Charlottesville: State of emergency over US far-right rally

[Alyrium Denryle]

I'm used to people reading my posts in the worst possible light and then attacking me personally rather than my arguments (which becomes self-perpetuating, as every time it happens, people on this board become more inclined to view everything I post in the most negative possible light), but I might have hoped that a moderator would demonstrate better conduct. Apparently, I was mistaken.

Gonna level with you here.

I am making an exception in this thread. It takes a LOT to get me enraged TRR. You managed to pull it off. Here, let me explain something to you. I am, ethnically speaking, of english, german, and jewish extraction. Now, I am only an 8th Jew, but these fuckers would murder my grandmother and probably my mother for that. I am gay, which means they will murder me if they gain power. They want to kill a hefty portion of the people I care about. Their political activities are slow burn attempted mass murder. This is not some abstract ethical exercise for me. It is pretty damn personal, which is why I went down into the mod forum and warned Thanas in advance. He might have to moderate me.

So lets say I go to the counter protest for the Trump rally on Tuesday (I live in the greater Phoenix area). Will there be Nazis there? I don't fucking know. Probably. If there are, you don't feel safe on other side of the Canadian border? How the fuck do you think I feel? Those fuckers want to murder me, and if they can't murder me, they will certainly beat me into a hospital bill that I can't afford to pay if they get a chance to do that. I've been beaten before (and worse), the prospect of going through that again fucking terrifies me.

I've had to de-escalate a shotgun wielding meth-addled redneck, I was fine. Free-handle venomous snakes? Cool, I know what I am doing. Put me in armor and give me a sword in a sporting context? Excellent! Someone comes at me with a fist or blunt instrument and hatred in their eyes? Fuck. I am terrified that I will freeze and be unable to defend myself. Maybe I wont. I don't know. Then again, I am no good at actual violence so it probably won't matter. I know exactly how well I would do in a fight against a white supremacist. I am not in fantastic shape, and I have no idea how to fight unless I have an edged weapon that is 400 years out of date. I'll lose. Probably. I might surprise myself. But I am not Raw Shark.

But you know what makes me feel a hell of a lot safer? It isn't the police because I cannot trust the police to do their jobs (at least not around here). It isn't being surrounded by like-minded people, because without organization they will be crushed like bugs if there are enough Nazis. Knowing that there will be antifascists between me and Nazi scum. They are organized, are willing to engage in violence to defend me, and they know how to do it. That is the only reason I am even considering going to that counter protest.

I know they are in my corner, and that they will help if the worst happens. I will not undermine that. Even if my view of the world was such that I disagreed with them on the use of force, I still wouldn't undermine that.

Now back to your regularly scheduled (though now somewhat calmed) rage.

snip misrepresentation, deluded ranting, and defamation

What parts were defamation, deluded, or misrepresentation, exactly? Do explain. In fact, I am going to absolutely demand you do so.

As far as the reasons for not restricting political speech in America, I believe that largely agree with you, and said as much previously. What I disagree with is that it is therefore necessary to suppress Neo-Nazi views by vigilantism and terrorism. That has no less a cost, and is no less likely to backfire on the most vulnerable groups, than expanding hate speech laws. See my previous reply to aerius.

Vigilantism is taking the law into your own hands, or otherwise assuming for yourself powers that are reserved for the state. This is not vigilantism, because the state explicitly lacks the power to police public Nazism, despite by your own admission the fact that Nazism is a direct and existential threat to that state. It is also not terrorism, because terrorism is an attempt to cause terror in the population in order to pressure governments into enacting policy change.

There is no actual policy to change (yet), nor is anyone trying to terrorize the population. No one is suggesting breaking into the homes of Nazis and killing them in their sleep. Merely having organized (preferably non-lethally, but I am not ruling out escalation in the event that the Nazis start shooting people. They WILL be the first to do so given their apparent willingness to fight it out with police last week and a certain vehicular homicide) armed presences to protect counter-protesters at Nazi events so as to prevent them from enacting their agenda. An agenda, which I will remind you, includes multiple genocides.

Though the bit about terrorism does bring up another question.

Let us pretend for a moment that that Nazis took control of the apparatus of the state. Where exactly do you sit with the concept of partisans, actively resisting and undertaking offensive actions against Nazis? Under current definitions, they would certainly be considered terrorists. Would you decry them as such and demand that they stop trying to prevent their friends, families, and neighbors from being gassed with Zyklon B? Granted I am sure modern Nazis would use a nerve agent like Sarin, but why alter the classics?

It is an honest question, I am seriously trying to figure out where your lines in the sand are, if you have them, or whether you actually do view principles as more important than life itself.

