Who is more slandered by the media?

[Black Sheep]

and by the bourgeoisie generally.

Anarchists or communists?

I'd say communists, as anarchy and anarchism is dealt with in a rather 'playful' way.. Like the teenage kiddos being rebellious.

And that is very confusing, if anarchism IS a threat to the capitalists,are they ignorant of it? Or do they think that it is never going to work?
( i am not trying to start a flaming war between marxists and anarchists, but i would like to hear an anarchist's point of view)

Well?

[Bear MacMillan]

I'd have to say communists.

The Cold War and Stalin have made "communism" a slander, something right-wing members call anyone on the left opposing imperialism and fiscal conservatism.

I've never ever heard of a right wing nutcase calling someone out on being an "anarchist".

[Incendiarism]

I'd say they tend to group them as one in the same thing.

[mykittyhasaboner]

The Communists get slandered most (specifically Marxist-Leninists). anything referring to communism is negatively portrayed in the media. As Bear MacMillan said, its almost slander. Its almost customary in the US to "hate the commies".

the anarchists (like when they protest at the RNC or something) are just seen as a bunch of hooligans and criminals. they aren't given any real respect, they are not really slandered by the media.


I'd say they tend to group them as one in the same thing.

I wouldn't say so. Judging from what ive seen in the US media, anarchists aren't considered as part of the left, or to have anything in common with communists. they always seem to be portrayed as teenage hooligans who just make trouble for the hell of it.

[Valeofruin]

Communists lol, theyre terrified of us =D

[Drace]

I never seen anything against anarchists.
Everyone in the US has heard of communism, anarchism...no.

[Trystan]

Communists. When there is trouble at a protest, the average media outlet doesn't need to say "violent anarchists", just "anarchists". *Gasp"

But the communists get the most shit, I'd say. The media actually engages with the ideology they adhere to, and slanders them to death.

[Comrade B]

Anarchists are dismissed insultingly, communists are declared evil.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Anarchists aren't taken seriously. Communists are taken as a serious threat.

[Red_Dialectics]

Yeah, just read an article about how socialists interviewed don't agree with the right-wing slander that Obama is a "socialist" and there was no "commie" joke the article didn't use. Disgusting. :cursing:

[GPDP]

Yeah, just read an article about how socialists interviewed don't agree with the right-wing slander that Obama is a "socialist" and there was no "commie" joke the article didn't use. Disgusting. :cursing:

Link to article?

[Drace]

Yeah, just read an article about how socialists interviewed don't agree with the right-wing slander that Obama is a "socialist" and there was no "commie" joke the article didn't use. Disgusting.

That only made so little sense that all I got out of it is that your grammar sucks :)
Gah Americans think anything that isn't good is socialist.

And yes link please.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Commies are slandered way more! We have the whole cold war to prove it. Anarchists are usually looked at in a more idiotic stereotypical way.

[Faux Real]

Does it matter? They'll never put either in a positive light.

[Comrada J]

Anarchists are usually thought of as teenage punks, who probably are just going though a phase. Or are life-long militant maujiwana users. Not really feared or respected.

But the term 'Communists' is used very generally by a lot of media outlets, imo. Some will report greens as commies, or the chinese etc.

[Black Sheep]

Anarchists are usually thought of as teenage punks, who probably are just going though a phaseCould that be deliberate?
I mean this could be an alternate way of slander.

[Comrada J]

Sure. But the end result of that method of attack is: take don't anarchists seriously. Where as the commies and socialists are portrayed as a more power hungry, organized enemy who's hellbent on taking control of society.

[cleef]

in my eyes both have been distorted, communism as dictatorship and anarchism as chaos and terroist activity however i would have to say that communism probably gets the harsher deal as there are more opportunities for it to be misrepresented by the media

[Cohacq]

I havent heard any news critising anarchists, but we communists always get the usual crap about Stalin and us wanting some kind of dictatorship.

Also, as others hade said, the media has fed us from birth with "commie hate", but nothing against the anarchists, so that may be the reason people are more anti-communist than anti-anarchist.

[Plagueround]

Anarcho-Communists? :lol:

[Os Cangaceiros]

Anarchists tend to be viewed as simply being criminals with ideologies.

With Communists we get the common figure of "100 million dead", so I'd say that they're portrayed worse.

[Black Sheep]

Anarcho-Communists? :lol:
Teenage punks who killed 100 million!

[Tower of Bebel]

Stalinists because the media are nothing more than bourgeois lies and all non-stalinists base themselves on bourgeois lies too.
So stalinists are twice as much assaulted by the media: bourgeois media and pseudo-revolutionary media.

[Post-Something]

Obviously communists. Anarchism is a joke to them.

[bcbm]

Anarchism is a joke to them.

Dunno about Glasgow, but around here the Anarchists make the paper a lot more than the communists.


all non-stalinists base themselves on bourgeois lies too.

