I have been seeing plenty of guillhotine and mollotov jokes here, and as the title says, punching nazis.
I’ve been reading a book about nonviolence and anarchism, and he basically shows how we shouldn’t use violence, even in extreme cases (like neo nazis).
The main argument is that the means dictates the ends, so if we want a non violent (and non opressing) society, punching people won’t help.
And if it is just a joke, you should probably know that some people have been jailed for decades because of jokes like these (see: avoiding the fbi, second chapter of the book above).
Obviously im up for debate, or else I wouldn’t make this post. And yes, I do stand for nonviolence.
(english is not my first language, im sorry if I made errors, or wansn’t clear.)
(if this is not pertinent, I can remake this post in c/politics or something)
(the book is The Anarchist Cookbook by Keith McHenry, if you are downloading from the internet, make sure you download it from the correct author, there is another book with the same name.)
Fascists don’t respond to logic or reasoning, they know only violence so you should speak to them in a language they understand
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2018.1519772
Violence in a vacuum? Deplorable. Violence against a person preaching or encouraging violence? Questionable. Violence against a known fascist? Absolutely acceptable.
Fascists hide in the grey areas of free speech and often make arguments, much like this post OP, that twist ethics to support their rhetoric.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/544641070/explaining-again-thenazis-true-evil
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism–intentionalism_debate
You may want to investigate the original author of the anarchist cookbook William Powell. He later wanted to remove the book from publication.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Powell-American-writer
Also please do not follow any of the recipes, especially the match head bomb as they’re all a great way to lose fingers
So in conclusion, considering your original points sound similar to the historical defense of fascists, and that book looks to carry the language of fascists.
How serious is the author of that book about not getting punched?
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When we had a bunch of white supremacists driving in their lifted trucks, yelling at the BLM protestors and threatening violence against them, there was no use in trying to argue with them. They were just interested in getting into a fight so they could justify using their guns in “self defense”.
That’s not the nature of my argument. You’re talking about an escalation of violence. I’m talking about preventing them from entering cultural space in the first place. I could spend days listing the proof that there are Nazis in our police and armed forces. That leftists are often the only ones targeted by police.
I’m talking about direct interpersonal conversation and action.
Those guys in lifted trucks are useful idiots.
I open carry at counter protests, I open carry at Drag Story Time. I often have to have long protracted discussions with the police when I protest. Mostly about my protect trans kids and TERF Elimination Squad morale patches and what loadout I have. I am often silent during chants at the protests I attend.
However I’ve never seen direct instigation from counter protesters like you’re describing, directed at me. They tend to focus on the vocal protestors. I stand next to the megaphone with ear pro on. I try to move slowly and predictably.
I’m not there to return fire. I’m not there to keep any peace. I’m absolutely not there to instigate or escalate anything.
This is only my personal experience and means nothing. I am not suggesting this is a useful or necessary act. I’m not encouraging anyone to do this. I never bring a concealed weapon. I always coordinate with the organizers of the event or the protest. I will happily leave if asked however I’ve never been asked before or after to not attend. I only carry at the protest and do not bring weapons into planning spaces or enclosed areas.
Edit: Since I started going a couple few have joined me. There are much more yelling contests now. But there’s no shoving or pulling or fighting over flags and signs anymore. I really hope in a couple years shit mellows out and I can chant again. “Bottoms Tops we all hate cops!” Is a newer one I really like.
…do you actually open carry at kids story time?
America sounds fucking insane.
Yes, yes we are. And it’s getting worse in many cultural groups.
This is a false dichotomy. There are effective ways to defeat Nazis beyond punching them or reasoned debate.
Violence is justified in life or death struggles where other options have become unrealistic. That’s not the situation we’re in in the West 99% of the time. Deplatforming, doxxing, civil resistance, and various other forms of nonviolent struggle all have a better track record than street brawls which have done nothing but empower fascists. In fact, the sense of fear and chaos that these events creates is exactly the environment in which fascism will thrive. Street brawls between fascists and leftists were prominent in the Weimar Republic and did nothing to stop Nazi power—if anything it made it easier for the right to unite and paint leftists as unreasonable extremists. We see similar patterns happening today.
Politics is not the same as armed struggle. We are not engaged in armed struggle against fascism in the west. Perhaps we will be but right now one of our goals should be to avoid that becoming necessary. In the current moment public relations and persuasion matter immensely. Punching Nazis achieves little other than making people lose sight of the dangers of fascism and focus instead on “extremism” from “both sides”.
And OP has done nothing to suggest they are sympathetic to fascism so your threats against them are extremely rude and unjustified.
Edit: I also should have stressed that the most important thing is to organize. People power is the real power. Collaborate with and help everyone, not just your Maoist book club or whatever. One of the ways the Fascists won in the past is by dividing people and going after minorities one at a time. If things do devolve into armed struggle, you’ll be much better prepared if you’ve got deep roots in the community.
You can mock and deride them in media of course. But when a Nazi asks about violence you always respond with language they understand.
I disagree. Fascists want to simplify every conflict this way—“They’re coming to kill you, so we need to kill then first”. By accepting the conflict on those terms, you’ve already conceded a rhetorical battle.
