A return of Fascism in Europe?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > A return of Fascism in Europe?

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Obdicut posted:

To be fair, Jesse Owen's victory in the Olympics held in Nazi-controlled Germany was pretty rad, doubly so because it clowned (some) racists in the US, too.

I just don't think we can actually guarantee the safety of the athletes. Putin's government won't give a poo poo if they get beaten up or even killed.

On the other hand:

quote:

the party removed signs stating "Jews not wanted" and similar slogans from the city's main tourist attractions. In an attempt to "clean up" Berlin, the German Ministry of the Interior authorized the chief of police to arrest all Romani (Gypsies) and keep them in a "special camp," the Berlin-Marzahn concentration camp.

quote:

Academics cannot agree whether the IOC during this period was a willing collaborator or an organisation that favoured the aesthetics of fascist governments.[9] Although the IOC was insulated from the reality of Nazism, elements of Hitler's regime were in parallel alignment with the sporting ideologies of the IOC.

quote:

American sprinters Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman, the only two Jews on the U.S. Olympic team, were pulled from the 4 � 100 relay team on the day of the competition, leading to speculation that U.S. Olympic committee leader Avery Brundage did not want to add to the embarrassment of Hitler by having two Jews win gold medals.

Real victory for Liberalism there.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:39

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# ? May 27, 2024 00:09

KazigluBey: Oct 30, 2011; boner

Obdicut posted:

I just don't think we can actually guarantee the safety of the athletes. Putin's government won't give a poo poo if they get beaten up or even killed.

Specifically they've been warned to not bring attention to their sexual orientation while in Russia by Russia's Sports Minister or face the risk of arrest. As far as we know this is the hard line, that anything that runs afoul of the extremely broad Anti-Gay-Propaganda law will be cracked down on, which can be as little as a few lines spoken to a reporter's camera.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:44

SickZip: Jul 29, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

LP97S posted:

Cl�ment M�ric, a French anti-fascist activist who was brutally beaten to death for using words.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/482897/20130625/paris-neo-nazi-video-clement-meric-killed.htm

Clement Meric was a bash the fash idiot who been stalking Morillo, they found pictures and information about him in Merics appartment, and then proceeded to get killed with a single defensive punch when he tried to attack him.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:45

KazigluBey: Oct 30, 2011; boner

SickZip posted:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/482897/20130625/paris-neo-nazi-video-clement-meric-killed.htm

Clement Meric was a bash the fash idiot who been stalking Morillo, they found pictures and information about him in Merics appartment, and then proceeded to get killed with a single defensive punch when he tried to attack him.

Yeah, what a loving idiot that kid was, getting killed like that. :psyduck:

Nothing in your linked article backs up what you are saying about Meric. But whatever, clearly he had it coming.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:47

SickZip: Jul 29, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

KazigluBey posted:

Yeah, what a loving idiot that kid was, getting killed like that.

Nothing in your linked article backs up what you are saying about Meric. But whatever, clearly he had it coming.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130625-french-leftist-clement-meric-skinhead-paris

quote:

And according to weekly news magazine Le Point, investigators who confiscated computers from �Antifa� militants associated with M�ric found photos of Morillo and his girlfriend Katia, annotated with the comment: �We need to identify these people.�

quote:

M�ric and his group who waited outside the sale, and it was he who threw the first punch.

Yeah, he was an idiot. Also, could not take a punch.

SickZip fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:51

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

SickZip posted:

http://www.france24.com/en/20130625-french-leftist-clement-meric-skinhead-paris

The story is kindof really funny and he was absolutely an idiot.

Yeah, hilarious.

So, to contribute something useful, what is your view on the rise in fascism in Europe, particularly Russian policies towards homosexuals and minorities, and groups like Golden Dawn?

# ? Aug 11, 2013 16:57

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

KazigluBey posted:

Specifically they've been warned to not bring attention to their sexual orientation while in Russia by Russia's Sports Minister or face the risk of arrest. As far as we know this is the hard line, that anything that runs afoul of the extremely broad Anti-Gay-Propaganda law will be cracked down on, which can be as little as a few lines spoken to a reporter's camera.

I suppose if the Russians actually do follow through and arrest a bunch of gay athletes during the Olympics it might make people actually pay attention to the problem, but otherwise not boycotting the Olympics won't accomplish anything apart from proving further that David Cameron is a piece of poo poo.

