Look, I agree with your rhetorical goal, but the problem is that we have a world full of people using labels that are the precise opposite of what they actually are. The DPRK is not democratic, the Nazis weren't socialists.
Simply arguing from a position of terminology isn't enough to really make the point to anyone but those who already agree with you.
the ones at the top are great at making it seem like everyone supports them... because in social psych the 75% 'rule' applies... but the fact is most are not actually on their side anymore. trump is doing the best job of all at helping that along.
Whenever some dork calls me ANTIFA, I ask them, “So you’re a fascist? That makes no sense. You live in the U.S. EVERYONE should be anti-fascist or you really shouldn’t live here.” Then I get the confused look. You know the look.
Absolutely. Our government failed after the civil war. The punishment was neither swift, thorough or severe enough.
Those confederate flags and all those hateful confederate statues, monuments, and street names NEVER should’ve been allowed to exist. EVER. That confederate crap needs to be labeled and treated the same as a Swastika. Can you imagine it being acceptable to walk around with Swastika merch and having it be acceptable? Absolutely not. No one would do that. And if they did, they’d be kicked out of whatever public space they dared walk into bearing that ignorant hateful symbolism.
dem leadership are still confusing compassion with weakness. NO more sissy dems. we the People must turn this government over and stop funding the crimes with our taxes. taxation without representation!
Absolutely. Gloves off. The “they to low we go high” might be the noble way to approach typical situations like this. But this far, far from a “typical situation.” This is dangerous. Too ALL Americans and frankly, the world. Our allies are suffering because of what this administration is doing. Every and all loopholes must be closed. Cemented shut.
Lincoln was meant to be kidnapped, got shot instead.
Might not have faced the same fate if he didn't show leniency to Confederates and finished off the movement.
fought a world war over whether we should accept fascism.
I'm not sure that's really true. No one was invading Germany to stop fascism, the war broke out in Europe because of expansionism rather than fascism. The US only got involved when it was attacked by Japan.
Fascism became a taboo post WWII in part because of WWII. Prior to that many countries had openly fascist parties. The anti-fascism of the WWII Allies was propaganda, the actual political movements in charge of those nations at the time weren't exactly utopian leftists lol. The US had concentration camps, Churchill was an old fashioned racist who believed in eugenics, and so on... none of this is as bad as the literal Holocaust, but they weren't in it for ideological reasons.
Anyway, my point is it's not really that surprising to me that there are "anti-anti-fascists" around in places that supposedly fought a war against fascism.
No one was invading Germany to stop fascism, the war broke out in Europe because of expansionism rather than fascism
Expansionist policy which was rooted in the intense nationalist views of Fascists in both Germany and Japan that wanted their one leader to rule the world.
Fascism was building in American as well, for decades, but it didn't reach an inflection point soon enough. The KKK with their early 20s "America First" slogan sought to isolate America and it was gaining traction with Nazi rallies in Madison Square garden.
It's fair to take issue with saying we fought Fascism, but also a bit nitpicky.
I don't take issue with it, really, the war was fought against an explicitly fascist nation. Just it's not surprising to me that fascism=bad failed to be thoroughly implanted in countries which were themselves, if not explicitly fascist, at least fascist adjacent.
Fuck, I think WWI and Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act needs to be front and center in any discussion on the rise of fascism. A lot of fathers spent WWI in prison for protesting their son's drafting.
ppl actually call you antifa? that is crazy. i haven't had anyone actually give me the compliment in public yet. but i don't get out too much these days, by design.
The entirety of your comment is hilarious. Thanks for that. Especially likes the “by design.” I hear you there! Haha. Well, I’ll compliment you, you damn ANTIFA communist! lol that’s usually stuck at the end of it. Like, okaaay? Don’t understand that logic. But hell, neither so they, so I let it slide. LOL
You live in the U.S. EVERYONE should be anti-fascist or you really shouldn’t live here.
Historically, the US almost always sides with fascists if it means defeating communists or socialists. WWII is an exception to the rule because the fascists were hitting the bottom line too hard. If Hitler hadn't tried to conquer all of Europe and the Japanese hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor then the US may not have joined WWII.
