Don’t mention the fascism

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, August 10th, 2019 - 103 comments
Categories: democracy under attack, racism, us politics - Tags: , , ,

 
We are the frogs in the pot.
 
We’re being incrementally desensitized via one small cruelty after the next.
 
This is how countries slide from decency into committing wholesale atrocities against minorities.
 
This is what the period before a genocide looks like.

– The Hoarse Whisperer on twitter.

250 characters summing up such a terrible state of a nation, THW is referring to ICE’s raids on immigrant workers in Mississippi this week.

People have been writing and commenting about rising fascism in the US for a long time, and in particular since the build up to the last US election. Yet it still seems hard to have this conversation. Fascism is a big word with a heavy and complex history, and I agree with the analysis that it shouldn’t be over-used.

But the risk here is that the very nature of rising fascism involves denial and propaganda that prevent the frogs in the pot from realising what is going on. It’s past time we yelled ‘fascism is here!’ into the pot.

We have pressures in our own society that are proto-fascist. Anti-immigration rhetoric and rising Islamophobia, racism, Dirty Politics, the centre-left afraid to do anything meaningful about the class prejudice against beneficiaries, the tenor of talkback radio and social media. Much of it emboldened by the Trump era.

The liberal frog in me says that these pressures are still small, fascism could never happen in New Zealand, we have a chance to turn things around with the centre-left government, the Mosque shootings were a one off, she’ll be right. And it’s true that we are still a much more tolerant country than the US.

But rising fascism in New Zealand wouldn’t look like the US, and we had nine long years of the Key government and the Dirty Politics crew socially engineering society to accept all sorts of things that are agin a society that actively rejects fascism. Sometimes the pot of water slowly coming to a boil is camouflaged by a smile and a wave.

This happened in the United States this week:

https://twitter.com/AlexLoveWJTV/status/1159264049105973248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Where the news coverage is reporting the raids as the atrocity that everyone can see it is, it is also telling people how they can help: by donating to the man organising food and shelter for the night for the kids whose parents were just stolen by the state. Which is right, but holy hell, the response to the government stealing people is to feed their kids for a night?

How about: IF YOU WANT TO HELP YOU HAVE TO TAKE TO THE STREET! NOW! General strike, rolling strikes, occupations, whatever will mobilise the people and grind the economy to a halt. Use the tactics and strategies of all the movements that have been honing their skills for the past decade: Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Extinction Rebellion, The Arab Spring. Do the other things: vote, lobby, organise marches, build community, but these alone are insufficient.

It’s ok though, because ICE temporarily released some of the arrested immigrants. It’s not so bad. See how we all adjust? The pot of water’s just that bit warmer now, but not so hot as to make the frogs jump.

In 2009 r0b wrote a post about the five steps of fascism: The F Word, based on a three part essay series by US writer Sara Robinson about the rise of fascism in the US. The first essay is worth reading to see how far they have come.

Thinking it can’t happen here? R0b links to a short post by Irish Bill in early 2009 about the insanity of the 2008 NZ General Election and what the right were up to: Now with a little perspective.

As Robinson said in 2009 about the US situation,

Our choice now is stark: knock them back while they’re still new, small and not yet entrenched; or deal with them later, when they’ve got some real power to fight back with, and the cost to all of us will be so much higher.

We can’t say we weren’t warned.

If that’s a bit too bleak (and it is), Robinson’s follow up was 7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat. We should be translating that into the NZ political context.

Post script: to cheer myself up I read this piece at RNZ about the NZ train conductor who literally stopped a Wellington train on Thursday and had an abusively racist passenger removed. See also Lynn’s post yesterday about how Whale Oil was finally taken down. Sometimes we really get it right.

103 comments on “Don’t mention the fascism ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. marty mars 1
    10 August 2019 at 10:59 am

    Horrific.

    I don't know about fascism – I think the terminology has been usurped. Where I work we have lots of diagnosis and terms for people – we look at the behaviours and deal with them. The behaviours – the inhumanity, the cruelty, the pretend ignorance – I agree we become desensitised to cruelty – that has been one of my themes for vegetarianism – to move away from the utter cruelty of the current industrial farming area.

    My solution is simple – we fight it. We fight it directly and indirectly. We don't allow space for their erosion of our values via micro-meanings for words, or lets hear the other side, or hey they have a right to a view, or they had a hard life. We concentrate on the victims of fascism – the poor, the vulnerable and we stand with them.

    • greywarshark 1.1
      10 August 2019 at 12:49 pm

      We help the victims, the poor, the vulnerable and look after their kids for a night… and then we find a way to give them better conditions that will help them get on their feet, and then we are there for them to call on as help when they start off to make their own way. And we encourage them to turn round and give a hand to others in turn.

      Do we do this by becoming authoritarian and rigid, black is black and white is white. Do we adopt PC terms with the first rule that using the words black and white are to be constantly contested. Is this the way we behave? Forgetting that a little bit of us is in every event and sentence that everyone says?

      What we should do is to think about ourselves first and then society and assist a better way, and encourage people who are trying to get a better society but not by being dogmatic in their beliefs – the Ring to Rule Them All as in Oranga Tamariki and Dept of reducing social welfare for instance.

      Jobs with decent hours, standards and wages and a place to live would be a great help and forget the employment figures used by the Stats to fudge the real situation on the hard ground.

  2. joe90 2
    10 August 2019 at 11:03 am

    History, huh.

    Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.

    – Anne Frank.

    https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/1159362885610549248

    Undocumented migrants will have tax and social security deducted ftom their payroll and paid to the Federal government via fictional SSNs

    Nobody will file a return asking for refunds

    Ask Trump how and when the US Treasury is going to refund the money defrauded from workers for social security benefits they can never collect

    The US government trousers the money

    Trump understands this scam. His businesses likely did it.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1159362885610549248.html?

  3. joe90 3
    10 August 2019 at 11:53 am

    Miniluv or Minitrue?

    The White House is contemplating issuing an executive order that would widen its attack on the operations of social media companies.

    The White House has prepared an executive order called “Protecting Americans from Online Censorship” that would give the Federal Communications Commission oversight of how Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies monitor and manage their social networks, according to a CNN report.

    Under the order, which has not yet been announced and could be revised, the FCC would be tasked with developing new regulations that would determine when and how social media companies filter posts, videos or articles on their platforms.

    The draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when investigating or filing lawsuits against technology companies, according to the CNN report.

    Social media censorship has been a perennial talking point for President Donald Trump and his administration. In May, the White House set up a tip line for people to provide evidence of social media censorship and a systemic bias against conservative media.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/09/reports-say-white-house-has-drafted-an-order-putting-the-fcc-in-charge-of-monitoring-social-media/

    • greywarshark 3.1
      10 August 2019 at 12:57 pm

      Good people being picked out of society because their nose is wrongly shaped etc etc Their religion or something else is not accepted. They don't look right, they just don't fit, with a stroke of the pen they can be banished. This is Hitler's group early on in the 1930's upping their determination and rhetoric (then aggression), and then the authorities caved in to his rhetoric and made him Chancellor. Similar to Britain today? Coming to Kiwis in Oz tomorrow? The climate for Oz to invade NZ has been created for the acceptance of Oz citizens. Disturbing stories about perceptions of ordinary Oz citizens about Kiwis continue to arise. The pattern is there in front of our eyes.

