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ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

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Here could be a teachable moment. Give me a few lines here...I'm gonna give my current thinking on the GOP (aka Party of Abraham Lincoln, the party that signed the civil rights bills in the 50s and 60s with the President in opposition to the segregationists from the South...who were ALWAYS Democrats...aka the ones that owned slaves and the ones who run the cities where they created 'public housing' after jailing the male, promoted eugenics to kill when they stopped lynching (Sanger). Those guys are the Nazis.
WROOOONG!!! President Lyndon Johnson (last time I checked he was a Democrat) and a Democratically controlled Congress under the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) and House Speaker John McCormack (D-Massachusetts) passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson later lamented that "Democrats have lost the south for a generation" which has happened and then some.

MGS said:
For once and for all...Nazis are socialists * and there is isn't a single thing the national socialists have in common with the GOP.

I had to squeeze in a few seconds and debunk this as well. Nazis were not socialists. They were fascists. And fascism is defined as "a form of radical authoritarian nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum."

You say you're a mod and you hold yourself to a higher standard so actually do it and do some fact checking before you post.
 
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No, I am not wrong. The democrats fought the civil rights act of 1957 which was under a GOP.


https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/civil_rights_act.html
In 1957, President Eisenhower sent Congress a proposal for civil rights legislation. The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. It also established a federal Civil Rights Commission with authority to investigate discriminatory conditions and recommend corrective measures. The final act was weakened by Congress due to lack of support among the Democrats.

Then with Kennedy and Johnson (yes I am aware they were dems) both fought to pass legislation with a lack of Democratic support.

Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House in late October, 1963 to line up the necessary votes in the House for passage.[12] The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat and avid segregationist from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely.

Johnson....

Johnson, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the Senate. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James O. Eastland, Democrat from Mississippi. Given Eastland's firm opposition, it seemed impossible that the bill would reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield took a novel approach to prevent the bill from being relegated to Judiciary Committee limbo. Having initially waived a second reading of the bill, which would have led to it being immediately referred to Judiciary, Mansfield gave the bill a second reading on February 26, 1964, and then proposed, in the absence of precedent for instances when a second reading did not immediately follow the first, that the bill bypass the Judiciary Committee and immediately be sent to the Senate floor for debate.

When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964, the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage.[16] Said Russell: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states."[17]

The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC): "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress."



90% of the segregationists were from the democratic party. It is history, look up (again since you failed the first time.) From the kkk (militant wing of democratic party), to Bull Connor, Orval Faubus, Robert Byrd (an actual kkk democrat loved by the Clintons btw), the segregationists have always been Democrats. The slave owners were always democrats. The people with firehoses and barking dogs stopping progress were not GOP.

Find me some GOP segregationists... there were a few,a scant few..I challenge you to read and discover more.

If you question any fact I did not cite...I'll provide one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Democrats

WROOOONG!!! President Lyndon Johnson (last time I checked he was a Democrat) and a Democratically controlled Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson later lamented that "Democrats have lost the south for a generation" which has happened and then some.


I had to squeeze in a few seconds and debunk this as well. Nazis were not socialists. They were fascists. And fascism is defined as "a form of radical authoritarian nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.

You say you're a mod and you hold yourself to a higher standard so actually do it and do some fact checking before you post.
 
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MGS said:
99% of the segregationists were from the democratic party.

I went to college yes I know this. I'm also from the south and I know the only reason the south was so Democratic was that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. That is until Nixon decided to go the "Southern Strategy" route.

I've also taught college and I tell my students to never use Wikipedia as a source.
 
Ahh the "big switch" myth.

Here are two takes on "the big switch"


http://www.nationalreview.com/article/386257/myth-republican-racism-mona-charen


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10Section2b.t-4.html


There was no wikipedia to quote when I got my degree; however I am fine with quoting wikipedia because I have already learned the information from books.
Me neither. I also typed papers on an IBM Selectric. I especially enjoyed when a prof would say, "I don't like this sentence here..." and I would have to retype the entire fucking page and use another sheet of carbon paper. As for the Southern Strategy, do you live in the South? I grew up in Tennessee and I've lived in off and on in Florida (and Alabama) for 20 years between stints overseas and college and grad school in the midwest. It's really difficult to talk about the political dynamic here with people who haven't lived it. And reading a couple of Faulkner novels doesn't count.
 
