Is this what liberalism has become?

Edg had a thought-provoking essay the other day about tearing down monuments, that was soon followed by Vice calling for blowing up Mount Rushmore.
Obviously we are on the edge of going from a logical response to an insane response.

Another response that appears to be an over-reaction is this one.

At least four people have lost their jobs and several more are under scrutiny following the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.
Social media users, most prominently Logan Smith and his Twitter account Yes, You’re Racist sought to identify those who participated in the rally.

Before I throw in my two cents, let me show you TYT reporter Michael Tracey's take on it.

It's certainly tempting to say "F them", and that is my first reaction.
But two things stand out:

1) These guys were fired from Mojo Burrito, Uno Pizzeria and Grill, and Top Dog. These guys are on the lowest rung of society. There is something wrong with this. It's like throwing rocks at a homeless, feral dog because it bit someone you know.

2) The other thing that stood out was this video.

I like David Doel and I generally agree with his views, but this is an exception.
David's point is that Nazism is more than just political speech because it is so "repugnant" and dangerous.
But when I listened to him say that I couldn't help but remember that this was the EXACT same reasoning used in the Red Scare of the early 50's.
Not "similar" reasoning, but the exact same reasoning that was used to destroy the careers of countless public school teachers and such.
So in the end David left me more convinced of the opposite of what he was trying to say, Michael is making strong point.

Liberals are spending way too much time and energy in unhelpful exercises.
Neo-McCarthyism, tearing down monuments, and getting minimum-wage workers fired are all negative responses.
Liberals should be using all that energy to build a positive movement for a better world. Then there will be something to show for their efforts in the end.

And then there is this problem.

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detroitmechworks's picture

It's feeling like a maniac, driving down the road, and sick of everybody telling him to stop, instead starts yelling "WASP!!!!!!"

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks @detroitmechworks Can you unpack your metaphor for me?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal hurtling us towards danger, and instead of stopping, changing course or anything else, has decided to scream about a wasp in the car, and everybody is panicking... about the wasp.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuEE-YbrYQw]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Good one! Thanks for explaining it. I think the fact that wasp also means White Anglo Saxon Protestant confused me, when it was probably just you making a clever play on words.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

GreyWolf's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Yeah, that's what I was thinking, thanks for asking for the clarification. Wink

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@detroitmechworks

It goes back farther than that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)

I first read the book when I was in junior high, about 10 years after publication.

Russell starts off his novel with the recruitment of a guy to be a spy/saboteur on another planet. The recruiter tells him of 4 big guys killed in a car crash because the driver was trying to shoo a wasp out of the car -- they want him to be a "wasp" on the other planet.

The enemy anti-espionage group was named "Kaitempi".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenpeitai

That link shows both Kenpeitai and Kempeitai as the name of the WW2 Japanese secret police, and since Russell was in the British armed forces during WW2 the name of his enemy secret police is probably a deliberate variation.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

is not only an authoritarian thing to do, but is also the exact perfect thing to convert people who say hateful shit about Black people into people who assault and murder Black people.

I see the Race War Expansion Program is proceeding apace.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

liberals. And I do love them.

However, as for contributing anything helpful to the situation in this country, they're right up there with the far right. There's no point in engaging with any of them.

What I find far more disturbing is the way leftists and socialists generally respond to stuff like this. I get that leftists and socialists hate fascists and Nazis more than anything, and vice versa, but I would think Not Getting Played By the Fuckwad Establishment would be equally important.

Also, there was a time when we saw a difference between advocating for a disgusting position in word and thought, and driving a car into people who disagree with you.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

the way leftists and socialists generally respond to stuff like this

Real leftists and socialists I would not put into the same group.
Mostly I see liberals as being the intolerant ones.

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JekyllnHyde's picture

@gjohnsit

In recent months, many so-called "Liberal Pundits" on television have taken to coddling Neoconservatives and other discredited Rightists. The same Neocons (cheered on by many on the Right) who brought us the illegal, immoral Iraq War and justified it based on manipulated intelligence and blatant lies.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

@JekyllnHyde @JekyllnHyde

Confusion/redirection/blame-the-victim/accessible vulnerable group tactics. An old polluting industry strategy which has long enabled them to continue profitably-for-them killing workers, the general public and the environment with impunity while giving the public groups within their general population which they can reach to blame. When people think they know the answer/perpetrator, they often look no further to verify.

That said, armed groups emulating notorious murderous psychopaths marching to threaten groups perceived as being vulnerable do not strike me as being more entitled to 'free speech' than their victims are of being protected against having their safety and reputations threatened/maligned by armed groups emulating notorious murderous psychopaths.

As with the Dems, attacking 'the other' does not make a movement or a political statement, merely an attack.

Edit for letter typo, missed dash and addition of bolding.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@gjohnsit
accepts the unacceptable, just wants to make it look acceptable to him.
doh stands for "Duke of hell" because I had to step up into an evil management position because my employers were making it impossible for me to live as an employee - literally. I vowed never to forget my choice. Most people just conveniently forget the other half of the phrase "I've got mine Jack" because that's the best they can get without having to work for it.

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On to Biden since 1973

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit Well, mentioning Nazis to socialists and left-wing anarchists is often like waving a red flag at a bull. And understandably so.

I've had leftists tell me that if I didn't join them in saying that a Nazi who said something horrible had no right to say it, that I was therefore their enemy and not to bother speaking to them again.