    • SPC 3.2
      10 August 2019 at 1:57 pm

      The fascist state

      The state determining who is a good media oligarch and who is not. Check.

  4. Andre 4
    10 August 2019 at 11:58 am

    "The cruelty is the point." The conscious deliberate evil is an electoral strategy to keep the deplorables ever more firmly onside.

    https://www.salon.com/2019/08/09/the-truth-about-trumps-ice-raids-botched-mississippi-operation-was-good-optics/

  5. Jenny - How to Get there? 5
    10 August 2019 at 12:31 pm

    Tick off all the points of similarity:

    Mocking the disabled. Check

    Lying press. Check

    Inciting speeches interrupted by chants, to kill the targets of his speech. Check

    Pulling out of international agreements. Check.

    Suggesting that politicians from other parties were hopelessly corrupt and should be locked up. Check

    …..a police report on one of Hitler’s early speeches, in which he “used vulgar comparisons” and “did not shy away from the cheapest allusions.” Hitler’s language was never measured or careful, but “like something merely expulsed.” Yet, revising earlier opinions, Ullrich shows how carefully Hitler prepared his speeches. Seemingly spontaneous, they were in fact calculated. Full of base allegations and vile stereotypes, they were precisely designed to gain maximum attention from the media and maximum reaction from the crowds he addressed. When he declared that fines were of no use against those he called Jewish criminals, his listeners interrupted him with chants of “Beatings! Hangings!”

    Aided by his talented propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Hitler not only flaunted his vulgarity and exploited tribal hatreds; he also lied and lied his way to success. The Jews, he argued, had stabbed the German Army in the back in 1918; the politicians of the other parties, he insisted, were hopelessly venal and corrupt and should be put in jail; the Nazi thugs who were condemned to death in 1932 for the “Potempa murders” were victims of a “monstrous blood-verdict”; liberal newspapers that criticized Hitler were, as Goebbels put it, the “Jewish lying press.”

    Few took Hitler seriously or thought that he would actually put his threats against the country’s tiny Jewish minority, his rants against feminists, left-wing politicians, homosexuals, pacifists, and liberal newspaper editors, into effect. Fewer still believed his vow to quit the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations. But within a few months of taking office, he did all of these things—and much more.

    Once in power, the Nazi regime was run exclusively by men: Only heterosexual white males, the Nazis thought, had the required detachment and lack of emotional connection to the issues at hand to make the right calls. Nazi propaganda mocked disabled people; within a few years, they were being sterilized and then exterminated. Hitler railed against the roving bands of criminals who were destroying law and order and called for the return of the death penalty, effectively abrogated under the Weimar Republic. Within a short space of time, the executions began again, reaching a total of more than 16,000 during his 12 years in power, while Germany’s prison population rocketed from 50,000 in 1930 to more than 100,000 on the eve of the war. Feminist associations were all closed down, the law forbidding homosexual acts between men was drastically sharpened, vagrants were rounded up and imprisoned, illegal Polish immigrants were deported. Germany pulled out of international organizations and tore up treaties with cynical abandon, dismantling or emasculating the structures of international cooperation erected after World War I and freeing the way for rogue states like Italy and Japan to launch their own wars of conquest and aggression. Ullrich tellingly quotes the Nazis’ triumphant declaration of “our departure from the community of nations,” buttressed by Hitler’s assurance that he would “rather die” than sign anything that was not in the interests of the German people…..

    https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/

    The big question for us, is will our country go along with this?

    Will we bend to US pressure to supply cannon fodder to the next aggressive war of choice, as we have done for all past US military adventures?

  6. Stuart Munro. 6
    10 August 2019 at 1:02 pm

    A lot of Trump's success stems from an opposition unprepared for his demagogic excesses. It's not been an easy thing to oppose historically, and violent resistance embeds the conflict even if, as very rarely happens, it succeeds.

    What's needed is a quiet dedication to the restoration of the rule of law. Documenting as well as protesting Trump's ICE gulags, and especially those responsible and collaborating. Securing commitment from aspiring political representatives to go after the human rights abusers and take class actions against the for-profit imprisonment companies.

    The soft treatment of serial systematic law breakers like Semenoff shows we had the same problems developing here under the feckless administration of the Key Kleptocracy, and there is still much wrongdoing from that era to wind up.

  7. Tony Veitch (not etc.) 7
    10 August 2019 at 1:34 pm

    Can I draw readers' attention to the 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis: It Can't Happen Here.

    In it he mirrors the rise of fascism in Germany with an own-grown fascist in 'the land of the free' United States.

    Would it be too far to suggest that another two or three terms of 'Key' type National Government, with Key's disregard for the truth, with dirty politics the norm, with demonising of various groups in society etc and – oh la la, we would be heading down the same right-wing path.

  8. Dennis Frank 8
    10 August 2019 at 1:35 pm

    Trump's approval rating has been on a gradual climb trajectory since the low a couple of years back, check out the graph for that & see him marginally ahead of Obama – and how they've been on a par with each other since late 2017.

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_aug09

    So it's a divided country scenario, as one would expect in a nation conditioned by binary thinking. Zoroaster has a lot to answer for.

    • Andre 8.1
      10 August 2019 at 1:51 pm

      Rasmussen is widely considered biased to the right in their polling.

      Fivethirtyeight's polling average gives you a lot more stuff to look at, more presidents to compare against, approval, disapproval and net approval charts etc. 538 have Il Douche at 41.4% approval/53.2% disapproval a year after taking office, and neither of those has varied by much more than a percent either way since. Even the shutdown just barely blipped out of that range.

      I interpret that as a few Repugs starting to disapprove of King Con when it looked like he couldn't even deliver on their core priority of tax cuts for the rich. When he finally signed that off in December 2017, they drifted back to him. Since then he's nominated enough reactionary judges that committed Repugs can choke down his offensiveness, and he's been sufficiently offensive to keep the middle finger voters locked on.

  9. NZJester 9
    10 August 2019 at 2:06 pm

    Just saw this on TYT about the ICE raids in the US.

    Wednesday’s raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which led to nearly 700 workers being detained, targeted seven Koch Foods Inc. poultry plants in Morton, Mississippi. As it happens, last year, Koch Foods settled a $3.75 million lawsuit for racial discrimination, national origin discrimination, and sexual harassment against its Latinx workers in that very same Morton facility. According to the suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), supervisors, “touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments to female Hispanic employees, hit Hispanic employees, and charged many of them money for normal everyday work activities.” Many workers were reportedly either discharged or subjected to other forms of retaliation when they complained.

