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Can/Should the state be utilised for antifascist means?
split from BNP data thread
In other words, society should be ruled by the bourgeois state's thought police. People should be sacked by employers for what goes on in their heads, and not even for their actions. That doesn't seem to me as a situation which leftists should be welcoming at all.Originally Posted by Taig
Well, sorry, but that BNP member has a point. And you know the situation is a fucked up one when members of the BNP are allowed to appear as guardians of the freedom of political association (while those on the left lead appeals on the state to restrict democratic rights).Originally Posted by Kami
Last edited by Holden Caulfield; 20th November 2008 at 10:50.
VG1917 you really think confirmed and open rascists should be allowed to remain in positions of power and influence in schools, police forces, etc?
the BNP are lying hypocritical fucks, they tried to get an SWP teacher sacked so they can shove that one up their arses
I think such people should be judged by their actions, not their thoughts. And people like teachers and doctors should be judged by how good they are at doing their jobs.
teachers who are openly rascist should be allowed to educate children? allow them to hold positions of trust, influence and from which they can affect world views of children at a young age? to think that white kids should come first coz it is their country, would you want this person to teach classes with minorities in them?
doctors fair enuf they do not effect people in the ways the police, civil service and teachers do, although if i were a minority i would like the idea of my doctor being a rascist/homophobe.
Well if we can't allow ugly racists to teach our children, we probably shouldn't allow those crazy hippies who preach the violent overthrow of our beloved queen and hate our boys overseas either!
As for police, they should all be fired/executed.
VG has the correct position here.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
I'm really divided on this issue. I can understand why some people don't want fascists to be employed in professions which involve being responsible for other members of society, such as teaching, and support the government's decision to remove BNP members from the police force, but the principle behind this position - that an individual's political ideas should be used by the state to deprive them of their job and prevent them from accessing certain professions - makes me uncomfortable, not because I sympathize with what the BNP stands for, but because I don't want the same principle to be applied to the left at some point in the future.
If, however, parents at a school set up a campaign to remove a teacher who is known to be a BNP member, or any other kind of popular iniatitve which draws on the resources and support of the local community, socialists should support their demands and fight for the removal of BNP members on the grounds that allowing these individuals to retain their positions would violate the democractic will of the community, and cause the community to lose faith in the legitimacy of the institutions which employ BNP members. This is entirely different from turning to the state to carry out purges.
What do people think about this second, community-based option?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Oh, what, it's unfair for some poor innocent little fascist to lose their job? I mean, who gives a fuck if they espouse an ideology that led to the deaths of tens of millions of people just 60-odd years ago, and they've made it damned clear they'd like to do the exact same thing all over again. Who cares if they terrorize minorities, call for race wars and the genocidal extermination and forced rellocation of millions of people based on the colour of their skin?
No, losing your job because your skin is brown or yellow or black is unfair. These BNP fucks were not born fascists, they weren't born with some ingrained urge to discriminate people that they can not control, and they certainly aren't "victims of circumstance" or innocent bystanders. They're the ones that want to send all of us reds and immigrants and non-whites off to die in concentration camps. Get your fucking priorities straight. They made a decision to be who they are, unlike their victims. So excuse me and fuck right off and hope to god I don't find your name on that list you little sack of shit.
Morality isn't a fucking issue here. At all. We all damned well know who these people are and what they want to do, and killing them all is no more a moral dilemma than the destruction of the Nazi Party. What we have been given here is a fucking golden oppurtunity to rectify the failure that led to the victory of the German Nazi Party. If the anti-fascists in Germany in the 1920s had had this sort of list handed to them, there wouldn't have been a second of hesitation.
Wow, this is one of the stupidest things I've ever fucking read in my entire life. They should be judged on their actions? Excuse me, the entire point of the anti-fascist movement is to make sure that their actions never exist in the first place. You've already had one god damned fine example of what happened when people like this were left to their "own thoughts". Europe is littered with the graves of 100,000,000 because of it.
Nobody gives a shit if some fascist loses their job. The issue is an institutionalized position of political persecution. You think if it becomes policy for racists to be fired, they won't step up their (already well abused) position of firing unionized, radical, leftist or otherwise combatant workers? We don't call on the state to fight the fascists because we recognize that the state is firmly against us and anything used against the far-right will certainly be used against the far-left. If you can shame them into getting fired, great. That's some solid political pressure. But we should not and, really, can not support legislated measures to "weed out" fascists, because those same laws and reasons will be turned against us. The class enemy doesn't play favorites, it attacks any threat to its power.
Morality was never the issue here. The issue is what attempting to use the state as an anti-fascist force actually means in concrete terms. If one group is allowed to be sacked for their politics beliefs, it opens the door for that to happen more and who do you think the next (if not primary) target will be? Who is more of a threat to the bosses, fascists or unionizers? Who will the bosses target first if allowed the political leeway to do so?
The lines were clearly drawn in Germany in the 1920s and what we saw was the elements already within the state who could've been combative capitulating left and right for fear of direct confrontation. Fascists are beaten through the organizing of our class and combating them in the streets, not getting them sacked from their jobs due to political discrimination on the part of the state. In case you forgot, the bourgeois state is our enemy more than the fascists playing at being a real political party, and if we give it more power over our political lives and decisions that will be used against us whether it is used against them or not.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
we arent talking solely about the state though, we are talking about pressure from below, from parents who do not want their children taught about the world by a rascists.
The BNP support whites first ideas such as if two patients need treated if one if white and one is black the white should always be given priority, does this make you think they could be trusted to teach minorities, to act in the civil serice or police force?
I wouldn't want my young children (too young to critically evaluate arguments) to be taught by any teacher who tries to influence them with his or her prejudices. Teachers should teach the subjects as objectively as possible.
