8 ms·

"right wing" or "far right wing". Remember we're talking about literal neo-nazis here, not just Conservatives.

by rmc 10y ago

jules 10y ago
That's not how it goes in practice. The fact that the people in that twitter thread endorse antifa shows that they are either ignorant of what antifa actually is (as opposed to what it claims to be), or they endorse an organisation that is more fascist than the fascists it purports to fight.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  “The anti-fascists are the real fascists!” is a tired argument and it has been for more than 70 years, ever since that was said in actual Nazi Germany and the fascists proceeded to win.
  - jules 10y ago
    When the so called anti-fascists use violence against peaceful protesters and against the police who try to stop them, then yes.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
      """If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and tried to stop it were, I assume, also called “a mob”. Regrettably too many “fair-minded” people didn’t either try, or want to stop it, and, as I witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves when it took over … People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still here, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests""" <--- Franz Frison, Holocaust survivor
      - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
        That's misleading. In neither Italy nor Germany did the fascists seize power without using violence. In Germany, the SA was used by the Nazis to suppress their opponents in elections and intimidate the powers that be. Even then, they only won like 40% of the vote and had to manufacture a crisis to seize full control. Similar in Italy.
      - CM30 10y ago
        So what's the solution? Because attacking people for beliefs you don't like doesn't exactly make things better. A lot of the people that seem to be trying to attack those they see as facist would be just as bad in the power as those they oppose. Except you know, with different targets.
        soundwave106 10y ago
        One rule of thumb would to be to recognize that, within all groups, there are extremists (and they often have the loudest voices). It is wise not to denounce an entire group based on the extremists. It is wise not to flippantly dismiss concerns raised based on the behavior of the extremists. The problem I see with a heck of a lot of online conversations is that it ridiculously fails this rule. Often times there are some issues on both sides of the coin worth discussing, but it's hard to discuss things rationally when the loudest voices on both sides are acting like spoiled toddlers or often worse. Often times, the extremists dominate the conversation and the resulting discussion is toxic. Violence is never the solution, but isn't it possible to be anti-fascist (or against any other political movement that more relies on emotionalism instead of rationalism) without being violent? I would think so.
        makomk 10y ago
        The standard I often judge groups by is whether it's possible to be a decent person and remain a member of the group; rather than looking at the assholes, I look at how the group treats members who stand up to the assholes. Unfortunately, a lot of groups have been failing this spectacularly, and the older a group the worse it often seems to get.
  - sbmassey 10y ago
    Did anyone in Nazi Germany really claim that the anti-Nazis were the real Nazis or fascists or something? Sounds unlikely somehow.
    - MustardTiger 10y ago
      No, in particular since neither national socialism nor fascism was a boogeyman then.
      - rmc 10y ago
        Before the Nazis came to power, there were plenty of people in Germany who thought the Nazi party & Hitler were thugs and dangerous.
        pyre 10y ago
        See "Brownshirts"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
        MustardTiger 10y ago
        Yes, but they were not a boogeyman, like I said. Where you can just say "you are a nazi!" to shut down any discussion of anything you please. There's a difference between "some people didn't like them" and being a boogeyman.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      Yep! The communists claimed the social democrats were fascists because they wanted to own the left, for example.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Well, if you replace "fascists"/"Nazis" with "totalitarian threat" -- the former is modern shorthand for the latter but obviously want used that way until after experience of their rule established that perception -- a big part of the Nazi schtick was portraying other groups that way (Communists, the supposed global Jewish conspiracy, etc.)
  - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
    Very similar to "anti identity politics leftists are the true leftists" which is probably relevant to this discussion.
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    Violence is never an appropriate response to speech. I don't care what the Nazis are saying, if you use violence to silence them, you are the problem, and I will support their free speech rights. Free speech is not simply for ideas you like, it's for ideas you hate, too.
    - pyre 10y ago
      Says "GunboatDiplomat"[1]... ;-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
  - hugh4 10y ago
    If the anti-fascists (who were, at the time, literal Communists) had won in Germany, would history have wound up any better? Or just as bad?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- carsick_alastor 10y ago