I am of the view that, as much as I loath Nazism, the price of living in a free society is that sometimes horrible people get to say horrible things, just as the price of having rule of law is that sometimes a guilty man gets off for lack of evidence or improper procedure. It is not then justifiable to start assaulting, terrorizing, or killing those who say vile things, any more than it is acceptable to go out and murder someone as a vigilante because the court acquitted them.

See, you say on the one hand that you view Nazis as an existential threat, and then on the other minimize them as just saying horrible things. The inanity of that boggles my fucking mind.

They are NOT and NEVER just say terrible things. If it were one idiot ranting about the Conspiracy of World Jewry on a street corner, he could be mocked, but otherwise permitted to continue. That is not what we have here. We have well armed and well organized Nazis ready and willing to challenge the legitimate authority of the state through force of arms (in fact, they conspired to do so, as in criminal conspiracy). They initiated violence against what were at that point peaceful counter protesters. They killed someone.

They've gone FAR beyond simply saying terrible things. They always will go beyond simply saying terrible things, because that is what Nazis do.

Tolerance is not a moral precept. If it were, we enter into the realm of Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance, wherein in order to defend tolerance, we must make the decision to be non-tolerant of intolerance, or watch that very thing be destroyed. Thankfully, we don't even need to wrestle with that contradiction, because tolerance is not a moral precept.

It is a peace treaty. A pragmatic means by which we can all attain the common goal of living a life of peace in a society in which median happiness can be maximized. In order to maintain that peace treaty, you have to punish violators.

Nazis violate the damn treaty. They never had any intention of abiding by it. They just use it as a shield to avoid retaliation, and the rest of us have every right in the world to kick their ass up around their ears.

It is interesting, in light of that, that you mention not dissolving the social contract as a line you would be unwilling to cross. Because to me, an implicit part of the social contract is that you don't get to act outside the law just because the law isn't perfect, or doesn't go your way.

Here is my take on it. Violence is not going away. Wring your hands as much as you want. It is a reality. Unless you are going to bow out of political demonstration entirely, the right of two different groups of people to assemble in opposition to one another inevitably leads to physical fights. It might not happen every time, but it happens a lot, and the more contentious the issue, the higher the stakes, the more likely it is to happen. That is just the background rate. That is people arguing over tax policy, or police misconduct, or any number of other perfectly normal things in a democracy.

That does not harm our social contract or our democracy. It has not in the past, it won't now. Even organized violence has not damaged it, or put it at risk. You think labor unionization was peaceful? There were actual shooting wars in West Virginia over unions in coal mines. Railroad companies brought in Pinkerton mercenaries or sometimes the army to settle labor disputes with bloodshed, and those railroad workers fought back hard. I can go on and on from the LA riots to gay liberation, all the way to prohibition and

Non-violent resistance has worked precisely once in US history on a large scale in order to achieve social change. That was MLK, and he still had the Black Panthers offering a more violent alternative as his ace in the hole, and the white population knew it. Now, we move forward to 2017, and we've got a Nazi infestation. They're always there, but just like agricultural pests, sometimes they break out and start doing damage. This is one of those times.

When they feel like they can move about openly without consequence, they go full Sturmabteilung. Once again, I reference their initiating violence against the peaceful counter-protesters and conspiracy to fight and kill the police.

They are going to do this in an organized way. We saw it a week ago. And, as I already laid out, if they are permitted to do that unchecked (and do recall, the police stood the fuck by), they will be emboldened by it and it will enhance their recruitment efforts while escalating their violence. So the rest of us have to not allow that, even if the state won't do anything. If the police step up and start protecting peaceful counter protesters, or if the FBI manages somehow to start taking down their organizations... antifascists wont be necessary. But until that happens, they are necessary.

Because Nazis are not just saying terrible things. They are already doing terrible things, and they will do much worse if they succeed.

So white supremacists are allowed to exist, and speak, even as I condemn them for it. If Neo-Nazis or anyone else cross the line into actual violence, or direct threats/direct incitement of violence, then you bring the hammer down on them. Simple.

You are speaking in "if"s. They've already done it. The hammer of state power remains undropped. Until it drops, what exactly (and I want specifics) do you want people to do if they are attacked at counter-protests? Sit there and take it? Fight back in a disorganized way that is unlikely to work because it makes you feel better, or start fighting back in an organized way?

Do you also oppose unofficial social sanctions against Nazis? (outing them to their bosses and loved ones etc)?

What do you want done in the long run if the state fails to do anything? Because so far, it looks like it will.

My opposition to political violence is not born only out of moral opposition, though there certainly is that (and I am immediately wary of anyone who scoffs at morals as a luxury that only the privileged can afford, because "necessity" has been used to justify a great many terrible and unnecessary things).

<snip, covered elsewhere>

Existing law covers that. It has served well enough for many years. No, it didn't stop every hate crime or act of bigotry, but it is impossible to prevent every act of violence or corruption, no matter how draconian your laws or how heavy-handed your response. It did serve to keep Neo-Nazism from being a major political force, for decades.

