White supremacists encouraged by Trump’s “many sides” comments on #Charlottesville terror

Granny Weatherwax in the Discworld books once said, loosely paraphrased, that the root of all sin and evil in the world is seeing people as things.

Pratchett, mayherestinpeace, was not wrong. These mangry white boys don’t see people, they see the Other. So it goes.

Even with my white privilege and my husband’s white male privilege, I’m scared as fuck. I want a world of happiness and inclusion, not one where you’re constantly looking around in fear that someone’s going to bring the hammer down on you for not acting the way *they* want you to act, and that’s when you’re of the *favored* class to begin with. It goes without saying the non favored would have it far worse.

I want happiness and vibrancy and a rainbow of understanding like in San Francisco, not the constipated, constricted stagnation seen in too many places in the Deep South or in other places in rural America. The first I feel safe and happy in. The second, far from it. But I’m scared beyond reason that the second view is winning. And it’s setting me into fight or flight mode, and I want to do… things to these facist fuckheads that would play right into their hands, just to get them to shut the fuck up.

Goddammit, I want to hide in bed again.

@Bananana:

I feel for you.

At the same time I can’t help noticing the irony, that to these fuckers it’s the other way around, the little whitebread town feels safe but they’d feel afraid and surrounded in San Francisco with all the rainbow of skin colors and gay people and whatnot. The power of propaganda…

Granny Weatherwax in the Discworld books once said, loosely paraphrased, that the root of all sin and evil in the world is seeing people as things.

Pratchett, mayherestinpeace, was not wrong.

Yep.

Aside: after he collaborated with science fiction author Stephen Baxter on some interesting stuff, I’m considering getting into Pratchett. But his body of work is intimidatingly huge. Any suggested starting point(s)?

I really enjoyed Pratchett’s “The Truth”, partly because any novelist who titles a fiction novel “The Truth” has got to be confident.

I felt like it gave a very good whacking to fake news, and showed how real journalism should be done (albeit in a fantasy world).

Also, “Stop the press” has a different meaning when you’re moving it from one place to another.

Almost anything by Pratchett is good. Even “The Unadulterated Cat” which is rather hard to find these days.

The first “discworld”-ish novel he wrote is “The Light Fantastic”, which is much more science-fictiony than the rest of them, and he considered it a different world than the one in the rest.

“The Colour of Magic” is a fun read, featuring Rincewind the Wizzzard, and Twoflower the tourist.

One of his novels had “Not tested on animals. You’ll be the first.” as a cover blurb.

Ones I’ve re-read are “Making Money”, “Monstrous Regiment”, “Unseen Academicals”, “Raising Steam”, “Carpe Jugulum”, oh heck, I’ve re-read every damn thing he’s written, except maybe “The Long …” series by Baxter and Pratchett.

There’s even a series of “The Science of Discworld” novels which include real science and a lot of encouragement of rational thinking.

From all I could find out, he was a great person, and taken from us way too soon.

ETA: Almost forgot “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Pre-apocalyptic, very good, no time to describe.

Thanks to various people for Pratchett recommendations. Upshot seems to be “start almost anywhere”.

…

Hold on, there’s one called “Good Omens” that is pre-apocalyptic? That seems … inconsistent. 🙂

Re: ACLU, free speech, &c: I’m wondering if that “peace treaty vs. moral precept” thing that’s been going the rounds lately applies to this as well, and free speech should not extend all the way to advocacy for restricting the speech, or other freedoms, of others. Most nations recognize exceptions for hate speech; this could be the way to put those on firmer footing, rationale-wise. Speech that is, overall, a net negative contributor to freedom.

@SROBWE:

Re: ACLU, free speech, &c: I’m wondering if that “peace treaty vs. moral precept” thing that’s been going the rounds lately applies to this as well, and free speech should not extend all the way to advocacy for restricting the speech, or other freedoms, of others. Most nations recognize exceptions for hate speech; this could be the way to put those on firmer footing, rationale-wise. Speech that is, overall, a net negative contributor to freedom.

Where would we draw the line, though? What qualifies as hate speech and what doesn’t? For example, French courts recently upheld convictions of advocates for a political boycott of the state of Israel as criminals under French hate-speech laws:

The legislation means that what BDS activists regarded as political statements denouncing Israel’s violations of international law could be – and indeed were – treated by French courts as an “incitement” to hatred.

Especially with the right-wing authoritarians we’ve currently got in power, I really don’t think I want Congress and other legislatures making the calls about what Americans are allowed to say as protected “free speech” and what is forbidden as “incitement to hatred” or even “restricting the rights of others”.

kupo

Now his stance is a little different; he feels that a handful of assholes have poisoned the antifa movement, but he still feels like Nazis are worse beyond comparison, and that people who say “but antifa…” are supporting Nazis. But he compared current day antifa to the wonton destruction that took place during the WTO protests in 99.

