Far right tropes: how to spot if your friend is going down the rabbit hole & how to respond

[danny la rouge]

1. “Fighting age men”/ “military-age male migrants”.

Let’s start with that one. What’s being implied? That there’s a foreign force planning an invasion? Does being “military age” mean you have military skills? Aren’t they also “cricket age”? Are they planning a takeover of cricket?

Discuss, debate, debunk.

 

[A380]

It's normally elderly male frothers who never wore a uniform in their life who get excited at the thought of a war. Although quite how useful a late 70's 19 stone boomer with boarder line COPD is going to be in close quarters combat in an urban environment is open to debate. See also Nigel man frog Farage and his 'I'll pick up a rifle' speech about two seconds before he started hiding on his bus because of milkshakes...

In short, cunts.

 

[Silas Loom]

Out of interest, do the same people talk about “breeding-age women”? It would fit their great replacement narratives.

 

[A380]

Out of interest, do the same people talk about “breeding-age women”? It would fit their great replacement narratives.

They'd not admit that probably 80% of their internet search history is based on that phrase...

 

[Lotte]

It's normally elderly male frothers who never wore a uniform in their life who get excited at the thought of a war. Although quite how useful a late 70's 19 stone boomer with boarder line COPD is going to be in close quarters combat in an urban environment is open to debate. See also Nigel man frog Farage and his 'I'll pick up a rifle' speech about two seconds he started hiding on his bus because of milkshakes...

In short, cunts.

Yeah, it's odd how the people who are most enthusiastic about going to war are people who've never had to fight in one and are too old for national service. It's not WW1 and WW2 vets who shame people for not wearing poppies and get woodies at the thought of trans women and effeminate men being blown up and shot. Not just men tbf, Julie Burchill still hasn't made aliyah and joined the IDF despite claiming she would 'fucking die' for Israel.

 

[Silas Loom]

The debate about frothers and war enthusiasts is tricky. There’s a thread on Urban where the wrong’uns claim to be arguing for peace against NATO fanboys driven mad with war lust by half-remembered Eagle comics and Twitter OSINT accounts. Maybe we should stick with the far right trope debunking.

 

[A380]

Men like the twat on Conservative Home* yesterday calling for all people arriving unlawfully at Dover as refugees be offered the choice of returning to sea immediately or face summary execution. (To be fair the the denizens of that swamp, over 80% of people there told him to fuck off...)


(* Their misery in the comments sections both bring me joy and remind me that I am not a very nice person.)

 

[A380]

The debate about frothers and war enthusiasts is tricky. There’s a thread on Urban where the wrong’uns claim to be arguing for peace against NATO fanboys driven mad with war lust by half-remembered Eagle comics and Twitter OSINT accounts. Maybe we should stick with the far right trope debunking.

It wasn't Eagle* it was Battle or similar... (Not that I was allowed to read either. Morning Star kids pages and badly translated and printed Russian Folk tales only in my house)


* Eagle was cutaway drawings of Engineering marvels, Dan Dare and Heroes of the bible. Battle was the one with 'Die Engander' and 'For you Fritz the war is over'....

 

[Santino]

The Eagle had Charlie's War which was a mixture of gung-ho action and brutality as the eponymous hero fought his way through the First World War. He had many a cruel and unreasonable commanding officer.

Edit: Charley not Charlie Charley's War - Wikipedia

 

[Silas Loom]

It wasn't Eagle* it was Battle or similar... (Not that I was allowed to read either. Morning Star kids pages and badly translated and printed Russian Folk tales only in my house)


* Eagle was cutaway drawings of Engineering marvels, Dan Dare and Heroes of the bible. Battle was the one with 'Die Engander' and 'For you Fritz the war is over'....

I was similarly deprived, for much the same reasons, if a little less far along the tankie parent spectrum. But Santino has vindicated me!

 

[isvicthere?]

My sister isn´t really "right wing" but in the last few years has well and truly been sucked into some of the most loony conspiracy stuff. She´s seriously anti-vax, and has posted stuff from, among others, Reform, Katie Hopkins and bitchute (I had to look up bitchute: it´s a real extreme conspiracy site that is banned from loads of platforms, including facebook and paypal, and includes holocaust denial and lots of other ugly stuff in its regular content).

My sister also believes scientific medicine is "lies" and refuses to see the doctor for any reason, preferring to spend large sums of money instead on obvious snake-oil fraudsters. Most recent is her firm adherence to the "chemtrails" conspiracy.

How she went down this rabbit hole remains a real mystery. From 1987 to 2016 she was an entirely straight, conservative (in the social rather than political sense) housewife, living a comfortable suburban life, with her husband and one daughter (born 1991). Then, with no warning, she dumped her husband and went full conspiraloon.

