and John Stossel - clearly anomalies

Those were responses to a question by Svartalf who, after having been called a "Sonderkommando" by BeforeGod for being married to an Indian woman, was starting to wonder why racist values were being tolerated, chuckled at and not actively confronted here; I answered him with a short list of reasons that I thought responsible.

This post was from my early days on the board when I was frankly dismayed by the openly racist discourse that happens here from time to time. The second of my points quoted above seems exaggerated today, but will become clearer a little further down. Bear with me.


Well, first of all let me just remark briefly about the inhabitants of your country that you seem to be afraid of that it's also their country. They are American citizens, and so their ancestors have been since emancipation.

So, still less dangerous than where you live. I don't know that, and so don't you, and I don't want to enter into a pissing contest with you whose country is more dangerous to whom. You haven't been to Eastern Germany, I take it, and I haven't been to America. But I did not exaggerate about there being no-go zones for foreigners. And not just foreigners: some months ago, a German theater troupe was assaulted by Nazis in Halberstadt, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, evidently just because their assailants had a differing view about the type of culture they wished practiced on their turf; kind of reminds me of Göring: "Whenever I hear the word 'culture', I go for my gun". German camping tourists have been threatened as well.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain why I may come across as somewhat strident on racist topics. The rate of right-wing hate crimes in Germany, especially in the East, but not exclusively there, has risen continually in the recent years after a high in the early 90s abated a little in the middle of the decade. If you want to see the numbers, you can follow this link, which unfortunately is in German, but the interesting lines of the table are the two bottom ones; the caption of the last but one line translates to "politically motivated violent acts with right-wing extremist background", and that of the last line translates to "other politically motivated offenses with right-wing extremist background".

It seems to me that to many American users on this board Nazism and racism are just positions in a debate, positions that one might not share oneself, but an acceptable standpoint to be refuted in civilized discussion. To me, the whole situation is different. I am a secular humanist who leans (a little!) to the left politically, and that position of course makes me an anti-fascist and anti-racist per se. Also, I loathe the thought that someone is looked down on or attacked for being just the way that they were born. That is just so stupid, mean and uncivilized. But all that is not the whole deal for me.

I guess that I, in spite of many protestations to the contrary that I have made to friends in the past, am something of a patriot. I would like to be proud of my country, but I can't. We did really well; we had managed to offer the world some of its greatest poets, philosophers, musicians and scientists. At least before WWI, but still sometimes up until WWII we were regarded as a model civilized nation. Then we managed to destroy our reputation in just a few years with an incredible act of barbarism. And right now, we can't even claim that we've learned from our mistakes; the blemish is still with us, and it's growing. I am angry at this, and pissed off about it, and I don't want this situation. To me, Nazism and racism are not just outlandish positions that can be written off with a shrug or debated for intellectual fun. In my country that I'd like to love, proponents of those positions actively hurt or threaten people on a daily basis.

Now I would like to explain my "hunting ground to look for prey" statement quoted above.

How did it come about that hate crimes are much more widespread in the East of Germany than in the West? Probably the level of xenophobia was a little higher from the start since people hardly ever had contact with foreigners in the GDR. But the main reason is another. The Berlin Wall had hardly come down when cadres of Nazi organizations from the West took to the East with the explicit plan to build a right-wing youth culture there. In many, especially rural parts of Eastern Germany, life doesn't offer much to a young person. Nothing much goes on. Life is boring. To a large degree, the Nazi cadres succeeded with their plan because they often were the only ones to offer something exciting amid the frustration of boredom and widespread job loss: camaraderie, "a purpose", a sense of elite, of belonging to a vanguard of the future, of being not just a pack of jobless, lazy Easterners who must surely be backward yokels for not yearning to quickly adapt to the new, stylish life and values of the West.

So this incursion was a success. In my country, in the not too distant past and continuing into the present, there are racists looking for prey. They send people to distribute free comics and music in the schoolyards. They actively use any media that promise success of reaching young people. And NSBM has infiltrated the black metal scene to a large degree, again especially, but not exclusively in the East. You can't go to a gig there without seeing Nazis. At the PartySan black and death metal festival in the Eastern state of Thuringia one or two years ago you could even have the pleasant surprise of sleeping in a tent next to a drunken bunch of not just Nazis, but convicted murderers - you know of course which band I'm talking about. At the Under the Black Sun festival which is an exclusive black metal festival Nazi skins abound. NSBMers of a dangerous bent are not just a quaint phenomenon on the other side of the Atlantic ocean for me. For me, they are here.

