Pretty awful, it makes a lot of assumptions and seems to leap from one thing to another randomly and at times contradictory.
Its talks at length about the dangers of state censorship, even though the assumed audience isn't really calling for state censorship. The only example discussed doesn't fall under this category.
If anything the blog seems to be the one calling for the intervention of the state.
It also says that Fascist paramiltiarism should be fought against, but seems blind to the role of organising to support that paramilitary movement. It bizarrely references Weimar Germany and Pre Fascist Italy as necessary examples so I can only assume that the author is not aware that both struggles involved extensive use of the disruption of Fascist organisation and propaganda.
I mean you can't have it both ways, eiither language and speech can be a useful bridge in organisation and physical activity, and thus can be opposed. Or language is neutral and not conducive to activity and organisation which is an odd position for someone writing a political blog to take.
It also brings up UC Berkely exposing the authors ignorance.
Analyses of him as fascist are distorting obscuring the true character of the situation. As long as he is not instigating undeserved violence, his views should be protested and criticized instead of censored.
Milo's speeches involved outing students at the campuses he visited, either Trans students or undocumented students. Doing so deliberately left them vulnerable to assault and reprisal's by fellow students and the authorities. Anyone who defends this guys right to freedom speech is by default also defending his victimising of other students.
Given that this blog portrays the man as being just a provocative right wing personality I'll assume they didn't know that. But even in ignorance the author is contributing to a dangerous sanitation of someone actively provoking violence against others.
What current advocates of free speech absolutists don't seem to get is the difference between censorship and no platforming or other methods of individuals or groups of individuals telling other individuals to shut the fuck up. The latter is not censorship.
Censorship is specifically a state/government intervention in preventing people from disseminating their ideas, and it is this Rosa Luxemburg and Alexander Berkman was referring to. It is also something Marx was subjected to, his writings and writings of other communists/socialists being banned in various European countries and the possession of such writings being a pretext to imprisonment. It was also at the heart of the Free Speech movement, which Emma Goldman, the Wobs et al were involved in in the US in the early 20th century, a movement whose members were imprisoned, beaten, tortured and even killed by the police.
Censorship was not what was experienced by Milo. That was a large group of people who had had enough of the years of his spewing hate and bigotry, showing up and telling him to fuck off, a few days after one of his supporters had shot a protester earlier on his tour. It didn't actually "censor" him, it just prevented him from talking in one particular place. As for him not advocating violence, he was intending to out undocumented students, not only in that place but livestreaming it. I'm pretty sure that throwing people into the clutches of ICE, risking their safety, that of their families, possibly getting deported, counts as violence. There's more than one kind of violence and punching someone in the face is only one of these things. Milo had been exercising his freedom of speech for years, on ever increasingly large platforms, including network news and the BBC and has orchestrated campaigns terrorizing people, mostly women. No-one has censored him. He was banned from twitter because he broke their posting guidelines, it hardly shut him up though. I don't think a primetime HBO invite really counts as censorship.
Fascists, the alt-right or whatever, have been getting an increasingly large platform in recent years. Do you really not see the correlation between their ever increasing ability to spread their malicious messages and the increasing amount of physical violence perpetrated against minorities? The mainstreaming of these views under the free speech argument has undoubtable emboldened people to assault people, burn mosques, burn black churches, threaten Jewish centres with bombs.
Free speech fights have always been about government repression of ideas. It's not about a person's inalienable right to abuse someone else. If someone starts spouting some kind of bigotry in my direction, I can and I will tell them to sit down and shut the fuck up. That's what happened to Milo. It's just absurd to think you can debate with these people. The trans student who turned up on his tour to disagree with him in person had her life made so miserable by him and his fans she had to drop out of college. Was that him exercising his free speech too?
It's utter liberal claptrap to misuse the concept of censorship to protect these people from the righteous fury of people telling them to shut up. I wondered at the rank hypocrisy of so called leftists who celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, later tut tutting at poor little Milo turning tail and running or Richard Spencer getting punched in the face. It's a wonder that the people of the East End didn't just pull up a few chairs and have a nice little debate with Mosley.
It's pretty shitty, imo, to use Luxemburg, Berkman and Marx, all of whom suffered from real censorship and state repression, to defend Milo, Berkman in particular - you do know that he did time for trying to kill someone? I doubt if he would be a shrinking violet when it came to shouting down a speech by a political enemy.
You can't debate these people. Standing up and telling these people to shut up as their hate actually threatens people isn't censorship, it's self-preservation. It would be really nice if everyone were nice to each other but that's not the world we live in. Pick a fucking side.
Fleur, with some very slight tweaking that's basically an excellent blog post. What would you think of having that hosted here as an official response to the above article?
I'd be cool with that :)
I'd have given it more thought and maybe been less sweary if I hadn't just spent 3 hours getting home in a snow storm. Maybe not, I am a very sweary person...
Awesome! Well basically if you are okay to tweak it yourself you can just feel free to do so and post up to our library section (if you think you might want to post things like that more regularly then we can set you up with a blog)
OK, general consensus at work being that we're not bloody going in tomorrow in this weather, so I'll sort it then. I don't have posting rights though, so you might need to OK me.
Censorship was not what was experienced by Milo. That was a large group of people who had had enough of the years of his spewing hate and bigotry, showing up and telling him to fuck off, a few days after one of his supporters had shot a protester earlier on his tour. It didn't actually "censor" him, it just prevented him from talking in one particular place.
Protesting is great, telling people to "shut the fuck up" is great—that wasn't argued against. That example was primarily used for pragmatic purposes, to show how preventing people can speaking can backfire and give that person more attention. The point is that violent actions did prevent him from speaking at the university. While the protest was not shut down by the state itself, the rioters who shut down the protesters have the same intention as a state who would censor opinions, but without they state mechanism, they took it into their own hands.
As for him not advocating violence, he was intending to out undocumented students, not only in that place but livestreaming it.
That is a real concern, but I haven't seen any proof of that, only an unsubstantiated tweet. Do you have proof?
Fascists, the alt-right or whatever, have been getting an increasingly large platform in recent years. Do you really not see the correlation between their ever increasing ability to spread their malicious messages and the increasing amount of physical violence perpetrated against minorities? The mainstreaming of these views under the free speech argument has undoubtable emboldened people to assault people, burn mosques, burn black churches, threaten Jewish centres with bombs.
If free speech laws haven't been liberalized recently, then there are clearly external factors as to why this spread of ideas has increased: the platform of the internet, scapegoating of minorities, etc. Moreover, censorship of ideas doesn't prevent them from existing. Again, as mentioned in the article, trying to hide opinions can lead them to becoming more well known, and if they are silenced and thus unchallenged then it won't be possible to "[clear] up the lies about fascism and other conservative ideologies instead of letting them scatter among hidden circles."
Free speech fights have always been about government repression of ideas. It's not about a person's inalienable right to abuse someone else.
But how can you assure that a principle to prohibit some speech won't be manipulated to prohibit anyone else's speech? Additionally, abuse is a difficult concept to define. It could be considered abusive to the KKK member if I insult him for promoting killing of black people, though that doesn't make those views safe from condemnation. "The problem with this is that once the precedent has been set that some views are not allowed to be expressed, then no views are able to be certainly protected. For instance, if it becomes punishable by law to make offensive comments about a specific group of people, how long would it take for it to become punishable to criticize the actions of the state of Israel, which aren’t comments made out of bigotry, but necessary criticisms of repressive actions of a regime? Additionally, if the premise for illegality of an action is individuals being offended, a similar case could be made for someone claiming to be offended by homosexuality " [If you are not referring a legal system of censorship, replace laws with direct action].
If someone starts spouting some kind of bigotry in my direction, I can and I will tell them to sit down and shut the fuck up. That's what happened to Milo.It's just absurd to think you can debate with these people.
Actually, convincing Milo or whoever to change their mind isn't that important. What's more important is changing the mind of people listening to the debate.
The trans student who turned up on his tour to disagree with him in person had her life made so miserable by him and his fans she had to drop out of college. Was that him exercising his free speech too?
He treated her terribly, and I agree that that's awful. But are you saying random people should have the right to be violent against him because he says things that are offensive? You also can verbally harass Milo if you'd like (not that it seems to be an efficient tactic). Also, people don't have to debate him in person of course. I can see how it would be understandable to not allow him from giving a speech on campus, but not justified to use violence to prevent him from speaking in general, though it should be extremely disapproved of and criticized.
I wondered at the rank hypocrisy of so called leftists who celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, later tut tutting at poor little Milo turning tail and running or Richard Spencer getting punched in the face. It's a wonder that the people of the East End didn't just pull up a few chairs and have a nice little debate with Mosley.
Mosley and his gang were a paramilitary fascist group threatening the working class. As mentioned in the article, violence against paramilitary groups is appropriate—the British Union of Fascists were a military enemy, not merely an ideological enemy.
It's pretty shitty, imo, to use Luxemburg, Berkman and Marx, all of whom suffered from real censorship and state repression, to defend Milo
Why? It's under the same principle. If Luxemburg was prevented from giving a speech every time she tried to, I would be very critical of the silencing. In actuality, I'm not defending Milo's opinions in any way, but criticizing the motive to try to prevent him from being able to speak. As a final question, do you think a vigilante gang shutting someone's speech down is different in principle from the state doing it?
Protesting is great, telling people to "shut the fuck up" is great—that wasn't argued against. That example was primarily used for pragmatic purposes, to show how preventing people can speaking can backfire and give that person more attention. The point is that violent actions did prevent him from speaking at the university. While the protest was not shut down by the state itself, the rioters who shut down the protesters have the same intention as a state who would censor opinions, but without they state mechanism, they took it into their own hands.
So protesting is great, except for the times when it accomplishes its goal? This is some pure unadulterated liberalism here.
That is a real concern, but I haven't seen any proof of that, only an unsubstantiated tweet. Do you have proof?
Ahem, yeah actually there was it was in the first reply to you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/uc-berkely-protests-milo-yiannopoulos-publicly-name-undocumented-students-cancelled-talk-illegals-a7561321.html
There's also time he identified and outed a Trans student at a previous event.
I notice despite your claims of concern you don't have any practical solutions. From the article you wrote you seem to be in favour of the peaceful and lets face it symbolic protest. But that model wouldn't do anything to stop Milo or any other speaker from outing trans or undocumented students. So your concern is meaningless is actually quite offensive and pompous.
If free speech laws haven't been liberalized recently, then there are clearly external factors as to why this spread of ideas has increased: the platform of the internet, scapegoating of minorities, etc. Moreover, censorship of ideas doesn't prevent them from existing. Again, as mentioned in the article, trying to hide opinions can lead them to becoming more well known, and if they are silenced and thus unchallenged then it won't be possible to "[clear] up the lies about fascism and other conservative ideologies instead of letting them scatter among hidden circles."
You aren't reading what Fleur and I have said at all, your still replying to strawman state you've constructed in your own head. What you've just described isn't no platforming, its very easy to attack and dispute an ideological position without giving someone a platform to advocate and recruit in the process.
Do you also think its terrible that documentaries about the Nazi's don't have the last living members of the Third Reich or their modern advocates chiming in to defend the necessity of the holocaust?
But how can you assure that a principle to prohibit some speech won't be manipulated to prohibit anyone else's speech?
Well its quite simple really, direct action anti fascist groups don't have the reach or the power to do what your saying here. Again you've immediately ignored what Fleurs been saying to slither back to moaning about the state.
Additionally, abuse is a difficult concept to define. It could be considered abusive to the KKK member if I insult him for promoting killing of black people, though that doesn't make those views safe from condemnation. "The problem with this is that once the precedent has been set that some views are not allowed to be expressed, then no views are able to be certainly protected. For instance, if it becomes punishable by law to make offensive comments about a specific group of people, how long would it take for it to become punishable to criticize the actions of the state of Israel, which aren’t comments made out of bigotry, but necessary criticisms of repressive actions of a regime? Additionally, if the premise for illegality of an action is individuals being offended, a similar case could be made for someone claiming to be offended by homosexuality " [If you are not referring a legal system of censorship, replace laws with direct action].
Well no see that doesn't actually work. A direct action group doesn't have the power and reach of the state so your word replacement game is frankly dishonest.
Actually, convincing Milo or whoever to change their mind isn't that important. What's more important is changing the mind of people listening to the debate.
Errr, that isn't really a difference so Fleurs point still stands, just replace Milo with Milo's audience and you get the same thing.
He treated her terribly, and I agree that that's awful. But are you saying random people should have the right to be violent against him because he says things that are offensive? You also can verbally harass Milo if you'd like (not that it seems to be an efficient tactic). Also, people don't have to debate him in person of course. I can see how it would be understandable to not allow him from giving a speech on campus, but not justified to use violence to prevent him from speaking in general, though it should be extremely disapproved of and criticized.
Jesus, this is disgusting. Spare us your crocodile tears, your perfectly fine with what Milo did, because you hate the alternative far more. You have no response to this kind of threatening and harassment. On the contrary your liberal ideology (lets call a spade a spade) if taken to heart would make attacks like this far more common and easier to do. Because any alternative that could stop such acts would infringe on your sacred calf of freedom of speech.
Mosley and his gang were a paramilitary fascist group threatening the working class. As mentioned in the article, violence against paramilitary groups is appropriate—the British Union of Fascists were a military enemy, not merely an ideological enemy.
Errr. Fighting against Mosley involved turning up to his meetings and party offices and disrupting them through force. Again your being ridiculously arbitrary to salvage your position. Mosely couldn't have assembled that paramilitary force without speeches, propaganda and political organisation.
What your advocating here is simply stupid and self defeating. Its only okay to fight a militant reactionary group after reached a certain size and threat level, and not before. That's not a principle that's a split hair
Why? It's under the same principle. If Luxemburg was prevented from giving a speech every time she tried to,
You know in the Kingdom of Poland Rosa once strongarmed a party newspaper to follow the political line she favoured by brandishing a pistol at the editor, and packing the printing press with armed supporters. Rosa was complaining about the state in your quotation not political formations, she had a history of advocating force when she believed it was in the best interest of socialism.
Same with Berkman, the guy who was all for force when it seemed beneficial. And Karl Marx in his studies of revolutionary moments often chastised liberal moderation in regards to allowing enemy voices to spread disinformation and leak secrets to the reaction. None of them agree with you, they were all in favour of attacking reaction in what ever way seemed the most advantageous at the time.
I would be very critical of the silencing. In actuality, I'm not defending Milo's opinions in any way, but criticizing the motive to try to prevent him from being able to speak. As a final question, do you think a vigilante gang shutting someone's speech down is different in principle from the state doing it?
Sniping at effective opposition and doing nothing to help the victims is supporting Milo. Your just arbitrarily distancing yourself from that because the rubbing of shoulders with him makes you uncomfortable. And if you really have to ask that last question, then you really haven't been reading what we've written to you.
While the protest was not shut down by the state itself, the rioters who shut down the protesters have the same intention as a state who would censor opinions, but without they state mechanism, they took it into their own hands.
Again, you are confusing censorship with individuals taking action to shut down a bigot. He was not subject to any of the repression that comes with censorship. He was not arrested, beaten or abused by the police (indeed they were protecting him.) He was not prevented in any way from continuing to express his opinions, he was invited onto Bill Mayer’s dog turd of a show the next week. He was just prevented from speaking in a particular place by people who didn’t want him to speak. It’s no different from when I tell the Mormons to go away when they are bothering me on my doorstep. They haven’t got an inalienable right to spread their opinions in places where they are not wanted and if they weren’t generally a polite bunch of people who understand this, I would have no qualms about kicking them off my steps if they refused to shut up and go away.
Free speech absolutists are constantly hiding behind the First Amendment, misinterpreting it as the absolute right to freedom of speech by anyone in any place. This is the actual First Amendment (my bold)-
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It doesn’t apply to individuals abusing marginalised groups.
Do I have proof that Milo was planning on naming undocumented students? Do I need it? Are we expected to wait until harm has been done, when we have reasonable suspicion that harm was going to be done? It makes things very convenient to be able to retroactively condemn someone’s actions which happened as a consequence of you refusing to sully yourself because you were dogmatically sticking to a point of principle. People matter more than abstract concepts and sometimes you have to get down off your high horse of lofty principles in order to protect people. In Milo’s case, there was every reasonable suspicion that he would be naming people because it is his M.O. He’s done it before, on multiple times to multiple people. This time there was a chance that people were going to suffer considerable harm. If your point of principle is worth more than the people who would have immigration knocking down their doors, being carted off to be incarcerated and eventually deported, then your principle isn’t worth a dime.
Moreover, censorship of ideas doesn't prevent them from existing.
Again, this is not censorship. No-one is censoring these ideas. Reactionary voices are whingeing all the time (and you’re falling for it) about having their free speech impinged upon and being censored, when their opponents use their collective voices (and yes, sometimes violence) to shut them down but the reality is they still have access to a whole range of means of expressions and platforms, including the mainstream media, and they use it. In the name of free speech they are able to spread their messages and increase their support. Very little mainstream concern is given to the victims of their bigotry, liberals feeling that their Je suis Milo, misquoting Voltaire etc nonsense and their steadfast support of the principle of free speech is more important than the people it actively harms. You could be fined up to $5000 for crossing the border into the US with a Kinder Egg because of the hypothetical harm it could do to a hypothetical child but but the actual harm caused by, for example, the transphobic bigotry of these people, the real psychological violence perpetrated upon trans people and the real physical violence perpetrated against them, is not as important as the principle of free speech. Sometimes you have to get out of your principled bubble and protect people. How much more polite debate do you want? They already get a fuck ton of it. If Milo hadn’t already had a huge media presence before, Including hobnobbing with Donald Trump, he wouldn’t have had the funds for the US tour. Your google graph means nothing. It just indicates he was in the news those two days.
