English rising anti-fascism

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, August 8th, 2024 - 68 comments
Categories: polycrisis, uk politics - Tags: , , ,

This is more hope than I have felt about humans in a long time. After two weeks of fascist-driven rioting and looting across England, that targeted Muslims, immigrants of colour, and refugees, ‘ordinary people’ got out in the streets to protect those being targeted.

Thousands of people turned out across the country to stop fascists targeting solicitor’s office, mosques, community facilities, shops.

Brighton anti-fascists surrounding police who are surrounding the fascists.

Even the Daily Mail gets it, calling the general public who took to the street anti-fascists.

Incredible.

There are some tough, complex conversations to be had and not just in the UK. Today the Brits will rightly focus on restoring hope and faith. In New Zealand, we are at enough distance to start naming the issues.

New Zealand isn’t magically immune from fascism

Fascism is rising in a number of places in the world and we’re not paying enough attention. It’s easy to think it can’t happen here, but we are already well into setting the scene.

I’m not saying the right are fascists (liberals and leftists really need to stop saying they are because it renders the term politically impotent). I’m saying that if the political right had to choose between giving up power or taking a path towards fascism, there is a high chance they would choose the latter.

We aren’t special, we are like every other neoliberal nation who rewards the wealthy while making more people more poor. We have active and intentional politics in New Zealand that serves to build on dissatisfaction and target the politically vulnerable rather than the current socioeconomic system and those who have the most to gain from it.

The fascists are completely and utterly wrong

Fascists in the UK are small in number. Larger in number are the people who are stressed about life under neoliberalism and who find narratives about immigrants taking their jobs, houses, hospital beds compelling. The fascists themselves are using the polycrisis to stir up racism (because that’s what fascists do), but there is nothing true about their politics and activism.

Of note is that the power holders supporting the fascist rioters are not working class people doing it hard, but right wing politicians, media commenters, and grifters like Tommy Robinson (currently tweeting while on an arrest-avoiding holiday in a five start resort in Cyprus)

Talking about immigration

Progressives have to find ways of talking about immigration settings, the housing crisis, jobs/unemployment/AI/automation, poverty, cost of living, that doesn’t centre a simplistic suppression of all debate about immigration settings. Because not only is that a dead end, many people no longer believe the idea that immigration isn’t an issue. And those people are the ones turning towards the fascists (and who they don’t see as fascists). What’s the alternative conversation we can have with them?

Changing the narrative

If the current narrative is ‘working class people are harmed by immigration’, what can that be replaced with that also changes the lives of working class people? It’s not enough to say “the enemy arrives by limousine not by small boats” and then not do anything about the people in the limousines. Our current narratives are insufficient.

We need politics and stories that are attractive to a bigger range of people. I’m not talking political centrism. I’m saying we have to produce viable green/left solutions (and we are currently failing at this). What do we want instead of the neoliberal shit show, and how do we create it?

Talking about immigration settings at the same time as protecting immigrants would be a good start. What would New Zealand housing look like if we’d had that conversation at the start of the Key years?

In New Zealand, the proto-fascists/racists are targeting Māori and Pasifica, and here too we can use a both/and approach. Māori place names and bringing people along by helping with pronunciation rather than calling them racist when they complain is an easy example.

Stop thinking we are completely right and everyone who disagrees with us is wrong. Find ways to engage politically with people before they get to the point of thinking the fascists have a point.

The polycrisis

All of this sits within the polycrisis, and the polycrisis sits within the climate/ecology crises. It’s not sane to talk about any of this without understanding that if we don’t drop GHGs fast in the next five years, we will be cementing in fascism as the prelude to the collapse of civilisation. And that will be within the lifetime of many people currently alive.

The good news about the polycrisis is that the system change approaches are very good at operating across the various crises.

* * *

68 comments on “English rising anti-fascism ”

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  1. James Simpson 1
    8 August 2024 at 11:40 am

    This is an issue which we on the left have failed to deal with over the past decade.

