I have no problem with (and encourage!) people mocking Nazis with non-threatening, non-fighting words, burning ridicule.
If they chose to escalate the situation, well then. Get lots of video.
1 Like
I wonder if he, like, sewed his own armband at home one day, or if it was a mail-order type situation.
2 Likes
I’m glad to help, but the BBS is fairly replete with intelligent and nuanced perspectives, some of whom contributed to this thread prior to me.
5 Likes
You already got the response your post called for.
I might add:
I can’t even count the number of persons I know who deem it’s a punchable offence to wear a Nazi Armband in public. Many more would rather call the police than punch themselves, but not for the lack of wanting.
And I spent a great part of my life in Germany.
Just FYI, some Nazis are currently headed for German parliament. For the first time since 1945, there will be a openly radical right wing party represented in the Bundestag. They won’t wear armbands, and they are testing out how far they can go with their rethorics. Most Germans agree punching them is not an answer. But in the next four years, it will become difficult not to want them punched, I predict. Some of them will be punched. The punchers will be prosecuted. Also, Germany has laws against hate speech, and parliamentary procedures against speech which is not deemed acceptable (but also not illegal) in parliament, so the Nazis will be prosecuted and called to order as well.
I advise you, as a European, to keep an eye on Germany.
Never again is a promise.
11 Likes
Kinda seemed like a backhanded compliment in that regard, didn’t it?
Almost like the emphasis was more on the perceived lack thereof, rather than any actual affirmation.
o_0
But don’t mind me; my mind is still boggled that there are people essentially arguing that fighting back equates to being as bad as the people who started all the shit in the first place.
11 Likes
Or outright fucking stole the land, engaged in biological warfare and consigned people to having the legal rights of children, once they surrendered. I’d definitely class putting bounties on Native scalps as “violence”. Don’t whitewash history, it never ends well.
ETA: This country was founded by a fucking department store: pure unregulated capitalist ruthlessness. Followed by a largely successful cultural genocide campaign. Don’t try to sell that to me as “peaceful and nonviolent” 'cause I ain’t buying.
10 Likes
I didn’t whitewash anything, Canada’s history involves some awful treatment of indigenous people, and the impossible task of how to make up for that is something that our country still deals with.
But that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, our founding myth isn’t that we came and gloriously conquered the land from the natives. It’s that we came and stole/settled/schemed land from a decimated native population… a decimation we may have played a deliberate part in with germ warfare.
In our national myth the treatment of natives is very problematic and that plays a role in the national character, our nation was founded through an extremely unjust act of land-theft and widespread slaughter.
That’s not a debate I see in American culture, there’s occasional examination of tragedy experienced by aboriginals, but I don’t the legitimacy of Manifest Destiny questioned the way Canadian culture questions the legacy of our foundation. I think that plays a real role in the how violent the respective cultures are along with American Revolution and Civil War.
Simply put, if you glorify violence you’ll practise violence.
3 Likes
Well, that is how society is supposed to work.
Rather than living in a state of nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ living a life that is ‘nasty, brutish and short’, we all get to live in a civilised society under mutually agreed and accepted rules with a monopoly on sanctioned violence granted to those appointed by us to wield it on our behalf.
So, yes. Nazis don’t get to punch us, we don’t get to punch Nazis. Police officers get to arrest all of us if we try.
I accept that if you think that society has been so infiltrated by Nazis that the police themselves are Nazis, then that model doesn’t work for you.
If you think society has reached that point, then what’s the point in punching individual Nazis in the street? You have much bigger problems.
At that stage you’ve already lost the fight and violence won’t work because you can’t win against the state without massive public support which you clearly don’t have since significant numbers of people keep voting for the fascist racists.
2 Likes
Yes, you do. Which is why the real left is organising a counter-revolution.
And again: antifa is defensive. They are not hunting down and assassinating nazis. They are defending peaceful protestors and peaceful communities from lethal fascist assault.
