All things Charlottesville (merged)

[Old Sweat]

I suggest there is something in the white American psyche that gives a degree of credibility to resistance to government/authority, perhaps dating back to the Revolution. Look at the reputation of thugs like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, and Dillinger. H.ll, remember the Dukes of Hazzard. I am not trying to cast aspersions at any region or group, but we still see local militias resisting government agencies like the Bureau of Land Management because of its land use policies. There have been violent left groups (see the 1960s,) but they had less popular impact overall.

 

[ModlrMike]

While I am stringently antifascist, I refuse to be antifa. The two are not complementary or equivalent positions.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Uploaded the wrong file! The one I wanted to upload (FBI/DHS Joint Intelligence Bulletin on "White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence") to is to large. However, it can be found at this link to a Foreign Policy magazine article on white supremacists, if anyone wants to check it out.

 

[RocketRichard]

My sister just posted this on facebook. Freedom of speech and association and all, YMMV, but I like the overall premise.

As the kids say: THIS!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[angus555]

My opinion, both represent an extreme form of decadence; however, they exist on opposite ends of the spectrum.  The first is an extreme example of a sensate culture, the second is an extreme form of the ideation culture.  Different but at the same time similar as both represent cultural decadence in my mind. 

There will need to be a convergence of values between our respective cultures sometime as extremes cannot coexist with each other.

Source for Pitirim Sorokin:  https://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/pitirim-sorkin-crisis-of-modernity/

I'm not sure decadence is the best word to use. It's use is very dependent on subjective moral opinions.
Reactionary would be my word to explain both images, in terms of a shift in civil liberties going in opposite directions.
Both of those examples became more prevalent in the world after WWII for entirely different reasons.

 

[TheHead]

Thanks for the reference, TheHead.

I'm intrigued by your selection of the report you quoted above.

Two comments/perspectives:

Perspective #1 - Far right is worse(r): Anti alt-right'ers (Alt-left'ers?) could point out that the radical Islamists didn't have 23 incidents, but rather only 16 (grouping Muhammad and Malvo's sniper-esque shootings as an event [of about 3 weeks duration], the Tsarnaev brothers Boston Marathon-related activity as an event) thus, at 62 to 16, far right wing violence represented 80% (62/78), vice the GAO's 'cherry-picked' 73% and Islamists responsible for only 20% (16/78) of extreme events.  Yes, Islamists are BAD, but the far right is WORSE.

Perspective #2 - Islamists are worse: Alt-right'ers (anti Alt-Left'ers) could ask why does number of incidents matter, should not (any ) lives matter?  Let's look at number of people killed in the incidents.  Page 32, Far Right killed 106 people.  Page 34, Islamists killed 119 people.  Thus, Islamists killed 12% ((119-106)/106) more people than the Far Right.  Yes, the Far Right is BAD, but Islamists are WORSE.

So who's worse?  Should we only deal with those who are worse?

Lies, damned lies, and statistics indeed...

:2c:

Regards
G2G

  I will defiantly reply to this once I'm done reading the report.  I skimmed over it and posted it only because people were asking where the source comes from.  Wait out.

 

[Kat Stevens]

While I am stringently antifascist, I refuse to be antifa. The two are not complementary or equivalent positions.

Absofrigginlutely my exact sentiments.

 

[Journeyman]

I'm not sure what you mean by a need for "convergence" but .....

I'm not remotely speaking on behalf of Humphry Bogart. However, I read the link he posted.  I was very much impressed, and if you skim through it you may get the "convergence" reference.

Source for Pitirim Sorokin:  https://satyagraha.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/pitirim-sorkin-crisis-of-modernity/

Oh, and I'm going to re-read it tomorrow or Friday to try and take it all onboard.  :nod:

 

[Jarnhamar]

I really hope the majority of this crap stays south of the border and out of Canada.

 

[RocketRichard]

I really hope the majority of this crap stays south of the border and out of Canada.

Hear hear

 

[mariomike]

I really hope the majority of this crap stays south of the border and out of Canada.