    The hard right rioters in the UK and in the main white working class males. A demographic which was once a cornerstone of the union and Labour movement. But those working class people are now gravitating to the the right.

    In the US Trump's rallys are full of white working class people. People who in the previous 60 years joined a union and voted for the Democrats. His support from those people in the Rust Belt is what got him into office in 2016, and are his ticket to victory this year.

    There has been a monumental realignment in US politics where Trump is now seen as the home for disillusioned working class Americans who blame their problems on immigrants.

    How did we get here?

    • weka 1.1
      8 August 2024 at 11:59 am

      I seem to remember some push back against the idea that Trump supporters were overwhelmingly working class. I don't think polling by vote showed that. So we can add MSM and SM mis/dis information.

      But generally I agree this is a class issue, and the left is just really bad at addressing it.

      • Cricklewood 1.1.1
        8 August 2024 at 1:01 pm

        Probably if you were to look at it on a more granular level Trumps working class support comes from areas that have relied or rely on extractive industries for jobs.

        To a degree similar is happening here with the Westcoast which has been tradtionally left. Its all well and good shutting down mines and other extractive industry be it coal, spagnum or timber a cohesive plan to keep people employed in well paying jobs needs to be in place alongside. So far here we talk about tourism which pays poorly, puts massive strain on local infrastructure and is argueably just as extractive if you start looking at airtravel etc.

        • weka 1.1.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 1:07 pm

          thanks, that's helpful analysis.

          What it looks like to me is that those on the left not so affected by neoliberalism have been content to let it ride, and have relied on the ideologies rather than the pragmatics. The West Coast is a good example, and there are plenty of others.

          We can't have it both ways, we can't say oh we want worker rights and neoliberalism. They're fundamentally incompatible. As is NL and the environment.

        • That_guy 1.1.1.2
          9 August 2024 at 8:48 am

          My understanding is that it's been looked at, and by far the most accurate predictor of being a Trump support is race. Across all classes, across both sexes.

          He does not have a lock on working class or any other class.

      • Belladonna 1.1.2
        8 August 2024 at 1:59 pm

        This is a bit of a long read/deep dive into analysis of the US people who are Trump supporters. It's not as simple as 'working class' – because people in that economic grouping can (and do) have very different political allegiances.

        https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-trump-voters

    • SPC 1.2
      8 August 2024 at 12:50 pm

      A myth. The presumption is that because workers are not college educated they are working class. They get trained up in local (non union) work because they are local. That is the way of the provincial areas of many "Red" states. The men do not see themselves as working class, but as real Americans – anti-liberal and anti-union.

      The margin of victory in the Rust Belt in 2016 was negligible (and based on Clinton doing little campaigning there – taking it for granted).

      In the UK, managing the public via nationalism (UK Independence anti-EU and anti-migrant) is as old as Oswald and Enoch Powell. The Junkers/business elite cultivated the tactic against the left back in the 30’s.

      The Truss global market island elite and Farange little Englander popuilism two-step is the legacy of Murdoch and the dystopian future of the Muskorg.

      • James Simpson 1.2.1
        8 August 2024 at 2:52 pm

        You can call it a myth if you like, but low paid white Americans voted for Trump in massive numbers in 2016, and the left still hasn't worked out why. If they had, it wouldn't be happening again in 2024.

        According to the American National Election Studies, in 2016:

        White Voters earning under 30k voted in favour of Trump 53.2% to 36.5%

        White Voters earning over 30k but under 50k voted in favour of Trump 57.5% to 36.2%

        White Voters earning over $175k but under 250k voted in favour of Clinton 54.9% to 36.4%

        White voters earning over 250k voted in favour of Clinton 49.6% to 43.4%

        • weka 1.2.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 3:15 pm

          Please supply a link for that

        • SPC 1.2.1.2
          8 August 2024 at 3:36 pm

          At least you have stopped claiming those whites on low wages can be described as working class.

