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Again, I never said anything about doing anything more than applauding the state for kicking fash ass, the rare times it does occur.
6 is too many tyvm.
Like they haven't had free reign for the past 70 fucking years. For the love of Marx, you're so terrified of state repression that you're willing to let Fascists teach kids and perform surgery and psychoanalysis on minorities and be put in charge of maintaining law and order against minorities and all of that crap. Really, there isn't much more the state can do to us that it hasn't already done -- and I'd risk that to prevent the above-mentioned circumstances from materializing.
They've been shooting at us for years, buddy. And no, when it comes to fascist teachers, doctors, psychiatrists and especially cops, I'm not going to hide behind a trash can shaking in my boots about what the state will do to me if I poke my head out to watch them beat up a fascist.
i would let public outcry drive them out of their jobs. though banning BNP memebers from the police is a good idea. the KKK had a strong grip on the police force in the US south during the civil right days and look what happened; many innocent people were killed by the police (though nothing has really changed)
What's with your macho shit? I don't think socialists have any business using the government to moderate political opinion, so I'm a whiny coward?. Fuck yourself. I'm not going to cry if some fash gets fired but I'm not going to call for it to happen and support legislation either.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
No, I think the fact that you'd let fascists continue teaching our kids and comrades because you're "too good a socialist" to want them to be sacked makes you a whiny coward. I understand you're afraid of the political ramifications, but get a fucking grip; you're talking about accepting fascists, bottom line.
What the hell do you think I'm doing?
I don't give a shit about them getting sacked, I give a shit about using the state to do it. Falling back on that just shows that the working class movement is nonexistant which means our energy would probably be better spent building that then wringing our hands about ZOMG fascists teaching our kids- as though the public education system isn't already teaching them racism, nationalism, etc, etc?
And again, what the fuck is with the macho bullshit? How does not believing in using the government to persecute people make one a coward, exactly? If anything using the state instead of actually struggling to make the fascists obsolete is the "cowardly" position here.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
No. The socialist position is that we must not call on employers to sack workers based on their political beliefs. Employers must not be allowed to decide which personal political views are and aren't acceptable.
Teachers should be judged according to how well they teach - i.e. by their actions.
Instead of calling people names, use your head and follow what is being said.
Oh sweet jesus, preaching about what socialism "really is" and what it's really "all about" as if God himself has bestowed upon you his most divine of secrets... get a grip. There's nothing socialist about arguing that fascists should get to keep their jobs because "the big bad state" shouldn't be "used to sack people based on political beliefs", as if they're deserving of any sort of respect whatsoever. If you're so damned worried about the BNP being victimized, why don't you vote for them next elections, y'know, show them some working class solidarity.
Your failure to capitalize on any and all anti-fascist methods is dangerous and I'm thankful that not all those that claim to fight fascism are as penile about it. "Judge them by their actions, not the fact that they're frothing-from-the-mouth racist neo-Nazis". I figured joining a fascist organization hell-bent on ushering in the fourth reich would be enough "action" for you to gather up some sort of opinion or -- hopefully -- condemnation, but you seem more worried about "protecting the rights of the poor little Billy Brit".
I'd rather not sit here waiting for the BNP to gain enough influence in the bourgeois state that the issue of "state-sponsored" persecution becomes entirely moot. I'd rather any and all action possible at stemming their dangerously growing influence be taken. But if you're willing to risk reliving 1933 then by all means, continue being the "bigger man", valiantly willing to "defend his enemy from injustice" because, afterall, you're such a damned good socialist. I, in the meantime, will be wasting my time raiding the nearest construction site to gather up some bricks.
Funny you should mention bricks... not really a state sponsored initiative that one, is it? I'm certainly not suggesting no action be taken against fascists... I can send you my complete roster of fascists in this area if you doubt my interest in nailing these fuckers... I am merely saying we shouldn't turn to the government to fight antifascist battles, because that is a losing position: the government will use these fuckers (and does) at any opportunity that seems valuable. That's why we need to focus on this from a class perspective and that means building the power of our class and using that power to beat the bastards in the streets.
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
Of course there is. Socialists historically fought for the right of all workers to have the freedom of association, i.e. the freedom to join political parties without the threat of punishment from the bourgeois state and employers.
It has nothing to do with empty socialist principles; it's about practical implications. If you allow the state and bosses to be granted powers to dictate political opinions in the workplace and society generally, you essentially take away the right of working class people to decide for themselves the political views they choose to support. You allow the ruling class to act as mediator of political and social conflict, thus increasing its authority in society.
And your use of 1933 as an example of what supposedly happens when we refuse to grant the ruling class such authority, is not only ridiculous but also gets things the wrong way around. A key reason why the working class in Germany was defeated was precisely that it lacked political independence. It was tied to a large extent to the parties of bourgeois politics, and thus the ruling class was in a strong position to influence workers' views and level of consciousness. Workers need the freedom to decide their political alliances free from the control of employers and the state. That's why socialists refuse to support, and furthermore strongly oppose, workers being sacked for their politics - even workers' whose politics are utterly reactionary.
Very good idea in my opinion.
For the last time, I haven't said that we should turn to the government like weeping virgins begging to be saved from the evil barbarians. I'm talking about capitalizing on every possible way to screw them over, keep them in the gutters of society where they belong and not allow them to come out from under their rocks and become established members of society. And at the moment, short of killing them (which I'm not against at all, but killing isn't all that easy), generating a popular public outcry for them to be removed from these positions of influence is the only way to go about it. And I do not feel comfortable standing by without so much as voicing a concern about them being fascist teachers, doctors, shrinks and cops. RedSHARP there offered that any administrative action taken against professional fascists should come from public mobilization -- I consider myself part of the public and I consider my voicing objections to their employment in public sectors a form of mobilization.
Yet we're allowed to go smash their skulls in with pipes because of their political association?
And thus stregnthen the authority and legitimacy of our main enemy - the bourgeois state?
The BNP is a miniscule party with no clout in society. Arming our real enemies, i.e. entities which actually do possess power, with even greater power, with the justification that it's needed to suppress a bunch of non-entities, is, at best, an inexcusable error of judgement.
There is a fundamental difference between calling on the state to suppress the far-right and working people defending themselves against racist assault. You need to be able to grasp this difference.
Also, it's not so much their political associations which concerns us - but their actions. The far-right has no real presence as a violent threat on British streets today. Go back a couple of decades and it did. Physical confrontation againt those on the far-right was advocated by socialists not because their ideas were found to be morally repulsive, but because far-right organisations posed a very real daily threat to working class people from immigrant communities, as well as to leftwing activists. It had nothing to do with far-right views in the abstract; force was needed to deal with force.