See, here is where we massively differ in perspective. I view the existence of active Nazis as a direct threat. They advocate violence on a massive scale, and whenever they show up they manage to commit violence. They are inherently violent, dangerous, and a threat to other people in a way that cannot be said of any other group except perhaps islamic terror organizations.

They are Nazis. We can take it as read that they are conspiring to commit murder even if we don't have names and dates on who they plan to kill, when, and how. That is their purpose in existence. They are just using the equivalent of a loophole in the way our society is structured to get away with it; seem to have found the secret to not be labeled a terror organization by the government; and whenever they show up and start clubbing people the police seem to pick up a coffee cup that says "Look at all the fucks I don't give!".

Ethics are never a luxury. They are an absolute necessity. What I reject are deontological ethics, almost in their entirety. I am through and through, a consequentialist (though I do, even now, apply a deontological constraint function). You don't get points for having clean hands at the end of the day if people die when it could have been avoided. Inaction is itself a decision for which one is ethically responsible. Deontologies where some high-minded ideal is respected over and above the actual consequences lead to something reprehensible to me.

I oppose it because I do not want to see the Nazis triumph.

Rather than accept that we simply have a different view on the most effective way of combatting Neo-Nazism, however, you chose to brand me a supporter of Neo-Nazism, as a collaborator, with your despicable referral to me as "Quislingesque" (the term "Quisling", originally, literally means "Nazi collaborator"), and your insinuation that I do not care if minorities are murdered because I am safe due to my "privilege".

Here is why. Other than the fact that I am really fucking angry and knew that would get under your skin. There is also a point to it.

Lets pretend for a moment that I am a pacifist. One who rejects violence in its entirety as being morally wrong. I imagine, farther along the pacifist spectrum than you.

We have Nazis. Nazis are an abomination to me, but I still cannot do violence. I know violence is going to happen because I am not an idiot. At that point, I have a choice to make. I can:

1) Moralize from afar about the virtues of pacifism and how the people fighting the Nazis are just as bad, they should be ashamed of themselves and ought stop fighting immediately so as to keep their hands clean.
2) Do absolutely nothing.
3) Do support work. Donate money, patch up the injured, help run logistics operations, voter outreach, angry letters to congress etc etc.

One is doing less than nothing. At least with nothing, I am not impeding what needs to be done. But one? The Nazis fucking love pacifists and disunity in their enemies. I would be helping them. Unintentionally, but helping them all the same.

Now lets bring this back to you.

You are advocating a solution that will not be effective (Just getting rid of Trump has too long a time horizon), and actively playing into the "Nazis and Antifascists are just as bad" narrative because you are rambling about how terrible political violence is and accusing the antifascists who fight Nazis of terrorist acts. You are not doing it intentionally, which is why I didn't flat out call you a Quisling, but only Quislingesque. Resembling a Quisling. I could also have used the term Pseudoquizling, or perhaps Quasiquizling. Yet, you are still doing it.

Had you just kept it to "I think this will be ineffective for reasons X,Y,Z" that would be one thing. But you combined it with the moralizing. You are literally using the alt-right and Trump's talking points and obfuscatory tactics.

I regard this as libel.

It isn't. Libel is a lie. Even if I am wrong (and admittedly I could be), I am not lying. I am simply wrong. If I went out and accused you of actively and intentionally collaborating with Nazis... that would be Libel.

I will also add that, while I am aware that ones' experience, which include but are not limited to the demographics one belongs to, can bias ones' perspective, the use of "privilege" in this manner, as a way of saying "You belong to X-demographic, therefore your argument can be dismissed" is by definition text-book ad hominem, attacking the speaker rather than the argument.

Which is not what I did. That statement is bellied by both of the walls of text I have thus far written.

Had I done that, I would simply have said "Check your privilege" and had done. Instead, I went through line by line and posed counter arguments to asinine statement after asinine statement.

Is that the choice now? Have we really come to this? Either you support Left-wing militias and murder in the streets, or you are yourself a Nazi?

Now when on earth have I called for murder?

Give me an in-context quotation.

Which is part of why Alyrium's attack on me pisses me off so much. We should be on the same side. And yet he's calling me, essentially, a Nazi collaborator because I'm not hard line enough.

Ralin explained it pretty well. I will simply quote him.

Idiot, let me break this down for you. We aren't angry at you for not being hard line enough. We don't mock you for supporting non-violent ways of organizing and acting against right-wingers. We think you're a fucking worthless shit because you will not shut up about how terrible the leftists who do consider violence on the table and condemning activists who do break the law and do strike back against fascists, white supremacists and Trumpists in general. Working within the system, trying to get the vote out, organizing fund raisers and canvassing and all that is good and beneficial. It's supporting all that along with your goddamn Little Lord Fauntleroy routine that makes you less than useless.