But then again, the Internet tends to amplify and multiply reactions like that.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@gjohnsit

Real leftists and socialists I would not put into the same group.
Mostly I see liberals as being the intolerant ones.

And Clintonite neo-liberals at that.

Evidence is handy, too: Compare and contrast the reaction of a typical Daily Kos user (Clintonian neolib) to these phenomena to the on-record reaction here at c99 (actual leftists and socialists).

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

gulfgal98's picture

@gjohnsit Most of the people I personally know as being from the real left versus the neoliberals abhor violence of any type, including animals.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cassiodorus's picture

Liberals spent their energies last year trying to get Hillary Rodham Clinton elected. Say gjohnsit, as long as we're offering up our scold-services to inappropriate groups, why not tell the conservatives what to do? It should be about as effective.

Y'know, as long as we're on the topic of Mount Rushmore, at least there's a rock sculpture of Crazy Horse in the area. (The people who are against it do not get that it's actually a statement about Mount Rushmore.)

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

minimum-wage workers fired.

Mondo awesome.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal of an American "Left" is going to be associated with employers, of all people.

Let's take a poll here at c99%, just for fun. How many of y'all have enough money to hire another human being to perform wage labor? (Oh and I don't mean paying someone $20 now and then to leafblow the back yard. Under-the-table wages don't count.)

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I get exactly what you mean, and totally agree.

I wish I had the money to employ somebody. God, if only.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Cassiodorus

Let's take a poll here at c99%, just for fun. How many of y'all have enough money to hire another human being to perform wage labor? (Oh and I don't mean paying someone $20 now and then to leafblow the back yard. Under-the-table wages don't count.)

Count me as a NO vote, for sure!

My qualifications to join the IWW as a voting member are totally intact! Smile

ABOUT THE IWW

Founded in Chicago in 1905, the IWW is open to all workers. Don't let the "industrial" part fool you. Our members include teachers, social workers, retail workers, construction workers, bartenders, and computer programmers. Only bosses are not allowed to join. You have a legal right to join a union and your membership is confidential. It is up to you whether you discuss the union with your co-workers. If you are currently unemployed, you can still join. We are a volunteer-driven union, and this means we, not union bosses, run the union. The IWW is not controlled by or affiliated with any political party or political movement. No money goes to politicians. Membership dues are used to maintain the union and assist organizing campaigns. As a result, monthly dues are low.

JOIN TODAY!

Nothing will change until we organize. Joining the IWW is easy. Just give us a call. The sooner you do, the sooner things will improve and the sooner we, and not the bosses, will enjoy the good things in life.

If you meet all of the following conditions:

You are a worker (not an employer);

You agree to abide by the IWW Constitution and regulations of this organization;

You agree to study the IWW's principles and make yourself acquainted with its purposes.; and You want to join us, then...

We want you! Join the IWW and help us create the One Big Union of all workers.

source

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
“The Democrats,” he told the American Prospect’s Bob Kuttner, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

We're being played, yet we knew that.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

What actual lefty would actually even think of having anyone fired from such a powerless position? Any actual lefty would be trying to work on, say, getting The Psychopaths That Be the hell out of powerful positions where they determine public - including foreign - policy to disastrous effect. Not that we've been able to make progress on that one so far...

On reflection, though, I personally wouldn't want to eat anything prepared by a Nazi in a fast-food joint, especially if I was in any of the identifiable groups he thought would be better dead/enslaved...

Edit: the probably obvious but possibly easily missed point being that the firings may have been initiated not by 'lefties' but by someone whose mind works in terms of destroying careers/lives, which at this level kinda makes me think corporate/1%/political mindset.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

. . . between repugnant speech and showing up armed, drilled and itching for a chance to assault others. Last weekend was not a "mere" political rally, they were busy shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater after locking the emergency exits.

Rioters from the left/black bloc who are there for the violence/lulz are no better.

Presuming that one can engage in public violence (or incitement of it) and have it overlooked by one's employer by claiming "free speech" is pretty naive.

Maybe some of those people will be seen by their employers as burnishing the firm's reputation, but that is unlikely to be the case very frequently since thankfully there don't seem to be as many businesses these days who are eager to be seen handing out ax handles to be used to "greet" civil rights marchers.

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@MichaelSF
How will getting a bunch of gas station employees and fast-food workers fired make the world a better place? Will it make them see the light and change their ways? How will is solve anything?
That's why it seems like throwing rocks at a feral dog. The feral dog is already familiar with how to get kicked.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@gjohnsit A better punishment would be to allow them to continue in their empty jobs.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit Please tell me that is RW flamebait and not real.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Secular Talk is a progressive youtube show that I check out often, and The Independent is one of the very few newspapers that supported Jeremy Corbyn.

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@gjohnsit

Perhaps those workers should have thought a bit about the effect on their jobs before deciding to go out and try to stomp mud people and race traitors into the hospital.

This is not the same thing as neo-liberal blaming of someone for being in a crap job because they haven't yanked hard enough on their bootstraps and gone out and gotten training for a non-existent 21st century job. Every one of those idiots made the choice to go to C-ville in the hopes of engaging in a bit of the old ultra-violence. They made their bed and deliberately shat in it, so they don't deserve any sympathy for how stinky they made their lives.

If they'd had any sense and desire to not be unemployed (and potentially unemployable) they'd have stayed at home and engaged in boasting about their Aryan credentials with their Stormfront pals online.

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edg's picture

@MichaelSF

Every one of those idiots made the choice to go to C-ville in the hopes of engaging in a bit of the old ultra-violence.