  10. joe90 10
    10 August 2019 at 3:47 pm

    Rotten to the core.

    https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1159736425132285952

    The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programs that combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.

    “Domestic Terrorism in 2018,” a document (embedded below) prepared by the State of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness, “shows 25 of the 46 individuals allegedly involved in 32 different domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists,” Yahoo News’ Jana Winter and Hunter Walker report.

    That document finds there were “32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/revealed-doj-blocked-report-showing-white-supremacists-responsible-for-all-race-based-domestic-terrorism-incidents-in-2018/

  11. Daveski 11
    10 August 2019 at 4:00 pm

    Indefensible indeed. But so too is the attempt to brand this as simply "fascist". The coverage of China's oppression of minorities, particularly in regions on the periphery are as bad but simply receive less coverage in NZ.

    • In Vino 11.1
      10 August 2019 at 7:53 pm

      Not sure what you are getting at.. We thought Germany a highly 'civilised' country, where the Weimar Republic might have endured without the effects of the Great Depression. It is of great concern to us that Germany could have turned so fascist, and we still agonise over the causes. The Anglo-Saxon dominance of the world (British empire + USA) has always prided itself (if hypocritically) on its democratic style of rule.

      I don't China has ever done so: it has a tradition of being ruled by strong Emperors, or weak ones. Most were fairly despotic to our minds. When the empire was strong, countries like Tibet were subjugated provinces. When China was weak, Tibet etc were independent. Not a great deal has changed in that pattern.

      When a country like USA looks to be at risk of becoming fascist, it is of far greater relevance and importance to us, and merits far more publicity.

  12. Ad 12
    10 August 2019 at 4:16 pm

    Both left and right have been rejecting globalization in the form of the free movement of labour for years, and this is the natural conclusion.

    Australia's borders are stronger now, as they are in Europe, the US, and in the UK, and most of Scandinavia, and Russia. And Japan, and most others in the OECD. And China.

    The borders are up, so globalization of labour retreats to its own and slows, nations strengthen their identities and definitions, and it all helps to slow the entire global economy.

    Hard Brexit is about to occur and seal more borders off.

    Sure it's painful. Our ethics need to adjust to what most of the world is saying over successive elections again and again and again. They say this:

    This is a border: You have no assumed right to enter: Stop.

    • Stuart Munro. 12.1
      10 August 2019 at 4:43 pm

      The "free movement of labour" is only a good to employers who mean to depress wages and conditions. It is inconsistent with any party that pretends to be Left, though it is a neoliberal wet dream complete with the usual effects of reducing overall wealth and productivity.

      Of course borders are in principle hard – the nation state is the unit of political accountability – large scale changes in the population produce undesirable effects for which voters must necessarily punish the scoundrels who enable them.

      • Ad 12.1.1
        10 August 2019 at 5:04 pm

        The free movement of labour has been utterly awesome for New Zealanders particularly to Australia We've had it good for a very very long time: sport, law, tourism, construction, mining, housing, etc etc.

        Global borders are hardening in both principle and in the more important fact. The state is reasserting its power against such flows like it hasn't ever done before.

        Stiglitz' Globalisation and its Discontents shows that such limitation is attractive to left and to right parties. In the last year on the left, only Denmark has figured out how to work with this.

        New Zealand and others open their doors to poor countries to drag in cheap international labour at harvest times – but soon even that will decrease.

        Corbyn believes in Brexit and hard borders – far harder than they have been for a century. He shares that with Trump, and with so many other leaders whether left or right.

        UK Labor is just an example. The left will pretty much be eradicated if it doesn't agree to the same anti-immigration theme as Trump. Not as extreme, but same policy continuum.

        • adam 12.1.1.1
          10 August 2019 at 5:27 pm

          And right there that what authoritarian shit fuckery looks like – well said Ad.

          Right on the money.

          Neo-liberlism and it's supporters have created an environment of fear, distrust, and ultimately hate.

          In doing so, they not only killed the left, they have embed fascism as the saviour of capitalism.

          Good luck surviving this shit fuckery folks.

          I hope your white, male and armed.

        • Stuart Munro. 12.1.1.2
          10 August 2019 at 7:51 pm

          The free movement of workers to Oz merely saved the neoliberals from the comeuppance that naturally attends wrecking the lives of a third of the population. Far be it from our erstwhile leaders to take the consequences of their brutal incompetence – consequences are clearly for other people.

    • Pat 12.2
      10 August 2019 at 5:15 pm

      Look past the rhetoric and you will see that although the likes of Trump et al talk a big game on immigration and present a hard man attitude to those being stopped/removed the numbers of migrant labour continues unabated….just as does the free movement of capital.

      Smoke and mirrors

    • Macro 12.3
      10 August 2019 at 7:43 pm

      And yet in America the very people they are now herding up and shipping out (a large number of them who have been living in the country from childhood – the so called "dreamers") are the very ones they really need right now to work in the low skill jobs processing their food, working in their bars and hotels, caring for their golf courses (Trump infamously employs many) and working on construction sites and buildings.

      In March, there were only 811,000 unemployed workers with bachelor’s degrees looking for work, and 1.4 million open positions for professionals like them. The US needs more high-skilled workers to fill all those positions, sure, but the gap is even bigger in low-wage industries that don’t require a college education.

      There were more than 2.1 million open positions for low-skilled workers in March, but only 1.4 million people without college degrees looking for work. That’s nearly two jobs available for every unemployed person with nothing more than a high school diploma.

      In Mississippi, for example, the most in-demand jobs require little to no training or education. In fact, 16 out of the 20 most needed jobs in 2018 didn’t require more than a high school education. That includes cooks, janitors, and construction workers. Yet there are fewer people than ever looking for work. The unemployment rate in Mississippi, while higher than the national average, is at its lowest point in decades, making it hard for businesses to find workers.

      https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/8/20791508/mississippi-ice-immigration-raids

      I think the worst factor in this latest episode – and apparently Trump and his gang are planning more of these raids, is that the people who are being targeted are not recent arrivals. Many of these people have been in the US for years brought in by their parents as toddlers and young children. They have grown up in the US and had all their schooling there and are to all intents and purposes US citizens apart from the fact that they do no hold the requisite piece of paper that says they are. Their children are US citizens by right of birth, They may even have a spouse/partner who is a US citizen. No matter! They are alien and have no right to be there even though they are productive, law abiding, and needed. 🙄 So sick pricks like Trump and co. have no compunction about splitting up a family or leaving children homeless with nowhere to go. They are simply evil. And anyone who supports or "rationalises" such an evil policy is as much to blame and bears as much fault as Trump himself.

      Last night I watched the movie "When Hands Touch" which graphically depicts many times the callousness of Germans in WW2 to their citizens who were different, including the separation of children from their parents. One scene in particular reminded me in particular of the atrocity in Mississippi.

      • Ad 12.3.1
        11 August 2019 at 8:28 am

        The shock value of televised raids doesn't change a thing. Dead bodies floating by the bushel in the Mediterranean, and Italy turns them back.

