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Right-Wing German Extremists Tricked By Trojan Shirts

gzipped_tar writes "Fans at a recent right-wing extremist rock festival in Germany thought they were getting free T-shirts that reflected their nationalistic worldview. But after the garment's first wash they discovered otherwise. The original image rinsed away to reveal a hidden message from an activist group. It reads: 'If your T-shirt can do it, so can you. We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism.'"

23 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Genius. by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Becoming a neo-nazi is considered a negative thing by everyone, except neo-nazis and morally impaired monkeys. Really, there are some things in life that are unambiguously, morally good.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Re:Genius. by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Let me get this straight: you're arguing that when a mom washes her kid's T-shirts that happen to have extremist slogans on them, she's totally oblivious. But if she washes one T-shirt that has the message "We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism.", then suddenly she's going to wonder what her kid is up to these days?

    Have you thought any of this through?

  3. Re:Genius. by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its really hard to pinpoint an exact cause, but it should be noted that neo-nazism is much more prevalent in the former East Germany, with its much higher unemployment, than west, which is considerably richer. Furthermore its quite popular among young men without university educations, who get royally fucked over in Germany(not as bad as in the states, but still). All the strikes work out great for the older people who have jobs, but they make it much more unlikely the companies are going to hire any more people, which sucks hard for the young Germans.....

    I also guess it really depends on what you define neo-nazism as, to some Germans doing anything that vaguely takes pride in some sort of German cultural identity is neo-nazisism, and to an extent I think the whole movement is just a response to that.....

    But ultimately the extremists in Germany are largely comprised of the same types of people, those who cannot get meaningful jobs/work, as it is anywhere else in the rich world. You arent likely to see a lot of engineers in the hard core Japanese right wing socities, but you do see people who 30 years ago probably would have ended up in a factor with a decent middle class lifestyle. Likewise you arent going to see a lot of scientists in the religious right, but what you will see are people whose best hope in life is to get a job working at Wal-Mart for low pay and no benefits, people who again 30 years ago probably would have had a comfortable middle class lifestyle with a job that actually had at least some, maybe not a lot, but some significance. People need meaning in their lives, if they cannot find it at work, they are going to find some other cause to get behind, and the results are rarely pretty.

  4. Re:Genius. by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Becoming a neo-nazi is considered a negative thing by everyone

    That doesn't mean that it is negative.

    Really, there are some things in life that are unambiguously, morally good.

    To know that, you'd probably have to be able to prove the existence of absolute morals.

    --
    Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  5. Re:That is awesome by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a load of crap. A conservative, writing for a conservative paper, looks at some polls. He labels the answers he disagrees with as "unenlightened" and then feigns surprise when the people he disagrees with are most likely to choose the "unenlightened" answers. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with him is "dumber than a fifth grader". Ironically, a fifth grader could probably see the flaw in his logic.

    And it's not like these questions have hard and fast answers. Let's look at some examples:

    "Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree)"

    Excuse me, but whose standard of living is he talking about? For the bottom sixty percent of Americans (also known as "the majority"), their inflation adjusted income has declined over the past thirty years. And meanwhile the safety nets meant to keep them out of the gutter have been systematically shredded. Welfare is gone, the current batch of Republicans already voted to end Medicare and will do so if they ever get a majority, and Social Security is undoubtedly next on the hit list. Of course, if you're talking about the looters in the top 1%, they're doing great.

    "Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree)"

    Are you fucking kidding me? I, personally, have see my overseas coworkers get exploited. The statement wasn't that every third world worker gets exploited. This guy's an absolute hack. But what else could one expect from a Murdoch-owned rag like the Wall Street Journal?

  6. Re:That is awesome by glodime · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That survey is bias and very uninformative. I would bet that your answer would be scored as incorrect even though you recognize that there is a conditional answer. You would be forced choose between 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure, you might be tempted to choose 3. I would argue that the correct answer to many of the survey questions is 5 due to lack of information or ambiguity in the questions.

    For example:

    5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).

    So I'm supposed to agree that there are no such workers being exploited; there is no undocumented slavery connected to any American company? I'm supposed to agree on the surveyor's definition of exploitation?

