"...and then unfortunately there is terroristic organizations like DeFlock, whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else."
"We're not forcing Flock on anyone..."
It is a short 1:32 video, I encourage people to watch it for themselves.
I thought DeFlock was just publishing locations of cameras and lawfully convincing local governments to not use Flock, primarily through FOIA requests.
Twenty-some years back, I attended a talk by a classicist who was talking about how the Romans, Caesar specifically I think, basically used "pirate" the same way.
Funnily enough, the currently airing Starz program, Spartacus: House of Ashur does this, has Caesar as a character and all political sides use “pirates” as a bogeyman to justify all sorts of things and stage false flag attacks while pretending to be pirates. It’s meant for entertainment not historicity but it’s kind of reminding me of Battlestar Galactica reboot touching political themes in this one aspect except with swords and prosethetics flying everywhere.
The difference is that North Korea is a place, with an organization that claims to be its government. You can point to it on a map.
Antifa is an adjective that people with no connection to one another self-apply. I'm antifa, and I imagine you are too, but it doesn't mean that we've ever met or coordinated with one another in any meaningful way.
The word "antifa" is basically meaningless altogether, since virtually every person since the end of WW2 claims to oppose fascism.
Wikipedia doesn't use the phrase "group of people", and cites a symposium as a source for the assessment that "it is a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups in the United States," so, I'm not sure this advances the discussion.
It's obvious that the vast, overwhelming majority of people consider themselves anti-fascist. So I really don't think it possible for this term to ever actually describe a particular group of people, excluding other groups of people.
These attempts to shoehorn the word "antifa" into some kind of distinct organization seem like they are just a lingual change to make it more difficult to use this phrase, or more difficult to advance critiques of fascist tendencies wherever they may appear.
This would be a great point if antifa was some official org with fascist views.
It's not. Antifa is just a shortened form of the word anti-fascist. Anyone can call themselves antifa. And typically, only people who view themselves as fighting fascism call themselves antifa.
In short, saying "antifa are the real fascists" is like saying "vegetarians are the real meat eaters". It doesn't make sense.
I didn't say anything of that sort. North Korea calls itself "democratic people republic" and people who call themselves antifa claim they fight "fascists". In both cases, the claim is either completely made up or occasionally somewhat technically correct as they fight anything from corporations to corner store glass windows to journalists who happen to disagree with them and happen to find some fascist
Which often leads to this point, as in Lord of War:
> Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, the Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.
Again, the DPRK is a singular entity. We can look at the behavior of the DPRK and analyze what its stance towards democracy is. We can see that it doesn't seem remotely committed to democracy, so being against the DPRK says nothing about one's views of democracy. Or even if the DPRK was truly committed to democracy, one could be against the DPRK for reasons completely unrelated to its democracy, and it would still not say anything about one's view of democracy.
Antifascism is just a political stance. It's shared by a wide range of disparate people who have nothing to do with each other. Just like vegetarianism is just the practice of not eating meat.
What does being anti-vegetarianism say about one's stance towards meat eating? Sure, you can look at any one guy or specific group of people who call themselves vegetarian, be against them for reasons unrelated to vegetarianism, and that doesn't say anything about your stance towards meat-eating. But being broadly anti-vegetarian?
...What does being broadly anti-antifascism say about one's stance towards fascism?
> Being anti-antifascist just make you a fascist, or a fascist-adjacent supporter.
If a loose-knit ideology/movement called "Anti-Rapists" emerged that evolved into a cohort of various disconnected thugs who targeted homosexuals for violence, would being Anti-"Anti-Rapist" make you a supporter of rapists or rapist-adjacent supporter?
Obviously, in the scenario you describe, people will continue describe themselves as "anti-rapist" and everybody will understand that they mean that they are opposed to rape.
There is no "loose-knit ideology/movement" called "antifa" - there are groups like SDS and Don't Shoot PDX and a zillion others who describe themselves as "antifa", using it as an adjective. I'm aware of no person or organization who has attempted to proclaim that they are the one true antifa org.
What has people who claimed to be antifacists done besides oppose facists? Because I have yet to see anybody except the the government and MAGA supporters claiming antifa has done anything else.
