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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:yeah, i still feel like Those Dirty Gubbamint Men aren't out to get me, i'm optimistic like that and don't wear a tinfoil hat or anything Suggesting that American law enforcement disproportionately targets minorities with lethal force isn't exactly controversial and sure as poo poo isn't Alex Jones levels of conspiracist paranoia either. Your "optimism" might be the product of some kind of privilege others aren't lucky enough to enjoy.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:31
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Wild Horses posted:Don't know the news but how often does that happen, really. gee, I don't know, definitely not at Trump's rallies, nope Wild Horses posted:Far likelier is that regular voters are lumped together with nazis and beaten up if the left "rises" in a tide of antifa action Wow, that's a totally realistic scenario and not Arzying about the awful, awful antifa. Guess everyone who isn't an able-bodied cis white man should just lump it, because they shouldn't want to harm the ~regular voters~, nope
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Jan 25, 2017 15:34
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i recognize that there are problems with the police force, and i also recognize that said problems aren't fatal to the entire united states government to the point that i need to distrust the government's authority to own and command a military
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Jan 25, 2017 15:34
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:i recognize that there are problems with the police force, and i also recognize that said problems aren't fatal to the entire united states government to the point that i need to distrust the government's authority to own and command a military Yeah, I can't think of any situations made worse by American military power. No sir.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:36
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:yeah, i still feel like Those Dirty Gubbamint Men aren't out to get me, i'm optimistic like that and don't wear a tinfoil hat or anything Yes you see, that's the problem with fascism. They come for other people first and you say "not my problem" until they come for you. If you recognize that cops use unlawful violence, maybe you should spend your time trying to convince them that it's not OK, instead of spending your time convincing us that punching nazis is bad.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:37
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TomViolence posted:Yeah, I can't think of any situations made worse by American military power. criticizing actions that the government has used its military to take is one thing; questioning whether that government should be allowed to have a military is quite another that gets into a question of whether the united states, apparently a powder keg of racism and nazis waiting to explode any moment, should be allowed to exist at all Bob le Moche posted:Yes you see, that's the problem with fascism. They come for other people first and you say "not my problem" until they come for you. key word in that second statement there is maybe, i can recognize a problem without turning into an activist about it as for your first statement, once again, i don't see the fascist uprising that people keep trying to convince me is currently happening right now
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Jan 25, 2017 15:41
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Once again:Venomous posted:Are any of the people in this thread who are arguing against punching Nazis not white, cis or otherwise able-bodied?
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Jan 25, 2017 15:43
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:key word in that second statement there is maybe, i can recognize a problem without turning into an activist about it Why do you turn into an internet activist against people in the streets punching nazis, but not against cops murdering black kids? Strange priorities, effectively indistinguishable from those of a nazi collaborator despite what you might say or believe, in fact.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:44
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Venomous posted:Once again: no
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Jan 25, 2017 15:44
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Bob le Moche posted:Why do you turn into an internet activist against people in the streets punching nazis, but not against cops murdering black kids? Strange priorities, effectively indistinguishable from those of a nazi collaborator despite what you might say or believe, in fact. are you threatening to punch me, also being an activist and arguing in d&d are different things, despite what you might believe
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Jan 25, 2017 15:46
