Nope, I just realise how it came to be that people think these symbols represent 'good intentions' while in reality they should b relegated to the history books right next to those employed by their ideological cousins of Fascism and National Socialism. Would you react in the same way if they had used a fasces [1] instead of a clutched fist? The term comrade was employed by both National Socialists (the 'Horst Wessel' song starts with 'Comrades, the voices...') and Fascism so it has a rich history in oppressive ideologies.
>Would you react in the same way if they had used a fasces [1] instead of a clutched fist?
Oddly enough, the fasces had been minted onto the Mercury dime (the dime preceding the current Rooseveltian dime) and is a feature of several statues in the Capitol, Lincoln and Washington among them. If Edward Bernays is to be believed, symbols take the meaning people are convinced they have. And there's no better proof than 4chan's (particularly /pol/'s) sense of irony/humor with regards to the OK hand sign.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_symbolism