ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

[Scrofula]

. . . massive starvation, bread lines, persecution and killing of people who are religious/spiritual, censorship and secret police, mass spying and fake propaganda, system of government where nothing gets accomplished and it gets given to someone else who gives it to a lower person in command untill it is forgotten in the beauracracy/shuffle, massive poverty . . .

Interesting that "bread lines" is the only economic aspect to your warning.

The rest is all stuff we agree are bad, and have little relation to government's role in the economy. What you are describing is a fascist police state, the kind being warned about in this thread (and the DMV).

ETA: Jess, I meant the actual debates/discussion around abortion and gun-control, without considering the tactics of clinic bombers or the get-in-your face methods of those protesters, as a way to see the anti-fascist stance.

Just another stab at conveying how fascism is the one time that "defend to the death their right to say it" backfires dramatically. "Their saying it" isn't jsut a weapon, it is the weapon used to kill you, if you aren't gassed first.

For instance, you have maybe seen the Onion headline "ACLU defends KKK's right to burn down ACLU"? I think it's funny, and I support that mentality (the ACLU's view on civil liberties, just to be clear). But there's a limit when extending the metaphor to the country, right? Many of us think Trump supporters were willing to burn it all down as it is.

 

[JessFR]

Interesting that "bread lines" is the only economic aspect to your warning.

The rest is all stuff we agree are bad, and have little relation to government's role in the economy. What you are describing is a fascist police state, the kind being warned about in this thread (and the DMV).

ETA: Jess, I meant the actual debates/discussion around abortion and gun-control, without considering the tactics of clinic bombers or the get-in-your face methods of those protesters, as a way to see the anti-fascist stance.

Just another stab at conveying how fascism is the one time that "defend to the death their right to say it" backfires dramatically. "Their saying it" isn't jsut a weapon, it is the weapon used to kill you, if you aren't gassed first.

For instance, you have maybe seen the Onion headline "ACLU defends KKK's right to burn down ACLU"? I think it's funny, and I support that mentality (the ACLU's view on civil liberties, just to be clear). But there's a limit when extending the metaphor to the country, right? Many of us think Trump supporters were willing to burn it all down as it is.

If their saying the stupid shit they say really has any chance of actually resulting in the kind of social changes they want, than we have a much bigger problem than their protests. We have a problem with our whole society, one which won't be fixed by silencing these assholes.

I'm short, if there's a real danger posed by their use of freedom of speech, then it's not the free speech that's the underlying problem. It's that we have so many people willing to follow them. In which case the solution still isn't suppressing their speech, that's just a bandaid on a much bigger problem.

Besides, it doesnt change the fact that such suppression of speech might still open the door to all sorts of other abuses. If fascists do come to power, it'll be one less difference between our society and their ideal society. One less thing to change. Fascists don't want free speech. So much as you might want to fight them, this would count as a wrong way to go about it.

And it's a faulty metaphor, were not supporting their right to burn us down, were supporting their right to say we should be burned down. And the ACLU supporting someone's right to say the ACLU should be abolished? I can totally see them doing that and I'd be disgusted by them if they didn't.

 

[Escher's Waterfall]

For real? I know you're a Socialist/Marxist/Communist but you really need to study history and political science.

The United States will never become like the USSR and other Socialist/Marxist/Communist countries were with the massive starvation, bread lines, persecution and killing of people who are religious/spiritual, censorship and secret police, mass spying and fake propaganda, system of government where nothing gets accomplished and it gets given to someone else who gives it to a lower person in command untill it is forgotten in the beauracracy/shuffle, massive poverty of the general population while the leaders who supposedly want everything in society, the government, etc. to be equal live in lavish wealth, massive actual violations of human rights-including people protesting or saying anything negative about the governmet at all, rigged elections, greatly restricted emigration and travel abroad so you can't leave.

Don't forget the Soviet GULAG camps, Mao's Laogai/re-education camps, and the prison camps in North Korea that all make the Nazi holocaust or concentration camps seem like an easier alternative.

Are you trolling?

• Censorship - we have a government which frequently doesn't even want to use the words "climate change" in official scientific reports.
• Mass spying - NSA.
• Government accomplishes nothing - Hello congress!
• Massive poverty of the general population - GINI coefficient is getting worse, wealth is becoming more concentrated at the top.
• Massive violation of human rights - Police misconduct, massive incarceration (almost the highest in the world), even "free speech zones" for protesters.
• Rigged elections - Gerrymandering.