If you're not willing to support people's right to fight back against this shit then you can damned well shut up and stay out of the way of the folks who do. Otherwise you're exactly the sort of moderate liberal shithead Martin Luther King complained about.

I am a social democrat. You know what social democrats did in Germany in the 1930s? They fought Nazis. They saw what way the wind was blowing and they fought Nazis. They couldn't beat the Sturmabteiling because they didn't unite with the communists in time, and they lost. Then most of them died. Had they not fought the Sturmabteiling, they still would have lost and died. The take-home message I get from this is that you can't lose to the Sturmabteiling, and you need to start before before the Nazis get big.

This social democrat is going to learn from history and say "Hey, communist comrades! You hate Nazis, I hate Nazis. The enemy of my enemy is my... temporary ally against fascism!". I will then give them the fist-bump of solidarity to another who has read Das Kapital and came to very different conclusions regarding the people's revolution but still knows that Fascism is an abomination that must be rooted out and destroyed. After which, we can get back to our socialist infighting.

If you want to focus on other things? That's fine! Great! Fantastico!

But don't undermine the people who are going to be shielding me from real physical harm. That I won't have, because I would really like to keep breathing.

Alyrium, can I ask you a question?

You say that you support political violence to suppress Nazi views, right?

You also characterized me as akin to a Nazi collaborator because of how I oppose that view.

Does it also, therefore, follow that you believe that my views should be forcibly suppressed? After all, there's not that much difference between a Nazi and a collaborator, right?

Absolutely not. There is a big difference between someone who is a Nazi, or who through malice collaborates with Nazis... and someone who, through honest conviction and a desire to do the right thing, ends up accidentally doing something that I think helps them.

I could never harm you or advocate that you be harmed.

So, should I be beaten to a bloody pulp, or murdered, because I'm a "straight white boy" who holds a different view than you on this issue?

And what about the other millions of Americans who are not Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, but disagree with you on this issue? Should they be forcibly silenced as collaborators?

What about the leadership of the Democratic Party, which does not condone Left-wing militia violence?

What about the mother of Heather Heyer, who asked people to not respond to her daughter's murder with hatred?

Do any of these people want to commit genocide? No? Okay!

I ask this not because I think that you support violence against all those people, but to make a point: when you condone the use of violence, not only as a defensive tactic but as a retaliatory or intimidation tactic, when you open those flood gates, you tend to end up with an "us vs. them" mindset, which is not terribly selective in its targets.

I would never advocate retaliatory violence or violence as political intimidation. If you had actually read my entire wall of text, that would be clear to you. I am talking about antifascists as organized defense. Now... defense can be broadly interpreted to also include counter-charges (the best way to break a boars head shield wall that the Nazis liked to use at Charlottesville is to counter-charge on their flank and break the formation's cohesion), skirmishes on a protest picket line with thrown objects, liberal application of harsh language...

I would never advocate retaliatory attacks or offensives (say, attacking a Nazi bar or something). At least not through physical force. I would favor social attacks for that. Say, taking pictures of Nazis and posting them up on the internet with their full metadata for verification purposes (embedded GPS and timestamps etc) with the caption "Are you my employer? I am a Nazi who was at <insert rally here> and create an unsafe work environment for my minority co-workers". Though if Richard Spencer is going to rant on a street corner, I am not going to weep if someone sucker punches him.

It is hard for someone to live a normal life in peace and security (with a roof over their head) when everyone and their mother knows they believe in ethnic cleansing.

You start legitimizing Left-wing militias as the only means of protecting us from Nazis, and before long, I fucking guarantee that you will have people being threatened, or beaten, or killed because they're part of the wrong faction of the Left- because they're not Democrats, or because the are Democrats, or because they're not Bernie or Bust, or because they are Bernie or Bust, or because they're a straight white man, or because they voted Republican once twenty years ago, or because they said maybe we shouldn't turn to vigilantes and terrorists to protect us.

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

[Thanas]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

[Flagg]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

Yeah, I mean I get the fact that political and societal realities in the US making hate speech laws which protect oppressed minorities is a difficult proposition, but frankly I'd rather make an argument for those (while tolerating peaceful until acting in self-defense or the defense of others counter-Nazis until we don't need them) because I don't see the current fire vs fire system as a long term solution.

Because they aren't. People were busting the heads of the KKK in the 19th century and they came back stronger than ever in the 20th until the FBI stomped on them in the 60's and 70's. Nazi's got stomped on by Jewish and communist groups and then crushed by the government in the '30's and '40's and then they came back. Now their man is in the WH and ran on a platform of racism and misogyny that would not be permitted with the right kind of hate speech laws.

