Grand old rags

[supergee]

I more and more agree with Jehovah’s Witnesses that pledging allegiance to cloth violates one of God’s explicit instructions. But people are, as Korzybski said, symbol-minded, and they take offense at anyone burning their symbol or even refusing to worship it. Furthermore, they believe that pulling down statues removes their subjects from history when there are still history books (and, as may be more relevant to them, history TV shows). But symbol-mindedness cuts both ways.

My image of the late unpleasantness at Charlottesville is the swastika next to the Confederate battle flag. They always belonged together: symbols of nations that were brutal to a subset of their own population, fought against America because of it, and lost. These people have pledged their allegiance to the Nazi flag, and I hope that enough of our fellow citizens still have enough justified loathing for that particular symbol to judge them by it. Which reminds me…

There is of course no alt-left, no group on the other side anywhere near as hydrophobically hate-ridden as the rabble at Charlottesville. But even if there were, remember: The last time we fought Nazis, we teamed up with the Communists.

Comments

[sartorias]

We did team up with the Communists who, it turned out, were repressing their own people with a brutality that made the Nazis look mild in comparison.

[supergee]

They were both so far from decent human behavior that I find it hard to distinguish.

[sartorias]

Yup.

[johnpalmer]

*Because* they were oppressing their people, or because they told some awfully nice sounding lies?

That's an important point to remember, because the Confederacy and the Nazis are celebrated, not for the kindly lies but for the brutal oppression.

[cmcmck]

No enemies to the left.

Good advice then, good advice now!

[amyvanhym]

There is certainly a group on the left that evidence suggests is more hate-ridden than the far right: Antifa. Yes, they are communists. And they're good at tactics: large groups of them like to dress up in all black and cover their faces to escape the consequences of their violence by blending into their crowd. But since they like to spraypaint messages like "Liberals get the bullet too" on college campus walls, violently attack peaceful demonstrations with weapons, and in the absence of police (mysteriously told to stand down by far-left mayors) beat makeshift peacekeepers in the head with bikelocks, I wouldn't recommend teaming up with them.
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[snippy]

I'm gonna second this from Portland (Oregon) where the antifa have caused a great deal of pain and sorrow in most of the marches and protests over the last few years, including setting fire to trash cans they've pulled into the middle of an intersection, breaking store windows with bricks and bats, and assaulting people who were trapped in the area but not participating in the march/protest.

[amyvanhym]

Yeah, Portland is notorious for extremism. I've seen a lot of rumblings that Antifa has a lot of paid participants, that this mayhem is being funded heavily from above, but I haven't found the hard proof yet.

[minoanmiss]

I will believe that the antifa are worse than the alt-right when they call for my and my household's extermination as the alt-right has. (No, I don't think "Liberals get the bullet too" is such a statement -- it's a hyperbolic expression of frustration.) Until then, in the context of your other statements in Supergee's journal, this appears to be a false equivalence designed to excuse and support the alt-right. The antifa indulge in violence they think is justified (as my phrasing would indicate I think they're wrong about that) but at least they oppose the people who would kill me and others like me for who we are -- I read just tonight an unapologetic fascist's desire for a race war so White people could 'demolish' Black people. I know who poses a greater danger to me.

[amyvanhym]

(I'm sorry this is so long. But I've written it now and I don't know what to remove.)

Antifa is worse than the alt-right because they routinely initiate actual strategic violence against not just property, but people; and even more so because their violence is enabled by some sympathetic politicians, who tell police to stand down in the middle of the violence. It doesn't matter what anyone is saying when there is violence in the streets. The violence must be stopped. Only then can people talk about their ideas and put the crazy ones to rest.

You said you'll trust that Antifa is worse than the alt-right when they call for exterminations, and then immediately made excuses for exactly such a call, as though it doesn't count. But it does count. It was a publicly-made threat, an expression of intent, spraypainted on the side of a University building, hammer and sickle emblem included. You don't know that the person who spraypainted it didn't really mean it, especially since they did it as part of a physically violent demonstration, during which Antifa members beat nonviolent people in the head with big wooden flagpoles and maced a woman in the face while she was doing an interview. This happened in Berkeley, Feb 1. Then when free speech activists hosted another event in Berkeley mid-April, Antifa came back with the same flagpole weapons. They marched threateningly through barriers into the park, with no police stopping them, no police taking their weapons -- though police had earlier dropped by to take shields away from the free speech activists before abandoning them. Mayhem erupted. Many were injured. Police are on camera saying they were told to stand down. They stood down after disarming only one side, the defensive side.