Mosley and his gang were a paramilitary fascist group threatening the working class. As mentioned in the article, violence against paramilitary groups is appropriate—the British Union of Fascists were a military enemy, not merely an ideological enemy.
You’re talking ahistorical nonsense here. The BUF were not a paramilitary group. The SA was a paramilitary group, as were the Italian Blackshirts, the Freikorps, the Tonton Macoute. Mosley was a failed politician aristocrat, who had his followers wear black to emulate the oh so stylish Italians. They were not a militia, armed or otherwise and they fulfilled none of the criteria necessary to be classed as a paramilitary organisation. My partner’s grandmother was at the Battle of Cable Street, and she was most definitely not a person to be trifled with. The idea of her, an actual communist fighting actual fascists having a nice polite debate with them is really, really funny. It’s also a damned insult to the people who have stood their ground and fought these fuckers, even if they lost. You could probably do with reading a little bit of history of how previous generations of comrades fought fascists. Hint, it was only the liberals who thought you could overcome them with dialogue. You could try this one for starters.
http://libcom.org/history/beating-fascists-german-communists-political-violence-1929-1933-eve-rosenhaft
Quote:
It's pretty shitty, imo, to use Luxemburg, Berkman and Marx, all of whom suffered from real censorship and state repression, to defend Milo
Why? It's under the same principle. If Luxemburg was prevented from giving a speech every time she tried to, I would be very critical of the silencing.
You genuinely don’t understand, do you? Rosa Luxemburg was actually silenced. By a bullet to the head, having been tortured, by people whose opinions you wish to protect by the principle of free speech.
Given that you are confused about what censorship is, let me clarify that I do not support censorship, that being the state prohibition of ideas. What you are calling censorship is not censorship. It is the freedom to protect yourself, your community and others from what which will undoubtably do them harm - and don’t ask me to provide proof of that harm, just open a history book. You can disappear down a rabbit hole of theory, you can even misappropriate dead communist’s words to back up your theory but this isn’t a stupid high school debate on the value of principles, it’s a goddamned war. Pick a side.
But how can you assure that a principle to prohibit some speech won't be manipulated to prohibit anyone else's speech?
This 'slippery slope' argument is really common. I think it is very American, too. Numerous European countries (as good as an example of liberal democracy as the U.S.) have laws prohibiting Holocaust denial and various displays of fascist symbols. Some of them have even outright banned parties they saw as too connected to fascism.
In any case, as has been pointed out by other posters, there's a difference between the state doing something and a loose coalition of people doing something.
I think the the idea that we are in a "goddamned war" with fascists is comforting but misleading. We can shut down fascist events, art exhibits, protests etc because fascists orgs are weak. Of course we all know the real violence comes from capital and the state, and there's not much we can do about it in the present state of things.
Quite frankly there is bugger all we can do with the violence which comes from capital or the state and I don't have a shred of hope any more that there is going to be a time in the future when we can but is not the violence perpetrated by fascist groups and sympathisers not "real violence" too? Is there a sliding scale in place? I would have thought that using our voices, and those who are bigger, fitter and stronger than me, their physical force, to oppose people who espouse violence against vulnerable people is important too? If nothing else, it's a demonstration of solidarity.
You sure your not the original author? Your taking this extremely personally.
Oh and btw, the article did help finish the last squares in this bingo card I made,
Being on twitter the past few weeks lead to the creation of this. #Antifa bingo. I'm sorry to say they're all from experience pic.twitter.com/Ptpu6hs2iw— Reddebrek
The point really is how successful and effective is closing down debate and free speech.
From Wiki
Mosley remained popular as late as summer 1939. His Britain First rally at the Earls Court Exhibition Hall on July 16th, 1939, 'was then, and remains now, the biggest indoor political rally ever held in Britain'.
By 1939, total BUF membership was probably approaching 20,000, while the CPGB's was 18,000
Outside and external events not the protests stopped his movement.
And i hate the idea that we somehow contribute to the impression that the right-wing are victims and not perpetrators
If directed at me, Yes, a little. Not sure i have ever met anyone who has read every word he wrote.If not these quotes from Marx are still apt.
Keep in mind that you could not enjoy the advantages of a free press without tolerating its inconveniences.
"It goes without saying we would have made objections no less earnestly against banning the Elberfelder Zeitung, the Hamburger Correspondent, and the Koblentz Rhein-und-Moselzeitung [conservative-monarchist-clerical newspapers]"
Free speech fights have always been about government repression of ideas. It's not about a person's inalienable right to abuse someone else.
But how can you assure that a principle to prohibit some speech won't be manipulated to prohibit anyone else's speech? Additionally, abuse is a difficult concept to define. It could be considered abusive to the KKK member if I insult him for promoting killing of black people, though that doesn't make those views safe from condemnation. "The problem with this is that once the precedent has been set that some views are not allowed to be expressed, then no views are able to be certainly protected. For instance, if it becomes punishable by law to make offensive comments about a specific group of people, how long would it take for it to become punishable to criticize the actions of the state of Israel, which aren’t comments made out of bigotry, but necessary criticisms of repressive actions of a regime? Additionally, if the premise for illegality of an action is individuals being offended, a similar case could be made for someone claiming to be offended by homosexuality " [If you are not referring a legal system of censorship, replace laws with direct action].
so your saying that you think that anti fascist groups, defence groups organised by LBGT people and POC will turn around and start attacking people based on their sexuality or race if they successfully prevent fascist holding meetings to organise hate campaigns.
and yes i not your mischaracterization of the issue as people being offended, it not, this is about on going fascist organisation campaigns, already people radicalised by people like milo on teh internet have killed people, it will get worse if they are able to get together in large groups of like minded people in real life
I don't agree with Noam Chomsky's position in this video, but thought it's worth considering in this thread. In this video Chomsky rejects no platforming in universities and says students who are upset about something could stay away.
https://youtu.be/70ARPruhGtw
Again I strongly disagree with that, but it is maybe worth thinking that if the tables were turned and anarchist views were strongly not welcomed in universities and students actively organised to shut us down and prevent a platform for us then what would our response be. Wouldn't we now be the ones winging that our views are marginalised, and that there is no allowance for critical or dissenting views?
I guess the argument we can make here is that unlike those using free speech to advance racism, sexism, transphobia and so on our views are not violent.
Again though I am just playing devil's advocate here. Just interested in response's to this.
The response is that this an extremely naïve view of what speech is and can achieve.
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
Staying away will not do anything to protect you from a reactionary stirring up trouble. We know this, when racists are free to give speeches attacks on minorities go up. When homophobes give rallies on universities the local LGBT chapter reports increased harassment.
Chomsky knows this, he's even written lengthy essays on places where radical right politicians would give speeches attacking people, and then those people would be abducted, tortured and murdered.
This is liberal utopianism, speech isn't neutral, nor is its power equally distributed, so any argument that takes that view shouldn't be given the time of day especially when cloaked in fake radicalism.
Maybe Chomsky was talking about his experience and protection for him to speak at universities and not shutting down his events? (Maybe he's talking about left-wing speakers? I remember there was this one time where Chris Hedges was booed on-stage while he was giving a speech at a graduation ceremony and needed police protection, if that's a good example of what Chomsky's getting at.) I don't know; someone should ask him his views on people like Milo being no-platformed and prevented from speaking by people showing up and shutting down his events. I more inclined to agree with Red that it does nobody any good to pretend that these right-wingers are not causing harm to others, just because they're talking on a stage and not overtly attacking someone. (The outing of people needs to be stopped and should not be protected as free speech. And if they're going to allow him to do that, then the people themselves should take action.)
So let's say you're a non-political guy in a university, and someone invites you to see a speach by Milo. You go there and on the way you read some of his opinions, basically he says feminism is cancer, islam is terrible, and bla bla bla; you don't really agree with him, but you figure "hey I'll hear him out."
You get there and you see outside a bunch of People yelling "fascist" "nazi" or something like that, when Milo starts to give his speach, protestors get up and try and shut it Down.
When he goes home what impression do you think this guy will have?
1. Those guys are Dicks.
2. No one challenged his ideas, they just called him a fascist.
3. Maybe he's on to something.
What if, on the other hand, they let him have his speach; chances are at the end some People will like him, and reasonable People would think "this guy is a Dick".
Or even better they Challenge his ideas intellectually and engage him ... I GUARANTEE you Milo is not intellectually capable of taking on a well thought through leftist, and he'd end up just looking like an idiot.
There is nothing that gives Milo more Power than People just yelling "fascist" at him, he loves to market himself as a "Dangerous thinker" willing to communicate Dangerous truths that the "left" don't want you to hear, but they don't have any arguements against so they just try and Control speach.
that's his marketing Message, he says over the top stupid Things in order to get a reaction that ends up feeding his popularity.
As soon as the left doesn't react to his nonsense, and actually engages with what he says intellectually and exposes him for being the tool that he is, he sinks to obscurity.
This is what I like about Chomsky; when he engages right wingers he doesn't yell at them, he doesn't Call them fascists, he calmly formulates arguments and dismantles their positions; almost always when they are done the right wingers are getting in a hissy fit because their ideas have been exposed as vacous and Chomsky is calm and collected.
The problem with this view is that it imagines the nebulous someone-on-the-fence as the only relevant person that is affected by these particular speech acts and that the only outcome is that this someone is convinced one way or the other. It leaves out those who, as Fleur and Reddebrek pointed out in their blog posts, are put at risk by the speech acts of those like Milo Yiannassholish or the fash. I am convinced that those who are vulnerable to the actual threat posed by these speech acts are more important than hypothetical fence-sitters.
It also finds it unimaginable that the mobilization against fascist or reactionary speech can have effects other than repelling this fence-sitter. It doesn't allow for the possibility that those who are already opposed to Yiannassholish or the fash could become convinced by a communist movement that actually sticks up for the people it says it will defend, unlike the wishy-washy liberals who speech as some sacred act above the actual lives of people. It doesn't understand that these mobilizations can be part of the very stuff it takes to actually build communism, that these are the practical situations in which sections of the working class might develop their consciousness and refine the tactics of mass politics. And, I think most crucially, it thinks of fascist or reactionary speech, and the militant response against it, in an isolated way and not as part of the ongoing history of class struggle. It doesn't understand that violence has already preceded and will proceed from reactionary speech; and that mobilizations against such speech might not just be a bunch of lefties cropping up, but might be people taking their own defense into their own hands.
What puts People at risk is if those ideas communicated by those speach acts gain legitimacy in Peoples minds, and People decide to act on them.
What midigates that risk is revealing those ideas as being vacous.
By just yelling these guys Down you ignore why these ideas become popular, why People are symapthetic to them and you ignore what they effects are of not engaging With them.
Speech doesn't hurt People, what hurts People is a left that thinks its more important to Call People out and Call them names rather than actually engage ideas, reveal them as fallacious, and provide an alternative vision/narrative.
No one should be afraid of Speech, I am a free Speech purist because I believe in my ideology and the correctness of what I stand for.
I don't like the term "no platform". I think everyone can have a platform but some of them just need overturning by an angry radical mob. There's been some really stupid stuff though like attempts to no platform Maryam Namazie. I think what happened with Milo Yiannopoulos gig was fucking ace though. Rommon, I shouldn't worry too much about the "bigot-curious" outsider checking things out and getting upset. I suspect 99.99% of those who attend Milo events are first class arsewipes.
Rommon, I shouldn't worry too much about the "bigot-curious" outsider checking things out and getting upset. I suspect 99.99% of those who attend Milo events are first class arsewipes.
They aren't. This is the problem With both the actual left, and the so-called moderete neo-liberal "left", they dismiss many working class People as just racist or sexist or whatever and don't engage them.
I've spoken to a lot of those People. Often all they have is a strawman of the left, they basically think the left are a bunch of authoritarian nihilists who think every white male is evil. Generally they are People who want some sort of community, and idiots like Milo provide them With ... not a community, but an enemy, i.e. the "liberal elite". Most of these People are not "bigots" perse, they start out as People who want to have a community, a culture, something to belong to, and end up being bigots by falling into this bizzare neo-fascism of People like Milo.
If all you're doing is yelling them Down and calling them names (which frankly almost have no meaning anymore), not only will those People be more tied to the neo-fascist movements, those movements will gain more sympathy.
One of the dumbest Things i hear liberals say is "oh that's the white working class, and demographics are Destiny" ... I'm sorry, the Next "white working class" will be the hispanic working class, or the black working class, or any working class Group. All the fascists need to do is pretend to be defending their culture and community against some enemy, and as long as the left doesn't engage them; the fascists will win. This is already happening in europe, where some old immigrant Groups (second Third generation immigrants) are supporting neo-fascist parties against "Cultural liberals" and new immigrant Groups.
why? Becuase the liberal-left doesn't talk to them about the Things that matter to them, they just Call other People fascists.
If you shut Down a guy like Milo what does that accomplish? it gains him more sympathy, his ideas seem more credible, and it makes the left look like they can't deal With his ideas on an intellectual Level and thus must resort to "shutting Things Down."
I know he's just a social democrat, but recently Bernie Sanders went Down to West Virginia and talked to a bunch of trump supporters about Things they care about, economic Security, Healthcare, Schools and drug addiction: they gave him a standing ovation - People who voted for trump. That should be a wakeup Call.
The REAL speeches that the left should be paying attention too are the Wall Street lectures and economics confrences where neo-liberal and capitalist ideology is pushes ... This is where the rulers of the world actually do their damage.
The marginalized in society,
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
What puts People at risk is if those ideas communicated by those speach acts gain legitimacy in Peoples minds, and People decide to act on them.
Indeed, and they get popularity and greater acceptance when advocates for those views have the power and potential to popularize them further.
What midigates that risk is revealing those ideas as being vacous.
You know that's impossible to prove right? And that mitigate doesn't mean remove? Or is this an admission that some victimization and violence is worth the price of your own ideals being accepted by society. You got a ratio to work off or something?
By just yelling these guys Down you ignore why these ideas become popular, why People are symapthetic to them and you ignore what they effects are of not engaging With them.
Strawman, no platforming isn't "shouting people down" that's more a feature of symbolic protests advocated by liberal activism. Effective no platforming means active disruption and shutting down the reactionaries attempts to organize and propagandize.
Speech doesn't hurt People, what hurts People is a left that thinks its more important to Call People out and Call them names rather than actually engage ideas, reveal them as fallacious, and provide an alternative vision/narrative.
This is simply objectively wrong. You've been given many examples of how speech can be a form of violence up to and including death. Your just ignoring this and restating your beliefs in an attempt to shout down contrary reality.
No one should be afraid of Speech, I am a free Speech purist because I believe in my ideology and the correctness of what I stand for.
Again this is just the recitation of your chosen dogma, this is the world how you wish it to be, not how it is.
Its also incredibly pompous, and actively insulting, as someone who has reason to fear the speech of others you are not a friend or an ally, you've chosen the side of my oppressors. Good job "Leftist"
I take your point about many working class people seeing the left as anti-working class. Unfortunately, they're right as there is a strong anti (white) working class current in the more liberal left. But seriously mate, If someone is stupid enough to turn up on spec to a Milo gig, then they really need to get their head out their arse. I don't buy the old "it makes them fall into fascism" line. This is just liberal left nonsense. If they're at a Milo gig then they're already more than half way there. If anyone decides to join the fash, they have to put some effort into it and it won't be because some bigoted twat gets his meeting shut down... or because some passive attendee gets a slap.
The REAL speeches that the left should be paying attention too are the Wall Street lectures and economics confrences where neo-liberal and capitalist ideology is pushes ... This is where the rulers of the world actually do their damage.
I agree with this actually but think we should do both.
The marginalized in society,
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
Yes, in that those Words are agreed With, accepted as true, and acted upon.
Indeed, and they get popularity and greater acceptance when advocates for those views have the power and potential to popularize them further.
What makes it easier to popularize them is when there is no opposition.
You know that's impossible to prove right? And that mitigate doesn't mean remove? Or is this an admission that some victimization and violence is worth the price of your own ideals being accepted by society. You got a ratio to work off or something?
It's not impossible to prove, compare countries that ban free speach of the radical right, and those that do not, and then see which ones have more problems With the radical right.
Speech in and of itself doesn't vicitmize anyone, violence does. If you want to prevent Speech from leading to violence you take away its Power, by arguing against it.
My ratio is this: what actually Works, what actually helps People. Not what makes me feel morally righteous.
it feels good to shut Down a fascist, but it doesn't help anything, it doesn't achieve anything.
Strawman, no platforming isn't "shouting people down" that's more a feature of symbolic protests advocated by liberal activism. Effective no platforming means active disruption and shutting down the reactionaries attempts to organize and propagandize.
What does it accomplish?
Does it forward any narrative? any vision? does it actually hurt the fascists? Does it effect their ideology?
This is simply objectively wrong. You've been given many examples of how speech can be a form of violence up to and including death. Your just ignoring this and restating your beliefs in an attempt to shout down contrary reality.
The examples are how Speech leads to action ... Yes, and that action can be violence.
So you shut Down Speech, have you reduced the threat of violence? Have you done damage to fascist ideologies? You've done damage to no one but the left.
There is NOTHING that the right loves more than pretending to be victims, pretending that their ideas are so right and so Dangerous to the establishment they must be shut Down.
there is nothing they hate more than someone actually chanenging them intellectually and revealing them to be stupid and shallow ...
Again this is just the recitation of your chosen dogma, this is the world how you wish it to be, not how it is.