    This is not to say that self identified liberals aren't less knowledgeable of economic theory or data. I'm simply saying that the survey is poorly designed.

  7. Nazi views right-wing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Since when are fascist views right-wing? Nationalization of industry, forced labor, ousting of religion -- all are extremist left-wing views.

  8. Re:Give in to your hate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They'll win in the end anyway. You lost this war the moment you lost the war on miscegeny. You can't win. It's better if you just kill yourself. Come on, Nazi scum. Do it. It's the one way you can finally escape the horrors of multiculturalism. Go out like a man and eat one of the dozens of barrels that adorn the walls of your squalid little shack.

  9. Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context? by cbope · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please do some research before you imply Hitler and Mussolini are not right-wing. Contrary to popular believe in the US, they were NOT leading socialist movements in any shape or form although they tried to disguise some of their activities under that false banner. They were nationalist right-wing extremists and fascists. They were absolutely not left-wing or socialist in any tangible way.

    In the US it's more accurate to label politics as far right (republicans) or center right (democrats). There is no true left in popular US politics, even democrats are more right of center than in many other progressive countries (including many EU and all Nordic countries).

  10. Re:That is awesome by artor3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You arrogant twit. I get my data directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, same as your graph. But unlike you, I restricted the query to wage earners, instead of letting executives and wall street looters pull up the average.

    Stop repeating the drivel you heard from Lord Murdoch and get your own facts.

  11. Parent summary is biased by lavagolemking · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Ok, I'll bite. Those questions are heavily weighted to someone's political beliefs, in an apparent attempt to confirm right-wing ideologies, and paint liberals as ignorant about the economy with conservatives being the guys with an educashun. Not surprising, given that it's published by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch (who also owns Fox News). Basically, if you disagree with their viewpoints, you're "unenlightened". Let's take a look at the questions:

    • 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). Liberals generally support licensing of professional services, while conservatives support deregulation. Aside from direct economic consequences, the question doesn't account for consequences of unqualified professional services, such as medical complications from an unlicensed doctor operating on you.
    • 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). This is a matter of perspective; conservatives are often of a higher socio-economic class, while liberals (who unsurprisingly support welfare/entitlement programs) are more commonly of a lower class. Additionally, since conservatives are also commonly older, many liberals were not around 30 years ago, and have only seen the economic decline.
    • 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). Another loaded deregulation argument. Although true, lack of rent control leads to high rent prices, and a higher rate of homelessness among those who cannot afford high rent. A lot of conservatives believe in leaving free-market economics to treat basic essential needs such as food, water, and shelter as a commodity, while liberals are more likely to believe in guaranteeing such "commodities" to underprivileged citizens. It is not a farfetched mistake to confuse increased homelessness with housing shortages, and this type of question almost seems to imply a housing "shortage" is somehow worse than those houses being empty with people living on the streets.
    • 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). Although by no means the definition of a monopoly, anybody here can agree that companies in a given sector with the largest market share (Microsoft, etc.) probably has the largest market share because of their monopoly. Correlation vs. Causation: a lot of people without a background in statistics miss that. Conservatives or libertarians who believe monopolies don't exist will probably say false for that reason.
    • 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). This one is just outright wrong. Free-market economics lead to large multinationals (Apple, Nike, etc.) outsourcing labor and production to the country with the cheapest rates. This, in turn, leads to companies who pay the lowest sweatshop-level wages with no benefits, ludicrous requirements on things like bathroom breaks, and anti-unionizing intimidation, getting all the bids. Basically, third world countries cutting costs at the expense of workers, where minimum wage laws and other worker-protection laws don't apply. I guess if you disagree on principles of exploitation and human rights, or on the definition of third world workers, as many conservatives I've spoken with seem to, then you could consider this false, but that's definitely not how a liberal will see it. I've met a lot of conservatives who think that there is nothing morally wrong with sweatshops, which are a boon to their workers.
    • 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). Looks a lot more like a conservative talking point than a scientific economic question to me. Interesting that it appears close to the end of the survey, after all those loaded questions. In some cases, yes it does; look at what is happ
    1. Re:Parent summary is biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). Liberals generally support licensing of professional services, while conservatives support deregulation. Aside from direct economic consequences, the question doesn't account for consequences of unqualified professional services, such as medical complications from an unlicensed doctor operating on you."