  Antifa is a label, typically self-appointed. There must be thousands, probably tens of thousands of groups that identify as antifa, most of them confined to a region or a city. It's possible to make generalisations across all the various groups, but you're going to have huge variance across them -- in pretty much all areas, including internal structure, attitude towards violence and political positions. Of course groups are aware of one another and cooperate (as well as conflict, I assume) in an anarchic way, but there is no centralized power or executive. It's certainly not a single organisation. From an organisational perspective, sports fan clubs are rather similar (mostly independent of one another, mostly local, very heterogeneous in how they work internally and interact with the world).
  - jules 10y ago
    One only has to look at that twitter thread to see what kind of antifa they are endorsing: > we have an "antifa" movement in France (reacting to our rising far right), and they're often just as violent :-( reply: > yup, 100% okay with that, personally > Me too (mostly). Personally trying to flush out internalised cishet machismo, but if there was ever an outlet... > the only things fascists respond to is violence. Ignoring them or letting them attack you doesn't help > good! bash their brains in tbh It is clear that the kind of antifa they are endorsing falls on a particular point on the "huge variance" spectrum of attitude to violence. It is clear that the code of conduct is being applied selectively to one half of the political spectrum. And I say this as somebody who has always voted for the most left wing party in my country. This attitude towards violence and censorship and social shaming from my side worries me greatly.
reitzensteinm 10y ago
To clarify the context, are you saying that gamergate members are literal neo-nazis?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Do white nationalists count (example: Vox Day)
- legodt 10y ago
  I would definitely say that there is a strong overlap between the two groups
  - toss1941 10y ago
    And what do you base this claim on? What the people in the Anti-GG media have been telling everyone?
    - legodt 10y ago
      High incidents of hate speech, abusive behavior online, high overlap with swatting, death threats, and chasing women off the internet. The movement acts as a hate group and is made up of typical "red pilled" men's rights type people. And, much like most extreme right groups, all of these ills are dismissed as illusions by a nebulous liberal media that is against their hateful cause.
      - toss1941 10y ago
        GamerGate exposed clear ethical violations in the gaming media. Do you dispute that too? That same media has yet to clean up it's mess and famously doubled down by ignoring the legitimate claims or blowing them off while conveniently pretending that every troll/kid with a keyboard are really the spokespeople of the movement.
        legodt 10y ago
MustardTiger 10y ago
No, we're not. We're talking about everything from center left libertarians to plain old conservatives. It is just that far left authoritarians call them nazis because that is the easiest way to dismiss people they disagree with.
b1460151 10y ago
The problem with that kind of reasoning is now how do you decide if someone is right wing? How far do they have to be for it to be okay? It's similar to the problem welfare faces compared to universal basic income. If you just say harassment is bad in general (or everyone should get the same icnome regardless of their situation) we wouldn't even have this discussion.
makomk 10y ago
No, we're talking about applying the violence historically used against literal fascist marches against people online he's declared to be his enemies, because "the only things fascists respond to is violence". We're talking about an online culture where it doesn't matter if the targets are actually neo-Nazis or conservatives or anything else, because disputing any accusation against them no matter how trivially falsifiable marks you as supporting them. Our political discourse is in a dangerous place and I see no way out anymore.
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  I wasn't planning on jumping in on this thread, but I will leave one (and only one) comment here, just to make this crystal clear: I have no advocated that anyone commit violence against "people online [I've] declared to be [my enemies]." In fact, in the thread you're linking to, right above the archived tweet, I say that I don't know what an anti-fascist movement in tech looks like. And today, years later, I still do not. But if you were ask me "hey Steve let's start a street fight with GamerGate, what do you think?" my first comment would be "what?" and my second comment would be "that sounds like a really dumb idea, don't do that."
  - ptomato 10y ago
    Not advocating violence, but "100% okay with that"? Don't be disingenuous.
    - steveklabnik 10y ago
      Okay, fine, one more comment. Last one for real this time, I think this clarifies something I was missing above. You'll note that the subject at hand changed during this conversation: the parent I replied to suggested that I was suggesting something specific regarding the right wing in technology, but that response is about abstract antifa actions in France. It's also why I responded the way that I did: the equivalence between the two (European antifa and European fascist organizations) is laughable. But it's just Twitter; I'm not going to get into a debate about the details, I'm just going to say "okay" and move on. But I did not and do not think, as I said above, that someone should go find tech fascists and cause them bodily harm. It's not something I did suggest or would support today.
Ygg2 10y ago
Didn't some states initially started suppressing them using force and censorship, but they still popped up like mushrooms after a rain?