Its also incredibly pompous, and actively insulting, as someone who has reason to fear the speech of others you are not a friend or an ally, you've chosen the side of my oppressors. Good job "Leftist"
Is it working? I am not interested in being a friend or ally, or anything like that. I'm interested in actually providing an alternative to Capitalism and helping the lives of the poor and working classes.
the idea that fascists are working class is a liberal myth spread by the wealthy and privileged, in reality the right are disproportional wealthy, business owners etc, yes they convince some of the poor working class to take they side, but these ideas are not caused by poverty, and pretending tehy are only helps bigotry.
It should be obvious that reading about some ideas or seeing a video about them is not the same as getting together with a large group of people who share those ideas. Stopping meetings like milos stops lots of friendly racists/ homophones/ misogynists from forming connection in real life and and so vastly reduces there ability to act on those beliefs in real life
people who voted for trump, are mostly just ordinary republicans, they weather than the average American and less working class, there are not worth specially targeting to recruit to our cause when there are still millions who are more susceptible to communist ideas
The marginalized in society,
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
Yes, in that those Words are agreed With, accepted as true, and acted upon.
Yes that is how propaganda works.
What makes it easier to popularize them is when there is no opposition.
Err? your the one arguing against opposition pal not me.
It's not impossible to prove, compare countries that ban free speach of the radical right, and those that do not, and then see which ones have more problems With the radical right.
Oh I see we're back to this strawman again. You know for such believers in the power of debate you aren't very good at it. We're comparing the effectiveness of direct antifascism to liberal debating. Not state censorship. We've been very clear on this point from the beginning so there is no excuse here your doing this deliberately.
Oh and by the by the United States is arguably the most extreme interpretation of freedom of speech in the world, and yet it still elected a right wing radical administration and has a long and bloody history of right wing terrorism.
And in Europe where most nations do have strong laws against extremist speech right wing radicals are still entitled to debate and argue. So your criteria doesn't work.
Speech in and of itself doesn't vicitmize anyone, violence does. If you want to prevent Speech from leading to violence you take away its Power, by arguing against it.
Okay, so why hasn't it worked yet? We've been doing this since the end of WWII, contrary to your believes reactionary bigots are debated and argued against quite regularly, and yet hate crimes and terrorism continue to persist and are on the up.
You seem to think the world has been run by some kind of antifascist orthodoxy were neo-fash have been stomped underground. And that just isn't the case anywhere in the world.
My ratio is this: what actually Works, what actually helps People. Not what makes me feel morally righteous.
Yeah, your lying now, we know what your advocating doesn't work because that is the status quo position. We can see the rise in right wing extremism in the US and Europe both bastions of liberal debate. Your not radical or novel your just advocating what's currently happening and ignoring the effects that clash with your optimism.
it feels good to shut Down a fascist, but it doesn't help anything, it doesn't achieve anything.
Well that's funny I could of sworn the shutting down of the National Front saved Jewish and black and Asian communities from a wave of terror from what was once Britain's fourth largest party.
What does it accomplish?
Does it forward any narrative? any vision? does it actually hurt the fascists? Does it effect their ideology?
Accomplish? weakens their ability to organize, does it forward any narrative? yes, they aren't as strong as they think they are, and can't act with impunity. Does it effect their ideology? Well again yes after the NF collapsed its successor the BNP ditched street fighting for electoral politics, because they had to try something different because they couldn't win through physical confrontation.
In the US the Fascist Silver Shirts were destroyed completely by the opposition of the Teamsters union.
Can you point to any example of your way answering any of these questions?
The examples are how Speech leads to action ... Yes, and that action can be violence.
So you shut Down Speech, have you reduced the threat of violence? Have you done damage to fascist ideologies? You've done damage to no one but the left.
Obviously yes, that unionist wouldn't have been targeted had he not been outed on redwatch, the Salvadoran civil society wouldn't have been tortured and murdered had someone not pointed them out to the death squads. The Trans student wouldn't have been harassed had Milo not identified her. My 16 year old friend wouldn't be at risk of violence if someone hadn't drawn attention to him on red watch. So on and so on. This how outing works, exposure encourages violence.
And if "THE LEFT" needs to be damaged* in order to protect these people (most of whom are actual leftists) than I say fuck it and anyone who would put political convenience over human lives.
*Which you've not actually proved in anyway. Saying it over and over again doesn't count.
There is NOTHING that the right loves more than pretending to be victims, pretending that their ideas are so right and so Dangerous to the establishment they must be shut Down.
Again strawman, ANTIFA is not the establishment, and again so what? This doesn't address the issue at all this just you whining about PR. We're talking about violence if you believe your personal ideology is worth the violent attacks on others then have the backbone to say so and stop dancing around it.
there is nothing they hate more than someone actually chanenging them intellectually and revealing them to be stupid and shallow ...
Again when is this happened? Right wing zealots get interviews and debates all the time, you should have plenty of examples to choose from if this were true.
Is it working? I am not interested in being a friend or ally, or anything like that. I'm interested in actually providing an alternative to Capitalism and helping the lives of the poor and working classes.
But you aren't though, your here arguing against poor and working class people taking actions to protect themselves. You know in the UK and France trade unionists and "commies" are common targets of far right violence, violence your not interested in opposing.
If your crackpot liberalism were accepted I and my fellow workers would be under more pressure and violence not less.
So again your not a comrade in any sense of the world, your views are based in liberal idealism and your priorities are with the right wing reactionaries who initiate violence instead of their victims. So much for Christian charity.
the idea you can reason milo supporters out of there bigotry is rather naive, they dont care about fact, if you encounter them online and you post eg scientific studies proving them wrong they will down vot your posts and be yelling there only to genders or their stupid attack helicopter memes 5 minutes later. in real life they want to have fun, get there views reinforce, meet people and get material to wind up "sjw cucks"
You'll never argue anyone out of anything by arguing With them online, that's never going to work. What DOES work is not arguing With them directly, but having debates With their heros and showing them to be empty.
By the way, why would you argue With them about gender? I would, and have, rather ignored that stuff and talk about Capitalism, class and so on.
I've spoken to a lot of, not milo supporters perse, but the kind of New conservative neo-fascists.
I've had success talking to them one on one, not calling them bigots, not calling them fascists, not arguing about gender or anything like that, but talking about actual issues of class and capitalism.
Debating Milo on Equal terms would show him to be intellectually empty, especially if you argue With him about Capitalism.
I personally think it's a mistake for the left to dig their trenches in gender issues, or even race issues (although racism in America IS growing and becoming quite scary), I think the issue of class and capitalism is the most important issue that needs to be dealt With and is a winning issue.
You'll never argue anyone out of anything by arguing With them online, that's never going to work. What DOES work is not arguing With them directly, but having debates With their heros and showing them to be empty.
If this DOES work, than why have you still not presented an example? I can think of plenty of examples when Far Right types have been debated and done extremely poorly but it hasn't had a noticeable effect on their influence.
I've had success talking to them one on one, not calling them bigots, not calling them fascists, not arguing about gender or anything like that, but talking about actual issues of class and capitalism
"actual issues" hmm either that was poorly worded or we're beginning to see your true colours.
But out of curiosity sake what do you mean by success, did you actually get them to give up on their racism and other bigotries?
By the way, why would you argue With them about gender? I would, and have, rather ignored that stuff
Lol. You're a white straight guy, who's never felt marginalized, had their right to existence denied or had been particularly under threat by anyone really, are you?
Real life isn't like a high school debate club. Milo's been made to look intellectually bankrupt time and time again, it hasn't lessened his appeal, he just got more and more famous and more supporters. They didn't care if his arguments were made to look weak. Perhaps you can sit down and organize your one to one discussions/coffee mornings with the fash, maybe you'll turn one or two. Don't bother discussing anything actually concrete about their beliefs. Leave out their sexism, racism, anti-semitism, transphobia. Just concentrate on class and capitalism. Make sure you chuck marginalized people under the bus. Don't be too convincing though because we already have a problem with racists and sexists in the left, don't need any more of them.
Meanwhile, while you're doing that, comrades can actually do something useful.
If this DOES work, than why have you still not presented an example? I can think of plenty of examples when Far Right types have been debated and done extremely poorly but it hasn't had a noticeable effect on their influence.
An example? Do you want specific People I've spoken to?
How often do Leftist actually talk to working class People about the issue they are worried about? It does happen sure, but unfortunately the fascist right do it much more, and they take their issues and insecurities and lead it in a destructive direction.
"actual issues" hmm either that was poorly worded or we're beginning to see your true colours.
My true colours? What do you think I am?
here's what I mean, I mean actual issues of economic Power and capitalism and class, Things that are putting People out of homes and Food off of tables. I think these issues are more important than the gender issues, Cultural issues and so on that the right loves to use.
I think those issues are Central, it's Capitalism that is the main ideological Power.
But out of curiosity sake what do you mean by success, did you actually get them to give up on their racism and other bigotries?
Most of them aren't actual bigots ... they are just trained to misdirect their attention from their problems.
Take for example immigration, I remember once talking to a guy about how he thinks muslims moving into this European country are hurting low Income People by competing for wages and how they threaten European values and so on and so forth.
typical right wing talking Points.
I basically talked to him instead about the dismantling of social Democracy in the 1990s, and how unions were being destroyed and how what's really destroying European values is the marketization of everything. I then talked about the bombing of the countries where migrants come from, how much of Central africa has been ravaged by corporaitions and now global warming.
He agreed, then we started talking about working class politics and so on.
I have no idea what he thinks about muslims now, but at least for the time I was talking to him his anger shifted to neo-liberalism and the corporate class.
Anytime you find racism among the working classes, or fascims: you'll almost always find a left that has failed to engage them. Racism has to be pushing into People, it isn't Natural.
I would be willing to bet, if you take working class racists and working class ethnic minorities in whatever country, get them to spend time With one another; have them talk about their economic problems and start to come up With a way to overcome those economic problems, racism would die out pretty damn quick.
Maybe I'm being idealistc, or maybe I haven't read any REAL racists, but that's been my experience.
An example? Do you want specific People I've spoken to?
How often do Leftist actually talk to working class People about the issue they are worried about? It does happen sure, but unfortunately the fascist right do it much more, and they take their issues and insecurities and lead it in a destructive direction.
Oh, I see, the reason you don't give any evidence for what you say totally works is because you don't have any.
You can read, so you know exactly what I was asking of you.
My true colours? What do you think I am?
here's what I mean, I mean actual issues of economic Power and capitalism and class, Things that are putting People out of homes and Food off of tables. I think these issues are more important than the gender issues, Cultural issues and so on that the right loves to use.
Ok and your response to the fact that racism and sexism mean these disproportionate put minorities out of homes and food of their tables is to ignore it entirely.
I think those issues are Central, it's Capitalism that is the main ideological Power.
Well yeah but like apartheid and the relegating women to domestic work for centuries show that the capitalist system is perfectly capable of existing on the backs of other ideologies, so that doesn't seem a very smart to treat them like periphery things.
Most of them aren't actual bigots ... they are just trained to misdirect their attention from their problems.
Yes that's still bigotry, unless your implying real bigotry is inherited like eye colours. The blokes who firebombed my local Mosque were still bigots even though they were scapegoating a community that had nothing to do with their worsening economic conditions or the Islamist movement they blamed for the supposed national decline.
They still petrol bombed a building because at the time they didn't like the people in it.
Take for example immigration, I remember once talking to a guy about how he thinks muslims moving into this European country are hurting low Income People by competing for wages and how they threaten European values and so on and so forth.
I see and this fellow was a senior spokesman for a Fascist organization actively encouraging violence and attacks on immigrants was he? And your public humiliation of him in the verbal sparring ring lead to the collapse of the local chapter right?
I basically talked to him instead about the dismantling of social Democracy in the 1990s, and how unions were being destroyed and how what's really destroying European values is the marketization of everything. I then talked about the bombing of the countries where migrants come from, how much of Central africa has been ravaged by corporaitions and now global warming.
He agreed, then we started talking about working class politics and so on.
I have no idea what he thinks about muslims now, but at least for the time I was talking to him his anger shifted to neo-liberalism and the corporate class.
Hang on so you don't actually know if this worked at all then do you. Even the Strasser brothers
Anytime you find racism among the working classes, or fascims: you'll almost always find a left that has failed to engage them. Racism has to be pushing into People, it isn't Natural.
Ok are you actually reading whats been written in reply to you? because that's the reason antifascism actually works. No one is saying its natural, your arguing that a tactic with multiple examples of success around the world should be abandoned, because it conflicts with your morals and in response you keep insisting your ways better and the only evidence you've given us is an anecdote in which you admit you don't know whether you actually succeeded in changing a random blokes mind about Muslims.
I would be willing to bet, if you take working class racists and working class ethnic minorities in whatever country, get them to spend time With one another; have them talk about their economic problems and start to come up With a way to overcome those economic problems, racism would die out pretty damn quick.
Okay, great, but why do you think this requires letting Fascist organizations recruit and organize freely? How will this help your project for peace and love? You know that a rainbow coalition is the last thing they want so why would they sit back and let this happen without a fight?
Maybe I'm being idealistc, or maybe I haven't read any REAL racists, but that's been my experience.
Wait, hang on if this all based on your personal experience, then why are you writing off my personal experience and the experiences of everyone who disagrees with you? I just told you I have reason to fear the speech of others and you just brushed me off with your pompous "I'm interested in serious work attitude".
Let's forget all the evidence and examples I've given you (hell you've been ignoring it all anyway) why is your personal experience more important than mine or the actual victims of Fascist speech?
How often do Leftist actually talk to working class People about the issue they are worried about? It does happen sure, but unfortunately the fascist right do it much more, and they take their issues and insecurities and lead it in a destructive direction.
What? You must be from the US and thinking the Dems are the left or something because the fucking left has done the above for a few hundred years already. You seem to confuse the liberal calling out culture on social media as being left.
And sorry to say, if you'd lived in a country where Nazis throw hand granades into rallies or actively target immigrants, you'd drop your simplistic, and very liberal view of politics in a heart beat.
Rommon, you’re not thinking these things through. Sexism and racism are not peripheral matters to the class struggle. They are, along with religious bigotry, the way the ruling class divides the working class.
I believe all direct action, including opposing fascism, is a tactical matter, which should be used differently depending on the circumstances. The notion that ‘free speech’ is an unalienable right is nonsense, do you know the problem of getting any radical publications displayed in newsagents, etc. The mass media propagates only capitalism.
When there was a battle in Cable Street in the 1930s, when the National Front invaded Brick Lane, when Orangemen decide to march though Catholic areas, I can see no objection to the residents protesting by blocking their passage. We do not live in an ideal world and the working class must choose the appropriate methods to stop their oppressors (and their agents).
I agree With you, situations for example in Greece are MUCH MUCH different, and different actions are called for there.
Auld-bod
I agree, but generally the way to deal With that tactic of the ruling class is to not get caught up in those issues, oppose them when they threaten People, but always go back to the real Source, i.e. Capitalism.
I don't think, for example, that racism can be seperated from Capitalism, it is a Product OF capitalism.
Reddebrek
[/Oh, I see, the reason you don't give any evidence for what you say totally works is because you don't have any.
You can read, so you know exactly what I was asking of you.
What would Count as evidence? individual stories? THat's what I am asking.
Ok and your response to the fact that racism and sexism mean these disproportionate put minorities out of homes and food of their tables is to ignore it entirely.
My response is to address the system that puts People out of homes and removes Food from their tables in the first Place.
Yes that's still bigotry, unless your implying real bigotry is inherited like eye colours. The blokes who firebombed my local Mosque were still bigots even though they were scapegoating a community that had nothing to do with their worsening economic conditions or the Islamist movement they blamed for the supposed national decline.
They still petrol bombed a building because at the time they didn't like the people in it.
Have you ever talked to People that are attracted to those ideologies?
I'm not talking about fire bombers by the way, or actual neo-nazis.
No one is saying its natural, your arguing that a tactic with multiple examples of success around the world should be abandoned, because it conflicts with your morals and in response you keep insisting your ways better and the only evidence you've given us is an anecdote in which you admit you don't know whether you actually succeeded in changing a random blokes mind about Muslims.
has it been successfull though? If no-platforming People has actually improved Things and weakened fascist groups I'd love to see evidence.
Okay, great, but why do you think this requires letting Fascist organizations recruit and organize freely? How will this help your project for peace and love? You know that a rainbow coalition is the last thing they want so why would they sit back and let this happen without a fight?
Yes ... let them organize and recruit freely ... just as anarchists and socialists organize and reqruit freely .... and if their ideas are engaged With, I am quite sure they will fall apart.
Trying to prevent them from organizing will do one thing, it won't actually prevent them, they'll do it anyway, and it will make them seem as though THEY are the ones who are victims and THEY are the ones whose ideas are actually right and so on.
Wait, hang on if this all based on your personal experience, then why are you writing off my personal experience and the experiences of everyone who disagrees with you? I just told you I have reason to fear the speech of others and you just brushed me off with your pompous "I'm interested in serious work attitude".
Let's forget all the evidence and examples I've given you (hell you've been ignoring it all anyway) why is your personal experience more important than mine or the actual victims of Fascist speech?
I'm not writing off anyones personal experience, if you have examples of winning People over by no platforming or something like that let me know.
What would Count as evidence? individual stories? THat's what I am asking.
????????????????????????????????????????? Whatever your thinking of every time you said your way works. I'm giving you a free hand and you still don't provide anything. You keep talking with certainty that your ideas work so you must be basing this off of something. What is it?
My response is to address the system that puts People out of homes and removes Food from their tables in the first Place.
Ok and your response to the fact that racism and sexism mean these disproportionate put minorities out of homes and food of their tables is to ignore it entirely.
Have you ever talked to People that are attracted to those ideologies?