Well, some people who call themselves antifa also use slogans like "liberals get the bullet, too".
The right's play wasn't to invent antifa from the whole close, but to imply that those kinds of views are universal or nearly so among people who call themselves that.
(To be fair, it doesn't help that the historical antifa, i.e. KPD's Antifaschistische Aktion, considered social democrats to be its enemies, calling them "social fascists". It boggles my mind that anyone on the left who isn't a hardline Marxist-Leninist would adopt the name for themselves given its history.)
But that's really the height of silliness. I can say that all people who describe themselves as 'anticapitalist' are actually capitalists, but that doesn't change anything about those people, the ideology in question, or the world.
Are some people who call themselves antifa secretly fascists? I'm sure they are. So?
Funny thing is that in my German neighborhood we have Antifa stickers pretty much on any other street lamp. Given the fascist tendencies all around it actually makes me feel safer...
> in my German neighborhood we have Antifa stickers pretty much on any other street lamp. Given the fascist tendencies all around it actually makes me feel safer
My Polish-German godmother asked me, as a kid, "who would you hide."
I didn't get the question. And 6-year old me wasn't ready for Holocaust with grandma. But it comes back to me from time to time.
Who would you hide. Who would you stake your wealth and life on to keep from undeserved suffering. The stickers are good. But they only mean something if you're willing to fight for them. At least in America, I'm unconvinced most sticker-toters are willing to sacrifice anything. (It's what makes Minnesota and Texas different.)
Oh so Antifa is a single formal political party with card carrying members, a clear leadership structure and participation in mainstream public political life? I had no idea. Your analogy makes perfect sense. Where is the Antifa national headquarters?
Kinda funny, Noem claimed to have arrested the "Leader of Antifa" in Portland a few days ago [1]. Turned out it was just some guy who lived near I.C.E. HQ, who let nearby protesters use his bathroom and clean out mace from their eyes.
The American political situation is best characterized by the image of two deformed, monstrous, and vicious imbeciles wrestling for power. These are creatures that belong in a zoo, not in the political forum.
You should calm down and knock off the puerile snark.
I see I have to spell things out for you. It is of no relevance whether Antifa is a formalized organization with formal membership. That's why it's called an ANALOGY. You seem to have confused analogy with univocity...which is precisely what analogy is not. The essential point, which you seem to have missed by a mile, is that labels are irrelevant. That "Antifa" comes from "anti-fascist" tells me very little, if anything, about what the movement is actually, empirically about: what its principles actually are, what political ends it seeks to achieve, what means it uses to achieve them, and so on. The fact that the movement is informal actually makes the actions more relevant in characterizing and judging the movement, regardless of the label it uses.
In summary: the name given to a thing tells me nothing certain about the thing, and I would think this would be obvious to anyone.
Huge can of fallacies mixed with arrogance, as is typical in HN.
Pointing out the "socialist" in NSDAP or whatever is idiotic. Just because they used the same word later used by other people doesn't equate both. You can't say the Spanish socialist party is racist because they happen to use the word also used by the Germans 100 years ago.
The other slight of hand you're doing is reification - talking about an abstract concept as if it were concrete. Again, where is the national hq of Antifa? You can't tell me because there isn't one. And that is because it is not a single, organized movement.
When people like you say they are anti antifa, it doesn't take a lot of IQ to read between the lines. You don't need there to be a single formal entity to fight against because you are not against a concrete, specific movement. You are against the idea of anti fascism.
Although at odds with the official narrative of your country, this is hardly surprising or unprecedented. The US has a long and rich history of being anti anti fascist, or more simply, pro fascist.
What an incoherent mess. And yet you have the audacity to call my comment fallacious and arrogant. I'm floored. Consider peering into a mirror sometime.
> Pointing out the "socialist" in NSDAP or whatever is idiotic.
Where did I make this claim exactly? In fact, the essence of your claim here agrees with mine. The label does not give us a certain picture of the thing labeled.
> The other slight of hand you're doing is reification - talking about an abstract concept as if it were concrete. Again, where is the national hq of Antifa? You can't tell me because there isn't one. And that is because it is not a single, organized movement.