The thing is, even though Mr. Seed is confused about the point he's trying to make (the Democratic Party used to have the rural racist vote over fifty years ago) and the Nazi party had the word "socialist" in their name--it has fuck-all to do with anything.

People who have killed people and want to kill more people have a rally.

This is not even about their right to do that.

This is about the counter-protestors to fuckin Nazis, which Mr. Seed and some trolls here continue to attack. All the counter-protestors have done is the stuff anyone else at any political rally in the US: shout a lot and wave placards.

How is that something anyone with the capacity for reason or analogy would ever object to? Much less when they insist that the nazis have such a sacred and holy right to provoke and start fights?


Yeah, this is a "teachable moment", because we've had two trolls just having fun trying to provoke with coded pro-Nazi posts, and the occasional lofty but confused academic arguments about violence in political discourse (almost an actual dialectic you could say); but one mod who hasn't realized yet he's batting against his own team. That right there is proof of how much damage the alt-right fascists have done.
 
No, I am not wrong. The democrats fought the civil rights act of 1957 which was under a GOP.


https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/civil_rights_act.html


Then with Kennedy and Johnson (yes I am aware they were dems) both fought to pass legislation with a lack of Democratic support.



Johnson....




99% of the segregationists were from the democratic party. It is history, look up (again since you failed the first time.) From the kkk (militant wing of democratic party), to Bull Connor, Orval Faubus, Robert Byrd (an actual kkk democrat loved by the Clintons btw), the segregationists have always been Democrats. The slave owners were always democrats. The people with firehoses and barking dogs stopping progress were not GOP.

Find me some GOP segregationists... there were a few,a scant few..I challenge you to read and discover more.

If you question any fact I did not cite...I'll provide one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Democrats
I used to be an accountant by trade. This information overload is simply an attempt to obfuscate the truth. Just like Enron. Not all of his nonsense made it into this thread so I encourage everyone to refer to the original.
 
"Find me some GOP segregationists . . . ."

It'd be almost funny if I didn't live here. Mod of this forum doesn't realize the head of the Justice Department is one.
 
I truly regret that I haven't made clear that, if you asked me...."should Americans be neo nazis much less parade in the streets with them.". I'd say, "Hell no!". Just as I'd discourage anarchists lampooning the klan in the name of antifascism!

None of this changes the fact that the nazi and statue lovers have a legal right to do so....up to the point a crime is committed...like fighting in the streets with antifa, much less the man who drove a car into people. That I recognize these activities as protected constitutional actions (not ncluding the aftermentioned criminal activities) does not make me a nazi defender. It is regrettable I have failed to make this point...I hope I am coming through a little clearer how.
 
"Find me some GOP segregationists . . . ."

It'd be almost funny if I didn't live here. Mod of this forum doesn't realize the head of the Justice Department is one.

I don't like Jeff Sessions either but I don't believe he has taken a public position supporting segregation. I've never liked him and have no idea what is in his heart....so I cannot explain logically why I find him vile and distasteful. He is a remarkably poor AG and wish Trump could fire him. Don't get me started on how stupid Trump was for making any public comments on his awful choice of AG.

When I said "find me some GOP segregationists"...there have been a few... Like 2 or 3.

The other one from the GOP served in the 50s his name escapes me. More than 90% of actual men who called for segregation in elected office were Democrats. *

But history is long and the last active KKK member elected to senate was Robert Byrd (d). There is David Duke in the house...he was a GOP klansman and you will never find me defending people who vote for any of them.

Ps just because you dont like a person's politics, or the POTOS's ill advised comments about very fine people on both sides (klan/neo nazis vs antifa) does not make an automatic association of GOP with the KKK. Again, that's always been a Democratic party thing.

* added for informative purposes

That not mentioning all the segregationist who were not kkk. The men with who stopped civil rights, who turned firehoses and dogs on Americans, the Bull Conners of the south (ie all the mayors, commissioners, the people who instituted jim crow and maintained it in the south) before Ike (R) said enough is enough.. these were all Democrats.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United_States_politics

Me paraphrasing the referenced wiki page...
it goes on to speak on 14 elected officials who were kkk.