        The US should copy New Zealand's Seasonal Employment Scheme.

        We already prop up many Pacific states with remittances.

        • Andre 12.3.1.1
          11 August 2019 at 8:41 am

          The US already has the H-2A visa category for temporary or seasonal agricultural work.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa

          • Macro 12.3.1.1.1
            11 August 2019 at 1:54 pm

            Yes that is true Andre – but the allocation of available visas per year (75,000) is no where near enough to cover the work requirements. And nothing available for those in year long employment like food processing.

            From the vox link above:

            The best chance for a poor, low-skilled Central American immigrant to work in the US is through one of two guest worker programs: The H2A program for agricultural workers and the H2B program for seasonal work, which includes jobs at hotels, amusement parks, and landscaping firms.

            But there are only about 75,000 visas available each year for guest workers, and they only cover some high-demand jobs like landscaping and food preparation. There is no guest-worker program for year-round jobs, like those at chicken processing plants in Mississippi, for example.

            One of the driving factors behind the “enormous growth” of undocumented immigrants living in the US in the 1990s and 2000s is the lack of legal avenues for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States, write Madeleine Sumption and Demetrios Papademetriou at the Migration Policy Institute.

            So one obvious solution to the problem of unauthorized immigration is to create a program that provides work visas to low-skilled immigrants. But no one is seriously discussing this, least of all the 2020 candidates.

  13. Dennis Frank 13
    10 August 2019 at 4:44 pm

    Here's some relevant historical context. Memorial Day army veterans parade, New York, 30 May 1927. “Around 8am, a group of Italian immigrants living in the Bronx set out for the elevated train on their way to Manhattan to join the parade… Like all his fellow Fascists intending to march that day, Joseph Carisi was wearing the blackshirt uniform, sporting leather boots, jodhpurs, a black cap, and carrying a steel-tipped riding crop. When he stopped to buy a newspaper, Carisi was jumped by two men, stabbed in the neck and left to die on the sidewalk.”

    Another Fascist “was shot four times, once right through the heart. One of the two murdered men had served in the American army during the Great War, the other with the Italian army, papers reported’.

    “The biggest outbreak of violence that Memorial Day, however, occurred in Queens… By 1927, the Ku Klux Klan had spread across the United States since its rebirth in Georgia twelve years earlier… The Klan had an active presence in New York City and Long Island in 1927, with favourite slogans, which they even attempted to copyright at various points. That year the Klan was `call[ing] attention to the fact that it first announced the program of 100% “Americanism” and of “America first”. They were not, in fact, the first to adopt these mottos, as this book will show: both phrases had been around for a decade or more.”

    “But as far as the Klan… was concerned, `America first’ belonged to them, and on Memorial Day in Queens a thousand or so of them had gathered to march… accompanied by 400 women from the so-called `Klavana’ (the feminine branch of the Klan). Some of the reported 20,000 spectators in Queens that day objected to the Klan’s presence, as others defended their right to march; scuffles broke out and it turned into a riot”

    “Within a week, New York had banned any public appearance by either `the white-robed Ku Klux Klan’ or `the black-shirted Fascisti’… The Klan, meanwhile, blamed the police for being Catholic… As far as the Second Klan was concerned, Catholics couldn’t be loyal Americans because their higher allegiance was to the Pope.”

    “In the days after the riot, the New York Times revealed the names of the total of seven men who had been arrested in Queens. Five of them were identified as `avowed Klansmen’… A sixth was a mistake… The seventh, a 20-year old German-American was not identified in the press as a Klansman. The reports only stated that he was arrested, arraigned and discharged. No one knows why he was there, but it appears that he wouldn’t leave. His name was Fred Trump.”

    Like father, like son? Conservatives do replicate, but Trump has to be judged on his track record rather than his ancestry. Watch carefully to see if jodhpurs are becoming a fashion trend amongst millennials, and if you notice them accompanied by a steel-tipped riding crop, ring the alarm bell. [Source: prologue of Behold America – A History of America First and the American Dream, S. Churchwell 2018]

    • JO 13.1
      10 August 2019 at 7:00 pm

      And we should keep an eye out for phalanxes of goose-stepping cheerleaders brandishing golden pompoms at the 2020 4th July march past.

  14. greywarshark 14
    10 August 2019 at 6:30 pm

    Trump's childhood years would be strong in forming his behaviour also his parents behaviour towards him. Here are some quotes from a link about this time.

    http://www.lifedaily.com/story/42-little-known-facts-about-donald-trumps-childhood/

    His family home was large and in a good neighbourhood. The family cars both Cadillacs were unusual for the neighbourhood.

    1. When Trump was only five years old, he followed his babysitter into the New York City sewers on a sort of “urban safari” of sorts. Despite his caretaker’s reservations that that child might become scared, little Donny pressed onward into the darkness. Even at that age, the future president was fearless.
    2. Their mother was severely ill after her last child's birth, Donald was fourth out of five. Even with their mother at death’s door, the Trump children were expected to go on with life as usual. Maryanne Trump, Donald’s sister, once spoke of how callous her father was during that time. She was expected to just go to school and if anything changed, her father would call for her.
    3. Trump pulled hair, taunted children on the playground, and disrupted the classroom on more than one occasion. He and his friends threw spitballs, cursed, and caused trouble all around his neighborhood.
    4. Donald was considered surly, determined, and headstrong by several of his teachers. Once, he even gave a music teacher a black eye because he “thought he didn’t know anything about music.” He misbehaved so often that his initials became his friends’ shorthand for detention.
    5. Ann Trees, a teacher at Kew-Forest School during Trump’s tenure, found him utterly unforgettable. The headstrong boy was determined but surly to a fault. He would sit, arms folded, face contorted in a grimace as if he were daring people to disagree with him.
    6. If his current Tweets are any indication, Trump has always seemed to lack a voice of reason in his head when it came to amending what he was about to say. Even as a child, he would say anything that came into his mind, wrong or right, and he’d stick to that position no matter what.
    7. Throughout his childhood and into his adult life, Trump showed the sort of behavior that is considered common for bullies. Young Donald was narcissistic, charismatic, and popular, and he delighted in proving his superiority over those he considered weaker than himself.
    8. Trump would often erupt in fits of anger. He started fights and he pummeled other boys on more than one occasion. Despite a great love for baseball, he smashed more than one baseball bat if he made an out.
    9. At the age of 12, Trump would take the E train into Manhattan with his friends. They did not ask their parents for permission and purchased knives while in the city in an effort to channel gang members from the then Broadway hit, “West Side Story”.
    10. Due to his seemingly endless string of behavior problems, and following the knife incident, Trump’s father enrolled him in the New York Military Academy at the age of 13, where he finished eighth grade and high school.
    11. Despite the positive influence of the military school, Trump still had a temper. He once struck a fellow cadet with a broomstick during a fight and he tried to push another out a second-floor window. Though, thankfully, this attempt was thwarted by two other students.
    12. His own school career didn’t see him losing any steam in the rankings, however. By the time he was a senior, he had become the prestigious captain of A Company. During his tenure, he never had to raise his voice, just flash a look. Trump was not the type of man you wanted to mess with or disappoint.
    13. Eventually, though, a crisis emerged that saw Trump reassigned as a battalion training officer and stripped of the captain’s rank. One of his sergeants shoved a plebe and the school decided that rather than face more hazing controversy, they’d simply make the problem go away.
    14. During the Vietnam War, Trump was in college and therefore obtained four student deferments. In 1968, Trump was briefly classified as fit by a local draft board, but was given a 1-Y medical deferment in October of 1968. Trump’s official position was that this was a medical deferment due to heel spurs, despite being deemed fit for service previously in 1966.
  15. phantom snowflake 15
    10 August 2019 at 7:33 pm

