Cycling UK Forum

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 4:28pm I understand the first part of the post,but the second part I'm struggling with,where does the Coop come into it?
Or am I missing something?

The stickers are the work of an anti-vaxx group calling themselves the White Rose, named after the World War II-era anti-fascist group led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, German students who were both executed by the Gestapo after being caught distributing anti-Nazi leaflets.

Holocaust references have become increasingly common among anti-vaxx agitators, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who compare themselves to the persecuted Jews who were forced to wear a yellow star. Vaccine mandates and passports, they argue, will bar them from businesses and public spaces, just as the Jews were under the Nazis — a comparison Jewish organizations and leaders have condemned as antisemitic.

The new White Rose group styles itself as anti-fascist and characterizes lockdown orders and vaccine mandates as a form of repression akin to that perpetrated by the Nazis. One of their core assertions is that governments and others administering the vaccine are violating the Nuremberg Code by experimenting on unconsenting citizens, a claim numerous outlets have fact-checked and declared false.

The group’s Telegram chat, its main form of communication, is quite active, posting dozens of times a day, and generating over a hundred comments from members across the day’s posts. Every day, new members join, including people who say they are students, parents and even nurses.


The White Rose doesn’t spread its message on familiar social media platforms where many conspiracy theories flourish. Instead, to join the group, you need to encounter a sticker out in the real world. Each has a QR code leading to the White Rose’s channel on Telegram, a messaging app that has become a haven for extremist activity. The White Rose channel has nearly 41,000 subscribers.

The Telegram group supplies templates for members to print their own stickers to distribute wherever they live or work, and to share anti-vaxx information and link other anti-vaxx groups. While the group seems to have started in the U.K., members now chime in from states across the U.S., South Africa, Australia, Canada, and numerous European countries. (Many of the stickers have been translated.)

Comments in the Telegram chat largely consist of group members helping each other figure out how to download templates and print the stickers, and posts sharing other anti-vaxx information, such as Youtube videos by the likes of Vladimir Zelenko. Occasionally, someone who disagrees with the White Rose joins the chat to castigate members for spreading misinformation, but, if anything, users seem encouraged when they see that they’ve provoked a reaction from “Karens” or “sheeples.”

Beyond comparing vaccines mandates to Nazi restrictions against Jews, the White Rose does not directly promote antisemitic ideas or disparage Jews; it even has a statement of respect for all races, religions and nationalities.

Yet the group can still easily serve as a gateway to more overtly antisemitic conspiracy theories. Some messages from the White Rose Telegram group contain antisemitic dog-whistles, such as references to a malicious cabal or to powerful globalists.

The anti-vaxx movement at large often tends toward antisemitism, sometimes through promoting alternative forms of medicine such as “Germanic New Medicine,” which claims mainstream medicine is part of a dangerous Jewish conspiracy to decimate non-Jews. Similarly, worries about malicious government control often lead to familiar antisemitic tropes about Jewish power.

Anti-vaxxers are also often associated with Christian fundamentalism and evangelicalism, and, on occasion, White Rose users have used the comment section in the Telegram group to proselytize Christianity and encourage others to accept Jesus..

The anti-vaxx White Rose is not the first group to co-opt that name; there are several White Rose groups on Facebook, but these seem more aligned with the original White Rose, advocating against government restrictions on immigration or for LGBTQ rights and representation; now they’re complaining that they are getting new member requests from people clearly involved in anti-vaxx advocacy. Outnumbered by the members of the new, anti-vaxx version, the legacy of the White Rose may be rewritten.

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 5:43pm Be very careful about scraping off anti-Vax, or other conspiracy-theorist, stickers. Some of them may have razor blades concealed under them. This was a ploy used by the National Front back in the 1970s, and it has reared its ugly head once again.

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

That wasn't me, I hope! I do recall starting off the long thread about Covid, early last year - including these words:

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

That wasn't me, I hope! I do recall starting off the long thread about Covid, early last year - including these words:

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

That wasn't me, I hope! I do recall starting off the long thread about Covid, early last year - including these words:

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

[XAP]Bob wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 8:59am

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

That wasn't me, I hope! I do recall starting off the long thread about Covid, early last year - including these words:

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

That was a somewhat reasonable position at the time - though without knowing how many people had been infected, and the relevant timescales, it was probably naive (which is really easy to say retrospectively).
I suggest that we all (well, except for de Pfeffel and his clowns) wish you had been correct.

reohn2 wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 8:56am No Pete it most definitely isn't.

[XAP]Bob wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 8:59am

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

I suggest that we all (well, except for de Pfeffel and his clowns) wish you had been correct.

[XAP]Bob wrote: ↑27 Sep 2021, 8:59am

661-Pete wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 11:30pm

reohn2 wrote: ↑26 Sep 2021, 9:28pm We do or did have a particular vociferous anti covid poster on the forum though I'm not sure if he's still swimming agianst the tide of reason or not.

That wasn't me, I hope! I do recall starting off the long thread about Covid, early last year - including these words:

A highly embarrassed 661-Pete wrote:Well, according to the media, we're set for Armageddon. I think it's being over-hyped, but correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, 41 deaths reported in China, fewer elsewhere in the world. That sounds like a typical seasonal flu epidemic to me...

I only wish I had been right! Alas, I wasn't!

That was a somewhat reasonable position at the time - though without knowing how many people had been infected, and the relevant timescales, it was probably naive (which is really easy to say retrospectively).
I suggest that we all (well, except for de Pfeffel and his clowns) wish you had been correct.