We're not as bad as the USSR. But we have our flaws.

 

[JessFR]

Oh please.

I'm not going to bother arguing this with you since I know I can't win, you'll believe what you'll believe. but I will point out that it's not censorship if its the government censoring itself. Censorship is something someone or some group does to someone else or some other group.

I don't agree in general but if I did I still wouldn't argue THAT. There's much better examples of government censorship. They also don't really compare with real government censorship but they're better arguments than that.

I'll also point out that in a truly rigged election you don't need to gerrymander. gerrymandering is what you do when you wanna cheat but DONT have it rigged.

 

[spacejunk]

Don't forget the Soviet GULAG camps, Mao's Laogai/re-education camps, and the prison camps in North Korea that all make the Nazi holocaust or concentration camps seem like an easier alternative.

What do you mean by that?

Look, i'm not a marxist in the typical sense, nor do i claim that the USSR was perfect, or that any other "communist" state has ever really been attempted. I'm very well aware of history, thanks - enough to say definitively that capitalism just doesn't work.

A system that enslaves hundreds of millions, locks billions into poverty and exploitation, and is very rapidly destroying the planet, making it uninhabitable - is not a functional system.
As long as industrialists lie about climate change and force us into grossly unsustainable practices for the sake of profit, capitalism is a disease.
It is a system that cannot function without perpetual economic growth.
The vast majority of commodities that maintain this growth are finite resources, capitalism is doomed to fail.
Where does that leave us?

Well - hopefully it leads us away from cold war era fearmongering about those dastardly commies.
One could make a list of the brutal injustices carried out by, and in the name of the United States of America - but it would be too long a list for this post/thread to do justice to.

Socialists firmly believe a better world is possible (and necessary) - and in these dystopian times; a time where fascist (racist, homophobic, misogynistic, belligerent) mutant like trump is the "leader" of the "free world" - it's time to start looking at the other options.

The USA was an oligarchy before trump took over - now it's even more of a mess socially, economically and politically.

Democracy is a very fragile thing, and it has not been more under threat in the US (or globally) for many, many years.
Incidentally - socialism and democracy are not necessarily mutually exclusive - but i oligarchy and democracy most certainly are.

 

[JessFR]

Spacejunk, have you considered that perhaps humans are just not fit to survive long term no matter what? That we just don't have enough resources to buy enough time to evolve to the point where enough of us are smart enough to not doom ourselves in the long term?

You know what I'd like to know, you can pm it to me if you want, but what exactly DO you believe? How would you structure your ideal society. I can understand feeling like capitalism is a doomed system, and in its pure undiluted form, I tend to agree with that for some of the reasons you said. I don't understand how anyone with a good grasp of history, and a good grasp of human nature, can support socialism as an alternative. As I've said before, I don't think the answer is with either system in its current form, but my answer would still more closely resemble capitalism than socialism.

I'm not saying this is true of you, but I tend to find most people who believe what you believe I find to be blind to socialisms problems while overemphasizing capitalisms. They refuse to see that capitalism can have a role without it being its current role. But most of all, they fail to see that socialism is simply not compatible with human nature as it exists today. It might work in some enlightened future but it never will today.

The irony is, socialisms problems are capitalisms problems. If you could solve one you could solve both. But socialists only see the capitalist manifestation of the problem and like to imagine that it wouldn't exist in their ideal. But it will, it will corrupt socialism until we get, exactly what we've gotten every other time.

Basically, I think most people who believe what you believe are naive. Well intentioned, and certainly not dumb, but naive. And frustrated with the status quo to such an extent that they're biased in how they see today's flaws but not the flaws in their solution.

I doubt the founding fathers ever thought all the effort they put into their system would result in what it has, and I think that's the same trap people like you fall into. Only even worse.

But, I say people like you cause I'm generalizing, maybe none of this is true of you, it's just what I've felt most other times, I'm still curious to know though how you would run things.

