Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/11/serbian-ultra-nationalists-cel.html
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Have fun talking to the “Jew-S-A!” guy. Have fun talking to the Trump supporter who thinks hanging journalists sounds like a lark. Have fun talking to the women who think real men should grab women by the pussy. I get that it’s uncool to write people off. But sheesh! There are a hell of a lot of shitbags out there who agree with this stuff or who didn’t care and voted for Trump anyway.
If you’re going to insist that we reach out, can you at least admit that some of their beliefs aren’t just “dissimilar” to ours? That kind of false equivalence is ridiculous.
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No sane liberal or progressive is looking to change the minds of ultra-nationalists and those who support “ethnic cleansing” of one variety or another. We were perfectly aware of their opposing viewpoints, and the bubble that some (not all) of us were in was one of denial that the inequality resulting from 35+ years of the neoliberal economic consensus could have led to their victory in America the other day. Even those of us who’ve been seriously worried since 2008 (myself included) were complacent right up until about 9:30PM Eastern time on Tuesday.
So mea culpa, but that does not mean I think there’s much of a dialogue to be had with someone who sees the solutions to what are very real problems in a cartoonish grifter who dog whistles to hardcore bigots, let alone with members of the alt-right or white nationalist or militia movements.
What it’s time to do is to redirect our energies toward resisting an agenda in two (soon to be three) branches of government that will set back our progress toward a more just and equitable society by 20 years. Anil Dash and Michael Moore are the early movers in suggesting to-do lists in that regard.
If that means that we sometimes have to call a bigot a bigot or a fascist a fascist based on his words or actions then so be it. The alternative is to normalise those views to the point where they become acceptable on a widespread basis, as they have in Serbia and Macedonia.*
[* or whatever they’re calling it these days in their endless PJF/JPF war of words]
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Maybe you should give your inspirational speech to the POC, women, Muslims and gays that have been attacked verbally/physically by the Trump supporters that have been “enabled” by their orange leader. Talk to them? Hell, they would beat me up if I said a word to them.
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About 15 years ago, my mom’s cousin married into a Serbian family in the states with deep roots within their culture, including my cousin’s new father-in-law, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church. My cousin-once-removed converted, something that deeply upset his devoutly Catholic mother, but we do anything for love, right? They’re wonderful people, have been incredibly generous to me and my wife during our wedding and the birth of our son. But as much as I love my cousin once removed and his wife, one thing will always stick with me about the family he married into:
At one of the first big family functions that my mom was invited to after the marriage (maybe a baptism for one of the kids?), the father-in-law got everyone’s attention, raised his glass of vodka up, and toasted to Slobodan Milosevic.
My mom was a hardcore Reagan-ite republican, but she was also the daughter of a WWII Polish refugee (who returned briefly during Russian occupation and saw THAT firsthand as well) who hated authoritarian rulers with a deep seeded passion. When she told me this story, she had tears in her eyes.
She continued to see my cousin and that family regularly until her passing, as do I. But yeah, that’s something that I have trouble resolving in my head. Not surprisingly, it’s been reported to me that my cousin once removed frequently posted anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, and pro-Rod Blagojevich (!!!) items on Facebook over the last year.
I’m going to see him again on Sunday and will- as usual- do all I can to steer conversation away from things that will remind me of his political opinions.
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Wow. I can’t even…
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I do agree with one of @Unxmaal points; this is a situation that calls for more dialogue, not less.
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Generally that means that he needs to get off his soapbox that is already aging poorly. There has been some good discussion already.
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well…that de-escalated quickly. I guess.
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This will be the least of the indignities we will have to suffer. The good guys need to pull it together really fast. The dark leader has a plan. That plan needs to get jammed up.
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Know them by the company they keep.
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Yeah also Pauline Hanson. What a fine, upstanding human being she is.
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I am a Serb, born and raised in Serbia. Been living there throughout 90ies. Please feel free to ask me anything about politics there?
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You forgot to mention that he armed terrorists.
So have we, many times. But they were freedom fighters, so it’s okay.
