Too late?

[Dave_LF]

There's another important difference between Roman and modern slavery: in the old world, slavery was either a punishment (criminals, debtors, prisoners of war) or something entered into "voluntarily" by individuals who'd suffered some sort of personal catastrophe that left them with no other recourse. And even then, there were generally avenues to freedom available, and if you were lucky enough to find one of these, you could go on and resume a normal life; in Rome, freed slaves could even become full citizens. There was no concept of slavery as the ordained, natural, immutable state for an entire race or tribe of supposedly inferior people.

[Faramond]

Here are some links on the police response in Charlottesville:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cha ... 964298e5bc

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/13/why-w ... ttesville/

I don't have time to expand on this or answer any posts, unfortunately. If you don't like the Daily Caller the HuffPo one probably has enough to give the essential picture of the police presence and their strange inaction.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If the Daily Caller and the Huffington Post are in agreement on something, that is a pretty good sign that it must be pretty clearly true. I don't think there is anyone that can honestly contest the notion that the law enforcement response to this situation was inadequate.

[Frelga]

Likewise, slate quotes members of clergy and local residents, among others, who testify that the antifa stepped in when the Nazis charged the peaceful protesters. They basically did the job they police should have done.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... _dt_fb_top

"Rev. Seth Wispelwey
Directing minister of Restoration Village Arts and consulting organizer for Congregate C'ville

I am a pastor in Charlottesville, and antifa saved my life twice on Saturday. Indeed, they saved many lives from psychological and physical violence—I believe the body count could have been much worse, as hard as that is to believe. Thankfully, we had robust community defense standing up to white supremacist violence this past weekend. Incredibly brave students held space at the University of Virginia and stared down a torch-lit mob that vastly outnumbered them on Friday night. On Saturday, battalions of anti-fascist protesters came together on my city’s streets to thwart the tide of men carrying weapons, shields, and Trump flags and sporting MAGA hats and Hitler salutes and waving Nazi flags and the pro-slavery “stars and bars.”

Out of my faith calling, I feel led to pursue disciplined, nonviolent direct action and witness. I helped lead a group of clergy who were trained and committed to the same work: to hold space on the frontline of the park where the rally was to be held. And then some of us tried to take the steps to one of the entrances. God is not OK with white supremacy, and God is on the side of all those it tries to dehumanize. We feel a responsibility to visibly, bodily show our solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized.

A phalanx of neo-Nazis shoved right through our human wall with 3-foot-wide wooden shields, screaming and spitting homophobic slurs and obscenities at us. It was then that antifa stepped in to thwart them. They have their tools to achieve their purposes, and they are not ones I will personally use, but let me stress that our purposes were the same: block this violent tide and do not let it take the pedestal.

The white supremacists did not blink at violently plowing right through clergy, all of us dressed in full clerical garb. White supremacy is violence. I didn’t see any racial justice protesters with weapons; as for antifa, anything they brought I would only categorize as community defense tools and nothing more. Pretty much everyone I talk to agrees—including most clergy. My strong stance is that the weapon is and was white supremacy, and the white supremacists intentionally brought weapons to instigate violence."

[Inanna]

Beutlin, one simple reason for people to draw parallels between Nazism & slavery is that both share the underlying belief of white supremacy.

[Beutlin]

@ Inanna: By modern standards, most Northerners, Lincoln included, were white supremacists. It would be correct, however, to argue that the CSA fought for a more vile form of white supremacy. And while the Nazis were, of course, inherent white supremacists, they did not regard themselves primarily as white supremacists but as "Nordic", "Aryan", or "Germanic" supremacists. National-socialist doctrine did not so much identify the Jews or Slavs as non-white but as non-Aryan. White supremacy as an explicit historical and contemporary political movement (as in people labeling themselves white supremacists) is far more common in the colonial and post-colonial world (for this reason, you will have far more English neo-Nazis calling themselves white supremacists than German neo-Nazis, who, of course, if you asked them would still affirm the label).


@ Dave_LF: Slightly off-topic, but in popular conception there exist a tendency to ignore the nature and magnitude of ancient slavery.
It is important to note in this context that the category of "prisoners of war" also included women and children in ancient times as the differentiation of civilians and soldiers simply did not exist.
Throughout its conquests and rule, the Roman Republic and Empire enslaved at least a 100 million people (!) of (largely European, North African, Middle Eastern) contemporaries (1). This is nearly eight times the number of Africans which were shipped to the Americas (albeit in a noticeably longer time period). Slavery was inherited from mother to child; and while some slaves could indeed gain riches and status, far more lived and died among horrible circumstances in the latifundia and mines. Living conditions were generally so bad that a constant demand for foreign slaves existed, as the home-born slave population simply could not meet its own biological replacement rate under such living standards (similar to the Caribbean in colonial times (2). Slave rebellions were met by the Romans with brutal force: The 6,000 recaptured slaves of the Third Servile War were all crucified along the Via Appia between Rome and Capua (3).