3 Likes
Note the “confront and speaks to nazi” bit:
Antifa are not running around as a crazed lynch mob. They are repelling nazis that attack peaceful protestors and nazis that invade working-class neighbourhoods. And they are doing it with remarkable precision and restraint.
If the nazi had turned and ran as soon as antifa showed up, he probably would have gotten away unpunched. If an antifa had been punched out by a nazi, the nazis would not have left the antifa to sleep it off. They’d have put the boot in until their victim was paste.
Note that there have been no deaths caused by antifa in the current crisis. The same can not be said for the fascists.
10 Likes
Agreed. I have no problem with violence in response to violence.
Which is always the problem with these discussions. You have Nazis being violent and getting punched in response. Fine, no problem there (other than the Nazi being a Nazi).
Somehow that always leads someone to say you shouldn’t just go up to Nazis in the street and punch them - which should just be a non sequitur since as you pointed out that’s not what happened.
But people always allow the derailment and start arguing that no, it’s fine to randomly punch people who are Nazis.
Which both serves as a propaganda victory for the wannabe-Nazis and diverts effort away from actually useful things like building support and changing the viewpoint of the majority away from right-wing paranoia.
The argument about whether it’s ok to punch Nazis or not is a dead end which those of us who oppose Nazis are far too easy to divert down. Again and again.
Violence against Nazis in defence of self or others is as justified as self defence is in all situations.
Approach that as your moral compass dictates. If you can be a complete pacifist, good on you. Allowing yourself to be beaten or murdered as a result of your convictions is a powerful propaganda tool. It’s one I can’t aspire to.
Punching random Nazis in the street is a waste of time and effort.
3 Likes
Hope your ivory tower also has an impregnable defensive perimeter.
5 Likes
Speaking of which: there is currently an active fascist disinformation campaign saturating the entire web. One of its major present goals is to attempt to falsely paint antifa as dangerous terrorists. They tried and failed immediately after Charlottesville; they are now making a renewed effort after that shock has faded.
The FBI is already moving to make this slander into a legal reality. The prospect of mass arrests and active persecution is very real.
Anyone who joins, even inadvertently, the fascist campaign to slander antifa is aiding a very dangerous facet of American fascism. Regardless of anyone’s personal feelings about the ethics of nazi punching, I would suggest that they should consider carefully the impact of their words.
11 Likes
Incidentally: although the idea that the cops are criminal racist thugs may be shocking to some middle class white folks, this is not news to the working class.
They’ve been trying to tell y’all for a hundred years. But most weren’t listening.
11 Likes
Oh, I think in the UK at least the middle class have always assumed the police were racist thugs (well, the chief constable might be acceptable to invite to your garden party but you wouldn’t hang out with PC Plod), most of us just thought that they were ‘our’ racist thugs.
Most of us still do.
I’m never sure whether to consider that wilful blindness or charmingly naïve.
2 Likes
Making Nazis unacceptable by any measure.
I’m not sure why that’s a difficult concept.
I’m not suggesting ‘levels of violence’. I’m suggesting that Nazis are not acceptable and that the people and government of this country should make that very clear.
8 Likes
While we’re debating whether to be worried about making those poor fascists into victims, they’re plotting to kill us.
8 Likes
Err, no.
11 Likes
Great poll. Thanks for linking. Some really interesting stuff there.
The full poll and methodology is here:
Interestingly in a poll of quite a large group as these things go, apparently no one knows anyone connected with any sort of politics or campaigning.
No one knows anyone connected with antifa, no one knows anyone connected with BLM, no one knows anyone connected with the alt-right, white nationalism or Neo-Nazis (which are listed as if they were separable groups).
And yes - the main point.
Lots of people say they don’t support the alt-right, white supremacists or Nazis but do actually support at least some of the positions advocated by them and are far more willing to support those positions they agree with than they are to challenge those alt-right/Nazi positions they don’t agree with. If there are any.
That is the problem that has to be combatted.
These groups are not new. The only thing new is how open they are prepared to be as regards their aims and philosophy. They are prepared to be more open because they think (rightly) that they have considerable support from mainstream society.
1 Like
