from the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer? dept.
An article at vice.com reports The Number of U.S. Hate Groups Keeps Surging, Largely Thanks to Young, White men:
The number of hate groups nationwide reached a record high in 2018, driven partly by the persistent growth of white nationalist groups catering to young, college-aged men.
There are currently 1,020 active hate groups in America — up from 954 in 2017, and 917 the previous year, according to an annual tally by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The new, young face of hate emerged from the shadows during the 2016 election and organized through a shared language of memes and under the banner of the “alt-right.” Many hailed then-candidate Donald Trump, with his hard-line views on immigration, as a hero. In celebration of his election, the alt-right’s one-time de facto leader Richard Spencer led a room full of young men in suits to give Nazi salutes.
Since then, Spencer and other prominent actors, entangled in costly lawsuits and tired of being heckled by anti-fascist protesters, have faded into relative obscurity.
At the same time, groups like Identity Evropa — whose khaki-clad members were a formidable presence at the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017— have proliferated and expanded their reach by setting up new chapters across the country. Patriot Front also grew significantly in 2018 after splintering from Vanguard America, the group linked to the 19-year-old neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a crowd of protesters during the Charlottesville rally and killed Heather Heyer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday February 22 2019, @05:22AM (67 children)
Rip social safety nets to shreds, pour all the money upwards into the hands of like 20,000 people, then when young people are desperate and scared because of the shitty world your politics has created, pretend people who look slightly different are the real threat, and make 5% of them a militant arm of your evil politics to commit acts of terrorism against the majority of their generation who can correctly deduce that you're at fucking fault.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @06:42AM (63 children)
Couple all that with every arschloch they see on TV and the Internet blaming all society's ills on the 'white heterosexual male' and 'white privilege' etc., and when these young (poor?) white males watch the same media circus which denigrates them promoting whatever the current fucked up freakshow-de-jour is as being 'normal', they then look at their own shitty situation and say 'so, I'm privileged, the cause of all the world's evils and as I do not like the freakshow, I'm not the normal one?'.
There is, as they say, a bit of a 'disconnect' between the media propaganda and their reality, so is it any wonder they'll start supporting any group which tells them 'hey, it's ok to be you, you're not the freaks'?
Being a cynic, I'd swear 'They're' deliberately engineering all this, so long as we're busy fighting each other over 'endian' trivialities, we're not fighting 'Them'.
Divide and rule.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @07:16AM (62 children)
First of all, if you need this sort of reassurance, YOU are the damn snowflake. The self-proclaimed "master race", the jewel of Western Civilization, sure are a bunch of insecure, fragile, crybabies.
They're also wrong to feel attacked at all. I'm straight, white, cisgender (which just means not trans), and male and I never feel aggrieved for any of it. Why don't I feel like my identity is constantly under assault? The people who feel like they are, they're trapped in a sort of reverse plot to the movie They Live. They're going through life with glasses which make the real world--the benign, non-hostile, mostly safe and friendly, world--seem alien and malicious.
No one is out to get them, but a domestic terrorist was just arrested who was so committed to the contrary that he was about to perpetrate a mass slaughter of innocent people in order to strike back at the globalists, or the MSM, or the Jews, or George Soros, or whatever nonsense his crackpot brain dreamed up. He was fed a steady diet of hatred and persecution porn and this is the conclusion he arrived at. This sort of conspiratorial pablum isn't just pathetic and annoying, it's pushing marginally dangerous people over the edge.
So stop talking like this. It isn't just factually wrong, it's dangerously untrue.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @07:34AM (2 children)
So basically just a synonym for "normal." Got it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:02AM
Um ... I don't think anyone was calling you "normal".
(Score: 2) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @08:29PM
You're free to artificially impoverish your vocabulary for ideological reasons if you wish, but I find that doubleplus ungood.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday February 22 2019, @08:14AM (20 children)
If you are posting on SN, you are probably a techy. You are very literate. You probably have a pretty good job, with good prospects for the future and significant assets.
The guys joining up with these groups are not. They are struggling to hold a shitty job, if they are working at all. They are constantly told they have all these advantages, and that they should easily be successful. When they aren't it feels like a personal attack. When you constantly call someone a loser they get pissed off.
It isn't that their identity is under attack, it is that they don't fit into the privileged caricature that is projected on them.
Affirmative action makes it worse. Even though you keep losing the race, the officials keep saying you have an advantage and moving your competitors further down the track.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @09:14AM
It's not just financial security. People who are in a relatively good situation but never had any authority of their own, say code monkeys, do feel attacked too.
It's flat out wrong saying you're fragile for taking offense of blanket statements on groups that include you. Try saying that you can't be lumped with the lot because you've heard all during your millenial education about equality of sexes and people and anyway you've never been in a situation to actively discriminate against someone because you've always been a subordinate with no say in whatever matter and hear the retorts coming. they all come down to:
You're blinded by your own hubris, you've been a shitty person without knowing it. And even if you're not, being rigorous in our statements instead of accusing the whole lot of cishet white males would detract from the fiery passion in our cries, so we'll keep doing it.
It's like being stuck in some class about how to use ms word. Even if you haven't used it before you got it in one hour tops, but the schedule is 5 to 7 every day forever. If you've ever dealt with cults or the like, trite repetition like that can give you actual headaches.