    Meanwhile in Aotearoa… it seems our very own Incel Horde has shapeshifted again, this time into 'Action Zealandia.'

    https://action-zealandia.com/ideals/faq

    Not for these wee petals the sting of rejection; women are excluded from membership.

    • McFlock 15.1
      10 August 2019 at 7:54 pm

      So the no-girls-allowed club has day trips to the park and beach? Behold the superman.

      Just as long as they don't have access to firearms.

      • weka 15.1.1
        10 August 2019 at 8:00 pm

        Or tech to manipulate social media.

        Who is the woman in the graphic? By the look of her face she knows exactly what is going on.

        • McFlock 15.1.1.1
          10 August 2019 at 9:05 pm

          Queen Mary, being offered the crown about a hundred years before James Cook set sail.

          I'm sure it has some relevance in the minds of insecure little incels who think going to the gym makes them better people.

          • weka 15.1.1.1.1
            10 August 2019 at 9:11 pm

            what is she so unhappy about? William doesn't look too flash either.

            • McFlock 15.1.1.1.1.1
              10 August 2019 at 9:27 pm

              PR job.

              James 2 was a bit of a dick, and the combo of Catholic monarch wanting absolutist powers over a largely Protestant English parliament and James suddenly having a male heir (=Catholic dynasty) meant things were looking like another civil war was going to happen. So the nearest pretender was his daughter Mary, who was a Protestant married to William of Orange (Netherlands). William and Mary sailed to England with a massive army, most of James' army deserted, so he skipped to France and William wanted to be king – but that would look like a Dutch invasion and boost James' popularity. So they went through this entire thing of parliament offering William and Mary a co-monarchy and them going "oh if you insist".

              Or the woodcutter who made the print was a bit shit at smiles – that's always a possibility 🙂

              • The Al1en …
                10 August 2019 at 9:57 pm

                He came ashore in Brixham, a fishing village in Torbay, South Devon, a place I lived in for eight years or so. There's a statue, of course, and a landing stone said to be the place of his first footstep on English soil.

                Every Friday and Saturday night it's covered in the puke of cheap lager and fish and chip suppers. How history really remembers. lol

                • McFlock …
                  10 August 2019 at 10:15 pm

                  Heh.

                  The precursor to Shelley's Ozymandias

                  • The Al1en …
                    10 August 2019 at 11:02 pm

                    “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

                    Makes our place in time seem even less irrelevant than it already is.

                    I met a traveller from an antique land
                    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
                    Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
                    Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
                    And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
                    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
                    Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
                    The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
                    And on the pedestal these words appear:
                    “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
                    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
                    Nothing beside remains: round the decay
                    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
                    The lone and level sands stretch far away.

              • greywarshark …
                10 August 2019 at 10:08 pm

                Like the explanation McFlock When I look closely at it there seems to be a lot of eyeing up others, except for William who is feeling 'uncomfortable'. Mary and the carrier of the crown on the left might be doing reconnaissance.

            • Anne 15.1.1.1.1.2
              10 August 2019 at 10:02 pm

              To put it bluntly weka, William of Orange was a boring old fart with a brain the size of a pea. I doubt Mary was much better.

              Oh well, he would have been easy to keep under control I suppose.

              Edit: you may be wishing you’d never asked. 😉

    • lprent 15.2
      10 August 2019 at 8:01 pm

      I’d admit that they do read like they are huddling together for self-protection. But it reads far more like a group of simple traditionalists from a background that still has sexual segregation than the more angry and bitter incel material that I’ve looked at.

      Who knows, and really, who cares if they don’t interfere or coerce in the lives of others. There is room in our society for people with many different silly beliefs.

      • weka 15.2.1
        10 August 2019 at 8:31 pm

        Hard to tell from the photos, but they look like young to young-ish guys to me. Lots of daft ideas there, but some red flags too (reading the Newsroom article below). Excluding women isn't that surprising, but women, non-whites and disabled people is pretty blatant (haven't seen what NR mean by disabled). If they're on places like 4chan recruiting, someone should be keeping an eye on them.

        • phantom snowflake 15.2.1.1
          10 August 2019 at 9:18 pm

          The sheer novelty of the idea that the extreme right might possibly be …umm dangerous! should keep these guys in the sights of our security services for a few more months perhaps, before normal service resumes and it’s back to focusing on Maori and environmental and animal rights activists.

          • weka 15.2.1.1.1
            10 August 2019 at 10:13 pm

            One hopes the security services have caught up by now :-/

            • lprent 15.2.1.1.1.1
              11 August 2019 at 12:44 am

              It is unlikely. As far as I can tell the sigint is looking at american targets. The SIS is doing much the same along with their traditional observations of left organisations. The police used to collect some human intel of the right nutbars – but kind of stopped in the last decades because issue protesters were easier.

        • McFlock 15.2.1.2
          10 August 2019 at 9:33 pm

          not to mention the phrase "sexual deviancy" thrown in there.

          But they can't do a website properly – the faq in the link upthread doesn't seem to be accessible within the actual site menues lol

          Basic out of the box CMS with no real tweaks.

          • weka 15.2.1.2.1
            10 August 2019 at 10:15 pm

            I missed the sexual deviancy bit but tbh I'm not scanning not reading.

            The FAQ works for me from the menu bar.

            • McFlock 15.2.1.2.1.1
              10 August 2019 at 10:24 pm

              In their "ideals" section: "Any individuals that partake in self-destructive behaviours such as drug use and sexual deviancy will never be allowed to partake in the movement."

              Partake that however you want to partake it 🙂

              Figured out the web thing – their responsive menu isn't quite suited to my screen resolution, so unless I zoom my bropwser out I get the dropdown style rather than lines on the top. FAQ isn't in the dropdown as far as I can see.

        • lprent 15.2.1.3
          11 August 2019 at 12:41 am

          I tend to keep the occasional eye on many of the local sites, simply because I hate being blindsided during moderation.

          To me this feels like yet another small group or person with weird ideas. Sort of wannabe exclusive brethren – which is what the ideas read like. Or someone recently watched fight club.

