From the BBC:
Amazon has removed products bearing Nazi and white supremacist symbols from its online store.
The retailer faced criticism for letting sellers offer a variety of far right-wing paraphernalia including clothing and jewellery.
Politicians and organisations that track hate groups identified several sellers offering the goods via Amazon.
Amazon said it had blocked the sellers, removed the items and was now checking for other similarly-themed goods.
. . . .
Onesies with burning cross motifs, jewellery using the Nazi swastika as well as music and audio books pushing fascist views were found on Amazon’s store.
In a report released last month, the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race and the Economy said Amazon was helping Nazi and modern white nationalist groups prosper by letting them sell their merchandise and materials.
It said Amazon had a history of responding “slowly” to reports about these types of goods.
The report prompted Congressman Keith Ellison from Minnesota to write to Amazon expressing his “alarm” that it was allowing the sale of “products that promote hateful and racist ideologies”.
Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice-president in charge of public policy, wrote back to Mr Ellison detailing the steps it had taken to remove the goods highlighted by the non-profit organisations.
Link to the rest at the BBC and thanks to Jan for the tip.
“National Socialism is a far right ideology that has nothing to do with any other kind.”
Hitler said Lenin made a mistake in his treatment of business owners and managers. He contended they were an asset the nation needs, and it is best to use them rather than eliminate them. That’s why we saw German companies maintain their identities and operations in the Thirties and Forties.
He claimed to be improving on what Lenin did, not refuting or opposing it. National Socialism was indeed socialism.
I see a difference between something that can be used as a historical text and something that is meant to be hate speech. Odd that some don’t get that. It might be a fine line, but it’s a line.
I personally don’t care what people believe, so long as it doesn’t cross my rights to think they’re idiots. Someone wants a Nazi flag? Fine. Someone wants to publish a book that tells people to go around harassing, attacking and killing people? Nope.
Also, alt left is hilarious.
‘Zon needs to stay out of the content restriction game as much as possible. The shame brigade only has as much power as you give them. And, right now, collectively we are giving the internet screech mob way too much attention.
Not to be too overblown, but I’m reminded of the comic’s code.
Absolutely true.
And while all the handwringing and name-calling goes on, real issues of national interest go unaddressed.
That said, I’m fairly sure the oh-so-offensive material was very likely coming from third-party merchants. So they might have been violating some part of the TOS and the handwringing just brought it to Amazon’s attention. I’m pretty sure Amazon doesn’t allow political organizations access to their store. (I don’t recall seeing either the dems or the reps themselves selling party paraphernalia…?)
There might not have been enough separation between the vendor of record and the political movement which might have rendered the sales political fund-raising. The ejection might not be for content but for process.
Just a thought?
Although “Make America Great Again” and “MAGA” are trademarked. Some different opinions on whether it applies to all of the various merchandise out there – the trademark application says it is to obtain protection for uses by “political action committees.” The legal “analysts” that argue for broader application are from CNN, of all places – which makes their conclusions rather suspect, in my opinion. But, IANAL, I only stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once in my life.
Trademarked and licensed to commercial vendors would make it a commercial product.
Trademark and sold directly would be a fundraiser product, like girl scout cookies.
I would expect it matters who receives the money transfers from Amazon. What happens afterwards would be no concern of them.
(shrug)
I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn.
Though the local one is pretty good.
Sigh. And now the NSDAP and its subsequent iterations will start having even more “lure of the forbidden.” No, I have no desire for the stuff. No, I do not approve of waving around the Hackenkreuz or SS insignia, et cetera. Yes, I do encourage people to actually read things like _Mein Kampf_ or the biography of Horst Wessel.
I’m a professional historian as a day job. I encourage my students to read Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Mao, and Hitler. If they bring in stuff their families have, hey we can discuss it calmly. There’s no glamor about it, no furtiveness or coolness because the Authorities have banned or censored it. And yes, we look at the common roots of the different totalitarian movements, which include Marx, even if the Fascists and NSDAP ostensibly rejected Marxism.
guess that’s the end of TIKI torches for sale on amz
On a serious note, I wonder how to weigh amz biz deciding to curate x, whilst the govt makes special room for ‘only christians’ coalition of ‘appointees’ at taxpayer expense, but not witches.
