This is a thread for discussing language and tone policing of antifascism.
Knoxville is infested with these people.
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America is infested with these people, so yeah.
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I’m not sure calling them an infestation is the way to go. Humans are flawed enough, you don’t need to reduce them to lesser than that. It just leads down the path of “these people”.
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Actions have consequences. Fascists are responsible for their choices. Coddling them is a waste of time. The infestation isn’t of dehumanized zombies, it’s of culpable Nazis.
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Using words like infestation, vermin, etc. to describe people is Nazi rhetoric. So which one is it? Are they culpable Nazis (i.e. humans) or are they an infestation? We’re not coddling them by acknowledging their humanity.
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I propose that, like a pride of lions, an infestation of fascists is the correct plural.
Infest:
** transitive . To attack, assail, annoy, or trouble (a person or thing) in a persistent manner; to molest by repeated attacks; to harass.
Infestation:
The action of infesting, assailing, harassing, or persistently molesting; now used esp. of insects which attack plants, grain, etc. in large swarms. Also, with an and plural . An assault or attack of this kind. Also, the state or condition of being infested.
Ok, “especially insects.” And I do agree with your point that we should not dehumanize humans. I would not call them vermin. But the OED has examples of military history where it is used for human enemies, and not in a Nazi way: “The external enemies possessed a power of infestation which could not be quelled.”
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No, it is still dehumanising, even if it’s used to dehumanise by non-Nazis.
These People are an infestation.
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Recent usage is commonly for non-human infestations, but the word doesn’t only refer to non-humans. Do you have another word that gets at the same sense? If there are a few neo-nazis in the police, we can say the police have been infiltrated. If there are a lot, the only word I know is infestation. There is an infestation of fascists and neo Nazis in the Republican party and in law enforcement.
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Start your own post rather than taking this one off topic, please.
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I don’t recall calling them vermin or et cetera.
They’re an infestation of culpable Nazis.
I don’t deny their humanity; I have no intention of letting them off the hook for choosing what they’ve chosen.
Let me know how not hurting the feelings of the “fuck your feelings” crowd works out for you. Actually, on second though, don’t.
If you don’t like the term I use for their corruption of the body politic, then don’t use it.
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English isn’t my first language, but I invite you to expand your vocabulary:
Curse, scourge, assault, onslaught, incursion, intrusion, plethora, deluge, glut, etc.
All uses of “infestation” are dehumanising when aimed at people. They have been hundreds of years ago and it has been made worse by anti-Semitic, Nazi, and Communist propaganda through the resulting atrocities. Finding a “relatively benign” use by “the military” doesn’t negate this.
I, for one, afford all Nazis, bigots, fascists and terrorists the exact same consideration and tolerance that they give to me, as Black woman in Amerikkka:
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I apologise for tone policing. My goal was to point out the use of Nazi rhetoric, which I would avoid. I’m not telling you what to call them.
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None of these work. It needs to be a term that suggests an infiltration so widespread and so severe that it is not clear that the infested organization can be saved.
I see that any such term will be used by Nazi-types. I think that’s called projection.
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True, true… we should be sympathetic to nazis and white supremacists trying to overthrow our government. That will fix them… /s
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Haha, that’s actually the movie I learned that word from and yes I remember that scene ^^
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One pet peeve from History shows is the use of the word “extermination” when casually referring to killed in the Holocaust. It is the reductive dehumanizing term used by mass murderers themselves and distances people from the atrocity. It also saps the humanity of its victims
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