White supremacy run amok

[Spartan_Warrior]

@C40: I agree, it was terrorism.

@Campitor:

> "The guy who hit people with his car should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But I doubt when he committed this heinous crime that he was trying to have a political influence - calling it terrorism gives it a certain sophistication of political machination which it lacks - and I doubt his actions are swaying the votes of reasonable and mild mannered Caucasians - even those who voted for Trump."

Terrorism is not limited to swaying votes, nor is that the sole purpose or method of "political influence". Terrorism, as the name implies, is quite literally this: "the fear I felt was real to the point of not leaving my hotel and checking out at 4AM the next day for fear of being attacked".

> "If you're white and used to having things and are being told that your advantages are being curtailed because you're white..."

But no white people are losing advantages because they are white. We already covered this and no one chose to continue the line of discussion so I assume there was no argument. The essential difference is one of capital. Poor white males are losing advantages because they're poor, not because they're white or male.

If an idea is both false and harmful, why should it be defended? Is false and harmful speech even covered by notions of free speech? We don't allow people to spread false fire alarms, do we?

At what point does "We are going to kill you and your entire family" cease to become "harshly spoken words" and cross the line into violence?

@slsdly:

> "I am only speculating here, as an outsider to American society, but rural areas are economic backwaters (hey, hey I grew up in a similar area donchayaknow). There isn't much satisfying work. People begin looking for an outlet and opportunistic individuals with their own agenda say it is the fault of the Mexicans or African-Americans. Humans love to rally behind something. My experience of living in urban centers in Canada, and working with many Americans on the west coast, tells me that most of these urbanites have no idea how they casually insult rural people in ordinary conversation. The fundamentals need some resolution and I don't know what that is."

I agree. I believe the fundamental problem that needs resolving is global inequity in capital as an inevitable result of capitalism, a system that served its purpose three hundred years ago but has long since outlived its efficiency once you get to an environment when five old white dudes hold half of all the world's resources and control the world's most powerful governments with their wealth. What that solution looks like, though, I don't know exactly.

I do believe part of the solution is getting working class white males to start blaming the 0.1% white male elite for their troubles rather than other poor people who happen to have darker skin. Which is why, rather than ceding this forum's ideological space to the right, as I had more or less done, I'm back (which evidently seems like trolling). Because if there's any place where the liberal solution to fascism--"rational discussion with their alternate viewpoints"--might actually work, I'd think it would be a forum of INTJs detached (theoretically) from the situation by capital privilege.

> "At the very least, I believe Democrats suck at messaging, but ultimately have superior policies for quality of life, in general."

I think they have band-aid solutions to the fundamental problems that "need some resolution". Admittedly, this is probably better than nothing for the majority of people, but not good enough to change the direction things are moving.

[CS]

it just got an innocent white man fired from Google for no reason.

Nope. He got himself fired, as Swift would say, "from his own actions". (She kicked ass this week, on a separate note.)

Spartan_Warrior, thanks for expressing things so well on this thread. Waiting for the supremacist group to go out and harm people is the wrong thing to do. It would have been better to stop them without violence, but stopped they must be.

This pitting of poor white people against minorities has been a thing since slave days when plantation owners kept the landless and poverty stricken groups from aligning themselves together to overthrown the oppressors. It is maddening how effective, and persistently, this tactic has worked.

[Spartan_Warrior]

BTW, while we're on the subject of solutions.

I've been hearing reports that the person killed in the white supremacist's terrorist attack was a wobbly--a member of the International Workers of the World union.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8 ... -World-IWW

If we want to solve the trends that drive inequity and lead us toward fascism, perhaps it's best to start with the most fascist place of all: the workplace. Support unions and workers' rights.

https://www.iww.org/content/join-one-big-union

[CS]

This: "Even if it is because the person is pissed off in the moment, that doesn't mean it's not terrorism. Terrorism doesn't have to be rational or calm. If the person is there for political reasons and then gets angry and kills people...it would be terrorism. It might be stupid terrorism, but that wouldn't change what it is." You guy to a rally that wants to kill Jews, blacks and others, and keep a monument to slavery, then your mere presence is frankly a terrorist act. Now go driving a car through a crowd....

Free speech in this country is LIMITED. Inciting violence is not allowed. Creating existential threats for entire groups is certainly not allowed.

[OTCW]

Free speech in this country is LIMITED. Inciting violence is not allowed. Creating existential threats for entire groups is certainly not allowed.