          If the site appears to be actually active in a few months, I may get interested enough to dig around.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 15.3
      10 August 2019 at 8:12 pm

      Hmm, a values-based ‘community’ organisation that requires members to have a "body in a decent shape", and doesn't admit women. Hope it doesn't go pear-shaped!

      • greywarshark 15.3.1
        10 August 2019 at 9:58 pm

        Mission – Building a Community for European New Zealanders.

        Why can’t women join?

        Action Zealandia is a fraternity and membership isn’t open to women. Women can partake in some social events if their boyfriend or husband is a member, however they can’t be members on their own accord.

        We are open to potential networking and support in the future if the need arises. Contact us and we’ll let you know if there’s any way we can help or if anything comes up that you may be interested in.

    • weka 15.5
      10 August 2019 at 8:28 pm

      Not to worry, Paddy Gower is on to them.

      /sarc

    • marty mars 15.6
      10 August 2019 at 9:49 pm

      nice the losers are into the celtic NZ bullshit – shows how thick they are – very

      • WILD KATIPO 15.6.1
        11 August 2019 at 1:11 am

        No , and if you are referring to Martin Doutiers sites, it well worth checking out.

        Where , oh where ,… is the harm in perusing truth and honesty ?, – if such is the case ???

        Why does it matter?

        Those generations are long gone.

        Why cant we hold open discussion that challenges the status quo???

        Why the fear?

        Why the cynical writing off of archeological finds?

        Why does that send us into fits of political dis truths?

        Who cares?… 21rst century liturgists?, – who stand to lose salary's ?, – who cares about them?

        What does it matter if we learn the truth?

        The truth.

        Judging by the way many carry on,… its worth more than silver and gold. As for me?… you can keep your silver and gold.

      • WILD KATIPO 15.6.2
        11 August 2019 at 1:28 am

        And this is what you are really referring to…

        So I'll leave you to chaff at the bit….

        Martin Doutré – Ancient Celtic New Zealand

        http://www.celticnz.co.nz/author.html

        And I'll leave you to have a listen to this song, its a good song about the reconstruction era. And if you have a problem with that , then I suggest you look at the conquest of the Chatham Islands. Not a lot of difference.

        If you were to be honest about human nature.

        And accept the forgiveness that is available to you.

        Sittin' Up Drinkin' With Robert E Lee – YouTube

    • Carolyn_Nth 15.7
      11 August 2019 at 5:17 pm

      There also seems to be an element of eco-fascism.

      <a href="https://action-zealandia.com/ideals ">See the sustainability section at the bottom of their Ideals page

      <a href="https://action-zealandia.com/actions/july-2019-action-summary ">And their July actions summary

      <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/05/el-paso-shooting-eco-fascism-migration/ ">Rise of eco-fascism in this Intercept article

      Don’t know why the link codes aren’t working.

      [Made minor adjustments to make links readable and work– Incognito]

      • Andre 15.7.1
        11 August 2019 at 5:35 pm

        re: link codes – the new comment editor doesn't seem to like people doing it themselves first time around. But the linking tool (the one that looks like chain links or a messed-up infinity) works fine. But if you want to put in an link like that in an edit, you'll need to do it the old-skool way like you've just done.

        Also, if you want to link to a comment on The Standard, use the linking tool or at least put the copy'n'pasted url on the end of a sentence. If you just put the url as a standalone paragraph, it strips off the #commentnumber and just goes to the OP.

  16. WILD KATIPO 16
    10 August 2019 at 8:33 pm

    A country as big as the USA , China or Russia or India is always going to have regions of entrenched prejudice. Long forgotten wars, economic rivalry's , fear of another's believes etc… in fact country's as small as NZ as well.

    As an aside, remember the film, 'The Eagles have Landed?'… it was about German crack troops landing in rural England during WW2,… amongst the mayhem and the gunfire,… an old chap slurps on his beer and says… 'bloody foreigners'… we all laughed in the cinema because it was recognized old school 'Empire ' thinking… classic 'English snobbery '.

    As for Trump ,… I don't think he's the worst U.S Pres in history ,… there were many who were openly racist before him ,- and actively encouraged it. Yes, some incidents , not directly caused by him but by popular policy's which he and his party endorse ,…may offend our modern sensitivity's,… but we dont live in the USA and really,…not many are aware of historic presidents by which to measure him against.

    A case in point is the 'Manifold Destiny' ideal that so many Presidents of former era's used to sway the masses into accepting genocide of the Native Americans and to do so to steal their lands.

    Now to some, Trump is a fascist ,… but often that is with the benefit of hindsight of historic cases during the 1930's and 1940's… it was a term that was given at that time and after…but extrapolating on that… was William the Conqueror a fascist? Was Charlemagne? Was King Henry VIII ?… you see where this is going… its all in context of the era of those leaders. And all of those leaders had blood on their hands.

    We like to think times have changed and we have advanced. The truth is we haven't. We are still the same species subject to the same depravities as our ancestors. But you say ''but we have the United Nations and other bodies born of horrific tradgedy's and put in place to prevent that ever happening again'' …

    Not so.

    Yet they have done some good,… but that was mainly through using the old Geneva Convention and 'humane' ways of conducting war and the banning of horrific weapons, especially when western powers were involved. It doesn't look good or inspire the populace to fight for the cause when they see thousands come back in body bags or with horrific injuries,… at least ,… politically….

    But primarily ,… their job was to maintain global order and trade. But you say ,- ''what about the U. N Human Bill of Rights Charters?''

    Well ,… just think of Bosnia , Angola, Congo , Tibet , Argentina , Peru , Columbia Paraguay … dozens and dozens of places where the U.N was less than impotent,… they were an impediment. And only concerned with western interests first, and human rights second.

    Now NZ.

    Yes we have had our genocides ,.. and the indigenous peoples of these lands are still suffering the effects of that. It was labelled 'Colonialism'. But was not England the prime mover and shaker to beat the Spanish, the Dutch and the Americans to claim these lands?

    And do we call that Fascism? , or Colonialism ?, … simply because it did not have one centrist leader advocating the theft and thus genocides of the peoples there before them?

    In that it was a collective of vested interest groups and political bodies who had the same mindset and endorsed the same policy's?, – that being the use of bogus alibi's to foment a war for theft of land , – and genocide merely being the by- product of that process ? Do not all fascists broadly do such as that regards expansionism?

    Franco , Mussolini, Hitler,.. and from the Left?, – Stalin. And Pol Pot.

    Donald J Trump pales into insignificance compared to the ' Big Four'. Or possibly Five. Or Six.

    ( Do we count Pol Pot or Mao Zedong because they were not westerners or not ? )

    Are we, in NZ,… really on the formal early road to Fascism ?

    Is Jacinda Adern a dupe for the U.N or Americanization ( how do we reconcile that with the powerful NRA opposing the very thing Australia and NZ have done regards limiting military style firearms to the civilian populace? ) or 'western interests'?

