[Sat 28th Oct 2017] London Anarchist Bookfair (London)

[killer b]

is alt-right just an umbrella term for any far right activity now?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

is alt-right just an umbrella term for any far right activity now?

I’m using it as the package rebranding of Robinson into a journalist. Isn’t it? Fuck knows then.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

The EDL wasn't alt-right as I understand it.

But Tommy is obviously trying to get in with the alt-right through things like Rebel Media.

 

[bimble]

I think 'alt-right' is a shit term, its what they coined for themselves to make it sound new and edgy, and something to do with keyboards.

 

[DotCommunist]

he's not got the clothes for it. Would need a makeover

 

[Pickman's model]

I think 'alt-right' is a shit term, its what they coined for themselves to make it sound new and edgy, and something to do with keyboards.

Ctrl+alt+right then <delete>

 

[Pickman's model]

he's not got the clothes for it. Would need a makeover

Broad arrows would suit him

 

[killer b]

I’m using it as the package rebranding of Robinson into a journalist. Isn’t it? Fuck knows then.

Should probably avoid letting Robinson 'rebrand'.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Should probably avoid letting Robinson 'rebrand'.

Seems people are more concerned with branding feminists as fascists and denouncing bookfairs to be troubled by an actual fascist now having a wider audience and his views becoming normalised.

 

[Red Sky]

Seems people are more concerned with branding feminists as fascists and denouncing bookfairs to be troubled by an actual fascist now having a wider audience and his views becoming normalised.

That's always been the way.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Why though? I can’t work out whether it’s down to ‘interference’ or parts of the movement are genuinely this stupid. I don’t want to Class police which was pointed out earlier but there’s obviously people involved who aren’t interested in class struggle generally so are happy with the state of affairs of competing rights in place of class politics.

 

[ska invita]

Peace News have published all the main statements in their current issue with this bit of editorial
How to destroy our own movements | Peace News

a good stab at trying to think through where the line is on stopping free speech (and culture of no platforming etc) and argues against the idea that the offending leaflets were "violent".

Worth reading the whole thing, but this section is key

When should free speech be limited? Chomsky stands with the US supreme court ruling of 1969 which said that speech should always be protected from legal punishment except when people are trying to incite, and likely to produce, ‘imminent lawless action’ with their words. According to this standard, the law should not be used to stop or punish speech that justifies or advocates oppressive violence in general. The law should only be used against speech when those words are being used to try to start an actual violent attack right here, right now (‘imminently’).

Whatever else you might say about them, none of the gender-related leaflets passed out at the bookfair either justified or tried to incite anti-trans violence. The nearest the bookfair came to imminent violence was when 30 people surrounded Helen Steel.

It has been claimed that what was written in these leaflets was a form of violence. This is to bend the meaning of words completely out of shape. Offensive or oppressive speech is not violence.

If you choose to define oppressive speech as violence, and if you accept the right of violent self-defence, then it is justified to carry out violence against pretty much everyone, because we all say things that are oppressive or that can be seen as oppressive.

Yes, hate speech can help create a climate of intolerance and hatred which encourages violent attacks. That doesn’t mean hate speech is violence or that it should be subject to legal punishment. (We’re not saying the leaflets were hate speech.)

...it leaves unanswered who is the judge of hate speech.

The editorial quotes Chomsky quoting and siding with US law.
The UK has Hate Speech laws which I doubt would kick in over this leaflet
Then there are our own standards....

 

[TopCat]

The whole concept that the leaflets were violence justifying violent response is fucking stupid. The repeated view that any debate is violence is also fucking stupid and wrong.

On a slightly tangental point, the statement that Freedom collective put out is bonkers Bruno. I wonder who wrote it for them?

 

[Athos]

The idea that not validatating someone else's belief system (because you think it harms the rights of others) amounts to fascism and/or violence is insulting to people who've been on the receiving end of/stood up to fascist violence. It's just another mantra that's repeated until weak-minded liberals are guilted into accepting it, or others are bullied into doing so. I don't agree with all the content of those leaflets, but they don't come close to violence. They certainly don't justify the actual violence against women that was the response from some TRAs.

 

[smokedout]

The idea that not validatating someone else's belief system (because you think it harms the rights of others) amounts to fascism and/or violence is insulting to people who've been on the receiving end of/stood up to fascist violence.

You sound like an 80s Tory clown ranting about the gays.

 

[Athos]

You sound like an 80s Tory clown ranting about the gays.

Except that wasn't the basis of 80s Tory clowns' rants against 'the gays'.

But you knew this. You've just chosen to attempt to smear, rather than to engage in discussing the actual point.

Do you think distributing the leaflets is an act of violence, perpetrated by fascists?

 

[smokedout]

Except that wasn't the basis of 80s Tory clown' s rant against 'the gays'.

