Charlottesville aftermath discussion thread...

[D'wards]

San Franciscans have the right idea. Turn the anti fascist protest into a lovely fun day for all.

Turd Reich: San Francisco dog owners lay minefield of poo for rightwing rally

Turd Reich: San Francisco dog owners lay minefield of poo for rightwing rally

 

[Jeff Robinson]

 

[NoXion]

What do these wingnuts hope to achieve with this ridiculous "antifa are terrorists" meme they're trying to spread?

I mean, it should be obvious to anyone who hasn't already drunk the right wing Kool Aid that the behaviour of antifa is incongruous with the behaviour of actual terrorists. Where are the news reports showing antifa thugs rocking up to people on a leisurely night out and stabbing, shooting, and blowing them up?

Are they just taking a leaf out of Goebbels's book and hoping that if they repeat this nonsense often enough, it'll somehow stick?

 

[Nylock]

What do these wingnuts hope to achieve with this ridiculous "antifa are terrorists" meme they're trying to spread?

I mean, it should be obvious to anyone who hasn't already drunk the right wing Kool Aid that the behaviour of antifa is incongruous with the behaviour of actual terrorists. Where are the news reports showing antifa thugs rocking up to people on a leisurely night out and stabbing, shooting, and blowing them up?

Are they just taking a leaf out of Goebbels's book and hoping that if they repeat this nonsense often enough, it'll somehow stick?

They're also probably hoping to get the 'a pox on both your houses' type liberals on-side with this egregious bullshit.

 

[ddraig]

quite a few seem to be falling for and parroting it! quite annoying (throw enough shit and some will stick technique maybe)
even had to explain it to someone i thought sensible in the pub last night, groan

 

[Nylock]

Wonder what Nige thinks of both sides in WWII? Or the robust resistance the BUF faced in the streets prior to that? I can't remember who said it now but him being called a "bollock faced foghorn of ignorance" is spot on. The shit-stirring twat.

 

[ViolentPanda]

excellent photo of weev looking like a sex case rasputin

TBF, he's just looking like what he is.

 

[Streathamite]

What do these wingnuts hope to achieve with this ridiculous "antifa are terrorists" meme they're trying to spread?

I mean, it should be obvious to anyone who hasn't already drunk the right wing Kool Aid that the behaviour of antifa is incongruous with the behaviour of actual terrorists. Where are the news reports showing antifa thugs rocking up to people on a leisurely night out and stabbing, shooting, and blowing them up?

Are they just taking a leaf out of Goebbels's book and hoping that if they repeat this nonsense often enough, it'll somehow stick?

To me it's simple: they aim to sanitise and normalise fascism by a kind of psychological back door, by repeating over and over again, "the Anti-fascists are just as bad".
For obvious historical reasons, fascism - and racism - have a unique stigma, one which, for all it's past failings, communism will never have.
That's what they seek to change

 

[Streathamite]

They're also probably hoping to get the 'a pox on both your houses' type liberals on-side with this egregious bullshit.

Yep, that too

 

[TomUS]

Well, at least the cops will have plenty of military weapons to fight these lefty "domestic terrorists."

President Donald Trump will repeal restrictions that former President Barack Obama placed on police access to excess military gear, allowing the federal government to immediately resume handing out free bayonets, grenade launchers, tracked armored vehicles such as tanks and other equipment to law enforcement departments around the country....Trump’s executive order will also kill requirements that law enforcement agencies had to meet before obtaining helicopters, planes, riot helmets, batons, drones, armored and tactical vehicles, and explosives and pyrotechnics. Under Obama’s order, police departments had to get permission from their local government, complete training requirements and give a “persuasive” reason why they needed such equipment. No more.

Trump Orders Military To Give Cops Free Grenade Launchers, Bayonets, And Tanks | HuffPost

 

[NoXion]

By "tanks" I'm guessing that they actually mean something like the Bradley Armoured Personnel Carrier rather than the M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, although given the degree of police militarisation in the US I wouldn't be completely surprised if it were the latter vehicle. After all, they've been handing them out like candy in places like Iraq. Which is why Daesh have them now too.

 

[petee]

the NYPD has had a tank for about 20 years. here it is evicting squatters.

more recent photos from nyc and other jurisdictions are avilalable here, for which i'll break the link
wwwDOThk94DOTcomBACKSLASHhk/topic/25741-police-tanks/

interesting footnote: images of the NYPD tank(s?) were on the web many years ago, then seemed to disappear, and, taking the chance, i found this one again now from some twitterer. i have the distinct impression that they were scrubbed for a long while.

 

[gawkrodger]

that's an APC not a tank

 

[snadge]

that's an APC not a tank

It's got a fucking gun on top, it's fucking tank enough for me to wonder what the fuck is wrong with Seppoes.

 

[petee]

 

[Jeff Robinson]

What are people's thoughts on Chomsky's critical remarks on antifa?

Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a 'major gift to the Right'

 

[Miss Caphat]

You seem to have tried your best to blow it out of proportion.

Any answer to Bimble's question about what made you feel tempted to say 'I told you so'?

Oh, and if I sound condescending it's probably deliberate.

oh, awesome. attempts to shame people into not talking about things which actually happened are really something special. keep it up. so sorry I spoke about something I was concerned about.

for the record I expressed that I hated having to report that what I feared might happen, did happen. and I meant it.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Another odd thing about Charlottesville...I watch Trump's approval ratings every day.

I kept waiting for the big dips, which everyone else seemed to expect too (media, I mean), yet eerily enough, his approval ratings went up and his disapproval ratings went down during that period of time.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Who was it that decided to get violent? From my experience of such situations, I would wager that it was the police that decided to get violent. The report linked to earlier quotes what the police had to say about what happened. How much of that do you believe? Why would you believe any of it?

