The Haymarket Riot 15 May 1886“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” ― Mao Zedong
...Jack Weinberg is the person who coined the saying "Don't trust anyone over 30". The saying exists in several variants, such as "Never trust anybody over 30". Origination of the saying has been wrongly attributed to Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, the Beatles, and others.
In the US context there are a variety of violent activities by formal and informal groups that make the nihilistic attempts of the Trump regime to destabilize itself more worrisome.
As May Day comes again, we remember the Progressive Era in a variety of ways now transformed in the age of Trump.
This isn't designed to chill the PRESS. It's designed to chill any ordinary person who writes or comments or tweets. It's called fascism. https://t.co/ZsZEoCXD8R
Changing libel laws to suppress speech rights is in the Trump administration’s mind is more about improving the demand for attorneys and improving corporate power than actual repression. Perhaps we need to get beyond that meme even though the obvious incremental attacks on freedom of speech will make more farcical street thuggery in the name of speech rights and strengthen police powers.
Whether it’s like worrying about the viability of post-feminism, post-fascism probably needs some examination. Recognizing that fascism is a term more assignable to history rather than the more insidious nature of neoliberalism, there have been violent encounters that in the US context are more media construction.
â Proudboys Canada (@ProudboysCanada) April 30, 2017
The use of the term fascism in everyday life is a micro-aggression when we encounter abuses of the rule of law, particularly political street demonstration violence. Using it to describe repression of the kind found in actual police states is probably more appropriate but even then runs counter to those real historical examples from the 20th Century.
Recalling the days of “people’s war” urged in the 1970s, there is plenty of activity that would seem like there could be the possibility of post-May 1968 revolution even if there is no critical mass. But isn’t that the issue, whether popular vanguard actions can ever overthrow any state without military institutions. Recent truces and the continuing insurgencies of so many groups animate the real and imagined goals of so many repressive regimes and international alliances.
The focus on left groups’ violence and ignoring the more dangerous and more fully armed RW domestic terror groups raises interesting questions about the nature of understanding vanguard politics. Aside from the affinities among paramilitary police forces and the RW hate group populations, there is an adventurism only pretending to reach critical mass as there are mass demonstrations protesting peacefully. Such activity is street theater / security theater considering that there is no violent demonstration that now signifies a revolutionary condition worthy of historical upheaval.
Without veering into CT, there are agents provocateurs and so much manipulation of information and disinformation as there are internationally empathetic “anti-fascist” groups, but whether they have been compromised is becoming more questionable. Most US confrontations have paled in comparison with the dimensions of mass demonstrations elsewhere, lacking the kinds of preparation that are common to other countries and even seem amateurish in their organization. We have discussed here the role of violence in left movements before, and yet in the US context it rarely achieves its aims.
Critical Massis a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month; its purpose is not usually formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes.
The event originated in 1992 in San Francisco;[1] by the end of 2003, the event was being held in over 300 cities around the world.[2]
Critical Mass has been described as "monthly political-protest rides", and characterized as being part of a social movement.[3] It has been described as a "monthly protest by cyclists reclaiming the streets."[4] Participants have insisted that these events should be viewed as "celebrations" and spontaneous gatherings, and not as protests or organized demonstrations.[5][6] This stance allows Critical Mass to argue a legal position that its events can occur without advance notification of local police.[7][8]
Indeed, the steadfast endeavour to build one over the last 70 years has never amounted to more than a precarious and often temporary existence for one or more of the numerous, relatively small and competing sects. It could be argued quite fairly that the record of Party building, even during the fierce class-struggles of the post-second World War period, has been dismal. Not even the Thatcherite demolition job on the working class in Britain, perhaps the severest in 1970’s recession hit Europe, produced a healthy non-sectarian re-orientation of ‘the party’ builders. Nor for that matter, did this period witness the expressed desire for the formation of one, or the augmentation of an existing one, by workers in their various struggles. A similar case could be presented for the rest of Europe, North America and elsewhere.
