Far-right "Proud Boys" filmed beating protesters in New York
343 replies, posted
Why are you pretending anyone is saying this? No one is saying this. We provided examples and you wilfully ignored them.
If you’re only going to adress arguments no one but you is making, here’s a new and exciting way to be right everytime and not get rated boxes: try shutting the fuck up.
where did you get this from? assuming your account isnt representative of it, for how long have you been on this forum? im really just curious.
out of the very many regular sh/pd posters on this site i have seen in the last like 3 years only around five people, at most ten or so have explicitly said theyre strongly in favor of things like socialism, and they seem willing to have insightful discussions.. presuming anyone taking part in these discussions actually has even a basic understanding of what theyre talking about.
so it sounds weird to me to say that all the users on facepunch are overwhelmingly socialists that lack insight.
i dont think you really get the difference between idealogy and government in practice
nor do i think you're getting the difference between economic and social idealogy
north korea on paper is communist, north korea in name is a democratic republic, north korea in practice is fascist.
the soviet union on paper was communist, the soviet union in name was socialist, the soviet union in practice was state capitalism
nazi germany on paper was socialist, nazi germany in name was socialist, nazi germany in practice was fascist.
see what i mean?
given, fascism isnt really an economic philosophy, however it does include seizing economic power
but what authoritarian idealogy doesnt?
the big difference is, whereas chinese state capitalism works because of how open they are, soviet state capitalism didnt work because of the isolationism.
so really, socialism is not 100% to blame in that case, and even then, state capitalism has turned china into a corporate wasteland with 0 labor laws and safety regulations
taking the idealogy at face value will only give you about half the info, you have to actually look in depth at what they did to really see where they were going.
when the NSDAP put socialism in their name, it wasnt becuase they wanted communism or socialism, it's becuase they wanted to appeal to the masses so they could install fascism with ease.
and they do that becuase, let's face it, if you were to put fascism into perspective for the masses, they wouldn't like it, so naturally you have to hide it in there.
after that point all you have to do is consolidate power and solidify your rule, and fascism can run its course.
i get your point though, socialism has a lot of aspects that fascism has, but they are distinctly different from eachother.
Socialism and fascism have one primary aspect in common: they believe in the overthrow of capitalism and that capitalists are opposed to their overthrow, but beyond that they don't have much in common. As I previously mentioned, socialists generally believe nonviolent revolution is possible, fascists don't, most modern socialists what are known as democratic socialists because they believe in democracy, as opposed to fascism and the smaller authoritarian socialist movement which don't. Socialists believe in social and class identity, fascists believe in racial, religious, and national identity.
Any economic policy cannot function on it's own. Socialism becomes a terrible system once the government seizes control and regulates it heavily, strangling competition. Capitalism doesn't work if you don't suppress toxic practices and regulate it heavily. Saying "Socialism doesn't work! Look at the USSR!" is idiotic because no economic system can stand on it's own.
Also, the USSR was inherently unstable as it was run by a bunch of idiots who felt threatened by the USA, and tried to increase their military spending to match ours.
Nazi Germany was unstable because it was run by a bunch of thugs who had no idea how to run a country without driving it into the ground.
Imperial Russia was unstable because it was run by the Upper Class who felt that the lower class were unimportant in the day-to-day running of the country, and so they just sent them off to a war they could never win.
China was a fucking mess before communism, with over ten warlords just warring for territory in Asia. If anything, communism was the one thing that set them straight.
North Korea is a failed state who hold no real power on the world stage, as even their oldest allies have begun to turn against them.
people like you are the reason i drink
people like him are created by people who didn't stop drinking
Except for the part when they call you a fascist and attack you anyway even if you oppose what the GOP is doing and just happen to be at the wrong place in the wrong time. Do you really think explaining your position will satisfy a group of random hooligans operating purely under mob mentality?
The GOP and Nazi sympathizers are obviously capable of inflicting far more long term damage, but let’s not pretend that people who practice antifa tactics make any distinction between friend or foe. If you’re going to commit violence for a political cause, at the very least don’t be completely shit at conveying your message while targeting people indiscriminately including people who want your enemies to fail.
IMO antifa is an abject failure. People who participate in this tactic have no coherent message and are incapable of ever being productive. Even worse, these idiots harm the overall effort to stop the far right by giving them political ammunition and an easy scapegoat to pass the blame onto. We can’t keep making excuses for the actions of morons who do nothing to help the cause.
Can't give you a zinger so have a blinger.
Maybe I can offer a nuanced view as someone who spent a lot of time on the far-left, and was the most vocal on this forum for a long time.
That's not even remotely true, and it's a creepy thing to say since you are proposing goalposts that rationalize exerting power over everyone within, and therefore they will move over time because people are zealots and this is politics in an unstable time. It happens with redbaiting and it happens in the reverse. If you believe that antifa is a leaderless movement that anyone can join, then you cannot make this argument in good faith. Here's the problem with your views:
1) Both the far-left and far-right descend from authoritarian mass movements made up of radicals that see entire ways of life, cultures, and parts of society as incompatible with their vision for the future as well as a threat, even when limited to the ballot box. The idea that the far-left is different because they target people and deny rights on the basis of non-essential characteristics and behaviors, in contrast to the far-right, is false and has never been true in history. They both do a mix of the two in a way that means they sharply contradict each other.