Speaking of which, Britain is an important lesson about the power that fringe groups can hold on national politics: UKIP and the BNP got remotely popular and so the Tories are able to do things like run vans around the country literally telling foreigners to "go home" while still portraying themselves as reasonable compared to the radical right.

Incidentally, I saw an interview on the subject (can t find it now, I'm on my phone) where the government shill explained the van program wasn't like the BNP because "it targeted illegal immigrants of all races, whatever their skin color." Yep.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:04

SickZip: Jul 29, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Pesmerga posted:

Yeah, hilarious.

It is. Also a valuable lesson that if your going to take it to the streets and resort to violence, you should probably not be made of fine china.

quote:

So, to contribute something useful, what is your view on the rise in fascism in Europe, particularly Russian policies towards homosexuals and minorities, and groups like Golden Dawn?

I thinks it's highly overplayed. Fascism is basically the whipping boy of modern liberal society and a joke. A bunch of negative traits get called fascist to otherize them and pretend they aren't mainstream, innate, and preexisting to fascism. A bunch of rightwing parties, some palatable and some not, get labeled it to discredit them. It's all alot of sound and fury and antifa activists are wasting their time on a bunch of lowlife scum who will get picked up by the police the moment they do something out of line. Meanwhile the people actually harming their country, and the groups the antifa's are ostensibly protecting, are not the one's getting bashed.

edit: Look at the story below, tell me that any and all of the people responsible aren't completely immune from any antifascist "bash the fash" group.

SickZip fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:10

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

crowfeathers posted:

I suppose if the Russians actually do follow through and arrest a bunch of gay athletes during the Olympics it might make people actually pay attention to the problem, but otherwise not boycotting the Olympics won't accomplish anything apart from proving further that David Cameron is a piece of poo poo.

Speaking of which, Britain is an important lesson about the power that fringe groups can hold on national politics: UKIP and the BNP got remotely popular and so the Tories are able to do things like run vans around the country literally telling foreigners to "go home" while still portraying themselves as reasonable compared to the radical right.

Incidentally, I saw an interview on the subject (can t find it now, I'm on my phone) where the government shill explained the van program wasn't like the BNP because "it targeted illegal immigrants of all races, whatever their skin color." Yep.

Just like the 'completely random, but somehow only stopping black and asian people, but definitely not racist' stops in London.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/03/immigration-spotchecks-racist-home-office

The Guardian posted:

Immigration spot checks not racist, says Home Office

The Home Office has denied that officials broke the law by carrying out "racist" spot checks on suspected illegal immigrants on the basis of their skin colour. The denial by immigration minister Mark Harper came after the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched an investigation into the immigration checks for possible discrimination, and anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence also questioned the apparent focus on non-white people in operations being carried out in and around train stations.

Harper said the choice of London tube stations for spot checks was driven by intelligence, and that individuals were targeted on the basis of their behaviour rather than their physical appearance. The UK Borders Agency's enforcement instructions and guidance reveal that immigration officers have broad discretion to carry out spot checks, with behaviour deemed to be suspicious including: hanging back from a station barrier, avoiding eye contact, a sudden change in walking direction or pace, and seeking to avoid confrontation with someone perceived to be a threat.

The minister revealed that no details of the ethnicity of those questioned were recorded, with officers noting only the nationality, name and date of birth of those they spoke to. Some 17 people were arrested on suspicion of immigration offences at two tube stations where operations were carried out. Data on the numbers stopped for questioning will be released in due course, he added.

"We are not carrying out random checks of people in the street and asking people to show their papers," he told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme. "That's absolutely not what we are doing. We wouldn't have the lawful authority to do that.

"The operations carried out at two tube stations were based on specific intelligence about concerns that we had about those particular locations and about the times when we conducted the operations. We weren't stopping people based on their race or their ethnicity. We were only stopping people and questioning them where we had a reasonable suspicion that they were an immigration offender."

Harper said the operations were targetting people who "behaved in a very suspicious way". This appears to be a reference to section 31.19.5: basis to stop individuals, which states a person could be justifiably targeted if they seek to avoid immigration officers at a train or tube station as this could be classied as "having an adverse reaction to an immigration presence".

Labour's shadow immigration minister, Chris Bryant, told the Today programme that the recent immigration crackdown had led to a climate of moral panic. He has written to the home secretary, Theresa May, demanding details of the number and ethnic background of people stopped for questioning.