But if the recent record of revolutionary party building is somewhat desultory, how good was it when it was allegedly at its very best? The lack of a critical appraisal of the record of ‘the party’ (past and present) among many revolutionary anti-capitalists, I suggest, is a crucially important omission.
For this reason, it continues to be a common assumption among many on the anti-capitalist left, that a disciplined revolutionary party is a vital and sooner or later a necessary ingredient in the anti-capitalist struggle.
An allied assumption is that without such an organisation any struggle against the forces of oppression gathered around the capitalist system will not succeed in overthrowing it or achieving success afterwards.
These two assumptions, often articulated as indisputable facts, are a central part of the inherited Bolshevik tradition handed down by the splintered post-second World War veterans of the Stalinist, Leninist and Trotskyist schools of anti-capitalist thought.
Clearly, humanity is now facing, if not yet facing up to, major problems.
Ecological destruction, atmospheric pollution, an increased lack of social cohesion, a collapse of the welfare state model and rising levels of unemployment and poverty along with wars and proxy wars, are all the result of the capitalist mode of production. Reformist and revolutionary political ideas and strategies to solve the fundamental problems arising from the domination of capital have been repeatedly tried and failed. Something better is needed.
Trumpism is theatrical not unlike the “security theater” of the transportation system, unreflective of actual proportional fear.
Opposing Illegal Immigration
No Globalist Elites Natural gender roles Anti-Semitism
antifascistnews.net/...The Trump campaign’s platform of economic populism did harness a similar argument: The existing status quo left behind millions of “forgotten” Americans, sold out the nation’s interests for collusion with “globalist” elites and was weak in the face of foreign enemies. But everything we’ve seen since the inauguration — the White House’s systematic attempts to dismantle the “administrative state,” its initial moves to gut the safety net for the poor, Trump’s lavish spending of taxpayer funds at his own properties — suggests a more self-interested agenda.
For this reason, Italian historian Enzo Traverso argues in a new essay for the World Policy Journal that it’s not useful to look at Trump “through the old category of fascism.”
“The fact is there is no fascist organization behind Trump. He does not lead a mass movement; he is a TV star,” wrote Traverso, a humanities professor at Cornell University. “He does not organize and mobilize the masses; he attracts an audience in an atomized society of consumers.”…
â Socialist Project (@socialism21) April 2, 2017
Are Europe’s far-Right movements (the AfD in Germany, the Front National in France, Jobbik in Hungary…) adopting the same codes as fascism or Nazism?
Enzo Traverso:
First of all, these movements do share common traits, including their rejection of the European Union, their xenophobia and their racism, in particular in its Islamophobic dimension. Beyond these markers, we can see notable differences. There are clearly neo-fascist or neo-Nazi movements, like Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary, etc., whose radicalism is often linked to the extent of the crisis, even if in Greece the rise of Syriza did put a lid on this dynamic. As for France, the Front National does have a fascist matrix, and there are certainly neo-fascists in the party, but its discourse is no longer fascist. After all, it has made a considerable effort at ideological mutation, and that is one of the keys to its success. If it still advanced neo-fascist arguments it would not get a hearing, and could certainly not hope to reach the second round of the presidential election.
Why call these parties "from the fascist matrix" post-fascists and not-neo-fascists?How do you characterise this post-fascism?
It is a transitional category. Post-fascism is a concept that attempts to grasp a mutation process that is still underway; the FN is no longer a fascist movement, but it is still far-Right and xenophobic, and it has still not broken the umbilical cord that links it to its fascist matrix. We do not know what that will produce. This could end up — if the European Union were to break apart and the economic crisis were to deepen — transforming into a clearly fascist alternative. That has happened in the past. Or it could take on new characteristics and integrate into the system, like the Movimento Sociale Italiano did in the 1990s, becoming a component of the traditional Right. This is an open process, for within the tendency I call "post-fascist" there are also political movements born in recent years that are not fascist in origin, for instance UKIP in England or the Lega Nord in Italy, which are converging together with this current; indeed, Matteo Salvini and Nigel Farage have good relations with the Front National.