Be careful with this line of thinking. Who gets to decide what is and isn't allowed or what is inciting violence or not or what groups are not ok to ascribe a real or imagined threat against?

[Spartan_Warrior]

@CS:

"Waiting for the supremacist group to go out and harm people is the wrong thing to do. It would have been better to stop them without violence, but stopped they must be.

This pitting of poor white people against minorities has been a thing since slave days when plantation owners kept the landless and poverty stricken groups from aligning themselves together to overthrown the oppressors. It is maddening how effective, and persistently, this tactic has worked."

Agreed. Glad you appreciate my comments.


----

Here's a new article on yesterday's events with some more details:

Charlottesville: man charged with murder was pictured at neo-Nazi rally

[Seppia]

This is what comes of coddling the ridiculous narrative of white male persecution.

or maybe it comes from the attitude of "fuck white men".

Judging by the results (share of people in position of power in institutions, corporations, etc VS actual share of population), the "fuck white man" campaign has to be the least successful campaign in human history

I'm a white Caucasian male, and never in life I felt I was at a disadvantage because of that.
Quite the opposite actually, especially when I was living in France and now in Italy to be fair, less so in the USA.
But it was a lesser extent of being privileged, certainly not a disadvantage.
In the USA, by my experience, the bulk of the advantage comes from being a man, rather than white.
This is obviously very anecdotal, but the evidence of people of power is clearly not.

[Spartan_Warrior]

Charlottesville police criticized for slow response to violent demonstrations

Cornel West, the Princeton professor and writer who attended a morning church service at First Baptist Church in Charlottesville with a large group of clergy members, said "the police didn't do anything in terms of protecting the people of the community, the clergy." West said that "if it hadn't been for the anti fascists protecting us from the neo-fascists, we would have been crushed like cockroaches."

[Spartan_Warrior]

‘I’m not the angry racist they see’: Alt-Righter became viral face of hate in Virginia — and now regrets it

White nationalists aren't all hateful.

Oh, it's not a movement of hate.

Meanwhile, here's what white nationalist publication and alt-right mouthpiece The Daily Stormer has to say about the terrorist event yesterday:

(Using donotlink so as not to improve search rankings or link-back from this forum)

Heather Heyer: Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident was a Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut

The woman killed in yesterday’s road rage incident has been identified as Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old overweight slob with no children.

Here’s five fat facts you need to know.

1) She was Fat and a Drain on Society

Despite feigned outrage by the media, most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness. A 32-year-old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value...

Those are just the opening lines. Seems like a totally rational take. Just fellow citizens whose belief systems clearly need indulged with the pretense of rational debate. Definitely no hate to be seen here.

Road Rage Does Not Represent White Supremacy #HugANazi #RoadRageHasNoPolitics

Note the importance to their narrative of minimizing the significance of the terrorist act to merely "road rage".

[Seppia]

Are you actually feeling the need to prove that white supremacists aren't the brightest kind of human beings?
I know this is a very tolerant place, but if in 2017 you still believe one human to be superior to another based on skin tone reasons, I think it's safe to assume you are... uh... stupid?

Was the bar lowered THIS much?

[BRUTE]

@Seppia:

rational arguments are LITERALLY white supremacist

[edit]

jesus. brute is not going to change what he said earlier in this post, but he regretted it almost immediately.

brute tends to fall into the exact same trap that some humans in this thread seem to be falling: reacting emotionally and explosively with short-term tribalism, pouring more gasoline onto the fire, instead of trying to calm down and contribute productively. C40 turned that other PC thread around from a hate-scream-fest on both sides pretty well, so it's sad to see him getting yelled out of this thread.

in an attempt to be productive here:

- brute is very sad that an innocent human woman was killed by a white supremacist, who was likely acting politically, therefore making himself a terrorist
- ditto for 20 hurt innocent humans
- brute has no problem calling white supremacist terrorism just that, but he doesn't care much for a president saying it, just as he didn't care if Obama said "extremist violence" instead of "islamist violence" or whatever. he does realize there's a certain hypocrisy demanding one but not the other.
- white supremacy is racist and brute very much dislikes it
- can't all humans come together in the wake of this horrible tragedy yadda yadda make the world a better place

brute is pretty sure that neither Jean, nor ffj, nor C40, nor himself are actually on the "other side" here. nobody has said a shred in favor of white supremacy, and nobody has been defending it per se. some humans have said that in a free country, assholes are free to be assholes (up to a point). the debate could maybe focus around where that point is. brute is very pro free speech, and would not have a problem with white supremacists assembling and saying their talking points. also not with counter-protests by whomever. until violence or threats thereof happen. driving a car into a crowd of humans definitely constitutes violence, and therefore, brute condemns it. also, such a nice car. what did the car ever do to humans??

