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posted by martyb on Thursday January 03 2019, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dept.

Wired Magazine has an article that some might find interesting.

I was at what should have been a farmers’ market in Berkeley, California, last year when a throng of black-clad antifascists tried to scrap it out with far-right ralliers in the middle of a park named after Martin Luther King Jr. I watched scrawny college students get pummeled by hulking, be-swastika-ed ex-soldiers and ex-law enforcement officers in motorcycle gear. The antifascists’ one reprisal was setting off a homemade smoke bomb, which promptly blew back into their own faces, drawing raucous jeering from the white supremacists. It was as close to a war zone as I ever hope to be, and it was unequivocally a win for the racists.

But then,

It was easy to imagine the Bay Area becoming an extremist battleground—each weekend an opportunity for the next rally turned riot.

That vision has not come to pass. In the long arc of American racism, 2017 saw a sudden spike in visibility, but it was not the beginning of a new era in which people routinely walk the streets advertising their white supremacy. This year has brought the opposite trend: 2018 has been a year of pushing the alt-right and other white nationalist groups back underground, and punishing them for misdeeds committed during their brief moment in the sun. That’s a testament to the strength of the backlash against 2017’s naked racism, and evidence of how costly being openly racist has become—especially on the internet, where it has doomed entire social media platforms to obscurity. This must be counted as a good thing.

Goebbels said, allegedly, "Even if we lose we will win, because our enemies have adopted our methods." Looks like the alt-right is losing.

Regardless of what scaremonger reporters might espouse, the alt-right, as we have come to know it over the last two years, has failed—as extremism researchers always knew it would. But in its place has come something shadowier and far older: an underground white supremacist movement operating on society’s fringes, and a culture that disavows the racists while quietly mainstreaming their ideas.

So here's the point:

The issue, though, is that while there’s satisfaction and schadenfreude in watching these public flounderings, the alt-right doesn’t have to be visible to succeed. In fact, going underground is a return to the status quo for American white supremacy.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday January 03 2019, @09:14PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday January 03 2019, @09:14PM (#781695)

    There were "anti-fascist activists" who fought against Hitler in the streets of Germany. They didn't win.

    What would have happened if they had won? Let's say that Hitler, Goebbels, Rohm, and the rest of the brownshirts were repeatedly getting the crap kicked out of them every time they tried to start trouble. Heck, let's say that the German government had simply responded more harshly to the attempted takeover of one of their state governments in 1923, sentencing Adolf & crew to more than the 5 years that they actually got for treason. As far as I can tell, the end result of this kind of thing would have been that the very imperfect Weimar Republic might have lasted a while longer, and the various politicians led by the not-at-all-liberal Paul von Hindenberg might have been able to sort things out and/or negotiate some sort of better deal with the Entente.

    the rise of the right is always a response to the excesses of the left.

    1. Which excesses were the Nazis responding to? The Versailles Treaty wasn't a left-wing document, at all. The Weimar government was controlled by mostly right-wing parties, and the presidents were for the most part conservative.
    2. What exactly are the excesses the current alt-right is responding to? Because as far as I can tell, the main "excess" was electing a non-white person to be president, which isn't an "excess" unless you believe that only white people should be in charge of the government, i.e. you're a white supremacist.

    [the antifacists] represented a greater threat than the right ever did.

    How many people has the current antifa killed? 0. How many people has the alt-right killed? Depends on who you count as alt-right, but at least 1, quite possibly several hundred. I know who I'd consider to be the greater threat.

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  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @10:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @10:52PM (#781742)

    > What would have happened if they had won? ... As far as I can tell, the end result of this kind of thing would have been that the very
    > imperfect Weimar Republic might have lasted a while longer, and the various politicians led by the not-at-all-liberal Paul von Hindenberg
    > might have been able to sort things out and/or negotiate some sort of better deal with the Entente.

    Are you asking me to speculate on outcomes of possible alternate histories? I don't know that I can do so reasonably without great analysis.

    However, it's important to understand the referent to "they." "They" were bolshevik communists. We can look at what happened when they came to power in the Soviet Union. They killed tens of millions of people to maintain their power. Wherever they took power, lots of people died and they imposed a hostile form of government to any free nation. It would have been the same, likely.

    > 1. Which excesses were the Nazis responding to? The Versailles Treaty wasn't a left-wing document, at all. The Weimar
    > government was controlled by mostly right-wing parties, and the presidents were for the most part conservative.

