They're on the media night and day looking for our sympathy - yeah
The Holocaust, the crystal night don't mean a thing to me - no
The world can't take much more of this Zionist intervention
The only fool proof plan is mass extermination
Six million more, six million more
Written by neo-Nazis, released on a neo-Nazi record label. That's fine, and perfectly legal.
It's also sold to you, for 99 cents, from iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/... It's track 5, if you'd like it to soundtrack your commute.
Days ago, I wrote an initial diary calling attention to the fact iTunes/Apple and Amazon sell neo-Nazi music produced by neo-Nazi record labels. Here I'll provide some further information.
The Neo-Nazi label gets their cut, and Apple or Amazon get theirs. Also legal, and in case you're wondering, I believe strongly that's how it should be, if we're talking about legalities. But I'm not talking about legalities. I do have a very, very big problem with it as a consumer, and as an issue of corporate responsibility, and I plan to do something about it with my wallet and my voice, and maybe you will too.
Whiskey Bottles
Baseball Bats
Pickup Trucks
And Rebel Flags
We're going on the town tonight
Hit and run
Let's have some fun
We've got jigaboos on the run
And they fear the setting sun
Bully Boys, Jigrun
Our message will be spread. Our voices loud and clear
Inform the youth of the truth, the jew's greatest fear.
Final War, Aryan Pride
My kids all wanna be niggers, so I'm showin' 'em how
hey honey, I'm dropping the kids off in Harlem
I'll pick 'em up when they've had enough of that nigger shit
hey honey, I'm dropping the kids off in Harlem
and we'll see how quick they come home when they've had enough of it
Racist Redneck Rebels, Dropping the Kids Off in Harlem
Give Amazon a dollar, and it's yours. You won't even have to wait for that cardboard Amazon box, they've got the mp3 for your convenience: http://www.amazon.com/...
The same low price at iTunes if you're a Mac and not a PC, of course: http://itunes.apple.com/...
They know what this is. It's not on Sony or Merge or Jagjaguwar. It's on Nazi labels. They know what this is because they say as much if you write them about it. Much of the rest that they tell you is mix of hypocrisy, corporate callousness, and fact-checkable lies about their own policies, but that part is true.
What Isn't True: "They Can't Check Every Track by Every Artist!"
I know. Nobody's asking them too. These songs & artists above are not track 7 by some band that snuck through the cracks at Capitol, Warner Bros., Matador, Kill Rock Stars or Merge, or countless other major and independent labels. They're easily identified Nazi bands on easily identified Nazi record labels: labels like Micetrap, Panzerfaust, and Rock-o-Rama, run by Nazis, for recruitment of new Nazis, for the profit of Nazis.
What Isn't True: "Refusing to Sell Neo-Nazi Music & Sharing the Profits With Neo-Nazi Organizations = The Slippery Slope of WalMart Content Control!"
No, I absolutely refuse to accept that counter-point based on my experience as a decades long & rabid purchaser of music. I've been a lunatic music nerd since I was in middle school, and the music I've always loved has been underground music on independent labels. Always hard to impossible to find at WalMart or Sam Goody (do those still exist?), but I know how to look for it and where to shop. I've shopped in the slightly better national & international chains like HMV and Virgin. I've shopped at local chains like Newbury Comics in Mass. with impressive & wide-ranging selections. And from the local mom & pop shops like Amoeba in San Francisco, Sonik in Montreal, joints in NYC and Boston and elsewhere, almost anywhere I travel. With the exception of one store I was in 15 years ago, these stores--committed to independent music as well as mainstream, committed to varied content, do not carry Nazi music from Nazi labels as a matter of policy & responsibility.
These are businesses. They are making a business decision as to what to profit off of. This is not a freedom of speech issue--if Newbury Comics starts carrying Skrewdriver's "When the Boat Comes In" tomorrow...
"Try to take our nation, and give it to the blacks
We won't take it anymore, we're gonna take our nation back
Nigger, nigger, get on that boat
Nigger, nigger, row
Nigger, nigger, get out of here
Nigger, nigger, go, go, go...
They riot on the British streets, they're burning down our land
But the fools in government put money in their hands"
...Elliot Ness & the Government aren't going to break their doors down and smash the records and arrest the owners. They're allowed to sell it. They should be allowed to sell it. That's not what this is about. It's about whether you, a non-government actor, a consumer with consumer choices, want to patronize a business that chooses to sell it.
Newbury Comics says no, they won't carry it. They carry a wide variety of music from all sorts of labels, with all sorts of messages right, left & indifferent. They choose not to make a buck off of music calling for racist genocide put out by neo-Nazi labels in many cases with connections to White Aryan Resistance, Aryan Nations, Hammerskins, the British National Party & Stormfront.
iTunes & Amazon make a different choice. If you've got enough change in your pocket, "When the Boat Comes In" can be yours in about 30 seconds if you've got a good internet connection, straight from Apple's or Amazon's HQ.
What Isn't True: "They Say They're Content Neutral As Long As The Underlying Content Is Legal!"
Alright, Mr. Dyrrachium. You're saying many brick & mortar shops, and some exclusively online ones (such as eMusic or Interpunk) don't carry this Nazi stuff, but Amazon & iTunes do. Well, I've heard both shops have a policy of being content neutral so long as no laws are being broken, as much as they "lament" some of what they profit off of. That sounds reasonable to me. You yourself, Mr. Dyrrachium, have received emails from both companies informing you of that very policy. At least they're consistent. No content regulation for legal material, full stop. They will not refrain from selling something because it's offensive to some folks, cuz who know where it ends.
No, kids. They're lying to you. They lied to me when they said that. They are not content-neutral platforms for anybody selling legal entertainment to hock their wares with a cut to the daddy corp.
