Monday, May 16, 2005

Spam Nazis

I wrote my Master's Thesis on white supremacists. Specifically, I took a look at how Neo-Nazi groups used the Internet, whether it was a useful propaganda and mobilization tool for their army of the ill-informed.

Sounds interesting, right? That's what I thought. But then I realized, to accurately conduct said research, I would have to spend literally hours scanning the Internet for racist websites. It was a highly unpleasant way to spend an afternoon, let me tell you, if only because I half-expected the FBI to burst down my door demanding to know why I was investigating backwards, redneck, pseudo-Nazi literature with such zeal and apparently interest.

I will note here that, in my experience, nothing bad happens to you after you look at some of these websites. I don't think you go on any lists, and I've never received spam e-mail from them or anything (for more on SPAM, check back later on in this same article). But, just so you know, the websites I'm about to catalog include racism, bile and slander of a most regretful tone. The views expressed therein are not the views of Crushed by Inertia or any of its subsidiary corporations.

So, here's probably the biggest group of racist fucks on the Intarweb, the good men and women of Stormfront. Stated goal? Spreading hatred of Jews. But the best part of Stormfront isn't the standard, dreary, boring, typical white supremacist bullshit of the main site, but the delightfully slanderous "Kids' Page".

The Kids' Page is run by a fake 14 year old named Derek. How do I know he's fake? Well, because I first discovered this page over 5 years ago, and damned if he wasn't 14 way back when. So, Derek's not real, he's an imaginery 14 year old that some old racist guys made up. You know, to communicate the phat message about the joys of hatin' to a hip young crowd!

He's got a spot on the page where he's written a "book report" on Martin Luther King that he encourages kids to turn in! Here's a sample sentence:

[Dr. King was] just a sexual degenerate, an America-hating Communist, and a criminal betrayer of even the interests of his own people.

I smell an A+!

Okay, let's move on, because these websites start to give me the creeps pretty quickly.

My overall favorite type of racist website is the Southern Secessionist website. Here's a sample one for South Carolina. These are sites where actual Southerners attempt to recruit like-minded people to all move to a pre-determined spot in the South, and then politically push for, I swear to you, secession from the union.

See, they want to set up their own society, where they are free to make their own laws, like "NO ABORTIONS EVER" and "FUCK ALL DEM FAGGOTS" and "GET OFFA MY PROP'TY, JEW!" And, yes, their laws clearly will be written in all caps.

Here's another good one calling for a mass Christian Exodus to...you guessed it...South Carolina! Man, that place is like the New Jerusalem or something. You just know, if Jesus came back today, he'd totally want to settle in Raleigh-Durham. Here is, according to Christian Exodus dot com, the problem they want to solve:

-Abortion continues against the wishes of many States
-Sodomite and lesbian "marriage" is now legal in Massachusetts (and coming soon to a neighborhood near you)
-Children who pray in public schools are subject to prosecution
-Our schools continue to teach the discredited theory of Darwinian evolution
-The Bible is still not welcome in schools except under unconstitutional FEDERAL guidelines
-The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
-Sodomy is now legal AND celebrated as "diversity" rather than condemned as perversion
-Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as "hate speech"

Paranoid much?

Let's go through them one by one. Okay, yes, abortion does continue. No, gay marriage...oh, excuse me, I misspoke...sodomite marriage is not legal right now in Massachusetts. Maybe some day. And couldn't that term be used for any marriage where one partner sticks his penis in the mouth or pooper of another partner? Isn't that a whole whole lot of American marriages? Like almost all? (Certainly all good ones.)

Okay, next, "children who pray at public schools are subject to prosecution." I guess they mean social prosecution, because obviously they don't mean criminal prosecution. You ever heard of a kid being thrown in jail for praying in school?

And they also don't mean "children who pray," they mean "children who organize groups to get together and pray." Because praying to one's self is certainly allowed in public schools. That shit's allowed ANYWHERE. Prison, the space shuttle, public school, underwater. There's no place I can think of right now where you can't pray quietly to yourself. John McCain in the Vietnamese prison camp was allowed to pray quietly to himself. He could theoretically be poked with pointed bamboo shoots at the same time, but still, he was praying.

Schools do teach evolution, but it has hardly been "discredited" just because a bunch of morons who don't understand basic biology have come up with that "lizard with feathers" argument.

As for the Bible not being welcome in schools...I actually read the Bible for a class at UCLA, a publicly funded university. So there goes that theory.