"If it feels as if what is basically happening is that they are going to some parts of the country and stopping every person with a black face, then that is totally unacceptable," he said.

"What we really need from Theresa May � and I think this is a matter of urgency now, because we have had a sort of moral panic that's been created by all of this over the last 10 days and I have a hateful fear that this is what the general election is going to be like � is precise numbers of where these stops and searches were being done, what the percentage was of people who were arrested."

Almost 140 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested on Thursday, in raids that the Home Office controversially publicised on Twitter and condemned by users of the microblooging site as "dystopian" and likened to "UK Hunger Games".

The EHRC, which is responsible for policing the Equalities Act, to which all public bodies are bound, is also investigating the controversial anti-immigration advertising campaign targeting racially mixed areas of London. The government campaign has used mobile billboards warning illegal immigrants to "go home or face arrest".

An EHRC spokesman said on Friday: "The commission is writing to the Home Office about these reported operations, confirming that it will be examining the powers used and the justification for them, in order to assess whether unlawful discrimination took place.

"The letter will also ask questions about the extent to which the Home Office complied with its public sector equality duty when planning the recent advertising campaign targeted at illegal migration."

The UK's gradualist approach to these issues in some respects is more worrying than the outright hatred demonstrated by groups like Golden Dawn.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:11

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

SickZip posted:

It's all alot of sound and fury and antifa activists are wasting their time on a bunch of lowlife scum who will get picked up by the police the moment they do something out of line.

I am not sure that an immigrant in Greece today would agree with this assessment of the Golden Dawn.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:13

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

SickZip posted:

It is. Also a valuable lesson that if your going to take it to the streets and resort to violence, you should probably not be made of fine china.

I thinks it's highly overplayed. Fascism is basically the whipping boy of modern liberal society and a joke. A bunch of negative traits get called fascist to otherize them and pretend they aren't mainstream, innate, and preexisting to fascism. A bunch of rightwing parties, some palatable and some not, get labeled it to discredit them. It's all alot of sound and fury and antifa activists are wasting their time on a bunch of lowlife scum who will get picked up by the police the moment they do something out of line. Meanwhile the people actually harming their country, and the groups the antifa's are ostensibly protecting, are not the one's getting bashed.

So, did you actually read any of the stories posted in this thread? When what is happening in Russia is being openly supported by authorities including the police, how exactly is this 'doing something when they do something out of line'? What about Jobbik, a party that has advertising campaigns like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1TV10CNz90

How the gently caress is the rise of parties that advocate ethnic cleansing to preserve the pure blood of that country not fascism? Or are these just a few negative traits that people have that we're just using to otherize them? Here's a hint: there is otherization going on, without a doubt. Except it's the fascists that are doing it.

Edit: so, if your problem is with 'modern liberal society', would you care to give details on what sort of society you'd prefer?

Pesmerga fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:15

Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

SickZip posted:

It's all alot of sound and fury and antifa activists are wasting their time on a bunch of lowlife scum who will get picked up by the police the moment they do something out of line. fash" group.

Lol, look at this guy thinking that the police and Fascist groups don't significant overlap.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23022634

quote:

A former undercover police officer says he was ordered to infiltrate the Stephen Lawrence campaign in 1993, the Guardian has reported.

Peter Francis told the newspaper and Channel 4's Dispatches programme he posed as an anti-racism campaigner in a hunt for "disinformation" to use against those criticising the police.

The aim was to smear the dead teenager's family, he said.

Scotland Yard refused to confirm or deny the account.

But a spokesman said the Metropolitan Police shared the Lawrence family's concerns.

Stephen's mother Doreen said the revelation had topped everything she had heard since her son's murder, and she is shocked and angry.
Riot fears

Mr Francis served in the Met's now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad, which specialised in gathering intelligence on political activists.

In 1993 he says he was ordered to prepare a cover story which would portray him as an anarchist, but when Stephen was murdered and the Lawrence family began a high-profile campaign for justice, the plan changed. He was to pose as an anti-racism campaigner.

He says the Metropolitan Police were concerned the reaction to the Lawrence murder might result in rioting similar to that following the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.

He joined the group Youth Against Racism in Europe which rallied around the Lawrence family as they tried to push for Stephen's killers to be found after a botched police investigation.

