Since when were we on the Left frightened to fight crypto-fascsists?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
49
0

Ouch.

I really like Golriz. I thought she was used by the Party when they misrepresented her background during the election and I think she’s had some teething issues (sending out the horse trading strategy over the Waka jumping Bill to media was wincing), but her moral and ethical compass is good and she’s made some really impressive stances.

This desire to articulate limits to Free Speech given her own previous background isn’t one of them.

Look, I don’t think these alt-right polemicists should gain access to council venues either, just as I wouldn’t want ISIS recruitment seminars in the Town Hall, KKK monthly meet & greets in Council Chambers or Man love Boy Association annual sing alongs at Silo Park,  but I still support them appearing if they find a private venue, just as I am prepared to protest their appearing!

I also believe we should challenge these crypto-facsists to a debate. Allow a council funded venue if they are prepared to do a live-streamed debate on their views.

Since when were we on the left so frightened and needing trigger free safe spaces to hide in when the disruption of spiteful anger in the form of fascism rears its hideous head?

Is that what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did in World War 2? Demand fascists just not be platformed?

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We are a nation that has proudly championed progressive liberal democracy from our bones, we are not cowards, we have not become guardians of this light only to flee at its first flicker.

Debate these clowns, not to turn their minds, but to show all their possible recruits how hollow and empty their rhetoric of anger really is.

 

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49 COMMENTS

  1. As a Green Party member, one of my concerns has been and is in this instance, that it appears, to the wider public, to exclusively represent a hard-left perspective when it comes to these sorts of situations that require a more nuanced approach. My view on this situation is likely very different to many other members of the party. Banning them is ridiculous as their videos are freely available online. And to top it all off, I felt that any attempts to ban them works against the interests of the progressive movement by making it look like it is against free speech, and also sets a precedent for right wing governments to take advantage of and far more brutally use. Finally, having thought about the arguments of free speech versus censorship for some time, I had already come to the conclusion that free speech is the lesser of the two evils. If one looks around the world, countries with censorship are pretty much all oppressive to one degree or another. In other words, censorship, harnessed by the state, is nearly always more dangerous and damaging than individuals venting their spleen. And if individuals venting their spleen do lead to negative results, as can happen, then a) they have to be counteracted in other ways and b) they are usually the spear head of much larger forces that are in play anyway.

    • +100 ESOTERIC PINEAPPLES…well said!

      ….and if one suppresses views it just makes them go underground, fuels conspiracy theories, and prevents positive dialogue and dialectic and opportunity to change views…this is essential for democracy and peace

  2. Fascism is a big test for liberals. Because they are comfortable in the delusion that capitalism can allow individual rights and freedoms so long as we defend them.

    Capitalism actually denies even the most basic rights to the majority. Take the most basic, the right to life. Billions have perished, and are and will continue to perish, in wars and genocides fueled by the drive for profit.

    What people do not seem to get is that fascism is inevitable as capitalism enters its terminal decline and fall. It is the last resort of a dying ruling class that has to unleash the terror of a violent anti-worker movement on the streets to smash the threat of revolution.

    In other words when the playground becomes the barricade, liberals prefer fascists to revolutionaries.

    That is why no-platforming of fascists is not a bourgeois liberal exercise in defending the rights of individuals. It is not a matter of equating fascists rights with the rights of those struggling to attain these rights.

    It is a matter of the survival not only of the working masses as producers of wealth, but of humanity facing extinction.

    Revolutionaries use different standards to those of bourgeois philosophers when defending bourgeois rights. The only bourgeois rights revolutionaries defend are those that advance the interests of the working class.

    Workers interests are advanced by organizing as a class force to defeat all reactionary measures brought against them by the capitalists.

    Similarly, the fascists subscribe to only those bourgeois rights that protect and defend bourgeois society (in the name of race and nation).

    But liberty, equality and fraternity are empty vessels for fascists because their victory requires repression, inequality and the smashing of worker solidarity.