Leftists have rarely excelled at martial conflict. It’s not typically our strength. Our strength instead is that we fundamentally want to help people and make the world more free and just. We win by making sure people understand that. Getting into fist fights with Nazis undermines this strategy and doesn’t do anything to fundamentally undermine their power.
Nazis aren’t interested in what communists have to say. A communist, for the record, is anyone a Nazi disagrees with. The only acceptable place for a communist, according to a nazi, is in the ground. If you want to let Nazis come for you, I guess that’s fine for you. When Nazis co.e for your loved ones and you Stans there like a fucking coward and let them take them because “much precious nonviolence” I guess that’s your call.
Feel free to debate your way out of the camps, bro.
We’re not in camps. We’re not fighting a war. Of course military violence is okay when you’re fighting for your life, but that’s not current society. This is an ideological war.
Feel free to punch your way out. You’ll find it equally effective.
That’s what the guns are for, centrist.
Not sure what guns have to do with the ineffectiveness of punching Nazis but OK.
I can kick 200cm from the ground, so I’m going to use that tool to keep the world just :/
Edit OH SHIT OH SHIT 180CM not 200 I’m not Jet Li
Not very many I bet since everyone is an internet tough guy, I never actually fought in my life.
Tolerance ends with intolerance. Being nice and civil leads to things like the storming of the US Capital. If US Republicans, for example, felt no resistance then they would organize a crusade into Springfield Ohio.
It is because we live in a world of controversy and civil unrest that racists cannot simply commit massacres and lynchings like in the old days.
We have to show fangs, not bellies, to aggressive animals.
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They want my wife and children dead. If they are near my family, they pose an existential threat. I will leave saving the proverbial souls of neo Nazis to others. I am interested in establishing that my family is off limits and dangerous for them to so much as look at.
Would I throw a punch at a confirmed Nazi? Without hesitation.
Some people learn to shed the racism from their heart and become better people. Some will only get so far as keeping quiet because they are afraid. There will always be severely racist people. It is just as important that they feel unequivocally unwelcome as it is to change those who will change.
Spent enough time in the punk scene to know some people are very serious about it.
SHARP thinkers.
Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice.
The first Skins in the UK were anti racists. Then some neo-nazi fucks ruined it for a bit. So the S.H.A.R.P movement started
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_Against_Racial_Prejudice
Also if you have the funds, buy Trojan Records.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Records
They do good work.
This line of reasoning kind of falls apart when you deal with someone that doesn’t act on good faith. For example you can pioneer democracy and the will of the people and then let 10% of radical people use propaganda to brainwash 41% of normal people to take over the government and then basically breakapart the foundations of democracy and people’s rights. The end result is a democratic path to the end of democracy and a worse situation for everyone involved. There’s a reason people say you can’t be tolerant of anti-tolerance.
I’ve been called a nazi on here for suggesting precisely that we shouldn’t punch nazis solely for being nazis so I’m assuming it’s serious for at least some people.
solely for being nazis
At what point do you think it’s okay to punch a nazi?
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If they’re being violent themselves, or actively advocating for it (as in: in a way that could reasonably cause others to be violent). I’m also not gonna try to stop anyone for punching someone throwing out slurs, though I don’t think it’s a great response. If it’s just “i know this person is a nazi for whatever reason but they act like a normal person” I’m clearly against it and think the punching person is also in the wrong (to be clear, both are). Advocating violence against a group for their beliefs is just something I never consider okay, even if I think those beliefs make them the scum of the earth.
And even with all that I’d probably still press the magic button that makes all nazis drop dead, but mainly because I believe that would probably improve society quite a bit rather than because I think it is justified against them (since I would argue that really isn’t any different from genocide even if it doesn’t quite fit the definiton). That might make me a bit of a hypocrite, but it’s not like that button will ever exist.
If two parties are at odds with one another, and one on them is willing to use violence and the other isn’t, the violent party wins.
Non violence works when people care about what you’re going through. If the right people know and care they’ll come in and do violence for you to make it stop. Or at least verifiably threaten violence. But violence is happening whether you did it or not.
Nazis don’t give a shit about you, they’re eager for violence. They want to exterminate entire classes of people. Non violence does not work on Nazis, we’ve already seen this play out once before.
If two parties are at odds with one another, and one on them is willing to use violence and the other isn’t, the violent party wins.
Is that a Martin Luther King quote?
I’m 52 now so I don’t punch anyone anymore. But back in the mid '80s to early '90s I was one of a few skatepunks that ran around with some ofe the local Unity Skins. We did a fair bit of nazi punching (and ax handling). This was toward the end of lace codes and wearing patches on bomber jackets. I’m not sure we changed anyone’s mind but for a few years, no one was rocking confederate flags or white laces in the open. But I’m just some random guy online so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
(White, red, and yellow laces still give me pause. My teen came home one day wearing yellow laces and we had to have a talk. After some fact checking, and him explaining some stuff, I let it go and got a pair of yellows for my boots. Funny how things change over time and areas).
