How do we fight Strasserism? They keep popping up everywhere!

[Yazman]

Now, as much as I've done antifa stuff irl, I'm not too familiar with how y'all proceed when it comes to the internet.

What I'm looking here, is some advice on how to combat Strasserism in web groups. A lot of revolutionary leftist groups on Steam, facebook, etc that I've tried to participate in all seem to be getting overrun by these nazi Strasserists. It starts out with just one guy. Then more of them come. Then eventually, in one group I've even seen them manage to get the group owner on-side and he ended up actually changing the group's rules to allow Strasserists. They pretend to be revolutionary leftists but constantly bring up their nationalist roots & nazi forefather. Eventually what happens is, just plain old Hitlerian nazis come along because they see Strasserists in the group so they figure "hey, nazis!" and then THEY join, too.

WTF? How do we combat this? Is there anything you can do online to stop them? It's not like I can show up and disrupt their rallies, take down their posters, etc when it's just a web group.

I guess another question is, is it even worth it to try? Or should it just be a case of gathering the actual leftists and starting up (yet another) group? This doesn't seem to really be efficient though to have to keep abandoning our groups because these nazi assholes with their syncretic politics keep showing up and taking over.

[Sasha]

It's not the nicest way but in my experience using their own biogotry to your advantage is the best way, long threads about the not coincidental fact that many of the most prominent leaders like Romm and Kuhnen where openly gay, links to the movie "manner, helden, schwuler Nazis"on youtube etc tend to repel them as water on cats.

[Yazman]

Could you give me a link to that vid? It would be a lot of help. It's really frustrating seeing groups taken over by nazism because of these fuckwits and it would be nice to have some way to really deal with them.

Curiously does anybody know why these dudes keep coming up anywhere? Has anybody else noticed an influx of Strasserist nazis in their other online revolutionary leftist groups? I had never even heard of Strasser until the second half of last year and these dudes kept popping up all over the place.

[Comrade #138672]

I've seen stuff like this happening on the internet as well.

I think the counter-strategy would be to overrun them in response. Ask fellow Leftists to come there and engage in the 'conversation' in an attempt to overwhelm them.

Also, on Twitter we have this tactic to mass-report right-wing bigots, which makes the Twitter system automatically suspend them for a while. It is a funny thing to exploit. I am not sure how Facebook works in this regard.

[Yazman]

That's really interesting, that tactic for Twitter. How long do they get suspended for? I've never thought of co-ordinated reporting before. That actually sounds like a useful tactic. Anything we can do to prevent them from taking over our communities, is a valid tactic, in my opinion.

As far as encouraging fellow Leftists - well, the problem is that it's sometimes hard to round up a bunch of people to actually do it, and do it long-term. Especially in a Steam or Facebook group. Getting people to stay committed to fighting back is pretty hard, I find, which is frustrating since the fash don't seem to have that same problem.

[Sasha]

It's whitewashing meets a feeble attempt at entryism, its lonely being a nazi so presenting yourself as both more acceptable/less tainted by the holocaust and pretend your a revolutionary leftist instead of bigoted capitalist stooge has strong appeal.
But its also just so that in the German heimat and places like eastern-Europe its just the most popular tendency, as traditional US groups like the Klan, militia's and NSM are taking a freefall it is to be expected that the keyboardwariours also turn towards the new old shit.

[Sasha]

Here is part 2 of 6, don't know if its subtitled as I'm on my phone but it should be on YouTube in full with English subs: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L4R2ZeTam4g&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DL4R2ZeTam4g&gl=NL

Also, try to provoke fights among the fash themselves, since they have anything but an coherent idaology stuff like wether the troops are legitamit targets, the finer points of the RAF theory and praxis (who they tend to idolize) like shooting old Nazis and ofcourse wheter to stand or against radical Muslims can create huge infighting.

[Luís Henrique]

Now, as much as I've done antifa stuff irl, I'm not too familiar with how y'all proceed when it comes to the internet.