That said, those laws do not yet exist. Unless and until they do, I'll take the Nazi-stompers we have and defend them from foolish twats of any political persuasion.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

That I did not know. Reference material (german language is fine)? Are we talking the level of violence that is typical of any riot ever, or did they go beyond that (rock throwing etc vs going after police with knives)?

[Thanas]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

That I did not know. Reference material (german language is fine)? Are we talking the level of violence that is typical of any riot ever, or did they go beyond that (rock throwing etc vs going after police with knives)?

They stored porthole covers on top of rooftops to throw them down on police, they prepared slings with steel balls and they were mixing molotov cocktails according to police that were monitoring them.

link in german.


EDIT: This is pretty common nowadays too, remember the anarchist riots in greece where they killed people with firebombs?

[Alyrium Denryle]

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

That I did not know. Reference material (german language is fine)? Are we talking the level of violence that is typical of any riot ever, or did they go beyond that (rock throwing etc vs going after police with knives)?

They stored porthole covers on top of rooftops to throw them down on police, they prepared slings with steel balls and they were mixing molotov cocktails according to police that were monitoring them.

link in german.


EDIT: This is pretty common nowadays too, remember the anarchist riots in greece where they killed people with firebombs?

OK, I stand corrected (provided these were specifically Antifa, and not generalized anarchists). Yeesh. In that case, vigilance will be required across the pond to prevent that shit. Antifascists have been in the US since the 1980s and we have not had that issue. Our radical leftists are a different beast than those in Europe as far as I can tell. Cultural and historical differences.

[Zaune]

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

It must be nice to live in a country where you can make such assertions with total confidence.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

It must be nice to live in a country where you can make such assertions with total confidence.

There is that, but his point is made.

Antifascists are, afterall, a loose coalition of socialists, communists, and anarchists. You do have to be careful that the radicals you are getting into (proverbial) bed with are not *too* radical. Even if the anarchists in question were not acting in an antifascist capacity at that moment (the article didn't say, just specified anarchists and not all anarchists are antifascists) there is still going to be some overlap. It is what happens when you've got Nazis and the Karl Marx symbol goes up in the sky.

[mr friendly guy]

Person defending Trump's lack of condemnation cries on Fox. Fucking conservative snowflakes. Remember when they got triggered because you wish them happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Now they get triggered when you point out the POTUS initially acted as a Nazi apologist.

[Flagg]

Person defending Trump's lack of condemnation cries on Fox. Fucking conservative snowflakes. Remember when they got triggered because you wish them happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Now they get triggered when you point out the POTUS initially acted as a Nazi apologist.

Initially? Or do you consider what he's done since his weaksauce walkback attempt full throated (as in he's giving the Nazi shaft a deep throat massage) support? But I don't wanna argue. Watching them squirm like worms on a fish hook is awesome.

[mr friendly guy]

Person defending Trump's lack of condemnation cries on Fox. Fucking conservative snowflakes. Remember when they got triggered because you wish them happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Now they get triggered when you point out the POTUS initially acted as a Nazi apologist.

Initially? Or do you consider what he's done since his weaksauce walkback attempt full throated (as in he's giving the Nazi shaft a deep throat massage) support? But I don't wanna argue. Watching them squirm like worms on a fish hook is awesome.

Well I consider this another case of Trump flip flopping back and forth. He went apologetic for Neo Nazi's, then tried to back track, and then went the opposite direction again. I wouldn't be surprise if he goes back and forth a couple more times giving mixed messages, just like how he does on a host of other issues.

[ray245]

Thought I ought to share this.

The hilarious way a German town turned neo-Nazis against Nazism
"If only the Führer knew!"

There isn’t a clear playbook for people who suddenly find their hometown filled with neo-Nazis. They can ignore them and hope they go away quickly. They can protest peacefully, and potentially put their lives on the line against armed and dangerous white supremacists. They can attempt to meet force with force, and risk men like Donald Trump blurring the lines between racist and anti-racist protests.

Three years ago, however, a small German town found a fourth option — you can involuntarily conscript Nazis into anti-Nazism.

Wunsiedel, a town of less than 10,000 people, was once the burial site of Nazi leader Rudolf Hess, former top deputy to Adolf Hitler. Though Hess’ body was exhumed in 2011 and the grave was destroyed, dozens of neo-Nazis still made an annual pilgrimage to Wunsiedel, marching through the town wearing black clothes and displaying green flags. (German law bans the display of Nazi iconography such as swastikas.)

In 2014, after enduring the annual Nazi march for over a quarter century, Wunsiedel residents responded with “Germany’s most involuntary charity walk” — a project of the Center for Democratic Culture in Germany (ZDK Deutschland).