Im totally cool quoting wikipedia...I find it very accurate.

Edit: I was thinking Edward L. Jackson...but he was a (r)- gov of Indiana...not a congressperson.

Edit 2: based upon an informal survey of Wikipedia material... 4 of 14 were GOP. Or 10 of 14 were Democrats. I've always maintained I suck at math so excuse my spurious "90%" comment. Clearly it is closer to 80%. But again, you include all those elected at the state and local level who were segregationists...I'm very confident my 90% of them being Democrats holds. I just don't like those guys!

My belief that they still have a policy of segregation by public housing/jail/abortion is controversial but routed in fact. Just read the history of public housing in Chicago, St Louis, Detroit, etc when Democrats ran the big cities in the north....and still do. Hillary and her "super predator" comments does not make her a racist. But if you look up Margaret Sanger; then discover people from Hitler to Hillary Clinton praise her method of segregation and lynching....its not a good association.

Edit 3...that is if you don't include Mckinkey....I knew to leave him out even though he was clearly a Democratic POTUS Kkk lover and proudly screened kkk propaganda in the new whitehouse movie theatre, having just had it built at the time. But good for Wikipedia for not automatically labeling him a klansman for screening "Birth of a nation" in the whitehouse. (1) - cited below

https://searchengineland.com/four-presidents-kkk-googles-latest-problem-featured-answers-269914

Wikipedia — which isn’t perfect but is under constant review by editors — dismisses the charges against presidents Warren G. Harding and Harry S. Truman. The other two, Woodrow Wilson and William McKinley aren’t discussed.

Edit 4: I really hate to do this but since someone made the charge that there is a segregationist in the white house and I don't know.....I regret it's not already clear but..

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/sessions-kkk-case/512600/

Other defenders of Sessions have used the Donald case in similar ways. A letter from 23 former assistant attorney generals cited the fact that he had “worked to obtain the successful capital prosecution of the head of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan” as evidence of his “commitment to the rule of law, and to the even-handed administration of justice.” The Wall Street Journal said that Sessions, “won a death-penalty conviction for the head of the state KKK in a capital murder trial,” a case which “broke the Klan in the heart of dixie,” and The New York Post praised him for having “successfully prosecuted the head of the state Ku Klux Klan for murder.” Grant Bosse wrote in the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Leader wrote that “when local police wrote off the murder as a drug deal gone wrong, Sessions brought in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and brought Hays and the Klan to justice.”

Sessions himself recently listed the case as one of the “ten most significant significant litigated matters” he had “personally handled” on his Senate confirmation questionnaire. And in 2009, Sessions told National Review that there had been a campaign to “smear my record,” whereas in fact, he had “prosecuted the head of the Klan for murdering somebody.”

I cannot stand sessions. It sickens me someone may believe I support Sessions now. I don't. I wish he would resign. My only point was calling someone "boy" implies not a kkk member. Just like saying one prefers socialism does not make them a Stalinist if two parties move the US more towards it.

socialism =

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.


Ehhhh...it still sounds scary to me, unamerican such is my perception.

Citations not in above text

(1)

a book that speaks on this called "For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence"
 
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Look, we don't give a shit that you don't understand what the Southern Strategy was, that you haven't watched the movie with the dad from Malcolm in the Middle called "LBJ" or that you were asleep in your history class when they covered the civil rights movement.

Let's say these "peaceful right-wing marchers" showed up in your town. Remember, they have a bad track record of killing people at these things and shooting and beating people who come out.

Do you join them marching? Or do you hold up a sign that says, "No Hate!" or something?

That's ALL WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.
 
A lot of this seems like a distraction from the white supremacist movement (trying to repackage itself) and the movement against it, Antifa.

It's not about the history of the KKK.

Or, if it is, how many people has Antifa lynched or tarred and feathered? How many Jews and other "undesirables" have Antifa executed?

If that's the bar, then Antifa can't be morally equated with white supremacists.

