Stalinist: WSL scrubs history!

Does the World Surf League's online bullying belie darker tendencies?

After it was made public yesterday that the World Surf League was actively engaged in the online bullying of Red Bull by refusing to show the brand’s hats on the webcast it made me wonder if surfing’s governing body was also acting in a Stalinist manner.

During the Soviet Union, Stalin made sport of altering history. Let us read from the archives of the University of Minnesota.

The most common examples of photograph alteration and falsification come from communist Russia. Unwanted persons, so-called “enemies of the people” were not only killed, but also removed from photographs where their presence was unwanted. Photographs were altered with the intent of changing the past.

Leon Trotsky was a close friend of Lenin, and shared his idealistic ideas about the communist state. In the following photographs he can be seen together with Lenin.

The next set of images are nearly identical, however Trotsky is removed from both photographs.

The historical reason for this alteration is that Stalin eventually began to see Trotsky as a threat and labeled him an “enemy of the people”. After he was deported from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotsky critisized Stalin’s leadership, arguing that the dictatorship Stalin exercised was based on his own interests, rather than those of the people. This contributed substantially to Trotsky’s removal from photographs and history.

And it made me wonder if, in the future, Adriano de Souza’s championship will be scrubbed from the official record, like his Red Bull hat.

Do you want to live in a world where ADS did not hoist the trophy as high as those little arms could hoist? Where hope is stripped away from the working man? Where our only form of energy is Monster?

I don’t.

And we should all take action to stop this menace because I might be next. You might be next.

Scrubbed from surf history.

I leave you with an inspirational poem.

First they came for Red Bull, and I did not speak out—
Because I only drank Red Bull on long drives.

Then they came for Hawaiians, and I did not speak out—
Because I was a haole.

Then they came for the passive-aggressive surf bloggers, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not write for The Inertia.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.