What? Reification has no relevance here. I never made any comment about the institutional status of the movement. Of course, for "Antifa" to have any meaning, it must refer to something, right? My only remark concerned the relation between label and labeled. I was criticizing a fallacious inference from the former to the latter.
> When people like you say they are anti antifa, it doesn't take a lot of IQ to read between the lines. You don't need there to be a single formal entity to fight against because you are not against a concrete, specific movement. You are against the idea of anti fascism.
What truly bizarre remark. Calling this projection would be an understatement. Perhaps log off social media? I didn't say anything about my personal stance w.r.t. "Antifa" (whatever you mean by that). AGAIN, my comment was a correction of the earlier claim that because "Antifa" stands for "antifascism", it follows that whatever falls under the name of "Antifa" is antifascist. This is called the nominal fallacy. That's it. The rest is your baggage, I'm afraid. And frankly, it is comical to hear someone claim that if they're against "Antifa", you must be against "anti-fascism", whatever that means, given how ignorant of the meaning of the word "fascism" so many are who throw around that term.
> Although at odds with the official narrative of your country, this is hardly surprising or unprecedented. The US has a long and rich history of being anti anti fascist, or more simply, pro fascist.
You don't know what my country is. You might be surprised by the truth. (FYI, my family suffered under a brutal double occupation, by both a certain fascist state, and by a certain socialist/communist state. Chew on that.) You know nothing about me, but you certainly presume a good deal and have placed me in a box in your intellectually impoverished worldview. Your views are childish and shallow, full of weird personal attacks; I suggest you try to enrich yourself instead of lazily absorbing what is clearly an unsophisticated and emotionally unhinged ideological stance. You don't have to fall prey to the insane cultural and political patterns and paradigms of our times.
There was no "snark" or personal attack on my first comment, unlike yours, which is now just eristic and name-calling.
My mistake on assuming you were an American, I apologize (neither am I) - you did write "Frankly, our political situation is rife with insanity" though, and this is a topic about something happening in the US.
My point is that Americans tend to fabricate a concrete Antifa (which does not exist as a single entity) so that they can use it as a proxy to attacking the idea itself. It is not yet acceptable to be openly pro-fascism, but it is very much acceptable to be against terrorism, which is how the US government classifies Antifa ("Domestic Terrorist Organization ").
So you got my point backwards: I'm not saying that these people are pro-fascism because they are anti-Antifa, I'm saying many Americans are already pro-fascism, and a politically acceptable way to express that today is by being anti-antifa -- which does not mean that _all_ people against specific Antifa-related groups are pro-fascist.
You don't even need to use examples that westerners find polarizing because they want to minimize or maximize their badness for political reasons.
Africa is full of factions with grand names doing less than grand things that nobody here has any attachmennt to and do not cause complexities when comparing to.
> You don't even need to use examples that westerners find polarizing
Yes, but they are illustrative, because apparently, some people have a problem understanding that labels don't necessarily reflect the thing labeled. African factions are too foreign for most Westerners to appreciate the analogy. But if that helps someone understand what should be an obvious principle for any adult, then that's great.
"Despite the name, The Party of Peace and Love is actually authoritarian and horribly repressive, as you can see from the millions of people they've killed."
"Despite the name, Antifa is not just 'anti-fascist' but is actually _________"
The blank is "the OTHER group". Like brown people, poor people, and (say it quickly so it doesn't get too noticed) women.
And anyone from the OTHER group is the enemy. Stop thinking, you have arrived to the conclusion. Now, here are some news ... I mean, entertainment, to make you fear them more.
__an identity claimed by people who are taking direct action against what they perceive as fascism, but currently more often the term is applied as an unthinking boogeyman by right wing authoritarians__
Ah yes, I too conflate bills written by organized lobbyists with a loosely affiliated group that says American shouldn't be ran by Nazi's. The Nazi's running America get very mad about that and ensure to flood the airwaves with how cities in the US are mile wide smoking craters due to people who don't like authoritarians.
The point GP was making, which holds as a general rule, is that simply adopting a moniker does not necessarily mean that it accurately describes you. Your argument pre-supposed that just because Antifa self-describes as antifascist, it inherently is, and that the CEO was expressing an opposition to the concept of antifascism, rather than simply expressing opposition to the specific group.
