General News Mayhem in Virginia

Yes, I definitely agree with you CyclingFan. I also think Donald Trump's remarks today are worrying; he has once again emboldened the KKK, neo Nazis, white nationalists ect.

Btw, the leader of the North Carolina Klu Klux Klan said he is glad that Heather Heyer died.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/1...ple-got-hit-girl-died-in-charlottesville.html

 

Taking note that fascists are fascists is useful but generally not in the way a lot of 'antifa' protestors like to do. It's self-indulgent and ignores that the audience that needs to be targeted isn't really the hard-right or people likely to become race-rioters. The audience which truly matters in making that racism unacceptable is centre-right people, who feel repulsed by the idea of individuals committing political violence against the hard right, but who will be most effective in sidelining that hard right from mainstream politics because their organisations can turn into gateways to becoming part of extremist groups or be plainly taken over by this sort of extremism.

That's why I think 'antifa' is a terribly ineffective organisation. Pushing somewhat incoherent socialist and/or anarchist and/or anti-capitalist messages along with an even less clear opposition to a vaguely defined 'fascism' alienates many and makes it hard to really feel any buy-in to anti-extremism, because those radical ideas are presented as the only or best form of opposition to right-wing extremism. A fairly simple opposition to a clearly-defined set of racist and authoritarian organisations and behaviours, which combines the interests of the liberal left and the liberal right with that anti-extremism message is much more likely to shut the hard-right out.

That liberal right-wing buy in only occurs when you appeal to relevant values. These rioters fantasise about two regimes, one an illegitimate, genocidal foreign power and the other a treacherous quasi-state which rebelled against the US, both of which shed American blood and against whose horrors America has defined itself. It is an image capable of rallying conservative patriots, liberal capitalists and egalitarian social democrats, even if it's not as pure a reason for opposition as it is for ideological left-wingers as smashing Nazis' faces in.

 

I agree with Aussie792.

'Antifa' and groups like 'Black Lives Matter' tend to be way over the top in terms of their open resentment and public violence against anyone's opinions that don't fall in line with theirs. ANYONE (right, left or center) who simply wants to meet their opposition with violence or try to drown out their freedom of speech is wrong in my book. If we can't have a civil discourse, all we are trending towards are extreme positions that can only be resolved by violence. And, frankly, in my experience, violence doesn't solve anything in the long-term. Sure there is usually a 'winner' and a 'loser' for today. But if you can't change other's opinions or (most preferably) come to an equitable compromise, what is the point? You are just left with the uncompromising opinion/view/law imposed by the 'winner.' How does that help to integrate our society or to bring us together as a true people?

Antifa, to my understanding, is about anarchy - conflict against the State (whatever State that may be). It is not about civil discourse or viable resolutions of areas of conflict in our society. Violence is their chosen course of action because, in their view, if you can't "outshout" someone else's opposing opinion, you 'simply' have to shut them up. That sounds like pretty typical strong-armed, historically right-winged tactics to me. What do you think?

In my experience, violence is rarely a one-way street. Sure, one side or the other may have the upper hand at any particular time or location, but if the palpable hatred and provocation didn't already exist, would violence occur in any specific instance?

And I'm also not saying that open, unreasonable/irrational hatred should never be met with resistance. I'm just saying to that resorting to the tactics of violent confrontation rarely result in anything positive (especially longterm) for either side of the argument.

But, hey, what do I know. I've only been an intelligence officer and fought in three different wars around the world in my lifetime.

 

I have to live in my own bubble now. Watching the news gives me anxiety.

 

I want to be very clear in saying I believe the immediate goal still has to be the exclusion of ideological extremism from mainstream political and social institutions and preventing their normalisation in social media and the press.

You cannot accommodate those who celebrate the Holocaust. There is simply no way to do so without compromising the value of Jewish lives. You cannot make ordinary political compromises with apologists for slavery without that bargaining chip being black people's safety, social integration and economic justice.

My point was merely to say there is a lot of scope for broad opposition to these groups which effectively causes their complete exclusion from political prominence. And sometimes that means giving up our particular political preferences in these fights, so that we can work with groups we normally oppose within the framework of liberal and democratic poltiical discourse.

