Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Right-Wing German Extremists Tricked By Trojan Shirts

Posted by samzenpus on from the rinse-relax-repeat dept.

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.'"

31 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. Genius. by mirix · · Score: 3, Funny

    Too bad they didn't have cameras to record the nazi-rage reaction face.

    Actually, since they're probably children, it would end up being their mom's reaction face when she is doing the laundry. Ah well.

    --
    Sent from my PDP-11
    1. Re:Genius. by Q-Hack! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too bad they didn't have cameras to record the nazi-rage reaction face.

      Actually, since they're probably children, it would end up being their mom's reaction face when she is doing the laundry. Ah well.

      While this is probably the most probable scenario, It does give the parents an eye on what their kids are doing and will thus cause them to consider intervening in their development. If it causes at least one parent to positively change a kids direction in life, then it was well worth the money spent.

      --
      Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
    2. 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."
    3. 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?

    4. 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.

      --
      Monstar L
    5. Re:Genius. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... that washed out and advertised for gay something, i'd just use the free t-shirt to wipe my ass...

      So the moral is that when you get gay propaganda you stick it up your arse?

    6. Re:Genius. by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Informative

      You might want to revisit your history before commenting. I wasnt trying to draw parallels to right after the war, I was trying to draw parallels to peak factory employment. Hell through the 50s and 60s Germany had so few young male workers that they had to import them "temporarily" from abroad. Thats part of how the whole immigration mess got started, at least there. From pretty much the early 50s to about 30 years ago factory jobs were plentiful, pretty much any (male) that wanted one could get one and could enter the middle class. Not to mention they were a hell of a lot more meaningful then walking around in a smock all day listening to people bitch you out.

      Now unless you have an education, and sometimes even then, the # of jobs that are open to you that will provide a middle class lifestyle are almost non-existant if you dont already have one. Germanys GINI coefficient is rising, especially among the young.

      --
      Monstar L
    7. 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!
    8. 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."
    9. 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 *
    10. Re:Genius. by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The original T-Shirt had "Hardcore Rebellen, National und Frei" on it. Unless you already know who "Hardcore Rebellen" is, it's hard to figure out that this is a right-wing extremist group.

      Well, maybe the word "National" may tip somebody off, but so many other things which have nothing to do with right-wing extremism have "national" in their name too, so you really have to already be looking for tell-tale signs to spot this. And the "tough" logo with skull and flags would look like generic rocker/biker wear to the uninitiated.

      However, after the wash, the "We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism." is pretty obvious...

  2. Re:how big is the movement? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As long as there's one, there's at least one too many.

    I guess it depends on what you'd count towards "Neo Nazis". Just those that actually believe the bull, or generally everyone who enjoys freezing their brains and beating up people who look different?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. That is awesome by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That is one of the most awesome ideas I've read about. I especially liked the part where they acknowledged that it probably won't do any good now, but it plants the name in their heads for when they're ready to get out of their extremist organization.

    Say, anyone want to chip in for some t-shirts to give away at the next Tea Party convention?

    1. 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?

    2. 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.

    3. Re:That is awesome by artor3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The difference is that the wacko left-winger Democrats are kept out in the fringe, whereas the wacko Tea Party types have essentially taken over the Republican party. This situation is made worse by the fact that those same nitwits who control the GOP are receiving their marching orders from Fox News, as you said. So nearly half the government of the United States is now directly controlled by a single corporation. If that doesn't terrify you, it should.

    4. 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.

    5. 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.

    6. 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

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    7. Re:That is awesome by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm going to repost a few quotes from Alan Greenspan back in 1966. Basically, all our current societal problems are ancillary to our current fiat monetary system. The US Dollar has been the world reserve currency of choice. But any economist worth his/her salt knew the system was unstable and would eventually implode. And it did. We (the US) was a giant star that just imploded into a black hole. All other nations are getting drawn to the event horizon as a result. Really, the global depression is the fault of US fiscal policy and the vast debt we've accumulated.

      It was only a matter of time before nations such as China, India, and Africa started producing and exporting products cheaper once their governments reformed. Now that they have, the US and the rest of the west is hemorrhaging wealth. We cannot fix our problem with trickle-up or trickle-down policies. That's because we are (and have been) facing a *trickle-out* of wealth. Both conservatives and liberals do not yet understand this. They're fighting over government concepts and policies that are now moot to the real issue at hand. It's also because of the fiat system in place that we have huge gaps in wealth between the rich and poor. The very policies used to answer class-warfare in fact are the very enablers of that behavior.

      While I don't agree that we should be exclusively on the Gold Standard again, we do need to tie our system back to stuff more tangible. Until that happens, this perfect storm we are all in will only continue to leave a path of misery in its wake.