But we should judge them according to their ability as teachers, not according to their personal views. Do you think a devout muslim, who is known for believing that all "kafirs" (i.e. non-muslims) are enemies of God who will burn in hell, should be sacked from his position as history teacher to a class full of Jews, Christians and Hindus, even though he follows the curriculum and teaches historical facts in an objective fashion? What about a black nationalist whose views can be interpreted as anti-white? What about a trade union activist whose militancy can be construed as being prejudiced against students from middle class backgrounds?
If a doctor acts in a prejudiced manner towards his patients (e.g. giving whites preferential treatment over non-whites), he should lose his job. What socialists demand is that people's political views and affiliations, in and of themselves, should not be basis for being sacked or punished. Socialists fought for the right to freedom of association for a reason.
Why should it be supported if the individual in question is a good teacher?
Why should an institution not be allowed to employ members of the BNP? The right to employment should be based on the possession of a "correct" set of political views?
The capitalist state shouldn't be used for "antifascist means". Only the working class can and should fight fascism. The working class cannot play an auxiliary role while the state purges fascism; it most play the main role.
“Where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards, where he believes in authority, in those set over him, the main thing is to teach him to walk by himself.” - Marx
"It is illogical and incorrect to reduce everything to the economic [socialist] revolution, for the question is: how to eliminate [political] oppression? It cannot be eliminated without an economic revolution... But to limit ourselves to this is to lapse into absurd and wretched ... Economism." - Lenin
"[During a revolution, bourgeois democratic] demands [of the working class] ... push so hard on the outer limits of capital's rule that they appear likewise as forms of transition to a proletarian dictatorship." - Luxemburg
“Well, then go forward, Tower of Bebel! [August] Bebel is one of the most brilliant representatives of scientific international socialism. His writings, speeches and works make up a great tower, a strong arsenal, from which the working class should take their weapons. We cannot recommend it enough… And if the [International] deserves to be named Tower of Bebel... well, then we are lucky to have such a Tower of Bebel with us.” - Vooruit
obviously, but the issue is if the state is firing BNP police men etc, is good? or whether they should be removed but bottom up pressure, or whether they should be left in their postions
Simple: It's useless, unless the state is doing this because it is forced by an independently organized working class (i.e. the working class plays a primary role). And even when it does because of a demand from the working class I think the working class made a mistake. Functions and positions shouldn't be distributed according to ideologies but according to skills and elections.
“Where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards, where he believes in authority, in those set over him, the main thing is to teach him to walk by himself.” - Marx
"It is illogical and incorrect to reduce everything to the economic [socialist] revolution, for the question is: how to eliminate [political] oppression? It cannot be eliminated without an economic revolution... But to limit ourselves to this is to lapse into absurd and wretched ... Economism." - Lenin
"[During a revolution, bourgeois democratic] demands [of the working class] ... push so hard on the outer limits of capital's rule that they appear likewise as forms of transition to a proletarian dictatorship." - Luxemburg
“Well, then go forward, Tower of Bebel! [August] Bebel is one of the most brilliant representatives of scientific international socialism. His writings, speeches and works make up a great tower, a strong arsenal, from which the working class should take their weapons. We cannot recommend it enough… And if the [International] deserves to be named Tower of Bebel... well, then we are lucky to have such a Tower of Bebel with us.” - Vooruit
As far as I'm concerned, anyone willing to stick it to a BNP member is doing a damned good job.
I don't really care if the state does jack shit. I never called on the state to do anything -- for if they won't, then we damned well should.
You said the word "state" so many times in your fucking post that it gave me a headache. Really, if you've not got the balls to shove one up the fash's ass any any oppurtunity then fuck off. If I was walking down the street and I saw a bunch of capitalist corporate executives in $3000 suits beating the shit out of some manky little fascist shit I'd hurry my ass over and join them, not stand by the side wagging my finger complaining that what they're doing is wrong because they're capitalists. And if that's what you'd do, then fuck you.
I am inclined to agree with those who say the state can be 'used' to fight fascism. Note the word 'used.' We don't depend on the state, we simply use them to do our job. That way, we not only fight fascism but we won't be losing our men and material on this, instead, we'll be using the state to fight the battle for us. Which means, two of our enemies will be fighting each other, thus getting weakened in the same breath. It's a win-win situation for us.
I would not even call it "using" since our involvement and co-operation with the state in persecuting fascists is completely nil. It's not like we're leading the beauraucratic charge; we've been fighting the fash for decades, and it's entirely rational to support and applaud when they get a couple black eyes and bloody noses from our other "enemy".
As for "precedence", I'm fairly certain that the majority of people realize that there's a strong difference between socialism and fascism. Even in the United States, the Socialist Party (as liberal as it may be) is an established Party which even won a seat on Congress back in 2006, while organizations such as the American Nazi Party and other fascist/racist parties are still banned.
I do not think that many people harbour the idea that socialist, communist and anarchist activists can be lumped up into the same category as white supremacists, neo-Nazis, boneheads and racists. And the period of official state-sanctioned persecution is long-since over -- Communist parties and the like haven't been illegal in the western world for decades since the anti-communist purges of the 50s and 60s.
I don't believe that the state can really be effective in stemming the tide of fascism in the long haul. I believe that in the final analysis it will up to working people using their power independant to that of the state and its reactionary measures which are often beneficial to fascist movement, in order to truly put an end to it.
Well some are and that's the issue here. The state should never be used for antifascist work.
I count "six." Brutal man.
If you haven't gotten the brains to recognize what happens when we give our enemies free reign to moderate political opinion, you can fuck off.
Even if you knew when they were done pounding on the fascist they'd shoot you?
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