What I'm looking here, is some advice on how to combat Strasserism in web groups. A lot of revolutionary leftist groups on Steam, facebook, etc that I've tried to participate in all seem to be getting overrun by these nazi Strasserists. It starts out with just one guy. Then more of them come. Then eventually, in one group I've even seen them manage to get the group owner on-side and he ended up actually changing the group's rules to allow Strasserists. They pretend to be revolutionary leftists but constantly bring up their nationalist roots & nazi forefather. Eventually what happens is, just plain old Hitlerian nazis come along because they see Strasserists in the group so they figure "hey, nazis!" and then THEY join, too.

WTF? How do we combat this? Is there anything you can do online to stop them? It's not like I can show up and disrupt their rallies, take down their posters, etc when it's just a web group.

I guess another question is, is it even worth it to try? Or should it just be a case of gathering the actual leftists and starting up (yet another) group? This doesn't seem to really be efficient though to have to keep abandoning our groups because these nazi assholes with their syncretic politics keep showing up and taking over.

I have never ever seen a Strasserite in my life, do these guys actually exist?

Anyway, a first thing would be raising consciousness among leftists that Strasserites are fascists, not leftists, would be a good start. Judging from revleft, there is an impressive amount of people that cannot understand this basic fact, and insist to refer to Strasserites as the "left wing", or even "socialist wing" of the NSDAP.

I like the content in Pressebüro Savanne (http://www.savanne.ch/right-left.en.html) about right/left conflations; unhappily it is not being updated. I don't remember if they have any material on Strasserites, but I suppose much of what they say there of other groups may apply. The English page is a translation; the original is in German (http://www.savanne.ch/). Ah, and a lot of material there is taken from De Fabel van de Ilegaal and is in Dutch.

Luís Henrique

[p0is0n]

How does Strasserism look in America? Do any of our American comrades have any insight?

In certain parts of Europe, it is not a super uncommon sight to see these so called "left-wing nationalists" marching under leftist symbols and leftist rhetoric. I believe I saw a video from France where these fascist clowns were marching under red/black flags (!) whilst screaming "France for the French". Leave it to these fascist and neo-nazi clowns to take opportunism to new levels of stupidity.

[Sasha]

I think the only active group with any street presence are/where the national-anarchists around the bayarea but I could be wrong.

[Yazman]

Psycho, so there are actually strasserist groups with presence in some countries? I thought they were just "internet nazis" if you get my drift. That's interesting. The nazis I've come across irl have always been hitlerites and anti-community in an extreme.

There really seems to be a lot of these guys popping up everywhere though. Sometimes they even gain a high degree of prominence in an international context, for example, with the Nazbols.

One thing I noticed, just to follow up on the Twitter reporting to get people banned - the leader of a formerly prominent revolutionary leftist group (now overrun by strasserist nazis) on facebook has, I've just been told, banned for hate speech. So it does seem possible that this approach is workable on facebook too, at least as far as platform-denying goes.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Holy cow, is this in Australia? I was just about to make a thread about a good friend of mine in Australia who, while unpolitical up until recently, has gotten himself involved in some kind of fucked up futuristico-atheist-strasserist cult! All this crap about how 'Nazism is just an extreme form of fascism' and that 'atheist anti-racist fascism is progressive' and all this shit. There seem to be a lot of people who share his weird sympathies around where I've lived, too.

Have you seen any of these people off the internet by any chance Yaz?

[Yazman]

I've never seen them in the Philippines (although, I have met a few people with with pseudo-fascist views glorifying Marcos at actions before), but I have seen PLENTY of nazis in Australia before. Although they seem to be mostly Hitlerians, I've never encountered these Strasserist nutballs irl before. Although I would be willing to bet they are there, in other parts of Australia.

So no, I've never really seen them off the internet before. It's amazing how quickly they have come to prominence though online. They have really, seriously taken over quite a few leftist groups. If you ask a user here by the name of Tobbinator, he will tell you much the same (hint hint Tob). He was much more involved in one of the bigger groups that they took over, and even managed to get the owner of the group on side.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I remember there were some Strasserites in a facebook group I was in. They kept going on and on about how we were just making up that they were racist when it was pretty clear that's what their ideology implied. They'd get to that point where it was pretty obvious but they would deny it because it wasn't explicitly said. Then someone decided to make a fake account and act like they were one of them. Got screenshots of one of them talking about how disgusting "fags" were, how repulsive "niggers marrying whites" was, how unbearable it was to have a Jewish teacher, etc, etc, in PM's. Really discredited them.