Yes, what on earth makes think I haven't when I've told you several examples from my community?
I'm not talking about fire bombers by the way, or actual neo-nazis.
No, you have, see I have been talking about these people from the start and you have been replying to me on multiple occasions to argue with me over this. So either your not telling the truth now or you really weren't paying attention.
And given that you replied to section with direct references to fascists before neither answer is very good.
has it been successfull though? If no-platforming People has actually improved Things and weakened fascist groups I'd love to see evidence.
Yeah, I'm airing towards your lying now, see I have brought up evidence in other comments. And I know you've seen them because you replied to those comments. You didn't reply to any of those bits, but you replied to the points before and after them so you couldn't have missed them.
Yes ... let them organize and recruit freely ... just as anarchists and socialists organize and reqruit freely .... and if their ideas are engaged With, I am quite sure they will fall apart.
Okay, well leaving aside that that has never actually worked, what about the people they will kill and assault in the meantime? You just gonna write them off as a means to an end?
Trying to prevent them from organizing will do one thing, it won't actually prevent them, they'll do it anyway, and it will make them seem as though THEY are the ones who are victims and THEY are the ones whose ideas are actually right and so on.
Wrong, and already covered in previous comments.
I'm not writing off anyones personal experience, if you have examples of winning People over by no platforming or something like that let me know.
Err yes you did mate, in your first response to me, you made a direct reply to my experiences and wrote me off with your pompous talk about real work. And I've already given you several examples of what you've asked.
I'm not going to do this again for you, your ignoring what I'm saying and refusing to back up your claims with evidence. If your being sincere and I doubt you are, go back an re-read these comments and provide evidence for the claims you've made, all of them.
I agree, but generally the way to deal With that tactic of the ruling class is to not get caught up in those issues, oppose them when they threaten People, but always go back to the real Source, i.e. Capitalism.
Ironically its this which is one of the biggest faults the left makes. Reducing everything down to capitalism is far too narrow a perspective.
Anarchists are not just opposed to capitalism but all forms of domination, exploitation and relationships of power that benefit some to the disempowerment, marginalisation, exploitation or exclusion of others. Aside from capitalism this includes racism, patriocentricity, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, gerontocracy and basically any form of discrimination or phenomenon which normalises one quality such as being heterosexual, cisgender, monogamous and affirming to socially constructed gender roles and expectations to the exclusion of all other qualities so that they are abnormal.
Those forms of discrimination and normalisation adversely affect people who are trans, LGBT, and so on, and in the end decrease the freedom of everybody as it stigmatises and makes taboo issues to do with sex, sexuality, gender and expression all of which should absolutely not be.
Since anarchism is about liberating individuals from all forms of domination, then you should be supporting efforts to liberate individuals from these forms of discrimination and normalisation.
They are not simply created by capitalism, they have existed before the existence of capitalism and could easily exist once capitalism has been abolished.
This is going OT however, so I suggest since anyone here who actually is an anarchist will agree with what I've said here, that the issue not be dealt with any longer and the discussion return to free speech - I am interested to hear thoughts on that as at my uni we have problems with right wing so called 'libertarians' hiding behind free speech to advance misogyny, transphobia and so on, and claiming they are being marginalised and oppressed so I want to know how to effectively rebuke their use of free speech in defending what they are doing.
I agree With you, situations for example in Greece are MUCH MUCH different, and different actions are called for there.
But I am not referring to Greece, but countries like Norway, Sweden and the UK, countries that most people wouldn't think of as having a "bad" nazi problem. Point is, where ever you give nazis free roam of the streets, marginalized peoples will suffer very direct violence. That's the point of no-platforming.
When you say "free speach is ideology" ... of course you're right, but everything is ideology, what matters is not whether or not something is ideology but whether or not something is a good principle.
As for the rest of it. I'll put it this way, I have read right wingers, I've listened to libertarians, I've read left wingers, I've talked to Marxists, all kinds of People, I am able to shift through what makes sense and what does not.
In my experience, with People I have spoken too, when you actually listen to them, and engage with them, they are MUCH more willing to actually listen back and consider an alternative worldview.
In my experience, with right Wing working class people I have spoken to, their view of the left is almost entirely a strawman; most of them are not really bigots once you get past the right wing rhetoric. Most of them interpret the "no platforming" and the "protesting" as the left NOT being able to engage with ideas and argue against them so instead they just try and shut Down Speech.
It's an impression that is understandable if their ONLY contact with the left are "shutting Down" right wingers and what right wingers are saying about the left. In my experience if I actually sit Down with them, and take them time to listen to them and engage with them; most are not that far gone.
You're asking for evidence ... I don't have statistics ... but I'm quite sure if you look up in the psychological literature you'll find out that you're more willing to get People to listen to you if you listen to and engage with them, and they are more willing to ignore you if you just shut them Down.
Here's what I would do with a Milo, instead of shut him Down, make a petition or something to basically force him to a debate on Equal terms.
2 Things will happen.
1. His ideas will no longer seem reasonable.
2. People will be more willing to actually listen to what the radical left is saying.
Heres what happens when you shut him Down.
More People check him out, his ideas remain unchallenged, the left looks as though they are afraid to engage ideas ... and the fascists grow, becuase they are the ones who are being listened to.
By the way, Milo is a troll, he's a moron with really nothing to say, if he is every ACTUALLY challenged you see him shink back pretty fast.
I think in this argument you're assuming that people react to working class neighbours, workmates etc who are a bit racist the same way we treat the organised far right, and I don't think that's accurate.
.
In my experience, with People I have spoken too, when you actually listen to them, and engage with them, they are MUCH more willing to actually listen back and consider an alternative worldview.
Ok but no ones saying you shouldn't do this. You seem be laboring under the impression that no platforming is a standard tactic applied to everyone at the drop of a hat. When in reality is only used by groups who have identified a clear danger.
Its a form of defence and your arguing measures taken to protect ourselves are wrong because they go against your personal beliefs.
It's an impression that is understandable if their ONLY contact with the left are "shutting Down" right wingers and what right wingers are saying about the left. In my experience if I actually sit Down with them, and take them time to listen to them and engage with them; most are not that far gone.
Really? So where exactly do you live? Because that doesn't happen anywhere in the world. Like I said right wing reactionaries are debated and interviewed and engaged with all the time, the only exceptions are the ones engaged in illegal actions and even a few of them like Tommy Robinson can wangle a few appearances.
You're asking for evidence ... I don't have statistics ... but I'm quite sure if you look up in the psychological literature you'll find out that you're more willing to get People to listen to you if you listen to and engage with them, and they are more willing to ignore you if you just shut them Down.
Err, no mate that isn't how this works, in a debate you are responsible for providing evidence for your own statements. Since you're asking others to do your work for you, I can only assume you haven't done any research and have no examples, even though you kept repeating that your views definitely work.
If you don't have evidence you shouldn't make a claim because it wont stand up to scrutiny. All your doing is repeating your own special talking points.
Here's what I would do with a Milo, instead of shut him Down, make a petition or something to basically force him to a debate on Equal terms.
You can't force someone to debate you, and if you could that would be more hostile to freedom of speech then anything anyone else has advocated in this thread.
2 Things will happen.
1. His ideas will no longer seem reasonable.
2. People will be more willing to actually listen to what the radical left is saying.
Well until you do that that isn't proof, your just making a prediction of the future, based on your own sense of superiority. Your smug attitude would be funny if you didn't match it with a callousness for victims (which you either ignore or write off at every turn), so its actually quite disgusting.
He's ideas have already been dismantled from multiple angles on many occasions on very public mediums
Errr, yeah he has, which is why this makes your argument-to be honest this isn't an argument all you have is a wishlist- look even weaker than before. He's already had his ideas and views challenged multiple times and yet his brand continued to grow over the years
Heres what happens when you shut him Down.
More People check him out, his ideas remain unchallenged, the left looks as though they are afraid to engage ideas ... and the fascists grow, becuase they are the ones who are being listened to.
Errr, no. Before the UC Berkley protests he was already a celebrity with a major book deal and multiple appearances on radio, TV and internet. After Berkley he's lost his media career and and is now a pariah.
Now I don't actually believe the Berkley protests did all that (they did stop him outing students though) but the claim that he somehow became a megastar afterwards is just another empty talking point and funnily enough a right wing one at that.
And how do we know this? Again no evidence provided.
By the way, Milo is a troll, he's a moron with really nothing to say, if he is every ACTUALLY challenged you see him shink back pretty fast.
Yeah, and it didn't do a thing. Another free tip ALL CAPS doesn't make what you say anymore convincing. On the contrary it does the opposite. Provide evidence or stop making claims.
The thing is, Milo isn't part of a street based far right paramilitary movement or even connected to them, unlike some of the people on the right that got him fired from Breibart. Censoring him from Berkeley doesn't stop him from offending people online, so I don't see what no platforming him from the ivy league is supposed to achieve. In fact he gets media attention from it, so it's counter productive.
Golden dawn, Russian far right street gangs or the American militia movement are examples of actually dangerous (though not necessarily fascist) movements that antifa should try to counter. That issue is connected to the question of freedom of speech, since we are attempting to censor their freedom of assembly and speech, and needs to be justified. Antifa is supposed to be a working class self defence organisation guaranteeing our freedom of assembly, and maybe in some cases stopping racist from dividing communities. I don't see the anti-Milo protest doing that.
I would say that Milo and the nihilistic internet alt-right are very much the enemy we want. Certainly less scary than paranoid, ex-special forces who think muslims and mexicans are invading America, training paramilitary tactics in the woods. Some of these groups are linked with local cops. There are versions of this phenomena across Eastern Europe as well. That's just some perspective.
The left should be trying to connect with working class communities and build solidarity in places where we are not strong. That is the only way to build political power to actually deal with real problems. I suspect that some antifa sentiment concentrates on tiny fascist cliques or social media assholes because they are seen as small enough that tiny activist groups can beat them.
Quite frankly there is bugger all we can do with the violence which comes from capital or the state and I don't have a shred of hope any more that there is going to be a time in the future when we can but is not the violence perpetrated by fascist groups and sympathisers not "real violence" too?
The violence from the former is precisely what we are supposed to be preventing, and fascist are dangerous precisely as part of a state or as the capitalist class's extralegal paramilitary force, I don't see why we should worry about random bigots. They are a product of alienation and won't go away throgh call-outs and no-platforming (they are in the whitehouse!), they just adabt their strategy with social media.
Our article worked from a perspective in favor of free speech and critical of the anarchist tactics of direct action and individual-terrorism, while theirs took the opposite position.
Wow, way to go getting as much Marxist nonsense in one sentence as possible! So we have "the anarchist tactics of direct action and individual-terrorism" -- hardly "the" and few anarchists have advocated the latter (and a few self-proclaimed Marxists have supported that). As for "direct action," are you against strikes, occupations, boycotts, blockades etc.? Just voting as the tactic for you?
And as for "terrorism", well, most Marxists may be against "individual-terrorism" but many are fine with state-terrorism. Trotsky wrote a whole book on the subject in 1920.
The thing is, Milo isn't part of a street based far right paramilitary movement or even connected to them, unlike some of the people on the right that got him fired from Breibart. Censoring him from Berkeley doesn't stop him from offending people online, so I don't see what no platforming him from the ivy league is supposed to achieve. In fact he gets media attention from it, so it's counter productive.
As was said everytime someone bring this up, Milo was outing local students during this talks, the disruption of his university tour put a stop to this. If your ok with him and other right wing speakers doing this then say so. Stop pretending this is about people getting their feelies hurt on the web. That's just dishonest.
He was actively endangering people and what happened at Berkleythrew a spanner in his works. If you've got a better way to stop this targeting then let us know.
And yes he got media attention, just like how he got media attention for his talks that weren't disrupted. He was already a well known personality so anything that happened in his periphery was guaranteed to get attention. The battle of Cable Street got loads of attention as do all actions against far right paramilitaries you think are far targets. Why isn't this a problem in those cases when supposedly it is for things you don't think are ok.
Golden dawn, Russian far right street gangs or the American militia movement are examples of actually dangerous (though not necessarily fascist) movements that antifa should try to counter. That issue is connected to the question of freedom of speech, since we are attempting to censor their freedom of assembly and speech, and needs to be justified. Antifa is supposed to be a working class self defence organisation guaranteeing our freedom of assembly, and maybe in some cases stopping racist from dividing communities. I don't see the anti-Milo protest doing that.
You know Milo's a racist and really hates transsexuals, and its been shown that his appearances have lead to an increase in harassment of those he targets. So unless your saying ethnic minorities and trans people don't count as "working class" then I suggest you seriously rethink your position because its in conflict with itself.
Also a Wobbly was shot by a right wing milita (not necessarily fascist) type at a protest in Seattle.
http://libcom.org/news/fellow-worker-gdc-member-shot-anti-fascist-protest-seattle-22012017
Guess who the shooter was a fan of? The enemy you want.
The man who told police he shot and wounded another man during a violent demonstration over the appearance of Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington sent a social-media message to the Breitbart News editor just an hour before the shooting.
“Hey Milo,” the 29-year-old former UW student posted to Yiannopoulos’ Facebook page at 7:24 p.m. “im outside in line to your UW event.
“I got sucker punched (he was a bit limp wristed) and someone jacked my #MAGA hat,” he said, referring to the ubiquitous red and white “Make America Great Again” caps worn by supporters of President Trump.
“Anyway for me to get a replacement signed by you?” the man asked
Oh and the allegation that he was "sucker punched" was disproved the member he shot had been trying to talk him down.
I would say that Milo and the nihilistic internet alt-right are very much the enemy we want. Certainly less scary than paranoid, ex-special forces who think muslims and mexicans are invading America, training paramilitary tactics in the woods. Some of these groups are linked with local cops. There are versions of this phenomena across Eastern Europe as well. That's just some perspective.
Of course their the enemy you want, your not being targeted by them. This isn't some hypothetical discussion on ideal strategy for the future. There is a massive surge in hate crimes in recent years and much of its being carried out or encouraged by folks you've just written off.
Again I have to ask, are you being so flippant out of ignorance or genuine callousness?
The left should be trying to connect with working class communities and build solidarity in places where we are not strong. That is the only way to build political power to actually deal with real problems. I suspect that some antifa sentiment concentrates on tiny fascist cliques or social media assholes because they are seen as small enough that tiny activist groups can beat them.
Why exactly do you think this is an either/or scenario? I mean the Arditi Popolo was born out of the factory occupations, the NF were defeated by large coalitions of community groups in association with the AFA, and the Black Shirts were opposed by the labour movement and minority communities.
The Silver Shirts were smashed by the Teamsters Union, and at present the IWW has played a big role in confronting far right groups that threaten minority communities with their support and has been building links as a result.
You wouldn't be writing off something based on your assumptions rather than actual experience now would you?
Also drop the "real problems" drivel. Its a real problem when minorities are attacked and harassed, and I'm sorry people are prioritizing their safety over your preferred political bandwagon, but if your not going to help people in the here and now then why on earth should they help you build Jerusalem tomorrow?
The violence from the former is precisely what we are supposed to be preventing, and fascist are dangerous precisely as part of a state or as the capitalist class's extralegal paramilitary force, I don't see why we should worry about random bigots.
Ever been targeted by random bigots? Your comment and tone suggest not, but I know what its like to be prejudged so I wouldn't want to do the same to you.
Please write coherent responses. I'm not gonna answer 10 unrelated points individually. That kind of text is incredibely heavy, and no one bothers to read it after two pages.
I'm not callous, you don't know me, you don't know what I've done or been through. I'm interested in discussing the antifa and freedom of speech from a practical and philosophical point of view. If you use tactics like criticising my tone, calling me callous, ignorant, whatever, then I have no interest in responding to you.
My point is that there is a difference between fascists as a paramilitary group, which is an existential threat, and internet assholes who are not. And there is a vast difference between the potential violence fascist groups can achieve and what lone racist can do. We don't have, as activist, an efficient way for dealing with individual racist street violence. That's outside our resources as we are not policing the streets. "Stopping Milo" doesn't work, it causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful. "People are suffering do something" -is a really bad way of affecting the world and we shouldn't fetishize easy victories as actually helping someone.
I'm not counting off lone acts of violence of individual racist, but putting them in perspective. Words don't kill people. They might lead to action that does, but if we use that kind of criteria then there is a tension between freedom of speech and antifa. People aren't saying that openly on this thread, which I find troubling.
Here you go: freedom of speech is bullshit bourgeois philsophical wankery. And the reason why it's such is the belief you stated in your post--that "words don't kill people", As if speech is an isolated act, or as if there was an unbridgeable gulf between reactionary ideas and reactionary violence. Fascists, right-wing militia types, and other violence-prone reactionaries appear with their ideas formed as if from the ether. This, as I've said before, is the height of bourgeois-idealist ideology.
And, frankly, there is a fatal contradiction in your post that others have pointed out before in this kind of talk. On the one hand, Milo Yiannassholish is just some "random internet asshole", therefore apparently impotent and demonstrations against him a waste of time; and yet on the other, you're opposed to demonstrations against that asshole and others like him because you think it gives him media attention and "causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful." Either speech is impotent and reactionary speech is not something we should worry about, therefore even if demonstrations against him raise his profile it's hardly anything to get ruffled about; or speech has consequences, potentially dangerous ones, in which case it's entirely justifiable to organize against reactionary speech. Pick one.
I don't know if there's such a clear dividing line though between 'fascists as a paramilitary group' and 'internet arseholes' or 'lone racists'. I think there's a big middle ground there. The far right groups in the UK are not paramilitary but they can still be pretty dangerous? And couldn't someone be acting with other people in a semi organised way without being a fully fledged member?