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Serbia is one of many BBC countries (bombed by the Clintons) in this case in 1999 with the loss of hundreds of lives. Americans would no doubt feel the same if Osama Bin Laden’s brother lost an election for chief executioner in Saudi Arabia. Incidentally, Milosevic was not a hard-line nationalist but a former Communist who tacked to the right to win elections. Closer to Clinton than Trump, in fact.
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Wow, Cory. Don’t hold back. Please let us know how you really feel.
You could have easily left out “ultra-nationalists” from that first sentence/paragraph. Seems like that’s what you really wanted to say. That’s what most people will get from it anyway. Serbs and rape-camps, genocide and ethnic cleansing in the same sentence. There’s that familiar sentiment.
This looks like the same language Trump uses when he talks about Muslims, or Mexicans, or whatever racist bullshit he’s spouting. Trump himself would be proud by it.
Notice the style when you talk about the crimes of that other tribe, it’s all factual. Now compare it to the style when you talk about crimes of your own tribe. What they “perceive”. They think. Imagine if Russia, or Iran, or whoever was bombing US, for legitimate reasons or not. Civilians were dying, children, by mistake or not. Would American people “perceive” Putin to be responsible.
But it’s different, right. It was for a good reason.
Our great prime minister was mentioned. And that was a fairly good description. What was conveniently omitted is that that same prime minister was “special and dear guest” at Clinton Foundation event held recently in New York. And while he’s slowly dragging Serbia into another dictatorship he is strongly supported by the US. Because US doesn’t care about rape-camps, genocide and ethnic cleansing, as long as you follow US foreign policy. Today there’s hardly any free media left in Serbia. That same prime minister, now loved and supported by the US, was Milosevic’s propaganda minister during the wars and bombing. In charge of that same state television building bombed by NATO, which by the way resulted in death of 16 civilians that were working there. But it’s ok, it was for a good reason. AI considers it a war crime. Chomsky called it an act of terrorism. To this day nobody was held accountable for the attack itself.
Cory mentioned in an earlier article about Serbian major ultra-nationalist party leader endorsing Trump. He actually called him war criminal (he was freed on all charges, appeal process still going on). That party is in the parliament again. Our prime minister was that man’s second deputy. And, get this, his first deputy was our current president. In fact, the current ruling party, that gave us our current prime minister and president, was formed (with a “strong backing” from US government) by splitting from that same major ultra-nationalist party. The are called “reformed conservatives”.
But that’s ok, he’s our friend and ally in the region now. At least for now, while the love holds. When it breaks we may get another democracy adjustment by our friends from the US. This time it may even be by Trump. Wouldn’t that be a nice play of irony for those Trump loving Serbs.
Of course, Cory didn’t see fit to mention any of this in these articles.
The news here is Serbs support Trump. Some small insignificant country you wouldn’t even now about if you haven’t bombed it back to stone age. It’s certainly more important than noting that half of the 300M strong nation, leader of the free world, basically voted for a fascist. Or US government’s, regardless of the president, support for dictators around the world. That’s not worth mentioning in this context. You don’t see any parallels here?
What’s up with you and Serbs lately? Have you run into some Serbian asshole? I understand the frustration, I run into them every day.
I imagine idea was to compere Trump to those who endorse him, but it actually sound more like shifting the blame. Congratulations, Cory. You are now part of that same “independent objective and unbiased” media machine.
Let’s just simplify everything and blindly believe what ever we want to believe. Long live the tribalism.
The amount of hypocrisy in the world is astonishing.
Um…
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He seems to get along well with Serbian writer and feminist, Jasmina Tesanovic, who writes here quite often on a number of topics related to the Former Yugoslavia, Europe, and even once on the aftermath of Katrina…
Maybe it’s not “Serbs” that he is wary of (which is an old canard when talking about these issues, that somehow the person in question is attacking an entire ethnic group, when they aren’t doing that), but any stripe of ultra-nationalists? I doubt @doctorow would look kindly on ultra-nationalists movements of any kind.
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I know, I’ve been visiting boing boing for more than a decade almost daily. I’m mostly familiar with his views. I’ve read some of Jasmina’s excellent stuff, too.
What I didn’t see here are titles like Dutch ultra-nationalists celebrate Trump’s victory, or French, or Hungarian.
Basically all ultra-nationalists around the world celebrate Trump.
Maybe he’s planning a series of posts.