It's a false dichotomy that you would lose just by reading the theory. The more radical left does not, not 100 years ago or today, strictly look at society on the basis of non-essential characteristics or choices of behavior. This is because those qualities or social groups described as reactionary or progressive are not randomly distributed and have always been attached to something more essential and heritable because inequality and development in the world has fallen along those lines. Intersectionality is actually quite old. Also, values and behavior are passed down and taught to individuals based on their social environment, which has always been connected to those things, and tend to crystallize with age.
Here in the US that quality of the left is especially pronounced because, as a postcolonial country, class and race are heavily intertwined. That fact alone is one of the biggest reasons why we are economically to the right of Europe and have never had a prominent socialist/social-democratic party despite having one of the most militant labor movements in history. It's why the white working class and the left have a rift. The simple fact of the matter is, in the US, class conflict has often overlapped with racial conflict to produce a special kind of powder keg that was starting to fume in the 60s.
You are simply wrong because you are denying the radical left tradition antifa descends from does not have a totalizing ideology that reaches down to the individual level exactly because its ideas of injustice and power dynamics are based on a mix of nonessential and essential qualities exhibited by the individual. This informs my next point.
2) "Anti-fascism" has an inherent mission creep (purity spiraling) today and in the past because it has never had a meaning outside of rationalizing the actions of radical street fighters. So no, you can't 'stop' being a fascist since as soon as you start playing that game, that mob has power over you and your behavior. All one has to do is look at infamous left-wing sectarianism to see how exactly those goalposts for 'fascist', let alone 'reactionary' or 'hateful', will change. Consider the excommunication of TERFs if you want an idea of how some pissed off conservatives will be labeled.
In the case of the Proud Boys, you have a fine example of this. Gavin McInnes is not a fascist in any rigorous sense of the word, he is a washed up anarchist that became a 'Western chauvinist' and neo-masculine type that believes "conservatism is the new counter-culture" in response to what he perceives as cultural attacks on the family, nation, meritocracy, individualism, and morals. This is not even close to the rejection of liberalism that fascism is, it's actually just stuff liberals used to more strongly believe a long time ago. This is why today's left also confuses 'classical liberals' with the alt-right.
Antifa and other leftist movements in their apparent designated attacks against fascists, racists, homophones, etc., resulted in hitting enough innocent bystanders that groups like this begin to flourish. To be frank, they brought this on themselves. "A swing and a miss."
I don't think it's fair to say Antifa then group everything leftist under it. I used to be an advocate for all parties having a voice and if I was caught in the crossfire that wouldn't get me to follow my katana wielding leader to beat protestors.
Antifa going too far was annoying but barely tolerable. Nazis marching with tiki torches and turning up to demonstrations armed, another horrible league entirely.
I don't consider liberals to be "lefties". They're more left leaning centrists. It's similar to conservatives. I don't consider them "righties", but rather right leaning centrists. I'm a liberal by definition, and liberal views aren't collaborative with many of the left-wing folk today. Antifa is the more violent representation of left values, while the "protesters" and "advocates for the left" are merely the less/non-violent ones.
The "Nazi," or "alt-right" population of America is fairly small. Most people group republicans as the "alt-right" when most of their views collaborate with liberal views. The tiki torches was a march of a very small, insignificant demographic. Antifa, on the other hand, has been branded as a terrorist organization given their means of projecting their views on the public. It is VERY common to see mass riots in any Antifa assembly, including physical violence, planned assassinations and attempted bombings (luckily these tend to be foiled before their conducted), with many group members that call for the genocide of "whites" or "white culture". To be frank, that's a lot more violent then any tiki torch demonstration, especially when only a small demographic supports their movement as opposed to the former.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/257611/21231dba-6d46-4109-a260-35f134e3b832/image.png
Some parts I disagree with, but overall pretty good.
you forgot
NAZIS: want to commit genocide
ANTIFA: don't
but i guess that doesn't fit your moron narrative lol
Also ignores the many republicans that openly embrace fascism.
At this point it's obvious that Metist refuses to accept anything that doesn't fit into his narrative. I understand that discussion is pretty much the main point of a forum but continuing this discussion will never lead anywhere no matter how much evidence you guys provide to prove him wrong.
The Republican party already is the fascist party. It only took Trump for the lot of them to have the gall to be vocally open about it.
people like you are the reason i drink
but witchywoman, you're always drinking.
i'm literally drinking right now. that's all i got.
buy more
Are you an alt of Tudd?
Joining a neo-nazi "free speech" (read: hate speech) protest is not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know exactly what you're doing and claiming ignorance isn't going to garner you any sympathy from myself or anti-fascists.
Classic backout clause in case you get called out for osting far right media
"Tudd, Tudd never changes."
They want to commit a genocide of thought. Communism did the same. You disagreed with the ideals of the status quo, you were sent to the camps.
Nazism is just liberal fascism. Berny Sanders holds many similar views as Hitler did when he ran in Germany.
"You know who else used to talk with his hands? Hitler!" - Jon Stewart
Are you trolling? How is the Republican party at all connected to fascism? Hitler's policies were pro socialist, linking with many ideals of the left (gun laws, nationalized health care, etc) while merely holding onto private ownership. The only far right policies Hitler supported was a focus on national racial purity (arguable to be a concept developed out of socialism given the German demographic) and private ownership. Frankly, the only policies that are right leaning is private ownership. The state still controlled the means of production. Hitler was very much a collectivist.
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