What is indeed true however is that slavery was not associated with a specific race or ethnicity (although it has to be added that numerous tribes were completely enslaved). As most slaves were of regional origin, a simple differentiation between phenotypic traits did simply not suffice to tell a slave from a Roman citizen. In most cases, freed slaves and their descendants could thus live in Roman society without anybody recognizing their background.
And this also relates to the history of modern slavery and racism. 18/19th century racism was to a high degree a product of slavery and regional differences between Europe and Africa. While negative attitudes towards Africans certainly existed in the years before 1500, Europeans slave traders did not primarily start to buy slaves in Africa because of racism but because they could and because they needed people which were accustomed to subtropical climates. Modern racist notions, swiftly intertwined with religion and "science", were, alas, very much the product and this unequal trade.

(1) (2) Walter Scheidel, The Roman Slave Supply
(3) Keith Bradley, Resisting Slavery at Rome

[Frelga]

Well. This thread is just depressing the heck out of me.


It is disappointing that more people are concerned with the punching part than with the reality that the Nazis are out in the open to be punched.

[Inanna]

Frelga, I agree.

[yovargas]

It is disappointing that more people are concerned with the punching part than with the reality that the Nazis are out in the open to be punched.

That is false and unfair. The thread is about punching Nazis so that is what is being discussed. If the thread were titled "How do you feel about Nazi rallies?", we would be discussing our utter contempt for them.

And if the thread was titled "What should we do about Nazi rallies?", I think this past weekend shows that meeting their rallies with aggression makes things worse, not better. It has emboldened them, given them a national platform, and given likely sympathizers an enemy they can point at as "oppressors". Imagine instead if they had just been completely ignored. If nobody had paid them any damn attention. Their voice and message wouldn't be on national TV, their wouldn't be viral videos of violence they could use for recruiting, there wouldn't be a sudden escalation of planned rallies across the country. I think the counter-protesters, well intentioned as they may be, are doing more to help the "alt-right" then anything else.

[yovargas]

This seems like a far more effective way of countering Nazis to me:

The hilarious way a German town turned neo-Nazis against Nazism

Make them look like the impotent fools they are, and not like the martyred heroes they want to be.

[Frelga]

It is disappointing that more people are concerned with the punching part than with the reality that the Nazis are out in the open to be punched.

That is false and unfair. The thread is about punching Nazis so that is what is being discussed. If the thread were titled "How do you feel about Nazi rallies?", we would be discussing our utter contempt for them.

And if the thread was titled "What should we do about Nazi rallies?", I think this past weekend shows that meeting their rallies with aggression makes things worse, not better. It has emboldened them, given them a national platform, and given likely sympathizers an enemy they can point at as "oppressors". Imagine instead if they had just been completely ignored. If nobody had paid them any damn attention. Their voice and message wouldn't be on national TV, their wouldn't be viral videos of violence they could use for recruiting, there wouldn't be a sudden escalation of planned rallies across the country. I think the counter-protesters, well intentioned as they may be, are doing more to help the "alt-right" then anything else.

Yov. I like you. But you missed the point. Which surprises me, because you are one of about four people on this board who can't safely walk past a Nazi rally. (You, me, Inanna, and Voronwë, did I miss anyone?)

If I called this thread "What do we do about Nazis", people would say, "yeah, Nazis are bad," shrugged and moved on.

As far as C-ville tragedy:

1. It wasn't met with violence. Don't repeat that lie. It was met with students, clergy, locals, and brave people who stood unarmed in the face of thugs who came with shields and weapons.

2. Eyewitness accounts show that the antifa who did come prepared to fight put themselves between the peaceful counter protesters and the charging Nazis.

3. James Alex Fields Jr. who murdered Heather Heyer, drove his car into a group of peaceful protesters.

4. As with the civil rights movement, it is the murder of a young white person that finally caused this country to pay attention. Finally, we have business, military, and even Republican leadership decrying the Nazi supporters in the White House.

Anyone who has ever been bullied knows that ignoring a bully doesn't make him go away. It makes him worse.

[Sunsilver]

Yov. I like you. But you missed the point. Which surprises me, because you are one of about four people on this board who can't safely walk past a Nazi rally. (You, me, Inanna, and Voronwë, did I miss anyone?)

Impenitent is Jewish, though she lives on a different continent, where I don't think Nazis could get away with this nonsense without getting arrested by the police.

In other news, I SO wish Arnie had been born in the United States...

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/lea ... 5d8a83edb5

[yovargas]

Anyone who has ever been bullied knows that ignoring a bully doesn't make him go away. It makes him worse.

If that is true, the antifa-style confrontation is making it worse too. Any other suggestions?

[Frelga]

Sunny, it's not what you are, it's what you look like.

