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On August 14 2017 04:46 micronesia wrote: I think DPB is talking about extremists in the USA, and in general it's not unreasonable to think that the left-wing extremists by some measures are less dangerous or violent than the right-wing extremists. What it comes down to is what exactly you are referring to. I'm sure the worst left-wing extremists can give the worst right-wing extremist a run for his/her money, but if you back it up to the 1% of the population in each direction, you will see statistically significant differences in displayed behaviors. I haven't researched this but it wouldn't surprise me if each group acted out in different ways (although both groups do some pretty bad things lets be honest).
While possibly to some extend true, that's no different to the situation in germany.
Or anywhere else I suppose. But any examples you give of the situation in Germany are not necessary what the situation is in the USA (what the thread is about) or anywhere else. I sympathize with the problem you have described in Germany (isn't there a headline right now that some American tourist did a Nazi salute and then got beat up by some random German person?)
That reasoning will get you nowhere though. People in germany are not magically different. If your argument is "it's not what the situation in the US is - fair enough. But as i pointed out, you quite literally go down the exact same route as germany did which led to what happened on G20 or generally on every first of may.
And yeah, 41 year old american got beat up after giving the hitler salute multiple times. He had 2.76 thousands blood alcohol level (no idea how it's described in the US, but he was hammered). Don't worry though, not just american idiots that do it, a week beforehand two chinese got arrested for the same thing and got away with 500 euros bail each. In germany, where we actually understand what the salute means, people are.. "touchy".
Left wing extremists took over houses and turned certain parts of cities basically into "law free zones". Not entirely, but close enough. That wasn't seen as a problem, with exactly the justification you just brought up. "They don't do harm, they don't bother anyone really"
Where did I say this? Can you point to it?
The entire post i was quoted was trying to point out that left wing extremists generally aren't as bad (less violent, less dangerous), hence shouldn't be condemned as much. As farvacola pointed out with his statistics, that's just plain wrong: there's no difference in quality of the violence, not even in death toll (relative). You just have less left wing extremists, something that will go up especially with a president that has to be opposed and is an extremist himself.
and most importantly the all time favourite "they're not as bad as right wing extremists" - and keep in mind, we have a considerably lower bar for what counts as right wing extremism based on our past.
Obviously if the right wing extremists and the left wing extremists are equally bad (in Germany), then it's incorrect and potentially damaging to say the left wing extremists are not as bad as the right wing extremists. If the right wing extremists are worse than the left wing extremists, then it's correct to say the right wing extremists are worse than the left wing extremists. Using the fact that right wing extremists are worse than left wing extremists to try to justify a position that the left wing extremists aren't a problem is certainly a poor way to go about this discussion, but arguing that people shouldn't say the right wing extremists (in a given country) are worse even when they are is a bit unreasonable.
Again, as farvacola pointed out, they're not just equally bad in germany. You also are arguing as if you established the fact that left wing extremists are "better", something that i find rather funny. If anything, it's opinion against opinion here, because the only statistically relevant difference between right wing and left wing extremism is that you have less of it. And no, that doesn't mean that left wing extremists generally are less deadly, it simply means that you have less left wing extremists than right wing extremists.
Extremism is extremism. There's no justification or "well they're not bad". Left, right, religious: it all ends up being the same, just with different reasoning.
Even if there is only one extremist in the whole country? Speaking in absolutes about groups of people tends to make you wrong.
So who's doing that? Banning people from discussing facts? I don't see the correlation between "banning from discussing facts" (which has nothing to do with extremism) and what we're talking about.
Anyway, lets move on. You guys think that left wing extremism is fine, you deal with that later down the line. Keep one thing in mind though: extremists (regardless of ideology) are violent. Nurturing violent groups in a country where you can buy deadly weapons at a kiosk might be the not the best idea (as was clearly shown with right wing extremists, these are nurtured too). But what do i know, left wing extremism would never go violent apart from the fact that they're as likely to go violent and kill people as a right wing extremist.
On August 14 2017 14:23 Nebuchad wrote: Apparently, from what I've read on Youtube and Twitter from "prominent thinkers" of the bankrupt side of politics, the take on Charlotteville will be that the left caused this by being too oppressive against the right and that we should expect more of that in the future because of our mean attitude or something like that?
Read that under a few pens, it's laughable as usual, was wondering if that's the dominant response.
Suggesting that the left is to be blamed for Charlottesville is indeed ridiculous. However, the left (and especially the "tribal" part of the left that doesn't seek debate nor discussion) is clearly not completely innocent in the rise of the alt/far-right.