He told the Guardian and Dispatches his senior officers put him under pressure for "any intelligence that could have smeared the campaign. Along the lines of: the family were political activists, someone in the family was involved in demonstrations, drug dealers, anything. What they would have done with the intelligence, I can't call it, but that was our remit."

At one point, Mr Francis says he was asked to go through a list of visitors to the Lawrence house to provide information about those in contact with the family.

He also claims to have told Scotland Yard that Stephen's friend, Duwayne Brooks, had been involved in violence during a demonstration against the BNP in Welling.

Mr Brooks was traumatised by his experience of watching Stephen die but following Mr Francis's disclosure, police searched CCTV pictures of the protest and he was arrested. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge.
'Really angry'

Mr Francis, who used the name Peter Black while under cover, says the aim of his operation was to ensure that the public "did not have as much sympathy for the Stephen Lawrence campaign" and to persuade "the media to start maybe tarring the campaign".

Asked what information he produced, he said: "I wasn't successful, no SDS officer was successful, in finding anything really concrete. It was really just a bit of hearsay, tittle-tattle."

Doreen Lawrence said she was shocked and angry at the disclosure.

"It just makes me really, really angry," she said, "that all of this has been going on and all the time trying to undermine us as a family.

"Somebody sitting somewhere, calculating what, you know, what they'd be doing to look at and infiltrate, our family. It's like, we're treated as if to say we're not human beings.

"We weren't linked to any political groups, you know, we weren't linked to any of them so at the time.

"Nothing can justify the whole thing about trying to discredit the family and people round us."

The Metropolitan Police would not confirm or deny the account given by Mr Francis, but admitted "the claims in relation to Stephen Lawrence's family will bring particular upset to them and we share their concerns".

An independent investigation into a number of allegations against former under cover police officers, codenamed Operation Herne is under way.

In a statement the Met said: "Any actions by officers working on or with the Special Demonstration Squad need to be understood by Operation Herne in terms of the leadership, supervision, support, training, legal framework, tasking and reporting mechanisms that were in place at the time."

But the force gave the same response to allegations that another undercover officer had helped write the leaflets at the centre of the McLibel trial in the mid 1980s.

The statement said: "At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth."
'Morally reprehensible'

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "These are shocking and appalling allegations and we need to know the full truth of what happened.

"An investigation is currently under way into the actions of undercover police officers within the Met.

"However, given the significance of the Lawrence case, and the unresolved concerns about corruption too, the Home Secretary should seek a faster investigation into these specific allegations," she said.

Mr Francis told the Guardian he had come forward because of the "morally reprehensible" way in which under cover officers had sometimes worked.

He is particularly angry his role was never discussed by the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson. He claims senior officers deliberately chose to withhold the information from the inquiry.

Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, was killed as he waited for a bus in April 1993.

More than 18 years later, in January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder by an Old Bailey jury after a review of the forensic evidence.

Dobson and Norris had first been arrested in connection with the murder just weeks after it happened, but the case against them collapsed.

In 1999, an inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson - a retired High Court judge - into the killing and its aftermath published a report accusing the police of institutional racism.

Criticising the police, Sir William said he was "astonished by the lack of direction and organisation during the vital hours after the murder".

The Lawrences had been patronised, treated with "insensitivity and lack of sympathy", and kept in the dark about the investigation, he added.

Just the police in Britain trying to find dirt on a young man murdered by white supremacists by spying on the grieving family. Nothing sinister here.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:44

Crowsbeak: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth; Lipstick Apathy

HEGEL CURES THESES posted:

The Three Faces of Fascism discusses France in the 1890s, but Nolte's conclusion--that Fascism was a reaction to Marxism and in part models its violence on what it believed it saw in Communism--is not only controversial, when crudely expressed Nolte ends up kind of blaming Nazi war crimes on Stalinism. Also, Nolte's role in the historian-fight made him look like a massive douche, but that was 20 years later.

Neither Right Nor Left is also about France, and I remember it being very good, but that was years ago, so I might be mistaken.

Thankyou for these links, I'll see if the school I'm going to has these. I like to as a hobby study the development of European politics. Also I would say to not meet fascists marches with marches of your own and to assume that everything will go over is just idiotic. They are a clear and present threat to any order that a liberal of any stripe would desire. They don't just say hey want to get rid of Muslims/brown skinned people to let off steam. They really mean it. They mean to ethnically cleanse their societies of anyone they consider against their self definition of a cultural norm.

