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Antifa and the Alt movements Domestic Terrorism?

#21 User is offline   Pherikus Nul 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 02:06 PM

View PostPuck, on 01 July 2019 - 07:38 PM, said:

Where I live, at least, the Antifa are largely worse than the right, and that's saying something. As far as I am concerned, both parties belong locked away. The right here has gone political and pretends to be playing by the rules, the occasional murder on regional politicians aside, while the Antifa are enjoying their free time by setting cars on fire and punching in shop windows. I can't tell who is fucking up people's lives more at the moment.


I'm a little confused as to how the assassination of regional politicians is equivalent to setting a car on fire? Also, not all antifa participants are black bloc rioters. They are often an immune system against the inherent violence of fascism. Antifa hasn't and doesn't go out aimlessly committing violence. Instead, they are often the explicit consequences to someone else's (usually fascist) use of free expression. Fascism marks a ever-present existential threat to minority groups, we know this from history. Without the presence of fascism, there would be no presence of antifa. There's also a false equivalency here: the murders and massacres of the far right cannot be equated with damage to property of the left. There is no 'both sides' argument that can map the two onto one another in an equivalent fashion. One kills people the other doesn't. There's the demarcation between the violence of the far right and the left.

Also, the rumours of dry-cement are dumb since a presence of sugar with cement makes it so that cement doesn't dry. If cement can't dry, it can't cause damage to skin due to exposure. The fiction that's been produced by the far-right makes no sense due to chemistry.

Also, Portland Police have a history of siding with the far right. For a long time, Oregon was full of sundown towns--places where segregation survived and thrived. (https://en.wikipedia...ki/Sundown_town). It is only a recent phenomenon of Oregon having left-leaning communities outside of urban centres. A recent case of the the stabbings in Portland on the train, and the delays associated with the prosecution of the perpetrator, point to this as well. (https://en.wikipedia...nd_train_attack). Note that the perpetrator was a member of the Patriot Prayer white-supremacy group. The same group that the PPD stumbled onto setting up sniper nests above an antifa demonstration and allowed to freely disperse while suppressing the story for days to weeks. So again, there is a bit of a difference between antifa--who demonstrate against fascists--and the far-right fascists--who set up sniper nests to target antifa and aren't arrested when caught by the police. Two very different levels of violence, two very different reactions to said violence by the police.

Moreover, there's a disinformation campaign that tries to present antifa as specifically attacking an elderly man during this weekend's demonstrations. They claim the elderly man was innocent when there is photographic evidence of him possessing an extendable baton, and videographic evidence of him using said baton on antifa demonstrators. So, while it is easy to glance at the situation this weekend and see it as antifa being violent, it is once again a series of events where violence is enticed by fascists and then the immune system of antifa faces against said violence and then antifa is interpreted as causing and escalating the violence. We have long histories of this happening over and over and over.

The far-right is trying to twist this into "see, antifa are violent!" when it should really be "hey, look, the fascists were violent again and antifa is getting blamed."

Edit: I'd also like to point out Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance: "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." Antifa is the immune system within a tolerant system that's intolerant of the intolerant. Fascism is intolerant of all things not within their fluidly defined in-group. As soon as any group begins to slip outside those fluid boundaries of in-and-out, that group is ostracized then either enslaved or exterminated. One group says "no, you can't exterminate all of these minority groups" while the other says "yes, I can exterminate all of these minority groups and you have to tolerate it." There is no equivalence between these two ideologies. They are not analogous to one another. One is an existential threat, the other is the first line of defense against the existential threat.

This post has been edited by Pherikus Nul: 02 July 2019 - 02:13 PM

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#22 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 02:12 PM

View PostPrimateus, on 02 July 2019 - 09:15 AM, said:

I am not opposed to punching nazis/facists! I say it openly and I say it proudly! I am not interested in talking with them, I don't want to discuss their opinions.


So the only remaining option is to punch them?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this.
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#23 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 02:16 PM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 02:12 PM, said:

View PostPrimateus, on 02 July 2019 - 09:15 AM, said:

I am not opposed to punching nazis/facists! I say it openly and I say it proudly! I am not interested in talking with them, I don't want to discuss their opinions.


So the only remaining option is to punch them?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this.


I'm not a fan of concentration camps or genocide.

I guess together we can just sit around and write articles on random forums about how we don't like things. Seems like a winning strategy.
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#24 User is offline   Pherikus Nul 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 02:21 PM

View PostObdigore, on 02 July 2019 - 02:16 PM, said:

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 02:12 PM, said:

View PostPrimateus, on 02 July 2019 - 09:15 AM, said:

I am not opposed to punching nazis/facists! I say it openly and I say it proudly! I am not interested in talking with them, I don't want to discuss their opinions.