I’m no supporter of nazism. I have a Jewish grandmother, and am one generation from being considered a Jew myself. My father did not consider himself a Jew, and was in fact unaware of this part of his heritage until much later in his life. I doubt that this would have mattered to Adolf Hitler had he managed to invade Britain. Had this happened I would not be sitting here today to write this.
But what is the evil that we are seeking to prevent? Are these repugnant philosophies so potent and attractive that those reading them are instantly turned into fanatics? Should we be pretending that they simply don’t exist? Amazon and other booksellers and publishers must be schizophrenic in the extreme if simply offering a book for sale means that they endorse its views. They would indeed require Orwell’s doublethink to allow them to hold not just two but many contradictory viewpoints simultaneously. Censorship is something that should be kept to an absolute minimum, and that should rarely if ever apply to words alone. This is very dangerous territory indeed.
Those that don’t read/forget/try to hide history will find themselves repeating it. They’re to full of their ideas (or just too stupid) to realize all this does is drive it into hiding so when it does come up it’s as a complete surprise to these would-be censors.
“This is very dangerous territory indeed.”
We are in full agreement. And if they can censor this then it’s just another step to censor the next thing they don’t like – and the next after that …
Nicely said.
You can forcibly control what people say in public but you cannot control what they think.
Better to let people openly express themselves so we can see where we all stand rather than to build a facade of pretence to hide the truth that sooner or later will come out, one way or another.
All it does is add a further, actual grievance to the list of real and imagined ones.
In this case, the merchandise will move from a neutral non-political channel to sources that will wrap them in their philosophies and use the money to further them.
This does not make the world better.
On the one hand, it is Amazon’s right, as an independent entity, to sell, or not sell, what they wish.
On the other hand, whenever someone with that much market clout starts playing gatekeeper, we all lose a little.
But so long as they don’t have a monopoly, or at least can’t maintain a monopoly, or oligopoly, it’s no ones business but their own, and I want to keep it that way.
Also, yeah, there are a few far-left ideas that should be culled, too, but they’re probably in good odor with the bookstore in Seattle.
I would start with “A People’s History of the United States,” myself. Anything with Che Guevara on it. Etc., etc., etc.
However, unlike the Regressives, I am not going to start.
Oh, “Das Kapital” and “The Communist Manifesto,” too. (Although anyone who pays Amazon for those two is a fool. I got mine from the Communist Party for free – and people I trust to know their German say they are excellent translations.)
Can’t help but imagine Seth McFarland writing a ‘Family Guy’ joke about Mel Gibson canceling his prime membership…
I thought he moved to Canada after that last big election … maybe that was the other guy/gal. 😉
I have a friend who wrote a novel about a Jewess in Nazi Germany. The book is totally against the regime, but it does feature a Nuremburg Rally on the front, which of course features the swastika flag.
They rejected her cover, and she had to have it redone. We couldn’t understand why at first, but now it makes sense.
Removing anything with a Nazi flag on the front is ridiculous. It should be a case-by-case thing, but the Zon doesn’t work that way. All or nothing.
Lynne, was it self-published? Wonder if that had anything to do with it. Here’s a recent book that features THREE swastika flags (banners, actually)–very ugly cover:
https://www.amazon.com/Third-Reich-History-Nazi-Germany-ebook/dp/B01CO34OLQ/
It’s the #1 Best Seller in German History. But it’s pubbed by Simon & Schuster. Will be curious to see if The Zon has anything to say about that.
Yes, it was a self published book, and you’re right.
Exactly. And how about Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”? There’s a swastika right in the middle of the book’s cover. And it’s ranked #3 in Military History. Think Amazon’s going to pull that? This slope is way too slippery.
Oh, you’d better not mention Shirer where Lynne Connolly can hear you. He wasn’t a historian, after all; just a political commentator and journalist.
(Or does that line of attack only apply to people on the political Right? Dear me, I do have such trouble following the Party line.)