    For revolutionaries, bourgeois liberty, equality and fraternity will be attained for the first time in human history in a future socialist society where classes are abolished and the state withers away providing for all on the basis of “to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.”

    The revolutionary utopia trumps the fascist dystopia.

  4. Didn’t they themselves cancel their visit after they were denied use of council property? They were not denied entry to NZ. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anyone is obliged to provide them with a platform. Goff’s actions are free speech too.

      • They weren’t banned from NZ, they were denied Council venues. Big difference. They can hire any other facility if they so wish.

        Funny how cake makers deny service to gay couples, and the Right is ok with this as freedom of belief. But the same Right vents its spleen if anyone denies a service to right-wingers based on their beliefs.

        Denying a cake is ok. Denying a meeting venue is not?

    • Knarf. You’re right. Goff is a mayor with the guts to stop this silly young wannabe agent provocateur ( if she even has the intelligence to know what that means) from Canada pushing her immature hate views on to New Zealanders in our publicly owned venues. Let them get their own private platform and let them and the platform owners deal with the consequences.
      I don’t want my rates aiding this childish venom.
      I imagine the money raised to counter Goff came from the wealthy Actoid Brash types of this country and I’d bet that real Canadians are ashamed of this pair. Good on Aus and UK for banning them properly. Who needs them? except perhaps RWNJs (and regrettably Chris Trotter is sinking into this category) who will no doubt regret their chance to get easy sensationalist copy but will blither on with their ‘free speech’ cliches.

      • Please provide a link to these immature hate views you speak of. I don’t want my rates being used to shut down free speech.

        • Yep, just like I don’t want my rates being used to give a platform for neo-fascists.

          But if you’re so concerned, rent a hall and provide it to them free of charge. No one has banned those two nazi nutjobs from New Zealand, in case you hadn’t noticed, OW.

          • And there you go with the neo fascists slander again. Still waiting for someone to provide a link proving it. Good to know you’re on Phil’s side over this, free speech is fine as long as you agree with the view.

            • Orwell wrote an interesting piece on the word ‘fascist’ He calls for a clear and generally accepted definition of this word.

              “It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

              http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

              I had not heard of the pair who want to debate religion here. While not unsympathetic with the very deep seated human religious impulse, I don’t understand the bother about discussion of this. We live in a culture which is touted as rational, scientific, secular and profoundly materialistic. Religion is none of these. All Abrahamic religions are questionable and all should be questioned.
              In the sterile wasteland of no real open public discussion of anything, anywhere, why are people crying over ‘free speech.’ I think we farewelled this chimera years ago.
              I recommend that all and everybody sit down quietly and read the old Sufi story ‘The Conference of the Birds.’

            • They are fascists, OW. Your defence of them shows your fascist tendencies as well. Are we clear on this?

          • Frank, Goff had never seen or heard of this couple, he has no knowledge of what they stand for, he is a week mayor who has been pressured by, and given into a bunch of lefty activists.

            And since you live in Wellington, they are not YOUR rates, they are my rates.

            When you call people names like “neo fascits” and “nazi nutjobs” you should have the knowledge and evidence to back that up. You dont!

            • he is a week mayor who has been pressured by, and given into a bunch of lefty activists.

              When you call Goff names like “a weak mayor” and “given into a bunch of lefty activists” you should have the knowledge and evidence to back that up. Do you? Not that I can see.

              • Well the comments about Goff are true, it has been well reported but never put in the terms I have used. Try reading the papers!

                In the meantime, please supply a link to one of this “neo nazi nutjobs” videos that will convince me you are right about them. Well of course you cant.

                You are the one with the nazi attitude.

  5. There is a war going on for our hearts, minds & souls. The survival of our species will depend on the outcome. Fight back against the vitriolic attack on ‘free speech’ being conducted by the ‘unholy alliance’ of; shout down identity politic fanatics, PC faux lefties & social engineering economic liberals, neo-liberals & libertarians.

