In Which I Say Something Nice about Nazis, Sort-of

As I'm writing the article I'm working on, I've had to visit a lot of ... questionable ... websites. They've been from the political fringes, mostly on both the nationalist left and nationalist right.

One in particular has been the National Socialist Movement website, a group that calls itself "the largest Nazi Party operating in the United States of America today." Every time I have to visit the site, I imagine alarms and a red dome light flashing over the University Chancellor's desk. Ah ha! It's Nokes! Who'd have thunk he's a Nazi?

No, not a Nazi. Since I'm an internationalist and a capitalist, nationalism and socialism don't hold much appeal for me. Also, since Nazi fashion during WWII was undeniably cool, why do our contemporary Nazis dress like Sid Vicious waking up hung over at a country music concert? If they still dressed like Doogie Houser in Starship Troopers, I might be tempted to shop in the same stores as them. Maybe I could add a corollary to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" -- When Orwell wrote, "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought," maybe I could add to that, "and also if thought corrupts fashion, fashion can also corrupt thought."

Still, I'm heartened (in an ironic way) to find that the youth group for the American Nazis is called the "Viking Youth Movement." There's hope for them yet! It sounds a lot like the Boy Scouts or 4H, except with more seafaring and pillaging. OK, sure, it's probably a lot of playing softball, followed by hating Jews and wanting to nationalize the oil industry (hmmm, maybe Maxine Waters is their den mother?), but in my fantasy it's more like this:

Interlocutor: Hey, cool uniform.
Viking Youth: Thanks. It's my Viking Youth Movement uniform.
Int: What's that badge for?
VY: Knot-tying.
Int: And the other one?
VY: Monastery burning.
Int: And the other?
VY: Oh, that was our service project, planting vinyards in Greenland.