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Vice News: Extremism Experts Are Starting to Worry About the Left

A

AlimNassor

Banned
Why do we automatically ignore any extremism from the left?Look at how bad the right have become...do we want the left to become just as bad? Nip it in the bud.
 
Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Horse shoe is real. The further you go to each side, the closer you start coming back around to violent fascism. What's going on at our universities right now is fucking insane. Even GAF went a little off the deep end for a while.

Rationality and civility must win out.
 
P

paragonpro

Banned
I dont think its extremism per say, i think if you back people into a corner, or make people's rights feel threatened the way minorites do under a right leaning goverment, they are going to lash out, unfortunatley, some times in violence, i dont endorse it, but some people feel there is no other way out. I think the right would do the same thing over their guns and "religious rights" even if those "rights" exist actively to put others down.
 
DietRob

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
Oh get the fuck out of here.

Last I checked all these 'milita's' are politically aligned with the far right.
 
L

Lautaro

Member
giphy.gif


You survived the far right extremism during Obama even if it was supported by the GOP. You'll be fine dealing with isolated and anecdotal violence from the left.

EDIT: also far right extremism didn't ended after Trump got elected and it has costed more lives than anything the left has done so clearly both sides are not the same.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
If the state and socio-economic system wasn't oppressive and exploitative, they wouldn't have anything to worry about from the left.

Now, there are violent clashes on college campuses involving groups like Antifa, the anti-fascist group, taking on the alt-right; and aggressive anti-Trump rallies attended by members of the Redneck Revolt, a new pro-minority, anti-supremacist group that encourages its members to train with rifles. Online, hard leftists increasingly discuss politics in dire terms, and rationalize violence as a necessity— even the true inheritor of traditional progressive activism. (Or, in the case of the “Punch a Nazi” meme, a fun game.)
Click to expand...

Oh how awful, antifascists and people learning to protect themselves and other people at risk.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
I don't remember this sort of indictment of the right when Gabby Giffords was shot.
 
L

Lil Marco

Banned
Right wing extremism is the biggest threat to western society rn (aside from political islam and climate change) so let's just focus on that for the time being.

Leftist "extremism" is just a natural reaction to the generations of exploitation and state violence that the Right has been getting away with in America.

Vice gonna Vice tho. Gotta pander to the edgelords.
 
F

Fudgepuppy

Banned
Lil Marco said:
right wing extremism is the biggest threat to western society rn (aside from political islam and climate change) so let's just focus on that for the time being.

Vice gonna Vice tho. Gotta pander to the edgelords.
Click to expand...

To be fair though, Vice otherwise posts like 95% left leaning stuff. Their Facebook page is hilarious, as all the comment sections are basically people going "REEEEE CUUUCKS!"
 
N

Nepenthe

Member
Yeah, I'm not surprised that the left is not tolerating being the right's doormat anymore or constantly ceding ground to a side that's made it clear for nearly a decade they will never compromise with us, particularly when they continue to court white supremacy which is ethically unacceptable. Couple that with an administration whose current foray into total control has led to obvious attempts to make it harder to for Dems to function while they are intent on killing tens of thousands of people with a shitty healthcare bill, and yeah it's not surprising people are getting punched.

We need to stop acting like the GOP as a party isn't a hostile, uncompromising entity in this day and age.
 
B

Buckle

Member
The left become extreme when the right become oppressive shitlords and revel in it.

Its about the most human reaction you can expect when people are tired and pissed at the same old cycle of abuse. Eventually people bite back.

Not that I endorse violence, but I think its going to be something that inevitably crops up in these times, unfortunately.
 
P

Pop-O-Matic

Banned
Meanwhile we'll continue to describe right-wing extremists as lone wolves suffering from mental illness and absolve the politicians and pundits spewing hateful rhetoric on their side of the spectrum of any responsibility for the extremists' actions.
 
T

TestOfTide

Banned
I get where the author is coming from, but I wouldn't put this as an issue of the left per say.

Rather, this is inevitable conclusion when the far-right and alt-right have shown they have absolutely no care for morals:

Eventually you will have liberals and progressives who decide that if the other side is gonna use dirty tricks, then "Hey, why the fuck shouldn't we use similar dirty tricks as well".