Can't imagine who you would consider "completely innocent in the rise of the alt/far-right"?
Beyond the obvious of babies or whatever.
Well, that's a fair point, no one. But the point is that left-wing extremism breeds right-wing extremism and vice-versa.
On August 14 2017 17:42 Nebuchad wrote:
On August 14 2017 17:13 OtherWorld wrote:
On August 14 2017 14:23 Nebuchad wrote: Apparently, from what I've read on Youtube and Twitter from "prominent thinkers" of the bankrupt side of politics, the take on Charlotteville will be that the left caused this by being too oppressive against the right and that we should expect more of that in the future because of our mean attitude or something like that?
Read that under a few pens, it's laughable as usual, was wondering if that's the dominant response.
Suggesting that the left is to be blamed for Charlottesville is indeed ridiculous. However, the left (and especially the "tribal" part of the left that doesn't seek debate nor discussion) is clearly not completely innocent in the rise of the alt/far-right.
The argument goes like this: because the left hates white people so much, white people are drawn to an identitarian movement where their whiteness is respected and valued => the left fuels the alt-right.
1. The left doesn't hate white people. This is the lie that the right deliberately spreads about the left in order to justify their opposition to equality: "What you're pushing for isn't equality, it's an attack against white people". If this narrative has an influence on the rise of the alt-right, the people to blame are the ones who are pushing it, ie the right.
2. Clearly none of the people who push this bankrupt ideology actually believe that when you criticize something a lot it ends up fueling it, cause 80% of their internet presence has been about criticizing libtards and SJWs. So even if it was true that the left was hating on white people, it would be hypocritical for them to draw a connexion between that and the rise of white identitarianism, since they would therefore be responsible for the rise of SJWism and libtardism themselves.
3. I would be careful creating a distinction between a group that used to be hidden and that is now in the spotlight and a group that used to be inexistent and is now invigorated. White identarianism is clearly the former. Don't let their visibility fool you into believing they used not to exist before the left went all evil on them.
1. The left doesn't hate white people, that's very true and it's indeed a cover-up argument. 2. Well, I mean, it's not hard to see that right-wing extremism creates left-wing extremism and vice-versa. Both are valid, and none came first, that's a circle. When you have two conflicting ways of seeing the world, and a conflict happens, there's only two way out : escalation of conflict then war, or desescalation and compromise. That last part is supposed to be what the government (and institutions, people in power, etc) does. 3. White identarianism existed. But it grew bigger than it was, partly thanks to "SJWism" or whatever is the correct term for the tribal left.
I mean, it's really an escalation of conflict, and the harder one side becomes, the harder the other side responds. Just look at the recent media coverage of the Google memo thing : in the USA, it took a Libertarian website to cool-headedly adress the news (and then The Atlantic, at the top level of seriousness and integrity as always). In France, it took fucking Slate.fr to correctly adress the issue without spreading complete falsehoods. Now, when you have all the newspapers in the country claiming a guy that a guy whose point is basically "I think diversity is important, but I don't think we're doing it right" is "anti-diversity" and should be fired, you have a fringe of people who weren't far-right, who become far-right. And the reverse goes too : when you have thousands of neonazis who violently demonstrate in the open, a fringe of people who weren't far-left become extremists too. And it continues, again and again.
(note : just to be clear, I am absolutely not saying that we should discount the recent events, or that right-wing violence is somehow more acceptable than left-wing violence, etc. Violence from any side should be hardly punished, just like reasonable opinions from any side should be listened to.)
SJWism doesn't reach the potentially nazifiable people in a vacuum. It reaches them through the prism of far right websites, where it is magnified and turned into this dangerous extremist thing that it's really not. There's a reason why you have to add all of these cultural marxist conspiracies in order to create something that would actually be problematic if it were true: because the reality doesn't match the objective that they're trying to reach. When one of the side's extremist is an african-american girl who complains about a white person wearing dreads in an irrational fashion and the other's side extremist is a bunch of torch-wearing hitler-quoting people, even though I understand the appeal of centrism and seeing both sides, I cannot honestly look at the situation and assert that there's a logical cause and effect reaction going on.
If you're going more for Antifa as the opposing side, typically you're going to find berniebros there more than you're going to find SJWs: it's a movement that is to the actual far left, not the american one. The woman who died was a socialist.