This notion does not seek either to play down the danger or to make it more acceptable, but to understand it, the better to combat it more effectively.
...
..."Populist" is an adjective that defines an often-demagogic political style, in its both left-wing and right-wing variants deploying the rhetorical tool of the people against the élites. But the notion of populism does not define the political nature of a party or a movement. When it is used to equate Sanders with Trump or Mélenchon with Le Pen it is a mere mystification, because instead of helping us understand reality, it deforms it.
And yet there are burlesques of revolutionary or devolutionary activity. Social media has only made its repressed sexuality more overt, as though we have forgotten the discourses over gender roles and domestic labor.
People are different.
Our world is tribal. Our tribe is being suppressed Men are not women and women are not men. Freedom is a responsibility and not a right. If we must be a democratic society, the franchise should be limited. Jewish elites are opposed to our entire program.
not Gavin McInnes nycantifa.wordpress.com/...Since being kicked out of Vice, the magazine he helped found, Gavin McInnes has been relegated to late-night Fox News punditry and writing for a blog founded by a Golden Dawn-supporting millionaire and formerly edited by Nazi Dork Richard Spencer. He’s an antique of the worst aspects of ’00s hipsters: bad fashion sense, irony covering for insecurity, and deeply reactionary politics.
In the last few months he has compensated for his fall from relevance by starting a personality cult comprised of man-children called the “Proud Boys.” The name plays on the “red pill” concept of convincing impressionable and narcissistic young males that they are somehow victims of feminist, queer, and POC liberation movements. These (mostly) white boys claim that their general deficiencies as human beings are, in fact, indicators of their “alpha” status.
The current necessity is for those who have a historical understanding of the nature of revolutionary change to criticize adventurism. The current wave of hate is not some “natural” civilization clash that rationalizes racism and violence, but does reflect an alienation and social division that must be overcome assertively. Resistance in the US case DAPL without criticizing the inhumane paramilitarism of state authorities renders us complicit with the rising tide of state-sponsored repression.
Politics are not about skirmishes just like ordering pizza with your shoes does not constitute a dinner party.
Here is our country by country guide and essay analysing the scale of the threat. Our guide was originally published in three parts – we have combined them here.
We have focused on the countries where fascist and racist parties have made significant electoral and/or organisational breakthroughs. There are small fascist groups operating in several other countries, but with very small numbers and little impact. We intend to look separately at the situation in Russia at a later date and have not included it here.
We start with a country by country guide and continues with an analysis piece, including working definitions of fascism and far right racist populism, and we will look at the conditions that are enabling these parties to flourish. We hope this series will be of use to antifascists and antiracists across Europe.Statewatch News Online, April 2016 Statewatch article: RefNo# 36416
Statewatch News Online, April 2016 Statewatch article: RefNo# 36416
"Europe is witnessing a dangerous revival of fascist and racist populist parties and organisations. Over the next few weeks we are going to publish a series of articles analysing the scale of this threat.
We will focus on the countries where fascist and racist parties have made significant electoral and/or organisational breakthroughs. There are small fascist groups operating in several other countries, but with very small numbers and little impact. We intend to look separately at the situation in Russia at a later date and have not included it here."
"Europe is witnessing a dangerous revival of fascist and racist populist parties and organisations. Over the next few weeks we are going to publish a series of articles analysing the scale of this threat.
We will focus on the countries where fascist and racist parties have made significant electoral and/or organisational breakthroughs. There are small fascist groups operating in several other countries, but with very small numbers and little impact. We intend to look separately at the situation in Russia at a later date and have not included it here."
We perhaps are in a post-fascism, but we have yet to transcend fascist behaviors.
“I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing….The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of the conflict with the powers that be.” (Marx to Ruge 1843.)