This doesn't mean that the left is becoming violent. It just means that we starting to see some liberals and progressives who have lost their patience with the extreme elements of the opposition.

And it's probably going to have lasting affects too, but not ALL of those affects will be negative. Rather, you just aren't going to be seeing democrats being as scared of standing up for themselves.

Expect to see more of the following:
- Liberals and Progressives who will start pulling dirty recording tactics
- Liberals and Progressives who start speaking more politically incorrect towards conservatives to make them uncomfortable
- More LBJ style Democrats who are willing to intimidate conservatives
- Hackers on the left who collect dirt on Republicans
- A new kind of patriotism similar to what we saw at the 2016 DNC that is more about proud diversity than fucked up nationalism
 
F

FStubbs

Member
Right wing extremism is far more dangerous, far better armed, and a bunch more politically explosive, well connected, and larger in size than left wing extremists in America.

I mean, the president of the USA is a right wing extremist.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
Thaedolus said:
Horse shoe is real. The further you go to each side, the closer you start coming back around to violent fascism. What's going on at our universities right now is fucking insane. Even GAF went a little off the deep end for a while.

Rationality and civility must win out.
Click to expand...

You can't be a left wing fascist (the closest thing to that would be Strasserism). You can be an awful violent left wing person due to dogmatic Marxism-Leninism or Maoism or what have you, but these have different philosophical bases and goals than fascism.

The left in the US is not doing anything fascistic.
 
T

TheBryanJZX90

Member
Lautaro said:
giphy.gif


You survived the far right extremism during Obama even if it was supported by the GOP. You'll be fine dealing with isolated and anecdotal violence from the left.

EDIT: also far right extremism didn't ended after Trump got elected and it has costed more lives than anything the left has done so clearly both sides are not the same.
Click to expand...

Man your edit completely contradicts your original post.
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
AlimNassor said:
Why do we automatically ignore any extremism from the left?Look at how bad the right have become...do we want the left to become just as bad? Nip it in the bud.
Click to expand...

Of course not. Which is why I call out bigots in the left. I don't want to be associated with them or their ideas that flourish in the right.
 
D

David H Wong

Banned
Lil Marco said:
Right wing extremism is the biggest threat to western society rn (aside from political islam and climate change) so let's just focus on that for the time being.

Leftist "extremism" is just a natural reaction to the generations of exploitation and state violence that the Right has been getting away with in America.

Vice gonna Vice tho. Gotta pander to the edgelords.
Click to expand...

It's totally fine to focus on more than one problem at once. Necessary, even.

The problem is extremism in general, and the belief that violence is the only way to win a political argument. All extremists are the same - they don't actually care about the cause, aside from the cover it gives them to act on their most brutal, tribal desires. It's that caveman urge to bash the other side's head in. Most extremists can't even articulate what they want the system to look like - hatred of the other side is all that matters.
 
L

Lil Marco

Banned
Fudgepuppy said:
To be fair though, Vice otherwise posts like 95% left leaning stuff. Their Facebook page is hilarious, as all the comment sections are basically people going "REEEEE CUUUCKS!"
Click to expand...

I think they've slowly adjusted their bias to be more center left than the extreme left they used to be. It's what happens when your founders are swimming in billions of Nike and Under Armour ad money. And their social media content has always just been borderline clickbait.

I used to work with them.
 
R

Rayis

Member
The right started it, it's a reaction from the violent rhetoric coming from that side, the left is far more likely to compromise but at this point it feels like the right is too far gone and asking for an entire arm when we offer a hand.
 
S

Sianos

Member
TestOfTide said:
I get where the author is coming from, but I wouldn't put this as an issue of the left per say.

Rather, this is inevitable conclusion when the far-right and alt-right have shown they have absolutely no care for morals:

Eventually you will have liberals and progressives who decide that if the other side is gonna use dirty tricks, then "Hey, why the fuck shouldn't we use similar dirty tricks as well".

This doesn't mean that the left is becoming violent. It just means that we starting to see some liberals and progressives who have lost their patience with the extreme elements of the opposition.

And it's probably going to have lasting affects too, but not ALL of those affects will be negative. Rather, you just aren't going to be seeing democrats being as scared of standing up for themselves.