If Antifa’s record speaks for itself, then you don’t need to play these kinds of word games. If some CEO spoke unflatteringly of The Red Cross or Habitat For Humanity, that would say more about them than anything, not because they have virtuous sounding names (though they admittedly do) but because they’ve established a specific track record of public service.
I don't even know what antifa _is_ anymore, honestly. I only see it used as a boogie man by the right in discourse online.
But I _do_ know that when someone tags someone as "antifa" they are making a political statement and aligning themselves with a certain group that perceives "antifa" a certain way. "See, I hate those damn' antifa terrorists, I'm in the same camp as you! Please help my company make money!"
I've read your comment twice, and I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say.
> If some CEO spoke unflatteringly of The Red Cross or Habitat For Humanity,
Those are organizations. "Antifa" is a descriptive term that many people and organizations use, whether they have connections to one another or not. What is the comparison you are trying to draw here?
> If Antifa’s record speaks for itself, then you don’t need to play these kinds of word games.
You are using the possessive here, "Antifa's", in a way that seems grammatically incorrect to me.
"Antifa" is usually an adjective, but sometimes a known, like "vegan" or "blonde". Saying "if blonde's record speaks for itself", it seems like obviously broken English.
Usually you'd use this phraseology to describe a person or organization, "Joe's record", "Nabisco's record", etc.
What is the entity or entities whose record(s) you are trying to describe?
>Those are organizations. "Antifa" is a descriptive term that many people and organizations use, whether they have connections to one another or not. What is the comparison you are trying to draw here?
How's this different than say how "alt right" is pejoratively used by the left?
It's very much the same thing, there is no single unifying "Alt-Right" central headquarters, subscription fees amd newsletter, just as there is no specific Antifa organisation, just many people and a few groups that self identify as being against facism.
On the AltRight side people might point to, say, Steven Miller and his Nazi adjacent statements, or to Nick Fuentes and the Groypers, or to Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer for more trad. Nazi views.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the leading antifa groups in central north america might be.
In terms of the silliness / uselessness, you're right that they're similar - nobody compares "The alt-right" to the Red Cross, as if they had an office and an accountant on staff.
But plenty of people will say that they are traditional conservatives, and say "I'm not alt-right". Virtually nobody describes their own political views by saying "I'm not anti-fascist."
> The point GP was making, which holds as a general rule, is that simply adopting a moniker does not necessarily mean that it accurately describes you.
I'm deeply curious why you think someone would identify as an anti-fascist if they were not, in fact, anti-fascist. Do you think they just really like the flag logo or...?
> Approximately nobody is against "antifa" because they're fighting "fascists".
So, I will say that far right, comservatives and fascists are against anti-fascism of any kind. Whether it is the boogeyman antifa or anything else. And there are a lot of people like that. Including in goverment.
They do take issue with anyone who openly opposes fascism.
I know we're not supposed to talk about it, but what in the world is happening to this site? Mistaking 'Antifa' for 'the concept of opposing fascism' is not the kind of failure mode I expect here. And this kind of thing has become endemic lately- emotive noise and sarcastic dunks drowning out substance in every thread, especially since the beginning of December. Or am I just imagining this?
Fighting fascist is the primary way to oppose them. The fighting bit often requires violence. That's what it takes, because it involves fighting a group of people that are not a peaceful bunch and have very violent intentions.
Yes, exactly my point. And once you are picking targets and taking violent actions, you can no longer excuse your aim and your violence by saying your heart is in the right place. Antifa has, for many decades, done wrong actions with good intentions. You can oppose them without being fascist.
Hm. Have you actually read that wikipedia page? I don't think it serves to validate your claims.
It does say that the Trump administration and one police department claims that they are like you say. On the same page it also mentions that the Trump administration has been involved on several hoaxes trying to incorrectly portray it.
Most of all the other groups paint it in a positive light.
> [g]iven the historical and current threat that white supremacist and fascist groups pose, it's clear to me that organized, collective self-defense is not only a legitimate response, but lamentably an all-too-necessary response to this threat on too many occasions.
I would not mind being associated with the group portrayed on that page.