"right wing" or "far right wing". Remember we're talking about literal neo-nazis here, not just Conservatives.

by rmc 10y ago

"right wing" or "far right wing". Remember we're talking about literal neo-nazis here, not just Conservatives.

jules 10y ago

That's not how it goes in practice. The fact that the people in that twitter thread endorse antifa shows that they are either ignorant of what antifa actually is (as opposed to what it claims to be), or they endorse an organisation that is more fascist than the fascists it purports to fight.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
“The anti-fascists are the real fascists!” is a tired argument and it has been for more than 70 years, ever since that was said in actual Nazi Germany and the fascists proceeded to win.
- jules 10y ago
  When the so called anti-fascists use violence against peaceful protesters and against the police who try to stop them, then yes.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    """If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and tried to stop it were, I assume, also called “a mob”. Regrettably too many “fair-minded” people didn’t either try, or want to stop it, and, as I witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves when it took over … People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still here, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests""" <--- Franz Frison, Holocaust survivor
    - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      That's misleading. In neither Italy nor Germany did the fascists seize power without using violence. In Germany, the SA was used by the Nazis to suppress their opponents in elections and intimidate the powers that be. Even then, they only won like 40% of the vote and had to manufacture a crisis to seize full control. Similar in Italy.
    - CM30 10y ago
      So what's the solution? Because attacking people for beliefs you don't like doesn't exactly make things better. A lot of the people that seem to be trying to attack those they see as facist would be just as bad in the power as those they oppose. Except you know, with different targets.
      - soundwave106 10y ago
        One rule of thumb would to be to recognize that, within all groups, there are extremists (and they often have the loudest voices). It is wise not to denounce an entire group based on the extremists. It is wise not to flippantly dismiss concerns raised based on the behavior of the extremists. The problem I see with a heck of a lot of online conversations is that it ridiculously fails this rule. Often times there are some issues on both sides of the coin worth discussing, but it's hard to discuss things rationally when the loudest voices on both sides are acting like spoiled toddlers or often worse. Often times, the extremists dominate the conversation and the resulting discussion is toxic. Violence is never the solution, but isn't it possible to be anti-fascist (or against any other political movement that more relies on emotionalism instead of rationalism) without being violent? I would think so.
        makomk 10y ago
        The standard I often judge groups by is whether it's possible to be a decent person and remain a member of the group; rather than looking at the assholes, I look at how the group treats members who stand up to the assholes. Unfortunately, a lot of groups have been failing this spectacularly, and the older a group the worse it often seems to get.
- sbmassey 10y ago
  Did anyone in Nazi Germany really claim that the anti-Nazis were the real Nazis or fascists or something? Sounds unlikely somehow.
  - MustardTiger 10y ago
    No, in particular since neither national socialism nor fascism was a boogeyman then.
    - rmc 10y ago
      Before the Nazis came to power, there were plenty of people in Germany who thought the Nazi party & Hitler were thugs and dangerous.
      - pyre 10y ago
        See "Brownshirts"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
      - MustardTiger 10y ago
        Yes, but they were not a boogeyman, like I said. Where you can just say "you are a nazi!" to shut down any discussion of anything you please. There's a difference between "some people didn't like them" and being a boogeyman.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    Yep! The communists claimed the social democrats were fascists because they wanted to own the left, for example.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Well, if you replace "fascists"/"Nazis" with "totalitarian threat" -- the former is modern shorthand for the latter but obviously want used that way until after experience of their rule established that perception -- a big part of the Nazi schtick was portraying other groups that way (Communists, the supposed global Jewish conspiracy, etc.)
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
  Very similar to "anti identity politics leftists are the true leftists" which is probably relevant to this discussion.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  Violence is never an appropriate response to speech. I don't care what the Nazis are saying, if you use violence to silence them, you are the problem, and I will support their free speech rights. Free speech is not simply for ideas you like, it's for ideas you hate, too.
  - pyre 10y ago
    Says "GunboatDiplomat"[1]... ;-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
- hugh4 10y ago
  If the anti-fascists (who were, at the time, literal Communists) had won in Germany, would history have wound up any better? Or just as bad?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
carsick_alastor 10y ago
Antifa is a label, typically self-appointed. There must be thousands, probably tens of thousands of groups that identify as antifa, most of them confined to a region or a city. It's possible to make generalisations across all the various groups, but you're going to have huge variance across them -- in pretty much all areas, including internal structure, attitude towards violence and political positions. Of course groups are aware of one another and cooperate (as well as conflict, I assume) in an anarchic way, but there is no centralized power or executive. It's certainly not a single organisation. From an organisational perspective, sports fan clubs are rather similar (mostly independent of one another, mostly local, very heterogeneous in how they work internally and interact with the world).
- jules 10y ago
  One only has to look at that twitter thread to see what kind of antifa they are endorsing: > we have an "antifa" movement in France (reacting to our rising far right), and they're often just as violent :-( reply: > yup, 100% okay with that, personally > Me too (mostly). Personally trying to flush out internalised cishet machismo, but if there was ever an outlet... > the only things fascists respond to is violence. Ignoring them or letting them attack you doesn't help > good! bash their brains in tbh It is clear that the kind of antifa they are endorsing falls on a particular point on the "huge variance" spectrum of attitude to violence. It is clear that the code of conduct is being applied selectively to one half of the political spectrum. And I say this as somebody who has always voted for the most left wing party in my country. This attitude towards violence and censorship and social shaming from my side worries me greatly.