It's not a binary thing though, it's a continuum. SJWism doesn't directly reach the potentially nazifiable people, but they reach "hard" right people, who then become potentially nazifiable people. And they reach standard right people, who then become "hard" right people, who then become potentially nazifiable people, etc. And although your point about seeing thing through the prism of websites, newspapers and other medias is very true, it's also valid for everyone (see the Google example, or even the multiple Breibart-esque alt-left websites that are seeing everything as a Big [insert name of an industry here] conspiracy or blaming everything on the mean Patriarchy. Are they as big as Breibart ? No. Will they become as big ? If it continues this way, yes).
And I think it's also useful to compare apples to apples : when one side's extremists are people who manage to get someone fired (and his reputation destroyed) for things he didn't write, and the other side is a bunch of torch-wearing hitler-quoting people, I think the appeal of centrism and the logical cause and effect reaction appears clearer.
The problem isn't whether it's binary or on a continuum, the problem is that it's based on a narrative of lies. If I was tempted to blame the other side for extremism on my side (which I'm not), whether the presentation of the other side that causes my extremism to rise was correct or incorrect would still be a factor. I wouldn't blame my extremism on the other side either way, but I especially cannot blame my extremism on something that I was told the other side does if the other side doesn't actually do it.
You then bring up that some alt-left sites contain fake news, which is not relevant to the point here. Besides, due to the idiotic way the left and the right are separated in the US, the counterpoint to Breitbart and Fox's bullshit isn't "alt-left websites", it's "everything else". So as much as Donald likes to dishonestly bring up "fake news", there is no equivalence there.
You are not comparing apples to apples in the end there. First, your account of the Google memo guy's situation is flawed, and second it shouldn't move anyone on the identitarian scale. There's nothing about "a guy being fired for conservative views" that should cause anyone to have more sympathy for nazism.
Hey, I never talked about blaming or sympathy. Explaining is not excusing, as we have to remind a whole bunch of people every time there's a Jihadi attack ; it also applies there. And if you don't think that things like differential treatment in the media, promotion of spaces reserved to specific minorities, usage of positive discrimination/affirmative action methods, etc, aren't fueling the rise of the far-right, then it's fine, but I'd be curious as to how you explain it. Because yes, while you become a neonazi thanks to lies and biased narratives, you first have to enter the "zone of exposure" to these lies.
As for Google, I'd like to know what you consider as "flawed" in my rendition. He was fired because of the popular backlash, that was led by the press blatantly mischaracterizing his memo. That's facts. Here's a relevant The Atlantic article on the subject. And when you're a random guy, who reads the memo and concludes what this article concludes, what happens ? You lose trust in mainstream medias : they fucked up. But when you lose trust in mainstream medias, you still need to get informed, right ? So what do you do ? Well, you pick non-mainstream medias. That's when you enter the zone of exposure.
I didn't claim that you talked about sympathy, I'm talking about a guy's sympathy for the nazis increasing, which is what we were talking about.
Nonetheless, the reason why understanding isn't excusing is because you can look at the causes for an action without accepting that these causes are actually justified. For example, you can say that a terrorist believes he's righteous because he's fighting against US imperialism without believing that he's justified in his conclusion that he is, indeed, righteous. The equivalent here would be to acknowledge that the right indeed blames the left for the rise in rightwing extremism with an acknowledgement that they are incorrect in doing so. That would be my position. You're going further than that, saying that they are correct in believing that the left's extremism is cause for the right's extremism. We are past understanding at this point, and you have lost me. On top of that, the radical islamist actually have a good point when they criticize the US imperialism. Of course their conclusion that it makes them justified in becoming terrorists is wrong, but they're starting from a correct grievance. Which is not the case in this instance of identity politics versus identitarian politics.
We can have a more in depth discussion about Damore if you want, but that's really out of place given what we're talking about. It seems like you came here with the wish to talk about it and are bending the conversation so that it happens. Anyway, your characterization of the initial memo as "I think diversity is important, but I don't think we're doing it right" is flawed. The memo contains material that appeals directly to the alt-right, in terms of vocabulary and in terms of ideas. The martyrdom aspect can't be overstated either, it's quite clear that things are going pretty much as he planned so far.
The alt-right showing its true ugly, hateful, face and its ties to neo nazis and white supremacists gives a bitter taste to the memory of the "basket of deplorable" incident. Deplorable is an understatement, those people are absolute pond scums.
On August 14 2017 21:29 farvacola wrote: I wonder how Trump's base will take the news when he ends up being forced to get rid of Bannon entirely.