The idea of the walk, labeled “Nazis against Nazis,” was to make the neo-Nazis’ march the trigger for an anti-Nazi fundraiser. For every meter the neo-Nazis walked, donors agreed to give €10 to EXIT-Deutschland, an organization that helps neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists escape radicalism and build new lives.

Residents marked the path of the march with milestones thanking the neo-Nazis for how much money they’ve raised so far — including a big banner at the end of the march announcing that the marchers raised a total of €10,000 to fight Nazism. Banners with slogans like “If only the Führer knew!” and “Quick like a greyhound! Tough like leather! And as generous as never before” taunted the neo-Nazis along the way.

While this tactic has not kept Nazis out of towns like Wunsiedel entirely, it appears to have discouraged their presence. After the German town of Remagen deployed a similar tactic, ZDK Deutschland’s Fabian Wichmann told Vice that attendance at that town’s neo-Nazi march was nearly cut in half. “Last year more than 200 people came to Remagen to demonstrate,” Wichmann told the publication in 2015. “This year we started Nazis Against Nazis there and only 100 or 120 people came.”

“I don’t know if Nazis Against Nazis is the reason the group shrank,” Wichmann admitted, “but we see that the neo-Nazis see our actions, discuss them, and think about how to handle it. I think they have no idea how to combat our actions.”

Villanova philosophy professor Yannik Thiem, who grew up close to Wunsiedel before moving to the United States, told ThinkProgress over email that even if Nazis Against Nazis didn’t diminish the number of right-wingers showing up to racist rallies, it did seem to discourage them.

“As I understand from friends in Germany, in 2014 and after the neo-Nazis left town very quickly after doing their march,” Thiem wrote. “There are always about 200 who show up. They no longer hang around and hand out information.”

There’s at least one effort underway to replicate Nazis Against Nazis in the United States.

Following Donald Trump’s election, Stephanie Frank launched a Facebook group called “The Daily Constitutional” to provide group members with “one daily action, meant to protect constitutional government” they could perform. After the events in Charlottesville, she knew she wanted to do something. But she was concerned about the most effective approach to take.

For one, she wanted to push back against neo-Nazi movements without fueling them. “It became very clear to me that the far right was going to be galvanized by what they view as their success in Charlottesville,” Frank told ThinkProgress over the phone. And given her commitment to constitutional values, she also didn’t want to push a solution that could undermine them — Frank said she is “not going to start campaigning against free speech.”

The German Nazis Against Nazis campaign fit right into that sweet spot. It is respectful of free speech rights while dismissive of the Nazis’ message. It humiliates white supremacists and fosters internal divisions within neo-Nazi groups, rather than leaving them feeling triumphant.

To encourage Americans to embrace this anti-Nazi tactic, Frank launched “Operation Make Lemonade” this week. After posting a Google form on Monday soliciting input from people interested in copying Nazis Against Nazis, she said she’s heard from a few other folks with similar ideas — including an Indivisible group based in Laguna Beach, California and an effort based in Maine that arose out of the pro-Hillary Clinton group Pantsuit Nation and that is now aiming to raise funds for anti-racist groups.

Thiem also mentioned other creative tactics anti-racist demonstrators have deployed to prevent racists from delivering their message. “I have participated in other related initiatives, such as brass marching bands and “noise brigades” (vuvuzelas, drums, brass) to drown out fascists’ speeches at their rallies,” said Thiem. “I’ve also participated in counter-protests that were organized as dance parties (again, noise to drown out the chants and disregarding the neo-Nazis, who thrive on the attention and confrontation).”

These participatory protests — and other, more traditional counter-protests — are important, Thiem argued, even if they don’t actively discourage Nazis from rallying.

“When antifascist, antiracist protests are big and have lots of people turn out, it communicates that this is ‘the normal/right way to think’ — it empowers anti-racists to speak up and it marginalizes racists.”

https://thinkprogress.org/german-town-p ... neo-nazis/

[ray245]

Oh, and see how Germany managed to prevent this kind of violence from escalating. Far-right marches are allowed, but they are very heavily regulated.

Leftwing groups and Berlin residents have prevented more than 500 neo-Nazis from marching to the place where Rudolf Hess died 30 years ago.

Police in riot gear kept the far-right extremists and an estimated 1,000 counter-protesters apart on Saturday as the two sides staged competing rallies in the German capital’s western district of Spandau.

Far-right protesters had planned to march to the site of the former Spandau prison, where the high-ranking Nazi official hanged himself in 1987, but were forced to turn back after about half a mile because of a blockade by counter-protesters.

After changing their route, the neo-Nazis, who had come from all over Germany and neighbouring European countries, returned to Spandau’s main station for speeches amid jeers and chants of “Nazis go home!” and “You lost the war!” from counter-protesters.

