In one of the more disturbing corners of the internet, a group of neo-Nazi Russian social media users is currently holding a beauty contest that has been dubbed ‘Miss Hitler’.

The competition, officially called ‘Miss Ostland’ - named after the territory occupied by the Nazis in eastern Europe - asks contestants to post a picture of themselves on the @hitler_public page of VKontakte, Russia’s Facebook equivalent.

Rules of entry are apparently quite simple, as Vocativ reports:

“1. Be a woman.

2. Be a Nazi.

3. Be a woman Nazi.

4. Be a woman who hates Jews.

5. Be a member of the “Adolf Hitler” VKontakte group.

6. Post a sexy Nazi pic.

7. Get other Nazis to like your pic.

8. Don’t insult other women’s pictures. Nazis are a lot of things, but they are apparently not catty on social media.”


Some of the entrants so far (Picture: VKontakte)

Contestants are also encouraged to write under their photo why they “love and revere the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler”.

More: http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/miss-hitler-2014-yes-there-really-is-a-neonazi-beauty-contest-in-russia--xJOrGDFSUx

The Lies of Islamophobia: The Three Unfinished Wars of the West against the Rest

from TomDispatch:




The Lies of Islamophobia
The Three Unfinished Wars of the West against the Rest

By John Feffer


The Muslims were bloodthirsty and treacherous. They conducted a sneak attack against the French army and slaughtered every single soldier, 20,000 in all. More than 1,000 years ago, in the mountain passes of Spain, the Muslim horde cut down the finest soldiers in Charlemagne’s command, including his brave nephew Roland. Then, according to the famous poem that immortalized the tragedy, Charlemagne exacted his revenge by routing the entire Muslim army.

The Song of Roland, an eleventh century rendering in verse of an eighth century battle, is a staple of Western Civilization classes at colleges around the country. A “masterpiece of epic drama,” in the words of its renowned translator Dorothy Sayers, it provides a handy preface for students before they delve into readings on the Crusades that began in 1095. More ominously, the poem has schooled generations of Judeo-Christians to view Muslims as perfidious enemies who once threatened the very foundations of Western civilization.

The problem, however, is that the whole epic is built on a curious falsehood. The army that fell upon Roland and his Frankish soldiers was not Muslim at all. In the real battle of 778, the slayers of the Franks were Christian Basques furious at Charlemagne for pillaging their city of Pamplona. Not epic at all, the battle emerged from a parochial dispute in the complex wars of medieval Spain. Only later, as kings and popes and knights prepared to do battle in the First Crusade, did an anonymous bard repurpose the text to serve the needs of an emerging cross-against-crescent holy war.

....(snip)....

The Crusades Continue

With their irrational fear of spiders, arachnophobes are scared of both harmless daddy longlegs and poisonous brown recluse spiders. In extreme cases, an arachnophobe can break out in a sweat while merely looking at photos of spiders. It is, of course, reasonable to steer clear of black widows. What makes a legitimate fear into an irrational phobia, however, is the tendency to lump all of any group, spiders or humans, into one lethal category and then to exaggerate how threatening they are. Spider bites, after all, are responsible for at most a handful of deaths a year in the United States.

Islamophobia is, similarly, an irrational fear of Islam. Yes, certain Muslim fundamentalists have been responsible for terrorist attacks, certain fantasists about a “global caliphate” continue to plot attacks on perceived enemies, and certain groups like Afghanistan’s Taliban and Somalia’s al-Shabaab practice medieval versions of the religion. But Islamophobes confuse these small parts with the whole and then see terrorist jihad under every Islamic pillow. They break out in a sweat at the mere picture of an imam. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175317/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_crusade_2.0 (the story follows a brief intro)