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Boy, 15, given official warning after saluting as neo-Nazis marched through Ballarat
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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I understand your frustration, and also the need to come across as condescending. You're probably the downvote on my comment. You want to punish me, don't you?
See, that feeling you are feeling... that frustration. It isn't unique to you.
The primary driver in fascism is emotion. Fear, anger, frustration. Stong human emotion that lead to feeling like other people are lesser than yourself. The bad guy. The evil one. The ones that must be stopped.
Those strong feelings and the desire to shush the words of the other are exactly the kinds of things that lead to extremes.
Having strong feelings toward other people are as natural and normal as homosexuality.
When I say inclusion, I'm not talking about inviting the Nazi to roast the Jew at dinner. I'm talking about inviting everyone, Jew, Christian, Atheist, Hindu, Muslim, everyone, to dinner and giving each a timer to talk.
It sounds hokey as fuck, but we need to learn to love each other as we love ourselves. Only then, can Nazi's cease to exist. If you repress people, it only makes the hate stronger.
Anyway, there is a portion of the population that is incapable of what I mentioned above. For them, there is no cure. For them, they must be watched. If -and only if- they cause harm to others, then they need to be jailed to protect everyone else. But... I believe they're (thankfully) rare. For everyone else, there's hope
I did not downvote you, and I don’t want to punish you, so there is no need to give me a lecture.
You do not understand that by the time they're causing harm to others, it's too late. By then you've let them do their thing long enough that they feel strengthened, emboldened and justified. And that time has passed. It passed when they invaded the Capitol on 6th January 2021. It passed when the Neonazi ploughed his car into the crowds in Charlottesville. It passed when Neonazis firebombed asylum seeker homes in Germany 30 years ago. Fascists and Nazis are actively doing harm, everywhere in the world. This is what they're here for. And society has failed to stop them. They're here to stay now.
I'm not lecturing you, I apologize if it seemed that way. What I was trying to do is allow you to recognize that your own biases, to help explain why people jump on the fascist boat
I'm not gonna continue arguing, because it seems like you're upset. I just hope that you can remember thenold adage: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar
Damn straight I'm upset. I'm upset, no, fuming, that people seem to think fascists are just naughty kids who you let be and watch, and only when they do something really wrong do you take action. I'm upset that nobody seems to have learned the lessons history is so readily and urgently trying to teach us. I'm upset that we are sleepwalking into another era of fascism and people seem to want it that way.
And you have a right to be upset. It's good that you're voicing that opinion, it's good that you're standing up for what you believe in. The more voices there are that speak up about injustice, the better!
I wonder if this all sounds contradictory to the person you may think you were debating/arguing with, but it's not. Having voices heard is part of what I believe in. It's just that I don't think silencing opposing voices (no matter what garbage they spew) is the right way to go
This is where, in a verbal conversation, you'd hear a deep sigh.
You're so hung up on the idea that we shouldn't 'silence voices'. This isn't about that. And even if it was, it's way too late for that. For better or worse, fascists are now a part of the public discourse. But no, it's not about 'silencing voices'. Again, they're not here to debate. Their voices are a distraction.
What it is about is preventing the next steps, which will follow as sure as night follows day, as history has shown us. Prevent the incitement, the stochastic terrorism, stop them from getting a foothold in politics. Again, I fear it's already too late for that. As a society, we didn't shut them down the moment they poked their heads out of their holes, and we will pay a heavy price for that.
I will posit to you that if this was about extreme leftists - say, Stalinists, Maoists, Red Front - marching, displaying the hammer and sickle, seeking violence and talking about hanging politicians, we wouldn't even have this discussion. Most people would be more than happy to shut that down, there would be none of this pearl-clutching about "we shouldn't silence them". The police and intelligence services would be all over it.
And with that, I will withdraw from this thread. There will come a day when the people who have tried to warn about fascism all along, will get to say "I told you so", but on that day we'll all be too busy fleeing the country or going underground.
I hear you and I understand. I just want to try to clarify something. This is over simplified because I'm on my phone
Imagine you're in a room with 50 people. Two are designated as the leaders. Each leader has a goal of attainting the most followers, and will claim a cash prize for each follower they acquire.
Leader A looks around and thinks, "hey only about 25% of people have blonde hair. Ah ha! They're my target" and then proceeds to talk mad shit. Some of the people agree, and also start talking mad shit.
The other leader looks around, and thinks: "I now know I have about 25% of the people on my side, but how do I get more?" B could silence A by force (a fight breaks out), B could point out what A is doing to gain followers (A could then claim B is a liar), or A could focus on how the blonde's are really just people like everyone else, brothers and sisters, friends and lovers. A loses, if B can help people see that differences add to the group, as well as that everyone is connected to the human family
Whatever the outcome, what I mean with this is that the true baddies are few. They speak to the insecurities of the masses, and turn people on one another. They may not be the ones organizing the march, but they are at the head of it. I'm not saying to let them have the stage 24/7. I'm saying we should focus on swaying the hearts/minds of the people marching, because oppressing them only gives the main baddies more power
I had a friend once who said fascists just needed to "get it out of their system" when we were talking about the Boogaloo Boys a few days before the Jan6 insurrection. We're both queer - a week or so before we were talking about how mutual trans friends of ours were being bashed in our city and that was an explicitly bad thing - I had to realize they might have only cared because they knew them personally.
I was honestly stun-locked by the whole conversation and all the little implications it made.
Never felt safe around them after that.
When former partners came out saying they were an abuser, I knew they were right.
No tolerance for intolerance.