Authorities had imposed restrictions on the march to ensure that it passed peacefully. Organisers were told they could not glorify Hess or the Nazi regime, carry weapons, drums or torches, and could bring only one flag for every 25 participants.

Such restrictions are common in Germany and rooted in the experience of the pre-war Weimar Republic, when opposing political groups would try to forcibly interrupt their rivals’ rallies, resulting in frequent street violence.

Police in Germany say they generally try to balance protesters’ rights to free speech and free assembly against the rights of counter-demonstrators and residents. The rules mean that shields, helmets and batons carried by far-right and neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville are not allowed in Germany. Openly antisemitic chants would also prompt German police to intervene.

Neo-Nazi protesters on Saturday were frisked and funnelled through tents where police checked them for weapons, forbidden flags and tattoos showing symbols banned in Germany, such as the swastika. A number of far-right protesters emerged from the tents with black tape covering their arms or legs.

Organisers imposed a number of their own rules on the marchers: they were encouraged to wear smart, white shirts and were told not to speak to the media.

Among those demonstrating against the neo-Nazis was Jossa Berntje from the western city of Koblenz. The 64-year-old cited the clashes in Charlottesville and her parents’ experience of living under the Nazis as her reason for coming.

“The rats are coming out of the sewers,” she said. “Trump has made it socially acceptable.”

Hess, who received a life sentence at the Nuremberg trials for his role in planning the second world war, died on 17 August 1987. Allied authorities ruled his death a suicide, but Nazi sympathisers have long claimed he was killed and organise annual marches in his honour.

Those annual far-right marches used to take place in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel, where Hess was buried until authorities removed his remains.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... -in-berlin


So I don't agree with people in this thread that argue that American-style free speech must exist in its current form and that changing it to something more akin to German's version will suddenly restrict free speech.

[Beowulf]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

Not according to the antifa. And that's the thing that scares me, and makes me think of them as vigilantes, despite Alyrium's claims they aren't: they choose who their targets are, and there's no appeal to their decision, just a bike lock to the face. Self defense? sure. But it has to be actual self defense. Not proactive defense.

[Flagg]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

Not according to the antifa. And that's the thing that scares me, and makes me think of them as vigilantes, despite Alyrium's claims they aren't: they choose who their targets are, and there's no appeal to their decision, just a bike lock to the face. Self defense? sure. But it has to be actual self defense. Not proactive defense.

Yeah, there's really no place for those organizations in a truly civilized society. Hence why I can accept the fact that in the US we very well may need counter-Nazi groups who aren't afraid to bust skulls because we have police who are too sympathetic (Or scared. Because "Boo hoo hoo, I wanna get free shit from 7-11 on my way home to pork the fatass wife I'm cheating on because it's our anniversary. I only have body armor and an M-4 to protect me, you can't expect me to actually protect and serve!" ) to the Nazi scumbags (It's hilarious that the military roots out and discharges Nazi filth because we don't want assholes with swastika tattoos patrolling the streets of Kandahar yet the Blue Coward Parade hires them to patrol the streets of American cities ) to actually protect the people these terrorists attack. It's disgraceful, but it's the way it is for now and (sadly) the foreseeable future.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Anti-fascists have been around for decades. You see rioting sometimes because... anarchocommunists, what do you want? I'd like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists dressed in red instead of black and who don't riot at G20 conferences but... well...that is not the world I live in. What they don't do is attack people who are not fascists or white supremacists except perhaps by accident. But a decades long track record is pretty good, and these ARE anarchocommunists for the most part. They don't really care about being "legitimized" because they kinda reject the concept.

The rioting in Hamburg says otherwise. They used deadly force against police, who are neither a fascist or white supremacist organization.

Not according to the antifa. And that's the thing that scares me, and makes me think of them as vigilantes, despite Alyrium's claims they aren't: they choose who their targets are, and there's no appeal to their decision, just a bike lock to the face. Self defense? sure. But it has to be actual self defense. Not proactive defense.

That is a bit of an issue yes, and right now... most dedicated antifascists are also anarchists who present their own problems. I *will not* criticize them for punching Nazis, but their tendency to (as far as I can tell while acting outside the capacity of antifacists, black bloc is basically ubiquitous among anarchists of every stripe) riot at the drop of a hat and attack police is a problem. Which is why I would like to see nice well put together social democrat antifascists. But the US's Nazis Problem has been under the radar and it's been mostly anarchocommunists who have kept that particular torch going. I am actually kinda looking forward to the anarchists being swamped by people joining the ranks of antifascists who are not, in fact, anarchists.

But when Nazis show up... "you go to war with the army you have...".

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm glad you acknowledge the problem of antifascists overlapping with/attracting anarchists and anarchocommunists who are not necessarily acting purely defensively.