It's been here.

Wolfgang Droege was shot to death in Scarborough 12 years ago.

Ernst Zündel ( author of, "The Hitler we loved, and why" ) passed away a week ago of natural causes. ( The Government of Canada had deported him back to his native Germany. )

Ernst had a fortified bunker in downtown Toronto. It served as Canada's Neo-Nazi HQ for 25 years. Had it covered in plastic after anti-racists attacked another white supremacists home on Dundas St. E.

Ernst was pipe-bombed.

On the 50th anniversary of V-E Day he was fire-bombed.

CCTV cameras. High-powered lights. Bars over all the windows. He was a familiar sight downtown in his blue hard hat.

I believe at one time they tried to have the City designate "the bunker" as a Toronto Heritage site.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

It's been here.

Wolfgang Droege was shot to death in Scarborough 12 years ago.

Ernst Zündel ( author of, "The Hitler we loved, and why" ) passed away a week ago of natural causes. ( The Government of Canada had deported him back to his native Germany. )

Ernst had a fortified bunker in downtown Toronto. It served as Canada's Neo-Nazi HQ for 25 years. Had it covered in plastic after anti-racists attacked another white supremacists home on Dundas St. E.

Ernst was pipe-bombed.

On the 50th anniversary of V-E Day he was fire-bombed.

CCTV cameras. High-powered lights. Bars over all the windows. He was a familiar sight downtown in his blue hard hat.

I believe at one time they tried to have the City designate "the bunker" as a Toronto Heritage site.

And don't forget six Muslims shot to death in their mosque in Quebec City back in January.

 

[The Bread Guy]

... Perspective #1 - Far right is worse(r): Anti alt-right'ers (Alt-left'ers?) could point out that the radical Islamists didn't have 23 incidents, but rather only 16 (grouping Muhammad and Malvo's sniper-esque shootings as an event [of about 3 weeks duration], the Tsarnaev brothers Boston Marathon-related activity as an event) thus, at 62 to 16, far right wing violence represented 80% (62/78), vice the GAO's 'cherry-picked' 73% and Islamists responsible for only 20% (16/78) of extreme events.  Yes, Islamists are BAD, but the far right is WORSE.

Perspective #2 - Islamists are worse: Alt-right'ers (anti Alt-Left'ers) could ask why does number of incidents matter, should not (any ) lives matter?  Let's look at number of people killed in the incidents.  Page 32, Far Right killed 106 people.  Page 34, Islamists killed 119 people.  Thus, Islamists killed 12% ((119-106)/106) more people than the Far Right.  Yes, the Far Right is BAD, but Islamists are WORSE ...

:nod:  Is one side or the other worse?  Yes.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Uploaded the wrong file! The one I wanted to upload (FBI/DHS Joint Intelligence Bulletin on "White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence") to is to large. However, it can be found at this link to a Foreign Policy magazine article on white supremacists, if anyone wants to check it out.

Good catch - thanks for sharing.  Here's a direct link to the report itself (8 pg PDF) - looking forward to reading it.

 

[a_majoor]

And please correct references to Nazis, Fascists or other Socialists to "Far Left". Parroting 1930 era Soviet propaganda simply makes understanding the problem even harder:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/417926/was-fascism-right-wing-again-jonah-goldberg

Was Fascism Right-Wing (Again)?
by JONAH GOLDBERG
May 5, 2015 2:06 PM @JONAHNRO \

The often very interesting blogger Pseudoerasmus has a long post about whether fascism can be considered left-wing (picking up from another post by  John Holbo at Crooked Timber). Pseudoerasmus focuses on the question of Italy’s place on the left–right spectrum, though when convenient he cites examples from Nazi history. He is very skeptical, arguing that in “historical terms” fascism should be seen as right-wing. “I think the issue is kind of obvious,” he writes, “but it’s always good to have an excuse to pontificate on matters historical.”

I agree, so let me offer some counter pontification.