          1. Aggregates …. the red area voting centres in the Mid-West states – they are not in the urban areas, where people identify as real Americans, not urban liberals.

          The cultural divide.

          2. As for the south. They and some western GOP states use the federal MW which is $7.25 an hour (blue states to double this $15 an hour), so where are the wage rates held down – GOP states. The aggregate figures are heavily influenced by these lower wage states.

          White Americans and black Americans voting Democrat.

          A race divide.

          These "real Americans" are anti-union being conditioned to see unions as part of the urban liberal Democrat America.

        • aj 1.2.1.3
          8 August 2024 at 3:53 pm

          You can call it a myth if you like, but low paid white Americans voted for Trump in massive numbers in 2016, and the left still hasn't worked out why. If they had, it wouldn't be happening again in 2024.

          "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ~ Warren Buffett

          Adam Curtis talks to PoliticsJoe on the fall of the Soviet Union and worrying parallels with modern Britain. It was in 2022, the Truss experiment and since then everything is just worse.

          This interesting 45 minute discussion is relevant to your post, Weka. Curtis discusses how NL economics leave a lot of people behind who don't have solutions and can't find politicians with solutions they can trust who can speak to them and give them any hope. In fact policies that created the conditions they are have been left in are just doubled down.

          Adam Curtis, hello, Hi how are you., glad to have you on. The union is on the verge of collapse the economy is on the verge of collapse and Elites manipulating crises to enrich themselves off the state. That sounds like a description of post-covered Britain but it equally applies to late 20th century Russia the subject of your latest series of films Trauma Zone . . . .

          "Politics is never really about reality, what politics is about is telling you a story that makes sense of the reality you are living through it at the moment it may be in a way a strange fantasy but is sort of makes sense of what you're living through it at the moment. The story they are telling us at the moment do not makes sense of reality, what they actually do is they make it weirder and worse"

          • gsays 1.2.1.3.1
            9 August 2024 at 8:40 am

            Great conversation thanks aj.

            Adam Curtis is one of those rare journos that can take complex ideas and communicate them well.

            As a precursor to the above conversation is his Century of the Self. (I get you've probably seen it, I mention it for any foll reading this.)

            How the rise of consumerism over the last 100 years has meant many billions of dollars telling us how important and legitimate our individual wants are.

            A lack of a collective will helps explain how we aren't overcoming neo liberalism.

            A link to part one:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DDnPmg0R1M04&ved=2ahUKEwjS0JTdoOaHAxXn4zgGHV1NIZQQwqsBegQIEBAF&usg=AOvVaw3P58oiNUF_W7_xwIunNQRY

          • Jenny 1.2.1.3.2
            9 August 2024 at 5:26 pm

            For human beings, perception is everything

            "Politics is never really about reality, what politics is about is telling you a story that makes sense of the reality…..

  2. Anne 2
    8 August 2024 at 1:16 pm

    And here we have our own near-fascist projectionist railing against that mowree woman, Deborah Ngawere-Packer who has dared to stand up and tell it like it is:

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/debbie-ngawera-packer-on-a-mission-to-stir-up-discontent-barry-soper/P44MPMAWQNFU7PBXWFVIDSTGEY/#google_vignette

  3. Mike the Lefty 3
    8 August 2024 at 1:36 pm

    It was actually somewhat funny to see that in Brighton, the right-wing louts had to beg the police for protection from the anti-racist protestors who surrounded them. Not so brave and cocksure when they are outnumbered.

    I also note that in reports of the trials of those already arrested and tried for this violence, the guilty seemed to have had a complete change of heart and are apologising for their crime and basically saying they don't know what came over them.

    I'll tell them what came over them. They listened to people who have a vested interest in violence, chaos and disorder, the kind of people that lead political parties like Reform UK. I hope they actually did learn from their mistakes.