:rolleyes: I'd have guessed they base themselves on things that existed before Stalin, but what do I know.

[Bear MacMillan]

Dunno about Glasgow, but around here the Anarchists make the paper a lot more than the communists.

I have to disagree, most of the time when anarchists do anything, the media doesn't even mention their ideology, and just calls whatever activity they have done something along the lines of "aimless hooliganism".

Communists have the whole China/North Korea/Soviet Union that the media can put the blame on.

[cop an Attitude]

Anarcho-Communists? :lol:

I have never even heard the media reconize anarcho-communism let alone bash it.

[bcbm]

I have to disagree, most of the time when anarchists do anything, the media doesn't even mention their ideology, and just calls whatever activity they have done something along the lines of "aimless hooliganism".

They always mention it in the news I've seen. Hell, we got called "criminal anarchists" recently.



Communists have the whole China/North Korea/Soviet Union that the media can put the blame on.

Communists are rarely mentioned outside of those states.

[Plagueround]

I have never even heard the media reconize anarcho-communism let alone bash it.

Guess I didn't drop enough smiley faces in the post.

My answer was communists. Anarchists have been marginalized for the most part by people's perception of punk rock kiddies (and many of the punk rock kiddies themselves). Communists on the other hand, are viewed as synonymous with Nazis (although it seems like we've all gained some ground recently).

[RadioRaheem84]

Anarchists are at least portrayed as being cool rebels while Commies are seen as being unfunny, soulless, Nazi-types.

[Tower of Bebel]

:rolleyes: I'd have guessed they base themselves on things that existed before Stalin, but what do I know.
Na'h, I was in a bad mood so I made idiotic remark.

[Winter]

I said Anarchists because everytime there's a protest and the police start violence they blame those pesky "Anarchists" on everything. According to the media, Anarchists are nothing more but people who want to cause chaos.

As for communist, yes, the damage is done. But since the end of the cold war, you don't hear alot of the word communist being used anymore.

[Lynx]

Typical byline/punchline - Somalia: The World's First Anarchist State

[welshboy]

Anarchists get slandered the most simply by the amount of press coverage that spectacular anarchist organised protests generate (G8, RNC, WTO, IMF/WB etc..) and the property damage/rioting is portrayed as the be all and end all of anarchism.
Also I have seen more than one TV show with favourable coverage of communism, there was an entire series a few years ago on the BBC, and only one about Anarchism - An Anarchists Story, about Ethel MacDonald.
The TV series if I remember right was called A Peoples Century and dealt with Scottish Working Class struggle over the last 100 years.

[gorillafuck]

Communists. Anarchists are just portrayed as kids trying to be cool, communists are portrayed as pure evil.

[ashaman1324]

communists.
we're given more respect, out of fear from the cold war.
anarchists aren't taken very seriously...

[bcbm]

anarchists aren't taken very seriously...

Really? I got accused of terrorism by the media recently, as have a dozen of my good friends. Seems a bit serious on this end...

[ashaman1324]

Really? I got accused of terrorism by the media recently, as have a dozen of my good friends. Seems a bit serious on this end...
i dont doubt it where you live. (wherever that may be)
in midwest america, anarchism isn't taken for much more than hatred of bush or rebellious teens.
communism is viewed as satan& hitlers lustchild by some around here.
its sheer ignorance in either case though.

[bcbm]

i dont doubt it where you live. (wherever that may be)
in midwest america, anarchism isn't taken for much more than hatred of bush or rebellious teens.

I live in midwest America.

[Black Dagger]

Lol^^^

In oz, anarchists are attacked/slandered much more in the media than marxists (who don't really rate a mention). This is probably due to the fact that the biggest marxist groups in oz don't generally do public actions that move beyond planned marches and talk fests. That's not to say they don't do other stuff - just that their most public stuff is quite banal and uninteresting to the media (their talkfests are nevertheless filmed by police and their prominent leaders monitored - but in many cases they also work closely with the police and stress how 'peaceful' their events are going to be ahead of time.

On the other hand the anarchist movement in oz is regarded as borderline 'terroristic' by some in the press and police (this really picked up after the 2006 g20 protest in melbourne)- with state and federal police resources used to identify, search for and arrest anarchists (often interstate). And forced-entry raids and counter-terrorism police have been used to execute warrants relating to stuff that happened at g20 two years ago! For example, a mate of mine with charges relating to g20 had his front door - made of glass - smashed open with a battering ram when they were executing their warrant. Why?

Whenever a major political protest or gathering is planned the New South Wales police commissioner (the state i live in) is trotted out for a press conference where he can slander anarchists as violent ferals and criminals and warn of 'impending violence' in order to justify some kind of huge budget on security.