Expect to see more of the following:
- Liberals and Progressives who will start pulling dirty recording tactics
- Liberals and Progressives who start speaking more politically incorrect towards conservatives to make them uncomfortable
- More LBJ style Democrats who are willing to intimidate conservatives
- Hackers on the left who collect dirt on Republicans
- A new kind of patriotism similar to what we saw at the 2016 DNC that is more about proud diversity than fucked up nationalism
Click to expand...

And I mean, it isn't like they weren't warned that their Crusade Against Political Correctness wasn't going to end in sunshine and rainbows. Shockingly, when you demolish the standards of discourse and the general principle of not being deliberately belligerent assholes, your targets might eventually stop being nice and following the old rules.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
David H Wong said:
It's totally fine to focus on more than one problem at once. Necessary, even.

The problem is extremism in general, and the belief that violence is the only way to win a political argument. All extremists are the same - they don't actually care about the cause, aside from the cover it gives them to act on their most brutal, tribal desires. It's that caveman urge to bash the other side's head in. Most extremists can't even articulate what they want the system to look like - hatred of the other side is all that matters.
Click to expand...

do you honestly think civil rights movements never utilized violence in their practices/demonstrations? this is exactly why the context less "both sides" narrative is garbage

Thaedolus said:
Horse shoe is real. The further you go to each side, the closer you start coming back around to violent fascism. What's going on at our universities right now is fucking insane. Even GAF went a little off the deep end for a while.

Rationality and civility must win out.
Click to expand...

yeah guys, let's just hear these white nationalists out
 
M

meltingparappa

Member
If you look at the writhing easily-weaponized nuclear inferno of socially progressive tumblr or fringe twitter and think about that becoming more mainstream or spilling out into the corporeal world, you'll say the warnings were there all along, and we ignored them because they started as bloody battles about Voltron fanfic.

Lautaro said:
giphy.gif
Click to expand...
That gif makes it look like silly indiscriminate property damage (which there's plenty of), but I believe that trash can was specifically being rolled to block the street from police vehicles.
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
I was just talking about this topic yesterday, though not specifically about the left. The current political climate created by the election of Trump encourages polarization. The extreme right is empowered by his election and must become increasingly more bold in order to support his ongoing buffoonery, the extreme left responds and the situation escalates while the Commander in Chief does nothing about it because he's too busy encouraging it with his us vs. them attitude.

Vice shouldn't be worrying about the left specifically. They should be worrying about the entire political climate. And at the center of that hostility is Biff fucking Tannen & associates who only encourage it to get worse every day.

I'm solidly in left field but I'm not a fan of any extremists. In a strange kind of way, the extreme left and the extreme right are not all that different from each other (though the standard USA variants of left and right are vastly different, and the extreme right seems to have a higher population). They're sort of accomplishing similar things with different methods. Putting up walls between people and starting fights with folk for not having the right gender/race/status. The problem Vice should be reporting on is escalating polarization, and maintaining a climate of peace does not appear to be a priority of this administration.

I don't imagine Vice is all that concerned with reporting on the whole of the matter, though.
 
K

Keasar

Member
Question out of curiosity.

Extreme Right seems to fight to oppress anyone not of the right skin color, religion, nationality, sexuality, gender etc. Racists, Nazis, Fascists etc.

What is the Extreme Left fighting for exactly? What is "extreme left" views?
 
C

Carcetti

Member
USA barely has normal left and 'people' are worried about extreme left?

Besides, didn't you hear, the gunman was a lone madman and you can't draw political conclusions from isolated madmen, right?

What is the Extreme Left fighting for exactly? What is "extreme left" views?
Click to expand...

High taxes for the rich. Health care for everyone. Maternity leave and paternity leave for new parents. Government has oversight over corporations. Don't oppress minorities.
 
K

Kasumin

Member
Sianos said:
And I mean, it isn't like they weren't warned that their Crusade Against Political Correctness wasn't going to end in sunshine and rainbows. Shockingly, when you demolish the standards of discourse and the general principle of not being deliberately belligerent assholes, your targets might eventually stop being nice and following the old rules.
Click to expand...

This came up in another thread about yesterday's shooting.