The increasingly common approach seems to be the exceptionalisation of all politics into existential battles, rather than civilised, compromising liberal-democratic politics. Carrying over that genuine righteousness of democracy against racist authoritarianism into more mundane matters is corrosive to healthy, productive politics. But it doesn't mean that you have to compromise with groups which on any moral assessment have no legitimacy and with whom you can't compromise without reducing the value of democratic principles and real people's security.

But I would like to make quite clear that 'antifa' forces were a small part of the counter-protest and also say that I think Black Lives Matter is generally an excellently organised organisation with clear moral purpose. There was a coalition of social forces against right-wing extremists in the Virginia protests. I just don't think there's enough broad appeal to those who don't belong to the left to exclude the hard-right from mainstream politics and I want that to change by reducing factional infighting between those left and right social and political groups which are fundamentally liberal and democratic.

Antifa is an organisation that's hard to define because it's not hierarchical or truly organised. From what I gather of it, it consists of anything between throwing Molotov cocktails at police to futile coffee-house radicalism. My qualm with its framking of itself as the most or only legitimate voice against fascism is that it's not especially effective at doing the one thing we know reduces right-wing extremists' success - a unity of moderate forces in ensuring mainstream politics is boring and excludes them. Saying that the most meaningful politics is radicals of one persuasion violently combating radicals of another ultimately turns politics into a battle of who's better equipped at violence and unmoderated discussion.

Again, in the context of the Charlottesville riots, there was a clear instigator and there was a clear intent to commit acts of violence among many of those who wanted to keep the statue. There was also clearly enough tolerance for people waving swastikas and wearing Nazi regalia among those many claim were 'moderate' people who wanted to keep the statue of General Lee that I really don't have much mental flexibility in blaming anyone but them as the instigators.

This I agree with and it was, as far as I can tell, largely the approach of the counter-protest. That was commendable. My criticism is ultimately about our broader approach to extremism - it has to involve compromise among differing factions of democratic actors in order to prevent compromise with people whose values are antithetical to our ways of life, equality and freedom, however we may argue among ourselves about the best way to pursue them.

 

All of this recent nonsense just makes me so scared, and so angry. Not that I didn't warn it would.

I'm not in a place to make any logical statements, so I will largely refrain, but the US just piles on more reasons to justify my disdain with it.
I was supposed to be in college in Canada by now, safe, but ran into a few legal delays so I have another year. I suppose I hope I'm still alive then.

 

The downfall of the right in the U.S will be their embracing of extremist ideology. They need to stop cuddling up to it and start denouncing it once and for all or it will destroy their party. It will not end well for them.

 

I am not so sure about this. Not that you cannot find people in all of those groups that will rally around those images, but I think you will have a harder time finding conservatives. It is very hard to underestimate how much "Old South" and the "Lost Cause" mythology are mainstream, acceptable conservative thought. Conversations about a "Civil War 2" or other fantasies of violence are commonplace in offices that I've been in, among white men, and that is in a liberal state. A lot of these guys are very militia-curious, and they are heavily armed. I don't think that these guys especially like the neo-Nazis, but they think everyone even marginally to their left is a Communist, and they *hate* Communists. These are all people who are very much in the mainstream of the Republican party.

This is a very toxic place at the moment.

 

Your skepticism is probably right in lots of circumstances. My point stands for a broader consideration - that violent, illiberal leftist opposition to the far right alienates valuable allies.

I also just don't think you can call those people liberal conservatives. To idealise a renewed civil war in along racial-cultural lines is certainly not right-wing liberalism - it is illiberal, hard right and racist. It's important to be able to buy into language of pride in the nation and the unbreakable legitimacy of the Union, however, to undermine possible external sources of support for illiberal Confederacy fantasists. It's not enough to say (thought please note I don't think you are saying it) that a sufficient number of the conservative right dislike the left, therefore it is a waste of time to try to form political links with them to exclude the people we want to exclude and there is no need for broad church political liberalism.