Tag Archives: San Diego Naval Base

The US Navy’s “Secret” Swastika

The swastika shaped structure on the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in San Diego, California, was built in 1967. Fifty years later, shit went down in 2007 when satellite images of the base were found on google. Five years after that, the Navy has decided to spend a reported $600,000 to “hide” (read: disguise) the aerial view—with some landscaping. How did that meeting turn out? “I don’t think we need to take the swastika down, just make it look.. nicer and, you know, less like a.. swastika.” The design of the structure has been described as “unfortunate,” and darn it if folks just didn’t have the foresight for satellite images when it was built.

What percentage of professional US military construction is accidental? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought buildings required blueprints and stuff, meaning clearly delineated and intentional designs. The US military makes plenty of mistakes, but this isn’t one of them. Predictions (or no predictions) of satellite photography aside, who missed the swastika when they saw it on paper? Fancy technology of today may not have existed in the 60s, but blueprints did. They’ve been around since the 1800s. And if anyone is going to dismiss this structure as resembling an innocent “Buddhist good luck charm,” then first find the Buddhists who designed and built it. Symbols of white supremacy are not “unfortunate,” and only whiteness would compel someone to describe them in such a nice way.

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