You call "false equivalence" but I'm not equating. I'm saying Antifa is presently worse, because of the way they operate and the way their violence is enabled by sympathetic politicians. The real kicker is that, whatever their intent, Antifa does not effectively oppose the rise of fascism. Instead they are feeding it. The white identitarians, with their tiki torches, their casual schoolboyish uniforms and nonviolent marching, look comparatively reasonable to a lot of people. Have you seen Richard Spencer speak? He's pretty charismatic. Hitler was also charismatic. Antifa is making white identitarian fascism look good by contrast. Yes, there are a lot of calls for "race war" from the fascists. Lots of "bring it, let's go." And Antifa is bringing it, playing right into their hands. Anti-white racism has been festering on the left for a while, and now anti-black racism is rising up on the right. It's all bad and it must all be rejected.

In Charlottesville, similar to Berkeley, police were told to stand down by Antifa-sympathetic authorities, seemingly so that Antifa could be free to physically beat people of the alt-right for their speech. This created chaos. In the chaos, a woman was killed -- a woman aligned with Antifa. Violence is a danger to everyone. If this escalates to civil war (which I can imagine, if institutional enablers -- side-taking police chiefs, mayors, governors -- aren't dealt with and stopped), people will get hurt and killed, by their enemies and by their own side. No one who wants violence is on the side of the people.

I'm reminded of Westboro Baptist Church, of how so many people came together to peacefully demonstrate against Wesboro and, by being patient and law abiding, and by focusing upon love of one another more than upon hate of the other side, they contained and defeated Westboro. We don't really hear from Westboro anymore. The people stood up against Westboro and won without violence. I bet the same response would beat the white nationalists/fascists/identitarians.

[johnpalmer]

You know - attributing actions and beliefs to a disorganized group isn't necessarily a wise choice. Further, "Antifa is jut as bad as..." is a great weapon for the alt-right, nazis, etc., to use, because they depend on "we're not so bad, because other people are JUST as bad!"

Bad things happen when there are large crowds of agitated people. Sports championships create riotous behavior (in the negative sense of the word). Be very cautious about assuming that there's *horrible* behavior, *unthinkable* behavior, until you see strong evidence.

Both the rightwing and the media loves them some "but really, *both* sides are bad." You can almost sympathize with Trump not realizing that murderous nazis are a step too far.

Note that none of this is written in defense of any actions or words - merely a caution that generally unreported scuffles might suddenly be magnified, that random, anonymous graffiti might suddenly be attributed, that singular, anonymous actions might be given an author and purpose,

As for "In Charlottesville, similar to Berkeley, police were told to stand down by Antifa-sympathetic authorities, seemingly so that Antifa could be free to physically beat people of the alt-right for their speech". That's fascinating - you have a witnessed quote, an e-mail, or other thing, wherein authorities expressed support for Antifa beating people? Because that sentence, as written, sans evidence, is pure-D bullshit.

Oh, I know, you didn't say that you *knew* that was the reason - you (or someone) just attributed a "seemingly so" based on nothing but imagination. That is, in fact, the very definition of bullshit... saying something that sounds good with a complete lack of regard (if not disregard) for the truth.

Speculative evil is a great weapon against truth and common decency.

[arlie]

Interesting that I only just heard about antifa - from mainstream news sources - yesterday.

[amyvanhym]

I don't bother with mainstream sources much anymore, but I did come across this the other day. Where the writer mentions violence, it's either in very general terms, or refers to property destruction. No mention of Antifa's many attacks on people. It seems crafted to get away with making Antifa look not-so-bad, without revealing their bias. I'd blame stupidity over malice, but with this much money behind the messengers, the stupid ones must be getting edged out.

[johnpalmer]

I've heard of people dressed in black, with black masks, attacking people with baseball bats. Some people have claimed photographic evidence.

What I didn't see was the social media outrage showing the sorts of injuries a baseball bat does to a person. Such injuries can be very photogenic. I'm sure the alt-right, because of their lack of a persecution complex, has simply been quietly accepting of this vio...ahem, accepting of the...I... BWAHAHAHA! I'm sorry, I tried.