How do the other black metal fans who attend these festivals react? Well, a minority is against Nazis showing up. The majority tolerates them, tolerates an ideology that I consider poisonous in the extreme because they just don't care or because they share a common fascination for things Darwinistic, nihilist or "misanthropic". This, to me, constitutes a hunting ground.

I grew up with metal in the 80s, moved away from it and didn't follow the scene from about 1990 onwards (mainly because I didn't listen to much music at all) and returned to following it about three years ago (insofar, I gladly accept the title "metal newbie" for the time being, as regards the current scene). I was dismayed to see how a basically apolitical style of music, maybe even a little left leaning in 80's thrash, was all of a sudden riddled with right-wingisms. Not only had a style of metal become the music of Nazis, no, tropes and styles of pagan romanticism occurring among Nazis only in the 80s (or at least among very suspicious esoteric types) had become cool in the metal scene. A lot of people on the board, it seemed to me, were discussing topics like Social Darwinism and racism favorably, without any distance, as if they had merit. I overestimated their numbers gravely, as later discussions have shown me; but the first impression was a shock to me.

I hope that the above may explain some of the stridency and radicalism that I sometimes seem to have about me when discussing Nazism or racism, and I think that it can also serve as answer to NeglectedField's last post:


Normally, I am not an overly politically correct person, and I do agree with you that in a calm and civilized discourse held with an eye to get at the truth or a feasible solution to a problem, the debate must be open to all positions, the better arguments may just win, and censorship is oppression. Also, when I argue a position with the wish of convincing my fellow debaters to it, I find it both dishonest and ineffective to try do so by any other means than my, hopefully better, arguments alone. I want them to re-think, not to cower before censorship. But the opinions of people are usually not formed by attending this idealized kind of debate panel; I don't want teenagers and children especially to be influenced by Nazi propaganda, and so I support the German ban on it; note well, propaganda, not discussion. This is the extent to which I support curbing of political discourse, if one subsumes "propaganda" under "discourse", which from a technical standpoint of discourse theory, I believe, is normally the case.

I do think that I can understand why rhetoric might be curbed, but so many people aren't used to Nazistic circles having some kind of discourse, it's like it's immediately assumed that whenever they utter something, it's inflammatory rhetoric. Also I dislike the way that in Germany, curbs on displays of Nazistic affiliation have spilled over into displays of pagan affiliation, I don't think anyone else should suffer for what symbols extremists and extreme political organisations should choose to adopt.

Because I'm a bit busy with an essay I haven't given time to read your last post, but I think with black metal and links with Nazism, it's a tricky, nuanced situation.

Whilst there are people drawn to it because they're nihilists and misanthropes (both immature positions if you ask me, and immature reasons to call oneself a national socialist) there are those who have arrived it as a result of a conservative worldview which has become radicalised in light of social and political change in their country. Former Soviet countries have an abundance of NSBM bands, and places where immigration is out of control and ethnic tensions run high, people seek solace in political extremes, American History X style. Except, those who would self-identify as NSBM usually aren't part of any organisation, nor do they attend any politically-oriented meetings as such, like say, a Skinhead might. It's all particular to the nature of different countries and societies, though.

Maybe it sound quiet off topic, but this is my natural reaction to racist and antisemitic claims and stereotypes that present by some members of this, like einvolk.

First of all, take a look to the clip from the veterans and founders if Israeli extreme metal scene - Salem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL8hZ2sgpLM

Secondly, I dedicate this song for all racists over the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcX9Jq_vMjs

Welcome to Malmö



"public Hitler salute"

A video about integration problems of asylum seekers is a non-response to a conflict between different groups of long-standing American citizens and a poor excuse for condoning racist positions.


Mainly propaganda, but also:
smearing Jewish cemeteries with swastikas
destruction of property
threats

The line in that table about violent acts is the more important one.

Greysnow, I had no idea that it was that bad, thanks for enlightening us. You make your points well and you have the advantage and added credibility of seeing it up close. I completely understand your "strident" tone, believe me, if I were in your position, I'd be the same.

Do Germans still feel the guilt of the Holocaust? I mean, I study in England, and to the English, it's actually a great way to take the piss out of the "Krauts", "don't mention zee war" and all that type of thing. What do you think about Holocaust deniers and apologists and the European (well, German and French) ban on it, not just plain hate speech?

I think that Neo Nazi have a right to say what they want to say, and I have the right to say that they're full of shit.

I think a lot of people feel like I do about the Holocaust. Then again, there are others who complain about the financial burden of reparation to the victims, an utterly despicable position in my eyes.


What I think about them personally is clear: they are idiots. Some of the deniers may just have a hard time facing the awful truth; well, tough luck baby, grow up. Holocaust apologists, if they really exist, are either intarweb tough guy poseurs who have maturity issues, or, if they're serious, revolting and callous criminals.

