White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[GMDino]

Are any of us ready to say these right wing extremists are a real threat to civilized society yet?  Or are we sticking with the "there's a small number of them" theory?

[Belsnickel]

First, white supremacy, radical Islam, or Communism aren't winning this game, authoritarian regimes win it. That is a common thread between all of those.

Second, white supremacist violence is more of a threat in this country than radical Islamic violence. That may or may not be true worldwide, but it is what is true here. I, personally, am more concerned about the threats here at home.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-18-2019, 11:58 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: There is an odd tendency for people to actually defend, or minimize, how much of a monster Stalin was.  I think it's largely due to two reasons.  Some people think elevating Stalin to Hitler level monster somehow diminishes how evil Hitler was.  It obviously doesn't, but I do see this mentality at work.  The other camp are those attempting to defend communism as an ideology and thus downplaying how many people have been murdered and brutalized due to its tenants.

It's the same reason why people do the same with the Japanese. The US dropped two bombs on them, and they are our allies now (and China is evil) so a lot of people forget about the mass rape and genocide they did in China, or mass rape and slavery they did in Korea. Or how 1 out of every 3 POWs held by the Japanese didn't survive (I don't believe that's counting those whose surrender they declined to accept and outright killed on the battlefield instead).

But hey, they make anime now.


(Meanwhile Italy and Mussolini are almost a forgotten part of the Axis. Name the last time you played a WW2 game, or saw a WW2 movie/show where Italy was the enemy.)

[Belsnickel]

(03-18-2019, 11:58 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: There is an odd tendency for people to actually defend, or minimize, how much of a monster Stalin was.  I think it's largely due to two reasons.  Some people think elevating Stalin to Hitler level monster somehow diminishes how evil Hitler was.  It obviously doesn't, but I do see this mentality at work.  The other camp are those attempting to defend communism as an ideology and thus downplaying how many people have been murdered and brutalized due to its tenants.

While I agree with your overall point, here, this falls into the false narrative that communism is somehow responsible to Stalin's bullshit. Stalin's rule wasn't a communist one because he was a dictator and communism as an ideology requires democracy.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 12:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: While I agree with your overall point, here, this falls into the false narrative that communism is somehow responsible to Stalin's bullshit. Stalin's rule wasn't a communist one because he was a dictator and communism as an ideology requires democracy.

Well then it should be easy for people to stop trying to minimalize it since it's not their ideology that committed these atrocities. and yet...they do.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 12:33 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: First, white supremacy, radical Islam, or Communism aren't winning this game, authoritarian regimes win it. That is a common thread between all of those.

Second, white supremacist violence is more of a threat in this country than radical Islamic violence. That may or may not be true worldwide, but it is what is true here. I, personally, am more concerned about the threats here at home.

3000 is a lot to catch up to.  And the vast majority of mass killings have not been right wing extremists.  

[GMDino]

(03-18-2019, 01:15 PM)michaelsean Wrote: 3000 is a lot to catch up to.  And the vast majority of mass killings have not been right wing extremists.  

In the US?  Are you sure?

[Dill]

(03-18-2019, 11:46 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Every time I feel the need to defend Stalin I just take a breath and remember that it's OK to criticize him.  He is, after all, a super Caucasian.  Literally from the area from which the term was derived.  I've never heard anyone but neo-Nazis and white supremecists try to explain why Hitler's death toll might be lower, but Stalin?  Whoa...some of those people were probably criminals to begin with.

(03-18-2019, 11:58 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: There is an odd tendency for people to actually defend, or minimize, how much of a monster Stalin was.  I think it's largely due to two reasons.  Some people think elevating Stalin to Hitler level monster somehow diminishes how evil Hitler was.  It obviously doesn't, but I do see this mentality at work.  The other camp are those attempting to defend communism as an ideology and thus downplaying how many people have been murdered and brutalized due to its tenants.

"Defend Stalin"?   Diminish Hitler?

Let's maybe take a breath and remember that--for professional historians at least--it is ok to ground history in an existing factual record, and limit our inferences about "monsters" to what these facts allow.  In fact, that is the point of their endeavors, and the basis of their professional integrity.  What is NOT the point is making people look good or bad, especially to accord with popular images of history and "what everyone already knows."  