Sam Nunberg, a former political adviser to Donald Trump, warned Sunday of dire consequences for National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Matt Drudge if White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is pushed out of the West Wing.
“If Steve is fired by the White House and a bunch of generals take over the White House there will be hell to pay,” Nunberg, a longtime Trump aide who left the presidential campaign in August 2015, told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview. His comments came after an Axios report that claimed Bannon’s job is in jeopardy due to damaging leaks against McMaster and anger over a recent book touting Bannon’s role on the Trump presidential campaign.
Nunberg told TheDC that he was “very perturbed” by the Axios story and tied in Bannon’s reported downfall to the Drudge Report, which continues to link to stories that are negative to the White House chief strategist.
“Matt should go back into his hobble hole in Miami and listen to techno,” the former Trump campaign adviser said. “Matt should understand that people like me can blow him the fook up. F-o-o-k, Conor McGregor. Blow him the fook up [sic].” (Nunberg was referencing Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor, who pronounces “fuck” as “fook.”)
Drudge has not made it known why he doesn’t favor Bannon on his site. However, he has previously suspected Bannon of leaking in to an email reviewed by TheDC, and he is known to link to articles that paint reported Bannon foe Jared Kushner in a positive light.
“Matt should understand there will be serious fucking consequences if he continues this jihad against Steve Bannon,” Nunberg told TheDC. “I was somebody with [Trump] for four and half fucking years who understood and came up with a formula to win…Matt Drudge is somebody who wants web traffic.”
He added, “I’ll get conservative radio to talk about how Matt Drudge pushed out Steve Bannon so McMaster can control the White House.”
The conflict between McMaster and Bannon spilled out into the open Sunday with McMaster unable to say if he can work alongside the chief strategist during an appearance on “Meet the Press.” Throughout TheDC’s interview, Nunberg focused on the idea that he and Bannon know the voter base that elected the brash New York real estate developer president.
“Nobody elected Donald Trump for McMaster to be in the West Wing,” the former adviser said.
He went on to say that McMaster nor White House chief of staff John Kelly can “hide behind their service.” Like Drudge, Nunberg said he would “blow” McMaster “the fook out [sic].”
“This is politics. This is not military. You want to go into the political arena, let’s do it,” Nunberg said.
“I’ve never served. They made major sacrifices, but I would also remind them…these guys have not won a war since World War II,” Nunberg stated. “Steve Bannon with Donald Trump won the biggest war in modern day history in 2016.”
“Nobody elected Donald Trump to send 50,000 fucking troops to Afghanistan to stay there in perpetuity,” Nunberg added, alluding to a plan reportedly supported by McMaster. “Nobody elected Donald Trump to stay in the Paris accords, which McMaster wanted. Nobody elected him to kowtow to Iran, which McMaster wants.” (RELATED: ‘Everything The President Wants To Do, McMaster Opposes,’ Former NSC Officials Say)
The Axios report cited individuals familiar with Trump’s thinking and Nunberg told TheDC, “Whoever in Jon Swan’s Axios piece is familiar with Trump’s thinking should get fucking familiar with the president’s base.”
I think we all know that the Trump plan is ignore the event so he won’t lose the support of that voter base. There was a horrifying NPR story about how the event is being covered by conservative media and rural America. They interviewed a guy who said he isn’t racist, but thinks this is a different white supremacist movement than before. And people should listen to Trump about unity.
Less than 24 hours after Charlotte trump released this ad that contains a list of people he identifies as the enemy.
Woah there no need to go full Nixon. He's trying to change the narrative and identify people obstructing his agenda (which is massive massive bigly success already apparently). List of people he identifies as enemies my ass, Nevuk.
On August 14 2017 22:27 Plansix wrote: I think we all know that the Trump plan is ignore the event so he won’t lose the support of that voter base. There was a horrifying NPR story about how the event is being covered by conservative media and rural America. They interviewed a guy who said he isn’t racist, but thinks this is a different white supremacist movement than before. And people should listen to Trump about unity.
Sure they have Nazi flags and plow cars into people but its different than before! Got to love white people sometimes.
Side note P6, love the tag. Somehow I just noticed it
Less than 24 hours after Charlotte trump released this ad that contains a list of people he identifies as the enemy.
Woah there no need to go full Nixon. He's trying to change the narrative and identify people obstructing his agenda (which is massive massive bigly success already apparently). List of people he identifies as enemies my ass, Nevuk.