Would you provide a link to your source? I'm curious how many of the low-skilled workers that went to Charlottesville knew there would be a counter-protest Did the leaders of the original alt-right rally advertise the ultra-violence opportunities?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MichaelSF The tactics on the left in this situation are atrocious. They increase risk for the people they are championing without any hope of commensurate reward. In fact, it's hard to see how the firing of those four people advances the cause of the social justice warriors at all. It's a real gift to the fascists though. They get to be the aggrieved victims--their favorite position. Their assertions that they are the ones on the moral high ground are now plausible to a shallow thinker--and most people are, in this era, pretty shallow thinkers, mainly because they have little time to be anything else. The claim that "the Black people are coming for your jobs" now has evidence behind it for the first time. And the chances that a lot of people on the right have been radicalized and activated by this are fairly good.

The rewards seem to be primarily masturbatory, in that it provides a temporary pleasure to the people who get to stick it to a fascist and hit 'em where it hurts. But it just shows how the people who decided to do that are not revolutionaries in any sense. If you're a revolutionary, you probably will end up having to do ugly things, but everything you do is measured in light of how it advances the revolution--not how it makes you feel better to get one over on some rank-and-file enemy.

By the way, I doubt the leaderships of white supremacist organizations give two shits about guys like the ones who got fired, and if they suffered economically for being associated with fascism, I suspect the leaders wouldn't give a shit. However, rank-and-file right wingers across the country WILL care, and they will probably make these four guys into living martyrs and create GoFundMe campaigns for each of them, and the fired-from-a-minimum-wage-job fascists could end up being a couple hundred thousand dollars richer each for the experience. Or they could get no help at all, and become people who now have practically nothing left to lose and who have, in their heads, been confirmed in every shitty belief they ever had. Extreme right-wingers like that rarely respond to negative consequences like this with fear, and a subsequent resolve to not attend any more fascist marches. They are not going to be scared to attend a rally like that again. They will be far more likely to attend a lot more rallies like that again, because now they've been given a personal reason to want to hurt Black people.

Kudos all around. Now all we need is to blow up fucking Mount Rushmore, because that'll help.

The leadership of this movement is either rock-stupid, completely selfish and irresponsible, or, shall we say, working for different organizations than they claim.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

The rewards seem to be primarily masturbatory

Don't these people know about coconut oil?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I don't know whether to laugh, or to get into a discussion with you which would surely be TMI.

Smile

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal There are folks around here who need to find out the joys of coconut oil for themselves first.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

Well, I swallow it and rub it into my face sometimes. Isn't that enough?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@MichaelSF
a couple dozen baseball players were fined by MLB because the girlfriend of a Pirate clubhouse boy said she saw them snorting coke. That's the next step.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
I forgot to mention that she was threatened with prosecution if she didn't testify, but even that is not my point. MLB did what they did just because they assumed that "people" hated coke users, so they were pandering to "people" who existed mostly if not only because they created them. The difference between the Nazis and MLB (and the Democrats, and the Republicans) is that enough people hated jews to make the Nazis believed, today TPTB are creating the victims. (of course, the modern, American Nazis are deplorable, but that's just a fortuitous circumstance this time. See berniebros, see welfare queens, see anyone accused of being "privileged" who really isn't)

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On to Biden since 1973

Big Al's picture

as terrorists. Losing a pizza job would be the least of their concerns.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

Not Rights but Justice: It’s Time to Make Nazis Afraid Again

We are, to take some liberties with the words of Inglourious Basterds’ inimitable Lt. Aldo Raine, in the fightin’-Nazis business. Antifa is a promise to neo-Nazis and their bedfellows that we will confront them in the streets; we will expose them online and inform their place of employ. We are not asking venues to deny space to far-right events; we are vowing that all far-right events will be bombarded and besieged.

As I commented on another thread

from where I sit, that rhetoric clearly suggests an embrace of violent vigilante tactics to purge those you deem undesirable. In that sense, Antifa is following in the inglorious tradition of the Hitler Youth, Soviet Komsomol, and the Chinese Communist Youth League as organizations of earnest young people warped by ideological indoctrination to commit violent acts in furtherance of authoritarian agendas.

Too strong? Let's try a little thought experiment:

Not Rights but Justice: It’s Time to Make Nazis Jews Afraid Again

We are, to take some liberties with the words of Inglourious Basterds’ inimitable Lt. Aldo Raine, in the fightin’-Nazis Jews business. Antifa is a promise to neo-Nazis Jews and their bedfellows that we will confront them in the streets; we will expose them online and inform their place of employ.We are not asking venues to deny space to far-right Jewish events; we are vowing that all far-right Jewish events will be bombarded and besieged.

See how easy it is to sound like a Nazi? Works the same by substituting Communists, Socialists, Gays, Disabled, Bernie Bros, alt left, alt-right, you name it.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Cassiodorus's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger Elvis Costello at his best.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Not Henry Kissinger having rallies to get attacked by lefties, as well as attacking left rallies. The goal is chaos as that's the environment in which a small disciplined group has a chance to seize power. Authoritarians of all stripes have always pushed for conflict as it's their best chance.

Would it be a surprise to find both sides pushing for violence are full of agents of state security?

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@jim p Not to me. Though I strongly suspect in the case of Charlottesville, a lot of the people were sincere ordinary people rather than agents. No evidence for it, just a gut feeling. This looks like something a lot of ordinary people were involved in that is getting exploited.

