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Vindication for Benjamin
Vindication for Benjamin
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surely there has to be more going on in the past few days... do we really need 23590823456093456 posts about the nazi t-shirt?
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While I agree the Nazi aspect has waned, the fact they haven't removed offensive items is worthy of one post.
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Oh, come on guys!
This story deals with:
1) Walmart
2) Nazis
Seriously, if a story like this isn't worth a longer than usual string of posts, what story is?
How many of those 50billion more hits he got on his website came from here?
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So what, big deal, the shirt has a skull on it that was, once upon a time, used by an army for one of their divisions / platoons / goon-squads / whatever.
Is life in America really so boring that junk like this makes the news?
* doest not live in America *
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Walmart selling Nazi symbols is a funny story.
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All you haters(tm) that thought the Reich-Mart serving portions were a bit - err - plentiful, I think CNN is a resounding vindication for Ben's astute editorship.
Ben for reich-editor-matrix! (imagine the *snappy* uniform!)
Sturm Truppen, the SS was much more than just a division. They embodied the most violent, cruel and grotesque ideologies of Nazi Germany. These were the thugs that secured Hitler's power, and implemented his most extreme policies. So no, it is not so strange that this would make the news.
Seriously, this has gone on for way too long. The first time the story broke I was nothing more than bemused at a little slip-up in a big corporation. For me, at least, it's starting to reflect badly on the Consumerist because it shows a clear lack of an attempt at neutrality, especially when it was so clearly unintentional.
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I doubt it was intentional but still it was in bad taste, even for a horrible corporation, to buy and sell a shirt with a Nazi symbol. The comments on this long story have been well vocalized so I'm only going to add I'm glad you guys are using Firefox.
Sorry, Gizmodo and Lifehacker are my main Gawker blogs. But After finding this site a few weeks ago I really enjoy the work that this blog does.
It is strange to think that this would make news, so they were some not very nice soldiers, I still don't see what the big deal is. There have been other groups that have been just as bad as them, if not worse, and ones that are more relevant to American history than a group (the SS) that persecuted some people (the Jewish / Gypsies / Gays / and whoever else I forgot) back in the Old World.
Personally, I think it's America's soccer mom attitude to some things, if I walked into a Farmers (Wal-Mart equivalent down here in Sheep Land (read: NZ)) and saw something that I didn't like, i'd just ignore it, or at the most extreme, take my business elsewhere. But what right does that give me to ruin it for other people, sure it's the actual Toten...whatever...skull that the SS used, but I'm sure that some people will try and stretch it to anything with a skull motif.
I say step back, and take a look at the bigger picture.
Oh, and I meant to say, but forgot, my registered name \"Sturm Truppen\" has nothing to do with this article or my (non-existant) political views. It's my gamer tag, I got it from Day of Defeat Beta 1. I've used it for years.
Just thought i'd clear that up in case anyone thought that I was trying to stir...
:)
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Nazi skull t-shirts at Wal-Mart have soooo jumped the shark.
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While I'm sick of these stories, Acilleta makes good point.
But for the love of all that's (un)holy...isn't anyone getting screwed by some other company, any other company, anywhere in the world??? Consumerist needs stories people! (No, I don't have any to share.)
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Sturm, I would relate this to WalMart accidentally utlizing some popular (for the group) Klu Klux Klan noose, or burning cross with the friendly \"Since 1980\" underneath.
pretty offensive.
And yes there have been maybe a dozen massacres that come anywhere NEAR the atrocities by Nazi Germany (Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc in modern times - I suggest http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Hell-America-Age-Genocide/dp... ) I would venture that carrying a t-shirt reflecting ANY of these would be offensive.
However, the above DON'T relate to Americans more than Nazi Germany because we (sadly) refused to get more involved, and have fewer persecuted members now living in our country.
The story now isn't that they DID carry the shirt, it's that THEY STILL DO!
it at least should be said that use of this symbol predates the Nazi's by more than 100 yrs. Frederick the Great used the same skull with his Prussian cavalry unit. Check wikipedia.
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So if I put a \"Hello Kitty\" on my Nuclear Missiles and kill millions, that makes it ok then ?
Yes, yes, I know...but I had to say it.
LOL re: CNN even knowing who Wagner was. Pretty crazy background music!
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Full disclosure: I added the music in.
Cockeyed, yes the totenkopf is an old symbol (much like the swastika) but the Prussian army didn't use this exact version. Skulls over crossed bones are not inherently evil or anything but this specific version was used by SS thus the issue. If they would have stuck to any of the way to many skull designs on shirts now (I counted 4 at Target on Sunday) they would have been fine and there would have been 30 other posts here.
The capital S in 'Since' is actually the S used by the far right band Skrewdriver. A band who were influential in the development of the Rock Against Communism movement which started in 1978 in the UK. Rock Against Communism is now synonymous with White Power Nationalist music in the United States.
http://www.dasversteckspiel.de/bilder/skrewdriver_1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Against_Communism
It is my opinion that this is more than a hack designer. The person who put this image together seems to know more than a little about the modern far right.
Actually, that letter \"s\" is very old, and has nothing to do with Nazis. It is a variant of Blackletter, or Gothic Script.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackletter
In use between 1150 and 1500. The Gutenberg Bible was printed with a similar version.
Look up any calligraphy website. It's not just for gang tattoos. It was one of the only \"fonts\" for hundreds of years, and yet there must be a thousand permutations on it. Have you ever had a close look at the Declaration of Independance, or any of the certificates on the wall at your pharmacists or doctors?
That \"s\" is everywhere!
On the flip side of the coin is the band Kiss - if you take their logo and remove the first two letters, what do you get? Why don't you take issue with that?
The capital S in 'Since' is actually the S used by the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Much ado about nothing.
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Good gravy. Let it go already. (I never thought I'd say that about a Walmart story.)