Pseudoerasmus illuminates a great source of confusion among critics of Liberal Fascism — and among some fans as well. When I say that fascism or Nazism was of the Left, I’m using as my yardstick the Anglo-American, classical-liberal, tradition. Many people want to track the Left by a kind of lineage interpretation. So they go back and look at intellectuals (usually quite selectively) and say something like: These people called themselves the Left, the people they hated were “the Right,” they hated the Nazis therefore the Nazis were right-wing.

Others look at voting blocs or interest groups and offer a very similar kind of analysis. The Nazis got X voters, X voters were on the right, therefore the Nazis were right-wing. This might seem like approaching things through “historical terms,” but it largely ignores the substance of the policies in question, uses a very limited benchmark for what is “left-wing,” and obscures the fact that the center of gravity intellectually in the 1920s and 1930s was much farther to the left than is widely understood.

So, yes, sure fascism was seen as being to the “right” of Communism, because it was. Even Trotsky considered fascism to be right-wing socialism or middle-class socialism. It seems to me that the key word there is socialism, which is properly understood as a phenomenon of the Left. (The Soviets also considered not only the New Deal fascist and right-wing, but the American Socialist Party, too. Why take their judgment so seriously?)

Another particularly irksome approach is the selective use of the Soviet Union. If the Soviets and the fascists differed on a policy, that’s taken as proof the fascists weren’t left-wing – at all. It is absolutely true that the Soviet Union was left-wing, but can’t we all agree that not all left-wing regimes are Soviet?

So Pseudoerasmus (and many others) notes that the Nazis maintained (limited and often purely rhetorical) respect for private property! The Soviets didn’t! Therefore, the Nazis were not left-wing! Well, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders believe in private property a good deal more than the Nazis did. Does that make them right-wingers?

Here’s the first item in Pseudoerasmus’s nine reasons why fascism should be seen as a form of right-wing extremism:

All actually-existed fascist states practised business-friendly economic policies, even if they were not ideologically laissez-faire. They could have easily done otherwise — this was after all the 1930s, the heyday and apogee of socialism as an ideology. But no fascist in power even contemplated taking the Soviet route of destroying the capital- and land-owning classes.

That’s largely true, though there were certainly “National Bolshevik” types within the Nazi party who were quite gung-ho for seizing capital, etc. But to say the Nazis were not ideologically laissez-faire is very misleading. The Nazis loathed laissez-faire economics, said so at nearly every turn, and organized the economy in ways that demonstrated that fact. The Nazi organization of the economy was certainly to the left of what FDR did during the early New Deal. It was also very similar in numerous ways, as many New Dealers admitted at the time (including FDR himself). Many respected historians (such as Wolfgang Schivelbusch, John Garraty, et al) have noted these similarities. To be sure, the New Deal was right-wing compared with the Soviet model too. But that makes the New Deal “right-wing” only from the Marxist perspective, not the laissez-faire/classical-liberal perspective.

Then, in the very next bullet point, Pseudoerasmus writes:

All actually-existed fascist states repressed labour unions, socialists, and communists. Despite the worker-friendly rhetoric of fascists, they in actual power regimented labour in such a way as to please any strike-breaking capitalist of the 19th century. The Nazis, for example, forced workers into a single state-controlled trades union (DAF), which controlled wage growth and prevented striking and wage arbitration. Businesses (some, not even most), by contrast, were given incentives to consolidate into Morgan-style industrial trusts as shareholers and engage in contractual relations as monopolists or near-monopolists with other trusts and with the state.

Here we go again. Yes, Nazis squelched independent labor unions. Yes, yes, Nazis repressed socialists and Communists. Fine, fine. You know who else treated independent labor unions roughly? You know who else repressed socialists and Communists? The Soviet Union. The Soviets surely killed and arrested more domestic socialists, starting with the Mensheviks, than the Nazis did. And how did labor unions fare in the Soviet Union? How were strikes treated? Let’s ask the survivors of the Novocherkassk massacre or the Kengir uprising. Were they not for all practical purposes folded up into paper-tiger fronts as extensions of the State? 