But I wouldn't be surprised to have found some agents there, on both sides.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gulfgal98's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal but no real documentation that I have seen so far, indicate that there were people hired or funding provided to both sides by the same person(s) for the expressed purpose of creating chaos which wil probably lead to even greater crackdowns on civil liberties. I personally believe much of the black bloc acts of destruction were exactly that during Occupy.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@jim p

Authoritarians of all stripes have always pushed for conflict as it's their best chance.

doesn't mean they haven't read Mein Kampf.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

vtcc73's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger Wait a minute. "Not Rights But Justice?" How does that work?

If someone wants a better basis for justice than human rights, I need them to spell out what that new philosophical basis for ethics will be.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

See how easy it is to sound like a Nazi? Works the same by substituting Communists, Socialists, Gays, Disabled, Bernie Bros, alt left, alt-right, you name it.

"It works the same way in every country." -- Hermann Goering

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@Not Henry Kissinger
I didn't know German Jews were organizing into well-armed paramilitary organizations. I didn't know they were marching around the country vowing to throw non-Jewish Germans out. Maybe it's because I don't know enough Yiddish to pick out "Blood and soil."

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edg's picture

@FuturePassed

First they came for the Nazis. Then they came for the Socialists. Then they came for the Progressives. Then they came for you.

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lotlizard's picture

@edg  
Then they came for anyone who was part of a forum where BDS was discussed.

Seriously, look at the laws that have been passed in places like New York, and the bills that have been introduced in Congress at Israel-supporters’ behest. A $250,000 fine for advocating a boycott (that is, expressing an opinion)? Ffft. No wonder human rights in the U.S. are in such bad shape. It’s not just Trump, Congress is just as bad (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul).

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@edg @edg

But the Nazis were protected (edit: or at least not assaulted/caged/arrested) by police, weren't they? Occupy wasn't...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Not Henry Kissinger

... See how easy it is to sound like a Nazi? Works the same by substituting Communists, Socialists, Gays, Disabled, Bernie Bros, alt left, alt-right, you name it.

But are any of these examples emulating a notorious and despised murderous group of psychopaths and marching specifically to threaten and slander vulnerable population groups with the same fate intended by the Nazis?

Isn't this rather like comparing poisoned apples to oranges?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Ellen North

It's the tactics of the attacker you should worry about.

Antifa's tactics are no less Nazi just because it uses them against Nazis.

Both groups are two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger

Not big on violence myself, but we need to come up with something better, and fast.

This is best read in full at source, but as one example:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-brodsky/the-new-nazis-of-europe-c_...

THE BLOG 10/03/2012 02:42 pm ET Updated Dec 03, 2012
The New Nazis of Europe: Coming to America?
By Richard Brodsky

The resurgence of Nazi and neo-Nazi movements in Europe is attracting more attention in the United States. The New York Times featured the activities of the Golden Dawn, an explicitly neo-fascist, neo-Nazi political party that has become the fifth largest party in the Greek Parliament, with every prospect of getting bigger. Golden Dawn focuses on illegal immigration from Africa and Asia, in the context of brutal austerity measures that have affected the standard of living of almost everybody. It’s a toxic brew, and there’s more of it coming.

There have been similar organized upsurges across Europe. Notable examples are efforts to provide public pensions to surviving members of Hitler’s Waffen-SS in the Baltic states, a variety of outrages in Germany, and the God-awful mass murder in Norway by a self-professed right-wing vigilante. There has been a growing recognition by mainstream European political forces that these incidents can no longer be shrugged off as fringe manifestations. The semi-meltdown of the European economy, the austerity measures demanded by banks, the world-wide interest in Islamic extremism, and the influx of immigrants of color have all contributed to the increase in incidents and organizations of the very far right.

The European response has come largely from Russia. Russia has both internal problems with neo-Nazi groups, and a national political interest in focusing on their growth in the Baltic states. In domestic terms, the Russian people, having lost 24 million souls to the fight with Nazi Germany, are vigilant and concerned by anything smacking of a Nazi resurgence. An organization has been created, World Without Nazism by a Russian Senator, Boris Shpiegel. It has been meeting largely in Russia, but On October 9 it’s convening in Strasbourg France, the home of the European Union, with a line up of heavyweights (the former president of Ukraine, lots of members of Parliaments, and a delegation from the US among others) and an intention to upgrade it’s efforts in Western Europe and maybe the USA.

I attended two meetings of WWN in Moscow and came away convinced that there’s enough going on to make their work important. It’s certainly possible that when the economy recovers the public tolerance of neo-Nazi movements will vanish. But if there’s any lesson to be learned from history, it’s that we are better off erring on the side of concern before things take off. ...

... it’s not as though the new neo-Nazis are leaving us alone. Golden Dawn has opened an office in Washington, and some of what we’ve heard from the Baltic states should give the State Department pause. ...

But fascism has already infected too many in government around the globe and Nazi Parties are arising all over.

The Germans lacked foreknowledge of what this meant - we don't have that excuse.

Edit: and, as we know, the Nazi/terrorist-fighting Russia is (along with all other independent countries capable of self-defense) targeted for invasion/attack/subjugation/destruction by the world's largest military with the world's largest supply of Weapons of Mass Destruction, built up to literally insane levels by an American fascist 'shadow government' we term Deep State, at American taxpayer cost, this including the expenditure of American cannon-fodder bodies.