I don't know if there's such a clear dividing line though between 'fascists as a paramilitary group' and 'internet arseholes' or 'lone racists'. I think there's a big middle ground there. The far right groups in the UK are not paramilitary but they can still be pretty dangerous? And couldn't someone be acting with other people in a semi organised way without being a fully fledged member?
(Cross posted)
I'd say most UK fascist are paramilitary groups - they don't have guns and they are drunk all the time, but they do organise as violent street groups and carry out street patrols and intimitation. I don't think antifa can do anything about lone racist in random places, how would we affect that? this was talked about on this forum before https://libcom.org/forums/news/uk-european-union-referendum-22062016?page=9
We shouldn't fight nonviolent groups or necessarily even political wings of violent groups with violence. State would get a pretext to lock you up pretty quickly. I would say that a lot of this discussion reflects the fact that most of us on this thread live mainly in some type of liberal democracy. You wouldn't really have antifa in countries where there isn't at least somekind of human rights clause guaranteeing freedom of assebly and speech.
Ok fair enough, I suppose I was understanding paramilitary as more of a well armed group.
Sharkfinn
The left should be trying to connect with working class communities and build solidarity in places where we are not strong. That is the only way to build political power to actually deal with real problems. I suspect that some antifa sentiment concentrates on tiny fascist cliques or social media assholes because they are seen as small enough that tiny activist groups can beat them.
Ok I sort of agree with you and I sort of don't. Obv I agree about connecting with working class communities. I swing all over the place on what I think about organised anti fascism. Maybe I could say that I've seen anti fascism done well and done badly. I know some anti fa people where your suspicion is probably accurate. I know others who put a lot of effort into lots of different things including state violence and also do anti fascism. I have seen some anti fascism that was very rooted in local communities too. Then yeah, I've seen lots of anti fascism that I didn't like much.
The community I live in now, I'm pretty safe walking around on my own, if people recognise me as a local anti racist or lefty that probably makes me safer. I've had mates doing working class organising in other places where they had fascist threats phoned to their home phone, their address in Redwatch, one guy had to move house twice. I guess I'm not very qualified to comment on anti fascism and its role in organising in working class communities as I've had it comparatively easy on that score.
Please write coherent responses. I'm not gonna answer 10 unrelated points individually. That kind of text is incredibely heavy, and no one bothers to read it after two pages.
If my responses are that incoherent how on earth did you manage to write several paragraphs after this complaining about it? And no I won't, I actually like this format, your free to use whatever style you like and I am as well.
I'm not callous, you don't know me, you don't know what I've done or been through. I'm interested in discussing the antifa and freedom of speech from a practical and philosophical point of view. If you use tactics like criticising my tone, calling me callous, ignorant, whatever, then I have no interest in responding to you.
Well then don't. Your free to reply in any manner you see fit and that includes not replying. I'm not going to kowtow to you on this, if I see something I think worthy of criticism on a topic a care deeply about I will probably criticize. If this offends you I'm sorry but I'm not going to change.
My point is that there is a difference between fascists as a paramilitary group, which is an existential threat, and internet assholes who are not. And there is a vast difference between the potential violence fascist groups can achieve and what lone racist can do.
Breivik was a lone racist radicalized by the internet, he killed 77 mostly teens/children. That kid who shot up the Church in South Carolina killing nine Dylan Roof acted alone. The websites stormfront and redwatch (which has verisons all over eastern Europe) have been used by dozens of "lone wolf" attacks in several countries.
The two guys who petrol bombed my towns Mosque spent most of time on the web chatting to other angry xenophobes on the web. But to be quite honest I find your distinction quite arbitrary lone actors do add up and the violence they commit is real and whats to stop them from grouping together and coordinating.
I mean that is how political organizing works for everyone else, individuals become groups, groups grow and on it goes.
We don't have, as activist, an efficient way for dealing with individual racist street violence. That's outside our resources as we are not policing the streets. "Stopping Milo" doesn't work, it causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful.
I know, you said you didn't read my comment but this was in the first bit so I'm going to assume your deliberately ignoring this bit to repeated your strawman. Milo isn't more powerful he's become a pariah, and so far has stopped outing students. I realize your not going to openly say you don't care about these students he was targeting because that's indefensible but that's what your saying every time you keep repeating this empty talking point.
"People are suffering do something" -is a really bad way of affecting the world and we shouldn't fetishize easy victories as actually helping someone.
Total strawman, this is about what works as a form of defence against a current and active threat. Not your political project, if your angry people are prioritizing their defence rather than follow your line than that's a reflection of your failure to convince others.
I'm not counting off lone acts of violence of individual racist, but putting them in perspective. Words don't kill people. They might lead to action that does, but if we use that kind of criteria then there is a tension between freedom of speech and antifa. People aren't saying that openly on this thread, which I find troubling.
Exactly. Speech is not neutral it has a relationship to action so speech should carry consequences just like action does.
The tension here is that some user like yourself are prioritizing your preferences over the safety of others.
Stopping meetings like milos stops lots of friendly racists/ homophones/ misogynists from forming connection in real life and and so vastly reduces there ability to act on those beliefs in real life
Stopping meetings like milos stops lots of friendly racists/ homophones/ misogynists from forming connection in real life and and so vastly reduces there ability to act on those beliefs in real life
Stopping meetings like milos stops lots of friendly racists/ homophones/ misogynists from forming connection in real life and and so vastly reduces there ability to act on those beliefs in real life
And, frankly, there is a fatal contradiction in your post that others have pointed out before in this kind of talk. On the one hand, Milo Yiannassholish is just some "random internet asshole", therefore apparently impotent and demonstrations against him a waste of time; and yet on the other, you're opposed to demonstrations against that asshole and others like him because you think it gives him media attention and "causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful." Either speech is impotent and reactionary speech is not something we should worry about, therefore even if demonstrations against him raise his profile it's hardly anything to get ruffled about; or speech has consequences, potentially dangerous ones, in which case it's entirely justifiable to organize against reactionary speech. Pick one.
My position is NOT that Speech doesn't lead to anything, of course it does.
But free speach is necessary in order to air out ideas and get rid of bad ones, the only way you can do that is listen to bad ideas and show that they are bad ideas.
My position is that what is most Dangerous is Milo being seen as some free speach martyr, and that he idea out there is that leftists simply cannot debate Milo on his ideas and have to resort to shutting him Down ... which IS the common view.
If right wingers shut Down a socialist or anarchist confrence the viewpoint out there would probably be that their ideas were Dangerous to the system and the system was unable to actually argue the issues on their own merits.
ideas are Dangerous but communicating them and debating them is absolutely necessary.
Here you go: freedom of speech is bullshit bourgeois philsophical wankery. And the reason why it's such is the belief you stated in your post--that "words don't kill people", As if speech is an isolated act, or as if there was an unbridgeable gulf between reactionary ideas and reactionary violence. Fascists, right-wing militia types, and other violence-prone reactionaries appear with their ideas formed as if from the ether. This, as I've said before, is the height of bourgeois-idealist ideology.
And, frankly, there is a fatal contradiction in your post that others have pointed out before in this kind of talk. On the one hand, Milo Yiannassholish is just some "random internet asshole", therefore apparently impotent and demonstrations against him a waste of time; and yet on the other, you're opposed to demonstrations against that asshole and others like him because you think it gives him media attention and "causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful." Either speech is impotent and reactionary speech is not something we should worry about, therefore even if demonstrations against him raise his profile it's hardly anything to get ruffled about; or speech has consequences, potentially dangerous ones, in which case it's entirely justifiable to organize against reactionary speech. Pick one.
Sorry I haven't had time to respond before. Basically the contradiction in this case is not in my argument but in the tactic of no platforming. Milo is not being silenced if he's getting more attention elsewhere. That aspect was a waste of time.
Some people are saying that he was prevented from harrassing individual people, and if so then fair enough. But he was later saying that he was going to come back. People who actually silenced him after the pedophile thing where American archconservatives around the more traditional far right media sphere: born again christians, Glen Beck, ext. Their influece got him fired from breibart. That's what I mean by him being the "enemy we want", there are much more popular and dangerous people around than that nihilistic asshole. The problem for me is how leftist are talking about this stuff as if we had any real influence over who gets to speak. We don't.
Freedom of speech is an institution that works as far it individuals are able to use it as a defence against state censorship. And of course it doesn't mean the right to speak unopposed. Maybe it's liberal wankery to you but it wasn't for the wobblies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_fights#Major_IWW.27s_free_speech_fights
There is a contradiction within the institution of freedom of speech in that it provides people with the ability to undermine the freedom of others, that's why most contries have clauses against hate speech, but that's difficult. In Sweden for example, nazi images are banned but so are anarchist ones, and it doesn't prevent either groups from organising.
There isn't "an unbridgeable gulf between reactionary ideas and reactionary violence", but there is a gulf between speech and physical acts of violence. We should be organising to prevent the latter and that's going to involve physical confrontation of fascist trying to asseble their forces, driving them out of the neighbourhood and so forth, dont' confuse be with freedom of speech fundamentalist, its not the institution for its own sake. But challenging hate speech in general is not something we even can do, unless we become state censors.
Pretty awful, it makes a lot
Pretty awful, it makes a lot of assumptions and seems to leap from one thing to another randomly and at times contradictory.
Its talks at length about the dangers of state censorship, even though the assumed audience isn't really calling for state censorship. The only example discussed doesn't fall under this category.
If anything the blog seems to be the one calling for the intervention of the state.
It also says that Fascist paramiltiarism should be fought against, but seems blind to the role of organising to support that paramilitary movement. It bizarrely references Weimar Germany and Pre Fascist Italy as necessary examples so I can only assume that the author is not aware that both struggles involved extensive use of the disruption of Fascist organisation and propaganda.
I mean you can't have it both ways, eiither language and speech can be a useful bridge in organisation and physical activity, and thus can be opposed. Or language is neutral and not conducive to activity and organisation which is an odd position for someone writing a political blog to take.
It also brings up UC Berkely exposing the authors ignorance.
Milo's speeches involved outing students at the campuses he visited, either Trans students or undocumented students. Doing so deliberately left them vulnerable to assault and reprisal's by fellow students and the authorities. Anyone who defends this guys right to freedom speech is by default also defending his victimising of other students.
Given that this blog portrays the man as being just a provocative right wing personality I'll assume they didn't know that. But even in ignorance the author is contributing to a dangerous sanitation of someone actively provoking violence against others.
What current advocates of
What current advocates of free speech absolutists don't seem to get is the difference between censorship and no platforming or other methods of individuals or groups of individuals telling other individuals to shut the fuck up. The latter is not censorship.
Censorship is specifically a state/government intervention in preventing people from disseminating their ideas, and it is this Rosa Luxemburg and Alexander Berkman was referring to. It is also something Marx was subjected to, his writings and writings of other communists/socialists being banned in various European countries and the possession of such writings being a pretext to imprisonment. It was also at the heart of the Free Speech movement, which Emma Goldman, the Wobs et al were involved in in the US in the early 20th century, a movement whose members were imprisoned, beaten, tortured and even killed by the police.
Censorship was not what was experienced by Milo. That was a large group of people who had had enough of the years of his spewing hate and bigotry, showing up and telling him to fuck off, a few days after one of his supporters had shot a protester earlier on his tour. It didn't actually "censor" him, it just prevented him from talking in one particular place. As for him not advocating violence, he was intending to out undocumented students, not only in that place but livestreaming it. I'm pretty sure that throwing people into the clutches of ICE, risking their safety, that of their families, possibly getting deported, counts as violence. There's more than one kind of violence and punching someone in the face is only one of these things. Milo had been exercising his freedom of speech for years, on ever increasingly large platforms, including network news and the BBC and has orchestrated campaigns terrorizing people, mostly women. No-one has censored him. He was banned from twitter because he broke their posting guidelines, it hardly shut him up though. I don't think a primetime HBO invite really counts as censorship.
Fascists, the alt-right or whatever, have been getting an increasingly large platform in recent years. Do you really not see the correlation between their ever increasing ability to spread their malicious messages and the increasing amount of physical violence perpetrated against minorities? The mainstreaming of these views under the free speech argument has undoubtable emboldened people to assault people, burn mosques, burn black churches, threaten Jewish centres with bombs.
Free speech fights have always been about government repression of ideas. It's not about a person's inalienable right to abuse someone else. If someone starts spouting some kind of bigotry in my direction, I can and I will tell them to sit down and shut the fuck up. That's what happened to Milo. It's just absurd to think you can debate with these people. The trans student who turned up on his tour to disagree with him in person had her life made so miserable by him and his fans she had to drop out of college. Was that him exercising his free speech too?
It's utter liberal claptrap to misuse the concept of censorship to protect these people from the righteous fury of people telling them to shut up. I wondered at the rank hypocrisy of so called leftists who celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, later tut tutting at poor little Milo turning tail and running or Richard Spencer getting punched in the face. It's a wonder that the people of the East End didn't just pull up a few chairs and have a nice little debate with Mosley.
It's pretty shitty, imo, to use Luxemburg, Berkman and Marx, all of whom suffered from real censorship and state repression, to defend Milo, Berkman in particular - you do know that he did time for trying to kill someone? I doubt if he would be a shrinking violet when it came to shouting down a speech by a political enemy.
You can't debate these people. Standing up and telling these people to shut up as their hate actually threatens people isn't censorship, it's self-preservation. It would be really nice if everyone were nice to each other but that's not the world we live in. Pick a fucking side.
crossposted with Reddebrek
Fleur, with some very slight
Fleur, with some very slight tweaking that's basically an excellent blog post. What would you think of having that hosted here as an official response to the above article?
I'd be cool with that I'd
I'd be cool with that :)
I'd have given it more thought and maybe been less sweary if I hadn't just spent 3 hours getting home in a snow storm. Maybe not, I am a very sweary person...
Awesome! Well basically if
Awesome! Well basically if you are okay to tweak it yourself you can just feel free to do so and post up to our library section (if you think you might want to post things like that more regularly then we can set you up with a blog)
OK, general consensus at work
OK, general consensus at work being that we're not bloody going in tomorrow in this weather, so I'll sort it then. I don't have posting rights though, so you might need to OK me.
Quote: Censorship was not
Protesting is great, telling people to "shut the fuck up" is great—that wasn't argued against. That example was primarily used for pragmatic purposes, to show how preventing people can speaking can backfire and give that person more attention. The point is that violent actions did prevent him from speaking at the university. While the protest was not shut down by the state itself, the rioters who shut down the protesters have the same intention as a state who would censor opinions, but without they state mechanism, they took it into their own hands.
That is a real concern, but I haven't seen any proof of that, only an unsubstantiated tweet. Do you have proof?
If free speech laws haven't been liberalized recently, then there are clearly external factors as to why this spread of ideas has increased: the platform of the internet, scapegoating of minorities, etc. Moreover, censorship of ideas doesn't prevent them from existing. Again, as mentioned in the article, trying to hide opinions can lead them to becoming more well known, and if they are silenced and thus unchallenged then it won't be possible to "[clear] up the lies about fascism and other conservative ideologies instead of letting them scatter among hidden circles."
But how can you assure that a principle to prohibit some speech won't be manipulated to prohibit anyone else's speech? Additionally, abuse is a difficult concept to define. It could be considered abusive to the KKK member if I insult him for promoting killing of black people, though that doesn't make those views safe from condemnation. "The problem with this is that once the precedent has been set that some views are not allowed to be expressed, then no views are able to be certainly protected. For instance, if it becomes punishable by law to make offensive comments about a specific group of people, how long would it take for it to become punishable to criticize the actions of the state of Israel, which aren’t comments made out of bigotry, but necessary criticisms of repressive actions of a regime? Additionally, if the premise for illegality of an action is individuals being offended, a similar case could be made for someone claiming to be offended by homosexuality " [If you are not referring a legal system of censorship, replace laws with direct action].
Actually, convincing Milo or whoever to change their mind isn't that important. What's more important is changing the mind of people listening to the debate.
He treated her terribly, and I agree that that's awful. But are you saying random people should have the right to be violent against him because he says things that are offensive? You also can verbally harass Milo if you'd like (not that it seems to be an efficient tactic). Also, people don't have to debate him in person of course. I can see how it would be understandable to not allow him from giving a speech on campus, but not justified to use violence to prevent him from speaking in general, though it should be extremely disapproved of and criticized.
Mosley and his gang were a paramilitary fascist group threatening the working class. As mentioned in the article, violence against paramilitary groups is appropriate—the British Union of Fascists were a military enemy, not merely an ideological enemy.
Why? It's under the same principle. If Luxemburg was prevented from giving a speech every time she tried to, I would be very critical of the silencing. In actuality, I'm not defending Milo's opinions in any way, but criticizing the motive to try to prevent him from being able to speak. As a final question, do you think a vigilante gang shutting someone's speech down is different in principle from the state doing it?
volshok wrote: Protesting is
volshok
So protesting is great, except for the times when it accomplishes its goal? This is some pure unadulterated liberalism here.
Ahem, yeah actually there was it was in the first reply to you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/uc-berkely-protests-milo-yiannopoulos-publicly-name-undocumented-students-cancelled-talk-illegals-a7561321.html
There's also time he identified and outed a Trans student at a previous event.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/trans-student-harassed-by-milo-yiannopoulos-speaks-out
I notice despite your claims of concern you don't have any practical solutions. From the article you wrote you seem to be in favour of the peaceful and lets face it symbolic protest. But that model wouldn't do anything to stop Milo or any other speaker from outing trans or undocumented students. So your concern is meaningless is actually quite offensive and pompous.