      Are you utterly mad?

      Whether the question "accounts for the consequences of unqualified professional services" is a separate question as to whether or not it raises the cost of providing those services. That's like the following sequence of questions:

      Q: Do you agree or disagree that people who have received government funded training find jobs either somewhat or a lot more easily than those who haven't?
      A: I strongly disagree.
      Q: How come?
      A: The question fails to account for the cost of providing that training.

      If the liberals questioned aren't able to decompose a situation into component parts and answer questions about each of them separately, but have to shout a "YAY" or "BOO" on the basis of their feelings about the situation, totally ignoring whatever is asked about, then something is wrong.

  12. Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context? by artor3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can pretend to ignore the liars all you like. But the whole "Obama = Nazi Socialist!" tripe is a right-wing talking point that no intelligent, free-thinking person would believe. You've already revealed yourself to be poisoned. Maybe it was by Beck or Limbaugh or Free Republic, instead of Fox. But you're poisoned all the same. Try to cure yourself, instead of striking out at me.

  13. Re:Genius. by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess I just expect some degree of evidence before I'm willing to accept some things. And what "real world"? I'm fairly confident that moral relativism exists (I really don't understand what you meant by that comment).

    Trying to argue otherwise makes you look silly.

    To some people, perhaps.

    --
    Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  14. Re:Genius. by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are certain morals, such as the moral of doing unto others as you would have done to you, that are inherent to the state of self-aware beings forming societies and structures.

    Patently false, as any peasant who struck the king would soon find out.

    You need to clarify to yourself whether you're describing the facts as they are or whether you're designing an ideal state.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  15. Re:That is awesome by lavagolemking · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but check out this graph for one counterpoint.

    Would have been nice to cite the full-size image, or the article in which it appears, rather than a badly resized Google image result, but whatever. The graph you cited compares hourly wages to productivity, and I'm not sure how that relates to standard of living rather than employee productivity. Within its context the graph pretty poorly done; the axis aren't labeled ($140 per hour in 2005?), the description is vague, nothing is said about what was actually measured (or how) and I'd be willing to bet any mention of standard of living doesn't even account for inflation over the 55 years it covers.

    Any serious analysis (read: not partisan) of standard of living will show that for most people in the US in the last 30 years, it's gotten better.

    Now go and enlighten yourself.

    Forgive me for being blunt here, but based on your original post (with a questionable source), and your relatively hostile response to criticism of said post, it looks like the only person stuck on partisan analysis here is you.

  16. Your kidding, right? by Shivetya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sorry, but quite a few wacko Democrats are in Congress, the difference is that the PRESS chooses to ignore them whereas they relish in finding the wacko conservatives. The Tea Party is anything but a bunch of wackos. Oh I am quite sure there are some daffy duck types in there, all groups get them, but their core belief around smaller government is anything but wacko. It would probably only take a few minutes to get a list using google of the lefts wackos who are in Congress, or consistently on TV.

    The real wackos are the ones who want to spend us into a ditch and attempt to tax their way out of it. There simply is not sufficient money to be taxed to pay for all the promises made.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  17. Re:That is awesome by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In what universe is openly being giddy at the prospect of forcing the US into default (because if we don't get absolutely everything we demand we'll burn it all down instead) fiscally responsible? In what universe is wanting the government to dictate what consenting adult I can marry and place religious monuments in courts and government buildings a reflection of limited government?

    Words Mean Things, and claiming to be whatever Fox News says Republicans are does not, in fact, make it so.

  18. Re:Genius. by silentcoder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >8. Emotional understanding of a person and emotional destruction of a person are mutually exclusive actions.

    This is just plain false. The very existence of psychological torture proves that you can understand somebodies emotions and then proceed to destroy them emotionally. If anything well-developed abilities at empathy makes those who would do so more effective.