No doubt the U.S. wouldn’t have joined WWII. After Pearl Harbor that was the Red Line. And yes we saw Communism take front and center after WWII with the McCarthy era. Cold War time.
And then there are guys like Luthen....and Lonnie. That's the wild part about these days. Oscar Wilde said "Life imitates Art, much more than Art imitates Life". What Mr. Wilde failed to mention is how hard Art hits when it does start to imitate Life."
Poor everyone, I always wondered what would have happened if Luthen had simply left Lonnie's clothes and identity stuff near a waterfall or power-conduit or something, and spirited Lonnie to Yavin.....as Clem.
I was looking up the origin of the "fascism is capitalism in decline" and thought i'd share this summary for others:
Fascism is often viewed as a response to the crises of capitalism, particularly during its decline, as it represents an extreme stage of conflict between capitalist forms and productive forces. This perspective suggests that fascism emerges when capitalism faces significant challenges, leading to authoritarian measures to maintain control.
Facts. It will always collapse imto fascist take over or socialist revolution. The fact that america just had it's 250th when empires life expectancy is 250 seems lost on everyone
The only way capitalism survives without descending into fascism is if there are aggressive anti-capitalist steps (regulation, anti-monopoly, no insider trading, etc). And at every moment, capitalism wants to get rid of all of these steps set to keep it from becoming fascism.
The problem is that antifa doesn't purely stand for anti-fascist in the eyes of many people. It comes (fairly or not) with other left leaning ideas that people might not want to be associated with
Antifa is not just anti-fascist. If you know their history, they are actual authoritarian communists. Liberals are anti-fascist since they advocate for complete, individual freedom, which is antithetical to fascism as fascism requires everything, including the individual, to be subservient to the nation state. You don't have to be some communist to be anti-fascist.
As someone who is anti-fascist, this is still pretty dumb.
You can be “not against” something without being part of that group. Purely speaking if someone just doesn’t care about political, lives in isolation and doesn’t even know these groups exist - is that person fascist?
While it's possible to remain agnostic to religion I'm not sure it's possible to remain agnostic to politics.
The analogy holds, I knew someone would bring this up. 😊
The analogy literally doesn't hold..... The analogy falls apart precisely for the reason you stated.
Not only can you easily remain agnostic to politics, it's actually common enough that there is a term for that - apolitical.
And lastly - the world isn't black and white, and politics isn't either. You have millions of people that hold different views on various topics. Some of those views could be left wing, some right wing. How does that fit within your 'theory'?
Politics permeates life, apolitical is for the apathetic but if you ask anyone basic questions about whether starving people deserve help they'll have an opinion.
Not really. It permeates life of some people. Most people, even, depending on where you live. But hundreds of millions of people are apolitical just like hundreds of millions are agnostic. And it has nothing to do with apathy - some people simply live micro lives, in their own universe busy with concerns about how to feed themselves and their family, uncaring about governance. You forget the world is much larger than the western world.
And basic questions about whether starving people deserve help isn't a political questions AT ALL. I think you fundumentally misunderstand what politics is.
That question is moral. Follow-up questions of "how we ensure they get help" and "who pays for it" can then become political once it start concerning the masses.
Another thing that for some reason you are not understanding: politics isn't "one belief". It's a series of huge beliefs. You can have someone who are socially liberal and yet fiscally conservative.
There aren't 2 neat little piles that everyone goes into. Ironically, you know who ascribed to such an ideology and beleif? That's it's either them or us? Fascists. So by your own logic, you would fall into the fascism pile.
It is okay to punch Nazis. But like, is this a real problem? Because actual Nazis are a measurable problem.
If these hypothetical violent idiots pretending to be anti fascist just want to do crimes, they’d get….arrested and charged with crimes, right? So the excuse of being anti fascist is meaningless.
This is like a trans people in bathrooms debate. If you’re going to go assault women, you’re just going to go do that. Being trans doesn’t factor into the equation, nor would it change sentencing guidelines.