But you knew this. You've just chosen to attempt to smear, rather than to engage in discussing the actual point.

Of course it was, they were forever ranting on about gay ideology and belief systems which harmed children and society

 

[Athos]

Of course it was, they were forever ranting on about gay ideology and belief systems which harmed children and society

This is women organising to protect their rights. A very different situation.

Do you think distributing the leaflets is an act of violence, perpetrated by fascists?

 

[smokedout]

Interesting counterpoint here about what happened when some trans-activists, including children, tried to do the same as the bookfair leafleters at a trans exclusionary radfam event

The group bought a 16-year-old trans girl to the MWMF ticket booth and informed them that they were from Camp Trans and that they had a trans youth with them. While the MWMF sold everyone in the group tickets, the moment the group of Avengers entered the gates, TERFs began trailing the youth shouting, “MAN ON THE LAND!” This continued until the group turned into a mob that had surrounded the youth, screaming at her until MWMF security moved everyone to a tent where the trans youth was made to stand in front of an enormous group of TERFs who spent the next 2 hours berating her. One adult openly threatened the life of the youth without consequence. The youth was marched to the gates of the festival and expelled.

The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival: The historic RadFem vs TERF vs Trans fight

 

[smokedout]

This is women organising to protect their rights. A very different situation.

Do you think distributing the leaflets is an act of violence, perpetrated by fascists?

That was a certain view of society protecting their rights, and Christians protecting their rights, and tories protetcing childrens rights not to be exposed to perversion in schools. If course the threat was non-existent, much like the current scare-mongering.

I think the leaflet, and particularly the fact it was stuck up in the toilets, was likely to have made transpeople at the bookfair feel unsafe and unwelcome.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

There’s pricks on both sides but I don’t get why someone would turn up somewhere where there’d be hostility. Unless they didn’t know there would be I suppose.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I think the leaflet, and particularly the fact it was stuck up in the toilets, was likely to have made transpeople at the bookfair feel unsafe and unwelcome.

I completely agree with that.

I also think that a binary view of something either being violence or not isn't helpful.

ETA - what I mean is that there are degrees. Hitting someone is obviously violence.

 

[Athos]

Interesting counterpoint here about what happened when some trans-activists, including children, tried to do the same as the bookfair leafleters at a trans exclusionary radfam event



The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival: The historic RadFem vs TERF vs Trans fight

Are you being disingenuous, or do you really not understand the difference between the ideas that: a) an anarchist bookfair should be open to a range of opinions; and, b) women should be able to organise on the basis of excluding those they consider men? Would you force women to accept those they consider men into their intimate spaces? In law? With physical force?

 

[Athos]

I think the leaflet, and particularly the fact it was stuck up in the toilets, was likely to have made transpeople at the bookfair feel unsafe and unwelcome.

I agree. That wasn't the question, though.

 

[redsquirrel]

I completely agree with that.

I also think that a binary view of something either being violence or not isn't helpful.

Yeah, the leaflet was total crap. But the response by some has been equally crap. Both camps showing a conspicuous absence of solidarity.

 

[TopCat]

You sound like an 80s Tory clown ranting about the gays.

You are playing the cunt deliberately.

 

[chilango]

 

[smokedout]

Are you being disingenuous, or do you really not understand the difference between the ideas that: a) an anarchist bookfair should be open to a range of opinions; and, b) women should be able to organise on the basis of excluding those they consider men? Would you force women to accept those they consider men into their intimate spaces? In law? With physical force?

The anarchist bookfair has never been open to a range of opinions - thats why the trots have a stall outside. Demanding that the state is the only body which can decide someone's gender identity doesn't strike me as very anarchist before you even get to how those leaflets might have made some people feel.

 

[ska invita]

I completely agree with that.

I also think that a binary view of something either being violence or not isn't helpful.

ETA - what I mean is that there are degrees. Hitting someone is obviously violence.

Categorically there is Violence (which is what the main critical most-signed open letter claimed the leaflets were), Hate Speech and then what...Being Unwelcoming? Where is the line to be drawn and how to judge it?
From the critical open letter:

This is unacceptable behaviour and a form of violence directed at trans people. The contents of the leaflets are not simply a “perspective” or a “viewpoint” but are a form of ignorance, violence and aggression directed specifically at trans women........Worse still, as we saw this weekend, organisers have stepped in to defend and support those who use oppressive, violent and dehumanising language to perpetuate racist, colonial and patriarchal systems of oppression.

 

[TopCat]

The anarchist bookfair has never been open to a range of opinions - thats why the trots have a stall outside. Demanding that the state is the only body which can decide someone's gender identity doesn't strike me as very anarchist before you even get to how those leaflets might have made some people feel.

Still playing the cunt eh?