fascism, racism, and Celtic crosses (was: Jesse Sheidlower on NPR for swag)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Dec 27 18:42:05 UTC 2011


On Dec 27, 2011, at 12:12 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 3:36 AM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Jesse Sheidlower on NPR for swag
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/12/26/143978319/it-was-a-good-year-for-swag
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> Really great show, Jesse!
>
> I was caught off guard - startled, even - by the number of comments
> posted by apparent members of Stormfront "White Pride World Wide,"
>
> http://www.stormfront.org/
>
> the site run by the unaptly-surnamed Don Black. (Apparently, the irony
> escapes his notice.) NPR's reach seems to exceed some people's grasp.
>
> --
I couldn't keep myself from clicking on that either (because I wasn't depressed enough with the post-holiday blues already) and I noticed the logo of a Celtic cross--a cross inside a circle, which I'd recently cited in a paper.  Only the legend on my example was Mussolini's "O CON NOI/O CONTRA DI NOI" at the top and bottom (which I was comparing to Jesus's "He that is not with me is against me" and Bush's "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists") where the Stormfront has "WHITE PRIDE/WORLD WIDE".  Out of curiosity, can anyone establish whether this use of the Celtic cross and slogan predate Benito and his Fascisti?  Good old wikipedia has an entry on the Celtic cross that mentions Stormfront (although not the Fascisti), but it doesn't explain the connection of the cross to fascism or racism…er, "white pride".

(I figured we'd moved to a different subject line with this one.)

LH

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