So the only remaining option is to punch them?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this.


I'm not a fan of concentration camps or genocide.

I guess together we can just sit around and write articles on random forums about how we don't like things. Seems like a winning strategy.


That's the thing. We're sitting around talking about the fact that the far-right twittersphere is claiming antifa is using cement in milkshakes (which is a farce because chemistry) while there are children in camps that are literally dying from lack of care. Like, waaaat.


Quote

"Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words."



edit: Imagine reading Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God and every scene of the Snake plotline and hoping that the Bonehunters detain the kids in for-profit camps making them sleep on cement floors and drink water from toilets bowls while throwing racially-charged slurs at them and waking them up in the middle of the night. That's how the far-right would imagine how the Book of the Fallen should have ended. No irony.

This post has been edited by Pherikus Nul: 02 July 2019 - 02:31 PM

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#25 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 05:57 PM

Two wrongs do not a right make.
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#26 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 06:06 PM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 05:57 PM, said:

Two wrongs do not a right make.


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#27 User is offline   Pherikus Nul 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 06:18 PM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 05:57 PM, said:

Two wrongs do not a right make.


It's useless and reductionist to just use a binary partition on actions to divvy them up into 'right' and 'wrong'. Actions have magnitudes of 'rightness' or 'wrongness'. It is imperative to avoid lumping actions together as equally wrong as that's moralistically lazy and intellectually dishonest. You have to compare magnitudes. Complacently platforming a group of people whose actions are real, material, existential threats against all minority groups is a worse 'wrong' than punching those people. One action leads to the extermination of groups of humans while the other action stops that from happening. They aren't comparable magnitudes of wrongness.
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#28 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 08:28 PM

You don't stop someone from committing nasty acts by punching them. It is just another means of enabling such characters and make them feel rightious and entitled. We have police and law to deal with such things, we don't need vigilante "justice" muddling things up and derailing stuff. I have no problems with counter-demonstrations and a public showing that nazist and fascist ideas are despicable and don't belong in our societies, but that statement is not helped by elements within such protests being violent or hijacking it to have a bit of a riot.
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#29 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 08:34 PM

Except it's perfectly valid to stop them that way, and it is effective.


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#30 User is offline   Illuyankas 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 08:46 PM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 08:28 PM, said:

You don't stop someone from committing nasty acts by punching them. It is just another means of enabling such characters and make them feel rightious and entitled. We have police and law to deal with such things, we don't need vigilante "justice" muddling things up and derailing stuff. I have no problems with counter-demonstrations and a public showing that nazist and fascist ideas are despicable and don't belong in our societies, but that statement is not helped by elements within such protests being violent or hijacking it to have a bit of a riot.

Evidentially incorrect. Punching a Nazi doesn't enable them, it disables them... ok awkward phrasing but their whole identity is that the enemy are elitist weaklings and will just sit there and talk at them. The police are on their side, and the law is not used against them. Counter-demonstrations allow the original demonstration to keep going at full blast, adding to the narrative that they are too strong to be defeated by some liberals with placards.

Here's an example of how your mindset worked out in the real world, when things were left unchallenged:

Spoiler

e: spoilered as it's a bit huge haha

e2: here's a better one:
Posted Image

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 02 July 2019 - 08:48 PM

Hello, soldiers, look at your mage, now back to me, now back at your mage, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped being an unascended mortal and switched to Sole Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re in a warren with the High Mage your cadre mage could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an acorn with two gates to that realm you love. Look again, the acorn is now otataral. Anything is possible when your mage smells like Sole Spice and not a Bole brother. I’m on a quorl.
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#31 User is offline   Pherikus Nul 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 10:26 PM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 08:28 PM, said:

You don't stop someone from committing nasty acts by punching them. It is just another means of enabling such characters and make them feel rightious and entitled. We have police and law to deal with such things, we don't need vigilante "justice" muddling things up and derailing stuff. I have no problems with counter-demonstrations and a public showing that nazist and fascist ideas are despicable and don't belong in our societies, but that statement is not helped by elements within such protests being violent or hijacking it to have a bit of a riot.


As others have pointed out, you actually do stop someone from committing nasty acts by punching them. Appeasement--by the historically defined nature of the fascism--gives them inches and they always twist those inches to get them more inches. Fascism is not unlike a cancer with respect to ideologies. You can't ignore it because ignoring it lets it grow. One of fascism's key purposes is to be platformed, so to fight fascism you must fight against it being platformed. Punching isn't another means of enabling such characters as to make them feel righteous or entitled. It is a means to show fascists that their modus operandi are known and will not be tolerated up to the point of violence-as-a-measure-of-prevention-of-violence. If it is difficult to parse that paradox, then good--it is supposed to be difficult.