If professional historians, going by state records, put the number of deaths in Stalin's time (especially executions) at a much lower number than people with an ideological axe to grind and no such access, then, for professional historians of whatever political stripe, this is what they go with. They do not reject facts (or invent them) to make some people they study look good or others look bad.

If you invert this process, evaluating in the first instance whether historical work "defends" or "diminishes" historical figures you like or don't like, regardless of its relation to the aforesaid factual record, then you are not doing history as professional historians do.  What you are doing is closer to theology or ideological history (as opposed to history of ideology).

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 02:27 PM)GMDino Wrote: In the US?  Are you sure?

The Dylan dude was.  Most of the others just flat out crazies.  Several had previous left leanings although it was crazy more than ideology.  

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 02:30 PM)Dill Wrote: "Defend Stalin"?   Diminish Hitler?

Let's maybe take a breath and remember that--for professional historians at least--it is ok to ground history in an existing factual record, and limit our inferences about "monsters" to what these facts allow.  In fact, that is the point of their endeavors, and the basis of their professional integrity.  What is NOT the point is making people look good or bad, especially to accord with popular images of history and "what everyone already knows."  

If professional historians, going by state records, put the number of deaths in Stalin's time (especially executions) at a much lower number than people with an ideological axe to grind and no such access, then, for professional historians of whatever political stripe, this is what they go with. They do not reject facts (or invent them) to make some people they study look good or others look bad.

If you invert this process, evaluating in the first instance whether historical work "defends" or "diminishes" historical figures you like or don't like, regardless of its relation to the aforesaid factual record, then you are not doing history as professional historians do.  What you are doing is closer to theology or ideological history (as opposed to history of ideology).

Well I'm lucky in that I don't like either of the two so I have no bias between them.  

[Belsnickel]

(03-18-2019, 01:15 PM)michaelsean Wrote: 3000 is a lot to catch up to.  And the vast majority of mass killings have not been right wing extremists.  

9/11 is almost 18 years behind us. Threats evolve. AQ is not the main Islamic terrorist threat globally, even. The threat today is what I am talking about, and the bigger threat in our borders is right-wing extremism compared to radical Islam. From 9/11 to the end of 2016, nearly three-quarters of incidents of violent extremism were carried our by right-wing extremists. https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf

That's a GAO figure, not something from a think tank or biased media source. But even the Daily Caller agrees that violent extremism is predominantly from right-wing extremists in this country. They came up with 92% of ideologically motivated homicides in their time frame. https://dailycaller.com/2017/06/23/fact-check-is-the-far-right-largely-responsible-for-extremist-violence/

[GMDino]

(03-18-2019, 02:32 PM)michaelsean Wrote: The Dylan dude was.  Most of the others just flat out crazies.  Several had previous left leanings although it was crazy more than ideology.  

So the guy who shot up the Synagogue in Pittsburgh was just a "crazy" or he had previous "left leanings"?  The guy who mailed all the pipe bombs to CNN and other "leftist" people?

The incel guy who shot up the Yoga studio?

And while not a mass murder the guy who ran over a crowd of people in Charlottesville? 

That doesn't even count the ones who were arrested just for plotting.

I think that's glossing over what right wing extremists do.

[Belsnickel]

(03-18-2019, 01:12 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Well then it should be easy for people to stop trying to minimalize it since it's not their ideology that committed these atrocities. and yet...they do.

My bet is more that we minimize the atrocities of Stalin because we allied ourselves with him. It's an uncomfortable topic for us in the United States because we helped him gain a stronger hold on power after the war and we turned a blind eye to just how bad he was while it was advantageous for us to do so. Plenty of people that have inaccurate views of communism have zero idea how horrible Stalin was, and it's because we don't talk about it much in this country. Information on the USSR taught in the general history books is "they allied with Hitler, Hitler betrayed them, we allied with them, then after the war we entered into the Cold War because they were communist." That's what it boils down to if you don't go out looking for more information on your own.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 02:47 PM)GMDino Wrote: So the guy who shot up the Synagogue in Pittsburgh was just a "crazy" or he had previous "left leanings"?  The guy who mailed all the pipe bombs to CNN and other "leftist" people?

The incel guy who shot up the Yoga studio?