    • weka 3.1
      8 August 2024 at 2:19 pm

      I hope so too. I'm not a fan of prisons generally, but in this case it's good to see the sentences being a decent length, simply for the deterrent value.

      • Obtrectator 3.1.1
        8 August 2024 at 3:26 pm

        Sentences of the same severity as those meted out to Roger Hallam &co?

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/18/five-just-stop-oil-supporters-jailed-over-protest-that-blocked-m25

        Jolly well ought to be.

        • weka 3.1.1.1
          8 August 2024 at 4:00 pm

          or the other way round (let JSO people out). Hallam and co are more of a threat to the state.

          The neoliberal capitalists have more in common with fascists than with those fighting to save all of life. I don’t mean the capitalists are fascist, I mean they fear those who love nature far more. Capitalism and nature are ultimately incompatible, capitalism and fascism aren’t.

          https://x.com/wekatweets/status/1818493284672848198

      • joe90 3.1.2
        8 August 2024 at 4:24 pm

        sentences being a decent length, simply for the deterrent value.

        Nope. Prisons are chock-full of high tariff offenders who gave little thought to the length of sentence they faced.

        Swift and certain, though…

        .

        Britain's most senior prosecutor has questioned whether heavy sentences given to last summer's rioters worked as an effective deterrence, challenging the received wisdom from senior judges and politicians.

        Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, said the speed with which rioters and looters were brought before the courts was far more powerful in preventing reoffending than the severity of sentences.

        […]

        "I was not so persuaded the sentences in and of themselves were the real issue," he said. "For me it was the speed [of processing cases] that I think may have played some small part in bringing the situation back under control.

        "I don't think they [rioters] would have thought: 'Oh well, am I going to get 12 months or 18 months?' I don't think people gamble on the length of sentence, particularly. They gamble on: 'Am I going to get caught? Am I going to get sentenced and sent to prison?' And if the answer is: 'I'm now watching on the television some other people who had been caught 24 hours or 48 hours after they were on the streets with us' – I think that's a very powerful message."

        https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jul/03/riot-prosecutions-sentences-keir-starmer

    • adam 3.2
      8 August 2024 at 3:42 pm

      What did the POMS they expect when they lock up journalists

    • Jenny 3.3
      9 August 2024 at 6:09 pm

      "I'll tell them what came over them. They listened to people who have a vested interest in violence, chaos and disorder…." Mike the Lefty @3

      'People' like this…

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/08/elon-musk-shares-faked-telegraph-story-rioters-falklands-camps

      Elon Musk shared a fake Telegraph article claiming Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.

      Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was deleted….

      Musk has not apologised for sharing the fake report, but has continued to share material criticising the UK government and law enforcement authorities’ responses to the riots…..

      On Thursday, Musk shared a Sky News interview in which Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, said police officers were scouring social media for material inciting racial hatred. “This is actually happening,” Musk said. In a separate post referring to the same clip, Musk called Parkinson “The Woke Stasi”…..

      Musk has been embroiled in a row with Keir Starmer and British enforcement authorities since he claimed in response to the anti-immigration protests in England and Northern Ireland that “civil war is inevitable” and that the police response had been “one-sided”.

      The prime minister's spokesperson said this week that there was “no justification” for those comments. In response, Musk has repeatedly targeted Starmer on his platform, including branding him “two-tier Keir”.

      ….. He rebranded it as X last year. There has been a string of controversies about the direction the platform has taken under his leadership, including accusations that he is not serious enough about removing harmful content.

  4. roblogic 4
    8 August 2024 at 4:23 pm

    I’m not saying the right are fascists … if the political right had to choose between giving up power or taking a path towards fascism, there is a high chance they would choose the latter.

    We are already on the path. The myth of fascism is "blood and soil" ie. racial superiority and nationalism (quietly sponsored by amoral elites and faceless corporations). Racist narratives were a major factor in the last election and this government is continuing to trade on vile cheap shots against Māori. Even John Key has tried to dissuade the Nats from this shit.