Who ya gonna vote for to clean this horror out and bring in democracy, and does it even matter any more, now that they really do not need actual voters, rather than merely thinking/saying they don't? What the heck can be done - or do we just keep encouraging more and worse by sucking it up and voting for more and worse until we choke to death?

Re-edit to add:

http://www.startribune.com/nazi-resurgence-alarms-minnesota-veterans-hol...

Nazi resurgence alarms Minnesota World War II veterans, Holocaust survivors
In the aftermath of last weekend's deadly violence in Virginia, no one may be feeling more anger and fear than those who battled the Nazis and those nearly killed by them.
By Kelly Smith and Matt McKinney Star Tribune
August 19, 2017 — 8:39pm

As a young P-47 Thunderbolt pilot in World War II, Bill Schleppegrell flew more than a dozen combat missions in Europe before he was shot down by Nazis and imprisoned for the final months of conflict.

Echoes of that long-ago life are sounding again as Schleppegrell sees Nazi symbols and chants being invoked by a resurgent white supremacy movement that recently took to the streets of Charlottesville, Va.

“I’ve seen this coming,” said the 93-year-old former Hibbing High school teacher.

That same unease is gripping Holocaust survivor Judith Meisel of St. Louis Park. After Charlottesville, she couldn’t sleep because she was so upset by the images of KKK hoods and Nazi flags.

“I’m back in Germany,” she said. “This is something that is unbelievable.” ...

... But no one may be feeling more anger and fear from the sight of Americans waving swastika flags than the World War II veterans who battled the Nazis and the concentration camp victims nearly killed by them.

Meisel is a survivor of Stutthof, a concentration camp in Poland, where 60,000 people were killed. She watched her mother enter the gas chamber and survived having guards tear out her hair and pry off her fingernails before she and her sister escaped a death march and were liberated in Denmark.

Decades later, in her St. Louis Park apartment, the 88-year-old widow and civil rights activist is deeply worried about the Charlottesville violence. She said she has seen other signs of anti-Semitism in the U.S. over the years, but this rising hatred feels different to her, and she draws parallels to the beginnings of Nazi Germany. ...

... Judy Baron only needs to look at her left arm to see a reminder of the horrors of Auschwitz and later the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The blue tattoo of her prison number — A13459 — inked when she was 15 years old, has faded with time. But the painful memories of watching her mother and two sisters die haven’t.

“It was hell,” she said. “I can’t imagine how I survived.”

Now 88, Baron, who lives in Golden Valley, said it makes her sick to watch images of young, white men holding torches and yelling anti-Semitic phrases.

“It’s so frightening, especially for someone who has lived through it,” she said. “This is how Hitler started. We all know how it turned out so we better do something about it. That’s exactly what they did — marched with fire and yelled, ‘No Jews! No Jews!’ ” ...

(Dunno anything about this myself, of course, but I'll bet that somebody here will.)

https://journal-neo.org/2016/05/01/the-resurgence-of-neo-nazism-comes-fr...

01.05.2016 Author: Konrad Stachnio
The Resurgence of neo-Nazism Comes From Ukraine to Europe
https://journal-neo.org/2016/05/01/the-resurgence-of-neo-nazism-comes-fr...

Ukrainian ‘patriots‘ encouraged by Polish support in the form of body armor, boots and other valuables sent to their comrades fighting against the ‘Russian aggression’ finally decided to visit the country of its strategic partner.

Tour de Concentration Camp

The tour of larger German concentration camps in Poland involves taking photos at the crematorium furnaces or camp barracks with a characteristic gesture commonly known in Ukraine as a ‘fame for victory‘ and what is more, echoed by the former ‘residents’ of those camps as ‘Sieg Heil’.

These are simply the germs of democratic processes with which we will soon have to deal on a much larger scale in Europe if the planned abolition of visas for citizens of Ukraine is introduced by the European Union.

They might let the fruits of the Ukrainian Maidan spread across Europe supporting the ‘democratic’ processes here and there. And yet there is a lot to fight for. In Ukraine we need to deal with the ‘Russian aggression’ while in Europe the ‘Islamic invasion’ is a growing threat. ...

Further mention of Ukrainian Nazi's here...??? This from 2014, 2 years after the HuffPost article at top... again, I (obviously) know nothing about this and am counting on experts here for verification.