Also the the leftist in the thread? While I am basically a Corporatist in the classical sense of the word I would argue that if the left wants to combat the fascists they should take a few pages out of their books. For one organize soup kitchens for anyone in need of help, be they the most racist family out. Perhaps develop financial support programs as well, whi;e doing this offer your alternative to those you help, make them see the world you offer. Don't just attack the fascists but offer an alternative to their hate.

Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 17:46

OwlBot 2000: Jun 1, 2009

Crowsbeak posted:

if the left wants to combat the fascists they should take a few pages out of their books. For one organize soup kitchens for anyone in need of help, be they the most racist family out. Perhaps develop financial support programs as well, whi;e doing this offer your alternative to those you help, make them see the world you offer. Don't just attack the fascists but offer an alternative to their hate.

Leftists have been doing it forever, if anything that's where fascists got the idea.

Wikipedia posted:

In January, 1969, the Free Breakfast for School Children Program was initiated at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland by the Black Panther Party. The Panthers would cook and serve food to the poor inner city youth of the area. Initially run out of a St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, the Program became so popular that by the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school.

In the mid 1960s, Black Panther Party chapters developed a series of social programs to provide needed services to black and poor people. Their intent was to promote "a model for an alternative, more humane social scheme." These programs, of which there came to be more than 60, were eventually referred to as Survival Programs, and were operated by Party members under the slogan "survival pending revolution."

One such program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, which began in January 1969 at one small Catholic church in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, and spread to many cities in America where there were Party chapters. Thousands of poor and hungry children were fed free breakfasts every day by the Party under this program. The Panthers believed that "Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs." The magnitude and powerful impact of this program was such that the federal government adopted a similar program for public schools across the country. The FBI assailed the free breakfast program as nothing more than a propaganda tool used by the Party to carry out its communist agenda. More insidiously, the FBI denounced the Party itself as a group of communist outlaws bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

In Chicago, the leader of the Panthers local, Fred Hampton, led five different breakfast programs on the West Side, helped create a free medical center, and initiated a door to door program of health services which test for sickle cell anemia, and encourage blood drives for the Cook County Hospital. The Chicago party also reached out to local gangs to clean up their acts, get them away from crime and bring them into the class war. The Party's efforts met wide success, and Hampton's audiences and organized contingent grew by the day

# ? Aug 11, 2013 18:27

Chamale: Jul 11, 2010; I'm helping!

Pope Guilty posted:

Only if your understanding of fascism is so thoroughly and uselessly facile that you think the definition of "fascism" is "any political organization which uses violence".

Go ahead and try to define fascism in a way that's coherent enough that it can't be used as an excuse to crush legitimate, although unpopular political opinions. I would like to see a useful definition, but it would be too easy to corrupt the political process by condoning violence against any one ideology.

d3c0y2 posted:

What's rather damning is that typo is so much a product of the liberal episteme that he cannot even recognize how it is limitting his ability to comprehend the subject matter here. When he says that he could replace any mention of fascist here with leninism, he thinks he is proving some kind of point because to him leninism and fascism are equally bad - anything that is an outsider to the current liberal episteme is wrong, and it's wrongness is based on exclusion rather than it's parts. Leninism and Fascism are equally bad, and therefore interchangable, because they are not liberalism. The differences between them are unimportant to typo, because he genuinely believes that any difference is immaterial - to him the defining point of fascism and any other non-liberal ideology is the fact that it is non-liberal, regardless of their respective internal characteristics.

Meanwhile I could argue that your argument stems from the revolutionary's eternal optimism that if violence can strip accountability away from the political process, this time it won't have horrific results. Unaccountable political parties in the First World granted power to suppress political rivals always do so, whether it's through vote suppression or outright acts of violence. I'm all in favour of violence against fascists like the Golden Dawn, but no group should start crushing nascent law-abiding political movements.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 19:44

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Chamale posted:

Go ahead and try to define fascism in a way that's coherent enough that it can't be used as an excuse to crush legitimate, although unpopular political opinions. I would like to see a useful definition, but it would be too easy to corrupt the political process by condoning violence against any one ideology.

How about advocates for ethnic or racial purity as a governmental policy?

# ? Aug 11, 2013 19:54

Chamale: Jul 11, 2010; I'm helping!