I get that it's hard to get the struggle you're not living, but it's insulting when your education to inequality issues began as soon as kindergarten and never stopped, to assume one can't possibly have done the work to understand in about twenty years.
When you keep shouting abuse at someone who has yielded there's not much that can happen. Either they're submissive and take it, they're agressive and echo your tribalism to riposte or they grow to stop caring about both sides of the conflict.
Maybe I'm a bitter wreck of a person but the only choice I see before me is hate myself, hate people that aren't like me or hate everyone else but me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:05AM (9 children)
I didn't realize that spittoon-gargling redneck was a "privileged caricature". I learn something new every day here on SN.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday February 22 2019, @11:30AM (8 children)
The "privileged caricature" is a Harvard-educated white male in an expensive suit who can get a high-paying job from one of his family's friends with a handshake on the golf course.
So simply because he is a "cis white male" you project that image on some poor redneck who is struggling to keep his trailer, claim he is privileged, and then wonder why he is pissed off and threatened.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @02:39PM (1 child)
I don't know of anyone who does that. Seems like a lack of critical thinking and taking generalizations too personally.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 22 2019, @08:00PM
It's impressive how these folks can act like victims in a thread about how they keep murdering people and committing terrorism.
I'd have a bit more sympathy if they hadn't spent the last 20 years blaming all Muslims for 9/11.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @08:14PM (5 children)
He is privileged because he is white and male. That's not incorrect. It's just that his economic class is the far bigger influence on his well being. The negative effects of his poverty absolutely swamp any white or male privilege.
So of course he votes Democrat, the only party offering him real hope and actual public policy that will improve his life. Right? He wouldn't do something crazy like vote for the other party that will further impoverish him just so he can retain his racial and gender pride. No one would be that stupid, petty, and spiteful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @10:06PM (4 children)
You mean you expect him to vote for the party that tells him that he should move to California and learn to program?
Interesting..
I would suggest he is more likely to vote for the party that tells him they want to bring back basic manufacturing jobs to america - you know - the things HE does.
He will also probably vote for the party that protects his right to own a gun (because that makes him feel strong), and does constantly tell him that he be bad for being white and male.
Why the fuck would he vote for the Dems?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Joe Desertrat on Friday February 22 2019, @11:32PM
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Sure they TELL him that. They don't do it though, do they? The only way those jobs will come back in any quantity that matters is if the working conditions, including relative pay, fall to the standards of the places the jobs were exported to in the first place. The manufacturing may come back without that, but most of the blue collar jobs will be lost to automation.And it's the party he votes for that not only makes sure that is the way it happens (they both share guilt in this), but they also strive to eliminate the social safety nets that could buffer the loss of jobs. Then as things get worse the party he votes for continually tell him it is the fault of even poorer people. He fails to notice that they are not getting the wealth he no longer shares in, and he supports those that are now gaining that wealth. But oh, they get to have guns, a fairly useless benefit. Feeling safe from imaginary fears is of little real value.
Things have been steadily getting worse in the US for the middle and lower classes since the "Reagan Revolution", and will only continue to do so as long as long as Republican thoughts and ideals remain in practice.
(Score: 5, Informative) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @11:44PM (2 children)
Democrats aren't saying this. This is literally a right wing troll meme on Twitter dot com directed at out of work journalists.
This is a lie, but I can't blame some people for falling for it. These jobs didn't leave America; they left the Earth, they're leaving humanity. In the last century we outsourced them to the first generation of robots, Chinese people, and now we are rolling out the second generation which are actual mechanical robots. The jobs aren't coming back, but the manufacturing is.
Well, I can't really argue with that. If he wants to keep a firm grip on his penis...I mean gun, to feel "strong" then he's welcome. He'll have plenty of time to spend with his guns since he'll remain unemployed and useless to our oligarchic economy since he was terrible at life priorities and continued to vote for the party that would rather feed his hatred than his belly.
I just never see this, and I'm a white male so I think I would notice. He should take off the "They Live" glasses of imagined white victimhood.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:16AM
You do know why it is a right-wing troll meme don't you?
There was some guy teaching a very few coal miners to code after they were laid off. Good on him and great for those who can learn to code.
The shitty side came when anti-coal journalists started telling all the laid-off workers "learn to code". Throwing it back at the journalists when they in turn were laid off was predictable and justified.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:01AM
Oh, where exactly is China if it's not on Earth?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Friday February 22 2019, @11:42AM (8 children)
This (deimtee's post) is absolutely right.
I am a well-to-do straight white male, qualified with a good safe technical job, and I believe I am good at it. I have all the things I want. However I remain capable of recognising that a poor young white male can feel at the bottom of western society because in fact they are. TV, advertising and the media are constantly drumming in that white straight males are the villains of society, past and present, and surveys show that young white males are the least happy members of western society. It is axiomatic that TV dramas cast them as the losers in the plots with usually a loud black man scoring with the most attractive white girl and the white guy left looking like a geeky twisted incel who is eventually sent back to his basement computer, chess playing, or model railway building*.
Western politicians need to step back and look at what is going on. To ignore or (worse) to try to quash these efects is as dangerous for society as when French or Russion autocrats ignored or tried to quash the discontent of the people leading up to their revolutions. They need to make positive responses, otherwise they are sitting on a time bomb.