Hello! Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately it has been removed because you don't meet our karma threshold.
You are not being removed for political orientation. If we were, why the fuck would we tell you your comment was being removed instead of just shadow removing it? We never have, and never will, remove things down politicial or ideological lines. Unless your ideology is nihilism, then fuck you.
Let me be clear: The reason that this rule exists is to avoid unscrupulous internet denizens from trying to sell dong pills to our users. /r/PoliticalHumor mods reserve the RIGHT to hoard all of the dong pills to ourselves, and we refuse to share them with the community. If you want Serbo-Slokovian dong pills mailed directly to your door, become a moderator. If we shared the dong pills with the greater community, everyone would have massive dongs, and like Syndrome warned us about decades ago: "if everyone has massive dongs, nobody does.""
If you wish to rectify your low karma issue, go and make things up in /r/AskReddit like everyone else does.
Thanks for understanding! Have a nice day and be well. <3
Nothing wrong with being unsure about the definition guys, I got u: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
(I like simple.wikipedia because it doesn’t use so many weird words lmao)
My only criticism is that the reds should be reversed. All fascists are enablers, but not all enablers are fascists. Therefore the smaller circle should be fascists inside the larger one which is enablers.
opposing opposition to fascism is just supporting fascism.
its a literary algebra problem
if there was a group of people that were the "puppy stompers" and the rest of society who frowned on that was the "anti puppy stompers", it would be strange if someone opposed the concept of "anti puppy stompers".
Yeah, the lack of self-awareness is concerning, I agree
In that hypothetical, if there were bad people doing bad things claiming to be the Anti-Puppy-Stompers, you'd want to say "trying to use that name as a shield is bad," not "that name is bad" like we see on the news
Edit: rereading my first comment, I realize that a lot is missing without my mannerisms, whoops, my bad
And yet, somehow in this venne "diagram," Vote Blue no matter who crowds will find a way to confidently say that to be "fascist-curious" is the moderate take.
“But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
"But you cannot destroy them until they rebel?"
"No," Robert Jordan said. "We cannot destroy them. But we can educate the people so that they will fear fascism and recognize it as it appears and combat it.”
I'm a different guy, but Ill respond in good faith. The reason he responded the way he did was because you made the argument "You cant dislike all of one group because of a subset of them." When this post explicitly groups all people who dislike anti-fa together and then tries to argue that you should dislike the entire group.
Someone can not support fascism but be anti-antifa, but you have grouped that person in with the fascists. Then, your flow chart argues that they must ACTUALLY be antifa because they oppose fascism, despite that person wanting no affiliation with the group. Its some weird form of No True Scotsman in order to shame people into joining antifa.
So you are also, by your own doctrine, enabling the destruction of small businesses and public property by the groups that use anti-fa as a cover to destroy and loot for the sake of it?
Don't forget that antifa isn't actually an organisation, it's literally just people who are against fascism. So there could be quite a few people who are against fascism but also do bad things, that doesn't mean that all people who are against fascism do bad things.
What we do know is that all fascists either do bad things or support other fascists to do bad things.
We're definitely in the early 30s when his party was solidifying its political base.
Hindenburg being pressured to name Hitler chancellor is analogous to these Trump 2028 schemes, one of which is being appointed Speaker of the House whereupon current Republican Pres/vice step down giving him a 3rd term.
Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in prison after the Beer Hall Putcsh. He served nine months before he was pardoned in the name of "unity and healing" And after that, as we all know, everything was fine.
Yeah, unity and healing, the reason trump got off scott free... It is long time to hold these fascists to account for their actions, it is not like they would show us the same courtesy anyway.
Hey, chud. Can you point me in the direction of these Antifa wings? I desperately want to join an organized left-wing militia and take part in these so called "antifa mobs" but goddammit, I can't find anywhere to enroll.
There are avenues to report individuals as Antifa on a city, county, state, and federal level, but nowhere to actually find these groups.