I mean,
When the “President’s enemies” line is spoken, there’s an image of Congress in the background, followed by images of a lot of media figures (mostly from CNN and MSNBC). Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, Don Lemon, Erin Burnett, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and more show up there.
American Urban Radio Networks White House Correspondent April Ryan was featured in the video as well
It isn't like the text says "my enemies", but the audio does.
Less than 24 hours after Charlotte trump released this ad that contains a list of people he identifies as the enemy.
Woah there no need to go full Nixon. He's trying to change the narrative and identify people obstructing his agenda (which is massive massive bigly success already apparently). List of people he identifies as enemies my ass, Nevuk.
When the “President’s enemies” line is spoken, there’s an image of Congress in the background, followed by images of a lot of media figures (mostly from CNN and MSNBC). Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, Don Lemon, Erin Burnett, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and more show up there.
American Urban Radio Networks White House Correspondent April Ryan was featured in the video as well
It isn't like the text says "my enemies", but the audio does.
On August 14 2017 22:27 Plansix wrote: I think we all know that the Trump plan is ignore the event so he won’t lose the support of that voter base. There was a horrifying NPR story about how the event is being covered by conservative media and rural America. They interviewed a guy who said he isn’t racist, but thinks this is a different white supremacist movement than before. And people should listen to Trump about unity.
Sure they have Nazi flags and plow cars into people but its different than before! Got to love white people sometimes.
Side note P6, love the tag. Somehow I just noticed it
It is the best signature line you can have, especially when shitposting about politics on the internet. We follow in the grand tradition of shitposters, all the way back to the farmer rebuke(both sides published anonymously, even though one was Hamilton).
Why have you still not realized, Simberto, that the USA is its own satirical narrative. I mean, Trump is president lol It's folding into itself as a caricature because it doesn't know how to deal with itself properly. I wonder if the left-right will escalate into something bigger than just stories from single events..
Even the AG Super-Racist-Keebler-Elf who used to try and put away anti-Klan protestors admitted that the death in Charlottesville should be attributed to domestic terrorism.
Less than 24 hours after Charlotte trump released this ad that contains a list of people he identifies as the enemy.
Is this a common tone for political ads in the US?
Because to me it sounds like a clip straight out of Starship Troopers.
Oh wow, that's an apt comparison :o
And just for the record, that's scary as hell. Because if they got their inspiration anywhere, it was Goebbels.
Oh wow, I just googled that movie now, and never knew that it was so misunderstood by critics at the time. I was 15 or so at the time, and I almost instinctively understood the satire (entirely absent in the book, btw, which I read later, and is a chest-thumping proponent of a military state).
I mean, maybe my dad had to explain some of the nuances, but it was very clear to me that the movie was taking the mickey out of fascism, and the propaganda and news videos were clearly styled as completely over-the-top absurdities. Yet somehow the mainstream critics in the US completely missed that and trashed the movie as a glitzy glorification of war for young teenagers?
No. That would be transformers. Starship Troopers was a masterpiece of satire. Yes, it is superficially a popcorn movie with exploding bugs, but the underlying message isn't "cool action flick", it's a pointed critique of militarism.
Maybe it's a difference in perspective from both sides of the pond? Paul Verhoeven is Dutch after all and might have misjudged how people would "just get it"?
Less than 24 hours after Charlotte trump released this ad that contains a list of people he identifies as the enemy.
Woah there no need to go full Nixon. He's trying to change the narrative and identify people obstructing his agenda (which is massive massive bigly success already apparently). List of people he identifies as enemies my ass, Nevuk.
Out of curiosity, and since all you Trumpers suddenly disappeared fron that debate, what's your take on Charlotte's events and the aftermath?
On August 14 2017 22:52 farvacola wrote: Even the AG Super-Racist-Keebler-Elf who used to try and put away anti-Klan protestors admitted that the death in Charlottesville should be attributed to domestic terrorism.
Sessions has always been into the more subtle forms of systematic racism. It is far more sustainable.
The mayor had some interesting stuff to say on NPR. It looks like they tried to move the protest, but the ACLU sued(as they do) and beat that order. Also tried to ban sticks, shields and other weapons, which also failed. He said that the governors and elected officials need to have a talk with the judiciary about the limitations of police and what levels of violence they can deal with. He straight up said that many of the protesters were better equipped that the state police. I have to agree. I don’t have any problem with open carry laws, but there needs to be limitation. Peaceful protests while carrying semi-automatic rifles and body armor can never be truly safe for the public.
EPT