Maybe workers were treated better in “left-wing” Russia than in “right-wing” Germany, though I doubt it. But even if that were the case, it’s ridiculous to hold up the Soviets as examples of how the “Left” treated workers well, unlike the “Right.” From 1940 to 1955, 15 million workers were sent to the Gulag simply for committing the crime of not working hard enough. Workers paradise!

And then there’s the third item on his checklist:

Communists have a demonstrated record of erasing traditional society root and branch — exterminating aristocrats, industrialists, landowners, priests, kulaks, etc. Fascists in actual power, despite their modernist reputation, seem almost traditional in comparison. In Mussolini’s Italy, the king, the titled nobility, the church, the industrialists, the landholders, and the mafia slept soundly at night. The chief innovation of fascism was not really in political economy, but in political community.

And we’re back to using the Soviets as the only benchmark for what counts as left-wing. For the record, I agree with much of what he says about Mussolini and Mussolini’s fascism. But Hitler most certainly was an anti-traditionalist (as was Mussolini personally), who loathed the Church and had zero desire to restore the monarchy. The Horst Wessel Lied identifies both the Red Shirts and the reactionaries as the enemy.

The more interesting point, I think, is that most Communist regimes eventually stop erasing traditional society root and branch and move toward a policy of invoking and co-opting useful national traditions and institutions. It turns out that the masses grow weary of doctrinaire socialism and need a little nationalism to get out of bed (and, quite often, nationalist regimes slowly realize they can’t stay in power without becoming ever stricter socialists). We’ve seen this in Stalin’s Soviet Union (he did declare WWII “the Great Patriotic War for Mother Russia” after all), Mao’s China (Communism with “Chinese characteristics”), and virtually every other Communist regime (it’s somewhat ridiculous to view Castro’s Cuba as anything other than national-socialist). The best example of course is today’s North Korea, which started conventionally Communist but eventually became insanely nationalist (and racist). The economic policies don’t change that much, but the arguments for them do. 

I have many other complaints. He says that progressive support for Mussolini in Western countries was insignificant and mostly among “kooks” — I think that’s demonstrably wrong. He says that “fascists fetishised law & order, and made a cult out of the armed forces.” Ah yes, unlike the Soviets (and the Red Chinese!) who were notoriously loosey-goosey on law-and-order issues and treated the military contemptuously. Etc., etc. I could go on, of course. But this is already an absurdly long response to a critique of a seven-year-old book by a blogger who doesn’t seem to have read it in the first place.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/417926/was-fascism-right-wing-again-jonah-goldberg

 

[ModlrMike]

Popped up on my FB feed:

Did you know that there's a statue of Lenin in Washinton State? Yes, 'that' Lenin. Yes, the communist Lenin who killed 6 to 8 million people.

And are you aware there was a statue of another leftist hero, Che? Yes...the very same Che Guevara who in his autobiography boasted the mass murderer of homosexuals:

"I lead in exterminating gays like vermin. I personally strangled 365, one for every day of the year" Che's statue was in New York's Central Park

Update: theres also a dandy statue to Ataturk, the Islamic butcher who perpetuated the Armenian genocide on Sheridan circle in Washinton DC

Have you heard of all the outrage and condemnation?

Me neither.

I wish we were as good at calling out and rejecting supremacy and violence in all political camps as we were about the cretins in Charlottesville.

 

[George Wallace]

Anyone up for debate?

Well....At the very least, they are not thoroughly and/or well educated.

 

[The Bread Guy]

And please correct references to Nazis, Fascists or other Socialists to "Far Left". Parroting 1930 era Soviet propaganda simply makes understanding the problem even harder ...

Interesting how government sources that have been shared on these means all seem to manage quite well uniformly using the Nazi/Fascist = right rubric ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Anyone up for debate?

Well....At the very least, they are not thoroughly and/or well educated.

No image ???

 

[George Wallace]

Substituted another image.....For some reason my computer was not copying the image I wanted, instead taking a photo from my timeline...I am trying to find the original..... ???