Huh huh? nooo - its not a dove's foot. Scroll down for the answer:
It's the letters N and D from the Semaphore flag signaling system. ND for 'Nuclear Disarmament'.


N


D

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44497000/gif/_44497910_cnd_logo_203.gif

I knew that.

So it's not Nero's Cross?

'Dem damn tinfoilers got me again....

Hmmmm didn't know that

I did not know that.

Interesting.

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CJ

I've heard different versions...


What I want to know is why every time a Japanese person (and some Koreans) are posing for a snapshot, they put up the peace sign.

It's ubiquitous.  I don't get it.

So you are saying I was misinformed when my Dad told me that it is the footprint of the great American chicken?

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Quoted: I've heard different versions... What I want to know is why every time a Japanese person (and some Koreans) are posing for a snapshot, they put up the peace sign. It's ubiquitous.  I don't get it.

Think about it. During WWII it was V for Victory, not "peace". We occupied and stationed troops in Japan and Korea for how long after their respective conflicts?

Japan also picked up a lot of english words in that time.

But, but that chain email told me it was an upside-down, broken cross!

Because the hippies believed that once Christianity was done away with peace would inherit the earth!

I've seen and heard about Gerald Holtom's semaphor design from the late 50's and believe it to (Most likely) be the actual, true source of the symbol but..........

There's a great alternate story that I read about years ago (That I have absolutely NO way to verify) that's WAAAAY more "romantic" and....is "Fairly" believable if you're and old, mid-40's conservative like me....lol

IT (The other "Genesis" story of the peace symbol) deals with the Kulak/Tambov rebellions in the 20's and 30's in soviet Russia.

As the story goes (Again, I'm NOT claiming this as fact!), the Kulaks (Russian peasant farmers) resisted the collectivization of their farms and property by both burning crops and killing livestock in the face of soviet agricultural "Reforms" ("Your shit now belongs to US" ect) and got in the habit of painting downward facing pitchforks (Three-pronged) on barns as a way of showing their "Flag" to the new elites.

The soviets, threatened with (And sustaining) mass starvation at the time would then move their military and para-military forces into the area and quell the rebellion in any way possible (Killing everyone in a given village was pretty popular) AND, as a way to show that THEY (The sov's) had gained control of a region, they painted a circle around the pitch-fork which was meant as both a warning to other Kulaks not to pull the same shit AND to show that "PEACE" had come to the area ('cuase all the trouble makers were dead).

As I said....is that true?...I dunno but, I always liked THAT version of its (The peace symbols) origin better because it just reinforced my feelings towards the soviets (That were already fairly homicidal )

BTW, true or not, those rebellions and the whole story of the industrialization of Russian agriculture under the soviets in the 20's and 30's are pretty good reading for those of you who dig history.

EDIT: (I just have to throw this in lol!)
For alot of years I was a member on a couple of hard-left/dialectic-materialism sites with the screen name "Viva-Kulak" and it used to send the Marxists into FITS when they realized what my name meant! LOL!!!

I prefer this version

I have a feeling that the flag explanation is one of those logical, interesting facts that just isn't true.

RF

Quoted: I have a feeling that the flag explanation is one of those logical, interesting facts that just isn't true. RF

Yeah.

The guy that designed that just died, and that was not the background on the origins of the symbol, from what the articles were saying.....

Quoted: www.anbg.gov.au/images/flags/semaphore/b-icon.gifB www.anbg.gov.au/images/flags/semaphore/s-icon.gifS CJ

Quoted: The guy that designed that just died, and that was not the background on the origins of the symbol, from what the articles were saying.....

Its a Mercedes with a dick

Quoted: Quoted: I have a feeling that the flag explanation is one of those logical, interesting facts that just isn't true. RF Yeah.

Ah - but it IS. I just found out via my new National Geographic.

Here is a good Article from the BBC. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7292252.stm

So it IS the origin story. As for the Russian peasant symbol - its a nice story - and it too could be true. But its not what the guy who made it for the anti-nuke protests had in mind.

ETA - as a designer its neat to learn iconic symbol origins. I read a FANTASTIC article on the historical issue of the swastika.

Quoted: The guy that designed that just died, and that was not the background on the origins of the symbol, from what the articles were saying.....

er - he died in 85 - care to shoot a reference at us?