Even I, while I am not short of money or employment, feel somewhat like a social outcast. As an engineer keeping things running I am like a Morlock in H.G.Wells' story "The Time Machine". Wells portrayed the Morlocks as the villains but, working machinery underground, they gave a living to the Eloi, a beautiful but usless class of people who swanned around in luxury on the surface. We techies are the Morlocks.
* My advice is give black girls a try. There seem to plenty of them and many prefer white guys and culture over black, and don't have much good to say about the latter, based on experience. They don't have the feminist outlook that many white women have adopted. Many seem to have an illegitimate child or two though, having been dumped afterwards.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 22 2019, @07:19PM
The President of the United states going "wink-wink-nudge-nuge" every time he tells whitey to stop committing acts of terror isn't helping, either.
Why won't the President say "Radical Rightwing Terrorism?"
(Score: 2, Disagree) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @08:43PM (6 children)
They are at the bottom of society because they are poor. The other things don't matter, and in fact, help them out. The problem is that poverty is much stronger than white privilege, so any benefit they get from being white or male is obliterated by being poor.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:23AM (5 children)
So why all the focus on being a white male if it is such a small effect?
Where are all the people clamoring for affirmative action for the poor?
Poor lives matter!!
(Score: 2) by julian on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:36AM (4 children)
My main point is that there is not very much focus on this at all. People falsely believe there is because they consume media which over-reports on fringe issues and rare events which play to the fear and paranoia of white conservatives. It is a combination of selection bias and the availability heuristic. Even the dreaded boogeyman of "affirmative action" barely exists in the real world in the pernicious form that conservatives bemoan. It's almost never the cause of a white/male individual's failure; it's just a convenient excuse and story used by the moneyed elites to direct blame away from themselves.
Black immigrant women didn't take their jobs; capitalists first outsourced it to Asia and then automated it out of existence entirely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @11:50AM (3 children)
I'm not talking measurable results in the real world, but the perceptions promulgated by the media. By that measure those poor white male bastards are under attack and are responding appropriately.
(Score: 2) by julian on Saturday February 23 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)
Then I suggest they find better sources of media. If they stopped watching Fox News, listening to right-wing radio, reading sites like Breitbart and The Daily Caller, then they'd stop feeling so attacked. The "white men are under attack!" coverage is coming from the far-right news sources because that drives traffic, clicks, and ad-revenue among their hypnotized audience.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:21AM
It is not solely the right-wing media. They are the ones pointing out and exagerating the attack, but the left-wing media and popular entertainment ares the ones carrying it out.
Take the script for almost any recent movie or TV show and do a search and replace on the characters. Swap black for white, and male for female.
Now reread the script and tell me that there won't be violent complaints about the treatment of the female black characters.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:01PM
When in my OP I described a typical TV drama where a bitter and twisted young white incel guy ends up back in his basement while the socially-climbing black Jock hero scores it with the most attractive white girl(s) in the cast, I had in mind some recent BBC and ITV dramas. These are mainstream media, not alt-right - in fact they are often accused of left bias.
That is the point. The main stream media is trying to brainwash us into accepting that young white guys are crap and are fair game for every kicking in the teeth and every humiliation that they get. What I am saying is that while some white guys are rolling over and lapping it up in a kind of sado-masochism, this will eventually cause a major backlash, and the alt-right glimmerings are the first sign of that reaction. Despite, being in a comfortable position myself, I can understand it - it is an inversion of what blacks were complaining about 50 years ago in the civil rights movement. Politicians and the media need to be beware.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by helel on Friday February 22 2019, @10:00AM (26 children)
Quite frankly it doesn't matter whether you think their feelings are right or wrong. What maters is whether you want the number of individuals involved in these groups to go up or down.
If you want more young people to join these groups then all you have to do is dismiss their feelings, insult them, and blame them. You have to drive them from polite society and treat them as a dangerous other. Once you have labeled anyone struggling with hateful thoughts as unworthy of respect they'll be easy pickings when somebody else comes along and tells them "it's not you, it's them" or "this is why we can't let them in our country."
On the other hand if you want to reduce the membership of these groups you need a different approach. You need to acknowledge their feelings, particularly their pain. You need to address their concerns and difficulties. You need to treat them as equals and treat them as worthy of respect.
Look, I know it's hard work to sit down and have a real conversation with somebody you disagree with. I know it's emotionally hard to treat them with love and respect. I also know it's the only way to get through to people.
tl;dr: Have you ever changed your opinion because somebody insulted you? No? Well then why the fuck would you expect somebody else to change their world view when you insult them?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Friday February 22 2019, @11:21AM (7 children)
Men don't have the privilege to complain, only women do. This is why "you are the snowflake" is apparently some sort of retort.
If someone's first response to a victim is "first of all, you are complaining about abuse so stop that" and yet maintain complete silence over the abuse being hurled over those victims, then at least some percentage of those victims are going to say "fuck it, I will play the same game".
The reality is that the real Nazis - the ones who think state and private sector are obliged to engineer society - the real definition of Nazism - have co-opted the ideas of the 60s and 70s and are hiding under the label of liberalism and its offshoots, and just like the real nazis their support base is unsuspecting public.
When shit hits the fan which it eventually will, I am sure we will find a large number of common people saying "I didn't know this was happening" just like the Germans after losing WW2.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @02:37PM (3 children)
What a load of projecting nonsense, you have swallowed too much propaganda. I get that you feel marginalized but that is because you are accepting the narrative which wants you to feel that way. Note that the narrative comes from your ideological "allies" to cover up the theft and destruction of US society.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 22 2019, @08:09PM
These poor victims can't handle the mean words.