 

[spacejunk]

I can condense what i believe down to one sentence; i strongly believe that we needto prioritise human need over corporate greed.
We have the resources available to feed, clothe and shelter the whole planet, but instead when have an obscene disparity of wealth globally, with a few people with far more than they neef (more than they could ever use) with millions starving and dying of preventable disease.

I don't have any utopian idealism or faith in one particular form of omeconomic governance - i just try to be realistic and pragmatic about the need to to share wealth and resources more equally.

I think ideas like "meritocracy", "rugged individualism" and "free market capitalism" are all terrible scams, and that the only future for humanity is in collectivism, working towards sustainability and conserving what is left of the natural world.

I don't think we should look at humanity as something that needs to inevitably die out.
Nothing is permanent in this world, but i personally don't lean that far into misanthropy when i can avoid it (though admitreddly it is hard to remain optimistic at times)

 

[Escher's Waterfall]

For government censorship, just bear in mind the Comstock act. Or, to use regulations still in effect today, why can't you broadcast nudity or swear words?

As for rigging, gerrymandering is a form of rigging. It isn't as bad as what's currently happening in Russia, but it's a method by those in power to keep themselves in power by manipulating likely voting results.

The old USSR (and even it's modern replacement of Russia) are authoritarian states, and their abuse tends to be simple and obvious. Authoritarian states don't face many successful internal challenges, and the lack of competition leads to a less complex implementation of their authoritarianism.

The USA, while hard to classify, is pretty competitive, relatively speaking. Our abuse of human rights is also far more evolved, and ain't as obvious as the old authoritarian communist states.

 

[JessFR]

Yeah I'm not arguing this. First self censorship censorship now nudity and swearing, of which many would argue there's far too MUCH of it let alone censored.

The US is far from perfect and certainly not innocent, but I still maintain it's a rediculous comparison. Really, I don't agree with the point your making but I still think you could make this point with much better ammo than you're using. I don't deny we've done some truly horrible shit and a lot more that has been in total disregard of the bill of rights. I don't think it amounts to such a drastic situation as you suggest, but it's a lot more than censoring broadcast nudity. That's not even unconstitutional.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

They also attack each other, and promote and show racism towards their own members/followers or people who might consider joining them.

 

[spacejunk]

No political movement is absolutely perfect, or righteous or appropriate.
Anti-fascist movements are autonomous; we have no "leaders" or hierarchy - it is a tactic not an organisation.

The behaviour of some is not a reflection of all of us.

Also, subversive and radical movements are invariably infiltrated by law enforcement, the "intelligence community" and opponents.
People that cause trouble are often agent provocateurs.

On the other hand, the fascists we oppose aren't troubled by a "few bad eggs" tarnishing their reputation - they're outspokenly, and proudly, bad eggs.

Speaking of infiltration - and to anyone who is reading this and doubting how repulsive and dangerous these people are, a Swedish antifascist recently infiltrated the american "alt-right".

These guys aren't conservatives, they're violent nazis preaching genocide.

This is why we oppose and try to shut these fuckers down every time they take their toxic bullshit onto the streets or other public platforms they use to spread their hate and bullshit.

...and unlike the nazis, we don't kill them.
Murder isn't on the antifa agenda - but the fash don't even make a secret about their intentions of killing us.

And of course their record speaks for itself - several antifascists have been murdered by white supremacists since trump's inauguration - these people are - and have always been - terrorists.

‘It’s gonna end with concentration camps’: Alt-right executive boasts of a future Europe with Hitler on their money

Though many members of the alt-right claim to not be racists or white supremacists, videos recorded by an infiltrator among their ranks proves otherwise.

Patrik Hermansson, a 25-year-old Swede, went undercover to infiltrate the alt-right, creating a fake identity that led him to meetings with some of the group’s leaders.

As video Hermansson provided to the New York Times shows, he got one of the group’s highest-ranking members — Alt-Right Corporation board member Jason Reza Jorjani — to admit his “final solution” for minorities.

“It’s gonna end with the expulsion of the majority of the migrants, including [Muslim] citizens,” Jorjani told an undercover Hermansson at a pub near the Empire State Building in New York City. “It’s gonna end with concentration camps and expulsions and war at the cost of a few hundred million people.”

“We will have a Europe, in 2050, where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great,” he continued. “And Hitler will be seen like that: like Napoleon, like Alexander, not like some weird monster who is unique in his own category — no, he is just going to be seen as a great European leader.”