      Gold and Economic Freedom 1966
      “Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.” -Alan Greenspan

      “Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. -Alan Geenspan

      "under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth... The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation" -Alan Greenspan

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  4. Good thing... by abednegoyulo · · Score: 3, Funny

    it was not one of those gathering that simulates rain. Imagine their reaction if the artificial rain washes away the external print exposing the message hidden beneath. That would not be a party, would it..

  5. Re:why attack them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, right-wing extremists are known worldwide for their tolerance and inclusive rhetoric.

  6. Re:how big is the movement? by mosb1000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    you'd likely have an easier time finding neo-nazis in Idaho than you would in Germany

    Woah, you set the bar pretty high there.

  7. 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).

  8. Re:how big is the movement? by rbrausse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    according to a pre-release of the 2010 statement of the Verfassungsschutz (German domestic intelligence service) we have a headcount of 5600 neo nazis.

    Take this with a grain of salt, like most government agencies the Verfassungsschutz has a political agenda - every publication is announced by the far-(left||right) wing* with "the data is biased"

    *) and everyone else...

  9. 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 snowgirl · · Score: 3

      As my sibling post points out, many of the questions were unattached from the unfortunate negative consequences of the actual terms. However, I will point out that this was done with direct intent to make liberals/progressives answer wrong. Watch, let me do it to conservatives: "Deregulation of medicine and healthcare will result in more deaths." If you answered "disagree" then congratulations, you're empirically wrong.

      What happened though was I intentionally gave a question whose consequences the individual's political beliefs would object to, and therefore basically handing them the wrong answer with a big "DO IT!!!! Come on, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!"

      So, the problem with all of the questions is that they're all trick questions. Even if a libertarian/progressive can see through all the sham, the best answers they can give are "yeah, but..." or "no, but..." But that's not how people answer surveys. They don't answer the question they're presented, they answer the questions they think they've been asked, and when you have trick questions intended to obfuscate the details to elicit an ideological response, you're going to get ideological responses. This also effects the conservatives as well though! There's no provision for questioning why the person answered the way that they did, so even if someone gives an "enlightened" answer, there's no guaranteed that they arrived at that answer through "enlightened" thought. A statement that is true can still be a lie, if the person speaking it thinks that they are lying. "Yes, Jenny went to the movies." (She actually did, but I thought she went to a party, and I was trying to cover up that she went to a party, so I'm lying even though my statement is true.)

      1) "Mandatory licensing raises prices." Yes, but why would we ever consider endangering people's lives and/or livelihoods over removing mandatory licenses? If I make potato soup, then buying potato soup raises my prices. It's a trick question because few people will actually logically break down the question properly, and will just answer with a gut answer that is ideologically based.
      2) "Standard of living is better now than 30 years ago." The median standard of living has factually gone down relative to the mean standard of living, even though both have risen as absolute values. The two ideologies are answering different questions about the vague term "standard of living".
      3) "Rent control leads to housing shortages." Making french fries leads to a shortage of potatoes. People renting more than one property leads to housing shortages... I mean, the statement is technically true, but the original premise behind asking it is so absurd, that no one would expect it. So they answer a different question based on their perceived premise behind the question.
      4) "Largest market share is a monopoly" Yes, because everyone will give the most unique answer possible here. Oh wait, I just abused the word "unique" like the entire population does. "Monopoly" doesn't mean "single supplier" to most people anymore, it means "the person with the largest market share." because true monopolies are rare, but one doesn't need a true monopoly to begin leveraging the benefits of being a monopoly. It's a trick question because most people don't use "monopoly" exclusively for true monopolies anymore.
      5) "Third World workers working for Americans are being exploited." Well, some liberals/progressives think that American employees are being exploited. What does "exploited" really mean? Are Third World employers using the relatively massive pay that they can offer the third world workers to make those workers concede reasonable accommodations in their employment? Tell you what: I have a job, it pays a million dollars a year, but you have to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, with zero vacation time, and no benefits, or other perks. Would you take this job? Many people would, because hey, it's freaking a million dollars a year! Would you count it as exploitation? Some people think there are maximums

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
  10. 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.

  11. Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context? by royallthefourth · · Score: 4, Informative

    When Hitler got his real power in government, the brownshirts demanded that he actually follow through and implement the social portion of his national socialist program. Of course he had no plans on doing this, resulting in the "Night of the Long Knives".
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

    Not to mention that nationalism is antithetical to socialism because it creates divisions among the proletariat by national lines, thus weakening it by division and mixing it with the class enemy of capitalists. This absurdity, when the whole point is to unite the proletariat and make those divisions purely on class lines.
    So, no, the viewpoint was not socialist. They may have had some social programs in there, but there's not a shred of Marx to be found.

  12. Re:how big is the movement? by lxs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I watched Inglorious Basterds in a Berlin cinema, and in one shot where a swastika flag filled the screen, there was an audible gasp from the audience. So I can tell from first hand experience that Nazi symbols are allowed in the right context (i.e. not glorifying Nazism), and that Germans are still very uncomfortable around them.

  13. 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.