Apart from Nazi-punching, let’s recall that Meyer Lansky was a criminal who made organized crime “bigger than General Motors”, blackmailed J. Edgar Hoover, etc. – a legacy that shapes the power in America to this day.
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Yes, there are better nazi-punching role models.
At the age of 17, although he had been too young to serve in World War II, he became the youngest member of the 43 Group, a Jewish veterans’ underground organisation. It broke up the British Union of Fascists meetings in East London. The Daily Telegraph calls him an “anti-fascist warrior-hairdresser” whose aim was to prevent Sir Oswald Mosley’s movement from spreading “messages of hatred” in the period following World War II.
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Just a reminder of what a registration number looks like, and then tell me why I shouldn’t punch a Nazi in the face…
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Depends which military history. Regiments, uniforms, names of commanders…generally yawn. Understanding the causes of wars and the pressure of events can, I think, help us to understand how similar, rather than how different, are responses to extreme events, how distanced are politicians from events on the ground, how terminology is used to normalise atrocity. Anything which causes large number of young men to kill other people under the direction of mostly old men is, I think, worthy of study.
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They are behind a paywall now, but Dan Carlin’s Blueprint For Armageddon podcast series on WWI was both fascinating and disturbing. Well a lot of his history can be a bit disturbing as he doesn’t sugar coat the ugly things that humans have done to each other in the past.
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Arguably that kind of study contributed to saving humanity from nuclear annihilation:
Much has been made of the influence The Guns of August had on Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis—and for good reason. Kennedy himself made a point of referring repeatedly to the lessons of Tuchman’s book (which had been published just a few months before that fateful October). In the midst of the crisis, he told his brother Bobby: “I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time [and call it] The Missiles of October.”
Given the passions of the moment, this was a nearly superhuman task. Would someone who had not read the book, or who had not studied history (as Kennedy had at Harvard), have been able to resist the advice of military men like Curtis LeMay, who wanted to evaporate the island with nuclear bombs?
I wish I could say that this applies to the current President*, but it’s still an open question whether he’s able to read at all.
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here here!! bravo!
While I would agree with your point in 99.99% of all cases, those who would explicitly align themselves philosophically or literally with entities and beliefs that, to their very core, employ violence as a primary means of action are clearly signaling inevitable violent action. Appeasement did nothing to stop the Nazis the first time, in fact, it allowed them access to far more vulnerable people than before.
The question really, then becomes when to act. This “movement” has clearly embraced all of the core methodologies and strategies of the early-century fascists including violent coercion. I don’t know how much more rope we owe them.
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People like to gloss over the fact that India did not change overnight, nor did it change because of a single individual’s actions; there are so, so many lawyers, journalists, advocates, police…so many people who did great and dangerous work in that time.
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One where Judaism is spelled correctly, I assume.
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Reminder:
The culture that teaches you that violence is wrong was established by people with guns and maintained by people with guns.
Violence is not a moral good, but it may be time to recognize that human beings are not inherently capable of living up to our own moral concepts as a group. All of us have the genes of murderers.
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You have to go outside the canon to learn that the sermon on the mount was delivered while polishing a rifle.
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Wow these are really disappointing responses.
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Violence is never an effective tool against an ideology. It has never worked from hunting witches to fighting ISIS. Still don’t believe me try this thought experiment: How many times would a Nazi have to punch you before you stopped disagreeing with him?
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Advocating violence as a form of civil protest absolutely drips with patriarchy. It is almost the exclusive purview of young men pretending to knights or some silly thing. These are not your grandparent’s Nazi’s. You are going to find huge number of women and elderly supporting this nonsense. Is punching an old Nazi going to do anything, want shove Kelly Anne down?
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This is not 1937. Both the amount of violence and our attitudes towards it have changed dramatically in 80 years. When it comes punching someone in the face, this especially true. You will not find me cheering you on for acting like a thug, no matter how righteous you think you are.
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If we have learned anything about trolls in the past generation it should have been this - Don’t Feed the Trolls. Richard Spencers’s best day was getting punched in front of the camera. The puncher made him a star.
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I suppose when I wrote “Gandhi,” I meant him and all the people who were inspired by him. The loudest voices among them would have all suffered a similar fate.
Your comment also points out the importance of a robust press and legal system. Let’s hope ours in the US are strong enough.
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You seem to be advocating giving in to fascism. That may work for some white cisgender heterosexual men, but it is the road to the death camps for quite a few of us.
Maybe you should look at https://tdor.info/ because that is my fear and my reality. I do not want to end up on that list, I have already knew one person who has.
Was punching Spencer strategically useful. No, but you are not going to get me to believe that is should not defend myself if (and I still hope it is only if) the fascists come for me. I learned the hard way that ignoring them when passing them in the street doesn’t work.
Violence should never be the first choice of tactics, but neither should it be dismissed. If someone comes to kill me, I will try to make sure I get out alive any way I can. If it upsets your pacifist principles that violence may be an option I choose, then that is your problem. Mine is staying alive.
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I can never tell if someone is being witty or sarcastic.
But I will say we do not live in a culture based on the Sermon of Jesus Christ. We live in a culture that was based on people using the pretty good sermon as a rationalization to do everything he said not to in defense of ideas that were not really under attack after 1,500 years ago.
“My devotion to the principles of peace, freedom, and community are so strong I will kill, enslave, and steal.”
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I am not giving into anything - I will not resort to violence to express my opinion. That is all Nazi punching is - The puncher is saying “I hate your beliefs and I am going to hit you”. That is about the most childish form of (un)civil comment I can think of. You certainly are not changing the Nazi’s mind by hitting him or any of his cohorts. Someone who perhaps has not thought critically about fascism is not going to be swayed to your side by watching you violently attack someone… Most likely is will be the opposite.
Defending yourself is a complete straw man. No one was coming after anyone the day Spencer was punched. It was a childish act of violence perpetrated by a thug that wanted to express himself. And I find distasteful that people I would otherwise agree with are giving the thug a pass.
There may come a day when action is required, and if my 110 lbs of middle-aged fury can do anything to defend you, I’ll do it. In the meantime, I consider provocative acts violence as counter productive expressions of ego and patriarchy.
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Defending myself was my reality from September 30 2003 to September 23 2004. I have police reports. I have PTSD. I am not making this up to prove a point.
https://iww.org/de/content/fellow-worker-and-gdc-member-shot-anti-fascist-protest-seattle
The person who was shot was trying to break up fights at the protest and was intentionally targeted by the shooter.
You are late.
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If you believe opposing fascism is merely an opinion then the day when action is required will come and there will be nobody left for you to defend; or to speak out for you.
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