22 weeks after Walmart agreed to remove shirts bearing Nazi iconography from its shelves, and 10 weeks after getting a letter from Congress demanding the shirts removal, they’re still there.
Amanda’s sister found a whole bunch in Ohio:
I had nearly forgotten about the whole thing when I received a call from my sister, Ali, in Bowling Green, Ohio. Apparently, they have a whole stack of the shirts! She described them very accurately on the phone, so I instructed her to buy a couple, and take lots of pictures.
She initially had some difficulty, but after flirting with the checkout guy, managed to purchase one.
Attached is a picture she took in the store, and a couple of pics of the shirt after she got it home. …
Anyway, boo walmart, yay consumerist!
The most advanced supply-chain management system in the world is easily felled by a little dose of feminine charm. Happy Birthday, Hitler.
Recent updates to this story.
Backstory.
— BEN POPKEN
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I personally don’t think it was wrong of Walmart to sell these shirts, although I don’t care for the shirt in question. Stores sell things that we don’t like all the time.
For example, if it were up to me, you wouldn’t be able to buy a shirt with the Confederate Flag on it, as I consider it to be the flag of traitors. But I support the rights of stores to sell it and people to buy it.
Sometimes, you have to let people make their own choices.
Since 1978?
I dont get it.
There are a bunch of USSR themed clothing stores called defect, and they are not banned at all…
I wrote the Wake Up Wal Mart campaign about this – but these are no worse than the crap carried by Hot Topic. Nazi imagery has always been used by punk culture. Siouxsie Sioux once got in a fight for wearing a Nazi armband in 1977, even though she said afterwards that she wore it for shock value – not for beliefs – especially since the Nazis hated anyone who, like her, was different. So what these shirts REALLY are is Wal-Mart’s sad, sad attempts at 1970s-style, Sex Pistols type shockery. Unfortunately, the punk-rock shock effects are tired from thirty years of overuse, and this T-shirt is nothing more than the same watered-down, regurgitated shock-rock crap that Marilyn Manson also uses (he also uses a lot of Nazi imagery just because it’s the worst thing he can come up with). So Wal-Mart isn’t using this image out of Nazi sympathy, or neo-Nazi appeal, but because they’re trying to compete with Hot Topic – and because Nazi imagery now has motorcycle, shock-rock and punk associations in pop culture.
IMHO, this isn’t worth the fuss it’s about – we should be focusing on hating Wal Mart for reducing people to poverty and desperation around the world. Fighting them for one stupid T-shirt designed by one guy who no doubt thought he was a total rebel is a waste of energy to me.
The Totenkopf was originally used by Frederick the Great in Prussia. Just like the Swastika, it was recycled by the Nazi party and perverted into something else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenkopf
Please try to check your facts before your knee jerks.
@danjonwig: before your next post, make sure to read all the comments, not just the first few.
the OP clearly states later that she did not flirt with the guy, but pulled some “im in a hurry scan this shirt twice instead of……”
you know what, just go read it…….
foobar1 wrote:
“The Totenkopf was originally used by Frederick the Great in Prussia. Just like the Swastika, it was recycled by the Nazi party and perverted into something else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenkopf
Please try to check your facts before your knee jerks.”
Yes, old Freddy may well have used a Totenkopf insignia but not the specific design in question, ie. the skull on the t-shirt.
The wiki page cited includes a link to the relevant info at this url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Division_Totenkopf
Please double-check your facts before your knee jerks.
What an incredible non-issue. Can’t you find something more substantial to get your shorts in a wad about? I mean WTF. Crusade against Wal-Mart until you’re blue in the face, but I doubt even the removal of this ugly-assed shirt from their shelves will in ANY way actually reduce the local population of skinheads. I’ll bet 99% of Wal-Mart shoppers don’t even recognize the design as “Nazi”… they’re just quasi-goth wannabe pirates or something, out to snag a deal on a five gallon tub of cheese balls and eight liters of Pepsi. Get a life!