That's definitely more important than the actual terrorism and murder this story is about.
(Score: 5, Touché) by cubancigar11 on Saturday February 23 2019, @07:37AM (1 child)
I am not in the USA and I see that problem in every country which is closely aligned to USA policy by will or force. YOU are the ignorant American who hasn't bothered learning an iota about other places. News flash: registering democrat doesn't make you a better person, more compassionate, scientific etc. It doesn't make you anything.
And note: I have called you ignorant American not ignorant liberal. IF you ever find your empty head out of your ass I would suggest you take steps to cure your ignorance. Why do you think it was important to point out that the hate groups are increasing "Largely Thanks to Young, White men"? The scourge of society - young, white, men. But if you ever find yourself wandering through a non-white democratic country you will find that the scourge of society is not white, it changes into whatever majority group makes up the labor class - young men.
And that propaganda is coming from... let me guess the republican party of the USA. Or patriarchy, quite possibly. Or maybe I am Russian. One thing is for sure - I want to destroy America.
Personally, I feel neither marginalized nor I have accepted any "narrative". In fact, I feel very empowered and slightly frustrated by how many fucking retards have yet to get their comeuppance in this world, but my life otherwise is quite well and I am very happy because ultimately I have stopped giving two shits about what happens to this world after I die. And believe me, the world will be a better place if more men felt that way.
You are an idiot. My ideological allies - pfft! I almost ignored this thread because I knew there is always somebody more disappointingly stupid than those whose existence I have already accepted to ignore.
You had no fucking great society, you idiot! Your ancestors fucking ran away from great societies to plunder and kill and refuse to pay taxes - like what - 4 or 5 generations ago? I am not a native English speaker yet YOU don't know what theft means. How many Americans have died due to hunger this year? Let me when that number reaches 5 digits and we will start talking about "theft".
People like you and a bunch of other people I see on this website make me question if ye olde website was just as big an echo-chamber of unwise narrow-minded little babies who can't be arsed to educate themselves.
If USA didn't have as much of an influence on the rest of the world through power, I wouldn't bother commenting - and I don't mostly don't. But somehow I still feel a duty to educate fellow geeks. Believe me - I am reining in my urge.
Here is what you need to do: find evidence of whatever you have said is true. Instead of talking out of your arse you tell me WHO has spread this propaganda (and you can't link to SPLC), what is my ideology (yeah - put a name on it), and who are my "allies".
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday February 23 2019, @11:28AM
Oh, crap! We have triggered CubanCigar#11! This after Fustawrench went ballistic in the election fraud journal, and Runaway was cruelly and deservedly mocked and insulted in his own journal! Where will it end? (I have read Cuban's post three times, still not sure what he is saying. Just saying. ) Oh, TMB is a twit, Runaway is a racist, and Cuban is a pansy. Did I leave anyone out?
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 22 2019, @07:21PM (2 children)
Men don't have the privilege to complain,
I see a whole bunch of men complaining in this very thread.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DrkShadow on Saturday February 23 2019, @01:14AM
Can you cite any news article or popular story?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:58AM
You see that as a problem.
Which was what I said.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Friday February 22 2019, @12:27PM (4 children)
While logically I understand you, I wasted countless hours in completely civil discussions with Trump supporters in 2015 and 2016 and didn't change a damn thing.
It's like trying to convince my parents that Pope Francis is an evil person for not making his first papal act the stripping of Cardinal Law of his position for Law's role in the Boston Diocese pedophile coverup scandal. I would have an easier time getting a toaster to change its mind. So you know what? I've given up trying. I don't insult bigots because it wastes my time, but I won't engage them either.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @04:58PM (1 child)
You're not going to change their minds until their situations change. Notice where his support is coming from, these are people who in many cases have been left behind. They aren't attaching responsibility to the right group, but they're not likely to change their minds until and unless they see tangible changes in their own lives, or at least their community.
I'm more of a progressive and have serious issues with MAGA, but it's really hard to get onboard with some of these policies when I've seen so many undeserving people get help that I could never get, merely because of the color of their skin or gender. In many cases, it would come at the expense of not just me, but people who needed help even more than I did.
You can't fight racism by being racist in a different way. And as long as we ignore the fact that the biggest problem that these people at the bottom of society deal with is economic, not race or sex related, the longer this is going to continue to be a problem.
If we get the income inequality managed to a more reasonable level and there's still issues with those other problems, at that point, it's a conversation that might actually go somewhere. But, as long as we're treating it like a zero-sum game and these white men are blamed for the problems, you're just not going to convince them that their reality isn't real. It feels very real to them and to a large extent is real.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday February 23 2019, @01:43PM
Before I start, I do accept that the major problem is economic and not related to race, sex, religion, and so forth. But I think most of the stuff being labeled as "racist in a different way" is not racist at all. Say you have a set of Walmarts in New York City with the same regional manager and 60% of the bottom level workers are non-white and 50% of the bottom level workers are women, 30% of the assistant department managers are not white men, 10% of the department managers are not white men, 0% of assistant store managers are not white men, 0% of store managers are not white men. If a policy is instituted to promote women and non-whites over white men, that's not "racist in a different way". That's stripping out the effects of the previous racist policy. The white men upset that their own shot at promotion just got kneecapped have to remember that all of the women and non-whites in the store faced the same situation for the past twenty years. In effect, the white man complaint is still racist - unintentionally, but racist - "You can't treat me the same way they have been treated! That's not fair! I was treated better back then and I deserve better treatment now!"