 

[Santino]

The Eagle had Charlie's War which was a mixture of gung-ho action and brutality as the eponymous hero fought his way through the First World War. He had many a cruel and unreasonable commanding officer.

Edit: Charley not Charlie Charley's War - Wikipedia

Now that I've read that Wikipedia entry, it seems that Charley's War started in Battle, which then was taken over by The Eagle.

 

[JimW]

Think I mentioned being dismayed running into a lad who is friends of friends on a trip home and finding he'd gone down a conspiraloon rabbit hole, which seemed to start with some Freeman on the Land-adjacent attempts to avoid some traffic fine, and by the point of that chat had started to include some right wing stuff.

 

[SpookyFrank]

1. “Fighting age men”/ “military-age male migrants”.

Let’s start with that one. What’s being implied? That there’s a foreign force planning an invasion? Does being “military age” mean you have military skills? Aren’t they also “cricket age”? Are they planning a takeover of cricket?

Discuss, debate, debunk.

It think 'fighting age' means 'should be back at home fighting in whatever war or conflict is going on'. Because of course every migrant is fleeing war out of sheer cowardice, nobody is running from persecution or deprivation or anything else that you can't realistically fight with a gun.

The phrase usually comes from people well past 'fighting age' for whom it has never been necessary to even metaphorically fight for anything.

 

[The39thStep]

I'm always amazed as what sometimes starts with something you might agree with or certainly have no objection to suddenly develops into a ride that wouldn't be out of place at Alton Towers. I had a conversation that started on the benefits of fresh veg rather than supermarket produce that might have been sprayed with pesticides which suddenly veered off into big pharma and the great cull.

 

[Spymaster]

1. “Fighting age men”/ “military-age male migrants”.

Let’s start with that one. What’s being implied? That there’s a foreign force planning an invasion? Does being “military age” mean you have military skills? Aren’t they also “cricket age”? Are they planning a takeover of cricket?

Discuss, debate, debunk.

I've always thought that the implication of "military age" when used by people like that wrt migrants was that they were potentially ex ISIS/Taliban/etc.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The debate about frothers and war enthusiasts is tricky. There’s a thread on Urban where the wrong’uns claim to be arguing for peace against NATO fanboys driven mad with war lust by half-remembered Eagle comics and Twitter OSINT accounts. Maybe we should stick with the far right trope debunking.

It wasn't Eagle* it was Battle or similar... (Not that I was allowed to read either. Morning Star kids pages and badly translated and printed Russian Folk tales only in my house)


* Eagle was cutaway drawings of Engineering marvels, Dan Dare and Heroes of the bible. Battle was the one with 'Die Engander' and 'For you Fritz the war is over'....

The Eagle had Charlie's War which was a mixture of gung-ho action and brutality as the eponymous hero fought his way through the First World War. He had many a cruel and unreasonable commanding officer.

Edit: Charley not Charlie Charley's War - Wikipedia

Now that I've read that Wikipedia entry, it seems that Charley's War started in Battle, which then was taken over by The Eagle.

No one is entirely incorrect on this important side-issue, but neither is anyone wholly right.

Spoiler: You don't have to read this, honestly there is no benefit to it

The original Eagle (1950-1969) was set up by a vicar to inculcate Christian values in impressionable boys susceptible to dastardly violent American comics in their nutritionally-deficient post-war environment. As such it was never really a venue for war strips per se - though there were numerous historical tales involving lustily imperialistic battles against all manner of devilish foes.

The revived Eagle (1982-1994) shared little with its forebear other than the name and a lead strip about the great-grandson of the former's famous Dan Dare. Pat Mills' WW1 strip ‘Charley's War’ was in Battle (1975-1988). The (non-Mills) WW2 extension of the strip was never completed, and after Battle was hatch-match-and-dispatched into Eagle, the original ‘Charley's War’ was periodically reprinted.

More plausible candidates for conveying a generalised sense of jingoistic war-enthusiasm would be titles such as The Victor (1961-1992), a weekly which often featured war stories and for a long time could be recognised for its wraparound strip 'A True Story Of Men At War’. A more focused title was launched by its publisher in 1974, Warlord, which led to a competitor publishing its own Battle the following year. And of course the digest-sized Commando - one of many similar such pocket books - began in 1961 and is still going strong today.

 

[story]

1. “Fighting age men”/ “military-age male migrants”.

Let’s start with that one. What’s being implied? That there’s a foreign force planning an invasion? Does being “military age” mean you have military skills? Aren’t they also “cricket age”? Are they planning a takeover of cricket?

Discuss, debate, debunk.