http://columbusfreepress.com/article/new-fascist-resurgence-america

A new fascist resurgence in America
by Gerry Bello
April 15, 2014

The end of winter has brought an dramatic uptick in far right activity in America. 2014 seemed on course to be no different from 2012 or 2013, which saw very little organizing or activity by Klan and neo-Nazi groups. In the past few weeks there has been an armed standoff in Nevada, a racist murder spree in Kansas, a storming of a union hall by Ukrainian fascists in Chicago and massive KKK flyer drops in Ohio and throughout the Midwest. In each incident, the response by government agencies has been muted and coddling. Mainstream media sources appear unwilling or not competent to conduct basic background research either the players or the action on the field. Frazier Glenn Miller, a long time white supremacist, decided to start Passover with a murder spree on Sunday, April 13 in Kansas City. Meanwhile in Chicago, activists engaged in a teach-in at a United Electrical Workers Union hall were besieged by a mob of nearly 50 Ukrainian fascists. The Chicago area has also seen the a recent wave of far right activity. Several times in the past months, unknown persons have engaged in the distribution of KKK and neo-Nazi literature at night. Thousands of pages of hate tracts have been left at homes and business in a single night. The literature has had the logos of and contact information for multiple groups although the method and timing of the clandestine literature drops suggest a single group distributing all the information. The mainstream press was quick to announce Miller's history of failed attempts at getting elected to public office in Missouri as a write-in candidate where he garnered less than 50 votes per attempt. The press was silent on his earlier electoral history in North Carolina where he twice got over 5,000 votes while running for Congress. After shooting three people at a Jewish community center and a Jewish assisted living facility, Miller was captured at a nearby elementary school. He was reported to have screamed “Heil Hitler” repeatedly during and after his capture but the press gave no information on why an armed and murderous neo-Nazi was captured without a gunfight at an elementary school when nearly all other similar active shooters are gunned down by law enforcement. While Miller murdered innocents and 50 Ukrainian fascists stormed a union hall in Chicago, a rancher in Nevada was having an armed standoff with federal agents over grazing fees. The rancher, Cliven Bundy, grazed his cattle on government land for decades without paying fees. He owed over one million dollars in back fees. When federal agents arrived to remove hundreds of his cows from federal land, they were met by over 1,000 armed protestors who pointed arms at the agents. The press described these protestors “militia members” while several were sporting neo-Nazi tattoos. The incident ended without gunfire with the feds re-grouping and seeking some other way to extract the owed fees and prohibit continued grazing. This bold resurgence of open and sometimes armed neo-Nazi activity has been preceded by a rash of literature drops by an offshoot of the KKK. ...

And again edited because somehow I managed to get the quote between the date and where it was supposed to be, at top.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

They "have to prove" they are as macho as their straight (fascist) brothers. So say gay San Franciscans. (just wondering, do black cops shoot more unarmed blacks than white cops? They probably just beat them up worse, that would stay out of the papers) Members of an oppressed group always take on the worst aspects of their oppressors when they have the opportunity.
Note that no one is demanding that any bank managers are being fired (though, no surprise, a college professor has been misidentified and is getting death threats)

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On to Biden since 1973

has become a revolutionary act in divided and conquered America.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@jim p This is more important than people think. And I think, if C99 has a purpose beyond us having a hearth to sit at and chew the fat, it's exactly in that direction.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

boriscleto's picture

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

@boriscleto anyway. Which is good. Fine, defend their rights to their ugly and hateful speech, let them have their monuments to their own victimhood, but when you bring guns to a protest you are pretty much saying you expect violence. Kinda like those cops who show up in riot gear to confront completely peaceful protestors who are not armed and never had any intention of being armed.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

edg's picture

@lizzyh7

A group called Redneck Revolt was part of the counter-protest and they were armed. Will ACLU defend them?

Reference: Redneck Revolt

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Centaurea's picture

@edg It appears that ACLU Executive Director Romero's remarks in the Wall Street Journal interview were specifically directed to "white supremacy" protests.

“The events of Charlottesville require any judge, any police chief and any legal group to look at the facts of any white-supremacy protests with a much finer comb,” Romero told the Journal. “If a protest group insists, ‘No, we want to be able to carry loaded firearms,’ well, we don’t have to represent them. They can find someone else,” he added.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Meteor Man's picture

Can an employer fire you for smoking cigarettes at home? Can they fire a woman for getting an abortion? How about for being overweight? How about drinking alcohol or smoking Kush in states where it has been legalized?

These are all examples of how companies have actually exercised control or have attempted to exercise control over private lives of their employees.

Do we really want corporations having "lifestyle" authority over the private lives of their employees? No thanks.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man americans for most of our history. thus the existence of a "morals clause" in many employment contracts.

people have forgotten this in the era of post-60s loosening of cultural constraints, particularly with regard to sexuality, which of course has historically been the domain most severely regulated by social control. once upon a time, cohabiting outside of wedlock would get you shunned by just about everyone. because almost nobody cares anymore who you live with, most of us never give employers' regulation of our morality a second thought -- but there are plenty of places that for no particular reason require drug tests before hiring you, and the fact that the previous week you were legally smoking marijuana in, say, the Netherlands has never been considered an excuse.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

gulfgal98's picture

@UntimelyRippd by demanding to see social media accounts of prospective hires.

I worked for local government for 31 years before retiring. At the time of my retirement, I had an exemplary record. After 18 months of being retired, I was asked to return to my old job as a temporary, part time employee for a short while. However prior to being rehired as a temp at my same place of employment, I was required to undergo a police back ground check. My 31 years without a blotch on my record was meaningless.

Employers hold all the cards. DId doxing cause these people to lose their minimum wage jobs? Maybe not, but probably. The real problem is that doxing is a form of witch hunting that can negatively affect all of us eventually. It may not just be in employment, but in housing, whether you rent or buy, or in some other way. It is a dangerous and slippery slope we have been on for some time, particularly since 9/11.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@UntimelyRippd Absolutely not a reason to reinstate any of that.
They are not our parents, our owners, or our masters.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
i'm only saying it's not new, it's only barely news, and it's certainly well in keeping with "leftist" politic of the last 35 years.

remember, "we" drove James Watt out of the office of Secretary of the Interior, not because he was a millennialist lunatic who thought Jesus would be disappointed if he came back and we hadn't used up everything that God had created for us to exploit, but because he uttered the phrase, "A woman, a black, two Jews and a cripple." in doing so, "we" set the stage for the ensuing "politics of personal destruction".

so, it's not surprising -- though it might nonetheless be disturbing -- that we come to a place where the left is demanding that employers do what employers have long done with regard to conservative moral values: punish employees who conspicuously lie too far out of the acceptable norms.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@UntimelyRippd I see a difference between driving a politician, even an appointed one, out of office--which is a crucial tactic to have if you want to maintain a republic--and getting ordinary people fired.

