Charlottesville Virginia :Car Plows Into Anti-Fascist Protesters

Quote:

I'm wondering if the Black Bloc could have been handled differently; not in terms of their right to demonstrate, but to prevent them from having attracted all the media attention.

As allies, why should you need to "handle" them?

Conversely, what's the part of all of this that they don't "get"?

Walk the streets for money, you don't care if it's wrong or it's right (Roxanne)...

Applies far more to him than the girl on the stroll in the song.

NDPP wrote:

How 'Antifa' Mirrors the 'Alt Right'  -  by Chris Hedges

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/antifa-mirrors-alt-right/

Sigh. SMFH

Mobo2000 wrote:

   Shaking your head won't make it go away.  

 

Duh. Thanks for making that clear,Captain Obvious.

Mobo2000 wrote:

You are welcome!

Fucking asshole.

Time will tell if middle America, and the 50% who didn't care to vote last time around see it as nothing more than a right wing talking point.   I think the left needs a better argument than moral relativism/false equivalency.   

alan smithee wrote:

What a massive false equivalency.

Hedges is fond of those (see his books on how atheists are "the new fundamentalists").

I don't know that he's to blame – he certainly didn't invent the equivalency, though he's jumped aboard the train to make some money. I've always found it amusing that the worst insult religious types can make against atheists is that atheism is a religion. If it can be brought down to their level, if it's just another religion, then their own religions can't be judged. Not being a member of their religion is just another religion, you see. The wrong one, of course.

Hmm.. I guess there really are bad people on both sides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg6NHuHbaqk

It just so happens antifa isn't one of those sides.

Mobo2000 wrote:

The video linked at post 314 is almost unwatchable to me.   What is persuasive or effective in this?  

Moral equivalence / false equivalency is a very loaded term that largely functions as propoganda.    I am reminded of all the times this term made it's appearance in the past, in defence of one or another imperial adventure.  

Was opposing the war in Iraq drawing a moral equivalency between the George Bush and Saddam Hussein?    Was opposing the cold war drawing a moral equivalency between the Soviet Union and the United States?   Or, as Sam Harris charges, are critics of the invasion of Afghanistan and American tactics there drawing a moral equivalence between the US military and terrorists?

Here's Jeane Kirkpatrick arguing there is no moral equivalence between the US and the Soviet Union:

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-myth-of-moral-equivalence/

In recent times it seems that saying "there is no moral equivalence" between X and Y is saying, simply, X good and Y bad.     It then erases any possibility of critizing tactics or moral obligations of the part of the good party because of the bad party's badness.   

As this relates to antifa/neo-nazi's.   I would like to find a space to discuss how best to combat the rise of neo-nazis and the rise of violent protest in the US.   What can we do as individuals, what should the media be doing, and what can we do collectively, etc.   I see charges of "moral equivalence"  as preventing that discussion.  

Also they are reductive.   The Chris Hedges article had a lot to say.   Chomsky has recently critized antifa:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/noam-chomsky-antifa-is-a-major-gift-to...

...and I'm not sure I agree, but I'd like to be able to talk about it without hearing "false equivalency" and antifa good/nazi bad over and over again.

Simply put,if you're a nazi you ARE bad and if you find nazis abhorrent and protest them, you are good,much better people,much higher moral quality.

As you want to argue that nazis are not or may not be bad and those who oppose them are morally equivalent says a lot about your character.

Use that bullshit argument on Rebel's comment threads and spare us this nazi sympathizing crap.

NDPP wrote:

Trump's Antifa Moment: Police Repression, Non-Violence and Movement Building on the Left

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/28/trumps-antifa-moment-police-repr...

"Antifa's revolution against the American police state and the reactionary right was over before it began. The group has no mass support base and its significance is primarily symbolic..."

Clearly we live in an amoral,bigoted,racist and xenophobic society. Let's all throw our hands in the air and give up. I got some drinkin' to do anyway. Those poor nazis,those heroic police forces and that fine upstanding President. What's the use in speaking out,right? Right.

Alan:   The point I'm trying to make is very simple, obvious and not at all original.   You will find it said by all sorts of people on the left.   Much more articulate presentations of it have been posted here already.   That you interpret it as support for or defending neo-nazis is your own issue, and I urge you to think it through.  

For an action to be moral we have to consider it's effects.   Saying nazis are bad is not a moral action, it's a (very obvious, uncontroversial) value statement.    We all agree neo-nazis are bad.   The question is what to do? 

If the effect of counterprotesting neo-nazis is less neo-nazis and a more tolerant just society, than counterprotesting neo-nazis is the moral thing to do.   If the effect of counterprotesting neo-nazi's is greater repression by the state, a backlash by the disinterested middle class, and more neo-nazis, then counterprotesting is not the moral thing to do.    

Social change comes about through analysis of what is happening, and through collective action, and agreement on tactics.   Good people can choose bad tactics.

I'd rather productive discussion over arguing or having to defend everything I say everyday. So peace to you.

The world is circling the drain and the tidy bowl man in this is Donald Trump. Can't we at least agree that he's the cancer in the world right now?

Globalresearch.ca is saying that the anti-racist activism in Charlottesville and elsewhere is part of a "race war and civil war being incited by the US political establishment", and citing Ben Carson(probably the farthest right candidate from the last GOP primaries) as a source on how Obama and the Clintons are puppets of Saul Alinsky... 

Just as the global “war on terrorism” is a criminality and treason disguised as “freedom fighting” and “the defense of liberty”, this war against Trump, labelled as the “new Hitler”, is part of an unfolding domestic terror operation, which ironically utilizes the propaganda techniques of Hitler and the Third Reich (Goebbels), not to mention the anarchist playbook of Saul Alinsky (and, by extension, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom are Alinsky disciples). (See  also Ben Carson quoted in the Washington Post,  “Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky and Lucifer, explained”, July 20, 2015)

Apparently anarchists and liberals are bad, too. And in collusion with the police, who stood by while the anti-racists in Charlottesville "instigated the violence".  

I was gonna preface this post with something like "Jesus H. Christ, what a gong show that site has become", but that would be feigning a surprise that I just don't have. 

http://tinyurl.com/y74ol54e

Did she mean "antifa.ru"?  It would make sense to register that with a Russian registrar.

These Dockworkers Just Showed the Labor Movement How to Shut Down Fascists

What role should the labor movement play in beating back the resurgence of fascism? Resistance, while a powerful concept, is far too vague. Local 10, the San Francisco Bay Area branch of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)—and perhaps the most radical union in the United States—demonstrates what can be done.

This past week, the San Francisco Bay Area—long a center of unionism, social justice movements and radicalism—took center stage. Patriot Prayer is a right-wing organization with a demonstrated history of inciting racist violence, most obviously in Portland, Ore., while ironically asserting peaceful intentions. The far-right group declared it would rally in San Francisco on Saturday.

Local 10 took a lead role in organizing counter-protests that contributed to the San Francisco event being canceled the day ahead of its scheduled event. The union’s role in this wave of popular mobilizations demands consideration.

At its August 17 meeting, Local 10 passed a “Motion to Stop the Fascists in San Francisco,” which laid out members’ opposition to the rally and intention to organize. This resolution enumerated the union’s justifications, starting with Donald Trump’s “whitewashing this violent, deadly fascist and racist attack [in Charlottesville] saying ‘both sides are to blame,’ and his attacking anti-racists for opposing Confederate statues that honor slavery adds fuel to the fire of racist violence.”.....

Richard Spencer in FL: “the most important...revolutionary ethno-state, the one that I turn to for guidance...the Jewish state of Israel.”