Also important not to forget that Trump is the enemy here. Surely you want him to be condemning your actions. I'm trying to associate this with the UK and it is a stretch to understand the position: 'Don't act up or Maggie will make a statement disapproving' is the closest UK analogy I can think of. Eh? Um, that's what we want.

I believe the person I know who was there (right where the incident happened) and witnessed it. She was a counter-protestor, on their side. Had no reason to lie. Yet who knows who that group actually was. So, yes, you're correct that assumptions shouldn't be jumped to.

However, if it truly was an antifa or other leftist group, I still think it was pretty unfortunate. Because what happened there was truly enough. It was enough that so many people showed up, that the scheduled rally essentially evaporated, that this was all accomplished without violence or threats. Acting up, when necessary, is one thing. When your goal is literally being accomplished before your eyes, then no, it's stupid and counter-productive to "act up."

 

[Andrew Hertford]

What are people's thoughts on Chomsky's critical remarks on antifa?

Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a 'major gift to the Right'

He’s just reiterating what to most of us know is common sense.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

Apologies it was meant to be for Andrew Hertford

What point are you making in relation to what I actually said?

Would there have been a successful outcome at Charlottesville if antifa had turned up with assault rifles as well?

 

[Andrew Hertford]

And yet, and yet, you still spout the following with a straight face:

Drawing moral equivalence between a fascist and a direct-action anti-fascist is a cunt's trick of the worst order and plays directly into the hands of the far right. Good Job, Hertford.

If you can’t see a ‘moral equivalence’ between beating someone up for selling a newspaper and fascism, then maybe you need to reflect on the history of fascism.

I can understand how when faced with a bunch of thugs you might decide the best defence is to strike first, but beating up someone who came to your door selling a newspaper? Would you do that??

Violence and intimidation isn't going stop a racist being racist and it isn’t going to make them stop marching any more than it would stop an anti-racist.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

The fash make no secret about the violence they intend to commit. Why not beat them to the punch and in the process prevent them from even starting to hurt people?

I expect the fascists think along those lines too.

Obviously society cannot tolerate everyone going around beating up anyone they want because they think their politics is abhorrent, even when it is.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

Oh the sweet motherfucking irony!

Hitting people who are avowedly fascist, who follow Nazi racial prescriptions and proscriptions, for selling papers promoting their ideological filth may make me "no better than a fascist" to you, but as it got those neo-Nazi pieces of shit off of my estate and others in the area, and stopped them openly harassing blacks in the area, I'm not going to apologise for taking physical direct action, and no-one I worked with back then would either, I suspect. Freedom to voice your opinions in public only extends as far as offending people who might exercise their freedom to disagree with you physically, as you make clear in the second sentence of your first paragraph above. It's strange then, that you can't accept that taking ad hoc action against bullies who are fascists is a legitimate enterprise. You're a typical liberal in that regard.

What the hell is ‘freedom to disagree with someone physically’? Please explain. Is it some kind of universal right, or does it only extend to self-appointed “soldiers” and dispensers of violent justice like you?

By the way, would you beat up someone selling or distributing religious fundamentalist stuff outside your local Church or Mosque?

 

[Nylock]

So you think these fuckers should be allowed a platform? That their pernicious evil should not be resisted? That they should be allowed to march and spew their bile with impunity?

There was a peaceful counter-protest when they did their tiki-torchlit parade through the uni grounds. How did that peaceful resistance work out for the counter-demonstrators?

Fucksake.

 

[YouSir]

If you can’t see a ‘moral equivalence’ between beating someone up for selling a newspaper and fascism, then maybe you need to reflect on the history of fascism.

I can understand how when faced with a bunch of thugs you might decide the best defence is to strike first, but beating up someone who came to your door selling a newspaper? Would you do that??

Violence and intimidation isn't going stop a racist being racist and it isn’t going to make them stop marching any more than it would stop an anti-racist.

'Selling a newspaper' is a nicely safe way to put it, removes any actual notion of the content that's likely to be in it or the intent behind it. Also a bit grandiose to call the sort of shite they put out a 'newspaper'. Frame it honestly - if someone came to your door trying to promote the idea that you or your neighbours are racially inferior, deserve to be ethnically cleansed, forcefully deported, violently attacked or thrown in a gas chamber how would you react? How about if they and their friends are out every day preaching it too? Maybe putting their ideas into action when they feel safe to do so as well? That's the reality of what these people do, don't try to sanitise it into some mundane and normal political pastime.

And you really need to look at the history of Fascism before you make any more inane comments, Der Sturmer was operated by people 'just selling newspapers', I'd say the effect they had was more than worthy of a bit of aggression in return. No doubt it wouldn't have stopped them from being racist, might have made them think twice about gleefully pushing their poison into communities though.

 

[DotCommunist]

He’s just reiterating what to most of us know is common sense.

'common sense' is what people with no solid argument appeal to, along with made up newspaper sellers knocking at your door.

 

[planetgeli]

Violence and intimidation isn't going stop a racist being racist and it isn’t going to make them stop marching

British political history begs to differ.

Battle of Cable Street - Wikipedia

 

[Athos]

Andrew Hertford, this isn't cricket. Fascists aren't going to play by the rules of liberal democracy. All you'd achieve by asking anti-fascists to do so is hamper any effective response.

Only one thing could have stopped our movement – if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.

For once, I agree with him.

 

[DotCommunist]

Hertford once said seeing a few black bloc at a march kicking in a bank window reminded him of kristellnacht. Yet you've got torch lit fash processions and a person killed by the fash and whats the plank saying? joke