We the People have the right to fire the professional class that supposedly represents our interests if we think they're not representing them. We were dumb enough to invent this group of "experts" to handle the workings of the nation instead of keeping the power in our own hands, and the only thing that made that moderately tolerable over the years is that we had the ability to sometimes fire them. We are, after all, supposed to be their bosses.

That's a really different gesture than getting ordinary people fired, because ordinary people don't set public policy that we all have to live with, nor make laws we have to obey.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@UntimelyRippd I do agree with you about the underlying philosophical problem though--focusing on saying racist or sexist things rather than focusing on the guy doing things which are massively destructive.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

guest talked about the foundation he co-founded..."Life After Hate, a nonprofit helping people disengage from hate and violent extremism. He was a leading neo-Nazi skinhead gang member and far-right extremist in the ’80s and ’90s. Christian is the author of Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead."

I agree with the argument that getting people fired from those low wage jobs is not the right thing to do and it will only further alienate them. He says it better than I can.

"CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: You know, I agree with Jacob that we have to hold people accountable for what they say and what they do. However, I don’t agree with the tactic of public shaming or calling somebody out with the intention of pushing them further away. And I know that wasn’t the intention. The intention was to try and make a statement so that Peter knew that his family cared about him and would welcome him back if he renounced his views. But what happens and why people join these types of movements is because they already feel ostracized, because they already feel marginalized and disenfranchised. And pushing him farther away and not giving him the support of a family structure, I fear, will actually push him further into this movement, because he went searching for something. He went searching for a community or a family and an identity. And if the family, the real family he has, is pushing that away even further, the chances of him coming back because he feels remorse about what his family said are slim to none, in my opinion."

I like his approach.

AMY GOODMAN: Christian, any words of wisdom here? I mean, not only did you move away from white supremacy, the neo-Nazi movement, but I am—in your group, if you could tell us stories, Life After Hate, of other people? And what are the most effective approaches, through specific anecdotes and stories?

CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Sure. Well, you know, our approach is to work with people in a compassionate and empathetic way and to listen to what they have to say, instead of arguing with them ideologically or pushing them further away. And what I listen for are these things that I call potholes—what existed in their path that deviated it. And then, my job becomes to fill those potholes, whether it’s job training or life coaching or tattoo removal or mental health therapy. And what happens inevitably is, when people are more equipped, understand what they’re dealing with internally, they don’t necessarily need to blame somebody else for what they feel is being taken away from them, because now they’re more resilient and they’re more able to compete and they’re more self-confident. However, I do challenge their ideology, as well, but not by debating. What I do is I introduce them to people that they think that they hate. And I’ve introduced Holocaust deniers to Holocaust survivors, Islamophobes to imams and Muslim families to have family dinner. And it’s those types of connections, those opportunities to humanize, that really bring people back, because people join these groups because they’re out searching for something that they’re not getting in their real life."
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/18/part_2_nephew_of_fascist_who

These right wing groups thrive on violence and any picture of anyone attacking any of them is another excuse for them to use violence "to protect themselves" and it makes it a lot easier for Local governments to pass really oppressive laws against freedom of speech, the right to assembly and furthers the ever growing militarization of police forces.

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The noise level is so high, I don't know who is saying what or even what is being said. Some of the people I follow and who follow me are engage in knock down drag em out brawls that will end relationships no matter how superficial.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Centaurea's picture

@dkmich @dkmich I've had to back off from FB the past few days, for the sake of my own mental health. It's like stepping into a cesspool of insanity. The amount of unthinking, often vicious, authoritarian self-righteousness is disturbing.

Edited to add: I think we're seeing the virtual version of mob mentality. There's no reasoning with it.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Centaurea Welcome to the second 9/11. Much smaller body count--so far.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

While generally I support Meteor Man's position regarding bosses controlling the private off-work lives of their employees, the food service business has some inherent problems here.

gjohnsit is right: Once you, as an employee of an establishment whose main business is the service of food to its customers, publically express a willingness to kill large swathes of said customers (for ANY reason WHATSOEVER), the business is within both its rights and obligations to the public to fire your sorry ass and make sure you never work in food service again. When one expresses a desire to destroy lives because those lives don't matter, one cannot blame a food business proprietor for fearing one would dabble in the poisoner's arts via the merchandise he and his workers rely on to provide their livelihoods.

This is different from the examples Meteor Man used:

Can an employer fire you for smoking cigarettes at home? Can they fire a woman for getting an abortion? How about for being overweight? How about drinking alcohol or smoking Kush in states where it has been legalized?

None of these are direct, immediate, and present threats to any employer's livelihood, so long as the employee sticks to off-work time (which the employer should have no say about anyway as he isn't paying for it) to do it in.

The danger to a food service business's customers in retaining someone willing to kill and to use violence to eliminate whole classes of humanity of which he disapproves, however, is real indeed. With all the poisons and biological attacks one can all too easily mount via food and drink, no food business operator in his right mind would retain any such employee. Ever.

It's what Federal (and most State) Employment Laws call "a bona-fide employment disqualification"!

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides That's logical, but I've never heard it from anyone but you.

