Coded Messages: 88, 18, Hitler, Neo-Nazis, and Soap

Skepticism that twilight language exists is low in Germany this week. Among Neo-Nazis there is a long history of a hidden code used via the numbers "18" and "88." "H'' is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and thus "88" represents the phrase "Heil Hitler." Similarly, "18" is used to stand for "A.H." or Adolf Hitler.

Procter & Gamble has apologized for "any false connotations" after stirring anger in Germany for unintentionally placing a neo-Nazi code on promotional packages for its Ariel laundry detergent.

Outraged shoppers had posted pictures online of Ariel powder boxes featuring a white soccer jersey with a large number "88." The number is sensitive because far-right extremists in Germany often use it as a code to skirt a ban on the use of Nazi slogans in public.

Procter & Gamble acknowledged on 5-9-2014 that their use of the numbers was "unintentionally ambiguous."

"We very much regret if there are any false associations and distance ourselves clearly from any far-right ideology," company spokeswoman Gabi Hassig said in a statement. The number "88" was intended to show how many loads of laundry buyers would be able to do with one package.

Haessig said the company has stopped shipping the offending powder, as well as a liquid detergent that was being promoted as "Ariel 18." The number also represented the number of loads that could be done, the company said.

The number 88 is also associated with the number 14, e.g. 14/88, 14-88, or 1488; this number symbolizes the Fourteen Words coined by David Lane, a prominent white nationalist. Example uses of 88 include the song "88 Rock 'n' Roll Band" by Landser, and the organizations Barselc88, Column 88, Unit 88, and White Legion 88. Gunman and author James von Brunn signed his works as "JVB-88." Currently, the Michigan-based ANP uses 14 in its domain name and 88 as part of a radio sign-off.

It is to be noted that the name Ariel is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew, the meaning of the name Ariel is Sprite, "lion of God." It is a Biblical alternate name for Jerusalem. It also is a name of a prankish spirit in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

This is not the first time that Procter & Gamble has run into problems with "hidden messages" in their ads. Certainly, a large outcry was raised when a new logo was introduced a few years ago.

Quebec's Alleged Shooter Named Bain

You can't make this up: The shooting suspect has been identified as Richard Henry Bain. Yes, Bain, like in Bain Capital, the company founded by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bain, which sounds exactly like Bane, was discussed in depth before the appearance of the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, which was shown at the July 20th midnight showing in the Aurora theater where the shooting occurred.

For my deeper dissection of Bane/Bain, please click here.

Richard Henry Bain now pops up as the suspect in this strange shooting in Quebec.

Was there an attempt on the life of the newly elected future premier, Pauline Marois of Quebec, on Tuesday, September 4, 2012?

An undercover security unit officer is shown in plaid. For more on how plaid showed up in Aurora, in the guise of the mysterious "second gunman" candidate, click here.

Photo: Jean-Francois Lemire.

Voting had just returned the Parti Québécois to power Tuesday. A rally celebrating the Marois (Marios = "dweller at or near a marsh") victory in the historic Quebec election ended in tragedy.  Several shoots erupted from a rifle held by a masked gunman, which resulted in one person killed and another wounded. The gunfire began after an apparent diversion fire was set at the back of the crowded Montreal concert hall, where PQ Leader Pauline Marois was celebrating her minority mandate.

The name of the location of the shooting, The Metropolis, reminded me of 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film by the same name, directed by Fritz Lang.

Photo: Jean-Francois Lemire.

One shooting victim, a 45-year-old man, later died, while another person wounded in the shooting was out of danger. A third person was in hospital, recovering from shock.

The balaclava is also called a a Templar cap.

A large 62-year-old man (shown at top) wearing a black balaclava, black shirt, glasses, shorts, and what was described as a blue bathrobe or housecoat was arrested. The suspect reportedly spoke French with an accent. His two firearms were seized. (On Tuesday, he was named as Richard Henry Bain.)

This shooting was taken seriously by the security units protecting Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois.

It was clearly a political shooting. "The English are waking up, the English are waking up ... It's payback ... Yeah, yeah, that's enough," the man muttered as police officers led him away in handcuffs. Local media reported that he also shouted: "It's gonna be fucking payback!"

Photo: Graham Hughes.

Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois is rushed from the stage by her security team as shooting began as she started to speak to supporters in Montreal on September 4, 2012.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

Photo: Rogerio Barbosa.

After defeating the Liberals, Marois, 63, who had been severely criticized for campaigning on identity and language themes, had some conciliatory words for Quebec's anglophone and native communities, speaking of their shared history. In a rare move for her, Marois spoke in English to say their rights would be respected.

Nevertheless, she struck a tougher stance towards the rest of Canada, hinting of the future struggle for separation on the horizon.

"As a nation, we want to take ourselves the decisions that affect us. We want a country. And we'll have it."

Marois, however, has said she will only hold a third referendum on independence if a win is assured, which is unlikely, given that barely one in three Quebecers currently support secession.

The party's victory came after allegations of corruption and months of nightly student protests over a planned tuition hike, with polls showing widespread dissatisfaction with nine years of Liberal rule.

The masked Quebec shooting occurred near an anniversary involving other men wearing masks.

At 4:30 a.m., on September 5, 1972, a dozen masked, armed Palestinians of the group calling itself Black September, with the assistance of German neo-Nazis, stormed the Olympic Village, taking Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. The end of the situation on September 6th resulted in the deaths of 6 Israeli coaches, 5 Israeli athletes, 5 members of Black September, and one West German police officer. Photo: Kurt Strumpf

Munich: 40 Years Ago

The Olympics' Munich massacre occurred 40 years ago, on September 5-6, 1972, from 4:30 a.m. through 12:04 a.m. local time. The target was the Israeli Olympic team.