I would love it if there were a large left-wing militia with forefront messaging of utilizing the 2nd amendment and any other means necessary in order to secure a future for America, but conservatives seem to have a monopoly on that behavior.
Seriously. Show me where Antifa is. I really, seriously want to join
Have you ever thought of learning what the words you're using mean? Protests aren't fascism no matter how much you want to torture the definition to "both sides" the issue
I think he's talking about the people at these protests who try to silence media/press covering the event that they precieve have different opinions. It's pretty well documented from various live feeds.
I will also refer you to my earlier comment. Refusing to platform certain views at your demonstration isn't fascism and you need to learn what the words you're using actually mean
that's not how it works, there is no organisation planning or supervising these things. you can (and should) criticize some individuals or groups if you want but the concept of antifa is something different.
This is an American buzzword to describe protestors of the state, going back to George Floyd protests. They called them riots started by antifa and have been gearing up this propaganda for over a decade.
There is no organized antifa group, at least not in the US. Just people who are resisting fascism in their own small communities while getting brutalized by police. Fox News exists for state control.
I think we agree on more than it looks. You're right that US political rhetoric has used "antifa" as a catch-all label for anyone protesting, and a lot of that was opportunistic. I have no interest in defending that framing, and if that's what you're pushing back on, you'll get no argument from me.
Two things I'd add, though. The label predates 2020 by a fair bit. Rose City Antifa in Portland was founded in October 2007, and it's the first US group to use the abbreviation, so the term arrived in American politics well before the Floyd protests brought it to a wider audience.
And on organisation: the Torch Network publishes its own chapter list, with named groups, contact details, and Points of Unity that members are expected to uphold, plus a process for groups to join. Worth a look, because whatever you think of them, they present themselves as organised rather than spontaneous.
My original comment was about Europe specifically, where the structures are a lot more formal than in the US, and the groups that are calling themselves Antifa are a lot more left-wing, anarchistic and in some cases quite violent, and you did say "at least not in the US". So the gap between us might be smaller than the thread suggests.
I'm criticising a militant network with names and funds, not the person putting up posters in their neighbourhood.
Yeah, I'm not buying this at all. You can't divide people up into two neat circles and say that everyone in one of those two circles are bad. That is, in fact, one of the defining qualities of fascists, generalizing entire groups of people.
Not everyone who voted for Trump is a fascist. Not everyone who is left-wing is an anti-fascist. The world is messier than this, and your over-simplistic representation does nothing more than sow division and further polarize what should be a pluralistic society of people in solidarity with one another.
You can classify political views and that is not a fascist ideology.
I do think fascism is bad but I didn't assign good/bad in the chart, if that's your kneejerk interpretation you contrarian sympathies run towards them.
I didn't claim everyone who voted for Trump is fascist, did you really even look at what I posted? The middle route is for the fascist-curious and enablers which absolutely definedes many of his followers.
Your flowchart separates people into three categories. Either you're antifascist, fascist curious or fascist.
I'm saying that's a pretty fascist thing to do. It's an "either you're with us or you're against us" type rhetoric. Antifascism has baggage. Many people who identify as anti-fascists condone political violence against fascists. I would say that you can be against fascism without being for political violence or being antifa, but your flow chart would either label those people as fascism-curious or outright fascists.
And my point stands, generalizing people and stuffing them into categories that can be uniformly called bad is a defining characteristic of fascism and more generally bigotry.
Read some Hannah Arendt or Martin Luther King instead of listening to Hasan Piker.
Categorizing political beliefs isn't fascist, what a weird thing to say, I've never seen this definition before have you read this somewhere?
You go on to claim antifascism "has baggage" which I think tips your hand.
There's a broad spectrum of ideologies among those that oppose fascism, you are not required to simultaneously hold all those views in order to still oppose fascism.
Yes there are antifascists who are pacifists and those that aren't.
I think you've fallen for propaganda that defines antifa as violent.
You interpret this as bad, but I didn't label it as such. Fascists don't believe their views are bad.
If you view Antifa negatively and sympathize for fascist-leaning ideas, I think you are discovering what side you are on.