And what about The Man in the High Castle.
I agree some products featuring Nazi iconography is distasteful, but historical relevance means some will be seen.
When are they going to remove all the alt-left stuff? Or is this only against that one brand of socialism?
National Socialism is a far right ideology that has nothing to do with any other kind. No common roots, no common ideals, no philosophies in common.
A Nazi is not a socialist, nor is it a “brand of socialism.” The name comes from Bismarck’s far right “Socialist” movement. He rounded up communists and socialists and sent them to the death camps.
https://www.thoughtco.com/was-adolf-hitler-a-socialist-1221367
History disagrees with you. They share many common philosophies. I won’t argue with you here though. Believe what you like.
Actually history completely agrees with me.
It’s not a matter of belief, it’s cold, hard fact.
Try doing some research. You obviously didn’t read the article I linked to, which explains the origins and philosophies, but there are plenty more.
Hitler sent unionists, socialists and communists to the gas chambers. He was a fascist, which is hardly a left-wing movement.
I only disagreed with you because I’m a historian, and the statement was so blatantly wrong, that I couldn’t leave it alone.
Actually, since you don’t check articles, try this:
“Richard Evans, in his magisterial three volume history of Nazi Germany, is quite clear on whether Hitler was a socialist: “…it would be wrong to see Nazism as a form of, or an outgrowth of, socialism.” (The Coming of the Third Reich, Evans, p. 173). Not only was Hitler not a socialist himself, nor a communist, but he actually hated these ideologies and did his utmost to eradicate them. At first this involved organizing bands of thugs to attack socialists in the street, but grew into invading Russia, in part to enslave the population and earn ‘living ‘ room for Germans, and in part to wipe out communism and ‘Bolshevism’.
The key element here is what Hitler did, believed and tried to create. Nazism, confused as it was, was fundamentally an ideology built around race, while socialism was entirely different: built around class. Hitler aimed to unite the right and left, including workers and their bosses, into a new German nation based on the racial identity of those in it. Socialism, in contrast, was a class struggle, aiming to build a workers state, whatever race the worker was from. Nazism drew on a range of pan-German theories, which wanted to blend Aryan workers and Aryan magnates into a super Aryan state, which would involve the eradication of class focused socialism, as well as Judaism and other ideas deemed non-German.”
This isn’t my fight… but I see your Richard Evans, and raise you Paul Johnson in Modern Times. He is here talking about fascist movements in general, among which (as he makes clear elsewhere) the Nazis abundantly deserve to be included:
Let it be noted that Johnson is a former Marxist himself, and fully conversant with the authoritative texts of that ideology, and with its entire subsequent history. If he considers the allegedly right-wing forms of totalitarianism, Fascism and Nazism, ‘Marxist heresies’, clearly the question is not beyond dispute. It has been vigorously disputed by experts; I quote this one because the book happened to be on a shelf in this room.
I will add that Bismarckian Germany was an exceptionally regimented society, having a state more intrusive and powerful than any other in the world in its time, with the possible exception of Tsarist Russia. There was no political movement in Germany, either during the Second Reich or the Weimar Republic, that was not ‘left’ by the standard applied in most other countries. ‘Right-wing’ is a relative term; the Nazis may have been to the right of most German political parties (for certain values of ‘right’), but they were by no means to the right of the bourgeois democratic parties of the U.S. or western Europe.
In any case, you are not talking about facts, but opinions, and you are citing other people’s opinions as if that could possibly turn opinion into fact – or as if the fact that other people agree with your opinion means that nobody could possibly disagree.
Paul Johnaon? Really? Give me strength.
He is not a historian. He’s a political commentator and novelist. Ask him.
It’s like Alice’s Wonderland.
BTW, the most regimented and government and culturally obtrusive society in the ninenteenth century is a toss-up between China and Japan. Korea was a worthy runner-up. Nothing in Europe could ever compare to that.
And stop mansplaining.
The right-wing political movements in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century are well documented. Right wing is of course a relative term, but then everything in history is relative to something else, isn’t it?