what brute finds not helpful is immediately falling back into tribal camps, and countering any arguments by reasonable centrists (C40) with

You. Are. Defending. A. Murderer.

even if it were technically true. in a free society, even a murderer gets representation and a lawyer. and free speech. that's the cost of a free society.

so instead of yelling at each other (and brute, who was born half-troll, is very much part of the problem here), can humans get a productive consensus? really, the line seems to be between "white supremacists should be allowed to hold a rally" and "not". to be honest, brute doesn't know enough detail about this rally to judge if it crossed a line. did they threaten humans? did they start the violence? brute has no idea. brute simply believes that IN PRINCIPLE, as long as it is non-violent and non-threatening, assholes should be allowed to say asshole shit. that doesn't mean they get to threaten other humans or drive into them. that's criminal. or terrorist, whatever.

[OTCW]

Nice post Brute.

[Spartan_Warrior]

Yes, the car, the car, the beautiful car. Is that the second or third time you've mentioned it now?

Others are equally concerned.

"However, the real tragedy is what happened to the car. It was a very nice car, worth much more than the life of whoever died." -- Andrew Anglin, Daily Stormer

See, that's just it. For not supporting white supremacists, it does amaze me how so many of you manage to mimic their words and thought processes. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Brute's flippant concern for the car happens to match the flippant disregard of the Nazis for their violent crime. And that C40 and FFJ's insistence that "hold on, it might have just been road rage" is nearly verbatim the Nazis' go-to self defense argument (as Dragline pointed out, it is pretty much all they've got). And that some other folks' comments regarding white male oppression are exactly the narrative pushed by the alt-right to recruit. Et cetera. I can give you all the benefit of the doubt and suppose you don't actually support these movements despite unconsciously mirroring their arguments and talking points.

But does it not concern YOU how much you sound like them?

Note: I'm emphatically not accusing anyone here of being anything. Nor have I resorted to ad hominem attacks previously... like insinuating my concerns are those of a 24 year old girl from Portland, or that my intent is merely to stir up trouble and troll, etc. Granted, I said a few fucks and I tolerated no nonsense. So what? Nothing that would seem to have earned me the hostility that my comments received from page one.

What I think more likely is my comments, particularly my theory regarding the link between white male persecution complex and the rise in white supremacist hate crimes, struck a nerve.

Perhaps the reasonable course of action would be to ask why that's the case rather than attack me?

Certainly we can discuss the fundamental question of whether Nazis, KKK, and other openly violent ideologues should have the right to gather to speak hate and organize. Meanwhile, the communities threatened by this violence don't have time to wait for your conclusion, nor do they much give a shit when it comes down to their right to existence. Regardless, the "punch a Nazi or let him speak" debate is not really what interests me.

What really interests me is what leads these people to think the way they do, and how to stop it.

[C40]

like insinuating my concerns are those of a 24 year old girl from Portland.

Oh, I'm sorry about that.

I meant it as a lighthearted joke related to the impression that other poster who asked your race/sex/location seemed likely to have of you. I can see how that could be insulting though.

[bryan]

I also give you the benefit of the doubt Spartan_Warrior, especially since having you here increases the diversity of opinion/perspective. For instance, I like that you are against rentier capitalism whereas most of the FI community is complicit.

> But does it not concern YOU how much you sound like them?

I'm scared of people lumping other people together all the time.
...
Also that all this reactionary stuff (both "sides"!) is super short-sighted

Which is not quite the same as being concerned that I might have something in common with someone evil (it can't be helped). It's more like I'm scared that apparently I'm supposed to be scared?

I do agree with C40's earlier comment that you have had a tendency to put words into peoples' mouths or (making and then) taking assumptions too far (not just this thread)..

As for punching nazis or free speech.. the more interesting (and maybe scary) thing to me is how the determination in such matters is made (this guy is a nazi or this subject can be freely spoken and protested for).

[Campitor]

@Campitor:

Terrorism is not limited to swaying votes, nor is that the sole purpose or method of "political influence". Terrorism, as the name implies, is quite literally this: "the fear I felt was real to the point of not leaving my hotel and checking out at 4AM the next day for fear of being attacked".