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:criticizing actions that the government has used its military to take is one thing; questioning whether that government should be allowed to have a military is quite another Death to America 110%. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:key word in that second statement there is maybe, i can recognize a problem without turning into an activist about it So you either don't care enough about police violence, despite your abstract recognition of it, to do anything about it or you don't believe any form of activism gets results. Either way, your abstract opinion about police violence doesn't actually help anyone or hold any moral weight without some form of material intervention on your part. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:as for your first statement, once again, i don't see the fascist uprising that people keep trying to convince me is currently happening right now The whole point of physically and ideologically opposing fascism is to prevent the uprising from happening, because as has already been stated by the time the fascists have mobilised into a critical mass worthy of your myopic attentions it will already be too late to stop it. Not that you would, considering your seeming ambivalence towards -- and insulation from -- other forms of violence visited upon minority groups that you already know about.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:48
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If the best defense you can offer for an idea is "you're not allowed to punch me for having that idea", it's a very bad idea and you shouldn't have it
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Jan 25, 2017 15:49
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TomViolence posted:So you either don't care enough about police violence, despite your abstract recognition of it, to do anything about it or you don't believe any form of activism gets results. Either way, your abstract opinion about police violence doesn't actually help anyone or hold any moral weight without some form of material intervention on your part. which is why i brought up my recognition of police violence only in response to the insinuation that i only supported the country having a military because i didn't care about/recognize police violence TomViolence posted:
and what it comes down to is that i don't believe that a fascist uprising of the kind that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s as capable of recurring, due to societal changes since that time, so i don't see the threat as imminent enough that it needs to be physically opposed, only ideologically
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Jan 25, 2017 15:53
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Bob le Moche posted:If the best defense you can offer for an idea is "you're not allowed to punch me for having that idea", it's a very bad idea and you shouldn't have it accusations of being a nazi sympathizer or collaborator are starting to get bandied about in this thread and it's getting weird, and i'm bringing it up because i'm pretty sure threats of violence are against forum rules, even if they're threats of violence against suspected nazis more importantly, if that comes up as a forum rule question then it'll be loving hilarious
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Jan 25, 2017 15:55
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:and what it comes down to is that i don't believe that a fascist uprising of the kind that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s as capable of recurring, due to societal changes since that time, so i don't see the threat as imminent enough that it needs to be physically opposed, only ideologically What societal changes are you particularly referring to? Also, you tried ideologically opposing fascism and it just got you President Trump. Liberalism can't defeat fascism.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:57
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possibly i don't regard donald trump as a fascist, yo and the societal changes i'm referring to would have to be the subject of an effortpost, which i might admittedly actually do at this point, but it could take a bit to get all my thoughts about it together
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Jan 25, 2017 16:03
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Bob le Moche posted:If you have a problem with punching nazis but are OK with police and military violence, you are a hypocrite and a nazi collaborator and deserve to be punched What if I'm okay with neither
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Jan 25, 2017 16:04
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In the perfect state, the probability of a fascist takeover would be 0%, and thus, political violence would be unnecessary, law would be upheld perfectly, and that law would be just. We don't live in that state, or world, we live in a world where nazis are more than happy to bend/break the law, when it serves their purposes. Even if you agree not to assault nazis, do you think they would ever, in a million years, return that favor by not assaulting minorities/you whenever they have the chance? Nope, that's naive. Therefore, I cannot condemn people who use political violence against nazis, even unlawfully, because I know that nazis do not give a poo poo about the law, will never uphold the law, and will do everything in their power to pervert it.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:05
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:and what it comes down to is that i don't believe that a fascist uprising of the kind that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s as capable of recurring, due to societal changes since that time, so i don't see the threat as imminent enough that it needs to be physically opposed, only ideologically At last. Now, if you did believe that a fascist uprising could occur, would you then be okay with violence against nazis now in an attempt to stop it from happening? If not, would you change your mind if you were transported back to pre-nazi Germany and knew for a fact that the nazis would come to power if you did nothing?