This kind of stuff is very bad - though recently it did provide an unlikely benefit. The mere participation of Mutiny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_collective) in organising against an arms fair in adelaide led to the fair being cancelled (the goal of activists) for fear of 'violence' and the consequent security costs. Mutiny is a sydney anarchist group blamed by police and media for the violence around g20.

[bcbm]

Forced-entry raids and counter-terrorism police used to execute some warrants (specifically the ones relating to g20).

Well, at least it isn't just here. :(

[Black Dagger]

Actually 'my' cops stole that shit from 'your' cops!

Over the past couple of decades there has been a huge militarisation of policing in the US - with increased firepower (like using ammunition banned by the UN in warfare as standard issue for all cops!), automatic pistols, replacing a focus on dispute resolution training with 'non-lethal weapons' training - why waste the effort in talking someone down when you can just tase them bro?

In oz, all these ideas, strategies and most of this technology has been directly adopted from the US - which in recent history has been the preferred model of emulation by australian police (rather than the historically favoured british system).

Also the creation and increasing use of paramilitary (often called 'counter-terrorist') policing units that train with the regular military and are trained nearly exclusively by ex-special forces soldiers. Unlike regular police, paramilitary police are trained to 'eliminate the threat' (like in the military) rather than to 'protect' life.
Theoretically this might not be a 'problem' (obviously i would disagree) - as these units are designed to engage or foil terrorists with whom deadly force is socially acceptable. However the vast majority of operations undertaken by these groups have nothing to do with 'terrorists' despite their name. In oz for example, despite being around for over 20 years the paramilitary counter-terrorism units have never been deployed against terrorists. So why do they exist? Well they very nearly got abolished in the 80s, then a small bomb went off outside a police station - no one was hurt or claimed responsibility, or prosecuted - and the matter went away. And now we have the never-ending war on terror so an active justification is not even required.

But if these paramilitary cops aren't being used to fight terrorists, then who? In australia these units are primarily used in executing warrants that require a forced-entry raid (a fancy police tactic - basically breaking into someones house and charging around with your weapons out). The military is not allowed to be raised against civilians, but military-trained cops are ok - even if they use the same techniques (!) and are taught by ex-military guys (rrrright). Forced entry raids are used primarily when a suspect has a previous weapons charge (or is suspected of having weapons on site), or when dealing with secure criminal premises - drug houses. These units as they exist in victoria, despite accounting for a tiny minority of the active force have been responsible for something like 60% of police kills since 80s. A lot of this has to do with their preference for forced entry raids, more than the sort of people they're arresting. Many of the people who they killed were unarmed, many were shot from behind - or in the head - and only a handful had a firearm. But the tactic lends itself to violent confrontation. You've got a group of men (no woman has ever qualifed for a paramilitary unit in any australian police force) that are trained to 'eliminate' the threat - that is through quick, reflex responses to danger - shoot-to-kill. Then you have them break into someones house in the middle of the night why they're sleeping and burst into their room yelling. A natural response to hearing someone break into your house is to look for the nearest weapon you can use to defend yourself. Problem is the next step after breaking into the house is storming the bedroom. Meanwhile the suspect has grabbed whatever they can find in order to defend themselves, the cops burst in - see the weapon - and react quickly by shooting the suspect. This has happened many times in the history of paramilitary policing in australia, and in most of these cases the suspect did not have a firearm - and many of the suspects were killed instantly.

Sorry for the rant, i did a lot of research into the history of policing in oz for an aborted history thesis. For more about australia i would suggest the book, Blue Army by Jude McCulloch - fucking excellent book.

[bcbm]

No disagreement that America was the major innovator in the militarization of the police here though, at least in the past decade, they never used SWAT teams, terrorism charges, etc against political protesters... even violent ones. Seems our two fair nations are leading the pack in that regard.

[Forward Union]

Communists, but this is because communists are better organised and more politically relevent.

[Sendo]

The only real slander against anarchists has been the Seattle stuff in 1999. Other than that, they definitely seem to get more airtime than commies do. At least you might get a five second clip of a anarchist talking once in a while. But the attitude is not to take them too seriously, or to pass them off as juvenile, whereas communists are the the big-time, mass murdering terrorists, genocidal Hitlers who will brainwash our youth with fluoridated water.

[AAFCE]

Communists 'cause you folks got nukes.

[Sankofa]

From my experiences:

Not many people have no idea what Anarchism is even if they heard of it. To them it's just some rebellious teenage, skater, punk fad that people go through. I've even met people who thought it was some abstract underground form of punk music :lol:

Commies have a serious bad rap. Being accused of being a Marxist is a serious thing in political circles, just look at the recent election where the McCain camp kept calling Obama a socialist to harm him before the election. Mao forbid you actually confirm you're a communist...you obviously are a baby raping murderer.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The answer to the original question obviously depends on location.

[ashaman1324]

I live in midwest America.
so do i.
southwest ohio to be more specific.
i agree with noxion on this one though.
it must vary by location