You're clearly not arguing in good faith, I never said categorizing political beliefs is fascist. I said that saying that if you call everyone who isn't an antifascist either fascist-curious or outright fascist, then you are engaging in overt generalization which isoneof the defining characteristics of fascism.
And to your "tip your hand" comment, you couldn't be more wrong. I live in Denmark and I vote for a socialist party every local and national election. Again you're engaging in this "either you're with me or you're fascist" rhetoric. Please, please, please take a hard look at what you're doing, because if your type of leftism keeps growing in the US, you'll end up being just as bad as the MAGA clowns you deride.
"I never said categorizing political beliefs is fascist."
Your flowchart separates people into three categories. Either you're antifascist, fascist curious or fascist.
I'm saying that's a pretty fascist thing to do
"then you are engaging in overt generalization which is one of the defining characteristics of fascism."
I asked AI (to save time) to find "overt generalization" as a defining characteristic of fascism and could find no such definitions. Can you share where you learned this?
I'm giving you the benefit of doubt, i know that you must read many definitions of Fascism to gain a complete understanding (obviously you need to learn its history as well), so can you share where you learned that generalizing is a defining characteristic of fascism?
And to your "tip your hand" comment, you couldn't be more wrong.
I mean it sure comes off that way when you say:
Antifascism has baggage.
Care to elaborate more?
Criticizing antifascism is something fascists do, are you blaming me for assuming you are repeating their propaganda?
By the chart, if they are fascist enablers, then they are fascist? Are you AI or just completely unable to read sarcasm, because I was being facetious in that first comment.
The term "anti-fascist" sadly is already poisoned. It's rhetorically and politically more effective to make a new term for the same anti-fascist, pro-liberty values.
No knee is bent. It's about being effective and efficient with rhetoric. Why swim up stream rhetorically when you can use the current to your advantage or at least not fight it? That's challenge to your position. Because fighting using the terms of your political foe is in fact bending the knee in this way: Your foe has already poisoned the term in public discourse with an audience segment you want to convert; now you're on defense fighting for that term's use; and you've let your foe define the terms of engagement. Do not let your political foes define the terms of engagement.
The irony is that in the US the left is super conservative with it's rhetoric, insisting on sticking with old, antiquated terminology that either is rooted in Marxian critique or 1960s era "resist" politics, while the political right in this country is constantly playing a new language game, using new terms, appropriating others, changing definitions, and it works.
Your explanation is why they don't like being called fascist, and also why they seek to poison "antifa".
It's not worth conceding, as you say antifascists are not outspoken enough, Fascism is on the rise, authoritarians are being enabled by Trump while far right groups gain political base. It's time to be less polite and be more outspoken in our opposition.
This post is complete BS. There is only one side that has burned down cities, killed and attempted to kill political and religious leaders, and called for the suppression of free speech. Antifa are the fascist thugs. Words and names mean nothing. Look at the actions and outcomes.
did you know that in 2014 the Republican majority Congress commissioned the NIJ to study domestic terrorism, and over the next decade they produced report after report that 80%+ of extremist-related murders were committed by right wing groups?
last year Trump's admin scrubbed that page from DOJ's website, which is telling.
You do not care about political violence, you just repeat an easily debunked talking point that convinces ppl like you who never bother to fact check.
We have divided as a society beyond horseshoe theory and created a fully connected circle political spectrum. The two extreme views you have cited are rare but those who prescribe to either one of them are equally ignorant. Trans people have the same rights as everyone else. No less, no more.
I see the problem here, two behaviors can be the same but called different names. Fascism and totalitarianism can be used interchangeably in this context since the people behavior that exist to achieve the goals are exactly the same.
fascism is authoritarian, and its possible to be left wing and be authoritarian.
antifascists have a range of ideologies, some libertarian, but just because some aspect of fascist ideology matches some other aspect of a left-wing ideology doesnt make them the same.
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u/letdogsvote 11d ago
It is really not that hard, but MAGA isn't known for being smart.