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Jan 25, 2017 16:05
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If your problem with punching nazis is that you are OK with it if there's a risk of fascism, but do not believe that there currently is a risk of fascism, then you would actually wander into this thread with posts like "I am not convinced that fascism really is a significant threat today" rather than "punching nazis is bad and makes you the real nazis"
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Jan 25, 2017 16:14
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Higsian posted:At last. depends on how likely the uprising was, like if there was some rear end in a top hat on tv trying to convince people to destroy a specific race of people because those people weren't the ubermensch and weren't going to take well to the idea of throwing away their individuality and working collectively for the idea of America Itself then yeah, it might be time to do something, but i don't have the gut feeling that we're all hosed just yet as for the second question, i suspect that if i was in pre-nazi germany i'd mostly be worrying about trying to get a job, not about who's in power up top Bob le Moche posted:If your problem with punching nazis is that you are OK with it if there's a risk of fascism, but do not believe that there currently is a risk of fascism, then you would actually wander into this thread with posts like "I am not convinced that fascism really is a significant threat today" rather than "punching nazis is bad and makes you the real nazis" that's what i sorta did a bunch of pages ago, and people were trying to convince me that america was literally in a state of emergency when i brought up that i didn't see the imminent threat
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Jan 25, 2017 16:25
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:depends on how likely the uprising was, like if there was some rear end in a top hat on tv trying to convince people to destroy a specific race of people because those people weren't the ubermensch and weren't going to take well to the idea of throwing away their individuality and working collectively for the idea of America Itself then yeah, it might be time to do something, but i don't have the gut feeling that we're all hosed just yet See this is why many of us have always feared that the rise of fascism is very possible in our time. It's also why it's very disheartening to hear liberals blame racism instead of economics for Trump's victory. Yes there was racism. Lots of racism. But the racism was already there. The racists were already for the Republicans. The problem is the people very mild for, mild against, or indifferent to racism. When those people get stressed they stop caring who promises them help and will turn to whichever side is promising relief. You just said that you would be too busy trying to get a job to fight literal OG Nazis in pre-nazi Germany. Well, there are people today who are too busy looking for a job, or a job that will let them work sane hours, or live a decent life to fight the current fascists and literal neo-nazis. If liberals won't deprive nazis of prime recruiting conditions, then antifa definitely need to suppress nazis or they will continue to rise.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:47
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I'd be too busy marveling the time machine.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:49
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thanks for the responses ya'll, i think im down w/ the nazi-punching program again
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Jan 25, 2017 16:51
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okay, so here's my uneducated opinion on why fascism cannot become a powerful force in america given the current social conditions first: ideas such as racial purity and racial supremacy are not as generally palatable as they once were; due to changes in our educational system and the continuing influence of mass media on american culture i believe it would be very difficult for an idea such as white supremacy to find a sufficient number of sufficiently violently inclined believers. i'm talking about believers in white supremacy who are willing to go out and/or kill people on account of that belief, not believers willing to post on stormfront all day second: fascism is not a young and untested system anymore. just like communism, fascism became a lot less attractive after it was given a chance to fail horribly and kill a shitload of people. even just boiling down the fascism to its base components -- getting everybody mobilized and working not for themselves, but for the idea of America Itself -- sounds, in my opinion, a lot more gross and lovely than it once did. third: communication has changed. broadcast media is a different creature than it once was, and in particular, it has not tended to be an exclusively state-run institution in the united states. the result of this is that propaganda is a hell of a lot less effective than it once was, and can't be as effectively used over a period of many years to gradually indoctrinate a young male population into thinking that it's perfectly okay and good to starve millions of russian soldiers to death in a camp and all that other poo poo. all of these opinions of mine are, admittedly, from someone who took like one political science class in college. but what it boils down to is that i tend to be overly optimistic in humanity's ability to not be as lovely as they used to be back in the day. all of that being said, i do have lingering, nagging doubts -- owing to things such as the fact that ethnic cleansing wasn't really a new idea even when nazi germany was doing it, and could be one of those things that keeps cropping up again and again in history to embarrass the poo poo out of us as a species. i just hope that people don't get too hung up on defending against the threat of nazis and fascism to ignore another tried-and-proven genocidal ideology sneaking up on them, such as manifest destiny
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Jan 25, 2017 17:09
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:first: ideas such as racial purity and racial supremacy are not as generally palatable as they once were; due to changes in our educational system and the continuing influence of mass media on american culture i believe it would be very difficult for an idea such as white supremacy to find a sufficient number of sufficiently violently inclined believers. i'm talking about believers in white supremacy who are willing to go out and/or kill people on account of that belief, not believers willing to post on stormfront all day A dude just won an election on the promise to ban muslims from the country and build a militarised border wall, making a neighbour country pay for it. The racial pseudoscience that underpinned nazi ideology may have been pushed to the fringes, but the xenophobia fascism panders to is alive and well. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:second: fascism is not a young and untested system anymore. just like communism, fascism became a lot less attractive after it was given a chance to fail horribly and kill a shitload of people. even just boiling down the fascism to its base components -- getting everybody mobilized and working not for themselves, but for the idea of America Itself -- sounds, in my opinion, a lot more gross and lovely than it once did. Capitalism continues to kill shitloads of people, but however bloodsoaked and discredited it is it lumbers on like a zombie. The left is resurgent, with the word socialism almost completely detoxified in the American lexicon. Ideologies don't die, or if they do they certainly don't die gracefully. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:third: communication has changed. broadcast media is a different creature than it once was, and in particular, it has not tended to be an exclusively state-run institution in the united states. the result of this is that propaganda is a hell of a lot less effective than it once was, and can't be as effectively used over a period of many years to gradually indoctrinate a young male population into thinking that it's perfectly okay and good to starve millions of russian soldiers to death in a camp and all that other poo poo. The gently caress? Propaganda is probably more effective now than it ever was. People can, through the miracles of news aggregation and social media, find news that confirms and coddles their worldview far more easily than ever before and adept propagandists are exploiting this factor as we speak to indoctrinate masses of low-information voters and activists. It's why people think Birmingham in the UK is a no-go zone living under sharia law or that there's a pizza restaurant that is actually a democrat-run child brothel. Pittsburgh Lambic posted:all of that being said, i do have lingering, nagging doubts -- owing to things such as the fact that ethnic cleansing wasn't really a new idea even when nazi germany was doing it, and could be one of those things that keeps cropping up again and again in history to embarrass the poo poo out of us as a species. i just hope that people don't get too hung up on defending against the threat of nazis and fascism to ignore another tried-and-proven genocidal ideology sneaking up on them, such as manifest destiny Uh, what form would you expect American fascism to take, exactly? It absolutely would come in the borrowed clothing of America's pre-existing (genocidal) national identity, that's how ultranationalism works. Spencer and his ilk like their nazi iconography, but they could just as easily be good ol' boy Klansmen or neoconfederates or molon labe type right wing militia fuckwits, they're still fascists and still need fought whatever uniform and handshake their little club has.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:33
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As an outsider to American politics I've always thought the US would be the most likely country to become fascist. I won't use the word Nazi, its historically unhelpful. You've had most of the key ingredients for a long time. A section of humanity to hate. Used to be communists now it's Moslems. A history of invading countries linked to the people you hate. Worship and veneration of the military you find in no other country in the world. An over powerful police force that is armed and is quite trigger happy. An acception of overly authoritarian employers as normal. An uncritical support of your governments foreign policies. Looks like the perfect mix to me. The only thing that has surprised me is that it hasn't happened yet.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:39
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enki42 posted:To attempt to steer things in a more useful direction, I'd like to know more about Antifa folks in general. Did they tend to be active outside of the punching, or is it more people looking for a fight and finding an excuse for one. Is it all just catharsis in your opinion, is there an aim / goal to the fighting? Punk music and punching are reasons #1 and #2. We're talking about people ~15-~22 years old who have a lot of anger in their lives and are looking for an outlet. That said, for a lot of people there was a very real ideological edge to it. We were all trying (with varying degrees of success) to channel that anger into something productive. This means a lot of them went on to become more effective social activists of varying stripes (social workers, union reps, etc.). There were also a lot of chucklefucks, similar to what you saw with the Black Block folks. But even those chucklefucks would make a point of being welcoming to racial, religious and gender/sexual minorities. I'd argue that creating a welcoming environment for vulnerable people is worth the price of a few broken windows and teeth. That ties into the whole "perceived violence" thing. I'd argue that openly identifying as a Nazi is absolutely a form of violence and that it also merits a violent response. By their very act of existing, they create an unsafe environment for minorities. Have you ever seen what happens when some obvious racists walk into a bar with a mixed clientele? It gets real light real quick. Unless someone is an rear end in a top hat, makes a scene and tells them to get the gently caress out. The world could use some more assholes standing up for what is right and fewer people politely looking the other way when horrible poo poo happens. It's not a perfect solution or even really a good one. But since nobody else is doing it, I'll take an imperfect solution over the alternative. A better world would be one where we don't have to punch Nazis because Nazis are too afraid to come out of the woodwork and publicly express their hateful views. Even better would be a world free of Nazis entirely.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:58
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TomViolence posted:e: Here's a counter-point -- if you defend the rights of nazis to organise and proselytize you're a nazi collaborator. I guess the ACLU counts as Nazi collaborators then. In all seriousness, I think Richard Spencer is a shithead and his ideas are despicable. He deserves neither respect nor politeness. But that is not to say that it's okay to sucker punch him! (Let alone more drastic measures.) I will freely admit that if the roles were reversed, fascist shitheads would have no compunctions about such violence. Encouraging and glorifying violence against one's political opponents is a key attribute of fascism. Saying that we live in a crisis and therefore we need to abrogate some fundamental human right is an argument I hear more often from authoritarians than anyone interested in a free and open society. I will agree that our basic democratic norms are under assault: the most concerning aspects of Trumpism include his hostility to the idea of a free press and his encouragement of violence against protestors at his rallies. But saying "our opponents don't respect norms" doesn't give us a free ticket to dehumanize our enemies and claim that vigilante violence against them is A-OK, morally speaking. I support acts of civil disobedience (in the NONVIOLENT tradition of Thoreau, MLK, Gandhi, etc.) against Trump's proposed policies. While I do support the right to violent revolution against a tyrannical regime, I don't think Trump has destroyed our institutions that far. I admit that others may reasonably disagree with this based on their perspective, but in any case I don't think this exception covers vigilante violence against someone like Spencer who doesn't even work for Trump. FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 20:38
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What are you going to do about us punching nazis? Punch us?