However, I don't think that's a problem that can be hand-waved with "you go to war with the army you have" because it is, in my opinion, central to the entire issue. Relying on allies with ulterior motives, who wish to advance their own extremist agenda, and who will likely drive away if not actively target more moderate supporters and allies is not, to my mind, a very promising strategy purely on pragmatic grounds, without even getting into the considerable moral issues involved, and even if you do not feel Nazis are entitled to equal protection from extrajudicial violence.

Edit: I would also suspect that a tendency to attract violent radicals who are not choosey in their targets is more or less an innate characteristic of militia-type movements, and could certainly point to plenty of notable examples, even if I concede that I cannot prove it as an overall statistical trend.

In other words, "its not a bug, its a feature."

(Apologies, incidentally, for not replying sooner and with a more thorough response Alyrium. I can only plead computer problems and a busy schedule).

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm also tempted to quote George Washington (who himself was a revolutionary, and a successful one):

"To place any dependence upon militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff."

I admittedly quoted this off wikiquote, but I've heard it, or similar, elsewhere, so I'm pretty sure its a real quote.

[Thanas]

Eh, I can totally see allying with antifascists as a viable strategy. When somebody with a bat and automatic weapons is shouting about how he will kill all of you then any help is appreciated. The US allied with Stalin to squash Hitler after all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Eh, I can totally see allying with antifascists as a viable strategy. When somebody with a bat and automatic weapons is shouting about how he will kill all of you then any help is appreciated. The US allied with Stalin to squash Hitler after all.

Yes, but as bad as the situation is in the US currently, I don't think it is yet equivalent to the threat level posed by Adolph Hitler in the early 1940s.

Is their a point where such an alliance might be the only option? Yeah. I just don't think we're their yet.

I also want to be clear that I am not saying everyone in Antifa is a violent anarchist or communist, or anything like that. Merely that such groups tend to attract such people, particularly when offensive violence starts to become acceptable.

[NecronLord]

I'm curious to know TRR, what would be your trigger point for endorsing anti-fascists? If we're not there 'yet' there must be a time when you would say "Yes, I TRR endorse this" - where is that point?

[Khaat]

In a letter to his nephew, Lund Washington, plantation manager of Mount Vernon, General George Washington writes on this day in 1776 of his displeasure with the undisciplined conduct and poor battlefield performance of the American militia. Washington blamed the Patriot reliance on the militia as the chief root of his problems in the devastating loss of Long Island and Manhattan to the British.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... r-problems

Washington was fighting against professional, trained, equipped, and disciplined soldiers, with untrained, ill-equipped, and undisciplined militiamen. Then he got the help of von Steuben, who knew how to mint soldiers. (IMHO, taking his letters as a general indication, Washington was writing his excuses to history for when he lost.)

He certainly had a different opinion after von Steuben (and victory):
"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite" GW, 1790

In Federalist #29, Alexander Hamilton argued that the required discipline and uniformity of a militia "can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority". George Washington was repeating the same argument in 1790.

http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2 ... ngton.html

[Flagg]

In a letter to his nephew, Lund Washington, plantation manager of Mount Vernon, General George Washington writes on this day in 1776 of his displeasure with the undisciplined conduct and poor battlefield performance of the American militia. Washington blamed the Patriot reliance on the militia as the chief root of his problems in the devastating loss of Long Island and Manhattan to the British.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... r-problems

Washington was fighting against professional, trained, equipped, and disciplined soldiers, with untrained, ill-equipped, and undisciplined militiamen. Then he got the help of von Steuben, who knew how to mint soldiers. (IMHO, taking his letters as a general indication, Washington was writing his excuses to history for when he lost.)

He certainly had a different opinion after von Steuben (and victory):
"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite" GW, 1790

In Federalist #29, Alexander Hamilton argued that the required discipline and uniformity of a militia "can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority". George Washington was repeating the same argument in 1790.

http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2 ... ngton.html

Thank you. I couldn't respond, but if I could it would've been with this. Washington was shifting blame from his own incompetence as a commander (which is one reason he wasn't higher ranking in the British Army) onto the troops he didn't know how to train. He had to rely on a Prussian con artist to train his army for him. And even then he was a shit general. Great spymaster, though.

[White Haven]

Yes, but as bad as the situation is in the US currently, I don't think it is yet equivalent to the threat level posed by Adolph Hitler in the early 1940s.

THAT is your threshold? Your threshold to 'it is acceptable to fight Nazis openly' is 1940? Are you fucking MAD?

[Flagg]

Yes, but as bad as the situation is in the US currently, I don't think it is yet equivalent to the threat level posed by Adolph Hitler in the early 1940s.

THAT is your threshold? Your threshold to 'it is acceptable to fight Nazis openly' is 1940? Are you fucking MAD?

No, no. Early 40's. Jews in cattle cars by then.