Actual Holocaust apologists don't open their mouths very wide in Germany, since the most likely reaction that they are going to encounter is :ugh::puke:. Holocaust apology, I think, should continue to be a punishable offense: it's advocation of genocide and thus hate speech.

But the ban on Holocaust denial is absurd. Hardly anyone in their right mind today denies that the Holocaust happened, and the few that do are vastly outnumbered by those who accept historical truth, and are widely regarded as hopeless cranks. The ban on denial perhaps was useful in the 50s to keep the Germans from sinking into a convenient collective amnesia, but even then I think it was the wrong instrument because it's undemocratic and tries to regulate historical scholarship. What I support is that if anyone accuses Holocaust victims of falsifying evidence they should be persecuted on counts of slander.

the only meeting i have had with a neo-nazi was when he stole washing off our washing line. At my work there is a few Black Zimbabweans, you could never meet nicer people

Pagan affiliation in Germany often - not always - tends to shade into the right. I think there is a rather big difference between paganism Anglo-style and paganism German-style. English Wicca seems to be all about freedom, emancipation from patriarchal structures, and living in harmony with nature. While I think that any religion is obscurantist and that dancing around naked in the woods is a little ridiculous, Anglo pagans seem a basically harmless bunch. I mean, Skyclad is a pagan and rather left-wing band, and Martin Walkyier is certainly one of the best lyricists in metal. More power to them.

There are pagans of that style in Germany too, and I don't worry about them too much; some of them are even actively engaged in anti-fascist work. I don't understand why they need to follow their funny kind of romanticism, but I don't advocate banning or censuring them or anything. Nevertheless, parts of the German pagan scene embrace values that are right-wing and associate freely with Nazis, and paganism can be a kind of slippery slope that way; but that is maybe another discussion.

As far as symbols are concerned, the swastika is tainted now. I mean, even pagans should not be immune from a little historical consciousness. The triskelion is used as a badge in Neo-Nazi circles and was the symbol of an SS division in WWII; but it's not forbidden and even used in the emblems of some German cities. The black sun is explicitly associated with the Nazi end of the pagan spectrum. It's not forbidden either. A rather exhaustive list of symbols used by Nazis is here, unfortunately in German only (the English Wikipedia page is not nearly as complete on this topic). Basically, only symbols that are predominantly associated with fascism are banned; the display of some of them is only persecuted within an explicit right-wing extremist context.


In Germany at least, NSBM has started to draw skinheads to black metal and to metal festivals.

I asked for evidence that Jews were a "hostile population in Germany that needed to be controlled", not rhetoric nor examples of individual Jews who happened to be commies. But I suppose the fact that Karl Marx was a German Jew is ample reason for a genocide, huh.

I just gave an example of a "no-go zone" for natives, since einvolk's wasn't good enough for you.

May I add to your note, Carl Marx was not pure jew, and in his writings, he critized some so call "Jewish" forms of behaviour.

Well einvolk pretty much covered it. I was mainly going to talk about the boycott of German goods by American Jews.

Even if the Jews in Germany were not a threat initially, their treatment over the course of the 1930s would have certainly given them a reason to actively oppose the government. With the conquest of Poland, the Ukraine and most of White Russia, that meant a potential insurgent army of millions. At least there were, often sizable, pro-NS minorities amongst the native populations of the occupied countries who were willing to aid the Germans. There was no real reason for Jews to collaborate of their own free will. The Jews involved with the Sonderkommando and Judenrats generally joined under heavy coercion.

In any case I've probably gone a bit overboard with this whole Devil's advocate take on the Holocaust. It was a terrible event and I'm not defending it. Still it needs to be taken in context. It was far from the only, or even the worst, atrocity of the period. The pedestal it currently occupies in the minds of most people is undeserved. More importantly for this thread, and the reason I've been discussing it, is the fact that most people still hold onto the bizarre notion that genocide is something inherent to National Socialism and should dominate a discussion of that worldview.





Heh. I stand by the allusion...

More importantly though, the reason racists are tolerated is due to the moderators stance on free speech. Sure you will get banned for obvious trolling, but serious opinions are pretty uniformly tolerated. That's how it should be. It shouldn't even be worthy of commenting on, but unfortunately most of the internet is fairly deficient when it comes to freedom of speech. I'm not sure what you mean by "active confrontation" of racism, but it actually happens quite regularly, just look at this thread. There are often arguments about ideology. On the other hand if you mean censure of people for posting racist jokes or image macros, then it's a damn good thing it doesn't happen. If that brand of whining is your cup of tea there are countless other places on the internet to do it. The web and metal are probably the last two places where you should be free from getting offended.