Jorjani also claimed to have connections within the Trump administration, and to even have spoken to the president himself.

“The scary thing about the Alt Right Corp and Jason Jorjani is that they’re building a media empire,” Hermansson said at the beginning of the video, citing the AltRight.com website Jorjani runs with the help of notorious figures like Richard Spencer.

You can read Hermansson’s shocking reporting from the front-lines of the alt-right via the Times, and view video he recorded for British anti-white supremacist group Hope Not Hate below.

For the past year, we’ve been undercover following the alt-right from the UK to USA. Welcome to the inside – https://t.co/nRZDfjnpMU pic.twitter.com/YDEugzIz69

As much as the far right and the mainstream press try to malign antifascists for standing up to violent right-wing extremists, i think it is a mistake to dismiss these neo-nazis as some legitimate political movement. They are terrorists - terrorists that have the implicit support of the corrupt and toxic president (who they in turn support).

This is why the state gives these people a free pass, and police protection in the USA - and why communities are coming together to resist, disrupt and hopefully shut these hateful sideshows down.

These people preach about the virtues of a "white ethnostate". Their collective ideological background is one of terror, murder and extreme violence against ethnic, religious and politically-stereotyped groups they see as "enemies" of their psychopathic bullshit.


It's one thing to be a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, a bigot. Those people will always exist.
But when you are a political force supported financially by some of the more twisted elements of "the establishment" (ie various trump allies - from fox to the KKK and various other parts of the right wing spectrum) - it would be very complacent to think this is something we should tolerate - or worse - ignore.

Let's not forget that the nazis systematically rounded up and murdered gay people and drug users.
These motherfuckers worship the nazis, and hitler.
A big part of their agenda at the moment is normalising this sickening rhetoric.
The more we resist them, the more difficult this is for them. Opposing them in every way possible is essential to holding them back from murdering more people.

The media and various ideological opponents of anti-fascists like to claim that antifa is only about violence - which a long way from the truth.
Violence is one tactic, among many, and for the most part is a last resort. It's not something i participate, if i can avoid it - and it's safe to say most antifascists are as averse to violence as i am.

Opposition to violence one of the reasons we are such fierce opponents of fascism; it is a violent form of fanatacism which belongs in the dustpan of history.
But another lesson we can draw from history is that nazi germany, the japanese imperial army and Mussolini's fascist italy weren't defeated with witty op-eds or passive resistance.
Sadly, nazis don't do debate. Fighting them - and defeating them - means getting your hands dirty.

The fash are scared of antifa.
That's not an accident; it's the whole point

But hey - let's rag those terrible antifa people oppressing those poor defenceless nazis, eh?

 

[JessFR]

To be honest I'm not liking what I've seen of either side.

The more I learn the more it looks like it's just two groups of fascists fighting eachoher. One might be less bad than the other but neither strikes me as good. Spacejunk, this kind of thinking is very dangerous. When you get to this kind of extreme it's usually not long before the tactics get more and more aggressive, and what it deemed to be a nazi grows broader and broader till it's just anyone you don't like. And then, you are your enemy.

Tread carefully.

 

[Somerandomdude]

I can condense what i believe down to one sentence; i strongly believe that we needto prioritise human need over corporate greed.
We have the resources available to feed, clothe and shelter the whole planet, but instead when have an obscene disparity of wealth globally, with a few people with far more than they neef (more than they could ever use) with millions starving and dying of preventable disease.

I don't have any utopian idealism or faith in one particular form of omeconomic governance - i just try to be realistic and pragmatic about the need to to share wealth and resources more equally.

I think ideas like "meritocracy", "rugged individualism" and "free market capitalism" are all terrible scams, and that the only future for humanity is in collectivism, working towards sustainability and conserving what is left of the natural world.

I don't think we should look at humanity as something that needs to inevitably die out.
Nothing is permanent in this world, but i personally don't lean that far into misanthropy when i can avoid it (though admitreddly it is hard to remain optimistic at times)

Don't hold your breath waiting for any of that to happen. I'm not even being a smart ass. Humans are the way we are. Incredibly self interested and duplicitous. It helped us survive and thrive from day dot. Now yes it is killing the planet. Nothing you or I can do about it.

