Analysis

EBay Canceled Dr. Seuss, But You Can Still Buy Works From Hitler, Marx And More

   DailyWire.com
BERLIN, GERMANY - DECEMBER 15: A 1941 edition of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") stands at the library of the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum) on December 15, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. The state of Bavaria took possession of the copyright to the book after World War II, though the copyright is due to expire and the book will enter the public domain on January 1, 2016. Germany will continue to heavily restrict publication of the book in Germany though it will have little control over publications abroad. Hitler wrote the book that is both an autobiography and also presents his political vision while he was a prisoner in Germany in he 1920s.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

After six Dr. Seuss books were unceremoniously canceled over revelations of their supposed racism, Big Tech giants rallied to further enable the most recent wave of digital book burnings. 

On Thursday, internet auction site eBay confirmed that they were “scouring” their open auctions for the canceled Dr. Seuss titles, “reviewing seller profiles, and removing the listings, which the site claims violate its ‘offensive materials policy.’”

According to eBay’s offensive materials policy, “Listings that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination aren’t allowed.”

“In order to promote trust and respect among our diverse community of members, eBay does not allow items that promote or glorify racial, sexual or religious intolerance, or promote organizations that hold such views,” the policy reads:

Listings that promote, perpetuate or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination, including on the grounds of race, ethnicity, color, religion, gender or sexual orientation, aren’t allowed. This includes but is not limited to the following:

  • Slurs or epithets of any kind
  • Slavery items, including reproductions, such as tags, shackles, documents, bills of sale, etc.
  • Items with racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise demeaning portrayals, for example through caricatures or other exaggerated features, including figurines, cartoons, housewares, historical advertisements, and golliwogs
  • Black Americana items that are discriminatory
  • Confederate battle flag and related items with its image
  • Historical Holocaust-related and Nazi-related items, including reproductions
  • Any item that is anti-Semitic or any item from after 1933 that bears a swastika
  • Media identified as Nazi propaganda
  • Listings that imply or promote support of, membership in, or funding of a terrorist organization

However, other titles and content which appear to violate this policy remain available on eBay, even while Dr. Seuss books continue to be wiped from online auctions.

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf, the 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, is still available for purchase on eBay. The book was later edited by Rudolf Hess, who became Deputy Führer to Hitler in 1933.

The book explains Hitler’s ideological processes, how he became anti-Semitic, and describes his political plans for what would become Nazi Germany. 

In addition to writing that the fictitious and fabricated anti-semitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was authentic, Hitler also wrote that “the nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated,” and that, “If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.”

Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

Ironically, the fabricated text referenced as authentic by Hitler is also still available on eBay. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a hoax which describes an apparent Jewish plan for world domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, and has remained popular among anti-Semites, despite having been shown to have been plagiarized from other sources soon afterwards. Henry Ford even funded the printing and distribution of 500,000 copies in the United States in the 1920s.

The text claims to contain the minutes of a meeting held by world Jewish leaders in the late 19th century, known as the “Elders of Zion,” and includes 24 “protocols” containing various themes, such as international conspiracy, arrogance and corruption, or the relationship between gentiles and Jews.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a classic in paranoid, racist literature. Taken by the gullible as the confidential minutes of a Jewish conclave convened in the last years of the nineteenth century, it has been heralded by anti-Semites as proof that Jews are plotting to take over the world. Since its contrivance around the turn of the century by the Russian Okhrana, or Czarist secret police, ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion’ has taken root in bigoted, frightened minds around the world.”

The Communist Manifesto

Available for comparatively bargain prices, The Communist Manifesto is also up for purchase on eBay. Written in 1848 under the original title, Manifesto of the Communist Party, German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels produced what is now seen as one of the world’s most impactful political documents, outlining an analysis of class warfare and the so-called conflicts of capitalism. It was commissioned by the Communist League and published just as the Revolutions of 1848 began.

The document is viewed as one of the primary and foundational documents underlying the spread of communism, with the ideology resulting in the deaths of millions of people under various communist regimes. Estimates put the total death toll at 100 million people over 100 years of communism.

Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 silent drama adopted from Thomas Dixon Jr.’s novel and play, The Clansman. The first 12-reel film ever made, and the longest movie at that time, is a partly fictitious account of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, and the relationship of two families — the Northern Stonemans and the Southern Camerons — during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

The movie is riddled with bigotry, with white actors in blackface portraying some African American characters as unintelligent or sexually dangerous, while presenting the Ku Klux Klan as the heroes required to preserve and protect white supremacist “American” principles. The Birth of a Nation was screened by President Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and many view the movie as responsible for the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, with their return occurring just a few months after the film’s release.

David Duke

Various works by David Duke, the American neo-Nazi and former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, are still available on eBay. Among his statements and written work are the promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial, with the Anti-Defamation League describing Duke as “perhaps America’s most well-known racist and anti-Semite.”  

Louis Farrakhan Speeches

Various speeches from Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, are also available on eBay, despite his demonstrated history of open and unapologetic anti-Semitism.

Examples include “I don’t care what they put on me. The government is my enemy, the powerful Jews are my enemy,” “Those who call themselves ‘Jews,” who are not really Jews, but are in fact Satan: You should learn to call them by their real name, ‘Satan;’ you are coming face-to-face with Satan, the Arch Deceiver, the enemy of God and the enemy of the Righteous,” or “When they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know how they do – call me an anti-Semite. Stop it, I’m anti-termite!”

Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  EBay Canceled Dr. Seuss, But You Can Still Buy Works From Hitler, Marx And More