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Lithuanian ultra-nationalists marched near execution sites of Jews with banners celebrating a pro-Nazi collaborationist who called for ethnic cleansing and a symbol popular with members of the U.S. alt-right movement.

Approximately 170 people attended Thursdays annual march in Kaunas, Lithuanias second city that is also known as Kovno, the website Defending History reported.

The main banner featured a picture of the collaborationist Kazys Skirpa modified to resemble Pepe the Frog a cartoon figure which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, hate groups in the United States have increasingly been using during the 2016 presidential elections.

The banner also included a quote attributed to the Pepe-like portrait of Skirpa, an envoy of Lithuanian nationalist to Nazi Germany, which read: Lithuania will contribute to new and better European order.

Skirpa, who has a street named for him in Kaunas, elevated anti-Semitism to a political level that could have encouraged a portion of Lithuanias residents to get involved in the Holocaust, the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania in 2015 asserted. But Skirpa proposed to solve the Jewish problem not by genocide but by the method of expulsion from Lithuania, the center said.

The procession passed near the Lietovus Garage, where in 1941 locals butchered dozens of Jews. Thousands more were killed in an around Kaunas by local collaborators of the Nazis and by German soldiers in the following months.

Kaunas is ground zero of the Lithuanian Holocaust, Dovid Katz, a U.S.-born scholar and the founder of Defending History, told JTA Friday. He condemned local authorites for allowing the march by folks who glorify the very Holocaust-collaborators, theoreticians and perpetrators who unleashed the genocide locally. Katz was one of five people who attended the march to protest it and document it.

Lithuania is the only country in the world that officially defines its domination by the former Soviet Union as a form of genocide. The name of the state-funded entity which wrote about Skirpa in 2005 refers both to the Holocaust and to the so-called Soviet occupation.

The Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, which until 2011did not mentionthe more than200,000 Lithuanian Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust, was established in 1992 to memorialize Lithuanians killed by the Nazi, but mostly Soviet, states.

Another placard seen at the march on Feb. 16, one of Lithuanias two independence days, featured a list of 33 names, supposedly of Jews who allegedly were involved in Soviet repression. Information on Jews and Vanagaite, the poster also read. In previous years, marchers also displayed Nazi swastikas.

Ruta Vanagaiteis a Lithuanian writer who last year co-authored with the Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesethal Center an influential book about the Holocaust in Lithuania. It triggered an acrimonious public debate about the longtime taboo issue of local complicity in the Holocaust.

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Lithuanian nationalists celebrate Holocaust-era quisling, Pepe the Frog near execution site - Cleveland Jewish News

It's not as innocent as it looks!

I'm one of those people who need to understand something new and interesting in its entirety. Until I do, I become obsessed with mining as much information as I can about whatever it may be.

So when I was recently found myself (somewhat obsessively) watching the news coverage of an art installation known as He Will Not Divide Us created by Shia LaBeouf, Nastja Sde Rnkk, and Luke Turner "as a show of resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism, guided by the spirit of each individual participant and the community" I found myself baffled as several protestors from the Right continuously and aggressively held pictures of a cartoon frog up to the camera lens.

The Protestors:

Me:

So, off to Google I went, where I then fell down a rabbit hole into the mystical realms of Wikipedia, Reddit, and the ever popular 4chan where I found myself waist-deep in the muddy trenches of hate surrounding "Pepe the Frog."

Let's start with the basics about Pepe:

The anthropomorphic frog was created in 2005 by Matt Furie for his comic blog on MySpace called Boy's Club. Pepe was shown urinating with pants down while saying, "Feels good man," which became his catchphrase and propelled him to quickly achieve popular meme status. By 2015, he even ranked number 6 "onDaily News and Analysis'list of the most important memes and was the most retweeted meme onTwitter."

Strangely, in 2016, the once innocent frog was co-opted by the alt-right with goal, according to Hillary Clinton's official campaign website, of turning him intoa "symbol associated withwhite supremacy."

I know. A green frog. I was confused, too. But stay with me here.

It seems that during Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Trump himself re-tweeted a Pepe drawing featuring his own likeness. Donald Trump, Jr. and political consultant Roger Stone then tweeted a parody of the movie poster forThe Expendables, calling it, instead, The Deplorables,in reference to Hillary Clinton's slip of the tongue during campaigning.

Each movie character was replaced with people from Trump's very alt-right side, including uber-controversial figure Milo Yiannopoulos and alt-right Twitter users didn't waste time grabbing the frog to use as their symbol.

In September of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)officially added Pepe to their hate symbol database.

According to their website:

"The Pepe the Frog character did not originally have racist or anti-Semitic connotations. Internet users appropriated the character and turned him into a meme, placing the frog in a variety of circumstances and saying many different things ...The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted ...In recent years, with the growth of the 'alt right'segment of the white supremacist movement, a segment that draws some of its support from some of the above-mentioned Internet sites, the number of 'alt right'Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election ...

However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes."

Now the ADL hasteamed up with creator Matt Furie tocreate and promote a campaign to take back Pepe #SavePepe.

Furieshared the following thoughts:

We are in uncharted territory right now ... But I have to take some responsibility for him because hes like my kid or something ... Its the worst-case scenario for any artist to lose control of their work and eventually have it labeled like a swastika or a burning cross ... I had to step up and speak on the cartoon frogs behalf.

It's amazing how quickly the internet evolves, but this is the world in which we now live.

So, if you happen to see the green frog, be aware that you may possibly be reading something from an alt-right supporter, and keep that in mind before you reply or re-tweet.