However, call Hitler a left wing socialist if you want. I’m done.
He is not a historian.
That’s odd. Most of his books are categorized as history. Writing numerous books of history usually is sufficient to establish one as a historian.
Perhaps you mean that he is not an academic historian; that he has not got a Ph.D. in history and does not write on a publish-or-perish basis for a largely captive audience of other academics. This is not the damning fault that you may believe it to be.
It’s like Alice’s Wonderland.
Your abuse is duly noted. I take it to mean that you have not actually got an argument, or you would use that instead.
BTW, the most regimented and government and culturally obtrusive society in the ninenteenth century is a toss-up between China and Japan. Korea was a worthy runner-up. Nothing in Europe could ever compare to that.
China at that time could not even maintain an effective central currency or a viable armed force. ‘Culturally obtrusive’ does not mean that the state was obtrusive. The characteristic flaw of nineteenth-century China was the weakness of the state, not its strength. You appear not to have any idea what you are talking about on this point.
And stop mansplaining.
More abuse, this time in the form of casual sexism. If this is the best you can come up with, you must be a thoroughly incompetent historian.
The right-wing political movements in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century are well documented.
Indeed they are; and one thing that the documentation makes clear is that they have no connection with the right-wing political movements in the Western liberal democracies. I repeat, nothing in Weimar Germany was ‘right-wing’ by Anglo-American or French standards.
Right wing is of course a relative term, but then everything in history is relative to something else, isn’t it?
This is a cheap cop-out. When you make a comparison, you are making a statement about one thing relative to another. To say that the NSDAP was to the right of the Communists or Social Democrats in Germany at that time is by no means incompatible with saying that it was functionally to the left of the Labour Party in Britain, the New Deal Democrats of the U.S., or (for instance) the Radical-Socialists of France in the Third Republic. To pretend that it represents the extreme Right in a global sense is disingenuous, but that is the position to which you have committed yourself.
You have moreover committed yourself to the position that no person of any knowledge or intelligence could possibly disagree with you. That is the height of arrogance. Indeed, you have displayed no knowledge at all in your arguments on this subject, but as much arrogance as a person could well demonstrate within such a small compass. The combination of great arrogance with little knowledge is the sign of a bigot, not of an historian.
I could tell this from the first post. Political education by CNN. Which is why I said what I said. Everyone has a right to their opinions no matter how wrong. There has been a lot of money spent convincing the world that people who want LESS government somehow leads to fascism… A lot of money spent trying to convince everyone that the only solution to all our problems is more government.
“You shall work for the collective good of The People. The collective good of The People is defined by The State. If you do not work for the collective good of The People, as defined by The State, you are evil and are a fit subject for enslavement and/or elimination, all for the collective good.”
It does not matter whether “The People” = “The Proletariat,” or “The People” = “The Aryan Race.” It also does not matter whether “The State” = “The Soviet,” or “The State” = “The Reich.”
The Left-Right political spectrum was useful in the French National Assembly of 1789. It has not been since then.
Pournelle’s Axes are more useful for understanding the similarities and differences between socialism and Nazism. Both believe the State and centralized gov’t are good. Socialism holds that gov’t can rule and progress by rational methods. Nazism holds that gov’t can rule and progress only by irrational methods.
Those are over-general statements, but they go to the heart of your arguments.
I won’t dispute that the Nazi methods were irrational. However…
Socialism claims to be rational – but it starts from an entirely irrational notion, that of a sapient species that does not exist (at least not in the neck of the woods we call “the Solar System”).
They both rely, fundamentally, on scapegoating and demonization. They both lead to genocide.
So it’s all the same to me.
Lol, and yes I have a degree in history. And yes I understand how they are different historically. But let us not lose ourselves in the tumble weeds. Tyrannies share certain fundamental qualities when looked at from a wide lens.
Thin wedge, once you can force them to pull one thing, it’s easier to declare they need to pull the next, and the next.
@ Hunting Guy
Possibly because it’s been for sale for so long at too many places for them to be able to force/demand Amazon pull it.
Mein Kampf Is still there.
I wonder for how long?