ETA
Tl;dr
Or what SpookyFrank said…








I always assumed this was the same as saying:

“If their country is so unsafe and under attack from someone or there’s some other danger, why are they sending the military aged men overseas? Why aren’t they defending their homeland and womenfolk? There’s obviously something goin on here that’s not about safety. Why are they leaving their women and children in the face of danger?”

So: cowardly, dishonourable, not doing their job as men, liars etc. In the flush of youth and strength but abandoning their families to something they themselves won’t face.


The truth is that the young strong healthy men leave/ are selected to go because they are most able to survive the journey, least likely to have immediate dependants, and can more likely to find low level jobs at their destination and survive a narrow pinched life at their destination if necessary.

I once spoke with a refugee from Ethiopia who had been chosen by the whole family to come to the UK. He was a teacher at home. He’d been here 6 months and he was street homeless. He was deeply ashamed that he’d not been able to set himself up and send money home, so he’d not been in contact with them. Yes, he agreed, they were no doubt very worried about him but the family had collectively saved up the money for his journey and he didn’t feel able to get in touch with them unless/until he could at least repay that debt. I offered him some money but he refused to take it unless he could sing a song in return. He launched into The Beat’s Stand Down Margaret. After that I asked for an Ethiopian song, which made him embarrassed, as if I’d asked him to reveal something private. We had a long chat and shared some food. I think of him often. I wonder how he’s doing.

I spoke with two young Sudanese men. Well, barely men: 19 and 20 years old. They’d walked out of their country and made their way here, the two of them together. It had taken them nearly two years to get over here. They were being housed in a Christian hostel of some sort, a place with associations with their home church. One of them was keen to go back as soon as he could because his father had died and his family needed a man there; the other wanted to stay.

The burden of being the young fit strong man weighs heavy. The conflict between stay and protect, support VS forge a new life elsewhere and share it with those back home is impossible to fully understand without direct experience. Such thinking is beyond the capacity of bigots. So they come up with the spurious “stands to reason” interpretation that arises from their own prejudices and fears.


Also what Spymaster said.

 

[Silas Loom]

No one is entirely incorrect on this important side-issue, but neither is anyone wholly right.

Spoiler: You don't have to read this, honestly there is no benefit to it

The original Eagle (1950-1969) was set up by a vicar to inculcate Christian values in impressionable boys susceptible to dastardly violent American comics in their nutritionally-deficient post-war environment. As such it was never really a venue for war strips per se - though there were numerous historical tales involving lustily imperialistic battles against all manner of devilish foes.

The revived Eagle (1982-1994) shared little with its forebear other than the name and a lead strip about the great-grandson of the former's famous Dan Dare. Pat Mills' WW1 strip ‘Charley's War’ was in Battle (1975-1988). The (non-Mills) WW2 extension of the strip was never completed, and after Battle was hatch-match-and-dispatched into Eagle, the original ‘Charley's War’ was periodically reprinted.

More plausible candidates for conveying a generalised sense of jingoistic war-enthusiasm would be titles such as The Victor (1961-1992), a weekly which often featured war stories and for a long time could be recognised for its wraparound strip 'A True Story Of Men At War’. A more focused title was launched by its publisher in 1974, Warlord, which led to a competitor publishing its own Battle the following year. And of course the digest-sized Commando - one of many similar such pocket books - began in 1961 and is still going strong today.

Fine. But presumably Dan Dare didn’t settle all his differences with the Venusians through respectful dialogue facilitated by a talking stick?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Tl;dr
Or what SpookyFrank said…

I always assumed this was the same as saying:

“If their country is so unsafe and under attack from someone or there’s some other danger, why are they sending the military aged men overseas? Why aren’t they defending their homeland and womenfolk? There’s obviously something goin on here that’s not about safety. Why are they leaving their women and children in the face of danger?”

So: cowardly, dishonourable, not doing their job as men, liars etc. In the flush of youth and strength but abandoning their families to something they themselves won’t face.


The truth is that the young strong healthy men leave/ are selected to go because they are most able to survive the journey, least likely to have immediate dependants, and can more likely to find low level jobs at their destination and survive a narrow pinched life at their destination if necessary.

I once spoke with a refugee from Ethiopia who had been chosen by the whole family to come to the UK. He was a teacher at home. He’d been here 6 months and he was street homeless. He was deeply ashamed that he’d not been able to set himself up and send money home, so he’d not been in contact with them. Yes, he agreed, they were no doubt very worried about him but the family had collectively saved up the money for his journey and he didn’t feel able to get in touch with them unless/until he could at least repay that debt. I offered him some money but he refused to take it unless he could sing a song in return. He launched into The Beat’s Stand Down Margaret. After that I asked for an Ethiopian song, which made him embarrassed, as if I’d asked him to reveal something private. We had a long chat and shared some food. I think of him often. I wonder how he’s doing.