(Looking at you, Kellyanne Conway!)

Read more:
The Unexpectedly Horrifying Meaning Behind "Pepe The Frog" - YourTango

The great Meme War of 2016, which pit the white supremacist alt-right against a left that often didn't realize there was a war going on, turned the innocent everyman meme Pepe the Frog into a Nazi hate symbol.

Now, with fears of a Meme War II on the horizon, the two political sides are fighting to control the narrative of Trash Dove, the purple bird that's being spammed all over Facebook this week.

Syd Weiler

And what at least one person wants it to be is the Pepe of the American left, a general symbol that can help progressives appeal to memeculture the way Pepe helped PresidentDonald Trump.

Facebook via 4chan /pol/

"Why does the left suck at meme magic?" asked one poster. Soon,they'd made plans to turn Trash Dove into an alt-right meme instead of a leftist one and started Photoshopping the bird with swastikas and other Nazi insignia.

It's even got a new name, "Pek," which takes a little bit of explaining. Last year, 4chan discovered the Egyptian god Kek, whose name happens to be the same as common 4chan slang for laughter or amusement. And Kek had the head of a frog. So, naturally, Pepe the Frog was the reincarnation of Kek, who became the patron god of the pro-Trump meme campaign. When Trump was elected, many shitposters credited "meme magic" for his victory.

Now the Trash Dove is being hailed as a potential reincarnation of Thoth, the bird-headed god. Previously, 4chan made the Thoth connection with a different, totally racist meme, Moon Man, but never mind that for now. Pek is here.

4chan

Like a lot of things on 4chan, it's hard to tell if this whole thing is satirical. The most likely case is that, like the white supremacist tendencies on the site, it started out as a joke but eventually turned real.

Posters on liberal Facebook groups are alarmed by the bird spammost of which is totally innocent, carried out by mainstream Facebook "normies"and have decided that any use of the bird is low-key fascist propaganda.

Facebook

Is Trash Dove a Nazi? Screengrab via Facebook

Quincy Frey satirized this outrage in a Medium postthat mocked the overreaction and panic over the alleged Nazification of Trash Dovebut also included a whole bunch of Nazi bird Photoshops. These images are all over /pol/, tooand it almost doesn't matter whether they're sincere at this point.

As soon as the Trump memers discovered that liberals were concerned about possible alt-right cooption of Trash Dove, they took the opportunity to "trigger" the left with the bird.

Previously, 4chan considered Trash Dove to be a cancerous "normie" memethat is, nothing more than annoyingbut as soon as their political opponents decided the bird was "alt-right," it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy and /pol/'s idea of a good joke.

Last year, Miles Klee argued on the Daily Dot that Pepe the Frog is not inherently a Nazi or fascisthe's an every-meme that people will always tie to the most controversial, edgy developments of the moment, from the Holocaust to 9/11 to the Trump campaign. After all, you can put a swastika on anything.

As Frey's satirical piece makes clear, the same thing is happening to Trash Dove, and calling it a "low-key Nazi symbol" is probably an exaggeration. Although some trolls may add Nazi iconography (or Make America Great Hats) to it, that's just a tactic to annoy liberals. The original headbanging pigeon is still just an image that some people love and many others are irritated by.

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A meme war is raging over the future of Trash Dove - The Daily Dot

Media Matters for America (blog)

A Dangerous Troll Is Now Reporting From The White House Media Matters for America (blog) Hours later, Hoft tweeted a photo of himself and Wintrich standing behind the lectern in the White House press briefing room, displaying a hand signal associated with the racist Pepe meme. The tweet itself also included the hashtag "Pepe" and a frog ... White House grants press credentials to a pro-Trump blogThe Boston Globe (blog) all 2 news articles »

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A Dangerous Troll Is Now Reporting From The White House - Media Matters for America (blog)

Conway with White House strategist Steve Bannon in late January Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via Zuma

Late Monday, coming off a long evening of responding to Gen. Mike Flynn's resignation as national security adviser, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway found solace in a tweet from a user named Lib Hypocrisy:

Conway not only retweeted the message but also wrote, "Love you back," and wished her "Hapless Haters" a happy Valentine's Day.

But there was just one problem: Lib Hypocrisy is an explicit promoter of white nationalism and other bigotry. This is evident from the account's profile, which includes the hashtags "#WhiteIdentity" and "#Nationalist." It features a cartoon image connoting Pepe the Frog, the adopted mascot of the racist "alt-right" movement, and a shout-out to Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch politician who wants to shut down mosques.

These are some of Lib Hypocrisy's recent tweets and retweets:

Asked about her retweet of Lib Hypocisy by BuzzFeed on Tuesday, Conway implied that she hadn't been in control of her account at the time. She said she "obviously" had no idea who Lib Hypocrisy was, adding, "I denounce whoever it is." The tweets were soon deleted.

Conway's move continues a long-standing pattern of Trump and his inner circle engaging with white nationalists and then claiming ignorance when confronted about itas Mother Jones documented in multiple investigations since last summer. Other such "mistakes" include:

Those are just the cases in which Trump and his backers have backpedaled. There are many other similar instances in which they haven't even bothered to explain or apologize:

The most charitable interpretation of this behavior is ineptitude. Regardless, the result is clear: According to one study of 10,000 Twitter accounts that followed Trump, more than a third also followed the account of at least one prominent booster of white nationalisma movement now widely regarded as having a direct line into the Oval Office.

See more here:
Kellyanne Conway's White Nationalist Retweet Is No Mistake - Mother Jones