I still remember walking around in Bali, Indonesia in the early 80's and flipping when I saw swastikas everywhere. Obviously I didn't know yet that it was an ancient symbol. I'm kinda surprised to see it mirrored on this guy. Interesting.

Hitler flipped it, I don't remember why, but before it was appropriated by Nazis it was (and still is) a symbol of good luck and fortune. Some thought that his reversal of the swastika (thus reversing fortune) is one of the things that brought about the fall of the Third Reich.

If you look at pre-World War II buildings you'll often see swastikas in the designs.

we've got a library here in Detroit (the downtown branch) which has an architectural flourish encircling it with a band of swastikas and, as I remember it, they are also flipped. When I first saw it, it was a complete WTF moment for me just like in Bali. I'll have to go and see if I remember it correctly.

Nothing like a swastika-orientation discussion in the morning to get your day going!

He went on and on. I was so frightened I had goosebumps.

One of his theories was that the Christian religion really came from India. I wonder if his theory had anything to do with this statue or whether the expedition to India and Tibet that resulted in the looting of this statue had to do with his theory. Anyway, the NAZIs did seem to think that the origins of religion were in India. Or something like that.

I lived -- spouting utterly NAZI propaganda. I was terrified.

I should add that the NAZI tirade from this man is one of the reasons that I so strongly support Israel even though I am not Jewish. I cannot imagine the fear that many Jewish people felt when, after the war, they immigrated with their families to Israel. It was a safe haven for a people who had been persecuted for centuries.

If the anti-Israel DUers had heard this man, they would agree with me about Israel.

Sorry dude, just another straw man from you.

that was worshiped in Cybele's cave. It was brought to Mecca about 1,000 years ago and was chipped away until all that is left is like a 12 x 12 piece of the meteorite. Interesting that Muslim's kiss a piece of women's history.

Swastika's - Named from the Sanskrit "so be it," or "amen," the swastika has been a religious emblem of worldwide occurrence since at least 10,000 B.C.E....
A swastika with arms pointing clockwise was generally regarded as a solar emblem. a counterclockwise (sauvastika) represented the moon, night and the feminine principle.

just how ancient the symbol was ... too bad it was hyjacked by the nazi's.. I love religious history, and ancient things.

The Swastika is the SS shape (the upright arms are shaped like an S instead of a Z).

The leftward facing is sometimes known as a Sauwastika, but is also frequently called a Swastika, as well.

And yes, they're both ancient Indian symbols, later used by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jainists.

The article on Swastika: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

The part where they talk about the shape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Geometry

The article on the Sauwastika: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauwastika

Hitler didn't invert a holy symbol to make it evil, he wrongly appropriated a holy symbol wholesale, without alteration, and associated it with his own brand of evil in the minds of everyone. The only thing he did to make the Nazi Swastika stand apart was he tilted it on its corner. Both directions of the Swastika are traditional symbols of sun and good fortune, and has been found in use in the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000BCE.

element.

A huge iron meteorite in the far north of Canada provided the American Indian people with iron for knives and harpoon barbs and was a sought after trade item by other tribes.

When I was quite young, a few years after WWII, my family relocated from the Pacific Northwest to New Mexico. The house we rented had a woven rug with a swastika (something familiar during the war years), which I recall gave me chills. The town we lived in was not far from pueblos, so I am thinking that was the source of the rug and the symbol. Appreciate your message--a light bulb moment for this now-elderly lady!

OBAMA/BIDEN 2012