The Munich massacre is an informal name for an attack that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria, in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, they demanded the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails, and the release of the founders (Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) of the German Red Army Faction, who were held in German prisons. Black September called the operation "Ikrit and Biram," after two Christian Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948.

The attackers, who were given logistical assistance by German neo-Nazis, killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer. Five of the eight members of Black September were killed by police officers during a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving assassins were captured, but later released by West Germany following the hijacking by Black September of a Lufthansa airliner. Israel responded to the killers' release with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, during which Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre were systematically tracked down and killed by Israeli intelligence and special forces. The Israeli operations killed one innocent in Norway and four passersby in Lebanon, with 18 others injured during the killing of Ali Hassan Salameh.

A rescue effort was attempted by the ill-prepared German authorities. It failed miserably.

Initial news reports, published all over the world, indicated that all the hostages were alive, and that all the attackers had been killed. Only later did a representative for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suggest that "initial reports were overly optimistic." Jim McKay, who was covering the Olympics that year for ABC, had taken on the job of reporting the events as Roone Arledge fed them into his earpiece. At 3:24 a.m., McKay received the official confirmation:

We just got the final word ... you know, when I was a kid, my father used to say "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized." Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone.

Sources as attributed above in embedded links, as well as mixes and various tidbits from Wikipedia.

Neo-Nazi Kills 5

On Wednesday, May 2, 2012, a neo-Nazi militia leader killed four people and himself in Gilbert, Maricopa County, Arizona. (In 1912, many Mormons who had fled the Mormon colonies in Mexico due to the actions of the forces of Pancho Villa settled in Gilbert. Villa's skull was stolen from his grave in 1926, according to some accounts and denials, by members of Skull and Bones.)

Jason "J.T." Ready (born February 17, 1973) was a former lance corporal Marine before being demoted and discharged from the Corps for bad behavior. He had previously made headlines when he started a militia -- named the US Border Guard -- to hunt illegal immigrants and drug gangs in the Arizona desert, FOX News Channel and the New York Post reported.
Ready had also put himself forward as a candidate for the position of Pinal County Sheriff.
Ready was politically active in anti-immigration causes. He also served as president of the Mesa Community College Republican Party Club and as a precinct committeeman for the Maricopa County Republicans. In 2006, he sought a seat on the city counsel for Mesa, Arizona. He put forth as his motto that "The Purity of the Aryan Race is the most precious resource Nature has to offer All of Humankind." Ready was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) in circa 2003 by politician Russell Pearce.
He attended and spoke at Tea Party movement events and brought his Border Guard organization to an Occupy Phoenix rally. Before his Border Guard activities, Ready had earlier led the white supremacist, neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.

The National Socialist Movement (also called NSM or NSM88) is a neo-Nazi party operating in the United States. The group was founded in 1974 by Robert Brannen, former member of the American Nazi Party before its decline. The group claims to be the largest and most active neo-Nazi organization in the United States. Its leader is Jeff Schoep. The party also sponsors a youth activism wing called the Viking Youth Corps.
The National Socialist Movement was responsible for leading the demonstration that sparked the 2005 Toledo Riots. In 2007 many members left to join the National Socialist Order of America, which was led by 2008 presidential candidate John Taylor Bowles.
In January 2009, the group sponsored a half-mile section of U.S. Highway 160 outside of Springfield, Missouri, as part of the Adopt-A-Highway Trash Cleanup program. The highway was later renamed the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway" by the state legislature.
On April 17, 2010, 70 members of the National Socialist Movement demonstrated against illegal immigration in front of the Los Angeles City Hall, drawing a counter protest of hundreds of anti-Nazi demonstrators.
In May 2011, the NSM was described by The New York Times as being "the largest supremacist group, with about 400 members in 32 states." 

On May 1, 2011, Jeff Hall, a leader of the California branch of the NSM, was killed by his ten-year-old son.
The NSM held a rally on September 3, 2011 in West Allis, Wisconsin. The rally was to protest the attacks at the Wisconsin State Fair on August 5, 2011 when a flash mob of young African-Americans targeted and beat Caucasians. Dan Devine, the mayor of West Allis, stated on September 2, 2011, "I believe I speak for the citizens when I say they are not welcome here."

Each state has members in smaller groups within areas known as "regions." As a whole, the NSM has National meetings as well as smaller Regional meetings.

Jason "J.T." Ready was identified by local authorities as being responsible for the lethal shooting of four people in Gilbert, Arizona, including an 18-month-old toddler.
Ambulances and dozens of police officers were dispatched to the home in Gilbert, southeast of Phoenix, at about 1:30 p.m local time. That was 90 minutes after local police had received a call about a domestic violence incident involving Ready and his girlfriend.
Found dead alongside Ready were his girlfriend Lisa Mederos, 47, her daughter Amber Mederos, 22, and Amber's boyfriend Jim Hoitt, 22, Fox News, New York Post, and other news outlets reported. Amber's daughter Lilly, aged two, was rushed to the hospital and multiple sources said she later died.
Another of Lisa Mederos' daughters, an unnamed 19-year-old, was interviewed by authorities. Reports said she either survived the spree or was the person who discovered the bloodbath.
Two handguns and a shotgun were found at the scene. A law enforcement official said media reports that Ready was wearing body armor were false.

A motive for the violence was not known.