You aren't reading what Fleur and I have said at all, your still replying to strawman state you've constructed in your own head. What you've just described isn't no platforming, its very easy to attack and dispute an ideological position without giving someone a platform to advocate and recruit in the process.
Do you also think its terrible that documentaries about the Nazi's don't have the last living members of the Third Reich or their modern advocates chiming in to defend the necessity of the holocaust?
Well its quite simple really, direct action anti fascist groups don't have the reach or the power to do what your saying here. Again you've immediately ignored what Fleurs been saying to slither back to moaning about the state.
Well no see that doesn't actually work. A direct action group doesn't have the power and reach of the state so your word replacement game is frankly dishonest.
Errr, that isn't really a difference so Fleurs point still stands, just replace Milo with Milo's audience and you get the same thing.
Jesus, this is disgusting. Spare us your crocodile tears, your perfectly fine with what Milo did, because you hate the alternative far more. You have no response to this kind of threatening and harassment. On the contrary your liberal ideology (lets call a spade a spade) if taken to heart would make attacks like this far more common and easier to do. Because any alternative that could stop such acts would infringe on your sacred calf of freedom of speech.
Errr. Fighting against Mosley involved turning up to his meetings and party offices and disrupting them through force. Again your being ridiculously arbitrary to salvage your position. Mosely couldn't have assembled that paramilitary force without speeches, propaganda and political organisation.
What your advocating here is simply stupid and self defeating. Its only okay to fight a militant reactionary group after reached a certain size and threat level, and not before. That's not a principle that's a split hair
You know in the Kingdom of Poland Rosa once strongarmed a party newspaper to follow the political line she favoured by brandishing a pistol at the editor, and packing the printing press with armed supporters. Rosa was complaining about the state in your quotation not political formations, she had a history of advocating force when she believed it was in the best interest of socialism.
Same with Berkman, the guy who was all for force when it seemed beneficial. And Karl Marx in his studies of revolutionary moments often chastised liberal moderation in regards to allowing enemy voices to spread disinformation and leak secrets to the reaction. None of them agree with you, they were all in favour of attacking reaction in what ever way seemed the most advantageous at the time.
Sniping at effective opposition and doing nothing to help the victims is supporting Milo. Your just arbitrarily distancing yourself from that because the rubbing of shoulders with him makes you uncomfortable. And if you really have to ask that last question, then you really haven't been reading what we've written to you.
Quote: While the protest was
Again, you are confusing censorship with individuals taking action to shut down a bigot. He was not subject to any of the repression that comes with censorship. He was not arrested, beaten or abused by the police (indeed they were protecting him.) He was not prevented in any way from continuing to express his opinions, he was invited onto Bill Mayer’s dog turd of a show the next week. He was just prevented from speaking in a particular place by people who didn’t want him to speak. It’s no different from when I tell the Mormons to go away when they are bothering me on my doorstep. They haven’t got an inalienable right to spread their opinions in places where they are not wanted and if they weren’t generally a polite bunch of people who understand this, I would have no qualms about kicking them off my steps if they refused to shut up and go away.
Free speech absolutists are constantly hiding behind the First Amendment, misinterpreting it as the absolute right to freedom of speech by anyone in any place. This is the actual First Amendment (my bold)-
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It doesn’t apply to individuals abusing marginalised groups.
Do I have proof that Milo was planning on naming undocumented students? Do I need it? Are we expected to wait until harm has been done, when we have reasonable suspicion that harm was going to be done? It makes things very convenient to be able to retroactively condemn someone’s actions which happened as a consequence of you refusing to sully yourself because you were dogmatically sticking to a point of principle. People matter more than abstract concepts and sometimes you have to get down off your high horse of lofty principles in order to protect people. In Milo’s case, there was every reasonable suspicion that he would be naming people because it is his M.O. He’s done it before, on multiple times to multiple people. This time there was a chance that people were going to suffer considerable harm. If your point of principle is worth more than the people who would have immigration knocking down their doors, being carted off to be incarcerated and eventually deported, then your principle isn’t worth a dime.
Again, this is not censorship. No-one is censoring these ideas. Reactionary voices are whingeing all the time (and you’re falling for it) about having their free speech impinged upon and being censored, when their opponents use their collective voices (and yes, sometimes violence) to shut them down but the reality is they still have access to a whole range of means of expressions and platforms, including the mainstream media, and they use it. In the name of free speech they are able to spread their messages and increase their support. Very little mainstream concern is given to the victims of their bigotry, liberals feeling that their Je suis Milo, misquoting Voltaire etc nonsense and their steadfast support of the principle of free speech is more important than the people it actively harms. You could be fined up to $5000 for crossing the border into the US with a Kinder Egg because of the hypothetical harm it could do to a hypothetical child but but the actual harm caused by, for example, the transphobic bigotry of these people, the real psychological violence perpetrated upon trans people and the real physical violence perpetrated against them, is not as important as the principle of free speech. Sometimes you have to get out of your principled bubble and protect people. How much more polite debate do you want? They already get a fuck ton of it. If Milo hadn’t already had a huge media presence before, Including hobnobbing with Donald Trump, he wouldn’t have had the funds for the US tour. Your google graph means nothing. It just indicates he was in the news those two days.
You’re talking ahistorical nonsense here. The BUF were not a paramilitary group. The SA was a paramilitary group, as were the Italian Blackshirts, the Freikorps, the Tonton Macoute. Mosley was a failed politician aristocrat, who had his followers wear black to emulate the oh so stylish Italians. They were not a militia, armed or otherwise and they fulfilled none of the criteria necessary to be classed as a paramilitary organisation. My partner’s grandmother was at the Battle of Cable Street, and she was most definitely not a person to be trifled with. The idea of her, an actual communist fighting actual fascists having a nice polite debate with them is really, really funny. It’s also a damned insult to the people who have stood their ground and fought these fuckers, even if they lost. You could probably do with reading a little bit of history of how previous generations of comrades fought fascists. Hint, it was only the liberals who thought you could overcome them with dialogue. You could try this one for starters.
http://libcom.org/history/beating-fascists-german-communists-political-violence-1929-1933-eve-rosenhaft
You genuinely don’t understand, do you? Rosa Luxemburg was actually silenced. By a bullet to the head, having been tortured, by people whose opinions you wish to protect by the principle of free speech.
Given that you are confused about what censorship is, let me clarify that I do not support censorship, that being the state prohibition of ideas. What you are calling censorship is not censorship. It is the freedom to protect yourself, your community and others from what which will undoubtably do them harm - and don’t ask me to provide proof of that harm, just open a history book. You can disappear down a rabbit hole of theory, you can even misappropriate dead communist’s words to back up your theory but this isn’t a stupid high school debate on the value of principles, it’s a goddamned war. Pick a side.
edit: also crossposted with reddebrek
Quote: But how can you assure
This 'slippery slope' argument is really common. I think it is very American, too. Numerous European countries (as good as an example of liberal democracy as the U.S.) have laws prohibiting Holocaust denial and various displays of fascist symbols. Some of them have even outright banned parties they saw as too connected to fascism.
In any case, as has been pointed out by other posters, there's a difference between the state doing something and a loose coalition of people doing something.
I think the the idea that we
I think the the idea that we are in a "goddamned war" with fascists is comforting but misleading. We can shut down fascist events, art exhibits, protests etc because fascists orgs are weak. Of course we all know the real violence comes from capital and the state, and there's not much we can do about it in the present state of things.
Quite frankly there is bugger
Quite frankly there is bugger all we can do with the violence which comes from capital or the state and I don't have a shred of hope any more that there is going to be a time in the future when we can but is not the violence perpetrated by fascist groups and sympathisers not "real violence" too? Is there a sliding scale in place? I would have thought that using our voices, and those who are bigger, fitter and stronger than me, their physical force, to oppose people who espouse violence against vulnerable people is important too? If nothing else, it's a demonstration of solidarity.
Given that libcom posted
Given that libcom posted posted Fleur's anti-Marxist polemic here as an article, I've (not the original author of this thread) replied to it here:
libcom.org posts anti-Marxist polemic
prinkyn wrote: Given that
prinkyn
You sure your not the original author? Your taking this extremely personally.
Oh and btw, the article did help finish the last squares in this bingo card I made,
The point really is how
The point really is how successful and effective is closing down debate and free speech.
From Wiki
By 1939, total BUF membership was probably approaching 20,000, while the CPGB's was 18,000
Outside and external events not the protests stopped his movement.
And i hate the idea that we somehow contribute to the impression that the right-wing are victims and not perpetrators
You actually read any Marx?
You actually read any Marx?
Quote: You actually read any
If directed at me, Yes, a little. Not sure i have ever met anyone who has read every word he wrote.If not these quotes from Marx are still apt.
ajjohnstone: No, not you. I
ajjohnstone:
No, not you. I was asking the author of the piece, the curiously anti-violence Marxist.
volshok wrote: Quote: Free
volshok
so your saying that you think that anti fascist groups, defence groups organised by LBGT people and POC will turn around and start attacking people based on their sexuality or race if they successfully prevent fascist holding meetings to organise hate campaigns.
and yes i not your mischaracterization of the issue as people being offended, it not, this is about on going fascist organisation campaigns, already people radicalised by people like milo on teh internet have killed people, it will get worse if they are able to get together in large groups of like minded people in real life
I don't agree with Noam
I don't agree with Noam Chomsky's position in this video, but thought it's worth considering in this thread. In this video Chomsky rejects no platforming in universities and says students who are upset about something could stay away.
https://youtu.be/70ARPruhGtw
Again I strongly disagree with that, but it is maybe worth thinking that if the tables were turned and anarchist views were strongly not welcomed in universities and students actively organised to shut us down and prevent a platform for us then what would our response be. Wouldn't we now be the ones winging that our views are marginalised, and that there is no allowance for critical or dissenting views?
I guess the argument we can make here is that unlike those using free speech to advance racism, sexism, transphobia and so on our views are not violent.
Again though I am just playing devil's advocate here. Just interested in response's to this.
The response is that this an
The response is that this an extremely naïve view of what speech is and can achieve.
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
Staying away will not do anything to protect you from a reactionary stirring up trouble. We know this, when racists are free to give speeches attacks on minorities go up. When homophobes give rallies on universities the local LGBT chapter reports increased harassment.
Chomsky knows this, he's even written lengthy essays on places where radical right politicians would give speeches attacking people, and then those people would be abducted, tortured and murdered.
This is liberal utopianism, speech isn't neutral, nor is its power equally distributed, so any argument that takes that view shouldn't be given the time of day especially when cloaked in fake radicalism.
Maybe Chomsky was talking
Maybe Chomsky was talking about his experience and protection for him to speak at universities and not shutting down his events? (Maybe he's talking about left-wing speakers? I remember there was this one time where Chris Hedges was booed on-stage while he was giving a speech at a graduation ceremony and needed police protection, if that's a good example of what Chomsky's getting at.) I don't know; someone should ask him his views on people like Milo being no-platformed and prevented from speaking by people showing up and shutting down his events. I more inclined to agree with Red that it does nobody any good to pretend that these right-wingers are not causing harm to others, just because they're talking on a stage and not overtly attacking someone. (The outing of people needs to be stopped and should not be protected as free speech. And if they're going to allow him to do that, then the people themselves should take action.)
I'll throw in my two cents.
I'll throw in my two cents.
So let's say you're a non-political guy in a university, and someone invites you to see a speach by Milo. You go there and on the way you read some of his opinions, basically he says feminism is cancer, islam is terrible, and bla bla bla; you don't really agree with him, but you figure "hey I'll hear him out."
You get there and you see outside a bunch of People yelling "fascist" "nazi" or something like that, when Milo starts to give his speach, protestors get up and try and shut it Down.
When he goes home what impression do you think this guy will have?
1. Those guys are Dicks.
2. No one challenged his ideas, they just called him a fascist.
3. Maybe he's on to something.
What if, on the other hand, they let him have his speach; chances are at the end some People will like him, and reasonable People would think "this guy is a Dick".
Or even better they Challenge his ideas intellectually and engage him ... I GUARANTEE you Milo is not intellectually capable of taking on a well thought through leftist, and he'd end up just looking like an idiot.
There is nothing that gives Milo more Power than People just yelling "fascist" at him, he loves to market himself as a "Dangerous thinker" willing to communicate Dangerous truths that the "left" don't want you to hear, but they don't have any arguements against so they just try and Control speach.
that's his marketing Message, he says over the top stupid Things in order to get a reaction that ends up feeding his popularity.
As soon as the left doesn't react to his nonsense, and actually engages with what he says intellectually and exposes him for being the tool that he is, he sinks to obscurity.
This is what I like about Chomsky; when he engages right wingers he doesn't yell at them, he doesn't Call them fascists, he calmly formulates arguments and dismantles their positions; almost always when they are done the right wingers are getting in a hissy fit because their ideas have been exposed as vacous and Chomsky is calm and collected.
The problem with this view is
The problem with this view is that it imagines the nebulous someone-on-the-fence as the only relevant person that is affected by these particular speech acts and that the only outcome is that this someone is convinced one way or the other. It leaves out those who, as Fleur and Reddebrek pointed out in their blog posts, are put at risk by the speech acts of those like Milo Yiannassholish or the fash. I am convinced that those who are vulnerable to the actual threat posed by these speech acts are more important than hypothetical fence-sitters.
It also finds it unimaginable that the mobilization against fascist or reactionary speech can have effects other than repelling this fence-sitter. It doesn't allow for the possibility that those who are already opposed to Yiannassholish or the fash could become convinced by a communist movement that actually sticks up for the people it says it will defend, unlike the wishy-washy liberals who speech as some sacred act above the actual lives of people. It doesn't understand that these mobilizations can be part of the very stuff it takes to actually build communism, that these are the practical situations in which sections of the working class might develop their consciousness and refine the tactics of mass politics. And, I think most crucially, it thinks of fascist or reactionary speech, and the militant response against it, in an isolated way and not as part of the ongoing history of class struggle. It doesn't understand that violence has already preceded and will proceed from reactionary speech; and that mobilizations against such speech might not just be a bunch of lefties cropping up, but might be people taking their own defense into their own hands.
Who are at risk by those
Who are at risk by those Speech acts?
What puts People at risk is if those ideas communicated by those speach acts gain legitimacy in Peoples minds, and People decide to act on them.
What midigates that risk is revealing those ideas as being vacous.
By just yelling these guys Down you ignore why these ideas become popular, why People are symapthetic to them and you ignore what they effects are of not engaging With them.
Speech doesn't hurt People, what hurts People is a left that thinks its more important to Call People out and Call them names rather than actually engage ideas, reveal them as fallacious, and provide an alternative vision/narrative.
No one should be afraid of Speech, I am a free Speech purist because I believe in my ideology and the correctness of what I stand for.
I don't like the term "no
I don't like the term "no platform". I think everyone can have a platform but some of them just need overturning by an angry radical mob. There's been some really stupid stuff though like attempts to no platform Maryam Namazie. I think what happened with Milo Yiannopoulos gig was fucking ace though. Rommon, I shouldn't worry too much about the "bigot-curious" outsider checking things out and getting upset. I suspect 99.99% of those who attend Milo events are first class arsewipes.
Serge Forward wrote: Rommon,
Serge Forward
They aren't. This is the problem With both the actual left, and the so-called moderete neo-liberal "left", they dismiss many working class People as just racist or sexist or whatever and don't engage them.
I've spoken to a lot of those People. Often all they have is a strawman of the left, they basically think the left are a bunch of authoritarian nihilists who think every white male is evil. Generally they are People who want some sort of community, and idiots like Milo provide them With ... not a community, but an enemy, i.e. the "liberal elite". Most of these People are not "bigots" perse, they start out as People who want to have a community, a culture, something to belong to, and end up being bigots by falling into this bizzare neo-fascism of People like Milo.
If all you're doing is yelling them Down and calling them names (which frankly almost have no meaning anymore), not only will those People be more tied to the neo-fascist movements, those movements will gain more sympathy.
One of the dumbest Things i hear liberals say is "oh that's the white working class, and demographics are Destiny" ... I'm sorry, the Next "white working class" will be the hispanic working class, or the black working class, or any working class Group. All the fascists need to do is pretend to be defending their culture and community against some enemy, and as long as the left doesn't engage them; the fascists will win. This is already happening in europe, where some old immigrant Groups (second Third generation immigrants) are supporting neo-fascist parties against "Cultural liberals" and new immigrant Groups.
why? Becuase the liberal-left doesn't talk to them about the Things that matter to them, they just Call other People fascists.
If you shut Down a guy like Milo what does that accomplish? it gains him more sympathy, his ideas seem more credible, and it makes the left look like they can't deal With his ideas on an intellectual Level and thus must resort to "shutting Things Down."
I know he's just a social democrat, but recently Bernie Sanders went Down to West Virginia and talked to a bunch of trump supporters about Things they care about, economic Security, Healthcare, Schools and drug addiction: they gave him a standing ovation - People who voted for trump. That should be a wakeup Call.
The REAL speeches that the
The REAL speeches that the left should be paying attention too are the Wall Street lectures and economics confrences where neo-liberal and capitalist ideology is pushes ... This is where the rulers of the world actually do their damage.
Rommon wrote: Who are at risk
Rommon
The marginalized in society,
http://libcom.org/blog/words-can-cut-deep-speech-violence-28032017
Indeed, and they get popularity and greater acceptance when advocates for those views have the power and potential to popularize them further.
You know that's impossible to prove right? And that mitigate doesn't mean remove? Or is this an admission that some victimization and violence is worth the price of your own ideals being accepted by society. You got a ratio to work off or something?
Strawman, no platforming isn't "shouting people down" that's more a feature of symbolic protests advocated by liberal activism. Effective no platforming means active disruption and shutting down the reactionaries attempts to organize and propagandize.