I have a different view. I think the antifa “doctrine”, that the only thing nazis understand is violence, is an OutStanDing example of white privilege. Why don’t they emulate the non-violent resistance taught and practised by the 60s civil rights movement?

We know why. Black people then – and their white allies – were at serious risk of murder back then both by private citizens and by the police. More than a few were murdered. Congressman John Lewis is still with us by pure good luck rather than because of any common sense or restraint on the part of the cops who attacked him.

Antifa is mostly (entirely?) white as far as I can see. These people don’t have the bone-deep fear of generations of black people that going onto the streets could get them killed (and that no one would be held to account for it into the bargain).

I think MLK and Gandhi methods work best against an opponent that feels bound at least somewhat by the rule of law. Both were resisting government oppression. Antifa methods seem perhaps to be necessary when the opponent does not feel bound by the rule of law. Klansmen, skinheads, and other Nazoid groups operating outside of the law are their targets.

It’s worked in the past. Were it not for the Battle of Cable Street, the UK might have been part of the Axis during WW II.

On the other hand, one Nazis succeed in taking over a government, historically it’s required violence to stop them at that point as well, and much more of it than might have stopped them earlier.

Perhaps the distinction is that MLK and Gandhi were both basically fighting an occupation. There were lots of silent supporters around them, as well as the enemy trying to legitimate itself through law. In Nazi Germany, much of the (surviving and non-imprisoned) population was sympathetic to Nazism rather than to any resistance, necessitating violence; and at Cable Street the fascists were not acting under color of law, so protesters being law-abiding did not shield them or confer upon them any advantages beyond being able to claim the moral high ground.

But I’m interested to hear any other ideas as to why nonviolent methods work better in some cases, and not in others, involving opposing oppressive groups. (The only other one to immediately spring to my own mind is “maybe it’s just Nazism’s extreme nature that makes the difference”. Or maybe their reality distortion field leads to both. Perhaps Gandhi and MLK could avoid resorting to violence because their opponents had not become totally disconnected from all reason, whereas Nazi Germany and our current infestation of neo-Nazis and other Fox-watching goose-steppers have. In that case there may be no repudiation they understand other than fighting and losing.)

@Surplus

If the Discworld stuff seems intimidatingly sprawling, you might enjoy Pratchett’s “Johnny” books — “Only You Can Save Mankind”, “Johnny and the Dead”, and “Johnny and the Bomb” — which are fairly quick reads and not connected to his other series. They’re sort of a loose trilogy but each one stands on its own quite well, and they’re delightful books; I think perhaps they don’t get the attention they deserve because they get overshadowed by the Discworld stuff, which is brilliant and I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like the Johnny series ought to be on bookstore shelves more often than I generally see it.

(ETA: there probably should be a content warning here, but I’m not sure what kind of warning would fit. Besides saying the Stormer talking about a ‘post-wall’ woman.)

I glanced at that Stormer article that Sinkable John linked to. It was a “satire” of that ‘Five Things about Heather’ article someone posted a thread or two back. #1-3 of the ‘points’ were about Heather’s alleged worthlessness to society because 32, childless, and ‘too fat’ to get out of the way of the car like many of the other protesters did. Oh, and that most of society was happy she was killed in this ‘road rage’ incident because of old, fat, childless, and a drain on society.

#4 was about how the killer was essentially a ‘playa’ who rightfully didn’t give a ***k about the folks he ran down. Or something like that. Not going back to reread that point again.

#5 was a claim that the whole ‘road rage incident’ was sponsored by…Dodge Motors. No, seriously, they claimed that because a Dodge Charger was used to turn protesters into roadkill on the same day a Dodge-sponsored event with Roadkill in its name (this thing, I think:

http://www.enthusiastnetwork.com/roadkill-nights-powered-dodge-brings-legal-drag-racing-woodward-ave-m1-concourse-august-19/ )

took place, that the two are connected. And that Dodge Motors approved their car being used to kill people at Charlottesville.

Oi. >.<

Gold Star for him saying that white supremecists & nazis are evil and saying he wants something done about it.

So this is where the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is these days. Pleasantly surprised when a former Presidential candidate, and current Senator, denounces literal Nazis.

Fuck.

I don’t think hate speech should be defended.

About violent resistance : I have been teached today on how blacks in the 60’s and 70’s used (threat of) violence to keep the KKK and lynching mobs far from them, via pseudo-militias. That do add to the point “maybe get violent, but get organized first”. I do still think pacifism is the best way, if only because it’s the only way that can work against police.

As for antifas, is there any historical evidence that they actually do anything worthwhile ? The history of them I am aware of (who is french focused, granted) paint them as being more a folkloric part of big demonstrations more than a group feared by anyone or who prevented anything.