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Jan 25, 2017 21:26
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I don't think that would be appropriate or moral, no. I think some problems can't be solved by punching. Controversial, I know. FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 21:27
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FreeKillB posted:
Every form of effective protest and civil disobedience has had violence involved. You are the most naive fool if you think any other way.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:44
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I agree that in the real world things get messy. However, my view on the most successful examples would be that they were successful despite any violence, rather than because of it. What violence was Rosa Parks engaged in? What about the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Or the Selma march?
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Jan 25, 2017 21:52
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Ghandi protested without being violent.
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Jan 25, 2017 21:57
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FreeKillB posted:I agree that in the real world things get messy. However, my view on the most successful examples would be that they were successful despite any violence, rather than because of it. What about the wave of violent uprising across Europe in the 1840s. I was talking about serious historical trends. Baltimore and several other cities went up in flames during the race riots.
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Jan 25, 2017 22:02
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Sulphuric rear end in a top hat posted:Ghandi protested without being violent. I think the end result of Ghandi and his protests was hundreds of thousands dead when it came to partition. He did not help.
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Jan 25, 2017 22:06
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FreeKillB posted:I support acts of civil disobedience (in the NONVIOLENT tradition of Thoreau, MLK, Gandhi, etc.) against Trump's proposed policies. While I do support the right to violent revolution against a tyrannical regime, I don't think Trump has destroyed our institutions that far. I admit that others may reasonably disagree with this based on their perspective, but in any case I don't think this exception covers vigilante violence against someone like Spencer who doesn't even work for Trump. Non-violent civil disobedience only worked due to the implicit threat of violence that stood behind them. MLK was continuously called on to denounce the violent elements of the civil rights era, but refused to do so. The threat is that either you deal with us, the non-violent protesters, or you ignore us, and the non-violent become radicalized and violent, and you will have no peace. Choose. In the case of fascists/nazis, there can be no non-violent resistance. It does not work.
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Jan 25, 2017 22:15
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My recollection is that Gandhi himself was firmly opposed to partition, possibly in part because it would lead to needless violence.General China posted:What about the wave of violent uprising across Europe in the 1840s. I am not denying that destructive and violent race riots happened during the civil rights era. Those riots are not what made the Civil Rights Movement effective, in my view. e: Rhjamiz posted:MLK was continuously called on to denounce the violent elements of the civil rights era, but refused to do so. MLK posted:Because, yeah, they confuse, they don't see that there's a great deal of a difference between nonresistance to evil and nonviolent resistance. FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 22:16
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Patriotic americans, remember to replace the word "nazi" with "terrorist", then ask yourself "is it okay to punch this terrorist" and "should the people who (did more than) punch terrorists without legal authority to be arrested for their violence"
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Jan 25, 2017 22:25
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General China posted:I think the end result of Ghandi and his protests was hundreds of thousands dead when it came to partition. He got England out of India and freed people from a salt hoarding tyranny. I'd say that helped.
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Jan 25, 2017 22:28
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