The 1904 International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam, the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."[5]
Being a traditional European spring celebration, May Day is a national public holiday in several European countries. The date is currently celebrated specifically as "Labour Day" or "International Workers' Day" in the majority of countries, including those that didn't traditionally celebrate May Day. Some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States, which celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September.
May Day was also celebrated by some early European settlers of the American continent. In some parts of the United States, May baskets are made. These are small baskets usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone's doorstep. The giver rings the bell and runs away.
Modern May Day ceremonies in the U.S. vary greatly from region to region and many unite both the holiday's "Green Root" (pagan) and "Red Root" (labour) traditions.[22]
I think it is such a shameful disservice to the human race that the media instills so much fear, intentionally. It covers up the real forces that misdirect people, and it prevents understanding and the possibility of meaningful change.
‘Spite voting’ and more militarised police states are a tragic product of that.
* For this reason, it continues to be a common assumption among many on the anti-capitalist left, that a disciplined revolutionary party is a vital and sooner or later a necessary ingredient in the anti-capitalist struggle.
* An allied assumption is that without such an organisation any struggle against the forces of oppression gathered around the capitalist system will not succeed in overthrowing it or achieving success afterwards.
The current wave of hate is not some “natural” civilization clash that rationalizes racism and violence, but does reflect an alienation and social division that must be overcome assertively. Resistance in the US case DAPL without criticizing the inhumane paramilitarism of state authorities renders us complicit with the rising tide of state-sponsored repression.
And in your words annieli … “We perhaps are in a post-fascism, but we have yet to transcend fascist behaviors.”
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
@lotlizard
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
It should be absolutely clear the left no longer has any power. Let alone over the media or the political system. It should be obvious the Democratic Party is the old Republican Party in drag.
http://takimag.com/
This is the magazine of Taki Theodoracopulos, the “Golden Dawn–supporting millionaire” mentioned above.
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
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0 users have voted.
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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
@earthling1
“The Left” for them means the media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, people with money and fame etc. backing Hillary and Obama. More generally, “the Left” for them encompasses all the “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who are engaged in “converging” all institutions and forms of culture around enshrining immigration, diversity, multiculturalism, non-white population predominance, etc. as goods to be celebrated and never to be questioned.
Alt-Righters have no trouble understanding that our caucus99percent sort of “Left” is as estranged and distinct from the Democrat establishment “Left” as Alt-Righters themselves are estranged and distinct from the GOP establishment.
#3
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
It should be absolutely clear the left no longer has any power. Let alone over the media or the political system. It should be obvious the Democratic Party is the old Republican Party in drag.
Having spent much time monitoring and engaging right wing sites over the last couple of weeks I can attest that they see no difference between liberals of the DNC persuasion and those of the Sanders wing. We are all libtards in their view.
#3.1 “The Left” for them means the media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, people with money and fame etc. backing Hillary and Obama. More generally, “the Left” for them encompasses all the “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who are engaged in “converging” all institutions and forms of culture around enshrining immigration, diversity, multiculturalism, non-white population predominance, etc. as goods to be celebrated and never to be questioned.
Alt-Righters have no trouble understanding that our caucus99percent sort of “Left” is as estranged and distinct from the Democrat establishment “Left” as Alt-Righters themselves are estranged and distinct from the GOP establishment.
up
0 users have voted.
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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
@earthling1
They say “shitlib.” One of the specific characteristics of the Alt-Right as opposed to the “regular” extreme Right is consistent use of their own distinct slang.
Having spent much time monitoring and engaging right wing sites over the last couple of weeks I can attest that they see no difference between liberals of the DNC persuasion and those of the Sanders wing. We are all libtards in their view.
@lotlizard
I see is that we on the left can separate the alt right as Teapartiers and the regular right as establishment, or old school Republicans.
Trump, imo, appeals to the alt right predominantly. He is not establishment.