"Hunting ground" puts far too negative a spin on it but it's reasonably accurate. Just about every WN I know personally is a metalhead to some extent. NSBM has certainly helped a lot of people wake up. Essentially any scene that is fundamentally against the status quo is really only a small jump away from some branch of political racialism.



I've never had a problem at a metal show. Most people just don't care and that's fine with me. There are usually lefties at shows out here and no one bothers them. If you want to talk about ideologies that are antithetical to extreme metal you should start with secular humanism and communism, not National Socialism. I can't imagine what a secular humanist could get out of black metal; Christian BM fans are less hypocritical.



A lot of people on this board also talk about drug use, Christianity, unchecked immigration and miscegenation as though they had merit. Freedom of speech.




Yes very few people have the time or inclination to form their ideas around actual research and debate. What you have right now isn't so much the abolition of propaganda, you just have one whole spectrum of it criminalized. What's you stance on anti-Nazi/anti-racist propaganda? Specifically ads like this. How about the pap they teach in schools? I have no experience with German schools, but the blatant bias in the Canadian education system would have put Goebbels and Streicher to shame. Right now there is just a legally enforced monopoly on propaganda by the state and its supporters.

Putting four right angles together or raising your right arm does not physically harm anyone. There is no way to justify the ban. The Second World War replaced pro-German authoritarianism with anti-German gilded totalitarianism. Definitely a case of the lesser of the two evils, but far too many modern Germans have made the wrong choice. Mind you Canada is not all that far behind Germany when it comes to politically correct censorship so please don't think that I'm singling Germans out - they just fell the farthest in the shortest span of time.

Hmm I don't know what the German slander laws are like, but I'm pretty sure English laws require damage to reputation. I don't quite see how that works in this context.

Personally I believe in the decriminalisation of Holocaust denial. It's the hoary old cliche of free speech you know. I don't think Europe can beat its chest over the Danish cartoons proclaiming bastions in freedom of speech while having laws such as this. Like you said, they'd probably be dismissed as kooks and idiots anyway (which they probably are). I suppose the ban could be justified on public law grounds, i.e. influencing impressionable children and so forth. But bans on 'academic discussion'? I can't agree with that, personally.

But like I said, I'm looking at it from distance, you're there in the midst of it.

My experience of National Socialists at black metal gigs was never a problematic one. At this Skyforger gig in London, ethnically there was a mix of white-Anglo's, East-Euro/Baltics, and the odd black/asian kid that likes metal. And subculturally there were black metallers, death metallers, neo-folkers, pagan metallers, including the NS quarters of those subgenres. Nothing bad kicked off, the general sense of bonhomie was a good one.

As for Holocaust denial, it sounds insolent but I couldn't care if it is permitted or not, in my eyes it happened, and it was tragic, but I don't really have a problem what is done with deniers, it's a daft belief IMHO and they pay for it. At least as far as conspiracy talk goes anyway.



I'm well aware that genocide isn't an inherent part of National Socialism and is only thought that way because the only NS party to come to power (excluding puppet govts of other states in WW2) committed genocide. Even the NSDAP on their own were a mish-mash of conflicting ideas, regarding religion and race, and so on.

BUT

I think National Socialism (capital N and S) is informed by romanticist ideas that don't always sit right with my empiricist thinking. I know that the NS umbrella is pretty fragmented but I see it as a collective mentality that is not particularly conducive to human happiness.

What would you identify as the tenets of National Socialism, and what would you say makes you identify as one? Just out of curiosity...

Judging the Islamic perspective, the only reason they complain about Holocaust denial censorship is because railing against the state of Israel would be made much easier for them if it were permissible.

Daft bunch of people, they want the freedom to deny what there is piles (semi-literally) of evidence for (as free as they are to think that if they wish), yet they complain that someone else is allowed to say something offensive to Islam.

What a warped bunch of people that radical element are full stop actually, you can get into heaven for blowing yourself up in a crowded area, but you can go to hell for saying the wrong thing about someone

The short answer would be that I don't. At least not at this point in time. While I certainly sympathize with many of its goals, I do have some major problems with historical National Socialism. Basically I want to study the ideological underpinnings and find the roots of past mistakes before claiming any alliegiance to the weltanschauung. As it stands I just consider myself to be a person who is against white extinction and the despoiling of the planet. I plan on some further education before making any more concrete declarations. Still I do have some very close friends who fully consider themselves to be National Socialists, and I do not think that they are bad people. I am just against the baseless vilification of the ideology and those who believe in it. Just like any worldview there are certainly negative aspects of it, but at its heart it appears to be one of the most positive and life affirming belief systems around. Those who attack it based solely on the excesses of the SS, while somewhat legitimate, are missing the larger point.

