There has been legitimate criticism (including on this blog) of President Donald Trump retweeting images of his killing or beating media figures. However, there is often less coverage of such violent images from the left. One shocking example appeared this week in advertisements in New York for the athletic apparel company Dhvani showing a model assaulting Trump. The company did not back down from its violent display, though Planned Parenthood denounced the ads after Dhvani named it as a collaborating partner in the campaign design. The campaign titled #StandForSomething seems to mean stand for something tasteless and brutal.
The ads show Trump bound in red, white, and blue rope by an enraged woman with her foot in her face. The Portland, Oregon company seemed to relish its violent political commentary: “We realize that some of our customers won’t agree with our activism and that’s okay with us. We’re not afraid to make bold statements & exercise our first amendment rights.”
Yes, it is free speech and yes it is so tasteless and grotesque that the company is worthy of universal shunning by consumers. Of course, there will be many who are thrilled by the violent images and message. There are a series of such violent images planned.
For those who criticize Trump for fueling violent speech, there appears a muted response to this openly violent display.
Notably, the Dhvani chief communications officer and the lead model in the campaign, Chloe Mason, told the media that Planned Parenthood had a role in the campaign: “We are proud to join Planned Parenthood in defending women from assaults on our reproductive rights.”
The problem is that Planned Parenthood says that the collaboration never occurred. The group released a statement by Melanie Newman, Senior Vice President, directly denying Mason’s statement:
“Planned Parenthood does not endorse this campaign, nor will we be accepting funds raised by this campaign. Our staff members have faced threats and acts of violence for doing their jobs, and many of our patients turn to us as their safe space for care after facing violence in their lives. We do not condone violence or violent imagery against anyone.”
If true, the Planned Parenthood statement would make Dhvani not just distasteful but dishonest.
Leftist Evil Shinning Brightly! or The Shinning?
S and M has been the normal behavior, especially of the powerful (political, cultural and religious) for thousands of years. Let’s face it, imitating something the pope and other leading religious/political figures did in the Renaissance isn’t exactly avant garde! (And christians, before you start yelling at me for stating this uncomfortable fact, please read up on the torture inflicted on ordinary people during the witch trials, torture ordered by the religious as well as kings and queens.)
S and M is “normal” behavior among the workers/owners of silicon valley tech companies and others of the political and cultural elites. (Please read up on these people’s penchant for bondage clubs and child rape.) Consider also what it means that these violent sociopaths are the people librarians, for example, are looking to “save the children” from reading things which aren’t about silicon valley’s/the elite’s fake vision of “social” justice!
Both the dark and undark web are full of S and M, to include the bondage of children. it is a trillion dollar business in human misery and cruelty.
So while this ad is a form of activism, it is activism on behalf of the powerful. It is advocating abuse by the powerful, for the powerful. That abuse is not really aimed at Trump, but at the powerless. This ad is telling us that abuse by the powerful is both right and good.
This ad is propaganda aimed at the many people who believe abuse is trendy and fashionable. It’s for people who like harming others and want to keep that right for themselves. Like Streisand’s bizarre and violent depiction of Pelosi and Trump, it sides with abusers. It sides with cruelty and harm towards others. Trump engages in those things all the time during his wars of aggression and regime change.
To adopt the same behavior that one is supposedly “protesting” is very stupid. It is completely ineffective because it is a total agreement that cruelty and violence are the way to go in life. If any of these groups sincerely desired actual change, they would live that change, not agree with it and act it out. The most transgressive thing you can do in a violent society is act with kindness, justice and a will towards the common good. We really need to give up on such viscous and cruel behavior. It is all around us now but it doesn’t have to be that way. We are capable of doing so much better and we should act upon the sure knowledge that we can be better as a people.
Oh, the outrage, oh the disrespect. The right must have been going out of what is left of their minds when pictures of Obama and Hillary were shown in bad light and disrespect. Then ya got to remember that the right knows no bounds of hypocrisy. Oh the horror. The horror.
Yawn
Conservatives wish they had s3x this steamy and passionate. Of course someone would have to desire them in bed first
eeeuuwwww
Dhvani has entered the industry of hate apparel. They appeal to the notoriously inexperienced and ill informed young.
I choose not to fund hate and division in my wardrobe.
Have you seen the new political cartoon of Pelosi impaling Trump on the bottom of her heel… Bloody. gory, disgusting, and another example of why conflating ANY thing between Democrat violence and Republicans is absurd.
It’s a reasonable wager the ad agency is run by gays into BDSM.
