Anything to avoid funding NASA I guess

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, I'm sure that's an unfortunate truth, but I also don't know that NASA should be getting into what will undoubtedly be more militaristic operations in space, because the world sucks, so why not make space suck too. And NASA doesn't suck.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Yeah, that's NASA's role, and they've done it great for decades. The only reason to create a Space Force over NASA is if you want to militarize space, which we should avoid at all costs.

    THAT'S why we don't need a Space Force.

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    • [–] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Well at least we aren’t pretending we’re fucking Nazis anymore. Good work America, now no longer is the what would I do if I were a German at the start of Nazi Germany no longer a thought experiment, but we are going to fall to a fucking orange pedophile moron and a bunch of ghouls. Land of the fucked and home of fuckers who like to sexually assault children.

    Happy Labor Day you piece of shit USA.

    Edit: Fuck trump and fuck ICE you are either with the U.S. or you are part of Epstein/Trump cabal and an enemy of our democracy.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Democracy, in its current iteration, will be vilified alongside capitalism in the near future. I'm calling it.

    There is no way somebody in a classroom in the future is going to look at what's happening now and not think about what was wrong with us.

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    • [–] 14 points 2 months ago

    Hmm who were the bad guys from Star wars based on again?

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    [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    Mocking isn't enough.

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    [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    Trump is a caricature of James Bond movie villains. At least they have the honesty to know they’re evil.

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    [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    Space gray and midnight black. Someone took their colour pallette off a Macbook order page

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    [–] 8 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Little too on the nose, even for them.

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

    hitler much?

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    • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Hans_are_we_the_baddies.gif

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    [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Straight up Nazi and being open about it.

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Slop

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    [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I love the colour palette. Grey black, and then different grey, and different black. Such incredible range.

    Although given the way trump treats the military perhaps the uniforms should be red

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