The article from Freddie deBoer is from 2021. He writes:
> The association of antifa with violence stems from the fact [in Europe] that these fascists or neofascists would often prowl the streets [...] Though many people would love to pretend that this isn’t the case, we are not in fact living in an America where Proud Boys wander through Chelsea randomly beating up gay people without resistance from the police
I think he would write something very different today. He does mention one case were a journalist was shot paint and mace and was thrown on the group by a group that could have been antifa. Or not.
Third link is from 2017. Black-clad anarchists swarm "anti-hate" rally in California, says the title. But it was an "anti-marxist" and "pro-trump" rally, which was cancelled(?). But people showed up anyway(?). And then:
> officers were told not to actively confront the anarchists
Come on. That reeks of being staged. The people in black were almost certainly proud boys. The wikipedia page mentions their leader employing this exact tactic:
> In posts on Parler, leaders of the Proud Boys had disclosed plans to attend the rally wearing "all black" clothing associated with antifa activists and arrive "incognito" in an apparent effort to shift blame for any violence on antifa
I did this analysis in a bit more than 10 minutes, no LLMs used.
You mention the years a few times- the claim I was asked to cite was in the past tense and I deliberately sought sources from before the current regime. This is your sole criticism of the deBoer article. Antifa was still called Antifa and it was still short for anti-fascist in 2017 and 2021.
Wiki says:
>Some on the political left and some civil rights organizations criticize antifa's willingness to adopt violent tactics, which they describe as counterproductive and dangerous, arguing that these tactics embolden the political right and their allies.
>Both Democratic and Republican politicians have condemned violence from antifa
>CNN describes antifa as "known for causing damage to property during protests."
Among many other similar statements; I think your summary is inadequate.
I can't argue with false flag conspiracy theories, so I'll leave it at that.
If they genocided German citizens, yes! We still argue today about whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified; nobody argues they weren't antifascist.
Of course I'm not saying this! There's no way to read what I said and get this out unless you put it in! You're supposed to be charitable here and you are actively doing the opposite.
If you punch John Doe in the face becaune you think he's Hitler; if you torture Hitler's parents just to stick it to him, yes, you are in the wrong.
By physically opposing fascism, I assume you mean they are taking specific practical actions rather than becoming one with the platonic concept of opposition to fascism.
It may seem an obvious or insignificant point, but it is critical here. If they physically oppose fascism by following and filming ICE, I'm very much on board. If they oppose it by molotoving innocent local government buildings, I am against. If both of these actions are the concept of opposing fascism, what does it mean to be against that?
Antifa are belligerants. They undermine protests by having the maturity to die for a cause but not to live for one. One can be against that without being fascist.
So your contention is that people who are following and filming ICE cannot be considered 'antifa' because you have decided that 'antifa' means 'people engaging in bad violence'.
That's the intent but most people know it's not true. It's right up there with "woke" and "progressive" as generic, shapeless, boogeyman words. No real meaning besides "something bad".
Pretty sure most who claim the mantle of “Antifa” would welcome that Communist label, and plenty would endorse violence if it’s against the “right” people, so if the shoe fits…
They're kinda famous for punching people (physically) unprovoked at this point. There was a whole discourse around it that comes back up pretty regularly, I don't know how you could miss it.
You vote for my friends to be directly physically harmed, and you think it’s scary that some people respond to your violence with their own?
You’re not “better” because you vote for political violence, my man, though I get that brings up conflicting feelings for you.
It’s actually weird how often people try to pretend that their shitty actions (vis-a-vis making sure Grok can create CSAM, or that Facebook can more effectively give teenage girls depression) are morally neutral because they’re second order effects. You’re still a pretty shitty human being if you directly enable it, even if you’re not the sole cause. Some of y’all need to stop sniffing your own farts (or Elon’s/Thiel’s/etc.) and learn that.
The real question is where do you draw the line with these ideologies? I don't think anyone deserves violence just for thinking the wrong things, but we're currently seeing the result of when those thoughts inevitably turn into actions.
It doesn't seem like America ended up on the right side of the paradox of tolerance, so I'm curious how you think we could have avoided our current fascist leadership?