I think you are being redundant. Remember what an easy time John Wayne Gacy had tying up his dates??? Like a gay comic said once during his routine, “I was once beaten up by a sailor. We still keep in touch. . .”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I, personally, had never heard of Dhvanni before this. I wanted to see how much fee publicity they’ve gotten from this controversial ad.
I Googled, “Dhvanni Trump billboard”, and Google returns links for over 15,000 hits.
The ad has produced a tremendous amount of free publicity. Turley; ABC; WaPo, Fox News, Bloomberg, Daily Mail and many more have used the ad as clickbait to pull in eyeballs. Probably millions of impressions. All for free to Dhvanni.
If the ad agency is in fact run by homos with a BDSM fetish, with results like that the principals can probably afford to buy lots of pink boas and add to their collection of assless leather chaps soon.
I have said it before. This is how the most cultured people in the world, became supporters of the Nazi Party, and were perfectly fine with Jews being imprisoned, robbed, and killed. Nazi art and popular played up the whole evil, sub-human Jew schtick*.
That mindset, that it is OK to kill or attack people who hold different views from you, is part of some human beings’ makeup.
Nazis, the Inquisition, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Red Guard, and today’s Democratic Left all have the same mindset.
And the more their beliefs are not accepted the worse they will get, trying to reassert control. To wit:
“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” (Hillary Clinton)
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
*Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaɪçʃaltʊŋ]), or in English co-ordination, was in Nazi terminology the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied by Nazi Germany “from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education”.[1]
I think you grossly exagerrate and conflate what President Trump has “re-tweeted” with what the Left has used as propoganda and to gin up hate against the President. I have been on the search for the “images of President Trump killing or beating media figures.” I have seen a CARTOON of a train running over a CARTOON CNN figure (not an actual person) that is clearly humorous and fake – and similar to the political cartoons run every day in NYT, WaPo, etc. In additon, President Trump strongly denounced the video that was running during one of his rallies. What else is there???
However, Kathy Griffin’s beheading picture and this truly dark and violent ad are SIGNIFICANTLY more violent and disturbing. And given the on-going and disturbing amount of violence by Democrats and the Left against conservatives and Republicans (Rand Paul, baseball shootings, attacks on Trump rally attendees,, Anti-Fa’s on-going destruction and violence, etc), I think it’s time to admit that the Left, Liberals and Democrats must not be able to see the difference between rhetoric and action. The are commiting 90% of the political violence we’ve seen in the last 4 years.
Please don’t reflexively start your commentary with a condemnation of President Trump (just a bow to your dislike of him) unless you can reasonably compare the activities you are denouncing.
Very much agreed. This is all bordering on psychotic, now (sorry, but contrariness and strong words are *not* those things), and these images are disgusting on a simple, basic, human level.
The ad with the vicious woman hog tying Trump, stomping his face and getting ready to kill him actually looks like it’s depicting a military coup. The model in the ad is Michal Mesa, a former Marine. Not a good look and certainly not something that inspires trust in the Armed Forces when the American People people see a former member of the military viciously assaulting and killing The Commander in Chief.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention
Mesa is also a school teacher, in charge of educating and guiding the hearts and minds of our children.
PCS,
That’s a scary thought. His base is already loaded with people whose reasoning skills are simplistic.
bill mcwilliams – Trump seems to have picked up support from a lot of new areas and has the possibility of 400 electoral votes. No Democrat has that ability. Now, I do not think he is going to do it, however, I did not think he was going to be elected. So, I am not a barometer for the elections. 😉
PCS
What does your barometer tell you about Trump’s crimes? Will he finally face justice or will his fellow grifter Billy Boy Barr be able to keep out of jail?
Bill:
When you use terms like “fellow grifter Billy Boy Barr”, you don’t do much to convince me about your argument.
You do however convince me to skip your postings from now on.
Lot of posters whom I disagree with, but they make good arguments worth reading; you don’t.
You do however convince me to skip your postings from now on.
McWilliams is a subscriber and promoter of every idiot conspiracy meme to come down the pike, including and especially a farrago of 9/11 truther rubbish.
bill mcwilliams – I think Trump has enough money to fight the SDNY.
When did you stop beating your boy friend???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – you are assuming he stopped. 😉
Oh! You are right. Silly me! 🙂
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Don’t worry bill, things won’t remain this scary for long. The temperature is about to change soon. The country is almost at critical mass. It’s only a matter of weeks or months before the simplistics adopt the Democrats high minded thought process of exterminating everyone and everything they disagree with. Better stock your safe space with plenty of heavy duty incontinence pads and Depends. The fright factor of what is happening now won’t even make the finals in the hierarchy of the terror of Civil War the Democrats are bringing down on this country, yet again.
It just hardens Trump’s base.