And the 10 Commandments being banned from public display? Not so. They just can't be displayed on federal or state-owned property in view of the public. Way different. If you own a store that is open to the public, you can hang any damn thing you want up in there. A Confederate flag, a deer carcass, a nude wall-sized photo of Kirstie Alley. It don't matter. Have a blast.

"Sodomy is now legal and celebrated as diversity..." Oh, if only that were true. "Diversity Week" in high school would been so much more fun.

And finally, preaching Christianity will be outlawed as hate speech.

I would love for that to happen, but it clearly will not happen. Hate speech is more like "You're not Christian! DIE, HEATHEN SCUM," than "Have I told you about my good pal JC?"

Okay, so that's why these people need to abandon the rest of the nation and all move to South Carolina. Believe me, I'll be sorry to see them go, but hey, no, if you guys need to just get out and live on your own, I won't try to stop you...

But what's the plan? How to actually sever ties with the rest of the US?

Rather than spend resources in continued efforts to redirect the entire nation, we will redeem States one at a time. Millions of Christian conservatives are geographically spread out and diluted at the national level. Therefore, we must concentrate our numbers in a geographical region with a sovereign government we can influence through the electoral process.

ChristianExodus.org is orchestrating the move of thousands of Christians to reacquire our Constitutional rights by electing State and local officials who will interpose on behalf of the people and refuse to enforce illegal federal acts.

Of course! The problem is that you're all so spread out! Some of you live in Pitstain, Tennessee while others live in Skidmark, Kentucky! This is a brilliant plan, demonstrating a keen knowledge of the inner workings of the American political system.

"We have too much support over too large an area! Let's concentrate it some place where our influence can have the greatest impact?"

"Some hillbilly town in South Carolina?"

"Brilliant!"

Okay, just one more kind of racist Internet whatnot I wanted to share with you, and then I'll get on to the article that started me on this whole kick a half-hour ago. There are a bunch of websites touting the white supremacist brand of punk rock known as "Hatecore." Hatecore songs are just like any other extremely loud and aggressive punk songs, except that the indiscernably screeched lyrics are about killing Jews instead of getting drunk, fucking your girlfriend and trashing your dad's Le Baron.

It's pretty funny, because racists think they can use the popularity of this kind of music to serve their cause, but I've listened to a bunch of these songs and you can't ever really hear what they are saying. Sometimes the choruses are even in German, which is pretty ambitious considering the typical audience member for this kind of music can't even speak English all that well.

After studying up on these sites for a few months, I I discovered that Neo-Nazis are too stupid to employ the Internet in their recruitment schemes, preferring to hang around the high school parking lot with six packs of Old Milwaukee, waiting for the young burnouts to creep by, having been intoxicated by the oddly-potent combination of cheap beer and simplified, hate-filled ideology. It was kind of a relief, actually. If they learned how to use it properly, could be a massive boon to their recruitment efforts and the marketing of their message. But instead, because they aren't really much for fancy book-learning, the spread of technology actually aids law enforcement's efforts against them, making it easier to keep tabs on dangerous propagandists and potentially violent offenders.

I'm not even saying that's a good thing, because I usually view intrusive law enforcement practices as more harmful than positive. But in the case of virulent racists preying on the young and easily manipulated, I'm willing to make an exception.

I brought all this up initially because I was intrigued by this Reuters article. A large virus that went out a few weeks ago over the 'Net contained racist messages, and is beleived to have spawned from a Neo-Nazi hacker.

Bearing German-language subject lines that translate to phrases like "Multicultural = multicriminal," the messages point to racist German Web sites and news articles that could be used to support anti-immigrant views.

The timing of the attack coincided with two events that might arouse right-wing feelings in Germany: an election in the state of Northrhine-Westfalia and the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

The worm's author is likely a neo-Nazi sympathizer motivated by ideology, rather than a mercenary who would send out messages for any paying customer, experts said.

Uh-oh. Didn't this guy read my report? He doesn't sound like a delusional hillbilly at all.

I still don't think e-mail spam is ever going to be a good way to spread a message. People just delete spam right away; I don't think anyone actually reads all of it. And even if they glance at the contents, it would have to engage them pretty thoroughly for them to retain that information, or to be swayed into racism by it. Imagine...what could you possibly write into a spam e-mail that would make people suddenly decide to hate Jews?

"You need Viagra, because the Jews have secretly been causing your penis to go flaccid. There's an International Jewish Conspiracy against your dick getting hard! For a prescription, and ways to get back at the Jews, send us $10 via Paypal."

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