[tobbinator]

I remember there were some Strasserites in a facebook group I was in. They kept going on and on about how we were just making up that they were racist when it was pretty clear that's what their ideology implied. They'd get to that point where it was pretty obvious but they would deny it because it wasn't explicitly said. Then someone decided to make a fake account and act like they were one of them. Got screenshots of one of them talking about how disgusting "fags" were, how repulsive "niggers marrying whites" was, how unbearable it was to have a Jewish teacher, etc, etc, in PM's. Really discredited them.

What was the name of this group, may I ask, because this account sounds precisely what happened in the group I was in that was more or less hijacked?

[Sasha]

Psycho, so there are actually strasserist groups with presence in some countries? I thought they were just "internet nazis" if you get my drift. That's interesting. The nazis I've come across irl have always been hitlerites and anti-community in an extreme.



they where all the fad here and in the german Ruhr area about 5 years ago, very scary and as they also dressed as leftist autonomists i got in quite a few sticky situations where it was very difficult to see friend and foe apart, this was the most extreme moment i have seen;

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uu4Lnjk9bTA/Tw3AANxkUII/AAAAAAAAAXM/v7S4ONLMBC8/s1600/NSA_AFA.jpg

yes, thats a block of nazi's with flags with the AFA logo (but theirs say "national-socialist action") and a huge banner which reads anti-fascist action (they claim they are anti-fascists because of some infighting that happend in the early days of the NSDAP and the night of long knives obviously).
they also had a solidarity campaign for the RAF prisoners etc.
luckily they got so much shit for it from fellow nazi's and no'one on our side wanted them either that they moved back somewhat, but the hardcore is still there puting up long essays about imperialism on the internet.

[Comrade #138672]

That's really interesting, that tactic for Twitter. How long do they get suspended for? I've never thought of co-ordinated reporting before. That actually sounds like a pretty damn good tactic. Not something I've thought of before. Anything we can do to deny them a platform, and to prevent them from taking over our communities, is a valid tactic, in my opinion.

As far as encouraging fellow Leftists - well, the problem is that it's sometimes hard to round up a bunch of people to actually do it, and do it long-term. Especially in a Steam or Facebook group. Getting people to stay committed to fighting back is pretty hard, I find, which is frustrating since the fash don't seem to have that same problem.They usually get suspended for a few days. Long enough to disrupt the conversation and take away a little of their platform. Also, sometimes the suspension is permanent when the same person is suspended more than once, especially if he or she is a new user. Maybe Facebook uses a similar system. Twitter, Facebook, etc. have so many users and posts, that it is almost impossible to moderate them manually. That is why Twitter automatizes suspensions, basing it on blocks and reports.

At some point the same user was forced to register 10+ new accounts. Every time he asked his friends to retweet him, so that his old followers could follow his new account. He didn't realize that his enemies were also following some of his followers, so that every time he did that, we could see it and block him again immediately.

The downside of this is that they can use it against you too. It has happened to me more than once. I was talking about building some bots to spy on them, to tease them a little, and they tried to disrupt it by mass-reporting me, resulting in my own suspension for a few days. I did actually spy on them for a while, letting my bot collect data on them, but eventually I quit doing this, since I stopped seeing the point of it. However, I was able to make some charts of their connections, online activity, etc.

[#FF0000]

how about banning them

[Comrade #138672]

Is it possible to link us to these Facebook discussions?

[Yazman]

Here's one of the Steam groups I was referring to, for an example, in which even the administrator eventually changed his mind about revolutionary left politics and sided with the flood of Strasserites. Tobbinator is especially familiar & experienced with this group:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BBPOfficial

Their self-description alone should be enough to make you vomit. It started out just tolerating nationalists, and as more and more Strasserites flooded in, it's gotten to the point where it's now a full blown pro-nazi group.