Now again, the real problem is that Walmart and chains like it screw their employees and there should have been a nationwide strike for a $15 if not $20 minimum pay years ago. But policies to undo the effects of racism are not automatically racist.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Friday February 22 2019, @08:19PM (1 child)
You don't know what you've done until you've done it. "For years, there were people who politely told me I was wrong, and then I realized I was." is difficult when you're the one who's doing the telling, because it seems like nothing has registered even if it has.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday February 23 2019, @01:29PM
You're right, of course. And my own political views have evolved over time because of the same kind of intelligent discussion. But I've grown less patient with age, and I think the internet that helped shape my views had a smaller percentage of flame wars and trolling as a proportion of total content than we have today.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 22 2019, @03:33PM (11 children)
Well, actually, yes. Just yesterday. A whole bunch of people insulted me in my journal. This morning I woke up a liberal!!
And, if you believe that, I can get some bridges for you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @05:28PM (8 children)
We tried readonable discussion, we tried facts, you throw it all in our faces and repeat your nasty worldview. Are you one of those new-age types that only believes in positive reinforcement?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 22 2019, @05:52PM (3 children)
No, I believe in the power of negative reinforcement as well. Your left leaning lamestream media tells you all kinds of negative crap, and some of you eat it up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @06:18PM
Ah yes, Gaslight Obstruct Project!
That was supposed to be a humorous interpretation of the acronym not a how-to guide.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:02AM (1 child)
This is your argument? Seriously? Maybe you should spend some time comparing what comes from "left leaning lamestream media" and the right leaning news sources we have and you apparently believe. Any time I have been forced to listen to Fox News and the like I have heard an unending stream of BS aimed at provoking outrage and fear among a population that apparently wants to be outraged and afraid for little real reason. And BS is a rather polite term for what they spew. The level of "facts" and "truth" that come from Fox News is well below any other mainstream outlet, and there are not any other popular right wing sources doing any better.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:36AM
That's why you don't listen to Fox any more than you listen to lamestream. Get your news from a dozen sources or more outside of the US. The BBC has always been reliably unreliable. That is, they have their spin, but they are consistent.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday February 22 2019, @08:02PM (3 children)
I think we are finally getting through to Runaway. The realization you are being insulted is the first step to admitting you have a problem. Soon we will hear, "Hello, my name is Runaway2019, and I am a Fox News viewer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:50AM (2 children)
The realization you are being insulted is the first step to admitting the insulters have a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @07:19AM
oooh so close!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:28AM
Hello, my name is Runaway1956, and I cannot admit that I have a problem. In fact, everyone who has a problem with me has a problem. I know that Trump is working for the good of America! He is making America Grate again, but keeping out the spics and polacks, increasing the taxes on the rubes, and encouraging the racists amoung us to be even more racist than they were, before. Also, and in addition, he is against abortion, except when he as to pay for one by one of his really hot mistresses, or one-night stands with Golden Showers.
Oh, Runaway! There are so many ways you are wrong, so much you do not know, and so many ways in which you are being manipulated by those much smarter than you, but with less morality, even given the low level of morality you possess. You are stupid, Runaway! Stupid! A moron! Uneducated, non-eriudite, knowledge deficient, dumb. Insults will continue until enlightenment occurs, if it ever does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @07:59PM (1 child)
Slightly used, moderately stained, Troll bridges for sale? You are such an idiot, Runaway! You're not even doing it right!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:13PM
I think we're seeing some signs that Runaway is either old enough to be getting dementia of some sort OR it is actually a paid agent trying to keep the narrative alive.
(Score: 2) by julian on Friday February 22 2019, @08:33PM
That's why I refrain from talk about race or gender when I'm arguing for progressive policies. I focus on framing issues on class and economic privilege. But it's a two way street. Far too many poor white people seem perfectly content to stay poor as long as they can feel superior to immigrants, foreigners, ethnic minorities, women, and liberals. I can't help those people, and they can't help themselves either.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Spamalope on Friday February 22 2019, @11:16AM (7 children)
This is off the original topic, but I want to respond to this.
You're obviously in some sort of very insulated situation.
You haven't missed a raise or promotion based on your race or gender have you? While being told white men make too much? A city department here was finally sued because they hadn't promoted a white man for over 20 years. Discovery revealed who'd been told they missed promotion due to having lower scores on internal testing when in fact they scored higher but there was an internal policy not to promote white males (naturally not disclosed to white men they recruited).