    Scientists largely believe now that empathy was developed as a defense mechanism. We evolved the ability to try and understand another person's thoughts and feelings primarily to allows us to better tell if we can trust that person, and recognize if they are lying. We turned it into a positive thing over time, that could build better social bonds, but it didn't start out that way and there is no reason it cannot be used in a negative way now (the new uses did not remove the originals - or prevent other more destructive new uses from developing).

    The best generals are the ones who can predict the enemy's actions. The most destructive battles are fought by the leaders with the most empathy for the opponents.

    Even then your entire rational is flawed as it fundamentally violates Aristotle's first law of logic. A thing cannot be other than itself.
    Emotion by definition is not rational, logic by definition is rational.
    Therefore emotion cannot be logical.

    This is not entirely a bad thing. Human's are better off for having both.

    If you want to make statements about logic I highly recomend you learn something about the subject first. For starters there are two major branches of logic. Inductive and Deductive logic. Only deductive logic results in necessary truth. And that comes with a caveat: deductive logic if properly followed means that if all the propositions are true, the conclusion MUST be true, if any of the propositions is false the conclusion MUST also be false.

    More-over deductive logic cannot and never should be, directly applied to the real world. It doesn't work. It only applies to highly abstract constructs. Mathematics is built on deductive logic. Therefore it provides (within it's own framework) absolute truth. If I have an apple, and add another I will have two apples, and this will never change.
    But in the real world - no two apples are the same size. So the weight of "apple mass" has changed by a different number. That's what I meant by (within it's own framework). The degree of truth is dependent on the level of abstraction.
    To get the mass of apples, I must in the first case measure each apple's weight individually. That is to - get the truth in a more detailed abstraction my propositions must also be made more detailed.

    Science mostly relies on inductive logic, and a fundamental part of the definition of inductive logic is that it NEVER gives you truth. It only gives you high probability.
    A scientific experiment is a prime example of inductive logic. If I boil water, and it boils at the same temperature ten of 100 degrees celcius times- I can say with high probability that water at that temperature will boil. If I do it a million times the probability has gone up a lot. But it still isn't "truth". Just one out of a million times where it boils at a different temperature proves the theory false.
    That's easy to do, just get higher above sea-level. On top of Mount Everest water boils at about 7 degrees celcius.
    So we have to refine our theory - and now all we can say is "at sea-level, all other things being equal, water will boil at 100 degrees celcius".
    That's science in a nutshell. Inductive logic, highly reliable (and increasingly moreso) results, but never truth. Because "all other things being equal" is an impossible suggestion. There will always be more to learn.

    Don't try to analyze emotions with logic - it's as useless as the auditors in Terry Pratchett breaking down great works of art into component atoms in their fruitless search for "beauty" and being perplexed that the pigments of these beautiful works do not contain some special and previously unknown

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  19. Re:how big is the movement? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    how many neo nazis are there in Germany, about?

    I would say that all of the neo-nazis in Germany are about.

    However, more to the point is "how many neo-nazis are there in all of Northern Europe?"

    I was shocked at how ubiquitous nazi-style nationalism and white supremacism seemed to be on my last trip to Scandinavia. But I guess when you squeeze a society with "austerity measures" this is the kind of ugliness that's going to pop out. The rise of the "Tea Party" here in America is a similar phenomenon. They're just neo-nazis with a good public relations department.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  20. Re:That is awesome by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Name one fringe left wing democrat? I mean one? Kucinich is the only one I know of. I laugh at those who say Obama is a radical socialist. He is far from it

  21. Re:how big is the movement? by readin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hear that a lot but then I don't meet very many people willing to do the work they are doing.

    Well, at least not at the wages the corporate owners want to pay them. Illegal immigration basically pits rich corporate owners against the poor. The owners win by bringing in scabs thereby keeping wages low.

    --
    I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
  22. Re:how big is the movement? by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The rise of the "Tea Party" here in America is a similar phenomenon. They're just neo-nazis with a good public relations department.

    Well said sir, except I don't think they have a good PR department, just a really really stupid audience.

    --
    I got here through a series of tubes