Again, as others have pointed out, the machismo and contempt for the weak present within fascist ideologies makes them hate being seen as inferior to those they deem as inferior. This is why cathartic Jewish media that frames Nazis as individually-impotent idiots pisses Nazis off so much: when those who Nazis deem as racially inferior do not respect the meme of Nazi-superiority, it annihilates the Nazis' ideologies. This is why punching them is so effective. Just look to several Nazis in recent popular culture that have been punched: their own people start to cannibalize the power of the person who was punched (see: Richard Spencer). One of fastest ways to get a Nazi to shut up is to prove them weak.

Here are a few of Eco's common features of Fascism in his powerful work, Ur-Fascism:

Quote

8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”


9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

. . .

12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”


And note that the police aren't there to help against Nazis. Historically, the police side with fascism as the presence of fascism persists and gains momentum. One of the facets of fascism is the garnishing of support from the police and military in the pursuit of ultra-nationalism, the pursuit of establishing an in-group, and the pursuit to possess a monopoly on violence. Don't get me wrong, all fascist movements in the 20th century had interactions with the police and military before any alliances were put together. However, fascism always eventually appeases to police and military in an attempt to expand their support. And if Spain, Italy or Germany are to used as examples, the tension between fascists and military/police always eventually settles into an alliance-of-sorts. Here's a quote from Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism, for example, where police allowed Blackshirts to attack socialists:

Quote

Landowners were not the only ones who helped the Blackshirts of thePo Valley smash socialism. Local police and army commanders lent themarms and trucks, and some of their younger personnel joined the expeditions. Some local prefects, resentful of the pretensions of new socialistmayors and town councils, turned a blind eye to these nightly forays, oreven supplied vehicles.


Fascists are unafraid of violence, are willing to always escalate to violence, but hate being seen as violent when it comes to a 'market place of ideas'. This is another paradox in the nature of fascism (these paradoxes are on purpose because it results in the chameleon-like nature of fascist ideologies and their self-contradicting characteristics). What this means is that they'll always be prepared to attack by bringing weapons, yet they always are trying to minimize the exposure of the fact that they bring weapons. Take this weekend as an example. As the dust settles, we're finding out that a lot of the Patriot Prayer dolts explicitly brought weapons to attack people, instigated those attacks, and then cry-wolf to media and twitter. This is their tried and true MO. This is premeditated and on purpose. This method hasn't changed for nearly 100 years. This is also seen in the other event I mentioned earlier: when the police caught the far-right putting together a sniper's nest--live ammunition and all--above an antifa demonstration, the police did not arrest them and very little media exposure happened.

So, in the face of all these facts about the nature of fascism based in history: yes, punch Nazis. It is literally one of the best ways to stop or slow down the rise of fascism. Do not tolerate the intolerant. Otherwise, hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of human beings will die at their hands. This isn't hyperbole.
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#32 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 11:26 PM

I will say -- and maybe this will sound too conciliatory to some, I dunno, but in terms of Maark's "mandate" concerns -- that I wouldn't demand violence of anyone, generally speaking. I don't think everyone should give up 'non-violent' means of opposition for 'violent' ones. I don't think everyone should Become Antifa (or participate in black bloc operations or what have you). And obviously (I hope), don't be the white dude in a V for Vendetta mask who shows up at BLM rallies just to lob molotov cocktails at mini malls.

Ultimately, if you don't see yourself punching people, don't punch people, it's all good -- as long as you're doing something, cuz a lot needs doing. Antifa just happens to be doing one of the more dangerous front-line things. More power to em.
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#33 User is offline   Grief 

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Posted 02 July 2019 - 11:56 PM

To chime in on the slight difference between milkshakes and fascism: extremist political violence in the US today overwhelmingly comes from the right-wing.1 Between 2010 and 2017, 35% of terror attacks were tied to right-wing ideology. Both the number of such attacks and this trend are rising (for 2017 it's 57%).2, 3 Over the last decade, the right wing accounted for 73% of extremist killings and every extremist killing last year had ties to right-wing ideology.4

Suggesting that fascists and anti-fascists are the same is a truly awful more-centrist-than-thou take. It feels like the name of the game is just to condemn "both sides" in an aloof manner (which curiously seems to benefit one side rather more than the other). It's incredibly lazy thinking at best.

1START, Ideological Motivations of Terrorism in the United States 1970-2016
2University of Maryland, Global Terrorism Database.
3CSIS, The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States.
4ADL Centre for Extremism, Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018.