The main architects of the NSDAP did not view the attainment of power by the party as an ends in of itself, but rather as a necessary prelude to a greater revival. I'm currently reading a book on the Ahnenerbe and it is made quite clear that Himmler was of this persuasion. The Third Reich was intended to allow for the rebirth of "Aryan Man" and radically change the nature of the nation. The state that existed in the 1930s and 1940s was there to lay the groundwork for this, not maintain or slightly augment the status quo for Germans. Its short life was spent almost entirely fighting against enemies, both within and outside its borders. Most criticisms of NS are based on the excesses of this period, rather than the final goal of the struggle. What Himmler seemed to idealize could be described as a form of racialized agricultural syndicalism.

In a way this is similar to the claims that modern day communists make when they attack critics of Marxism who base their arguments on the experiences of the Soviet Union and communist China. This is definitely overly glib, but the Third Reich could possibly be seen as analogous to the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." While NS, at least as I understand it, does not have the same Utopian endpoint that Marx lifted from Kant and Hegel, it certainly envisaged the creation of a new and better world. There was definitely a reason behind the Nazis' embrace of Nietzsche...



Hopefully that goes without saying, but the cartoon I posted does not reflect any endorsement of the radical Islamist position. It is reasonable fodder for debate though.

I think the cartoon is lampooning both the Islamist and the European positions on Holocaust denial and the Danish cartoons.

Or at least it can be read that way, I just saw the "Muslim Observer" signature at the top.

Fuck, I'm confused about what I'm saying now...

Well, it was of course entirely unreasonable of them to resist oppression by people who had vowed to rid Europe of them, never knew what was good for them anyway... So, sure, next time I'm going to oppress someone and they start to defend themselves I'm completely within my rights to gas them. Especially the children and old people, since everyone knows they are the most terrible and ruthless opponents. What, they hardly had equal strength? Oh come on, they could've spit on us! Of course the Jews brought it on themselves, shouldn't have become pediatricians, painters and physicists on our watch.


Oh, so it is a fun ideology for the whole family. Sunday picnics with a nice pogrom included.


Those were Svartalf's words. Yes, I'm doing it now, but he obviously thought it could have been done a bit more, on which point I am bound to agree.


I'm not one for whining, but please let me decide when I start to get offended.


Of course what you call "waking up" I would call "sinking into obscurantism". Your further claim is so false that I wonder that nobody commented on it yet: Punks are one small step away from being racist? How about redskins? anarchists? IMF meeting protesters? communist parties?


I believe "extreme metal" covers black, death, thrash and sometimes death/doom? Anything with a growl or a scream, basically. Well, I'd say that the vast majority of extreme metal fans are secular humanists in practice, even if not in ideology, although you will find a good share of them as well. I think extreme metal and secular humanism go together very well. Thrash is right up our alley; death metal is sheer entertainment; black metal can be soothing and is fine on a misanthropic day, which everybody has from time to time. I don't think I'm any more hypocritical when I listen to black metal without express racist lyrics than you are when you listen to anti-racist songs.


:lol::lol: Priceless. Great stuff. Even you should be able to laugh about that.


I'm all for the pap they teach in schools, of course. Unfortunately, I have to leave for work, so this will have to wait until a later post.

I really don't think that the aim of that video is to be anti-Nazi at all. I mean, its such a blatant parody. You are going to have to find a better example of anti-Nazi propaganda.

If anything, that video is making fun of a stereotype i.e. skinheads. I don't think there's any distortion of truth veiled as truth there, just comedy.

I wouldn't say all racialists in the BM scene necessarily refer to spirituality to qualify their worldview, but there are plenty who acquaint themselves with it. I don't believe there's anything objectively spiritual about race, only that people are naturally (as a predisposition) tribal and ethnocentric, not that I'm trying to explicitly make any normative claims at the moment.

Racial agricultural syndicalism would necessitate the removal of non-homoracial elements of the population. Sure, you can theorize about how to do it without abusing large groups of people, but it's unlikely to happen given the density of humans on earth. You would either have to exterminate them, which you would oppose, or deport them, which has extreme consequences as well.

Also, you make it seem like the Germans had to go to war. They were pretty pissed off over WWI and Versailles, I understand, but expansionism was an inherent part of the Nazi ideology: to make room for the Aryan race at the expense of Jewish and Slavonic sub-humans. They were not forced into war; they started WWII by invading Poland.