    Let us never, never, never forget that the very first editorial in the @nzherald was calling on white New Zealanders to fight Māori
    I'm not kidding
    That's why this is no surprise #nzpol

    https://x.com/CitizenBomber/status/1821276371974537292

  5. Rotherham Remembers 5
    8 August 2024 at 5:34 pm

    A very quick search of TheStandard finds precisely zero articles or posts about the Rotherham rape gangs, who disproportionately targeted white, working-class females.

    However, within days of riots that are at their heart based on a reaction to exactly that sort of predatory behaviour, The Standard finds it necessary to post that the rioters are wrong.

    These people aren't rioting because they were born racist. They are rioting because they are seeing the country they knew and loved changed before their eyes by people who have come from other countries for advancement, seldom used legal migration routes, and then have the temerity to want their new country to resemble the old.

    I will put this into class terms because I despise identity.

    Imagine a socialist commune that prospers and is internally stable. Surrounding this socialist commune are multiple capitalist societies. People from those capitalist societies see the happiness within the socialist commune and enter the socialist commune. However, once within the socialist commune, they then introduce capitalist, neoliberal practices. Those who were socialist riot that they didn't want capitalism in their commune, and The Standard posts that perhaps they should be more accepting of different class ideologies!

    And I'll end with a statement about fascism. Fascism is not the opposite of socialism; it was called national socialist for a reason. The true opposite of socialism is libertarianism/objectivism and I don't see antirand or antiobjectivists around

    • Descendant Of Smith 5.1
      8 August 2024 at 8:00 pm

      The majority of group based groomers of young children in the UK remain white. Where is their anger against that? Besides we have our own abuse cases to write about on which there are many posts.

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/15/child-sexual-abuse-gangs-white-men-home-office-report

      Using those cases as an excuse to tarnish all immigrants, to demonise a whole population, most of whom are law-abiding is however a tool of the fascist. Many of those abusers are in jail as they should be.

      However, within days of riots that are at their heart based on a reaction to exactly that sort of predatory behaviour, The Standard finds it necessary to post that the rioters are wrong.

      As one of the mods will no doubt point out The Standard doesn't find anything necessary. It has no mind of its own. Individuals posted. You could have posted at any time about Rotherham. Why did you not? If you think the rioters are right say so and why?

      If your reckons are right why then did so many people come out against them yesterday?

      • Psycho Milt 5.1.1
        9 August 2024 at 9:05 pm

        The majority of group based groomers of young children in the UK remain white.

        Well, duh. The overwhelming majority of the UK population is white. It's a simple fact that the male Pakistani Muslim population is grossly over-represented.

        • SPC 5.1.1.1
          9 August 2024 at 9:50 pm

          Sort of irrelevant – given

          1. the recent attacker was born in the UK to Rwandan parents (refugees not economic migrants)
          2. it was an action of violence, not grooming
          • Psycho Milt 5.1.1.1.1
            10 August 2024 at 6:14 am

            True, but it wasn't me that raised the subject, I'm just pointing out the problem with it as an argument.

            • Descendant Of Smith 5.1.1.1.1.1
              10 August 2024 at 7:27 am

              The point was that those creating and encouraging rioting aren't getting upset about the white groomers.

              It isn't really about the children.

              • Psycho Milt …
                10 August 2024 at 8:33 am

                The point was idle rhetoric, yes. As is often the case with rhetoric, the reality exists and people aren't blind to it.

                • weka …
                  10 August 2024 at 11:07 am

                  not that idle, the point was concluded with this,

                  Using those cases as an excuse to tarnish all immigrants, to demonise a whole population, most of whom are law-abiding is however a tool of the fascist. Many of those abusers are in jail as they should be.

                  which seems on point to me.

                  • Psycho Milt …
                    10 August 2024 at 1:26 pm

                    True, but it's also true that just ignoring that gross over-representation, or worse, ignoring the crimes themselves (as the police did because they didn't want to be accused of racism), encourages people in those areas to support the parties that will actually recognise the problem and propose doing something about it.