Cougar said:

Grief, FFS will you do something with your sig, it's bloody awful


worry said:

Grief is right (until we abolish capitalism).
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#34 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 06:55 AM

Please don't put words in my mouth, I never said that fascisrs and anti-fascists are the same. I am saying that I don't believe in vigilante justice; it is a slippery slope which leads to murky and often unhelpful outcomes. I don't know what antifa movements are like in the US, they may all be paragons of virtue, but in parts of Europe there are elements who just use these demonstrations to riot indiscriminately. Comparing my stance to a Hitler-enabler, as I saw a bit higher up in the thread, well, it is the internet I guess. I seriously doubt that antifa, or someone punching Hitler on the nose, would have stopped the rise of nazism in the 1930s.
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#35 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 07:16 AM

To add to my previous post: as I have mentioned before, I work in medical research with animal models of disease. There is a fair bit of overlap between antifa groups in Europe and groups like the animal liberation front, who used to break into animal facilities and threaten caretakers and such. It is misguided idealism resulting in sometimes nasty results which benefit noone, including the animals.
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#36 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 07:22 AM

View PostGorefest, on 02 July 2019 - 02:12 PM, said:

View PostPrimateus, on 02 July 2019 - 09:15 AM, said:

I am not opposed to punching nazis/facists! I say it openly and I say it proudly! I am not interested in talking with them, I don't want to discuss their opinions.


So the only remaining option is to punch them?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this.





And there's the rub. Because ultimately, something has to be done about them, but as violence only ever begets yet more violence, it traps you into that cycle where the primary recourse also exacerbates the problem. It's why I'd advocate re-education, but then the problem there is there are a lot of folk that far gone that you simply can't de-radicalise.

RE Worry's reply - I will always advocate re-education as my approach. Because for every person who scoffs and tells you to fuck off, there's another who may actually reconsider their views when you deconstruct their position. That, and I have to repress violence on my part because part of me enjoys it far too much and I don't really want to go back there.
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#37 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 07:22 AM

Interestingly, in Norway in the seventies far left groups actively turned up at nazi gatherings to beat them up, and it's widely considered to be one of the main reasons why neo nazis never gained a foothold here unlike in Sweden and Finland.
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#38 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 07:32 AM

View PostMorgoth, on 03 July 2019 - 07:22 AM, said:

Interestingly, in Norway in the seventies far left groups actively turned up at nazi gatherings to beat them up, and it's widely considered to be one of the main reasons why neo nazis never gained a foothold here unlike in Sweden and Finland.


But then on the other hand, Varg, who is probably almost as bad.
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#39 User is offline   Cause 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 07:48 AM

I was thimking about this, I still don't really understand Antifa well enough to comment on them specifically but any band of thugs is potentially dangerous. I'm quite happy to see Neo-Nazis get punched in the face, they bring it on themselves with their vile beliefs and personalities. However it occurs to me that Antifa could end up being a double edged sword without a handle that cuts all ways. Fascists groups are infamous for deploying thugs to marches (Nazi brow shirts, the black shirts etc) at rallies to intimidate the opposition. My own countries political parties are not fascist (they are communist, social communists, confused, opportunistic weather vanes) but many go around gicing themselves titles like commander, and espouse the new revolution and they all deply violence as a primary tactic at their marches. They brun cars, loot stores, set fire to government buildings. Some of its on purpose, some of it is just a result of losing control of the thugs but it achieves its purpose of keeping the more moderate political parties from counter protesting and it keeps police at bay who might otherwise object to marches without permits etc.

I don't buy into this conspiracy theory that super jew George Soros is wielding them to further his agenda but nevertheless the group (how centralized, if at all, is its leadership) can lead to trouble down the line if they ever shift away from punching Nazis (who can really get upset) to maybe attacking businesses that they think are unsympathetic. As gorefest says a large group of vigilantes outside the law may not be such a good thing.

Though I do tend to agree that when you oppose neo-Nazi with 'I don't like what you have to say but I support your right to say it' they will tend to think your a fool.
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#40 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 03 July 2019 - 10:44 AM

View PostMaark Abbott, on 03 July 2019 - 07:32 AM, said:

View PostMorgoth, on 03 July 2019 - 07:22 AM, said:

Interestingly, in Norway in the seventies far left groups actively turned up at nazi gatherings to beat them up, and it's widely considered to be one of the main reasons why neo nazis never gained a foothold here unlike in Sweden and Finland.


But then on the other hand, Varg, who is probably almost as bad.


He's a murderer whom burned down historic churches. Stark raving mad and deeply antisemitic, though his main enemy is Christianity. Burzum had some interesting songs though, so we got that at least.
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