"A majority of individuals involved are anarchists, communists, and socialists, although some social democrats also participate in the antifa movement. The name antifa and the logo with two flags representing anarchism and communism are derived from the German antifa movement." [0]
The air quotes around 'right' are interesting there. Yes, violence against Nazis and Fascists is acceptable. Do you disagree? I thought it was pretty much settled, we did a whole world war about it.
None of his views had anything to do with Naziism but failure to fall in line with all of the Left's current positions makes one "a Nazi" to them. And yes, much the same way as right-wing extremists like to paint all 'liberals' as "gun grabbing Marxists." The difference is you can find a lot more liberals who would happily glorify Marx than you can find Americans of any party who would glorify the Nazi regime or its acts.
In case it's unclear, I do not support Nazis either.
It's like a square and a rectangle. All Nazis are fascist, but not all fascists are Nazis. It's just like how I'm an environmentalist, but I'm not a member of the Green party. It may seem pedantic, but I find it's important to be exact these days because fascists love weaselly word games. Kirk was not a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, but he shared the majority of their general beliefs and behaviors and those are undeniably fascist.
It's wild what the perception is in the right echo chamber right now. I was talking with my brother, who I love, but who, through his practicing Christian faith is essentially pulled into this right-wing cultural environment and propaganda machine. So he was making the point that the politics in the US have drifted so much more to the left that the right is actually the center. My jaw dropped off the floor. How do these thing even get propagated? It's borderline ridiculous and I don't know how this firehouse of bullshit can ever be countered.
Right, but that makes it pretty much impossible to stop anyone from claiming to be antifa or anyone accusing someone of being antifa... a lot of people will accuse anyone who is doing anything they don't like as being antifa
I live in Portland. I've met many people that label themselves antifa. They're just protestors that are willing to be a little more aggro. That's literally it.
So when people talk about antifa as if it was the left wing equivalent of Osama Bin Laden's terror network, it's a self report they're forming their views based on strawman style propaganda, not engaging with the reality of it.
Theres no organisation but they are well organised in a distributed sense. Horizontally, theres lots of tradecraft and opsec details that get spread around to help people fight. Thing is, theres no central pillar you can break to stop that spread.
What gets me is how right wing protesters specifically eschew good opsec. "mask off rallys", visible tattoos etc. They love the police state and then look like idiots when that big police state they demanded rounds them up with absolute ease because they took selfies with their swastikas out during a protest.
eeeeeh comment requires some nuance tbh. I can think of enough examples. And there are rightish elements of a lot of movements that get slammed.
I think its more hubris than anything. Even right wing protesters who love the government have enemies that could hurt them. Opsec isnt conditional on the opposition being the government.
Is this the part where people list of left wing regimes and you sort them into "Actually did nothing wrong" and "They became right wing so it doesnt count"
That's a pretty weird and ultimately boring place to live.
> Antifa is commonly known as an ironically fascist organization that uses violence and intimidation to silence speakers — it's like how the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not really democratic.
That's not "commonly known", that's the spin you'll get from the right-wing in the US who just happen to have heavy fascist tendencies.
I Googles that exact string and I can't say that I see even enough cases to count on one hand. Do you have any concrete examples that you think are representative for the behavior that you are referencing?
Googling “earth is flat” nets you thousands of results from very passionate people willing to share their experience and expertise. (I just did to verify)
Which SPECIFIC persons are being silenced and which SPECIFIC topics were they attempting to speak on?
It’s a huge diff between someone being ”silenced” for speaking their minds on bike paths versus being ”silenced” for indirectly or even directly promoting a new holocaust. And from your vague responses it is not clear.
A movement is better terminology than an organization, fair.
But okay - I'm confused what sources you would accept? There are "Antifa" groups on social media that literally advocate for doing this, I've seen it first-hand.
Ah yes, when the first result on Google is from a group known as a right wing think tank...
>American Enterprise Institute, a prominent center-right think tank in Washington, D.C., that promotes free enterprise, limited government, and individual liberty through research and policy advocacy in areas like economics, foreign policy, and social studies
I too can get paid think tanks to publish hundreds of reports on how communists are taking over America... Doesn't mean communists are actually taking over America.
