03.25.02 - "The most politically incorrect video game ever made. Run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics in an attempt to gain entrance to the subway system...where the jews have hidden to avoid the carnage. Then if your [sic] lucky you can blow away jews as they scream 'Oy Vey', on your way to their command center." -- Advertisement for "Ethnic Cleansing: The Game"
The next time your kids are playing video games, check out the action. They may be buying into the new video game racism that William Pierce is peddling.
Pierce heads up the National Alliance, one of the premier neo-nazi hate groups in the country. His infamous book, "The Turner Diaries," stands as a primer for the militia crowd and for white-supremacist wannabes. It was reportedly one of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's favorite reads.
When it comes to the battle for the hearts, minds, dollars and the recruitment of America's youth, right wing hate groups have started to put together a powerful one-two punch of hate music and racist video games.
Recently, Resistance Records, the biggest name in hate music stepped into the video game market big-time. And it chose Martin Luther King Day to unveil its new advertising campaign for its new video, "Ethnic Cleansing."
"Hate groups are manipulating available technology to create violently racist and anti-Semitic versions of popular video games," says a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The object of this CD-ROM-based computer game, which sells for $14.98, "is to kill 'sub-humans' -- i.e. blacks and Latinos -- and their 'masters,' the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil."
The ADL report, "Racist Groups Using Computer Gaming to Promote Violence Against Blacks, Latinos and Jews," claims that "Ethnic Cleansing" is "patterned after popular mainstream video games such as 'Quake and Doom' [and] turns racially motivated violence in[to] 'entertainment.'"
Action-packed hate
The "premise of 'Ethnic Cleansing' is that a city -- clearly New York -- has been destroyed by gangs of 'sub-humans' controlled by Jews who are lead by the 'end boss' lurking in the subterranean 'Lair of the Beast,'" the report states. "Plans for world domination are seen in the subway, along with a map of 'problem' areas in the United States and a sign reading 'Diversity, It's Good for Jews.'"
"The player (who can choose to dress in KKK robes or as a Skinhead) roams the streets and subways murdering 'predatory sub-humans' and their Jewish 'masters' thereby 'saving' the white world. During the game monkey and ape sounds are heard when blacks are killed, poncho-wearing Latinos say 'I'll take a siesta now!' or 'Ay carumba!' while 'Oy vey!' rings out when Jewish characters are killed."
The game uses a "high level of background detail" to display National Alliance signs and posters which "appear throughout while racist rock blares on the soundtrack."
"At the end, the player confronts the 'end boss,' a rocket launcher-wielding Ariel Sharon, who hurls insults such as: 'Oy vey! Can you shoot no better than that?'; 'We have destroyed your culture!'; and 'We silenced Henry Ford.' When Sharon dies, he coughs out 'Filthy White dog, you have destroyed thousands of years of planning.'"
William Pierce is featured in a video clip in the game talking about the upcoming white revolution: "From the very beginning we have been a multimedia organization, interested in using communication, using every medium that we can to reach the public effectively," said Pierce. Since its debut, several thousand copies of the game have been sold. Somehow Pierce knows that 90 percent of the buyers were white teenage boys.
Resistance Records says that "Ethnic Cleansing" will be the first in a series of company-produced video games. Next up is a game based on Pierce's infamous novel called, "Turner Diaries: The Game."
There are numerous other racist games available on the Internet. Wired.com reported that Matt Hale, the head of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator, acknowledged that his group offers several free racist games on its website including, "Aryan 3," "Shoot the Blacks," "NSDoom" (NS is short for National Socialist), and "WPDoom" (WP stands for White Power), which are all downloadable. Hale said, "The younger the better. We mean to utilize whatever means we can to achieve our goals and bring new faces to our church."
Neo-nazi Gary (Gerhard) Lauck, of Lincoln, Nebraska, (a.k.a. the "Farmbelt Fuehrer"), also offers free video games at his website. Under the heading of "Nazi Computer-Spiele" or "Nazi Computer Games" Lauck promotes "SA Mann," a spin-off of PacMan, and "concentration camp rat hunt" where the player shoots Jewish "rats" inside the Auschwitz death camp. Lauck told Wired that the games were downloaded over 12,000 times in January.
Resistance reigns supreme
Resistance Records, the white-supremacist music distribution giant is leading the way in the video game market. Founded in 1993 by George Burdi, a 23-year-old neo-Nazi skinhead, the company, which labored in the neo-nazi underground subculture for a few years, grew into the largest distributor of skinhead music in the United States. After a series of business setbacks, Willis A. Carto, the well-known anti-Semitic leader of Liberty Lobby and publisher of "The Spotlight," a weekly right-wing newspaper, and his partner, Todd Blodgett came on the scene in 1998 and they revived the company's fortunes.
The Carto/Blodgett partnership, however, didn't last long. William Pierce, a longtime Carto rival, moved in on the action in 1999 and took control of the company. According to the ADL's report "Deafening Hate: The Revival of Resistance Records," Pierce himself is not a devotee of hate rock, but he saw a terrific organizing opportunity and seized it. Seized it is the operand phrase here. After a mid-Summer disagreement with Blodgett, Pierce took "control of Resistance and relocated operations to his National Alliance headquarters outside Hillsboro, West Virginia."
Blodgett eventually settled with Pierce and moved on while Pierce set about reviving the company's hegemony over the hate music industry. By late 1999, Resistance Records purchased a Swedish competitor, Nordland Records, which doubled its inventory to include an estimated 250 different titles and nearly 80,000 CDs, and "making Resistance the only North American company currently carrying certain CD titles."
Resistance Records publishes the quarterly "Resistance" magazine; has a catalogue of books including Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf," Homer's "The Odyssey" and "The Illiad," and "Blood Ritual: Investigation into Jewish Ritual Murder Cases"; distributes music and Nazi military videos; carries a line of clothing, jewelry, and pins; and sells bumper stickers. You can also hear William Pierce's radio broadcasts.
Although the company's financial future is unclear, the ADL report acknowledges that Resistance Records "appears to be performing modestly well, relative to the dozens of small, independent music labels operating in the United States." Do the math: CDs listed on the Resistance Records Web site sell for $14.88-$15.88. The company, like other record companies, "spends only a few dollars each to produce and ship the CDs, plus a small fraction in band royalties."
Wacko, marginalized white supremacist? Wacko and savvy businessman? Whatever your vision of William Pierce may be, consider this: Resistance Record's new video line could be another pot of gold helping his organizations spread the word.
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Resources:
Anti-Defamation League: "Racist Groups Using Computer Gaming to Promote Violence Against Blacks, Latinos and Jews" - http://www.adl.org/videogames/default.asp
Anti-Defamation League: "Deafening Hate: The Revival of Resistance Records" - http://www.adl.org/resistance_records/introduction.html
Center for New Community: http://www.newcomm.org and http://www.turnitdown.com.
"Turning Down the Sounds of Hate: Young People Stand up Against White Power Music" by Justin Massa - http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/Mar-Apr01/JustinMassa.html
Resistance Records - http://www.resistance.com
National Alliance (William Pierce) - http://www.natvan.com/
© 2002 WorkingForChange.com