    • roblogic 5.2
      8 August 2024 at 10:48 pm

      These particular riots were triggered by a horrific violent crime by one individual… unfortunately the political class have been ignoring the sentiments of the British public for decades… neoliberal politicians prefer race riots over mass movements based on class.

    • SPC 5.3
      8 August 2024 at 11:46 pm

      They are rioting because they are seeing the country they knew and loved changed before their eyes by people who have come from other countries for advancement, seldom used legal migration routes, and then have the temerity to want their new country to resemble the old.

      I will put this into class terms because I despise identity.

      No, you support action to impose conformity on outsiders.

      Those in the UK without documentation (can be obtained on 20 years residence) is less than a million. It is less than 50,000 pa on average (as at the moment).

      It is far less than legal migration each year.

      However, within days of riots that are at their heart based on a reaction to exactly that sort of predatory behaviour

      A teen born in the UK attacked girls with a knife. The violence was orchestrated by lies on social media and then organised for political purposes.

      The level of legal migration can be an indication of neo-liberal policy, the distraction to the boat migrants/refugees is created by the capitalist elite to posture as a nationalist (Brexit etc) as Trump does – the right, Tories and Reform in a dualistic lockstep, as per Brexit.

    • roblogic 5.4
      9 August 2024 at 12:28 am

      Your definition of fascism as "national socialism" is wrong… that is a misleading label used by an evil far right movement.

      • Belladonna 5.4.1
        9 August 2024 at 7:52 am

        Perhaps you could share your own definition of fascism, then.

        The association with national socialism is historically correct.

        Nazi Party = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers Party.

        • mpledger 5.4.1.1
          9 August 2024 at 9:03 am

          That's like saying The Taxpayers Union represents taxpayers and is a union because that's what they chose to call themselves. It represents the interests of a very small number of very rich people who fund it and is a union of nothing.

          • Belladonna 5.4.1.1.1
            9 August 2024 at 1:10 pm

            I think that you'll find that no-one now (or at any time since the 1930s) describes themself as National Socialists – unless they are trying to establish linkages to the Nazi party.

            There is no point in trying to break down the name into component parts – and claiming it's not relevant – it's what was used historically.

            Or do you have current examples of people self-describing as National Socialists who are not a fascist party?

            • roblogic 5.4.1.1.1.1
              10 August 2024 at 2:58 pm

              Just because fuckwit Nazis use a phrase doesn't make them fucking socialists!!!

              Per my other comments, fascists are motivated by “blood and soil”, i.e. myths of racial superiority and militaristic nationalism. The Nazi party allied with big business to smash unions.

              For their part, businesses welcomed the Nazis’ promises to suppress the left. On 20 February 1933, Hitler and Goering met with a large group of industrialists when Hitler declared that democracy and business were incompatible and that the workers needed to be dragged away from socialism. He promised bold action to protect their businesses and property from communism. The industrialists – including leading figures from I.G. Farben, Hoesch, Krupp, Siemens, Allianz and other senior mining and manufacturing groups – then contributed more than two million Reichsmarks to the Nazi election fund, with Goering tellingly suggesting that this would probably be the last election for a hundred years. Business leadership happily jettisoned democracy to rid Germany of socialism and to smash organised labour.

              https://www.abc.net.au/religion/nazism-socialism-and-the-falsification-of-history/10214302

              • Belladonna …
                10 August 2024 at 6:32 pm

                Do you have any conception of what National Socialism actually is?
                Or are you just pulling your own definition our of your head?

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism_(disambiguation)

                Specifically in relation to the Nazi Party

                “The term “National Socialism” arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, as an alternative to both Marxist international socialism and free-market capitalism. Nazism rejected the Marxist concepts of class conflict and universal equality, opposed cosmopolitan internationalism, and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the “common good”, accepting political interests as the main priority of economic organisation, which tended to match the general outlook of collectivism or communitarianism rather than economic socialism. ”

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

                • roblogic …
                  10 August 2024 at 6:47 pm

                  Whatever. Their form of "social welfare" was incinerating 6 million victims.