Here is their facebook group. You'll note that they talk about "uniting leftists and third positionists" in their description, now:

https://www.facebook.com/leftbread

[The Jay]

If you want to know what to do about them, debate them. It is pretty simple. Corporatism isn't hard to attack ideologically as a system. Just do the same thing you do with generic capitalists.

[Yazman]

I guess, but I never really thought it's worth it to bother discussing with fascists. It doesn't really seem worth it to engage them, I always thought it would only be encouraging them to do that. Then again, considering I've seen that they have actually managed to 'convert' people in some circumstances, it might be worth engaging them. I'm not so sure though. I am happy to admit I'm wrong though, if I am.

[The Jay]

I guess, but I never really thought it's worth it to bother discussing with fascists. It doesn't really seem worth it to engage them, I always thought it would only be encouraging them to do that. Then again, considering I've seen that they have actually managed to 'convert' people in some circumstances, it might be worth engaging them. I'm not so sure though. I am happy to admit I'm wrong though, if I am.

I think that you shouldn't lump in strasserists with hitlerians. They have similar ideologies and are both fascists, but strasserists are usually willing to discuss in a genuine manner. They are "convertabe", god that makes us seem like cultists haha, but yeah, debate one and ban the ones that give a stink. You only need to destroy their arguments a few times before answering the same questions again loses meaning. Honestly, they are probably easier than ancaps, at least fascists admit there are classes most of the time. They just think that controlling them is the better way of dealing with the conflict than by eliminating the class structure completely.

When dealing with them, just be sure to completely destroy their ideological base, no half-assing that they can use to side-step issues. Deal with them the same way as you deal with the proporters of "classical fascism".

If I saw a strasserist IRL (doubt it will ever happen) I would probably argue with him/her. If I saw a hitlerite I would be much less non-violent.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

What was the name of this group, may I ask, because this account sounds precisely what happened in the group I was in that was more or less hijacked?
I was talking about Bread Instead of Bullets, actually. Which is funny because you and Yazman are part of the group, nice. I got kicked out though a little while ago, don't remember why either. I mean sure, I said that the Nazi fucks deserved a bullet in the head, but I got banned a while after I said that :laugh:

[Red Commissar]

Just another reason why gamer culture and politics isn't guaranteed to mix very well. Maybe we should make our own revleft gamer circle on steam?

Anyways in my experience it's kind of pointless to bother with this on the internet. You're as likely to tear away these Strasserists from their views as they are yours. If people are getting turned towards their shit views its likely that they were never really serious about class and basics of socialism, only trying to reconcile their middle-class lifestyle with anti-capitalist rhetoric while holding shit views on foreigners and social positions. So it's not surprising those who were not committed to it all that much anyways would fall for nationalist bullshit that Strasserists and similar groups push. IMO they kind of fall into the same fold that MRA with clout among insecure males with scatterbrained politics.

And plus there's also the factor with these kinds of things that they may not be actively used. I know I am part of the BPP on steam too but I rarely even look at it so I was surprised looking back at their description that they've allowed for third positionist shits now. I'm sure there were many other users like myself who joined the group but never actually bothered participating in it.

[Ocean Seal]

Now, as much as I've done antifa stuff irl, I'm not too familiar with how y'all proceed when it comes to the internet.

What I'm looking here, is some advice on how to combat Strasserism in web groups. A lot of revolutionary leftist groups on Steam, facebook, etc that I've tried to participate in all seem to be getting overrun by these nazi Strasserists. It starts out with just one guy. Then more of them come. Then eventually, in one group I've even seen them manage to get the group owner on-side and he ended up actually changing the group's rules to allow Strasserists. They pretend to be revolutionary leftists but constantly bring up their nationalist roots & nazi forefather. Eventually what happens is, just plain old Hitlerian nazis come along because they see Strasserists in the group so they figure "hey, nazis!" and then THEY join, too.

WTF? How do we combat this? Is there anything you can do online to stop them? It's not like I can show up and disrupt their rallies, take down their posters, etc when it's just a web group.

