This week’s confirmation hearing for SCOTUS nominee Brett ‘I’ve changed my mind’ Kavanaugh has reignited the ‘debate’ over a supposed ‘secret’ white supremacist hand gesture. As the word ‘reignited’ indicated this is a fake controversy that has been visited before. Vox has an excellent article explaining the history of the live trolling and how it started. This has been spreading around the Internet faster than heated opinions about geeky media spurred onwards by a large dose of accepting anything that confirms preexisting biases. In addition to pointing people towards the Vox article I have a couple of thoughts on the matter.

First off the very concept of a public but secret symbol to identify one as a member of an ideological group seems quite ridiculous. Certainly secret symbols and identifiers, handshakes and the like, have existed and continue to exist, but they were used, primarily, as a method of revealing oneself as part of one-on-one interactions. So that someone could know that they had a friendly audience before revealing the secret part of themselves. Public gestures and identifiers have a very different purpose and that is to proclaim, loudly, where one stands in respect to an ideological concept, the Nazi Salute, the Black Power Raised Fist, the MAGA hat, and the Lapel Flag Pin all serve the same purpose for different factions, announcing ‘I am here and this is what I stand for.’ A gesture, particularly when is seems out of context, performed publicly creates interest and curiosity from those not part of the communication which defeats the entire concept of secret. It however perfectly aligns with the idea of ‘trolling’ taking actions in order to provoke a reaction.

And before I leave this thought on the absurdity of secret public signs let me also point out that in my opinion nothing about this administration or its devotees has anything in common with subtlety. Steven Bannon, Steven Miller, Richard Spencer, or Donald Trump have no need for secret communications as they loudly and blatantly announce who they are and what they believes quite often.

Another aspect of this is that the meanings of symbols can change over time. Because some people are in on the trolling gag does not mean that everyone is or that new people will adopt the symbol in the same manner.

Take for example the word ‘gunsel.’ In many film noir movies the term is used to describe a low-level thug with a gun, as a synonym for gunslinger. However that is not how it started. In the classic film The Maltese Falcon Spade provokes Wilmer into a rash angry action by referring to him as a ‘gunsel.’ It seems strange that Wilmer reacted so angrily to simply begin called a gun slinger but what Spade, Wilmer, the writers knew is that ‘gunsel’ doesn’t mean gun slinger it means the submissive partner in a homosexual relationship, specifically it is slang from the hobo community. The Breen Office did not the meaning no did most of the audience and the filmmakers flew under the radar with their code violating insult. Over time other writers and filmmaker, taking the definition from their misunderstanding of the context used the word to mean gunman and the new definition became the accepted one.

I believe that most of the people flashing the hand-sign are in on the plan to troll others, but you cannot be certain that everyone is aware of the purpose. Certainly as time passes and the reports grow that the OK hand gesture is really a racist one then there may come a day when the new definition and intent supplants the original intent.

A few weeks ago I came across an article at National Review Online, Corporate Gun Control Might Be the Worst Threat to Gun Rights, and with this week’s announcement by Levi Strauss with respect to their corporate stance on the nation’s gun issues I thought it might be worth revisiting the topic.

The article by David French cites a number of victories for the gun right’s faction of the debate before going into the central thesis of the pieces that actions by corporations taken outside of the political sphere represent a new front in the eternal conflict over firearms in the United States. French asserts that the motion on these large companies on the issue is, in his opinion, driven principally by the cliquish nature of their management. In the case of companies such as Facebook or Twitter, which are helmed by dynamic charismatic persons, he may be correct, but that doesn’t apply to large publicly held companies such as Levi Strauss, Bank of America, or Citigroup; these companies are driven by their board of directors and their focus is the bottom line. If such corporations such as these are taking a divisive political stance it is because they believe that being seen as neutral or on the opposing side would be more disadvantageous than the position that they publicly asserted. These behemoths are cautious and never the vanguard of social movements. These positions are ones taken, in their estimation, which will cause the least damage to their public images.

Why is that? Why do they feel pressured to take a position at all?

Because for many people the current environment is intolerable. What appears to be a steady, deadly, and endless parade of mass shooting, murder, and terror, even as I write this reports are breaking of a fresh mass shooting, coupled with inaction by the political process, instills fear in the population. We live in a time when children come home traumatized because they practiced hiding from their killers as part of their school day. Given that sort of experience people will demand that something be done. Eventually the paradigm breaks and new things, right or wrong, good or bad, will be deployed. In that situation a platitude about ‘thoughts and prayers’ will not quell the fear, sooth the anxiety, and placate the anger. Here we get to the failure on the conservative side.

Not in enacting the legislation proposed or favored by their political opponents, but by their inaction, their refusal to take any action that can be seen as even attempting to resolve the issue/ Now some may claim moves such as Must Issue laws for concealed carry permits or Castle Doctrine laws, or wide acceptance of Open Carry are solutions proposed by the conservatives, but they are not proposal intended as solutions for this issue. If we were living in a culture without these mass murders, random killings, and schoolhouse slaughters, these exact same proposals would remain on the Conservative whish list. They are goals that their political faction wishes to achieve regardless of the current criminal climate and tying them to the issue is an act of rationalization not resolution.

So in a climate of growing terror and trauma one side in a political debate offers legislative solutions, setting aside if such solutions would resolve anything at all, that is not the point, while the offers nothing but at best a wish list of things it already wanted, and some are surprised by which side grows in public sympathy? This is a bed of the Conservatives making, refusing to do anything yields the field to the opponents and while procedural power may hold legislation at bay, and that is a fleeting situation, the culture, including the corporation taking the pulse of the public mood, moves on and to quote a silly but favorite film, ‘You can be a part of it or a victim of it.’