    I do not think we have done nearly enough to put right the wrongs of colonialism as a country. But that is a complex issue regarding the tribal versus the individuals rights… and be not mistaken… the Maoris were avid capitalist's when they had their lands. Make no mistake of that. They were also conquerors , Te Ruaparaha comes to mind.

    Was he a ' Fascist'?

    Personally ?… I do think we need to limit immigration.

    A quota system from each country, A background check of sound characters. Do they contribute skills needed for this country ? Vetting, in other words. Yet with mitigating circumstances for immediate family members. For humanity's sake. Family's should always be together if possible and so desired . Refugees are another thing entirely. Let them in. They've gone through hell. Give them a nurturing environment for their offspring. The least we can do. And yet vetted for any violent ideology's.

    Is this Fascism?

    To ensure our own nationals are safe?

    Does this go against the liberal left thinking in using recent immigrants as political footballs?

    I think ,… that the reclamation of class is the great leveler.

    I think ,… that reclamation of workers ( and that includes the thousands of people in offices, – not just the 'cloth cap' labourers ) rights is where a country reaches its most proudest moments. Whereby the rights, freedoms and prosperity of a society is judged by those on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. In other words, – their standard of living.

    Disregarding the coercion and Fascism of Nazi Germany in dictating where someone should work and and what type of occupation one should be forced into ( usually in manual semi skilled jobs for a future war effort ) ,…

    Are the Scandinavians to be accused of being Fascists? Dictatorial ?

    Hardly.

    And yet to date, they have … the most advanced welfare state on earth , the highest per capita annual incomes, the highest taxation's,… and yet the highest quality of life / standards of living globally. And that being also the case among those who are regarded as being the ' semi skilled, the labourers'….

    So my question is WHY … are we staring at our navels and looking at Trump ( who is a shadow of former Presidents we woild now deem as 'Fascists' ) or even pontificating around with age old colonialism and its failed 19th century Empiric results… and WHY have we not moved on from being succoured to an out of date 19th century frame of reference????

    And WHO are the people, – that body of vested interest groups who want to keep it this way?

    Perhaps that is the question we should be asking rather than looking at Fascists under every 'George .W. Bush'….

    I'll leave you with this to consider genocide.

    Traditional Lakota/Dakota Sundance Songs 3/6 – YouTube

    • WILD KATIPO 16.1
      10 August 2019 at 9:13 pm

      Oh , and I'm a white Anglo Saxon type yet of Scots / Norse decent.

      I live in a shitty , moldy two bedroomed sleep out and I fill two buckets every time it rains right next to my bed. Half the wiring doesn't work and its a death trap, and I've spent around $1000 to fix a shower that was blocked at no expense to the landlord. The toilet leaks and builds up mold. The curtains have black mold on them and haven't been changed for years. There is no insulation. There is no room to store my personal effects and thus it feels like a tip.

      Before that , I owned a half million dollar property in Karapiro , I had done up two property's and sold them for a bomb. Along came the 2007/2008 financial crash caused by suited fuckwits overseas… I lost the property ( Australian banks sold them without my real estate agent or my knowledge from under us ) , my business , my dogs , and lost contact with my remaining son( the first having died from medical 'misadventure ' – FFS = negligence)…

      Continuing on the theme of dispossession and this country's following in the wake of big Brother America… my heart has softened , as always I was prone to being,.. as a bush baby , less influenced by material shit and more interested in what matters… therefore I bring you this…

      NOW,… see the direct parallels we see in our OWN society.

      Stop the lies.

      Its there.

      Yes this may be for political purposes, it may be 'contrived' , … but for many its reality. In that country and many poorer country's. The model repeats itself. And no amount of Bill Gates ' humanitarianism’ is ever gonna change it.

      WHY?

      Because 'they ' don't want it changed.

      Your job therefore is to find out the 'WHO' and then you'll understand the 'WHY'.

      Inside life on the Lakota Sioux reservation l Hidden America – YouTube



      • WILD KATIPO 16.1.1
        10 August 2019 at 9:19 pm

        If you want to view the vid… click on the youtube link provided in the vid itself.

        Worth the drama of a simple click to thank your lucky stars and be thankful for the good things you have as others don’t…

      • roblogic 16.1.2
        11 August 2019 at 2:41 am

        I hear your pain and my own circumstances aren't so great either, plenty of us Pakeha NZers missed out on the National party lolly scramble of the last 10 years, especially the younger ones. But NZ still has a very comfortable middle class and most of the people missing out on the economic gains have been the non voting poorer (brown) segment of society, (who also happen to make up the bulk of the NZ military)… I just don't see any viable alt-right or fascist movement gaining traction in NZ anything like Trumpism in the US

        • WILD KATIPO 16.1.2.1
          11 August 2019 at 3:44 am

          No son.

          I was around when you were in nappies, and if its entertainment desired by the cowards I'll give it. When you were in nappies, or a sperm in your fathers ballbag, I was in the workforce. That was 35 years ago at the time of Roger Douglas in 1984 and his Mont Pelerin inspired neo Nazi takeover of the NZ economy.

          It was my generation , – not yours , – that bore the brunt of that fascist economic takeover of this country. Not yours.

          You are but a newboy , a wet behind the ears post neo liberal commentator of things you know jack shit about. And the same with your interpretation of old history. A stooge. One who has no knowledge of his own history and thus falls victim to the re-writers of history itself.

          I forgive you.

          But don't you even TRY to comment on things you have less than shits knowledge of. I'll help you out, boy,… and that's an extension I don't offer lightly… now then … if you can bother yourself to read this site,… and even better,… try to understand it… I might just give you some credence.

          So here it is.

          Read it well and understand it even better.

          Because ignorant cusses like you bore me completely stupid, lad.

          New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
          http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html

          It also deserves a Celtic song… it’ll cheer you up.

          The Rumjacks – A Fistful O’ Roses (Official Music Video) – YouTube

          • roblogic 16.1.2.1.1
            11 August 2019 at 4:02 am

            Thanks, "post neo liberal", I like that. I note that you didn't actually respond to my comment. Must be past your bedtime

            • WILD KATIPO 16.1.2.1.1.1
              11 August 2019 at 4:40 am

              You are in your twenties, thirty's at most.

              Commenting on the origins of Fascism.

              OK , then.

              And as for your bothering to 'comment on your comment' as it were,… if you had come up with something of legitimate substance, perhaps there would have been an obligation.

              But you haven't.

              All we have seen is the same old avante guard/ conservative ( juxtaposition ) viewpoint of 'orthodox' viewpoints that serve current political dogmas. And that's just the problem. It is intended to smother truth that threatens the status quo, – which is my original claim… and protestation.

              And why this country cannot move ahead.

              • roblogic …
                11 August 2019 at 6:54 am

                I don't understand your ire and insults when I merely expressed skepticism at your earlier, somewhat incoherent, thesis that NZ is ripe for Fascist takeover. I agree that malignant corporate forces want to parcel up NZ for themselves, but that's different from Nazi ideology taking root and a broad section of the community suddenly going nuts like the American alt-right

                • weka …
                  12 August 2019 at 2:03 pm

                  The issue for me is that fascism in NZ wouldn't look like the US and we'd let it happen in part because of that. I hope we are still culturally strong enough to not let white supremacy and alt right bullshit grow here, but I am more concerned about National and the Dirty Politics crew and their now blatant position of using divisive tactics and Trumpian politics to regain power.