I guess another question is, is it even worth it to try? Or should it just be a case of gathering the actual leftists and starting up (yet another) group? This doesn't seem to really be efficient though to have to keep abandoning our groups because these nazi assholes with their syncretic politics keep showing up and taking over.
I've only found one Strasserist on the internet, but my guess as to how to combat them is to allow them to come to you. Make a point that you know they will react to, and show their fascist colors.

[tobbinator]

I was talking about Bread Instead of Bullets, actually. Which is funny because you and Yazman are part of the group, nice. I got kicked out though a little while ago, don't remember why either. I mean sure, I said that the Nazi fucks deserved a bullet in the head, but I got banned a while after I said that :laugh:
Yeah, that's the group

I had risen to the rank of "Chancellor" by January 2012, with the nazi and fascist population at a low still. By November, when I resigned, the leader of the group was openly a nazi ("strasserite" and "third positionist", he claimed) and was inviting more and more nazi brethren to the admin board. After I did resign, the last couple of sane admins left also resigned from their positions (they were then replaced by more nazis and fascists) and left the group. We formed a new group (strictly no nationalists and fascists) with a load of ex-admins and banned members. Because of that I think the leader has a personal vendetta against me and the group and blames us for his recent banning from facebook for hate speech (it wasn't us but boy did we have a good time laughing about it).

Back on topic I'd agree with Ocean Seal and that is to show their fascist colours and try to sever the link they manage to maintain, in the eyes of those who haven't yet made up their minds politically, with the rest of the Left.

[p0is0n]

Here's one of the Steam groups I was referring to, for an example, in which even the administrator eventually changed his mind about revolutionary left politics and sided with the flood of Strasserites. Tobbinator is especially familiar & experienced with this group:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BBPOfficial

Their self-description alone should be enough to make you vomit. It started out just tolerating nationalists, and as more and more Strasserites flooded in, it's gotten to the point where it's now a full blown pro-nazi group.

Here is their facebook group. You'll note that they talk about "uniting leftists and third positionists" in their description, now:

https://www.facebook.com/leftbread

"• Corporatists / National Corporatists
• Eurasianists
• Falangists
• Jucheists
• Monarchists
• National Anarchists
• National Bolsheviks
• National Socialists
• National Syndicalists
• Nationalists
• Nasserists
• Patriots
• Peronists
• Racial Nationalists
• Traditionalists
• Tribalists / Gaddafites"

Seriously? Thank christ these fucking clowns don't have any real influence in the left-wing movements of today.

[Crux]

Fascists have always tried to play the "third position" game, appropriating leftist aesthetics, hence "national socialism". I've only ever seen dodgy pseudo-leftists go "third position" never the reverse. Fash will be fash, keep that in mind. Also, as for the danger they pose IRL the Terza Pozitione was a fascist terror organization in the 70's and 80's in Italy. There's also Casa Pound, straight up fascists, but with left-wing aesthetics, and I gather significant parts of the german fash also like to play black bloc dress up. It might seem silly and contradictory, but fascism always was.

[svenne]

I've only ever seen dodgy pseudo-leftists go "third position" never the reverse. Fash will be fash, keep that in mind.

There seems to be at least one example of left-wing extremists suddenly turning (even more...) bat shit crazy: the people who split from the Belgian Communist Party to join the Parti Communautaire Européen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_Communautaire_Europ%C3%A9en). But the only thing one might find good with the strasserists is that they seem a bit more inclined to leave the fascist movement for good, either for the left (i know of at least one example of this) or for political apathy.

[Crux]

There seems to be at least one example of left-wing extremists suddenly turning (even more...) bat shit crazy: the people who split from the Belgian Communist Party to join the Parti Communautaire Européen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_Communautaire_Europ%C3%A9en). But the only thing one might find good with the strasserists is that they seem a bit more inclined to leave the fascist movement for good, either for the left (i know of at least one example of this) or for political apathy.
Well, there was a "split" from KP, I am guessing it was probably at most 5 people and even that is probably inflating their numbers, styling themselves "national communists".