Neither company sells perfectly legal hardcore pornography. Please feel free to check. Sometimes, you will find a hardcore title in the Amazon marketplace feature (3rd party sellers), but Amazon doesn't sell it. It's legal. It's not that they "just so happen" not to be in the business of selling sexually titillating material and it has nothing at all to do with content. Amazon sells softcore: http://www.amazon.com/... Maybe people are watching it for the plot, I suppose. Hell, they even sell the small handful of arthouse movies with small scenes of unsimulated sexually activity: http://www.amazon.com/...
They choose not to sell people actually fukkin from Vivid or Hustler or whomever, because despite the fact this is one of the most profitable sectors of entertainment sales in the country, it's not worth the heat.
Amazon thinks the Nazi stuff is worth the heat, because very few people know about it, and to greatly abuse the Michael Jordan quote, "Republicans buy sneakers too," as long as you swap in Hammerskins for "Republicans" and take out "sneakers" in favor of "music calling for the mass extermination of racial minorities with profits going to Nazi organizations."
When they say they don't engage in content regulation, they lie.
It's even more obvious at iTunes, where not only do they not sell hardcore pornography, but within the realm of music, have removed songs from their catalogue in the past that call for genocide of a different kind.
Of course, Apple tells you this, from an email I received:
However, as we have previously inform you, the iTunes Store does not censor content.
Please search the iTunes song for "Boom Bye Bye" by Buju Banton, one of many dancehall reggae songs calling for the mass extermination of homosexuals removed by iTunes a couple of years ago do to concerted consumer protest. Batty Boy is Jamaican slang for homosexual man, by the by.
Boom Bye Bye
In a Batty Boy Head
Rude Boy No Promote No Nasty Man
Dem Haffi Dead
Not finding it at Apple? Hmmm. So much for the content regulation line, which they'll tell you because they think you've never heard anything about this.
What This Isn't About: "Freedom of Speech"
I mentioned it in my first diary, I expressed it at greater length in comments, and I'll say it again:
The 1st Amendment protects most forms of speech of individuals and corporations against government suppression.
I am not the government. You, the Apple & Amazon consumer, are not the government. I am not only not calling for any of this material to become illegal, but find such ideas anti-American.
Rock-o-Rama Records, Panzerfaust, Micetrap, and other white supremecist record labels can continue to sell their wares and continue their attempts to reach young white youth. This is their mission, this is their purpose for being. This is not a controversial rapper on Sony--neo-Nazi records labels will not shy away from, well, selling neo-Nazi music. Cuz, y'know, they're neo-Nazis. This is what they're in it for.
In no way is the 1st Amendment implicated, or is "censorship" occurring, when individual consumers let corporations know what they think of what they're doing with their wallets and their words and their attempts to inform the greater public of these corporations' business practices.
Tell Amazon you can buy that coffee maker someplace else. Then do it.
$300 coffee maker bought elsewhere. They'll have to sell 300 copies of "When the Boat Comes In" today to get back to zero.
This isn't the new Miley Cyrus single. It might take awhile to make up the difference selling this shit.
Finally: Sorry Dyyrachium, I Ain't A Lawyer, But I Just Can't Get This "Freedom of Speech" Thing Out of My Head.
Listen, bros & sisters. I happen to be an attorney, for what it's worth. The government has nothing to do with this. Not only is this not one of the Kos diaries where I ask you to write to your congressman, you shouldn't, it's got fuck all to do with this.
This is not a 1st Amendment issue. It's a consumer pocketbook issue. It's registering disgust with a corporation that's done a cost-benefit analysis that turns out when way when dealing with naked people fucking and another when dealing with music calling for the murder of people like me because of who my parents are.
Here's where the freedom of speech comes in, if anywhere:
Here's how you can contact Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/...
Here's iTunes/Apple: iTunesStoreSupport@apple.com; msmac@apple.com
I wrote to them and told them I'm disgusted by this policy, that their claims to be content-neutral are a lie, and informed them specifically of how I intended to cost them money--my own and those I talk to--as a result of it.
If you feel this is wrong of me, or despite the fact these faceless soulless profit-driven corporations are definitively NOT content-neutral, think it's better for them to carry this stuff than to refuse to, you certainly don't need my permission to use the very same content links I've provided to write to them in support. That's your business and the risk I run by publicizing this.
But that doesn't change my own opinion: Don't let massive, faceless, and uh, belief-less corporations fool you into thinking this is about free expression. They don't allow "free" expression because they're not content-neutral to begin with. They're driven by profit only, not access to the marketplace or some malarkey. They're companies making business decisions what to profit off of and what isn't worth the hassle. They count on it that you don't know what any of this means or that at the end of the day you really won't make buying decisions based on it.
Defense of Free Expression:
Defense of Free Expression and the 1st Amendment would be to stand in total opposition to any attempt to make the stuff Micetrap, Panzerfaust, Rock-o-Rama records...or Skrewdriver, the Bully Boys, and other bands sell illegal or subject to government repression. Believe it or not, I'd be standing write there along with you and writing diaries in opposition of any such government action.
But here's the thing about Free Expression, not only of words, but in that less sexy way, of pocketbooks. We don't do anything to make Nazi speech illegal. That doesn't mean we need to help it be financially successful. We don't need to encourage mainstream stores to profit from it. Free expression is healthy when other citizens--not through the government--make it as difficult as fucking possible for Nazis to profit from the stuff they have every right under the Constitution to say. Don't let Amazon tell you otherwise--they just want the money--Nazi speech with exist unmolested by the Federal Government if I buy my laptop from somebody else.
If you agree with me, help out. If you don't, don't. If there's anything related to free expression in this whole sad affair, I suppose it's that.