I bet you haven't had a group of female co-workers corner you and tell you that you must fabricate and plant evidence of sexual misconduct against a male co-worker (I was in a position to plant convincing, damning evidence). If I refused to conspire with them, they said they'd each file separate sexual misconduct allegations against me. HR told me I'd be terminated immediately if there was a complaint, and that the blackmail was just my word and my problem. (HR director turned out to be a co-conspirator... :/) Later one of the women threatened to file against me unless I had an affair with her. I found out that for any matter involving sexual allegations if the accuser is female then the male is assumed to be the perpetrator and is summarily arrested - even in the case of blackmail base on false accusations. So they were legally shielded and I faced jail time, and risked prison based on a 3v1 verbal accusation only case - because of the gender bias in law. I know of multiple instances of this happening to people I know - not an anonymous 'net person. aka this isn't isolated
I bet you haven't had a co-worker threaten a rape accusation unless I worked weekends to do her work, have you. I have. (different place/people)
I bet you haven't been reprimanded, reassigned and lost a raise for turning down a date with a female co-worker who turned out to be politically connected, have you? (happened years before the other two, different employer)
So, Julian. How many times do I have to have people tell me I deserve to go to prison to before you'll approve me for feeling attacked since you're the gatekeeper for that? The people making that pronouncement base their conviction on my race and gender, not any action I've taken. They insist that's not racist or sexist, because attacks based on my particular race and sex don't count for reasons. Usually collective guilt will be brought up - some argument like: (a tiny number (as a % of population) of rich, powerful old people did something wrong, so as a powerless poor person of the same race/gender of some of them you deserve to be punished because of what some other person did.
And this stuff is one small facet of bias. Do you not feel aggrieved because you're in an insular position, you're blind to it or you agree with what appears to be an 'original sin' for only men narrative so you think you deserve it?
I've seen this stuff repeatedly, but only seen a hate group type scumbag in real life once. (Vidor appears to deserve its reputation as a racist shit stain)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 22 2019, @03:38PM (5 children)
You are either a better man than I am, or less of a man than I am. If a gaggle of people corner me as you describe, I will resort to violence. The bastards can kill me, if they are big and bad enough to do so - but they can't bend me to their will. Fuck blackmail.
(Cue the crowd who insists that violence never solved anything.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kalas on Friday February 22 2019, @07:27PM (1 child)
Yep, just the kind of brilliant reasoning skills I've come to expect from you. Why risk arrest for false rape accusations when you can guarantee arrest for assault while doing nothing to stop the rape accusations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:05PM
Not so much that violence never solves anything, just that Runaway never does. It's that intelligence thing we were talking about.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:36AM (2 children)
It's been pointed out that under its own criteria, the SPLC is a hate group. It's also been said that the only way to stop hate is to stand up to it. Also works with bullies and blackmail.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:48AM (1 child)
Hmm, the old "Double Negative" meme, eh? Non-functional, Soylentil!
It is reported that once a Logician pontificated in a lecture that "while a double negative results in a positive, it has never been maintained that a double positive results in a negative!" From the back of the auditorium, an unidentifed voice intoned: "Yeah, right!"
So here we have it. Opposing racism by supporting mechanism to eradicate racism, is racist (affirmative action, for you not too bright Brietbarf White superpremises). And opposing Fascism, by punching Nazis in the face, castrating them, burning their asses completely off, and dropping 2000 pound bombs on them, is itself fascism. And finally, though I imagine there is much, much more: working to expose hate groups is being a hate group. None of this is logically correct. Hating whites who think that they are being hated for being white, when they are being hated for thinking they are being hated for being white, because, you know, they are fucking racists, is not hating them for being white! It is only OK to be white when you do not think it is OK to be white, because white is not a thing. Fuck you, whitey! Hating racists, and seeking to prosecute them for their crimes, is not racism, or hatred; it is justice.
So, Rexiac, you fucking cowardly craven yellow-bellied racist son of a bitch, do you feel lucky? Are you on SPLC watchlist? Huh? Do yah?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:42PM
Another quality faux outrage job; ol' Clint would be alarmed by the imitation.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:34AM
The obvious rebuttal is, you must be a fucking pervert! I hope you never work in a place I work, because I have worked where people like you worked, and we had to all get together to fabricate some offence to get rid of them before they actually did something, and came back to the workplace with condoms or firearms. I hope you never work anywhere again, since obviously you are not suitable for polite company. Please die by auto-asphyxiation, or something similar, before you harm others. Or, go to prison. You will find it is a much more egalitarian work place, for incel males like yourself.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Friday February 22 2019, @12:23PM
To add to the point deimtree makes above, I'm a white cis heterosexual male in tech and I'm economically fine. But I have two white cis heterosexual male relatives with college degrees that have been struggling with all kinds of economic and medical bill problems for the past fifteen years. Fifteen years ago they started on the path to blaming all of their problems on feminists, blacks, illegal immigrants, and so forth (though never on LGBT+). They're still angry, they're still frustrated, they're still broke and one is still struggling to find jobs that pay more than minimum wage (he has chronic medical issues that bury him in medical bills and get him fired from most jobs for using too many sick days). Fortunately their political beliefs have evolved and they're now not blaming the situation on feminists, blacks, Latinos, etc... etc... but instead placing the blame where it belongs, on government political policy that screws all of the working class equally.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 22 2019, @02:02PM
Over what time frame? 40 years? I recall hearing recently about a guy [wnep.com] who had a large gun collection and wrote fantasies about ending the world. Would that be the guy you were referring to?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:01PM
> dangerously untrue [itv.com]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 22 2019, @04:33PM (2 children)
Nailed it. That's precisely what's going on here, and some of our worst posters have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. I wish I could smash this into their skulls, but it's never gonna happen.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:40AM (1 child)
Of course it won't... Not with that defeatist attitude.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:50AM
But, you know, their skulls are rather soft. I mean, Fox News and Hannity gets in. Or are they using some other orifice? OMG! Anal-insertion Fox News?!?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @05:38AM (7 children)
So we're to take the word of a group that profits, via more donations, off saying that the number of hate groups are growing at face value?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @05:42AM
I thought they were listed as a hate group.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @04:13PM
Hey -- don't disparage them in this day and age when a black gay man can be attacked and noosed. /s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
Everyone at the SPLC needs to die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:09PM
This is exactly what they were talking about!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 22 2019, @08:00PM (2 children)
Exactly. All this hysteria about "racism" is really about shielding the Jews from their very deserved criticism. The Jews are very afraid because anti-semitism is going back to record highs and more and more people are waking up to just how much abuse of power and destruction Jews are causing to Western societies.