If I was a billionaire I would give away most of my wealth trying to feed slum kids (from all countries) get them an education. It wouldn't really achieve anything in the long run, but it would be nice for kids who literally have nothing to feel like they are somebody.

 

[Somerandomdude]

All we can hope for is for Jesus to come back in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. Amen.

I'm as cynical as it gets and have been through more than one bout of agnosticism, but all this time I have a feeling like he is there.

 

[Somerandomdude]

Anyway back on topic, it doesn't take a genius to see that things are going to go south very fast in the next few years, all over the western world.

Left wing Groupthink is in full swing now, and what we are seeing more frequently now is it's manifestation into the displays of nasty bullying and violence that humans have always been great at. Deeply ironic because the left had some great humanitarian achievements in the past. But when power is on your side even the nicest people's evil side comes out.

 

[Somerandomdude]

Anyone else see that crazy professor on tucker Carlson who said it was a "privilege to teach future dead cops" ?

Like where the fuck do they find these people? How the hell do they get to become a professor in anything? Crazy.

 

[Somerandomdude]

And the rise of white supremacy is exclusively due to identity politics. Nazism/KKK is just the white version. And we all know how that plays out. Thanks to everyone who has pushed the anti white BS these last few years.

 

[spacejunk]

To be honest I'm not liking what I've seen of either side.

The more I learn the more it looks like it's just two groups of fascists fighting eachoher. One might be less bad than the other but neither strikes me as good. Spacejunk, this kind of thinking is very dangerous. When you get to this kind of extreme it's usually not long before the tactics get more and more aggressive, and what it deemed to be a nazi grows broader and broader till it's just anyone you don't like. And then, you are your enemy.

Tread carefully.

That's the mainstream media and rightwing commentariat's take, but as i've explained countless times in this and other threads - it's a mischaracterisation.
That's not a dig at you, jess - i just feel like i must be boring some of the regular posters here that continually read my antifascist perspectives on these matters

The argument pushed a lot in the mainstream in the last few weeks is that "both sides are as bad as each other". By "the mainstream", i refer to a huge range of media sources, as well as donald trump.

This might be true if you don't draw an ethical distinction between "punching a nazi" and "killing commies" or "creating a white ethnostate".

Punching someone isn't a very nice thing to do, but if the person you are punching is openly talking about killing you and your comrades (see this and countless pieces of "alt-right" online literature) - it doesn't seem quite so unreasonnable - at least to me.

Because only one "side" here is killing people, I consider the both sides are as bad as each other argument to be one of false equivalence.
It might be convincing in soundbyte form, with some visuals of black-clad, masked-up people chanting "fuck nazis!" - but it doesnt stand up to more rigorous scrutiny.

I'm absolutely happy to revise my position when antifascist and anti-racists start killing people for their beliefs.

As that hasn't been, and isn't happening - i'm going to stick with my belief that militant anti-fascism is a response to violence, threats and intimidation from the extreme right.
I hate seeing two groups of people turning up to fight as well, but this idea that nazis are only violent because of the people opposing them is demonstrably false.
It's actually the exact opposite - anti-fascists wouldn't have any reason to mobilise if it weren't for this re-emergence of nazi ideology.
The left isn't about to start congregating to beat up old people for voting for the republicans or the tories any time soon. That's the kind of scaremongering the tabloids are pushing, but it's a bad misinterpretation of the whole point of antifascist activism - deliberately so.

Fascists are violent. They've killed people in the past, and they've killed people for political reasons in the USA this week.

Dismissing that is, frankly, a privileged position to take. I don't mean that personally, jess (or anyone else), but i sincerely believe it to be true.
People have dismissed and downplayed fascist violence in the past - most of the outside world had no idea what was happening inside nazi germany to jews, disabled people, romani people, "degenerates" (drug addicts, homosexuals etc) and others, until the nazi reguime was defeated and the camps were 'liberated'.
Sadly the lessons from those days have been forgotten by many - even though many in the contemporary far right probably had grandparents that fought (and killed) in the Second World War.
Do we condemn our forebears for committing acts of violence against fascists? No - we commemorate their bravery; as we should.