43 year old here. By the late 90s most of the laces and braces stuff was over in my local scene (Austin, TX). SHARPs learned it was easier to just have a mowhawk or spikes than explaining that yes they were a skinhead but not Nazis or racist.
With that said there were still Nazis that would come around to the clubs from time to time. And it usually ended up with them getting thrown out. Then one night one of them went into the pit and started throwing punches. The whole lot of them got dragged out the back by a bunch of guys a lot larger than me. 10 minutes later they came back in minus the Nazis. After that night I never saw another Nazi at a show again.
See? The system works!
Could you expand on the laces thing? I’ve never heard of laces (white, yellow or anything else) signifying anything in this topic.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s’s an old Skinhead/Bonehead thing. You’d rock different colors to say what you sort of believed. Red was neo-nazi, white was klan or white power, blue I think was pro cop, yellow was anti-gay, green was something bad but I don’t remember what, may be you robbed everyone. This was kind of nationwide but varied by area somewhat. Like blue could mean pro cop or anticop. This was way before think blue line stuff.
So growing up you’d see a bunch of bone heads strutting around with white laces and you’d know they were all racist shiteaters.
Mostly I think it was a way for skins to decide who to fight. Like I say, I was a punk, so not as much into fighting for fun like most skins were. I just ran with some because being a skater and a punk then was a little harder if you got caught alone. And having friends that liked to fight was just good sense.
Thanks, that’s really interesting. I guess black laces were the only safe option!
Just looked it up. White is white pride, red is neo-nazi (and often, willing to spill blood), yellow is anti-racist. Not sure why that last one’s a bad thing, though.
Black was neutral, because that’s the colour doc martens usually come with.
They are all fun lace colors, and Nazis get to decide nothing.
I don’t think nazis are the ones that decided the gay pride colour though (it was purple). I think it was someone else that decided.
Thank you for being less lazy than me! Still though, white laces are pretty common. I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a white supremacist just because of that.
Lace codes (and brace or strap codes I’m reminded above) are largely dead now. It started letting up when it was discovered how dope blue Docs looked with red laces.
Ha - fashion > fascism :-)
I’m just curious what your interpretation of yellow laces is. I’m not a punk but am vaguely aware of lace codes, and every list I see online has yellow as anti-racist, but I know it varied a bit from place to place.
Back a few lifetimes ago in this area it was anti-gay.
What’s ax handling? Captain Kirk double hand chop?
Hitting a guy with an ax handle. There’s not a lot of nuance or grace in it.
Yeah, ok. Was wondering if it was a move, or the literal interpretation
Not a big fan of violence nor do I condone it.
But here is some perspective when has something been won without violence?
Almost every nonviolent movement has been paired with a violent/threatening/defender movement. Then when the people in power attacked the nonviolent movement the public started siding with them and change happened because it was either give some of the nonviolent movements wants or the violent movement was going to make things worse.
One of the main reasons any and everything is hard to get off the ground now. Is media, power, and government people have learned to spin all nonviolent movement to be associated with violence or crush them immediately with force then spin it in the news. Also they have learned how to co opt and blame
George Floyd protests had outside aggravators(cia/fbi/cops) then media associates violence or property damage as a part of the cause, combine that with terrible messaging from coopted power structures then power trapped the chance of the law changing and really nothing major came from it. That along with cops beating the ever living shit out of everyone to scare more and more people
2020 was a glorious year for punching fascists.
You could try laughing at them instead, but maybe then they start the punching.
If you’re punching with you fist, you are probably punching wrong.
I became a leftist, because I got enough of the liberal “they go low, we go high” mantra. You never turn the other cheeck to a person, who will proceed to punch it again. In fact, if they once failed to do better in such cases, they’re just want to abuse your fair game.
I’ve never punched anyone and I don’t plan to start.
Don’t worry, someone will do it for you
It has nothing to do with tolerance.
There is no tolerance for the intolerant. Nazis are intolerant. You understand this correct?
So you think literally the only way to show you don’t tolerate Nazis is to punch them? No other possible route than getting in a fistfight?
You’re not very imaginative in that case.
Furthermore, considering I have never been in a fight, as I said, do you think I would be successful if I got into a fight with a Nazi?
Don’t worry, someone will do it for you
I never said anything about you personally punching a Nazi… I said due to the paradox of intolerance that someone is likely to do it for you.
Paradox of tolerance doesn’t grant carte blanche in preemption. You understand this, correct?
That’s literally the paradox… I think you might want to reread the wiki
I did. Many times over the years. Did you?
Again, intolerance to intolerance does not grant carte blanche reaction. If you see a KKK person expressing free speech, one cannot simply shoot them. You understand this, correct?
Like, I know this is cool and bad ass in the punk rock scene but when you unpack it at a societal level, it has seriously flawed logic and risks.
Please define my argument for me.
intolerance to intolerance does not grant carte blanche reaction.
Intolerance of intolerance is the only way to maintain a tolerant society.
If you see a KKK person expressing free speech, one cannot simply shoot them.
Give me a reason you can’t other than law (and I’m ignoring you jumping from punching to shooting)
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