The Jews love to use minorities as their golems and useful idiots and have been since at least the beginning of American history.
Financial profit, to the SPLC and organizations like them, is incidental to their primary goal - shutting down criticism of the Jews. And it's quite obvious they never gave a fuck about the Blacks, you can see the staff of these organizations and for decades the SPLC in particular has been notorious for having like 1 or 2 Black people in a staff full of Jews. In a sense, the Jews are using the Blacks as human shields, even as the Jewish lobby successfully caused good Goys to rescind civil rights activist Angela Davis' civil right award due to her support of the BDS movement. Israel was even caught sterilizing their African migrants.
The historical problem with Jews is they always get too greedy because they are arrogant and prone to short-term thinking. They are experts in daily dealings with accounting and the stock market, not so good in wondering why people who had their societies subverted by them are revolting against them. Then it's back to MUH HOLOCAUST.
Something about tightening a grasp and stuff falling through the fingers -- and nobody is doing a better job of attacking free speech worldwide than the Jews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:53AM
Ethanol still at +2? Will not someone rid us of the troublesome troll? He is damaging the reputation of SoylentNews!
And, I have it on good authority, both that we know where Eth works, which puts him at risk, and that he is being paid by Mossad, which puts them and the Benjamins (Netanyahu) at risk. So mod to save SoylentNews, y'all!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 23 2019, @02:59PM
Actually, that's a good point; teach typical-liberal short-term thinking to a brain that (in the usual way of coddled intellectuals) is already way too good at convincing itself of things that ain't so (witness how many secular Jews are leftarded -- a problem not generally shared by Orthodox Jews), and the result is Jews dumb enough to advocate for importing Muslims by the boatload... then wondering why anti-Semitism is on the rise, despite that it's been plainly laid out for them in advance:
The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. -- from the hadith Sahih Muslim, 41:6985
But you won't see the SPLC complaining about *that*.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Friday February 22 2019, @05:42AM
But SPLC won't have a clue. They are a propaganda arm of far left who are as objective as the hate groups they claim to identify.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 22 2019, @05:58AM (26 children)
Now the SPLC isn't exactly rigorous in their standards for qualifying for this list but let's go with their numbers for a worst case scenario. 1020 groups? Let's be generous and assume 100 members each. That's a hundred thousand people and change, assuming they all only belong to one group each. Actual collected membership numbers are about a tenth of this but let's be silly for the sake of argument. Out of well over three hundred million people. So less than one out of every three thousand people. Yep, sure sounds like something worth raising holy hell and declaring them the boogymen hiding under everyone's bed to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 22 2019, @06:12AM (10 children)
One per 3E3 people who care enough to join and maybe attend meetings. That's probably good enough to get continuing support from the others in the group, and start insinuating their comfort with actionable racism into the surrounding population (assuming they're geographically distributed sufficiently, which is unlikely). Seems like the ones who are racist-weaboo enough to attend hate conventions aren't hiding under peoples' beds -- or maybe they're just bored in these communities, with not much else to do after work is out.
I have a sort of cognitive dissonance going on these things -- are they motivated enough to make their racism actionable, in which case it would seem like in the land of opportunity, they'd have enough interesting things to pursue to not have time to make this kind of stuff a priority on their time; or are they not really that motivated and are just going along with the crowd, in which case they're just listening to the wrong information sources and randomly blowing off aggressive tendencies? Or do I not have the picture right here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:16AM (2 children)
What is actionable racism?
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Friday February 22 2019, @08:43AM
Sounds like racism against whites?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 22 2019, @09:01PM
'Actionable' is not the right word here. I meant the kind of thing where you'd go out and participate in rallies, distribute flyers, proactively engage people, show up on TV, strategize, etc., rather than complaining to friends and family, harassing or calling the cops on people walking through your neighborhood, choosing who to associate with, and voting accordingly (and maybe writing your congresspeople).
Something more about making public statements and strategies against it in the context of it being a 'larger-scale threat' rather than individual behaviors based on a personal prejudice/preference.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday February 22 2019, @02:13PM (5 children)
Add me to the list of people wondering what "actionable racism" means. In a dictionary, "actionable" means [oxforddictionaries.com] "giving sufficient reason to take legal action". Sounds like a fine stream of bullshit to me.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 22 2019, @09:20PM (4 children)
By 'Insinuating their comfort with actionable racism', I misused 'actionable' when referring to public, proactive forms of racism in my reply above [soylentnews.org]. I'm further insinuating that the surrounding population would then start feeling more comfortable and justified, and may eventually amplify their own (personal, individual) racist behaviors and tendencies.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:17AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 23 2019, @04:53AM (2 children)
To continue on my previous remark, this is vague and pedantic scorekeeping. We're discussing groups with minute presence who might be getting slightly more numerous, maybe. It's an SPLC thing to make mountains of molehills. That's their bread and butter.