Furthermore, a system of racial agricultural syndicalism makes little sense: the United States is the top food producer in the world, and only 1-2% of its population is involved in agriculture. 90% are family owned. Source



I oppose communism for many of the same reasons I oppose Nazism. Comparing an ideology to communism to defend it seems rather desperate, considering that you probably detest it. Nazis embraced Nietzsche because he is very easy to quote-mine for propaganda purposes. When he spoke of an overman, he spoke of a philosophically advanced individual pursuing knowledge. It had nothing to do with genetics. Furthermore, Nietzsche opposed German nationalism and anti-Semitism. Source

I'm not talking about the swastika specifically, that I think most people are aware of, but it's things like the Tyr rune, Algiz rune, Thor's Hammer, and the Othala rune, that is often subject to kneejerk reaction and not viewed in context.

Well, if a Holocaust denier maintained that the reports of Holocaust victims or the results of historians are fabricated and false, and they can be shown not to be, damage to reputation would consist of the insinuation that the victims lied or the historians falsified their work.


Let me give you a short summary of the list mentioned here:

• Unconditionally banned in Germany: swastika, sun cross (symbol of the KKK), sig rune (symbol of the SS), othala (symbol of the Wikingjugend), SS skull (symbol of the SS 3rd division), Gauwinkel (symbols of the Nazi Gaue, i.e. the administrative districts of the NSDAP), SA emblem.
• Conditionally banned: Celtic cross, when used in the White Power variant or when used in explicit reference to the banned Neo-Nazi organization VSBD/PdA; Wolfsangel (from the SS emblem), when not used in traditional coats of arms of German cities; Reichskriegsflagge (imperial war flag) banned in the version used 1933-45 (the version used 1867-1921 may be impounded by the police if so desired by a citizen in some states)
• Not banned: hammer and sword (nationalist symbol), triskelion and tomoe, black sun, Thor's hammer.

To this list I can add that shirts or car stickers bearing slogans like "Odin statt Jesus" (Odin instead of Jesus) or depicting an eagle taking a fish from a river (the eagle symbolizing nationalist or pagan ideals, the fish symbolizing Christianity) are not banned either.

Basically, symbols are banned only when they have been used by explicit Nazi or Neo-Nazi organizations. Pagan symbols that haven't used in such a context and even some symbols normally associated with the right-wing end of the pagan spectrum (like the black sun) are legal. This is because German law prohibits use of symbols of organizations that have been deemed hostile to the German constitution by the Federal Constitutional Court, which includes several Nazi organizations but does not include pagans.

Personally, I think the ban on some symbols is somewhat comparable to the ban on Holocaust denial: official intervention isn't necessary any more and should perhaps be discontinued. The underlying problem doesn't disappear when you ban the symbols, and Nazi ideology should be opposed by a free public opinion, not by the state (ineffectively) doing the work for the public.

About spontaneous reactions to the symbols in question, well, it of course depends who you display them to. Part of the German pagan scene shades into the Nazi scene, and many Germans are aware of that, so I think their being a least a little suspicious when someone demonstrates a pagan affiliation is understandable. More probably, that someone will just be regarded as a crackpot.

That's downright appalling.



Could there be any reason for them to be banned? Any at all? Clearly that's a matter of religious freedom. It's ludicrous that the phrase should even be mentioned in the same discussion as Totenkopfs and Hakenkreuzes. No state that bans political or religious symbols and academic discourse has any right to be called "democratic." I suppose given the 40-odd year existence of the GDR it's not too surprising that the word isn't treated with a great deal of respect in Germany.



Oh definitely, I think it's quite hilarious actually. I wish it had a few more vignettes to be honest: the boxing one was great and so was the clothesline one. Still I wonder if you would feel the same way about an ad that featured some utterly horrendous Jewish stereotypes discussing profiting from the Holocaust or manipulating the media. Or perhaps some cliche Turkish or Gypsy couple talking about exploiting some loophole in the immigration laws and bringing over their entire extended family to live on welfare. Even, no especially, if it were done in this sort of over the top manner.



I know, I know and the problem would be many times worse now if they tried to implement it. But at the end of the day, though I consider genocide abhorrent, I would rather see the elimination of Turks and Jews in Germany than the disappearance of Germans. I think that's a natural stance for a German (or German descendant) to take, and any non-white would be justified in having a reverse view, but it doesn't make sense when Germans like greysnow (assuming that he actually is one: the handle does evoke images of miscegenation...) actively stand up in support of their own destruction. Across Europe millions greet the African and Asian invaders with open arms - and the desert guilt merchants with open wallets. Why? Does anyone really think that life for white people will improve once they have become a minority in their own countries? Should any 21st Century German feel responsible for "second generation Holocaust survivors"?