    "Right Wing" parties is such an imprecise term. It is a catch-all umbrella term to lump several different ideological factions into a single grouping which is questionably relevant.

    The issue of "excesses" applied not just to the Nazis, but to many different factions in German society with their own interests and goals. To each of those parties, there are multiple excesses.

    I would recommend you go to German sources at the time to see what they thought each party thought the excesses were. For the Nazis, Hitler wrote a whole book about them and gave many speeches.

    But, the issue of "excesses," can also be related to the word "deprivation" in Social Movement theory. As the Wikipedia article on the issue states:

            "People are driven into movements out of a sense of deprivation or inequality, particularly (1) in relation to others or (2) in relation to their expectations."

    So, what expectations did Germans have that weren't being met? Again, Hitler talks about them in his book. I would recommend you check several of the historical sources.

    But, again, it wasn't just the Nazis that had grievances/unmet expectations. It was a number of different factions competing for influence. Many people did not want Marxism/socialism/communism to have influence over Germany. The various factions formed coalitions to stop that from happening. Hitler was able to use the conditions to bring about his own power.

    So, the larger issue that might be asked is what do non- marxist/socialist/communist factions in a society dislike about the possibility of socialism/marxism/communism having control over them?

    In the various places that they came to power, socialists/marxists/communists refuse to recognize property rights. Communists also refuse to recognize the primacy of the various historical ethnic and natonal social groups in the regions that they come to power in and promote policies hostile to those groups. So, these are some of the "excesses." Additionally, communists falsely claim that they are moral and cultural authorities. In doing so, they violate the expectations various factions in a society have about how that society should be run. Finally, marxists/socialists/communists have been murderous. For a quick introduction to the historical realities, check out:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes [wikipedia.org]

    > 2. What exactly are the excesses the current alt-right is responding to? Because as far as I can tell, the main "excess"
    > was electing a non-white person to be president, which isn't an "excess" unless you believe that only white people
    > should be in charge of the government, i.e. you're a white supremacist.

    I'm not a White supremacist, I'm an American White Nationalist. I believe that all peoples have a right to their nationality, culture, ethnicity, and self-determination.
    Most especially, I believe that we Whites have a right to our nationality, to promote our national interests as we see fit and that we have a right to national self-determination.

    The excesses that I see are many. First, the country that we made for ourselves has become corrupted by multiple hostile
    forces, including globalists, marxists, socialists, communists and their ilk. These hostile factions are leading this country in a bad
    direction and we're opposed to that. These entities have turned a once-great, proud nation-state into a multicultural,
    multi-ethnic globalist cosmopolitan empire which is hostile to our nation. Conditions are so hostile that we must act decisively
    to change the course of the future for our people.

    We have observed our nation, culture, history be denigrated by people like you and we reject that.

    We do not seek ill with other nations and nationalities, and in fact, wish to live in harmony with them. But we
    must have a homeland and political, social and cultural self-determination.

    > How many people has the current antifa killed? 0. How many people has the alt-right killed? Depends on who you
    > count as alt-right, but at least 1, quite possibly several hundred. I know who I'd consider to be the greater threat.

    Antifa, by their own admission, has a history going back into the early 20th century. They have been killing people constantly since then. They have been continually violating the lives and rights of all the people they have fought against. Again, a review of historical literature will detail their crimes as they were an integral element of communism. But, since the US media hides the facts, it's pretty hard to establish precise numbers.

    As to the death of Heather Hyer, that was an accident caused by the rioting in the streets of the marxists/socialists/communists/anarchists. So, I add her death to the antifa. I think that the courts will eventually clear James Fields of the unjust court case brought against him.

    Again, for reference, look at the wikipedia article about communist killings. Although Antifa has many subfactions, they can mostly be categorized as communists/marxist/socialist/anarchistic. They share part of the responsibility of the horrific death toll brought about by similar marxists/communists/socialists/anarchists.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @03:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @03:49AM (#781889)

    What exactly are the excesses the current alt-right is responding to?

    The excesses of neoliberalism, specifically wealth stratification.

    I believe that's what this idea that the "left" creates fascist movements is based upon, but that idea is entirely contained within the curve of capitalist development [marxists.org]... assuming those articulating that theory have any clue what "left" is other than blue-haired pansexual npcs.