Life ban from Greece teams for Nazi salute player

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -AEK Athens midfielder Giorgos Katidis has been banned from any Greek national team for life after giving a Nazi salute while celebrating a goal in the Greek league.

Greece's football federation said Sunday in a statement that the player's gesture "is a deep insult to all victims of Nazi brutality."

The 20-year-old Katidis gave a Nazi salute after scoring the winner in AEK's 2-1 victory over Veria on Saturday.

That was my point. Supporting the Nazis who killed millions of peopleand killing a few dogs also have nothing in common at all.

I think the punishment Michael Vick received was about right. I really don’t have enough information about this guy’s situation to have an informed opinion. He’s 20 - that’s pretty young. I know European sensativities to the Nazis are different than here, but I don’t know what the norm is for punishment in simliar cases. I don’t know if it was his first offense. I don’t know if he was joking around. I don’t know if there were other factors that added significance.

I just don’t see any useful comparison to the Vick case.

"The Bellamy salute is the salute described by Francis Bellamy to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazis adopted salutes which were similar in form, resulting in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942."

“You gotta look at it in the context of Golden Dawn, the up-and-coming Greek fascist party.”

Agree. Greece is still a long way from settling their political and fiscal problems. One likely scenario is that Golden Dawn wins power in an upcoming election then so to block this from happening the Greek military steps in and declares martial law and thereby re-establishes the Junta. Kinda ironic that the creator of democracy has so much difficulty with it....

Perhaps he should have not used it, but it has a much deeper history that, like the swastika, we have allowed to be utterly stigmatized by those who co-opted it, rather than stigmatizing how it is used, by whom. Like the "zero tolerance" to guns in schools that gets kids suspended or expelled for funny shaped Pop-Tarts, or even disarming & holding a thug holding a real gun to another student's head until police arrive, that would require some use of brain power & (horrors!) ~~discrimination~~ discernment.

Not only does it go back to Ancient Rome, and probably far beyond into the mists of time; but it even has a long (mostly forgotten) history of use in the Good Old U.S. of A.

American students pledging to the flag in a former form of the salute, specifically the Bellamy salute, 1941

The Bellamy salute is the salute described by Francis Bellamy to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazis adopted salutes which were similar in form, resulting in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.

The Bellamy salute was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day":

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute -- right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.
— From The Youth’s Companion, 65 (1892): 446–447.

I know I was a JAG, one of the idiot lawyers at our intake stopped at the corner and did a Nazi salute but all he meant was that the military was so weird....

I've been known, when faced with a pompous & overly officious petit-bastich, to click my heels, give them a Nazi salute, all while telling them, "yawohl, mein Furher!" Then walking away, sometimes while adding a second, one fingered, salute.

Context is everything.

Adolph appropriated a ancient rite of blessing, turned it toward himself. That method of holding the arm toward him was an ancient Christian form of blessing.

Hitler should not be given the ability to still claim credit for it.

How do we know the lad wasn’t using that blessing which is still used in churches to this day.

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