This is simply objectively wrong. You've been given many examples of how speech can be a form of violence up to and including death. Your just ignoring this and restating your beliefs in an attempt to shout down contrary reality.
Again this is just the recitation of your chosen dogma, this is the world how you wish it to be, not how it is.
Its also incredibly pompous, and actively insulting, as someone who has reason to fear the speech of others you are not a friend or an ally, you've chosen the side of my oppressors. Good job "Leftist"
I take your point about many
I take your point about many working class people seeing the left as anti-working class. Unfortunately, they're right as there is a strong anti (white) working class current in the more liberal left. But seriously mate, If someone is stupid enough to turn up on spec to a Milo gig, then they really need to get their head out their arse. I don't buy the old "it makes them fall into fascism" line. This is just liberal left nonsense. If they're at a Milo gig then they're already more than half way there. If anyone decides to join the fash, they have to put some effort into it and it won't be because some bigoted twat gets his meeting shut down... or because some passive attendee gets a slap.
Rommon wrote: The REAL
Rommon
I agree with this actually but think we should do both.
Quote: The marginalized in
Yes, in that those Words are agreed With, accepted as true, and acted upon.
What makes it easier to popularize them is when there is no opposition.
It's not impossible to prove, compare countries that ban free speach of the radical right, and those that do not, and then see which ones have more problems With the radical right.
Speech in and of itself doesn't vicitmize anyone, violence does. If you want to prevent Speech from leading to violence you take away its Power, by arguing against it.
My ratio is this: what actually Works, what actually helps People. Not what makes me feel morally righteous.
it feels good to shut Down a fascist, but it doesn't help anything, it doesn't achieve anything.
What does it accomplish?
Does it forward any narrative? any vision? does it actually hurt the fascists? Does it effect their ideology?
The examples are how Speech leads to action ... Yes, and that action can be violence.
So you shut Down Speech, have you reduced the threat of violence? Have you done damage to fascist ideologies? You've done damage to no one but the left.
There is NOTHING that the right loves more than pretending to be victims, pretending that their ideas are so right and so Dangerous to the establishment they must be shut Down.
there is nothing they hate more than someone actually chanenging them intellectually and revealing them to be stupid and shallow ...
Is it working? I am not interested in being a friend or ally, or anything like that. I'm interested in actually providing an alternative to Capitalism and helping the lives of the poor and working classes.
the idea that fascists are
the idea that fascists are working class is a liberal myth spread by the wealthy and privileged, in reality the right are disproportional wealthy, business owners etc, yes they convince some of the poor working class to take they side, but these ideas are not caused by poverty, and pretending tehy are only helps bigotry.
It should be obvious that reading about some ideas or seeing a video about them is not the same as getting together with a large group of people who share those ideas. Stopping meetings like milos stops lots of friendly racists/ homophones/ misogynists from forming connection in real life and and so vastly reduces there ability to act on those beliefs in real life
people who voted for trump, are mostly just ordinary republicans, they weather than the average American and less working class, there are not worth specially targeting to recruit to our cause when there are still millions who are more susceptible to communist ideas
Rommon wrote: The
Rommon
Yes that is how propaganda works.
Err? your the one arguing against opposition pal not me.
Oh I see we're back to this strawman again. You know for such believers in the power of debate you aren't very good at it. We're comparing the effectiveness of direct antifascism to liberal debating. Not state censorship. We've been very clear on this point from the beginning so there is no excuse here your doing this deliberately.
Oh and by the by the United States is arguably the most extreme interpretation of freedom of speech in the world, and yet it still elected a right wing radical administration and has a long and bloody history of right wing terrorism.
And in Europe where most nations do have strong laws against extremist speech right wing radicals are still entitled to debate and argue. So your criteria doesn't work.
Okay, so why hasn't it worked yet? We've been doing this since the end of WWII, contrary to your believes reactionary bigots are debated and argued against quite regularly, and yet hate crimes and terrorism continue to persist and are on the up.
You seem to think the world has been run by some kind of antifascist orthodoxy were neo-fash have been stomped underground. And that just isn't the case anywhere in the world.
Yeah, your lying now, we know what your advocating doesn't work because that is the status quo position. We can see the rise in right wing extremism in the US and Europe both bastions of liberal debate. Your not radical or novel your just advocating what's currently happening and ignoring the effects that clash with your optimism.
Well that's funny I could of sworn the shutting down of the National Front saved Jewish and black and Asian communities from a wave of terror from what was once Britain's fourth largest party.
Accomplish? weakens their ability to organize, does it forward any narrative? yes, they aren't as strong as they think they are, and can't act with impunity. Does it effect their ideology? Well again yes after the NF collapsed its successor the BNP ditched street fighting for electoral politics, because they had to try something different because they couldn't win through physical confrontation.
In the US the Fascist Silver Shirts were destroyed completely by the opposition of the Teamsters union.
Can you point to any example of your way answering any of these questions?
Obviously yes, that unionist wouldn't have been targeted had he not been outed on redwatch, the Salvadoran civil society wouldn't have been tortured and murdered had someone not pointed them out to the death squads. The Trans student wouldn't have been harassed had Milo not identified her. My 16 year old friend wouldn't be at risk of violence if someone hadn't drawn attention to him on red watch. So on and so on. This how outing works, exposure encourages violence.
And if "THE LEFT" needs to be damaged* in order to protect these people (most of whom are actual leftists) than I say fuck it and anyone who would put political convenience over human lives.
*Which you've not actually proved in anyway. Saying it over and over again doesn't count.
Again strawman, ANTIFA is not the establishment, and again so what? This doesn't address the issue at all this just you whining about PR. We're talking about violence if you believe your personal ideology is worth the violent attacks on others then have the backbone to say so and stop dancing around it.
Again when is this happened? Right wing zealots get interviews and debates all the time, you should have plenty of examples to choose from if this were true.
But you aren't though, your here arguing against poor and working class people taking actions to protect themselves. You know in the UK and France trade unionists and "commies" are common targets of far right violence, violence your not interested in opposing.
If your crackpot liberalism were accepted I and my fellow workers would be under more pressure and violence not less.
So again your not a comrade in any sense of the world, your views are based in liberal idealism and your priorities are with the right wing reactionaries who initiate violence instead of their victims. So much for Christian charity.
the idea you can reason milo
the idea you can reason milo supporters out of there bigotry is rather naive, they dont care about fact, if you encounter them online and you post eg scientific studies proving them wrong they will down vot your posts and be yelling there only to genders or their stupid attack helicopter memes 5 minutes later. in real life they want to have fun, get there views reinforce, meet people and get material to wind up "sjw cucks"
You'll never argue anyone out
You'll never argue anyone out of anything by arguing With them online, that's never going to work. What DOES work is not arguing With them directly, but having debates With their heros and showing them to be empty.
By the way, why would you argue With them about gender? I would, and have, rather ignored that stuff and talk about Capitalism, class and so on.
I've spoken to a lot of, not milo supporters perse, but the kind of New conservative neo-fascists.
I've had success talking to them one on one, not calling them bigots, not calling them fascists, not arguing about gender or anything like that, but talking about actual issues of class and capitalism.
Debating Milo on Equal terms would show him to be intellectually empty, especially if you argue With him about Capitalism.
I personally think it's a mistake for the left to dig their trenches in gender issues, or even race issues (although racism in America IS growing and becoming quite scary), I think the issue of class and capitalism is the most important issue that needs to be dealt With and is a winning issue.
Rommon wrote: You'll never
Rommon
If this DOES work, than why have you still not presented an example? I can think of plenty of examples when Far Right types have been debated and done extremely poorly but it hasn't had a noticeable effect on their influence.
"actual issues" hmm either that was poorly worded or we're beginning to see your true colours.
But out of curiosity sake what do you mean by success, did you actually get them to give up on their racism and other bigotries?
Rommon: Quote: By the way,
Rommon:
Lol. You're a white straight guy, who's never felt marginalized, had their right to existence denied or had been particularly under threat by anyone really, are you?
Real life isn't like a high school debate club. Milo's been made to look intellectually bankrupt time and time again, it hasn't lessened his appeal, he just got more and more famous and more supporters. They didn't care if his arguments were made to look weak. Perhaps you can sit down and organize your one to one discussions/coffee mornings with the fash, maybe you'll turn one or two. Don't bother discussing anything actually concrete about their beliefs. Leave out their sexism, racism, anti-semitism, transphobia. Just concentrate on class and capitalism. Make sure you chuck marginalized people under the bus. Don't be too convincing though because we already have a problem with racists and sexists in the left, don't need any more of them.
Meanwhile, while you're doing that, comrades can actually do something useful.
Quote: If this DOES work,
An example? Do you want specific People I've spoken to?
How often do Leftist actually talk to working class People about the issue they are worried about? It does happen sure, but unfortunately the fascist right do it much more, and they take their issues and insecurities and lead it in a destructive direction.
My true colours? What do you think I am?
here's what I mean, I mean actual issues of economic Power and capitalism and class, Things that are putting People out of homes and Food off of tables. I think these issues are more important than the gender issues, Cultural issues and so on that the right loves to use.
I think those issues are Central, it's Capitalism that is the main ideological Power.
Most of them aren't actual bigots ... they are just trained to misdirect their attention from their problems.
Take for example immigration, I remember once talking to a guy about how he thinks muslims moving into this European country are hurting low Income People by competing for wages and how they threaten European values and so on and so forth.
typical right wing talking Points.
I basically talked to him instead about the dismantling of social Democracy in the 1990s, and how unions were being destroyed and how what's really destroying European values is the marketization of everything. I then talked about the bombing of the countries where migrants come from, how much of Central africa has been ravaged by corporaitions and now global warming.
He agreed, then we started talking about working class politics and so on.
I have no idea what he thinks about muslims now, but at least for the time I was talking to him his anger shifted to neo-liberalism and the corporate class.
Anytime you find racism among the working classes, or fascims: you'll almost always find a left that has failed to engage them. Racism has to be pushing into People, it isn't Natural.
I would be willing to bet, if you take working class racists and working class ethnic minorities in whatever country, get them to spend time With one another; have them talk about their economic problems and start to come up With a way to overcome those economic problems, racism would die out pretty damn quick.
Maybe I'm being idealistc, or maybe I haven't read any REAL racists, but that's been my experience.
Rommon wrote: An example? Do
Rommon
Oh, I see, the reason you don't give any evidence for what you say totally works is because you don't have any.
You can read, so you know exactly what I was asking of you.
Ok and your response to the fact that racism and sexism mean these disproportionate put minorities out of homes and food of their tables is to ignore it entirely.
Well yeah but like apartheid and the relegating women to domestic work for centuries show that the capitalist system is perfectly capable of existing on the backs of other ideologies, so that doesn't seem a very smart to treat them like periphery things.
Yes that's still bigotry, unless your implying real bigotry is inherited like eye colours. The blokes who firebombed my local Mosque were still bigots even though they were scapegoating a community that had nothing to do with their worsening economic conditions or the Islamist movement they blamed for the supposed national decline.
They still petrol bombed a building because at the time they didn't like the people in it.
I see and this fellow was a senior spokesman for a Fascist organization actively encouraging violence and attacks on immigrants was he? And your public humiliation of him in the verbal sparring ring lead to the collapse of the local chapter right?
Hang on so you don't actually know if this worked at all then do you. Even the Strasser brothers
Ok are you actually reading whats been written in reply to you? because that's the reason antifascism actually works. No one is saying its natural, your arguing that a tactic with multiple examples of success around the world should be abandoned, because it conflicts with your morals and in response you keep insisting your ways better and the only evidence you've given us is an anecdote in which you admit you don't know whether you actually succeeded in changing a random blokes mind about Muslims.
Okay, great, but why do you think this requires letting Fascist organizations recruit and organize freely? How will this help your project for peace and love? You know that a rainbow coalition is the last thing they want so why would they sit back and let this happen without a fight?
Wait, hang on if this all based on your personal experience, then why are you writing off my personal experience and the experiences of everyone who disagrees with you? I just told you I have reason to fear the speech of others and you just brushed me off with your pompous "I'm interested in serious work attitude".
Let's forget all the evidence and examples I've given you (hell you've been ignoring it all anyway) why is your personal experience more important than mine or the actual victims of Fascist speech?
Quote: How often do Leftist
What? You must be from the US and thinking the Dems are the left or something because the fucking left has done the above for a few hundred years already. You seem to confuse the liberal calling out culture on social media as being left.
And sorry to say, if you'd lived in a country where Nazis throw hand granades into rallies or actively target immigrants, you'd drop your simplistic, and very liberal view of politics in a heart beat.
Rommon, you’re not thinking
Rommon, you’re not thinking these things through. Sexism and racism are not peripheral matters to the class struggle. They are, along with religious bigotry, the way the ruling class divides the working class.
I believe all direct action, including opposing fascism, is a tactical matter, which should be used differently depending on the circumstances. The notion that ‘free speech’ is an unalienable right is nonsense, do you know the problem of getting any radical publications displayed in newsagents, etc. The mass media propagates only capitalism.
When there was a battle in Cable Street in the 1930s, when the National Front invaded Brick Lane, when Orangemen decide to march though Catholic areas, I can see no objection to the residents protesting by blocking their passage. We do not live in an ideal world and the working class must choose the appropriate methods to stop their oppressors (and their agents).
Khwaga. I agree With you,
Khwaga.
I agree With you, situations for example in Greece are MUCH MUCH different, and different actions are called for there.
Auld-bod
I agree, but generally the way to deal With that tactic of the ruling class is to not get caught up in those issues, oppose them when they threaten People, but always go back to the real Source, i.e. Capitalism.
I don't think, for example, that racism can be seperated from Capitalism, it is a Product OF capitalism.
Reddebrek
What would Count as evidence? individual stories? THat's what I am asking.
My response is to address the system that puts People out of homes and removes Food from their tables in the first Place.
Have you ever talked to People that are attracted to those ideologies?
I'm not talking about fire bombers by the way, or actual neo-nazis.
has it been successfull though? If no-platforming People has actually improved Things and weakened fascist groups I'd love to see evidence.
Yes ... let them organize and recruit freely ... just as anarchists and socialists organize and reqruit freely .... and if their ideas are engaged With, I am quite sure they will fall apart.
Trying to prevent them from organizing will do one thing, it won't actually prevent them, they'll do it anyway, and it will make them seem as though THEY are the ones who are victims and THEY are the ones whose ideas are actually right and so on.
I'm not writing off anyones personal experience, if you have examples of winning People over by no platforming or something like that let me know.
Rommon wrote: Reddebrek What
Rommon
????????????????????????????????????????? Whatever your thinking of every time you said your way works. I'm giving you a free hand and you still don't provide anything. You keep talking with certainty that your ideas work so you must be basing this off of something. What is it?
Ok and your response to the fact that racism and sexism mean these disproportionate put minorities out of homes and food of their tables is to ignore it entirely.
Yes, what on earth makes think I haven't when I've told you several examples from my community?
No, you have, see I have been talking about these people from the start and you have been replying to me on multiple occasions to argue with me over this. So either your not telling the truth now or you really weren't paying attention.
And given that you replied to section with direct references to fascists before neither answer is very good.
Yeah, I'm airing towards your lying now, see I have brought up evidence in other comments. And I know you've seen them because you replied to those comments. You didn't reply to any of those bits, but you replied to the points before and after them so you couldn't have missed them.
Okay, well leaving aside that that has never actually worked, what about the people they will kill and assault in the meantime? You just gonna write them off as a means to an end?
Wrong, and already covered in previous comments.
Err yes you did mate, in your first response to me, you made a direct reply to my experiences and wrote me off with your pompous talk about real work. And I've already given you several examples of what you've asked.
I'm not going to do this again for you, your ignoring what I'm saying and refusing to back up your claims with evidence. If your being sincere and I doubt you are, go back an re-read these comments and provide evidence for the claims you've made, all of them.
Rommon wrote: I agree, but
Rommon
Ironically its this which is one of the biggest faults the left makes. Reducing everything down to capitalism is far too narrow a perspective.
Anarchists are not just opposed to capitalism but all forms of domination, exploitation and relationships of power that benefit some to the disempowerment, marginalisation, exploitation or exclusion of others. Aside from capitalism this includes racism, patriocentricity, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, gerontocracy and basically any form of discrimination or phenomenon which normalises one quality such as being heterosexual, cisgender, monogamous and affirming to socially constructed gender roles and expectations to the exclusion of all other qualities so that they are abnormal.
Those forms of discrimination and normalisation adversely affect people who are trans, LGBT, and so on, and in the end decrease the freedom of everybody as it stigmatises and makes taboo issues to do with sex, sexuality, gender and expression all of which should absolutely not be.
Since anarchism is about liberating individuals from all forms of domination, then you should be supporting efforts to liberate individuals from these forms of discrimination and normalisation.
They are not simply created by capitalism, they have existed before the existence of capitalism and could easily exist once capitalism has been abolished.
This is going OT however, so I suggest since anyone here who actually is an anarchist will agree with what I've said here, that the issue not be dealt with any longer and the discussion return to free speech - I am interested to hear thoughts on that as at my uni we have problems with right wing so called 'libertarians' hiding behind free speech to advance misogyny, transphobia and so on, and claiming they are being marginalised and oppressed so I want to know how to effectively rebuke their use of free speech in defending what they are doing.
Rommon wrote: I agree With
Rommon
But I am not referring to Greece, but countries like Norway, Sweden and the UK, countries that most people wouldn't think of as having a "bad" nazi problem. Point is, where ever you give nazis free roam of the streets, marginalized peoples will suffer very direct violence. That's the point of no-platforming.