The speedy murder of the German nation advocated in Germany Must Perish would have been preferable to this slow decline. Better to have the folk cut down in its prime than to see it spawn spineless scum like this. The vast majority of whites today, Germans in particular, are not worthy of the inheritance left by their ancestors.

Banning symbols is stupid and counter-productive. The game Wolfenstein 3D is banned in Germany simply because it depicts the swastika, nevermind that you actually shoot nazis in the game.

At beforegod

Do you really expect in this time period when you can travel across the world in a few days, that it's possible to keep other people out of your country. You can try, but eventually, and just to prove nazis wrong, the people you're trying to keep out will overwhelm you. China tried to keep foreigners out, but they eventually lost out and were crushed by the "savages" that were Europeans.

I didn't quite understand that one either, I can only guess that it's been used by Nazi organizations in lieu of banned symbols. But -- see my previous post -- I'm against banning the symbols.


Yes, that is silly. Something supremely silly: a few months ago a mailorder guy selling crossed-out swastikas for use by anti-fascists was accused of using fascist symbols, and only the highest German court cleared him of the offense. That's when I start shaking my head.


Read the posts:

I just gave him a list to prove that no pagan symbol is banned in Germany that hasn't been used by a fascist organization. That's why I enumerated some instances of pagan symbolism. Anyway, I'm against the banning of symbols, as I said.
What are your thoughts about religious freedom? Especially if somebody happened to be, say, Jewish? Would he be allowed to practice his religion in your ideal of Canada?


About the Turkish family, if it was done well, maybe, though I'm more concerned about the growing divide between rich and poor and neo-liberalist politics in Germany than about exploitation of welfare. About the Jewish stereotype, no; I'd think it was in bad taste and a case of anti-Semitic propaganda. Point is, Nazis instil fear; that's why people are relieved if they have an opportunity to laugh at them. Neither hypothetical Jewish Holocaust profiteers or immigrating Turks or Gypsies threaten anyone's life.


Congratulations, you have passed the minimum exam qualifications for not being considered insane.


"natural". A-ha. What a schlemiel I am. I can't even be natural. Nebbikh.


You really made my day with that. Can't you just get it into your head that someone doesn't attach the overblown importance to ethnicity that you attach to it? What's ethnicity anyway? It's just a core with a lot of fringes and overlap. Where does one ethnicity begin and where does it end? We're all humans. That's what counts first.
For the record: my grandparents came from a) the Rhineland b) East Prussia c) German-Russian stock d) German-Romanian stock. All my ancestors as far as I can follow them spoke German and were of German ancestry (barring the odd Roman or Slav that I don't know about, OH NOES!). So I guess I'm a traitor to my people.


Yesss! Destruction! I vant to destroy ze German race!


Even if that were the case, what's the problem? By that time, most of Germany would be the offspring of "miscegenation" anyway, so you'd have white shading into light-brown shading into darker brown... I don't attach any importance to skin color.


Well, the second generation should bring really good arguments, but I wouldn't rule it out completely. It would depend on the case.


Oh, they look very spiny to me. It's great that not all the skinhead scene has fallen into the Nazi trap.


Yes! A climactic concluding remark.

I basically meant that racialism goes far beyond National Socialism. There is pretty much something there for everybody, including anarchism/libertarianism. Also I know at least one racist punk. You might also want to check out the band Forward Area, they're not my personal cup of tea but they do what they do well enough. Regarding IMF (or WTO) meetings: if one were to happen in my city I would probably be out protesting it too. Organizations like that are a greater threat to white nationalism than all the commies in the world could ever be.



Yes I'm aware of all of that, Nietzsche was no Nazi. On the other hand it's quite doubtful that Hegel would have been a fan of the Godless world that Marx envisaged, yet it does not make him any less of an influence. Like any readers of philosophy, the Nazis took what they wanted from several writers and synthesized a worldview. Of course their conclusions differ from Nietzsche's, but that doesn't make the contribution of his work any less real. In any case, I only brought this up as a footnote to my comparison with communism in order to highlight the fundamental difference between it and NS. Although the initial means may be similar, the fundamental goals couldn't be farther removed.



Looks like it...

Einvolk, about your "evidence".
- most of my research for this post was done on Wikipedia, so look it up there. I'm a lazy schmuck and I don't want to spend all the time linking.



Kun was only half-Jewish racially. Furthermore, he was an atheist by religion.