When a Nazi wants to speak on a college campus, they point out the speaker is a Nazi and the administration cancels the speaking appointment.
But not really, because administrations are fine with Nazis giving speeches. The actual reality is that 5-20 people stand near the speaking place with picket signs reading "this guy is a Nazi". The Nazi speaks as planned, and the listeners (who are also Nazis) complain the speech was shut down.
Joe Rogan called himself cancelled. Literally the biggest podcaster in the world who says anything he wants to. Complains that he can't say anything and has no audience.
Is there a general term for metastatic semantic overinclusivity?
Terrorist. Racist. Colonist. Fascist. Historically-rooted and precise terms that are collectively decohering in a self-amplifying and propagating way as everyone feels increasingly free to detach more and more words from their original meanings.
you have seriously got to read and understand Eco's 14 tenets of Ur-Fascism [0] if you think that contemporary applications of the term "fascist" are inaccurate in describing what's happening right now in the US.
> if you think that contemporary applications of the term "fascist" are inaccurate in describing what's happening right now in the US
Didn't say that. I'm saying I've seen the term thrown around wildly to apply to all manner of things. Like the other terms.
The term is probably fundamentally fucked. If you asked Hitler if he's a Nazi, he'd say yes. If you asked Mussolini if he's a Fascist, he'd say yes. These were the words they used to describe themselves. The reason I'm describing the phenomenon versus blaming the folks using the terms broadly is because I don't think this is a personal failing by anyone as much as something that's linguistically happening.
> that's a great way to side line people that are actually talking about real harms
Valid. This is a real linguistic process. But it absolutely debases the original term. I’m not convinced we have to choose between empathy, on one hand, and accuracy, on the other hand.
There's also a pragmatic elephant in the room: By the time certain labels are perfectly and undeniably true to say, it's no longer safe for people to speak out and use them!
So our desire for word-correctness should be tempered by our desire for word-utility.
i think a great example to back your point is that the terminally online turn out in droves to apply the nazi label to all those not in favor of maximising immigration , rational discourse seems to have broken down and the resulting vacuum of meaning is filled by hyperbole as people scamble to feel heard in a world of weak voices & closed ears
"all those not in favor of maximising immigration" is an hyperbole. Do you think the comparison between ICE and the Gestapo is completely unwarranted? Obviously the scales are very different (for now), but it feels justified enough to associate the two, if for no other reason than to remind people that we are on similar tracks that led to the worst times of our shared History.
Seems to me that "all those not in favor of maximising immigration" have largely turned out to be perfectly happy with revoking status from legal immigrants and using unnecessary violence to round people up. The line was always, "We're fine with legal immigrants," which turned out to be a lie, and "follow the law and you have nothing to worry about" which also turned out to be a lie.
How many of those people who got called Nazis are now fighting against the administration's lawless crackdown?
plenty of people get executed under regimes of parties both left and right , im referring to the idea at global scale not specific to any particular country
Mussolini literally coined the word "fascist" to name his movement. Hitler never hid the fact he based his own movement on Mussolini's, so he'd probably describe his party as fascist too. Later, the word became extremely negative for obvious reasons, such that current fascists pretend not to be such, but it doesn't mean they aren't. Overall, I'd say it's used well enough.
I think most people who are being described as racists, colonists, or fascists are racists, colonists, or fascists, but they're the same people who own the megaphone that tells you they're not. Can you bring specific examples?
Perhaps, but the same argument also works for "Communist" and "Socialist" and so on.
A former partner's mother was once called a liberal or a democrat for something minor, I forget what now possibly asking for a tip, and her response was "No sir, I'm a communist".
I'm never actually delved too deeply into the mother's political views, but my ex herself was openly, explicitly, literally, a communist.
(For various reasons, even though said ex is American by birth, I suspect her well-documented politics may now cause me difficulty entering the USA were I to attempt it).
"...and then unfortunately there is terroristic organizations like DeFlock, whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else."
"We're not forcing Flock on anyone..."
It is a short 1:32 video, I encourage people to watch it for themselves.
I thought DeFlock was just publishing locations of cameras and lawfully convincing local governments to not use Flock, primarily through FOIA requests.