                  RWNJs want to poison the word “socalism” with guilt by association, I’m not buying it.

                  • Belladonna …
                    10 August 2024 at 7:22 pm

                    Just like Stalin's version of 'socialism' was to murder 6+ million victims – under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

                    Pretty difficult to argue that socialism hasn't already been thoroughly poisoned.

                  • Belladonna …
                    11 August 2024 at 8:50 am

                    Gosh, your apparent belief that the mass-murder of more than six million people under Stalin is the result of a 'functioning social security net' – beggars belief.

                    Pravda would be proud of you.

                    • roblogic …
                      13 August 2024 at 12:23 am

                      My use of "socialism" is things like building roads, feeding hungry children, building houses and hospitals.

                      Only right wing liars want to equate that with mass murder.

                      The CIA propaganda is working.

  6. Descendant Of Smith 6
    9 August 2024 at 1:35 pm

    The use of actual left and socialist narratives is a cynical but effective way of convincing working class people to vote against their own interests. The Taxpayers Union is the most obvious mis-use in New Zealand.

    Making working class people believe they are middle class is another, give us employers tax cuts so we can lift your wages another. Tis propaganda.

    To say that Hitler understood the value of language would be an enormous understatement. Propaganda played a significant role in his rise to power. To that end, he paid lip service to the tenets suggested by a name like National Socialist German Workers’ Party, but his primary—indeed, sole—focus was on achieving power whatever the cost and advancing his racist, anti-Semitic agenda. After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, in November 1923, Hitler became convinced that he needed to utilize the teetering democratic structures of the Weimar government to attain his goals.

    Over the following years the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser did much to grow the party by tying Hitler’s racist nationalism to socialist rhetoric that appealed to the suffering lower middle classes.

    https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists

  8. ianmac 8
    9 August 2024 at 4:51 pm

    There seems to be a Worldwide move to have to declare belongingness to perverse groups sometimes extreme ones at that. So sad that there is apparently a need for such declarations.

    Has it always been like that or just because of the internet? Or Covid? Or Trumpism?

  10. Psycho Milt 10
    10 August 2024 at 10:27 am

    …many people no longer believe the idea that immigration isn’t an issue. And those people are the ones turning towards the fascists (and who they don’t see as fascists). What’s the alternative conversation we can have with them?

    For a start, we could stop calling them racists, fascists, bigots etc for having recognised that a problem actually is a problem and wanting something done about it. All that's achieved so far is to dramatically increase the vote share of far-right political parties, so it would make sense to stop doing it.

    • weka 10.1
      10 August 2024 at 11:21 am

      yes, I largely agree with this. But we still need to be able to call the fascists fascist. You'll be aware of the latest shitfight in the UK GC community in the past month, over GC women, some high profile, attending or speaking at the Tommy Robinson rally.

      Aja wrote something interesting a few weeks that I've been meaning to go back and find, about class. Her take is different from LW analysis, but she understands that the enemy isn't migrants and refugees, it's the people in positions of socioeconomic power that are fucking over those with less money/power.

      Here's the problem. That should be the common ground between GCs like Aja and GCFs. But there is so much bad blood built in years of hostility that it's almost impossible to have the conversation. That internicine conflict is driven in large part by social media manipulation (the platforms themselves, and the ability of nefarious third party agents).

      On the GCF side, there is a chronic problem with thinking we can just punch back and that will somehow improve things (a problem the liberal left also has). I get hard pushback when I try and talk with GCFs about the need to no engage in lateral violence. Heck, we can't even talk about lateral violence in the abstract now.

      So the GCFs will blame the GCs for siding with the right, and the GCs will blame the GCFs for ostracising them. Both are right, and both are wrong.