Trotsky was Jewish. Neither Lenin nor Stalin were anything of the sort. Lenin had one Jewish grandfather. Stalin was Georgian, and he had an affair with a Jewish girl. It isn't known whether they married or not because he destroyed all the documents. His other two wives were Georgian, like him. Furthermore, Communism is not in any way, shape or form a Jewish ideology. Remember the "refuseniks", the Jews who wanted out of the USSR so they could go to democratic Israel and were refused visas?

And Yagoda was executed by Stalin in 1938. He was replaced with a non-Jew, Nikolai Yezhov.


Get this. When I Googled "evsektsiya", the only links that came up were to racist websites talking about it! I'm pretty sure that's not a coincidence.



Lots of truth-distorting going on here.

Julius Hammer the Unitarian? Jay Lovestone, the CIA rat?

The NAACP was founded by blacks. All 32 of the original Niagara Movement founders were black. Jews quickly became involved after that - all that this proves is that Jews are more sensitive to intolerance than most whites, having experienced it themselves. W.E.B. Du Bois was a communist... when he was a disillusioned old man.



Karl Marx was very antisemitic - if he was a Jew, he hated himself. Hess was not practicing Judaism when he advised Marx and Engels - he changed his name to Moshe later.



Somewhat excessive? The gas chambers and the millions of people murdered in them because of their religion were only "somewhat excessive"?



Communism is an atheistic worldview, and it makes me wonder - why were most of the Jews involved with communism irreligious? And why haven't all the other Jews let me in on the conspiracy?

I'm sure a scholar with a better knowledge of the facts could tell you exactly how and why you are wrong, but you're still wrong.

Commendable, but I think you are wasting your time. These people have already made up their mind, and whatever tiny little shreds of "evidence" they gather, regardless of their credibility, that confirms to their point of view will be considered as strong to them. It makes them think they are doing research and that they are being reasonable and scholarly. Of course, it never holds up to scrutiny, but then, what do you expect from people who make such wonderful leaps of logic as "those few commies had some links to Jews, therefore, the murder of all those Jews in the death camps were only kinda bad"...

Agreed. There's really only one thing that I can do right now, and I just did it. I submitted einvolk's post to RSTDT - the section of Fundies Say the Darndest Things devoted to racists.

Oh come on now. Are you really comparing einvolk's post to crap like this?

yeah yeah yeah I get it einvolk bad, Morrigan good
but seriously, I appreciate PriestofSadWings of taking the time to look at what I wrote and respond (while showcasing his amazing ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth and [purposefully?] confuse facts) without being too much of a nutsack.
I'll respond more later, as I have to entertain my bed-ridden wife, but I am confused as to your inability to find any more info about the Evsektsiya - are you not even familiar with JSTOR? - its the first result you should get and from where I get most of my info (as an aside it is alternatively spelled Yevsektsia, Evsektsija, Yevsektsya, though I prefer the one I initially used)

The only people that think integration works are blind extreme leftists. Look at blacks, Mexicans, or what have you in America. Everyone sticks to their own groups and live in communities of all one race.


During one of the last periods of my Army training, we were told that we're the best Army in the world because we have everyone from different races and backgrounds working together. Even then I was laughing in my head (out loud would've meant physical punishment of course). My Basic Training platoon was rife with racism. Every now and then, you'd get one or two stupid white guys who hang out with the black guys (during brief free time), but typically, everyone stuck with their race. The same was true during my AIT (Army job training course, essentially)--the white guys stuck with the white guys, the blacks with the blacks. One time, and I was the first to notice it, in our class we had some free time. All the white people were in a group talking, all the hispanic people were in a different group, and all the black guys (except for the two that wished they were black) were in a separate group talking.


It seems to me that seperatism is natural and integration is not. But there are politicians who think otherwise. And the vast, vast majority of those people? White liberals, and white conservatives who want to appeal to "the minorities." There's more evidence that integration doesn't work. America is essentially the most mixed, integrated melting pot on Earth. We also have about the highest crime and murder rates anywhere and the most racism and hate and civillian violence. Now go to a country with only one race, like, say Japan. That is pretty much the most civilized, peaceful, technologically advanced nation on the planet. Among the lowest crime rates in the world, and the most polite society. Education, standard of living, and technology is so far removed from America that they might as well be a country from the future that somehow ended up in our primitive present.


When races keep to themselves, they can build a country based on a shared national identity. America can't do that. It's hard to build a strong nation on forced integration and shared space in the bottom of the melting pot. All we're doing now is making sure China doesn't have to work too hard to take over.

Don't make me clean up this thread again. When a person enters and comports himself like a kindergartner, you do not engage him or dignify him with a response. It only serves to muddle the water and stand in the way of more civilized and worthwhile (relatively speaking) rhetorical recitals.