And while not a mass murder the guy who ran over a crowd of people in Charlottesville? 

That doesn't even count the ones who were arrested just for plotting.

I think that's glossing over what right wing extremists do.

Most were not right wing extremists and some even had left wing leanings prior to the incident is what I said.   Most and some, and the some I didn't even connect to ideology.  

[GMDino]

(03-18-2019, 02:55 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Most were not right wing extremists and some even had left wing leanings prior to the incident is what I said.   Most and some, and the some I didn't even connect to ideology.  

Do you have some sort of source for this?

[Dill]

(03-18-2019, 11:45 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Anti-Communism is an ideology?  This is literally the first time I've ever heard someone make this assertion.  As I stated previously, communism has such an abysmal track record that I'd question the sanity of anyone who wasn't anti-communist.

Studying anti-communism AS AN IDEOLOGY has been a subfield of Cold War history for decades.  Over the last 10 years it has expanded well beyond that.

For example, check out this introduction to the Jan. 2018 issue of the Journal of Contemporary History, entirely dedicated to anti-communism in the interwar years.

Naming the Enemy: Anti-communism in Transnational Perspective
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022009417735165

Here is the abstract:
In this introduction to the special issue on transnational anti-communism, Marla Stone and Giuliana Chamedes present the contours of a comparative approach to the study of anti-communism, raising issues of its origins and impact, and calling for attention to anti-communism as a discrete ideology with a defined set of beliefs and practices. The special issue of six articles, edited by Stone and Chamedes, focuses on anti-communism in the interwar period in a range of locations, including India under British rule, colonial Madagascar, Italy, France, Britain and the United States of America. The essays emphasize comparative issues regarding the emergence and consolidation of anti-communist movements and practices in the 1920s and 1930s, and they argue for the transnational and international character of interwar anti-communism, and for its profound implications for both national and global politics.

Notice that the articles in this journal focus only on a subfield of this subfield. 

Here is another article from the same journal from last May.
The Johnstone Affair and Anti-Communism in Interwar India
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022009416688257?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1

For some less recent examples in book form
M.J. Heale's American Anti-Communism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830-1970  (1990).
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/american-anti-communism

Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America by Cyndy Hendershot  (2003)
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/anti-communism-and-popular-culture-in-mid-century-america/.
(Hendershot is a literary critic, not a historian, but this work does a good job of explaining how anti-communism permeated everyday American during the Cold War, even in such seemingly innocuous cultural forms as cartoons (Rocky and Bullwinkle).

Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History (2011) by Larry CePlair.
https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Communism-Twentieth-Century-America-Critical-History/dp/1440800472

Those are just some works in which "anti-communism" appears in the title. There are many other articles, books and conference papers dealing with the subject as well without this reference. As I say, a subfield of history--and not just of U.S. history.

[Vas Deferens]

so much easier to identify the brown ones.

but those white guys were just crazy and a couple were on medicare. obvious commie. don't worry about the bible in his hand or the fetus decals on his truck. obvious commie.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 03:04 PM)GMDino Wrote: Do you have some sort of source for this?

Adam Lanza was most likely a liberal and so was Jared Loughner.  Based on accounts of people who knew them.  But like I said, what they wasn't ideological. Obvioulsy the guy who shot the congressman at the baseball practice was.   There was once an email going around that listed all of these democratic shooters and then snopes or one of those places went through them all, and basically what they concluded was the majority had no real political ideology.  They were disgruntled or nuts or both and that's what was behind it.  

[Vas Deferens]

(03-18-2019, 03:17 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Adam Lanza was most likely a liberal and so was Jared Loughner.  Based on accounts of people who knew them.  But like I said, what they wasn't ideological. Obvioulsy the guy who shot the congressman at the baseball practice was.   There was once an email going around that listed all of these democratic shooters and then snopes or one of those places went through them all, and basically what they concluded was the majority had no real political ideology.  They were disgruntled or nuts or both and that's what was behind it.  

Did this highly regarded source of information come with a warning about the repercussions of failing to forward it to 8 others?

[*michaelsean*]

(03-18-2019, 03:21 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Did this highly regarded source of information come with a warning about the repercussions of failing to forward it to 8 others?

Yeah they'd mow down you and anyone around you.