  6. Debating with far right idealogues is pointless. They did not gain their prejudices through rational thought and cannot be rationaly argued out of them. We do not need to prove to anyone that we are a free and open society – especially not to people who wouldn’t listen anyway. The misguided urge to engage with these people in the name of ‘free speech’ might, eighty years ago, have been labelled ‘appeasement’.

    • This is the argument many are using, ‘you can’t debate with the far right’ because they won’t change their mind. What this point which gets endlessly parroted by people who want to rob voters of platform completely misses is that we aren’t debating crypto-fascists to change THEIR mind, we are doing it to stop those they are trying to recruit!

      I appreciate I’ve made this fucking point a thousand times for our trigger word safe space ‘allies’ but it’s important to remind you of it again because either your comprehension skills are lacking or you just wanted to parrot some weak defence of banning free speech.

  8. I’m glad you brought up “our grandfathers” Martyn, you are right they did not ban nazis from public meetings, but they didnt debate them either. they shot them. If we are serious about freedom, including freedom of speech, we have to defend it against those who want to take it away. And the far right are pretty clear that they are for strong authoritarian governments, no freedom of movement and no freedom of religion for anyone. debating freedom with people who have no interest in it is futile. They need to be stopped. One more thing, in the 1930s it was the socialists (not liberal democrats) who were first to fight fascism, or did you forget that?

    • For what must be the billionth time – is it the billionth time folks?

      It feels like the billionth time.

      Debating these crypto-facsists isn’t about turning them Billy Bold, who have I explained that it’s about Billy Bold?

  9. Martyn, you are being disingenuous regarding the word ‘debate’ as the far lefts Idea (and yours) of debate is protesting outside the venues and disrupting inside the actual meetings so no actual ‘debate’ can occur. Just look at the fiasco of Berkley where voices that differ from a left perspective are denied the chance to speak and as such no debating actually takes place as the meeting is either shut down or doesn’t actually take place. Is this what you mean by debate Martyn?, John Minto is of the same mind set as you…don’t allow them to speak!
    Care to explain what YOU would like to see happen if a venue is offered to these 2 speakers, would you like them to say what they have to say and then ask questions afterwards to them in a ‘debate’?

    • Why I’m so glad you asked – TDB is looking at the possibility of setting up a live streamed debate against these people – if it happens, details will come and you can watch what I mean.

      • If this actually happens, then I will tune in to the live stream Martyn. I believe it will be a good thing for both right and left in an actual debate. But I will not hold my breath that the protestors will actually allow them to speak at a public forum…the left just do not allow views that go against their views from being publically heard. I wish you luck!

        • “the left just do not allow views that go against their views from being publically heard”

          And yet your comments are allowed to be published here mr imright?

  10. Kind of bizarre and none too ironic that “the left” assist to fund raise 50 grand plus to get these people here who espouse the exact opposite of what the so called “left” think.

    I guess that money could have done a lot of immediate good for the not so well off but the puritanical academics that make up social liberal left politics can’t see that.

    The fact is no one gives a shit if these bores speak here but Chris Trotter, Jordan Williams, Don Brash et all, do. Christ it’s no wonder the right see the left as such easy to play schmucks!

    • Are you for relz? Stefan and Southern are just a baby Donald Brash. Light weights, they get schooled easily. Imaginary monetises at the boarder don’t work on the woke. This isn’t a raid it’s a conquest.

  11. +100 ESOTERIC PINEAPPLES…well said!

    ….and if one suppresses views it just makes them go underground, fuels conspiracy theories, and prevents positive dialogue and dialectic and opportunity to change views…this is essential for democracy and peace

  12. “Since when were we on the Left frightened to fight crypto-fascsists?”

    Because some of us are too busy in our lives to deal with every visting fascist, religious bigot, homophobe and transphobe, to cross our shores. And it ceases to be a debate when one of those neo-fascist “activisrts” triggers a right wing loose unit to burn down a mosque or synagogue, or kills some.

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