So the black people who actually did beat me and called me spic and caused me to fear for my life were terrorist committing terrorism? Or were they just bigots whose motivations had no intention of affecting a political change? How about my fellow Hispanics who hated me and harassed me for being South American instead of Latino Caribbean? Were they terrorist? There is no universal definition for terrorism - everyone has an opinion on what it means and it gets co-opted by any group looking to ascribe a level of evil to their targets in order to heighten their rhetoric.

> "If you're white and used to having things and are being told that your advantages are being curtailed because you're white..."

But no white people are losing advantages because they are white. We already covered this and no one chose to continue the line of discussion so I assume there was no argument. The essential difference is one of capital. Poor white males are losing advantages because they're poor, not because they're white or male.

I disagree. When its okay to make fun of a group openly without fear of societal repercussion - the targeted group has lost power and dignity. It's racist when "white privilege" becomes a mean of repressing a dissenting opinion. It's racist when you can openly advocate for minority groups and their interest with society's approval but white people are perceived as racist if they do so. Start a group and label it the NAACaP - the National Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People - and see how it goes. For the record I see nothing wrong with the NAACP or their action to better the condition of people of color or their efforts to promote the positive traditions that minorities and their culture bring.

If an idea is both false and harmful, why should it be defended? Is false and harmful speech even covered by notions of free speech? We don't allow people to spread false fire alarms, do we?

At what point does "We are going to kill you and your entire family" cease to become "harshly spoken words" and cross the line into violence?

1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths.

2) False fire alarms (yelling fire in a crowded theater?) are illegal because it moves beyond speech and incites a call to action. Saying "I hate <insert your minority/non-minority here>" may be morally reprehensible but still legal and protected speech. Saying "kill <insert your minority/non-minority here>" is a call to action and therefore illegal and its also morally inexcusable. "We are going to kill you and your entire family" is a call to action. I don't defend or condone illegal or immoral calls to actions. I defend speech as long as it doesn't fall into the illegal/immoral call to action category.

[ I believe the fundamental problem that needs resolving is global inequity in capital as an inevitable result of capitalism, a system that served its purpose three hundred years ago but has long since outlived its efficiency once you get to an environment when five old white dudes hold half of all the world's resources and control the world's most powerful governments with their wealth. What that solution looks like, though, I don't know exactly.

So far no one knows how that solution(s) looks like which is why we're still using capitalism as the best necessary evil. And don't confuse crony capitalism with real capitalism - there is a difference. And crony capitalism can't exist without government. As long as there is government (socialist, fascist, capitalist), there will always be cronyism.

[BRUTE]

But does it not concern YOU how much you sound like them?

no. love of muscle cars is orthogonal to love for white supremacy.

[OTCW]

1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths.

This x 1000.

[Dream of Freedom]

"I do believe part of the solution is getting working class white males to start blaming the 0.1% white male elite for their troubles rather than other poor people who happen to have darker skin."

Why do they have to blame other people at all? It's victim mentality. If people spent as much time trying to improve their own lives as they do trying to tear others down the world would be a much better place.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@FFJ:

"Nobody gives a fuck what the daily stormer has to say."

If you don't give a fuck that your argument in this thread happens to be identical to their own attempts to minimize and de-politicize their actions, that's up to you. But the similarity is likely why some of us found your "Maybe it's not terrorism" defense argument a little off. That is my main reason for pointing it out, to answer the question as to why people might be "jumping all over you".

"I'm guessing that you are the only person on this forum that has ever visited their site."

Hopefully.

"Stop trolling."

Free speech for Nazis, but not for me? I'm not trolling at all and accusations otherwise seem (ironically) like attempts to silence me. "PC run amok" except in reverse.


@bryan:

Again, I'm not lumping people here together or putting words in anyone's mouth that I can see. I didn't call anyone here a Nazi and I still don't think anyone here is. I do find it sociologically interesting that some here are using similar lines of argument and thought patterns, presumably unconsciously, which ties in to my interest in analyzing the kinds of thoughts and beliefs (e.g. white male persecution) that underlie or form a causal connection to the the thoughts and beliefs of white supremacists.

"As for punching nazis or free speech.. the more interesting (and maybe scary) thing to me is how the determination in such matters is made (this guy is a nazi or this subject can be freely spoken and protested for).

Well, when they wear swastikas, beat black people and hold them captive in churches surrounded by torch-wielding mobs, chant "Jews will not replace us", and call themselves Nazis, I don't think there's a lot of ambiguity in saying "this guy is a Nazi".