reitzensteinm 10y ago

To clarify the context, are you saying that gamergate members are literal neo-nazis?

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Do white nationalists count (example: Vox Day)
legodt 10y ago
I would definitely say that there is a strong overlap between the two groups
- toss1941 10y ago
  And what do you base this claim on? What the people in the Anti-GG media have been telling everyone?
  - legodt 10y ago
    High incidents of hate speech, abusive behavior online, high overlap with swatting, death threats, and chasing women off the internet. The movement acts as a hate group and is made up of typical "red pilled" men's rights type people. And, much like most extreme right groups, all of these ills are dismissed as illusions by a nebulous liberal media that is against their hateful cause.
    - toss1941 10y ago
      GamerGate exposed clear ethical violations in the gaming media. Do you dispute that too? That same media has yet to clean up it's mess and famously doubled down by ignoring the legitimate claims or blowing them off while conveniently pretending that every troll/kid with a keyboard are really the spokespeople of the movement.
      - legodt 10y ago

MustardTiger 10y ago

No, we're not. We're talking about everything from center left libertarians to plain old conservatives. It is just that far left authoritarians call them nazis because that is the easiest way to dismiss people they disagree with.

b1460151 10y ago

The problem with that kind of reasoning is now how do you decide if someone is right wing? How far do they have to be for it to be okay? It's similar to the problem welfare faces compared to universal basic income. If you just say harassment is bad in general (or everyone should get the same icnome regardless of their situation) we wouldn't even have this discussion.

makomk 10y ago

No, we're talking about applying the violence historically used against literal fascist marches against people online he's declared to be his enemies, because "the only things fascists respond to is violence". We're talking about an online culture where it doesn't matter if the targets are actually neo-Nazis or conservatives or anything else, because disputing any accusation against them no matter how trivially falsifiable marks you as supporting them. Our political discourse is in a dangerous place and I see no way out anymore.

steveklabnik 10y ago
I wasn't planning on jumping in on this thread, but I will leave one (and only one) comment here, just to make this crystal clear: I have no advocated that anyone commit violence against "people online [I've] declared to be [my enemies]." In fact, in the thread you're linking to, right above the archived tweet, I say that I don't know what an anti-fascist movement in tech looks like. And today, years later, I still do not. But if you were ask me "hey Steve let's start a street fight with GamerGate, what do you think?" my first comment would be "what?" and my second comment would be "that sounds like a really dumb idea, don't do that."
- ptomato 10y ago
  Not advocating violence, but "100% okay with that"? Don't be disingenuous.
  - steveklabnik 10y ago
    Okay, fine, one more comment. Last one for real this time, I think this clarifies something I was missing above. You'll note that the subject at hand changed during this conversation: the parent I replied to suggested that I was suggesting something specific regarding the right wing in technology, but that response is about abstract antifa actions in France. It's also why I responded the way that I did: the equivalence between the two (European antifa and European fascist organizations) is laughable. But it's just Twitter; I'm not going to get into a debate about the details, I'm just going to say "okay" and move on. But I did not and do not think, as I said above, that someone should go find tech fascists and cause them bodily harm. It's not something I did suggest or would support today.

Ygg2 10y ago

Didn't some states initially started suppressing them using force and censorship, but they still popped up like mushrooms after a rain?