No, they don't, yov. What emboldened the Nazis is not the attack by antifa, it's the President of the United States speaking out in their support, after being forced to read a bland statement from the teleprompter.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/15/politics/ ... index.html

"Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," was the full tweet from an account that is not verified by Twitter but appears to represent Duke and features videos apparently posted by and of him.
Trump used language familiar to the "alt-right" and white supremacists when he bemoaned "changing culture" that would results from the tearing down of statues honoring confederate generals like Robert E. Lee, who Trump equated with founding fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who were slave owners.

[yovargas]

The POTUS would never have had reason to make comment of any kind if they had been ignored. These are not "bullies", they are a movement, and dramatics and confrontations help their movement far more than it hurts it. They want attention and punching wannabe Nazis gets them national attention. How does that help anything?

[Frelga]

The POTUS not saying something even his supporters can't ignore while continuing to implement the white supremacist agenda? That's not a GOOD thing.

[River]

They're a movement of bullies. They showed up armed to intimidate the people of Charlottesville out of executing a decision they'd made for their community. Judging from the fearful/tearful reactions I've seen among those who're realizing that now that their pictures have been taken and their home communities know who they are and their families are pulling away and their employers are firing them, they seemed to think they could parade around with swastikas and torches and there'd be no consequences. Like it's all just some sort of elaborate live-action RPG and they could all go home like nothing had ever happened. Except it's only a game when everyone involved has both agreed that it's a game and agreed on the rules of said game and that's fundamentally not what's going on here. So now they're facing the consequences of their choices and they're weeping and trying to gin up sympathy be drawing a moral equivalence between an armed mob of neo-Nazis and those willing to stand against them by any means necessary. And that makes me nervous because I've read some history. It starts with people who look different and/or don't go to whatever's on the acceptable list of churches and/or don't exclusively have sex with members of the opposite sex. This is already bad enough for a lot of reasons, not the least being my sis and her partner keep a list of where it's safe for them to live and it's narrowing, not broadening. Also, the guy who's about the closest thing me and my siblings have to a godfather is Jewish and so are some other close family friends. You think I like seeing life get uncomfortable for them? Because it already is. Then it spirals. Discomfort turns to disenfranchisement and the list of undesirables expands. If these twerps get legitimized and start recapitulating the foul deeds of their heroes, what happens to my Serbian husband and my half-Serbian kids? Because to the original Nazis, the Slavic nations weren't white enough. Oh they found some sympathizers among them, but if they'd been the ones to win the war they'd've turned on those sympathizers because they weren't white enough. We have to push back, when the body count is still limited and we can still throw those pushing these ideas back into the shadows where they belong.

Also, in my own experience with bullies, if you can't in some way prove to be too hard of a target the only thing you can do is outlast them. Pull yourself and hold yourself together until they've either lost interest or someone or something more powerful than you makes them stop.

[Sunsilver]

Sunny, it's not what you are, it's what you look like.

If that's the case, then the only person they're going to target would be Innana, due to the colour of her skin, unless they spot you wearing outward symbols that identify you as being different.

I was very disturbed to find this article by Conrad Black posted on the website of a right-wing FB friend:

http://www.conradmblack.com/1321/who-wa ... ottesville

It just shows you how skewed the news media is. It also makes me question my own viewpoint - how biased am I because I read mainly liberal news media??

Still, there is NO defending Nazis...

[Sunsilver]

BTW, I have a new profile picture on FB:

(For those of you who never went to Sunday School, it's part of the chorus of an old chidren's hymn: Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. Okay, yes, it's a bit politically incorrect in this day and age, but OTOH, you can't get much MORE politically incorrect than Nazis... )

[Cerin]

Trump rallies during the campaign were non-news when protesters didn't show up to draw attention to them. They were reported as pretty boring affairs when no one obligingly came to disrupt the event and fire-up the attendees.

Rallying against the removal of the Lee statue was a legitimate cause; as this thread has demonstrated, it isn't only Nazis and Nazi-sympathizers who have concerns about these removals. What if this rally had been allowed to proceed without interference? What if we were to follow the radical idea set out in the constitution, that even people we disagree with should be allowed to assemble and express their views?

These punch a Nazi insurrectionists* are a magnet for violent white supremacists. They have finally given them the thing they longed for but lacked in a lawful environment -- the opportunity to move from mere speech to acting out their violent fantasies. Now that violent disruption of lawful speech and assembly has been legitimized as heroic, I fear there will be no going back. Blood in the streets will now be the way forward.

On the cyber front, I have been dismayed in the past to hear of the intimidation tactics that have been used against abortion doctors by right wing and right to life zealots, with their personal information made available on line for harassment purposes, and their names being added to execution lists. I've been dismayed to hear about the intimidation tactics used against prominent women who dare to publicly express views unpopular among the misogynistic community. These are bullying tactics, plain and simple, and if I oppose them when used against people whose ideas I support, then I must oppose them when used against people whose ideas I oppose.

*I won't call these punch a Nazi insurrectionists the term they've chosen for themselves, because they aren't anti-fascists (sic), they're just fascists with a different agenda.