Which is why the "How do we choose who to restrict" arguments strike me as needlessly complicating and equivocating on an issue that is clear and obvious in this case and most cases that matter. It's an implicit slippery slope argument that if we restrict the free speech and gathering rights of Nazis, KKK, and other problematic ideologies we must eventually necessarily restrict the rights of everyone. Well, slippery slopes are logical fallacies for a reason.

Germany--which presumably has the most experience dealing with these people--managed to "de-nazify" and ban Nazi symbols and open gatherings while retaining rights to free speech and assembly for everyone else.

Shouldn't that fact alone be sufficient to defeat the slippery slope argument?

@Campitor:

"So the black people who actually did beat me and called me spic and caused me to fear for my life were terrorist committing terrorism? Or were they just bigots whose motivations had no intention of affecting a political change?"

Was their beating of you politically motivated or did they just not want strangers in their hood? Were they part of a registered hate group with clear and announced political motivations to annihilate you?

I'll give you that terrorism can be an ambiguous term, but not in this case, and neither of your examples strikes me as qualitatively similar to avowed white supremacists holding a hate rally during which they beat up minorities and run over protesters.

"When its okay to make fun of a group openly without fear of societal repercussion - the targeted group has lost power and dignity."

It's "okay" to make fun of white males according to who? Are there examples of this anti-white male bias, particularly examples that indicate this bias is "okay" and accepted at a systemic level?

Assuming that they did lose their power and dignity, was that loss because of anti-white male bias?

"It's racist when you can openly advocate for minority groups and their interest with society's approval but white people are perceived as racist if they do so."

As you yourself pointed out in your previous post, whites are not a minority group. They are the dominant culture in America. Every institution is primed toward their benefit, starting with the US Constitution itself, a document written of, by, and for genocidal white slaveowners.

Minority groups for the advancement of non-white males exist primarily to reverse the effects of imperial-colonialism that white males inflicted on everyone else. Historical oppression, in other words.

Whereas groups for the advancement of white males are premised on a fiction of oppression. Rather big difference.

Which brings us to...

"1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths."

This strikes me as a particularly modern way of thinking--that false and harmful ideas deserve equal footing with objective reality, and everyone's beliefs are to be treated equally no matter how absurd or harmful. I actually don't think that's what the Enlightenment era founders intended nor do I think it's a particularly healthy default for society. You're also conflating "harmful falsehoods" with "truths perceived as harmful at the time but were actually truths". White supremacy and its little cousin white persecution simply are not "harmful truths" that will someday be proven correct. Those speaking out against slavery were right. Those speaking for it were wrong. Those speaking out against the flat Earth were right. Those who killed for their delusions were wrong. Some things just don't require moral nor factual relativity.

"2) False fire alarms (yelling fire in a crowded theater?) are illegal because it moves beyond speech and incites a call to action. Saying "I hate <insert your minority/non-minority here>" may be morally reprehensible but still legal and protected speech. Saying "kill <insert your minority/non-minority here>" is a call to action and therefore illegal and its also morally inexcusable. "We are going to kill you and your entire family" is a call to action. I don't defend or condone illegal or immoral calls to actions. I defend speech as long as it doesn't fall into the illegal/immoral call to action category."

Perhaps this is essential to the difference of opinion. IMO rallies like this weekend's are quite clearly "calls to action".

Some of you seem to be under the impression that this was just an ordinary peaceful political protest of some statue being removed. That the only reason violence occurred is because counter-protesters were there. In reality it was a hate rally. Do I need to elaborate as to what that is and what it means? They were there specifically to incite violence. That is in fact the entire modus operandi of the KKK, and this was the largest open-air rally they've had in decades.

White supremacists beat black man with poles in Charlottesville

This is the kind of thing they came to do and encourage. I would think this kind of example should put an end to the "But they were just there to talk, not to actually hurt anyone" line of bullshit.

They were there to hurt people. They are all about hurting people.

"And don't confuse crony capitalism with real capitalism - there is a difference."

What is the difference?

@Dream of Freedom:

"Why do they have to blame other people at all? It's victim mentality. If people spent as much time trying to improve their own lives as they do trying to tear others down the world would be a much better place."

IMO there are legitimate reasons for poor white males to complain. They are simply related to their poverty, not their whiteness or maleness. You are perhaps right, though. It's not individual capitalists they ought to blame, but the system of capitalism itself.

And perhaps "blame" is not even right. Maybe "hold responsible as a causal factor."


----

A few more articles on what happened.

Charlottesville: far-right crowd with torches encircles counter-protest group

A reckoning in Charlottesville