But, I love bashing the fash.
Sorry, that means you're just as bad as the fash. You should be engaging them on the marketplace of ideas, just like people did in WW II when they stopped the fascists with kindness and debate
Fascism was never stopped. Can never be stopped. Fascism is not a political ideology, it is an expression of human psychology.
If someone in your life is becoming a fascist, like is happening in many of our lives, do you get a gun and kill them? Does that solve fascism in your life? Perhaps you merely punch them until they stop being a fascist. Is this really actionable advice?
Fascism is growing because people are afraid of an increasingly uncertain future that they have no power over. Threatening them with violence will only make them more afraid and draw even more on what fascism offers them. The people in our lives need love, not violence.
Fascism is not a political ideology
"Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement […]" (wiki, although I'm sure you'll soon tell us that Wikipedia is not a valid source because you don't understand the difference between using Wikipedia as a source on Lemmy vs. in a scientific article)
The people in our lives need love, not violence.
The people in my life aren't Nazis
The people in my life aren’t Nazis
I know the right-wing infosphere has brainwashed multiple members of my family. I don't have a way to check the percentage of people I've known in my life that are now brainwashed. I know that my life would have been lesser had I not met every single one of them. I don't see the people in my life as a purity test, they're still the same people. What happened to them is a reminder that we must first and foremost defeat fascism, the political ideology.
What the – and I simply can't emphasize this enough – fuck does it have to do with PuRiTy TeStInG if I don't want to associate or spend time with people whose political ideologies would fucking literally have me stripped of human rights if not outright murdered because of my gender and/or gender identity? What sort of an obligation do I have to keep those people in my life if they have publicly stated opinions that make it clear that I may not actually be physically safe in their presence?
And no, I don't have a way to "check the percentage of people I've known in my life that are now brainwashed" either you utter cabbage, I just don't knowingly associate with extremists conservatives let alone literal Nazis. If somebody I know turns out to have fallen off the deep end, I just don't keep associating with them. See, no magical PuRiTy TeStEr required?
So yes, great, good on you for being so accepting of people, I unironically commend you for that, but even though I have no idea who you are or what your background is, this comment – like a lot of the hugbox let's defeat the nazis with love bullshit I've seen earlier – definitely feels like it's coming from someone who's got no experience with being on the receiving end of bigotry or misogyny. Easy to be a bit more understanding and accepting of Nazis when you wouldn't be one of the first people they'd shove in a camp.
Edit: and I'm saying this as an avowed lover of hugboxes of various kinds. "Cute but will fight"
Not everyone has the luxury of knowing no one who has been brainwashed by the right-wing infosphere. A person not having anyone who has partially or fully adopted fascist ideology in their life is not something to brag about. Nor should that be the goal.
People have families. People have childhood friends they've known their whole lives. People have classmates with the same or similar schedule as them. People have adult friends in their social circles. People have co-workers at their jobs. People cannot control the political ideology of the people around them. If someone is informed enough to know exactly who in their life is currently a fascist and can disassociate exactly from those people then good for them. The majority of people will not be able to do that. Nor will doing that solve the problem.
When the response to this
The people in our lives need love, not violence.
is this
The people in my life aren’t Nazis
That's a purity test. Your argument is to sort ourselves by political ideology.
Easy to be a bit more understanding and accepting of Nazis when you wouldn’t be one of the first people they’d shove in a camp.
I am a Jewish, atheist, social democrat, lesbian, trans woman. I'm white and pre-transition, so I get to benefit from white male privilege for now. But if the fascists could put me in a death camp they would.
If a person is in danger from someone in their life and can dissociate from that person, then by all means dissociate from them.
The way to defeat fascism is to defeat the ideas that make up the political ideology. Isolating ourselves does nothing to forward this goal.
We defeated the Nazis, but not their ideas. Fascism is a collection of ideas, so it's an ideology and a political one at that. People had to invent these ideas. They were not an inherent part of human psychology. Fascism is a collective puzzle that we all have to solve together.
Violence in self-defense is necessary to stall for time. However, no matter how many fascists die, if fascist ideas are not defeated then there will always be more fascists. There is no benefit in breaking the social contract of tolerance first. We are in an information race, so the spreading of true information is always more useful than violence.
People should defended themselves regardless of the political ideology of their attackers. Once that's done for the day though it's back to spreading socialism. Fascism is growing because neo-liberalism denies people the ability to solve their economic problems. Which in our case are caused by late-stage capitalism. edit: typo
Does anyone actually advocate for this?
The fascists
I mean of course I was being hyperbolic but I've had several people tell me something equivalent to pretty much like this. "Using violence against fascists is stooping to their level" is another classic.
edit: aaaaaand here we go, there is now at least one person in these comments saying exactly this
There's been a push for decades that everyone should be respectful and peaceful and not bother anyone when they protest in any way. The entire country forgetting how we've accomplished almost every major societal change.
Liberals
As satisfying as it may be, the problem is that the fash gets back up after the bash. There was a pretty extensive study done on this in the 1940s, and they found quite a few methods for better handling the fash.
Seems like a good spot for this:
Nonviolence works the same way: if you're engaging with someone / some group who isn't violent, there's an expectation that you'll also remain nonviolent. If they pull a gun on you and you happen to be packing (and a quick shot) and shoot em dead, that does NOT bring you down to their level.
From the German constitution:
Anyone who abuses the freedom of expression, in particular the freedom of the press (Article 5 para. 1), the freedom of teaching (Article 5 para. 3), the freedom of assembly (Article 8), the freedom of association (Article 9), the secrecy of letters, mail and telecommunications (Article 10), the property (Article 14) or the right of asylum (Article 16a) to fight against the free democratic basic order, forfeits these fundamental rights. The forfeiture and its extent are pronounced by the Federal Constitutional Court.