Pesmerga posted:

How about advocates for ethnic or racial purity as a governmental policy?

Have fun barring 14% of Americans from voting.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 19:57

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

Orange Devil posted:

Please cite Stalinist industrialized mass-murder.

The Holodomor? I mean, if you literally look at just the loving wikipedia article it looks pretty much like "industrialized mass-murder" to me. It's just a different industry and state apparatus, but plenty modern.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 19:58

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Chamale posted:

Have fun barring 14% of Americans from voting.

Who said anything about banning people from voting? I'd ensure that a party that advocated legislation banning inter-racial marriage was banned though.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:00

Chamale: Jul 11, 2010; I'm helping!

Pesmerga posted:

Who said anything about banning people from voting? I'd ensure that a party that advocated legislation banning inter-racial marriage was banned though.

Frankly I think a party that advocates banning inter-racial marriage has a right to exist despite its despicable viewpoints, and this comes down to the old problem of granting too much power to bar groups from politics.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:02

KazigluBey: Oct 30, 2011; boner

All Slopes Are Slippery.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:03

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Chamale posted:

Frankly I think a party that advocates banning inter-racial marriage has a right to exist despite its despicable viewpoints, and this comes down to the old problem of granting too much power to bar groups from politics.

Thus perpetuating and legitimizing the views of those who would consider violence against inter-racial couples (or hey, lets look at Russia) actively attacking, torturing and murdering homosexual couples with the complicity of the state.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:03

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Pesmerga posted:

Who said anything about banning people from voting? I'd ensure that a party that advocated legislation banning inter-racial marriage was banned though.

What would stop an informal coalition/caucus to exist via 'independent' elected representatives/senators/MPs coalescing together on several issues (such as miscegenation, for example) to push through such legislation through the legislature? You can ban parties/official organizations that represent such beliefs, but you're not eliminating the beliefs themselves unless you literally make it a thoughtcrime to even believe in stuff like miscegenation.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:08

Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

Chamale posted:

Frankly I think a party that advocates banning inter-racial marriage has a right to exist despite its despicable viewpoints, and this comes down to the old problem of granting too much power to bar groups from politics.

That won't have horrible real life consequences for interracial marriages.

Because as we all know, fascists are well known for sticking to the democratic process and not trying to intimidate and threaten those who they target with the intent to murder them once they get enough power.

Fuckin Liberals in this thread bending over backwards to try and include the "Kill everyone who isn't white" parties.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:10

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

Pesmerga posted:

Thus perpetuating and legitimizing the views of those who would consider violence against inter-racial couples (or hey, lets look at Russia) actively attacking, torturing and murdering homosexual couples with the complicity of the state.

So which are we talking about here, the US or Russia? Because that sort of thing has been going down in the US for quite some time, and no parties were banned to achieve that effect.

As far as Russia goes, are you a Russian oligarch? Is anyone else in this thread? Because it's pretty loving silly to keep talking about what we're "allowing" the fascists in Russia to do, if nobody is. People keep posting about dis-"allowing" the actions of foreign governments but no actual action has been suggested besides boycotting the 2014 Olympics (which I personally think might be a good idea, but realistically isn't going to actually force the Russian government to do anything, just embarrass them a bit).

Gonzo McFee posted:

That won't have horrible real life consequences for interracial marriages.

You do realize that anti-miscegenation laws started getting repealed in the '40s in the US, and were invalidated across the board in the 1960s by the Supreme Court, right? That KKK membership has been dropping since before WWII?

Basically, none of this poo poo was invented yesterday so you should probably stop arguing as if it was.

No bid COVID fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:11

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

ThirdPartyView posted:

What would stop an informal coalition/caucus to exist via 'independent' elected representatives/senators/MPs coalescing together on several issues (such as miscegenation, for example) to push through such legislation through the legislature? You can ban parties/official organizations that represent such beliefs, but you're not eliminating the beliefs themselves unless you literally make it a thoughtcrime to even believe in stuff like miscegenation.

You can never eradicate ideas, eugenics among them. But when a political representative, whether part of a coalition or otherwise starts advocating for it as a policy, checks and balances should be in place to immediately remove that person from a political position.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:11

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Unluckyimmortal posted:

So which are we talking about here, the US or Russia? Because that sort of thing has been going down in the US for quite some time, and no parties were banned to achieve that effect.