In any case, free speech is ideology.
(No subject)
When you say "free speach is
When you say "free speach is ideology" ... of course you're right, but everything is ideology, what matters is not whether or not something is ideology but whether or not something is a good principle.
As for the rest of it. I'll put it this way, I have read right wingers, I've listened to libertarians, I've read left wingers, I've talked to Marxists, all kinds of People, I am able to shift through what makes sense and what does not.
In my experience, with People I have spoken too, when you actually listen to them, and engage with them, they are MUCH more willing to actually listen back and consider an alternative worldview.
In my experience, with right Wing working class people I have spoken to, their view of the left is almost entirely a strawman; most of them are not really bigots once you get past the right wing rhetoric. Most of them interpret the "no platforming" and the "protesting" as the left NOT being able to engage with ideas and argue against them so instead they just try and shut Down Speech.
It's an impression that is understandable if their ONLY contact with the left are "shutting Down" right wingers and what right wingers are saying about the left. In my experience if I actually sit Down with them, and take them time to listen to them and engage with them; most are not that far gone.
You're asking for evidence ... I don't have statistics ... but I'm quite sure if you look up in the psychological literature you'll find out that you're more willing to get People to listen to you if you listen to and engage with them, and they are more willing to ignore you if you just shut them Down.
Here's what I would do with a Milo, instead of shut him Down, make a petition or something to basically force him to a debate on Equal terms.
2 Things will happen.
1. His ideas will no longer seem reasonable.
2. People will be more willing to actually listen to what the radical left is saying.
Heres what happens when you shut him Down.
More People check him out, his ideas remain unchallenged, the left looks as though they are afraid to engage ideas ... and the fascists grow, becuase they are the ones who are being listened to.
By the way, Milo is a troll, he's a moron with really nothing to say, if he is every ACTUALLY challenged you see him shink back pretty fast.
I think in this argument
I think in this argument you're assuming that people react to working class neighbours, workmates etc who are a bit racist the same way we treat the organised far right, and I don't think that's accurate.
Rommon wrote: . In my
Rommon
Ok but no ones saying you shouldn't do this. You seem be laboring under the impression that no platforming is a standard tactic applied to everyone at the drop of a hat. When in reality is only used by groups who have identified a clear danger.
Its a form of defence and your arguing measures taken to protect ourselves are wrong because they go against your personal beliefs.
Really? So where exactly do you live? Because that doesn't happen anywhere in the world. Like I said right wing reactionaries are debated and interviewed and engaged with all the time, the only exceptions are the ones engaged in illegal actions and even a few of them like Tommy Robinson can wangle a few appearances.
Err, no mate that isn't how this works, in a debate you are responsible for providing evidence for your own statements. Since you're asking others to do your work for you, I can only assume you haven't done any research and have no examples, even though you kept repeating that your views definitely work.
If you don't have evidence you shouldn't make a claim because it wont stand up to scrutiny. All your doing is repeating your own special talking points.
You can't force someone to debate you, and if you could that would be more hostile to freedom of speech then anything anyone else has advocated in this thread.
Well until you do that that isn't proof, your just making a prediction of the future, based on your own sense of superiority. Your smug attitude would be funny if you didn't match it with a callousness for victims (which you either ignore or write off at every turn), so its actually quite disgusting.
Errr, yeah he has, which is why this makes your argument-to be honest this isn't an argument all you have is a wishlist- look even weaker than before. He's already had his ideas and views challenged multiple times and yet his brand continued to grow over the years
Errr, no. Before the UC Berkley protests he was already a celebrity with a major book deal and multiple appearances on radio, TV and internet. After Berkley he's lost his media career and and is now a pariah.
Now I don't actually believe the Berkley protests did all that (they did stop him outing students though) but the claim that he somehow became a megastar afterwards is just another empty talking point and funnily enough a right wing one at that.
And how do we know this? Again no evidence provided.
Yeah, and it didn't do a thing. Another free tip ALL CAPS doesn't make what you say anymore convincing. On the contrary it does the opposite. Provide evidence or stop making claims.
The thing is, Milo isn't part
The thing is, Milo isn't part of a street based far right paramilitary movement or even connected to them, unlike some of the people on the right that got him fired from Breibart. Censoring him from Berkeley doesn't stop him from offending people online, so I don't see what no platforming him from the ivy league is supposed to achieve. In fact he gets media attention from it, so it's counter productive.
Golden dawn, Russian far right street gangs or the American militia movement are examples of actually dangerous (though not necessarily fascist) movements that antifa should try to counter. That issue is connected to the question of freedom of speech, since we are attempting to censor their freedom of assembly and speech, and needs to be justified. Antifa is supposed to be a working class self defence organisation guaranteeing our freedom of assembly, and maybe in some cases stopping racist from dividing communities. I don't see the anti-Milo protest doing that.
I would say that Milo and the nihilistic internet alt-right are very much the enemy we want. Certainly less scary than paranoid, ex-special forces who think muslims and mexicans are invading America, training paramilitary tactics in the woods. Some of these groups are linked with local cops. There are versions of this phenomena across Eastern Europe as well. That's just some perspective.
The left should be trying to connect with working class communities and build solidarity in places where we are not strong. That is the only way to build political power to actually deal with real problems. I suspect that some antifa sentiment concentrates on tiny fascist cliques or social media assholes because they are seen as small enough that tiny activist groups can beat them.
The violence from the former is precisely what we are supposed to be preventing, and fascist are dangerous precisely as part of a state or as the capitalist class's extralegal paramilitary force, I don't see why we should worry about random bigots. They are a product of alienation and won't go away throgh call-outs and no-platforming (they are in the whitehouse!), they just adabt their strategy with social media.
prinkyn wrote: Given that
prinkyn
That response states:
Wow, way to go getting as much Marxist nonsense in one sentence as possible! So we have "the anarchist tactics of direct action and individual-terrorism" -- hardly "the" and few anarchists have advocated the latter (and a few self-proclaimed Marxists have supported that). As for "direct action," are you against strikes, occupations, boycotts, blockades etc.? Just voting as the tactic for you?
And as for "terrorism", well, most Marxists may be against "individual-terrorism" but many are fine with state-terrorism. Trotsky wrote a whole book on the subject in 1920.
Sharkfinn wrote: The thing
Sharkfinn
As was said everytime someone bring this up, Milo was outing local students during this talks, the disruption of his university tour put a stop to this. If your ok with him and other right wing speakers doing this then say so. Stop pretending this is about people getting their feelies hurt on the web. That's just dishonest.
He was actively endangering people and what happened at Berkleythrew a spanner in his works. If you've got a better way to stop this targeting then let us know.
And yes he got media attention, just like how he got media attention for his talks that weren't disrupted. He was already a well known personality so anything that happened in his periphery was guaranteed to get attention. The battle of Cable Street got loads of attention as do all actions against far right paramilitaries you think are far targets. Why isn't this a problem in those cases when supposedly it is for things you don't think are ok.
You know Milo's a racist and really hates transsexuals, and its been shown that his appearances have lead to an increase in harassment of those he targets. So unless your saying ethnic minorities and trans people don't count as "working class" then I suggest you seriously rethink your position because its in conflict with itself.
Also a Wobbly was shot by a right wing milita (not necessarily fascist) type at a protest in Seattle.
http://libcom.org/news/fellow-worker-gdc-member-shot-anti-fascist-protest-seattle-22012017
Guess who the shooter was a fan of? The enemy you want.
The man who told police he shot and wounded another man during a violent demonstration over the appearance of Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington sent a social-media message to the Breitbart News editor just an hour before the shooting.
“Hey Milo,” the 29-year-old former UW student posted to Yiannopoulos’ Facebook page at 7:24 p.m. “im outside in line to your UW event.
“I got sucker punched (he was a bit limp wristed) and someone jacked my #MAGA hat,” he said, referring to the ubiquitous red and white “Make America Great Again” caps worn by supporters of President Trump.
“Anyway for me to get a replacement signed by you?” the man asked
Oh and the allegation that he was "sucker punched" was disproved the member he shot had been trying to talk him down.
Of course their the enemy you want, your not being targeted by them. This isn't some hypothetical discussion on ideal strategy for the future. There is a massive surge in hate crimes in recent years and much of its being carried out or encouraged by folks you've just written off.
Again I have to ask, are you being so flippant out of ignorance or genuine callousness?
Why exactly do you think this is an either/or scenario? I mean the Arditi Popolo was born out of the factory occupations, the NF were defeated by large coalitions of community groups in association with the AFA, and the Black Shirts were opposed by the labour movement and minority communities.
The Silver Shirts were smashed by the Teamsters Union, and at present the IWW has played a big role in confronting far right groups that threaten minority communities with their support and has been building links as a result.
You wouldn't be writing off something based on your assumptions rather than actual experience now would you?
Also drop the "real problems" drivel. Its a real problem when minorities are attacked and harassed, and I'm sorry people are prioritizing their safety over your preferred political bandwagon, but if your not going to help people in the here and now then why on earth should they help you build Jerusalem tomorrow?
Ever been targeted by random bigots? Your comment and tone suggest not, but I know what its like to be prejudged so I wouldn't want to do the same to you.
Please write coherent
Please write coherent responses. I'm not gonna answer 10 unrelated points individually. That kind of text is incredibely heavy, and no one bothers to read it after two pages.
I'm not callous, you don't know me, you don't know what I've done or been through. I'm interested in discussing the antifa and freedom of speech from a practical and philosophical point of view. If you use tactics like criticising my tone, calling me callous, ignorant, whatever, then I have no interest in responding to you.
My point is that there is a difference between fascists as a paramilitary group, which is an existential threat, and internet assholes who are not. And there is a vast difference between the potential violence fascist groups can achieve and what lone racist can do. We don't have, as activist, an efficient way for dealing with individual racist street violence. That's outside our resources as we are not policing the streets. "Stopping Milo" doesn't work, it causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful. "People are suffering do something" -is a really bad way of affecting the world and we shouldn't fetishize easy victories as actually helping someone.
I'm not counting off lone acts of violence of individual racist, but putting them in perspective. Words don't kill people. They might lead to action that does, but if we use that kind of criteria then there is a tension between freedom of speech and antifa. People aren't saying that openly on this thread, which I find troubling.
Here you go: freedom of
Here you go: freedom of speech is bullshit bourgeois philsophical wankery. And the reason why it's such is the belief you stated in your post--that "words don't kill people", As if speech is an isolated act, or as if there was an unbridgeable gulf between reactionary ideas and reactionary violence. Fascists, right-wing militia types, and other violence-prone reactionaries appear with their ideas formed as if from the ether. This, as I've said before, is the height of bourgeois-idealist ideology.
And, frankly, there is a fatal contradiction in your post that others have pointed out before in this kind of talk. On the one hand, Milo Yiannassholish is just some "random internet asshole", therefore apparently impotent and demonstrations against him a waste of time; and yet on the other, you're opposed to demonstrations against that asshole and others like him because you think it gives him media attention and "causes him to trend on twitter and become more powerful." Either speech is impotent and reactionary speech is not something we should worry about, therefore even if demonstrations against him raise his profile it's hardly anything to get ruffled about; or speech has consequences, potentially dangerous ones, in which case it's entirely justifiable to organize against reactionary speech. Pick one.
I don't know if there's such
I don't know if there's such a clear dividing line though between 'fascists as a paramilitary group' and 'internet arseholes' or 'lone racists'. I think there's a big middle ground there. The far right groups in the UK are not paramilitary but they can still be pretty dangerous? And couldn't someone be acting with other people in a semi organised way without being a fully fledged member?
(Cross posted)
fingers malone wrote: I don't
fingers malone
I'd say most UK fascist are paramilitary groups - they don't have guns and they are drunk all the time, but they do organise as violent street groups and carry out street patrols and intimitation. I don't think antifa can do anything about lone racist in random places, how would we affect that? this was talked about on this forum before https://libcom.org/forums/news/uk-european-union-referendum-22062016?page=9
We shouldn't fight nonviolent groups or necessarily even political wings of violent groups with violence. State would get a pretext to lock you up pretty quickly. I would say that a lot of this discussion reflects the fact that most of us on this thread live mainly in some type of liberal democracy. You wouldn't really have antifa in countries where there isn't at least somekind of human rights clause guaranteeing freedom of assebly and speech.
Ok fair enough, I suppose I
Ok fair enough, I suppose I was understanding paramilitary as more of a well armed group.
Sharkfinn
Ok I sort of agree with you and I sort of don't. Obv I agree about connecting with working class communities. I swing all over the place on what I think about organised anti fascism. Maybe I could say that I've seen anti fascism done well and done badly. I know some anti fa people where your suspicion is probably accurate. I know others who put a lot of effort into lots of different things including state violence and also do anti fascism. I have seen some anti fascism that was very rooted in local communities too. Then yeah, I've seen lots of anti fascism that I didn't like much.
The community I live in now, I'm pretty safe walking around on my own, if people recognise me as a local anti racist or lefty that probably makes me safer. I've had mates doing working class organising in other places where they had fascist threats phoned to their home phone, their address in Redwatch, one guy had to move house twice. I guess I'm not very qualified to comment on anti fascism and its role in organising in working class communities as I've had it comparatively easy on that score.
Sharkfinn wrote: Please write
Sharkfinn
If my responses are that incoherent how on earth did you manage to write several paragraphs after this complaining about it? And no I won't, I actually like this format, your free to use whatever style you like and I am as well.
Well then don't. Your free to reply in any manner you see fit and that includes not replying. I'm not going to kowtow to you on this, if I see something I think worthy of criticism on a topic a care deeply about I will probably criticize. If this offends you I'm sorry but I'm not going to change.
Breivik was a lone racist radicalized by the internet, he killed 77 mostly teens/children. That kid who shot up the Church in South Carolina killing nine Dylan Roof acted alone. The websites stormfront and redwatch (which has verisons all over eastern Europe) have been used by dozens of "lone wolf" attacks in several countries.
The two guys who petrol bombed my towns Mosque spent most of time on the web chatting to other angry xenophobes on the web. But to be quite honest I find your distinction quite arbitrary lone actors do add up and the violence they commit is real and whats to stop them from grouping together and coordinating.
I mean that is how political organizing works for everyone else, individuals become groups, groups grow and on it goes.
I know, you said you didn't read my comment but this was in the first bit so I'm going to assume your deliberately ignoring this bit to repeated your strawman. Milo isn't more powerful he's become a pariah, and so far has stopped outing students. I realize your not going to openly say you don't care about these students he was targeting because that's indefensible but that's what your saying every time you keep repeating this empty talking point.
Total strawman, this is about what works as a form of defence against a current and active threat. Not your political project, if your angry people are prioritizing their defence rather than follow your line than that's a reflection of your failure to convince others.
Exactly. Speech is not neutral it has a relationship to action so speech should carry consequences just like action does.
The tension here is that some user like yourself are prioritizing your preferences over the safety of others.
Quote: Stopping meetings like
Here, hear! Down with homophonic oppression! ;-)
Chilli Sauce
Chilli Sauce
foiled by spell check again!
Spell cheque surely?
Spell cheque surely?
Serge Forward wrote: Spell
Serge Forward
[youtube]KM2K7sV-K74[/youtube]
radicalgraffiti
radicalgraffiti
Their, they're...there's no reason to get upset.
Quote: And, frankly, there is
My position is NOT that Speech doesn't lead to anything, of course it does.
But free speach is necessary in order to air out ideas and get rid of bad ones, the only way you can do that is listen to bad ideas and show that they are bad ideas.
My position is that what is most Dangerous is Milo being seen as some free speach martyr, and that he idea out there is that leftists simply cannot debate Milo on his ideas and have to resort to shutting him Down ... which IS the common view.
If right wingers shut Down a socialist or anarchist confrence the viewpoint out there would probably be that their ideas were Dangerous to the system and the system was unable to actually argue the issues on their own merits.
ideas are Dangerous but communicating them and debating them is absolutely necessary.
https://soundcloud.com/social
https://soundcloud.com/socialjusticewarriors/womensstudies101
This podcast was quite interesting on the topic of Milo at Berkeley
DevastateTheAvenues
DevastateTheAvenues
Sorry I haven't had time to respond before. Basically the contradiction in this case is not in my argument but in the tactic of no platforming. Milo is not being silenced if he's getting more attention elsewhere. That aspect was a waste of time.
Some people are saying that he was prevented from harrassing individual people, and if so then fair enough. But he was later saying that he was going to come back. People who actually silenced him after the pedophile thing where American archconservatives around the more traditional far right media sphere: born again christians, Glen Beck, ext. Their influece got him fired from breibart. That's what I mean by him being the "enemy we want", there are much more popular and dangerous people around than that nihilistic asshole. The problem for me is how leftist are talking about this stuff as if we had any real influence over who gets to speak. We don't.
Freedom of speech is an institution that works as far it individuals are able to use it as a defence against state censorship. And of course it doesn't mean the right to speak unopposed. Maybe it's liberal wankery to you but it wasn't for the wobblies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_fights#Major_IWW.27s_free_speech_fights
There is a contradiction within the institution of freedom of speech in that it provides people with the ability to undermine the freedom of others, that's why most contries have clauses against hate speech, but that's difficult. In Sweden for example, nazi images are banned but so are anarchist ones, and it doesn't prevent either groups from organising.
There isn't "an unbridgeable gulf between reactionary ideas and reactionary violence", but there is a gulf between speech and physical acts of violence. We should be organising to prevent the latter and that's going to involve physical confrontation of fascist trying to asseble their forces, driving them out of the neighbourhood and so forth, dont' confuse be with freedom of speech fundamentalist, its not the institution for its own sake. But challenging hate speech in general is not something we even can do, unless we become state censors.