The modern standard is how many casualties has Antifa caused with deliberately driving a vehicle into a crowd or with a cowardly group beatdown?

Repeat chorus.

Focus people!
 
Look, we don't give a shit that you don't understand what the Southern Strategy was, that you haven't watched the movie with the dad from Malcolm in the Middle called "LBJ" or that you were asleep in your history class when they covered the civil rights movement.

Let's say these "peaceful right-wing marchers" showed up in your town. Remember, they have a bad track record of killing people at these things and shooting and beating people who come out.

Do you join them marching? Or do you hold up a sign that says, "No Hate!" or something?

That's ALL WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.

No, actually I have seen that movie with Bryan Cranston and I also have seen many more (actual) documentaries on LBJ. I'm not faulting the bills he signed as president, and leaving Vietnam out of it, I don't think he was kind to MLK at all.

I am fully in tune with the literature on Nixon but the south didn't really break for GOP till Reagan.

Also, go back and read my post where I clearly say no American should march as a neo Nazi or kkk member. Just go back and read it again three times.

Also, I don't mind Americans who identify with any credo or philosophical notion dressing in black in any name. I took issue with people fighting in the streets, moreover I take issue with antifa in Berkeley when they light fires when Coulter, Shapiro, and other invited speakers come to town. That is my focus....such actions are unnamerican and abhorrent.

I will adjust my thinking to reflect the fact that there are law abiding antifa members. Screaming at nazis is kosher with me.

All of this has me thinking...when will the US ban "hate groups.". That will be a slippery slope. One person's hate is another person's religion. I'm telling you the kkk and neonazis are irrelevant losers....ignore them and volunteer or something.
 
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I don't know swilow, but if there's a Nazi rally in town, I'm gonna show up and counter-protest, whether it's effective or not.

Wouldn't everyone?
 
There hasn't been a successful hate parade in the US since Charlottesville.

The 43 Group were pretty damn successful in post-war britain, as were anti-fascist groups in Paris in the 1980s, who broke up a movement of neo-nazi gangs that were responsible for a lot of violence, intimidation and murder.
 
I don't know swilow, but if there's a Nazi rally in town, I'm gonna show up and counter-protest, whether it's effective or not.

Wouldn't everyone?

Really? Is this an litmus test? I already conceeded when I was 9 I wanted to throw a brick at the KKK. These days I work six days a week...not much time for protesting. Your sentiments are nobile scrofula.
 
This is about the counter-protestors to fuckin Nazis, which Mr. Seed and some trolls here continue to attack. All the counter-protestors have done is the stuff anyone else at any political rally in the US: shout a lot and wave placards.

How is that something anyone with the capacity for reason or analogy would ever object to? Much less when they insist that the nazis have such a sacred and holy right to provoke and start fights?

Who is saying that Nazi's have a right to start fights? I believe people are saying they have a right to protest; if they get violent, then it is a matter for the police to deal with, not a matter for a different group of vigilante thugs.

In my view, the point of a counter-protest is more or less to stifle the ability of those who attend to initial protest to voice their opinions; at least one prominent defender of antifascism on this board has indicated that this is part of the goal of antifascist counter-protests, so I don't think I am too far off the mark here. I would be just as opposed to Nazis/fascists/racists/etc. turning up to 'counter-protest' leftists who were expressing their support for multiculturalism or protesting their governments harsh immigration policy (or whatever else).

Anyone who is familiar with my posts in CE&P over the years would know that I absolutely deplore racism, have reasonably far-left views, and would not be caught dead associating with anybody who would have a snowballs chance in hell of being mistaken for a Neo-Nazi. However, I am also an ardent supporter of free speech. If people are inciting violence, that is a crime, and it is up to the police (not vigilantes) to deal with the matter; the same goes if people are committing violent acts. People have a right to assemble with those who share their views and express those views, that is a fundamental part of free speech and democracy. I believe that infringing this right, no matter who is exercising it, is a disservice to democracy; I also believe that it is highly irrational insofar as I do not believe that it is an effective means for accomplishing the counter-protesters stated goals.