I think it's pathological to puff up such things. This isn't some weird war of entrenchment where slight moves in relative power have long term consequences. It's just short term shifts, which might not have even happened.
My view is the best defense against racism is fair and equal treatment for all ethnic groups and elimination of favoritism/patronage and double standards in this area. I think that has mostly happened.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday February 23 2019, @06:01AM (1 child)
One in 20,000 people, sure. One in 3000, I'm a little less comfortable calling minute. I'm saying they don't have to be numerous to influence a halo of people they know, unless they mostly spend time within their echo chamber (which is probable) and less with 'outreach'.
Agreed; I see it more as a recurring ground-level tendency across a reasonably-sized population and those sympathetic or on the fence with those ideas, not movements of monolithic power structures.
And it's a sufficient portion of the voting population thing to elect someone based on his promise of making a giant fence out of a border with a country that's 'not sending us their best people', to keep out people who (ostensibly) come here for work and a more stable civil situation and aren't bringing their own tools, much less weapons. No question that that part of the voting bloc would rally behind someone who promised another shot at making that happen.
Fundamentally, I see it as a bunch of seeds and less as a state of affairs. I'm not saying they'll necessarily grow, thrive, convince, or disperse themselves sufficiently to the general population, but if they do and they're spread widely enough, there are enough of them to influence others. Kind of like both the contagion-vs-vaccine situation. And we have daily evidence that a lot of the population is fertile ground and welcomes that kind of ideology.
Well, it seems like more police brutality stories nowadays cover people roughly equally re: skin color, so ... progress?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday February 23 2019, @01:51PM
Are you joking?
The 2999 in 3000 also have halos too, you know.
Who before Trump was creating a more stable civil situation? It's nice that you're applying standards to Trump, but I'm not seeing a lot of presidents meet even those limited standards before him. And what's the point of caring that a part of a part of a voting block is anti-immigration to some degree?
Then maybe you should start caring about the allegedly fertile ground then. For example, you wondered [soylentnews.org] why the supporters didn't have time to do other things.
Check the economy. We had a big crisis back in 2008 from a poor attempt under Bush II to recover from the dotcom bubble way back when, then Obama was more interested in attacking business than fixing what was broke. There's been almost two decades of ham-handed efforts economically.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:17AM
Going by my personal experiences, they just like to have someone to blame their problems on and generally bitch about. I've not personally met anyone old enough to buy beer who gives enough of a shit to even be rude in public.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Friday February 22 2019, @09:25AM (12 children)
Isn't exactly rigorous?!
Seriously read up on that organization. They have absolutely no credibility. They make things up at will to suit a particular agenda.
The correct reaction when you see that organization's name is laughter and complete disregard for everything else in the story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:09AM (3 children)
Don't people say the same thing about climate change? Is the SPLC the purveyor of that hoax as well?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @01:20PM (2 children)
The SPLC are self admitted grievance grifters [splcenter.org]
When Maajid Nawaz [washingtontimes.com] was assaulted [standard.co.uk] the other day, people who the SPLC would like to label a plethora of "ists" were the first to express their outrage.
The SPLC is not a credible organization.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:13PM (1 child)
Whatever. SPLC certainly draws out the haters and loonies, so we can know who they are! Everyone repeating the "no credibility" meme goes on the list. It's an anonymous list, because anonymous is everywhere. Expect us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @08:57AM
And when they down mod posts pointing out that they go on the list, they go on the list twice! Guess what happens if you down mod this post, linked as it is to SJW central, where we have control over the camera on you laptop. Ewww! Stop that! Nasty!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 22 2019, @03:48PM (6 children)
I thought that way. In fact, I thought that way fairly recently. But, I'm beginning to wonder if that's the right thing to do. The problem is, they haven't dried up and blown away, yet. They haven't gone broke, yet. They haven't learned that they are irrelevant, yet. They are still around, with a war chest of millions, funneling their propaganda into the lamestream media. And, people suck it up, taking it as gospel.
Maybe it would be better if some of the organizations that SPLC accuses were to sue them. Hell, it may not even matter if some, most, or all the suits are lost. Just tie the bastards up in court for forever, and suck all the money out of them.
The SPLC is an enemy of the American people. They contribute to the whole identity politics divisiveness in this country.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday February 22 2019, @08:26PM (1 child)
Truly, you are an idiot, Runaway!
Under US law, truth is an absolute defence against a charge of libel. None of these groups could have grounds to sue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:54PM
Both sides, very fine people, the best. No one is less racist than Runaway! All those hate groups? Fake NEWBZ!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:06AM
That's the key. I can't get worked up over such organizations because they're squandering the money of people who might be otherwise inclined to cause more harm in some other way. The supporters of SPLC will virtue signal in some way. Might as well be a way that is completely ineffective.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:05PM (2 children)
"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
-- Booker T Washington, UP FROM SLAVERY (1911)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:17PM (1 child)
Booker T. Washington knew this guy? http://www.capitolhilloutsider.com/just-a-two-day-anger-fit-reverend-al/ [capitolhilloutsider.com] That's a great little cartoon in the top right of the story.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:35PM
It's an old family business. :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 23 2019, @03:18AM
So you're saying I'm not all that bad at understatement then?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @11:46AM (1 child)
I am far more concerned with the 1 billion persons plus who have declared war on the rest of humanity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @08:11PM
China?