As far as Russia goes, are you a Russian oligarch? Is anyone else in this thread? Because it's pretty loving silly to keep talking about what we're "allowing" the fascists in Russia to do, if nobody is. People keep posting about dis-"allowing" the actions of foreign governments but no actual action has been suggested besides boycotting the 2014 Olympics (which I personally think might be a good idea, but realistically isn't going to actually force the Russian government to do anything, just embarrass them a bit).

Name one state that's taken any official action over Russia's recent laws. They give more of a poo poo about Snowden being there than they do about the torture and execution of homosexuals or other 'undesirables'.

Besides, with the voting system currently in place in the US, unless the Republicans decide to go all-in fascist, it's pretty unlikely that a party with that ability will get into power.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:12

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Pesmerga posted:

You can never eradicate ideas, eugenics among them. But when a political representative, whether part of a coalition or otherwise starts advocating for it as a policy, checks and balances should be in place to immediately remove that person from a political position.

What checks and balances? If you're not going to advocate making it illegal to believe in things such as miscegenation, what possible recourse is there if the rep/senator/MP is doing what they are legally entitled to do as an elected official?

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:16

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

ThirdPartyView posted:

What checks and balances? If you're not going to advocate making it illegal to believe in things such as miscegenation, what possible recourse is there if the rep/senator/MP is doing what they are legally entitled to do as an elected official?

The fact that those people are finding it harder and harder to get elected each year? Obviously, this response is from a US perspective, but you guys were just talking about how if we don't start banning political parties in the US, the fascists will win, right?

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:18

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Unluckyimmortal posted:

The fact that those people are finding it harder and harder to get elected each year?

What's stopping a guy who would have ran as a member of, say, the American Nazi Party (which ostensibly would be banned from the election process) from running as a member of the GOP (assuming it wasn't banned) and using the Southern Strategy to dogwhistle the poo poo out stuff like miscegenation, homophobia, etc? I mean, I don't really see how the chances are reduced for someone like Steve King being (re)elected if he's allowed to promote his policies, given that he'd (more than likely) still get funding from big interests to help in his campaigns even if the GOP itself was banned somehow, for example.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:22

Gonzo McFee: Jun 19, 2010

Unluckyimmortal posted:

Basically, none of this poo poo was invented yesterday so you should probably stop arguing as if it was.

14%.

More than one in ten people in America believe that interracial marriage is morally wrong today. And that's just the people who don't feel socially awkward having opinions from the 19th century.

Racism/fascism isn't something that's left America or the rest of the world. It's just been driven underground. Letting it out into the air now for the sake of some liberal bullshit is a terrible idea.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:27

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Except that the 14% that believes in anti-miscegenation legislation will vote based on those beliefs regardless if you ban Nazi, KKK, etc. parties or not, so short of disenfranchising them through some sort of thoughtcrime mechanism, they're still going to impact the local (and therefore national) scene regardless of how you try to affect the window dressing that are formal parties and organizations.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:33

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

ThirdPartyView posted:

What's stopping a guy who would have ran as a member of, say, the American Nazi Party (which ostensibly would be banned from the election process) from running as a member of the GOP (assuming it wasn't banned) and using the Southern Strategy to dogwhistle the poo poo out stuff like miscegenation, homophobia, etc? I mean, I don't really see how the chances are reduced for someone like Steve King being (re)elected if he's allowed to promote his policies, given that he'd (more than likely) still get funding from big interests to help in his campaigns even if the GOP itself was banned somehow, for example.

Ultimately? Nothing, at least in any particular instance. There are plenty of despicable politicians and constituencies in this country, but the long-run demographics seem to run against them and the direction over the past 50 years has been fairly consistently towards racial equality and minority rights.

I just find it ridiculous that hate speech restrictions in the US (and now banning political parties in the US) keeps getting brought up in thread after thread with the explanation that "if you don't ban it, X bad thing will happen" while [X bad thing] has generally been getting better for about a century. It reeks of paternalism and naivete, and I actually find the idea a little alarming when you consider that we almost elected Sarah Palin and had a best-selling book arguing that "liberals are the real fascists" just a few years ago.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:34

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Omi-Polari posted:

Both communism and fascism propose totalising solutions to the ills of liberal society, and when implemented over the 20th century in their Nazi and Stalinist forms, provided the rationale for industrialized mass murder.

I'll explain this again in painstaking detail since you read but did not comprehend.