A lot of people seem to ignore this. It's the Republicans who have been working to break down civil discourse in this country for the past 30+ years. Removal of the fairness doctrine that pushed for news coverage to actually account for both sides (not in the fake-ass way they do today)? Reagan was president. The vitriol towards Clinton in the 90's that led to a government shut down and a circus over his impeachment? Much of it was started by Newt Gingrich.

Democrats for the past 8 years have repeatedly reached out and offered an olive branch to Republicans in Congress only to have them spit in their faces.

Yeah... no. The right's been making the political environment more toxic in this country. People have warned them that the results would not be good for anyone. They didn't care. And here we are. It sucks, and I hate violence. But that's what happens when one side decides to stop playing by the rules.

Hell, that's one of the reasons we have rules guiding civil discourse in the first place. The alternate is far, far worse. As we're seeing now.
 
P

PlayALLtheGames

Banned
Lil Marco said:
right wing extremism is the biggest threat to western society rn (aside from political islam and climate change) so let's just focus on that for the time being.

Vice gonna Vice tho. Gotta pander to the edgelords.
Click to expand...

Seriously.

One crazy dude shoots a politician for his record as a piece of shit who votes against American interests and all of a sudden extremism is worrying on the left? While right-wingers kill people for being brown, gay, or telling them to stop harassing someone for being of another religion?

The fact remains that the left is still overwhelmingly anti-violence, anti-war, pro gun regulation, pro insividual rights and privacy, pro environment, pro science, pro gay rights, equality, multiculturalism, education and healthcare for all and for helping the poor. To the extent that left extremists want changes to that end and want them now because they're fucking obvious, demonstrably effective and positive and we're fucking tired of squandering years after year of progress because of conservative, religious-extremist fucktards who live on another planet, we should pray for more of it. This country has never done anything but practice right-wing or right-center values. Maybe it's fucking time we tried some left-wing extremism.

This is the kind of crqp that propagates the "both sides" myth. Progressives in America don't want fucking communism so that's not even an argument. We want what is OBVIOUSLY good for a modern country - things that are already being done around the world and proven to be of value - and we have about a handful of lawmakers in all of Congress who truly share that view.

Fuck right off with this bullshit.
 
J

jackissocool

Member
The strangest hypocrisy in America is condemning antifa and other leftist extremists for political violence while doing anything other than calling for completely dismantling the United States military, the largest and most destructive for of political violence in history.

I'm glad more and more people on the left are standing up.
 
G

Got

Banned
Darryl M R said:
The tolerant Left is not being kind with those that call for an ethnic cleansing on college campuses?





.
Click to expand...

won't someone think of the ethnic cleansors!

Carcetti said:
High taxes for the rich. Health care for everyone. Maternity leave and paternity leave for new parents. Government has oversight over corporations. Don't oppress minorities.
Click to expand...

what a bunch of worthless values. thank god republicans kill people for the color of their skin.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Keasar said:
Question out of curiosity.

Extreme Right seems to fight to oppress anyone not of the right skin color, religion, nationality, sexuality, gender etc. Racists, Nazis, Fascists etc.

What is the Extreme Left fighting for exactly? What is "extreme left" views?
Click to expand...

Tankies. Capitalism is murder, we must abolish it. Stalin did nothing wrong. Communism is the only answer. Assad didn't actually gas his people it's just imperialist propaganda trying to defame communism. (I've had people say these to me, and there are crazy left wing conspiracy sites that push these).
 
M

Mimir

Member
Stopped reading here:
and in the years after 9/11, Segal says, the largest source of extremist violence was from the Left: eco-terrorists and animal rights activists.
Click to expand...
What a bunch of bullshit.

The FBI has directed public attention elsewhere: in its chronological listing of terrorist incidents in the United States, the FBI says that in the three years after 9/11, every act of domestic terrorism, except for one, was the work of animal rights and environmental activists, including groups like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.

In that period, right wing violence resulted in 283 injuries and 71 deaths.

In contrast, the crimes by animal rights and environmental activists physically harmed no one.
Click to expand...
 
R

RinsFury

Member
jackissocool said:
The strangest hypocrisy in America is condemning antifa and other leftist extremists for political violence while doing anything other than calling for completely dismantling the United States military, the largest and most destructive for of political violence in history.

I'm glad more and more people on the left are standing up.
Click to expand...

If anything enough still isn't being done. These racist nazi cucks should be terrified of showing their face in public.
 
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