I believe that counter-protests only polarise the views of more or less everybody in attendance at both rallies further, I believe that counter-protests dramatically increase the odds that a given protest will result in widespread violence, I believe that large groups of 'antifascists' turning up to far-right rallies and acting in a violent manner (I am not here suggesting that antifascists are the only violent ones in these scenarios, by the way) actually diminishes the credibility of various far-left platforms in the eyes of the wider public. In other words, I think they accomplish nothing positive, but do contribute to negative outcomes.

All of these issues are compounded by the fact that it is not really clear that the people who are frequently being labeled Nazi's or fascists actually are Nazi's or fascists (though, in all cases I am pretty certain they are people with whom I strongly disagree morally and politically). In some cases, they undoubtedly are; in others, the matter is much more vague. I have personally witnessed, both in person and online, people being labelled Nazi/fascist for expressing racist views (which I deplore, but being racist is not a sufficient condition of being either a Nazi or a fascist), people being so labelled for expressing misgivings about immigration (particularly from the Middle East or largely Islamic countries), and even people being so labelled because they support the right of those who oppose immigration to have an uninterrupted, non-violent rally about it. To me, this is ridiculous.

I am not saying that all antifascists are so confused as to what an actual fascist is, but many I have met are, and I have no confidence that a loosely organised vigilante group which includes these confused people is an effective way to combat 'fascism' in any way. Moreover, I worry that people who are neither guilty of a crime, nor of even being Nazi's, are having their rights to exercise free speech infringed, and, in some cases, are the victims of unjustifiable violence in the name of antifascism. I also worry that these people, as a result of these activities, are more likely to embrace actual Naziism down the line. This is a very complex and sensitive issue, I personally cannot see why anyone should think a disorganised group of extremist vigilantes provide a means to solving it - it seems to me they are only adding fuel to the fire.

I like to think that I have a good reputation in this forum, both as someone who has taken considerable time over the years to try and demonstrate why racist views are so vacuous and misguided, and as someone who generally expresses well-reasoned, defensible views. Well, in most cases I object to these counter-protests, and I spent the majority of this post trying to elucidate why I think that is a perfectly rational view. If you want to maintain that I am irrational for holding it, I would appreciate if you could point out what about I have said you think is mistaken.

What I don't understand is, we all agree that Nazism and fascism are fucking moronic. It seems obvious to me that these ideas are ones which can be defeated by rational argument and debate; moreover, when you compare the attendance of the 'counter-protests' to the actual far-right protests, it is clear that these people are vastly outnumbered. I don't personally believe that in 2017 there is a real risk of Nazism or fascism becoming the dominant political view; I believe that if there was such a risk, then the best way to combat this would be education and debate - not 'counter-protests', no-platforming, doxxing and using violence.

Just so it is crystal clear: I condemn Nazism and fascism. However, I do not support any non-violent adherents of this ideology (by which I mean those who have not committed any acts of violence; I am not interested in any suggestions that an abstraction such as an ideology can be violent in the relevant sense of the word) having their rights stripped away by virtue of nothing more than their adherence to this, undoubtedly toxic, ideology.

Charlottesville was the turning point. You either condemn the violence and the casualties, which were committed by Neonazis and white supremacists, or you tacitly support it.

There really isn't middle ground.

The problem, as I see it, is that those who condemn the violence on both sides of the political divide are being labelled Neo-Nazi supporters. I agree that the violence being committed by both sides is not equivalent, a fucking Nazi killed a poor woman at Charlottesville. Nonetheless, I don't see how the condemnation of right-wing political violence entails an obligation to support left-wing political violence - I realise that you have not explicitly said this. But, it does increasingly seem like 'antifascists' and their supporters have a rather 'us vs them' mentality whereby anyone who does not support militant antifascist activities is thereby a closet Nazi/fascist/racist/member of the alt-right, and is ipso facto a legitimate target of slander, abuse, and if one is in attendance at the wrong rally, even violence. There is a middle ground, but it seems to me that too many are so polarised by this issue that they are incapable of seeing it.
 
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Mr Mentor, i'm curious if you are familiar with Popper's Paradox of Tolerance, which i referred to in a post yesterday.
Do you have any thoughts about that?
 
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