I spoke with two young Sudanese men. Well, barely men: 19 and 20 years old. They’d walked out of their country and made their way here, the two of them together. It had taken them nearly two years to get over here. They were being housed in a Christian hostel of some sort, a place with associations with their home church. One of them was keen to go back as soon as he could because his father had died and his family needed a man there; the other wanted to stay.

The burden of being the young fit strong man weighs heavy. The conflict between stay and protect, support VS forge a new life elsewhere and share it with those back home is impossible to fully understand even for those without direct experience. Such thinking is beyond the capacity of bigots. So they come up with the spurious “stands to reason” interpretation that arises from their own prejudices and fears.


Also what Spymaster said

It's a handy win-every-argument claim (in the mind of the person making it), because whoever plays the card can bend its meaning into whatever they want it to be, often in contradictory ways simultaneously

 

[DaveCinzano]

Fine. But presumably Dan Dare didn’t settle all his differences with the Venusians through respectful dialogue facilitated by a talking stick?

He tried his damnedest (and #NotAllVenusians - Atlanteans were allies, and some Treens became collaborators and rebelled against the Mekon), as one would expect of someone who was conceived as an intergalactic padre.

 

[The39thStep]

I've always thought that the implication of "military age" when used by people like that wrt migrants was that they were potentially ex ISIS/Taliban/etc.

I think there's two explainations as there are two meanings . SpookyFrank is right about the 'why are they here , they are not vulnerable, they should be fighting whoever it is they should be fighting in their own country ' ie they are having us on they are not proper refugees.. The second one is the conspiracy that, who ever THEY are, THEY are shipping people over who are of fighting age as come the great replacement they'll kill off the resistance here. ?

 

[isvicthere?]

It think 'fighting age' means 'should be back at home fighting in whatever war or conflict is going on'. Because of course every migrant is fleeing war out of sheer cowardice, nobody is running from persecution or deprivation or anything else that you can't realistically fight with a gun.

The phrase usually comes from people well past 'fighting age' for whom it has never been necessary to even metaphorically fight for anything.

Indeed. The same people who describe desperate refugees arriving on dinghies as an "invasion"; using this as a description is only possible if you live in a country that hasn´t really been invaded for almost a thousand years.

 

[danny la rouge]

OK, so how is that countered?

 

[SpookyFrank]

The truth is that the young strong healthy men leave/ are selected to go because they are most able to survive the journey, least likely to have immediate dependants, and can more likely to find low level jobs at their destination and survive a narrow pinched life at their destination if necessary.

In many places they'll also be exactly the people who would be forced to fight in some pointless war for some dictator or warlord if they stayed at home. Ethiopia and Eritrea both still have forced conscription IIRC, and they're in a permanent state of war with each other.

 

[SpookyFrank]

OK, so how is that countered?

I'd start by asking exactly what they mean by 'fighting age' and why they think it's relevant.

 

[ddraig]

2. Two tier policing

 

[Idris2002]

Re: "men of military age". I'd say it's meant to label those who qualify as a sexual threat, apart from anything else.

 

[Silas Loom]

2. Two tier policing

JSO/ER is a pretty good start, at least on two tier sentencing.

On policing, you could talk people through National Decision Models and THRIVE and suchlike, but you could also point out that the police response to the far right pogroms was characterised more by insufficient resources than by heavy-handedness. Also, the far right seem to be more naive about the risk of arrest than the direct action groups to which they are opposed.

 

[Rebecca Riot]

My sister isn´t really "right wing" but in the last few years has well and truly been sucked into some of the most loony conspiracy stuff. She´s seriously anti-vax, and has posted stuff from, among others, Reform, Katie Hopkins and bitchute (I had to look up bitchute: it´s a real extreme conspiracy site that is banned from loads of platforms, including facebook and paypal, and includes holocaust denial and lots of other ugly stuff in its regular content).

My sister also believes scientific medicine is "lies" and refuses to see the doctor for any reason, preferring to spend large sums of money instead on obvious snake-oil fraudsters. Most recent is her firm adherence to the "chemtrails" conspiracy.

How she went down this rabbit hole remains a real mystery. From 1987 to 2016 she was an entirely straight, conservative (in the social rather than political sense) housewife, living a comfortable suburban life, with her husband and one daughter (born 1991). Then, with no warning, she dumped her husband and went full conspiraloon.

I've got a customer who must be in her 70s who believes all this conspiracy shite. She was horrified when she heard I'd got a smart meter and said it would be watching me (it's in a cupboard so it wouldn't see much!) and when the pandemic started she refused to believe covid existed and said world governments were making it up to control us. She was even telling people that a much respected GP was forcing children to have the covid vaccine against their parents wishes, which of course was complete rubbish.