Exactly. I don't get why this simple concept is so hard to understand. I've had many people claim Germany doesn't have freedom of speech since you are not allowed to salute Hitler. By invading other's rights, you give up yours. It's not hard to comprehend.
Based
There also is this section:
Parties that, according to their goals or the behavior of their supporters, aim to impair or eliminate the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany are unconstitutional.
Does the paradox of tolerance even exist?
If you tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group of people until those people are gone
If you dont tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate the group that hates a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group that hates the group of people until those people are gone
Because there is no way to become a tolerant society until one of the 2 groups is gone, the easiest way to become a tolerant society would mean getting rid of the easiest group you can get rid of.
Which group would be easiest to get rid off:
- Jews, communists, slavic people, Romani people, all races but one, people with mental and physical illnesses, LGBTQ+ people and poor people Or
- People with a specific ideology
Anything else wouldnt matter since the society will remain intolerant
PS: by "get rid off", i mean remove people from the group, not specifically kill
Does the paradox of tolerance even exist?
If you tolerate a group that hates a group of people, there are people that hate a group of people, meaning the society is intolerant to that group of people until those people are gone
Exactly: there is no paradox there if you don't think of tolerance as an absolute. This blog post put it pretty well:
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
Love that, thank you.
If they pull a gun on you and you happen to be packing (and a quick shot) and shoot em dead, that does NOT bring you down to their level.
What if they start by shouting "He's got a gun!" and then pulling a gun and firing at you? And then what happens if the news media reports the killing as "Brave hero defends neighborhood against armed criminal" while encouraging other people to behave in a similar fashion? And then what happens if the people shouting "He's got a gun!" and shooting, as an excuse to engage in a kind of localized ethnic cleansing or social repression, are members of and friends with the local police department?
How do you resolve the paradox of tolerance when you aren't in a position physical, social, or political of dominance?
A take on the paradox of tolerance that I really like is that tolerance is not a moral absolute: tolerance is a peace treaty and not a suicide pact, so its "protection" is only afforded to those who abide by the treaty and it doesn't mean tolerating everyone no matter what. Here's a blog post on this, and a relevant quote:
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
This is slander and I will not stand for it: I bet Jadzia would be down for a nice fash bash
The sad thing is, this argument originates from fascists, they just managed to gaslight a whole generation of people that "hypocrisy" is the worst thing to ever happen to humanity, and people should hold the moral high ground to a stawman version of their ideology.
Hypocrisy IS the worst thing to happen to humanity, but intolerance of intolerance isn't hypocritical, it's necessary.
There's a name for this I just can't remember what it is.
It's all about following the social contract. If you break the social contract you are no longer protected by the social contract.
So if you walk around advocating for the harm of others, you've violated the contract and your rights are forfeit.
Obviously there's nuance but the point is there.
Maybe you mean the peace treaty thing? I mentioned it in a couple of earlier comments, here's a copy-paste:
Here's a blog post on this, and a relevant quote:
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
Maybe that's it. Sounds about right.
Don't be a dick and you won't have to deal with the consequences of being a dick.
So if you walk around advocating for the harm of others, you’ve violated the contract and your rights are forfeit.
I've yet to see a Talk Radio personality lose rights for advocating harm to others. On the contrary, they tend to receive enormous pay packages, national syndication, and A-list celebrity status as a result.
Perhaps you're confusing the "social contract" with "karmic justice". But people very rarely get what they deserve.
They are talking about an ideal, not describing the current reality. It's a resolution of the paradox of tolerance.
Fascism is intolerable and should be resisted by any and ALL means. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Fascism is intolerable and should be resisted by any and ALL means.
True. But also...
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s were routinely described as bigoted, fascist, and psychotically violent. This lead to a country-spanning crack down on civil rights organizing in the 70s and 80s, and the functional extinction of national movement by the 2000s.
We had a brief resurgence of civil rights protests following the Great Recession, which peaked with the BLM protests of the late 2010s. But media slanders quickly tarred these protest movements as violent and dangerous, while a rapid police response supplemented by our advanced national surveillance crushed the leadership in short order.
The Gaza protests were quashed even faster and with still greater violence, while news media had Palestinian peace marchers tarred as Hamas terrorists and Russian double-agents.
What do you do to resist fascism in a fascist nation, without being targeted and labeled a fascist yourself? What weight does the term "fascist" carry when it serves as nothing more than a label to legitimize state and vigilante violence?
Yeah fuck this apologist bullshit. The only good fascist is a fucking dead fascist.
Imagine not wanting to kill neo-nazis but be fine with Isreali war crimes, involving the genocide of many innocent lives
Funny, I guess both my grandfathers were fascists when they kicked Nazis in the teeth.
To be fair, if they're still around they're more than likely Trump supporters.
Ah, assumptions. They're both dead, thanks.
It's a fair assumption to make, given that old people make up the vast majority of Trump supporters.
I'm having trouble finding a study about support by age group that separates the boomers from the older generations.
There's reason to believe that the greatest generation has a different outlook on fascism than silent generation and boomers, though at this point those two younger generations dominate the 65+ group. At this point, WWII vets (assuming the youngest were 18 in 1945) would be 97+. Boomers are mostly 65+.
Call me the last fascist in hell then. Y'all can string me up for my crimes when we've eliminated all the threats. Keep your hands clean and I'll shut the door behind me.
Lefty Memes
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