      Meanwhile the neolibs are laughing all the way to the bank. And the actual fascists, the ones both on the media and on the streets in the past fortnight, are I imagine pretty pleased with how this battle has gone.

      The thing that concerns me most in that, is the degree to which most people on SM simply cannot form a coherent argument based on skilled assessment of evidence. Populism for the win. Fuck the Musks and Zuckerbergs who are in it for teh ego and power and will destroy us all.

      • weka 10.1.1
        10 August 2024 at 11:28 am

        maybe we need an inbetween word, for the people who supported teh burning of a library. I think it's not useful to call them fascist, because we need to be able to call people back from that brink and calling them fascist just makes them say yeah, nah, get fucked.

        But the point you are making I think is that we have to have a left wing conversation about immigration, and large parts of the left have made that impossible. Terrible own goal on multiple levels.

        • Belladonna 10.1.1.1
          11 August 2024 at 9:00 am

          Rioters in any context seem to be less motivated by political ideology, and more by the desire to just smash things.
          Library-burning isn't solely associated with the right-wing protesters. BLM riots resulted in burned libraries (in Minneapolis); and left-wing protests in France have also resulted in burned out libraries (Metz)

      • Psycho Milt 10.1.2
        10 August 2024 at 12:49 pm

        But we still need to be able to call the fascists fascist.

        Absolutely. There's a lot of distance between someone who decides to vote for a far-right party because those are the only ones recognising an important problem, and someone who's willing to set fire to a building full of people (which was especially heinous given the Grenfell Tower disaster is a relatively recent event in the UK).

        • Belladonna 10.1.2.1
          11 August 2024 at 9:07 am

          So what do you call the rioters (certainly not far-right) who set alight an apartment building in Lyon in the wake of the Nael killing last year?

          https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1785680/French-riots-police-killing-apartment-fire

          Personally, I think that there are murderous thugs in all political extremes.

          • Psycho Milt 10.1.2.1.1
            11 August 2024 at 3:02 pm

            I call them far-right, because the rioters were mostly Muslims and Islam is a far-right totalitarian ideology as well as a religion.

            • Belladonna 10.1.2.1.1.1
              12 August 2024 at 11:35 am

              That's not going to be a popular attitude among the Hamas supporters on TS.

              But, taking this more seriously. I think there is a very big difference between religious extremism and right-wing (or left-wing, for that matter) extremism. They don't come from the same roots at all – and have very different social and economic goals.

  11. joe90 11
    11 August 2024 at 8:21 pm

    fafo

    @implausibleblog

    Sir Thomas Winsor, former Chief Inspector of Constabulary,

    "It's often said that noisy marches in relation to Gaza have been policed differently to these riots. Yes, of course they have"

    "Because noisy marches are not setting fire to hotels, or throwing rocks to the police or setting fire to police vans"

    "Every time there is a policing operation the police will assess the threats, the harms and the risks involved. If there is more threats, harms and risks, then they'll police it harder"

    "The police were taking a real battering.. Missiles.. Vans being set alight.. The community came out to stand with their friends and their families and their neighbours, who are the police.. To protect the police and to show the police that they have their support"

    https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1821956582885695586

    This is the moment a woman jailed for violent disorder falls flat on her face after trying to push a burning wheelie bin at cops.

    Stacey Vint, 34, was captured on video trying to shove the bin towards police with riot shields before falling flat on her face.

    Appearing at Teesside Crown Court on Friday Vint, she was jailed for one year and eight months.

    Vint, of Normanby Road, watched on from the public gallery as the clip was played twice to the court.

    She was quickly arrested by police after her position on the ground.

    https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24508731.stacey-vint-jailed-pushing-bin-police-middlesbrough/

  12. SPC 12
    13 August 2024 at 1:14 am

    Is Musk a threat to civil society? Is it deliberate and is it part of the Murdoch play to have a business monopoly protected? Is the goal oligarchy?

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ydddy3qzgo