I don't know how other countries commemorate WWII, but the emphasis in australia has long been on not forgetting the lessons of history. That - to me - refers not just to war, but also to the conditions that led up to it.
Fascism is a dead-end street. It glorifies a past that never existed, and has no vision for the future outside of repression and division.

We've had this battle - many times over - and we don't need to have it again. Spoiler: the racists and the segregationists lose in the end. The only question this time around is how long it will take then to lose, and how many innocent people will they kill in the meantime?

Jews, muslims, people of colour (to name just a small few) don't have the luxury of abstract moral relativism on this subject.
When a bunch of nazified fratboys start preaching about mass, racially motivated deportations - and claim (fairly convincingly, in context) to have the president of the united states on their side, it's no time to be complacent.
Maybe i'm just super-vigialent because i actually keep an eye on what the far right are up to, but it's fucking alarming (to say the least) how emboldened nazis have become recently in the west, especially in the US.
It's not a hypthetical - these people aren't fucking around; they're mobilising, they're propagating hate, and they're fucking killing people.
The idea that nazi groups kill people is not far-fetched or exaggerated. It's happening now in the US, it happened to Labour MP Jo Cox right before the brexit referendum, and Golden Dawn in Greece have been murdering people regularly for years. Those are just some contemporary examples - history is littered with them.

I shudder to think how bad it would be if the so-called alt-right weren't scared of antifa.

I posted a video earlier of Richard Spencer pleading with police not to disperse their seig-heiling mob, into the surrounding counter-demonstrators.
This is because he advocates "ethnic cleansing" and other genocidal violence.

You can't make a career advocating racist violence without expecting opposition - and if you take that violent rhetoric to the streets, then it is surely not some big surprise to be confronted by a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life.

I agree totally that opposing political groups fighting in public is horrible - it's an absolute disgrace.
It should never have come to that, but i'm afraid it has.
When white supremacists and other fascists are murdering people (with guns in black churches, or firing randomly at people in anti-trump demonstrations, or just shooting of black people for simply being black; stabbing people to death on public transport for defending muslim people they threaten - etc etc, those are just a couple of examples) - it begs the question;
What do critics of militant antifascism expect communities to do?

Should we just stand back and watch innocent people get murdered and beaten?
I'm not spouting hyperbole here - i'm absolutely serious. This shit is happening right now, and it's not just a threat to ethnic/religious/cultural/political minorities - it is (especially in the USA, where white supremacists are in charge of the federal government) a threat to democracy, and a threat to peace.

It's all well and good to be disgusted by violence. That's the healthy response to violence.
However, some of us are motivated to want to stop it from happening further, and prevent the normalisation of racist homicide, political assassinations and neo-nazist ideology becoming mainstream.


It's easy to think this doesn't affect every one of us, but once this sort of extremism hits a certain critical mass, it affects everyone.

"First they came for the communists..."

It's not "fascist" to engage in physical resistance against fascism; it's pragmatism.
Fascist movements have been crushed this way in the past - in their infancy, on the streets.

Oswald Mosely's British Union of Fascists is a notable example.

These are the proud antifascists that stopped them. Antifascism is not a new phenomenon.
[video=youtube_share;aSNkTnIsWho]http://youtu.be/aSNkTnIsWho[/video]

 

[Somerandomdude]

An important thing you miss out is that antifa have been targeting people who are not Nazis but are simply right wing. They attack them and their supporters, and prevent them from speaking. This is textbook facism.

Is Ben Shapiro a Nazi? He's a religiously observant conservative Jew who had to go to Berkeley under police guard a few weeks back.

 

[Somerandomdude]

Spacejunk you are blatantly ignoring the fact that all western countries have LAWS to bring violent offenders to account. If someone kills or attacks someone, they can be charged, brought before a court and if their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt they are convicted and punished.

If you are attacked, you have a legal right to defend yourself with reasonable force. Some US states go further with "stand your ground" laws. If you see someone being attacked, you can use reasonable force to protect them and you will likely be dealt with lightly by the courts.

Anything outside this is vigilantism and cannot be tolerated. It's against the law. Designating some speech as violence and attacking the speakers is just ludicrous. It opens up a whole can of worms that can only end in more violence.

Spacejunk, most people ARE NOT NAZIS. They don't sympathise with them. They don't want to support them.