This isn't about enabling violence. All forms of government do that by virtue of consolidating power somewhere, anywhere. This is about requiring violence in order to be what they are. Fascism cannot exist independent of violence.

This is why fascism is fundamentally different from everyone else.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:35

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

Gonzo McFee posted:

14%.

More than one in ten people in America believe that interracial marriage is morally wrong today. And that's just the people who don't feel socially awkward having opinions from the 19th century.

Racism/fascism isn't something that's left America or the rest of the world. It's just been driven underground. Letting it out into the air now for the sake of some liberal bullshit is a terrible idea.

Dude, it's been "in the air" the whole loving time.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:35

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Unluckyimmortal posted:

Ultimately? Nothing, at least in any particular instance. There are plenty of despicable politicians and constituencies in this country, but the long-run demographics seem to run against them and the direction over the past 50 years has been fairly consistently towards racial equality and minority rights.

So long as you have voter ID laws, striking down of protections such as the VRA and other mechanisms to suppress the vote (particularly on a state and local level in order to enable favorable gerrymandering in order to maintain power on a state and federal level in the future), call me skeptical.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:40

No bid COVID: Jul 22, 2007

ThirdPartyView posted:

So long as you have voter ID laws, striking down of protections such as the VRA and other mechanisms to suppress the vote (particularly on a state and local level in order to enable favorable gerrymandering in order to maintain power on a state and federal level in the future), call me skeptical.

I agree that voter ID laws are really problematic. On the other hand, many of those voter ID laws and voting restrictions are being challenged in a lot of different ways.

I'm less worried about gerrymandering, because it simultaneously empowers a party to further ghettoize itself into a smaller number of districts and ensures that when a wave election does come around, it's even more of a disaster. When many Rep. representatives are only hanging onto their seats by a 5% margin as of 2012, those districts are very prone to flipping suddenly and in the same election.

Both voting restrictions and gerrymandering are Bad Things, but I still think that setting up an apparatus to ban people from voting (or imprison them) based on their political beliefs and ban parties based on the current ruling party's definition of "fascist" are far, far worse ideas.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:49

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

Unluckyimmortal posted:

Both voting restrictions and gerrymandering are Bad Things, but I still think that setting up an apparatus to ban people from voting (or imprison them) based on their political beliefs and ban parties based on the current ruling party's definition of "fascist" are far, far worse ideas.

I'm not advocating disenfranchisement, I'm merely pointing out that it's the only way to actually eliminate fascist sentiment from the political process and that bans of political parties and organizations is merely window dressing since the voters with those beliefs are going to vote based on them regardless of whether or not a formal organization exists. In short, there's no realistic way you're ever eliminating fascist sentiment in the political process given its electoral nature (short of some utopian world where all problems have disappeared and there is no situation that allows fascist beliefs to fester).

Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Aug 11, 2013

# ? Aug 11, 2013 20:56

some plague rats: Jun 5, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Every time we talk about opposing fascism the same tedious liberal shits start wittering about how using violence against fascists legitimises them, how it fuels their persecution complexes, how you're never going to win hearts and minds with violence, etc. which makes absolutely no sense to me. Personal experience and all, but when I was heavily involved in the antifa, the idea of direct action wasn't to make some kind of point about power dynamics or inferiority in society, it was to demonstrate without shadow of a doubt that carrying on fascist poo poo was not a safe thing to do. That spraypainting swastikas on the mosque or starting poo poo in the kebab shop might just get you a kicking. That you shouldn't start railing in the pub about the fuckin' muzzies or the thievin' paki cunts or whatever because someone in there with you might just jump you once you left. Basically, to let shitheads believe what they like and never act on it because changing minds is loving hard but changing behaviour is something we can do.

edit: Not trying to sound all internet tough guy here, this is just a subject that stays close to your heart when your family's Lebanese

# ? Aug 11, 2013 21:19

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# ? May 27, 2024 00:09

E-Tank: Aug 4, 2011

HEGEL CURES THESES posted:

What? No. Fascism's a belief system with a distinct set of elements. There are books on it and everything.

I'm sorry, I'm clearly not as knowledgeable on the subject as I should be. I'm just gonna bow out here and resume lurking, hopefully I'll learn a thing or two. Please forgive me for muddying up the discussion.

# ? Aug 11, 2013 21:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > A return of Fascism in Europe?

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