                  If you read the essay in the post, she is talking about how the Republicans would do anything to regain power after losing to Obama. We shouldn't be complacent here.

    • roblogic 16.2
      11 August 2019 at 2:28 am

      Trump is an economic and political nationalist; panders to the darkest fears and tribal instincts of his cult like following; tweets a constant stream of racism, paranoia, and vindictiveness against the press; glories in military power and oaths of fealty; routinely demonises the most vulnerable and exploited people in America; justifies ICE brutality and concentration camps…

      but nahh, he's not a fascist, he's just trying to make America white again

      /sarc

      • WILD KATIPO 16.2.1
        11 August 2019 at 3:30 am

        Sounds like Churchill then , eh mate?

        Much to learn we have me young Bonhommie…

        So whats your point, exactly ?

        • roblogic 16.2.1.1
          11 August 2019 at 4:06 am

          In one of your earlier drunken rambles you seemed to claim that Trump wasn't a fascist. Now you equate Trump with Churchill!!! Bonkers stuff.

          • WILD KATIPO 16.2.1.1.1
            11 August 2019 at 4:33 am

            Getting aggrieved are we now?

            You think I'm impressed?

            Not at all. And if insulting you to shake you out of your lazy political naiveness is whats needed, I'm more than happy to oblige. You see, there isn't much difference between Trump or Churchill, in fact ,… many world leaders you may hero worship at your age.

            What you have to do is discern the motives,…. never mind the soaring speeches, never mind the emotion laden narratives,…Trump as a fascist???… do you even know what fascism really is?

            Were you there when the great generation stormed the beaches of Normandy to defeat it?

            Did you suffer with having your legs blown off in the act of storming those beaches?

            I doubt it.

            Were you there when Pol Pot created the Killing Fields and filled those mass graves with tens of thousands of his own countrymen and women.

            I doubt that also.

            Were you there in 1945 at Yalta when Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt demanded Germany's surrender?

            Of course not.

            You were not even born.

            Do you really know a thing about Fascism and what it really means in real terms in real peoples lives?

            Of course you dont. You read it from the safety of your history lecturers notes.

            And you don't even know what it was like to challenge neo liberalism in this very own country of yours.

            Don't even talk to me if you cannot even have the empathy of understanding. You want to talk as an authority. Yet you were , as I have said, nothing more than a sperm in your fathers ballsack when all this was going on.

            You really can teach us nothing.

            • roblogic 16.2.1.1.1.1
              11 August 2019 at 7:07 am

              Is that supposed to convince me that Trump is a great leader on par with Churchill? I don’t get it. You’ve written a nice list of historical events irrelevant to the OP

            • roblogic 16.2.1.1.1.2
              11 August 2019 at 7:34 am

              PS: patronizing verbosity and (inaccurate) age-related insults do nothing to bolster your argument. In fact, I can't really discern a coherent argument, merely a paranoid stream of consciousness. Too much electric puha can do that to a fella.

  17. WILD KATIPO 17
    10 August 2019 at 10:21 pm

    Y'know sometimes I don't think you woke types give a damn about indigenous issues, or workers condition's and wages… why is that?

    Is it because you are the purest of political beasts and only pay attention when it serves your purposes and then discard it when its 'old hat ' ? Passed its use- by date?

    Do we really want to build a society based on such fickle political followers such as these?

    Or do you find yourselves , like Che Guevara said ,… 'fit into the useful urban communist stooges ' ,.. to be used by those who do the heavy lifting…? while you pontificate about the ideals of your Brutopia, and with your Marxist ideals cower in your urbane residences,,,,, and do nothing?…

  18. WILD KATIPO 18
    10 August 2019 at 10:28 pm

    C'mon Weka, I support you in many areas, but there comes a time, when certain censorship must desist. It opens it up to honesty and appraisal, without which , it is simply an echo chamber of the willing… like the coalition of the willing,.. like Fascism.

    I would appreciate your support in this and other areas in a token of goodwill and fair discussion. At the very least , as a true forum in the Greek tradition. As a true forum of many ideas , many aspects,… not as one of dictatorialism.

    • WILD KATIPO 18.1
      10 August 2019 at 10:41 pm

      And to do this , we must take the good with the bad,… to acknowledge the crimes we have all committed, collectively,… not necessarily individually…down through history. I am on your side…generally.

      The issues are complex , – as is Fascism.

      There are many different scholars who have weighed in with their opinions to what exactly constitutes Fascism. And as they try to define it in simple terms … ALL of them have struggled with a definitive definition of it. In my view?… it is simply a strong man , who after wielding popular mass opinion, goes on towards expansionism,… and genocide.

      That separates it from the 'Empiric' cult.

      But still holds the same potential ominous similarity's.

      The only differences being, … that the 'Empire' has many vested interests,… whereby the Fascist or the Totalitarian is headed by one individual.

      Julie Covington – Don't Cry For Me Argentina – YouTube



      Beautiful song.

      • WILD KATIPO 18.1.1
        10 August 2019 at 11:17 pm

        I think the fundamental difference between the Totalitarianism as opposed to an 'Empire' is that it is headed by one individual. Through fear,.. and that gained by devious means in securing the armed forces,… the death squads,… however,.. that rules true with 'Empire' as well … the Praetorian Guards as an example …

        Perhaps the difference is,… that with disposing of the 'strong man'… you divide and water down its influence… such as the Mongolian Empire… such was Hitlers…eventually ,… and even such was Rome when it was weakened…

        Yet not so the 'Empire' by definition. It tended to have a longer lifespan.

        Look at Rome.

        Hundreds of years of dictatorial rule. Held in place by a 'succession' of rulers. That was the difference. Totalitarian it was. Yet not governed by the lifespan of one leader,… but by the vested interests of a multitude of leaders who wished for them and their family's to continue on into perpetuity…

        Personally?.. I do not think Donald J Trump approaches anywhere near these sorts of precedents.

        Nor either Jacinda Adern.

        I think ,… we suffer more from a lack of historical knowledge and context,… on just what totalitarianism and 'Fascism' really means / constitutes in the 21st century.

  19. WILD KATIPO 19
    10 August 2019 at 11:40 pm

    So ,… how does this fit in with a rainy Auckland night?

    From someone who supports those out in South Auckland land protecting in the freezing winter?

    ROFL!

    Lets mellow somewhat…

    Cody Jinks – Alone – YouTube



  20. reason 20
    11 August 2019 at 7:50 am

    An interesting and educational video …. it gives good info on the modern euphemisms used by fascists …. and it debunks the right wing false equivalence regarding antifa, some of which I've seen used here at TS ,,,,,14mins

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