Generally, it's a way for said business to engage in virtue-mining, at the low, low cost of firing one or two minimum-wage employees.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Imagine you are running a business and you don't have any sympathy for neo-Nazis. One of your employees is identified as openly engaging in riot in Charlottesville and attacking other citizens.

Will you welcome that employee back and let them resume representing your business to the public? Perhaps you are saintly enough to say to yourself "I find this person ethically repugnant and exemplifying things I strongly disagree with and I now wish they were no longer my employee but gosh, I've got to make sure they are able to pay their bills (possibly including travel to future riots) and I don't want to oppress them for their political views so I'll continue employing them."

I don't think I could do that.

Does the employee get a pass merely because they've got poor job prospects? Do they bear no responsibility for their actions? Unlike gender/race/ethnicity, being a neo-Nazi is something a person has some control over.

There's some "slippery slope" argumentation in some of these posts, can it be applied to both sides? Where on the sliding scale between "Joe/Jane occasionally says something about not liking liberals" and "Joe/Jane is caught on video stomping someone and boasting about looking forward to doing it again" does the employer get to say "you are no longer my employee" without being shamed for doing that?

I suspect that the discharged employee's life is may not take a turn for the better once you've fired them. If they can't find work because they are being shunned then yes, they may take that as a "see, they really are oppressing me as a part of the conspiracy against the white race" and it may be more difficult to convince them of the error of their ways. But not everyone is going to be reasoned out of a stance they weren't reasoned into. How likely is it that their viewpoint can be changed if they see no downside to holding that view? Is it only the employer that is expected to subsidize a neo-Nazi employee, or do the firm's customers operate under the same expectation?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MichaelSF How about I, as an employer, don't have jack or shit to do with what my employee does in their off hours. How about I, as an employer, have no fucking right whatsoever to be the arbiter of my employees' political beliefs.

How is it different from this?

We were going back to work from break, and my manager told me that Phil said to remove the sticker off my car or I was fired," she said. "I told him that Phil couldn't tell me who to vote for. He said, 'Go tell him.' "

She went to [Geddes'] office, knocked on the door and entered on his orders.

"Phil and another man who works there were there," she said. "I asked him if he said to remove the sticker and he said, 'Yes, I did.' I told him he couldn't tell me who to vote for. When I told him that, he told me, 'I own this place.' I told him he still couldn't tell me who to vote for."

Gobbell said [Geddes] told her to "get out of here."

"I asked him if I was fired and he told me he was thinking about it," she said. "I said, 'Well, am I fired?' He hollered and said, 'Get out of here and shut the door.' "

She said her manager was standing in another room and she asked him if that meant for her to go back to work or go home. The manager told her to go back to work, but he came back a few minutes later and said, "I reckon you're fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry," Gobbell said.

"I took off my gloves and threw them in the garbage and left," Gobbell said.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MichaelSF We are not indentured servants, nor slaves, whose employers have legal responsibility for what we do, because we belong to them.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Doesn't it cause problems for the employer, business and involved customers if a dedicated Nazi feels impelled to slip a little something toxic, infective or disgusting into the food of any of those customers he feels are better dead? That's why they want to be Nazis, you know, so that they can do things like that to other people 'for racial purity' and 'The Good Of The State', out of pure, 'exceptional-race' superiority.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

chuckvw's picture

an equitable redistribution of wealth (that crazy Teddy Roosevelt), etc. Guess what they're not talking about... Resist!™

Hmmm. Whom does that benefit?

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You should only listen to both sides when one side isn't totally full of shit. -Jim Jefferies

strollingone's picture

while referring to them as a "homeless, feral dog" is at least somewhat absurd. Perhaps the question resolves itself with this restatement: "Should a restaurant be permitted to allow their food to be prepared and served by homeless, feral dogs?"

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@strollingone The point is that someone who already harbored hateful ideas has now been given a very personal, very real reason to be enraged.

I have never seen the left so full of shit in my life.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lotlizard's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal  
Imagine how things evolve in the alternate story world where the Jeffersons get Archie Bunker fired because he has hateful views.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard Ugh. I'd really rather not.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

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fakenews's picture

Not keeping your eyes on the ball people!! The U.S. is KILLING people in other countries and costing us $1 Trillion a year in military wars of aggression. Don't be deluded into main stream / gov't propaganda. Keep your eyes on the ball... This white supremacist stuff is BULLSHIT!! One more split for people to focus on and one more opportunity to fleece the serfs out of their tax money. It's a NON ISSUE!!! Focus on PEACE.

Peace
FN

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"Democracy is technique and the ability of power not to be understood as oppressor. Capitalism is the boss and democracy is its spokesperson." Peace - FN

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@fakenews Actually, I expect this is to distract from the collapse of the Russia story.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

edg's picture

I'd wonder why Confederate statues suddenly shot to the top of the headlines just when Improved Medicare for All was starting to gain some traction. Could Confederates be the new Russians?

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@edg
All to keep us rubes from watching what the weasels in Washington and Wall Street are REALLY up to.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

lotlizard's picture

In the 1980s, conservative propagandists concocted and popularized a Big Lie whereby hippie peaceniks allegedly spit on returning Vietnam vets.

Unfortunately, the arguments for “Antifa” type militance seems tailor-made for giving this Big Lie retroactive credibility.

“Fought for the Confederacy = traitors and Nazis = anyone speaking up for the Confederacy ought to have no rights, fully deserves to be physically attacked, kicked off the internet, fired, etc.”

“Fought for the oppressor in the Vietnam War = Nazis = deserves to be spit on . . .”

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