Whereas, Clinton reeks of establishment and Sanders is predominantly anti-establishment. They make no distinction between the two, which is what we have to work to change. Dispite our differences, we all have had enough of the Establishment, IMHO.
The slang on the right is incredibly hateful though.
#3.1.1.1 They say “shitlib.” One of the specific characteristics of the Alt-Right as opposed to the “regular” extreme Right is consistent use of their own distinct slang.
up
0 users have voted.
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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
In this culture (much older, by standards of Internet time, than the Alt-Right) taboos are made to be broken — for no other reason than “the lulz.“
#3.1.1.1.1
I see is that we on the left can separate the alt right as Teapartiers and the regular right as establishment, or old school Republicans.
Trump, imo, appeals to the alt right predominantly. He is not establishment.
Whereas, Clinton reeks of establishment and Sanders is predominantly anti-establishment. They make no distinction between the two, which is what we have to work to change. Dispite our differences, we all have had enough of the Establishment, IMHO.
The slang on the right is incredibly hateful though.
Comments
I am going to plunk this here.
Obama, Clintons, and Trump together don't have the integrity this man has. What a spiteful, petty, excuse for a human being Trump is.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
What a powerful post!
I think it is such a shameful disservice to the human race that the media instills so much fear, intentionally. It covers up the real forces that misdirect people, and it prevents understanding and the possibility of meaningful change.
‘Spite voting’ and more militarised police states are a tragic product of that.
And in your words annieli … “We perhaps are in a post-fascism, but we have yet to transcend fascist behaviors.”
Thank you.
Here’s a couple of links as an introduction to the Alt-Right:
http://takimag.com/
This is the magazine of Taki Theodoracopulos, the “Golden Dawn–supporting millionaire” mentioned above.
https://altright.com/
which is affiliated with Radix Journal:
http://radixjournal.com/
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
How do we counter this perception?
As far as they’re concerned, “we” on the Left control education and the media and have been using “our” power to promote the hollowing-out and decline of Western culture, values, and civilization.
It should be absolutely clear the left no longer has any power. Let alone over the media or the political system. It should be obvious the Democratic Party is the old Republican Party in drag.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
What they think of as “the Left” is Democrats like TOP & the DNC
“The Left” for them means the media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, people with money and fame etc. backing Hillary and Obama. More generally, “the Left” for them encompasses all the “social justice warriors” (SJWs) who are engaged in “converging” all institutions and forms of culture around enshrining immigration, diversity, multiculturalism, non-white population predominance, etc. as goods to be celebrated and never to be questioned.
Alt-Righters have no trouble understanding that our caucus99percent sort of “Left” is as estranged and distinct from the Democrat establishment “Left” as Alt-Righters themselves are estranged and distinct from the GOP establishment.
With all due respect I beg to differ, lotlizard.
Having spent much time monitoring and engaging right wing sites over the last couple of weeks I can attest that they see no difference between liberals of the DNC persuasion and those of the Sanders wing. We are all libtards in their view.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Hm, maybe so. The sites I monitor never say “libtard” however.
They say “shitlib.” One of the specific characteristics of the Alt-Right as opposed to the “regular” extreme Right is consistent use of their own distinct slang.
One of the more striking differences
I see is that we on the left can separate the alt right as Teapartiers and the regular right as establishment, or old school Republicans.
Trump, imo, appeals to the alt right predominantly. He is not establishment.
Whereas, Clinton reeks of establishment and Sanders is predominantly anti-establishment. They make no distinction between the two, which is what we have to work to change. Dispite our differences, we all have had enough of the Establishment, IMHO.
The slang on the right is incredibly hateful though.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
IIRC, Alt-Right slang developed from the “culture of trolling”
as represented by Encyclopedia Dramatica, 4chan, and most recently the “Politically Incorrect” subforum of 8chan (https://8ch.net/pol/index.html).
In this culture (much older, by standards of Internet time, than the Alt-Right) taboos are made to be broken — for no other reason than “the lulz.“