The Global Far Right

[Follyfoot]

36 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yes. Death from all causes, though rather than “just” murdering them. Same with Pol Pot, many died from starvation and so on

Not sure about this but did not loads die in the Nazi work camps from malnutrition, disease, cold, flogging beatings as well that make the number up so pretty much the same thing. Trapped and sentenced to die behind wire or the confines of your ‘ own ‘ borders. Both ghoulish hopefully never to repeat in history 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

Both ghoulish hopefully never to repeat in history

It’s all grotesque and my knowledge is lacking beyond the cursory level of films like the killing fields and the odd bit of half remembered history lessons and reading.

[MakemineVanilla]

3 hours ago, andyjsg said:

Right Wing really means hardline conservative views and it’s more about being anti anything that is different to your (normally religious views). There was an interesting point made on the Rest Is History podcast that Nazi’s are considered the height of evil (and understandably so) but the numbers killed in their belief is considerably less than those in the name of socialism (Stalin, Pol Pot).

I think China deserves a mention, as between 17 and 45 million died due to the famines (1959-61) caused by The Great Leap Forward.

Scholars claim that lying was incentivised and food production was massively overstated.

 

[mjmooney]

Quote

A British man who posted far-right videos that influenced the gunman behind a US mass shooting has been given an 11-and-a-half-year sentence.

Daniel Harris, 19, uploaded racist videos calling for the "total extermination of subhumans", Manchester Crown Court heard.

They were shared by Payton Gendron, who killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York.

Harris, from Glossop in Derbyshire, was found guilty of terrorism offences following a trial last year.

As well as serving his sentence in a young offenders institution, he must also serve three years on extended licence once released.

The court heard Harris, of Lord Street, made videos about the Christchurch mosque shootings, the killer of MP Jo Cox and other far-right figures.

The videos were uploaded to the internet between February 2021 and March 2022.

On Thursday it emerged some were shared online by Payton Gendron, who has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting 10 black people at a supermarket in May.

Links between Harris and Anderson Lee Aldrich, the only suspect in a mass shooting at a gay bar in Colorado, were also made while Harris was on trial.

Harris's video was posted on a website with links that appeared to show Aldrich preparing to carry out the attacks, in which five people were killed and 25 were injured.

Harris was convicted in December of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one count of possession of material for terrorist purposes.

Judge Patrick Field KC, sentencing, said Harris "created a series of videos" where he "glorified mass murderers" and "encouraged other people to emulate them" having "provided specific instructions".

"In these videos you expressed and repeated vile antisemitic, racist, misogynistic and homophobic views," he said.

"You intended to encourage terrorism, and it's plain that what was being encouraged was lethal, racist and anti-Semitic violence, as well as violence against the gay community."

At the sentencing hearing on Friday, the court also heard Harris was producing his videos after he had been sentenced for defacing a memorial in Manchester of George Floyd, who was killed by an American police officer in 2020.

Judge Field said the defendant had portrayed the incident as "no more than a blip" and told "a series of lies".

The judge also referred to an incident where Harris attempted to make a firearm through a 3D printer, which he said could have been used in a deadly attack.

BBC

 

[His Name Is Death]

6 hours ago, andyjsg said:

Right Wing really means hardline conservative views and it’s more about being anti anything that is different to your (normally religious views). There was an interesting point made on the Rest Is History podcast that Nazi’s are considered the height of evil (and understandably so) but the numbers killed in their belief is considerably less than those in the name of socialism (Stalin, Pol Pot).

I'd say the fact that there were (and still are) far, far more culturally-influential figures sympathetic to the ideals of communism than to Nazism/fascism has something to do it.

Edited January 28, 2023 by His Name Is Death

[Rolta]

4 minutes ago, His Name Is Death said:

I'd say the fact that there were (and still are) far, far more culturally-influential figures sympathetic to the ideals of communism than to Nazism/fascism has something to do it.

It's not a great comparison and hard to quantify. On the one hand there seems to be a lot of culturally influential people sympathetic to plenty of fascist-equivalent ideals. There are also active far right parties all over the world. Also you can't compare what happened with Stalin and Pol Pot to, say, thinking we should fund our public services properly. Plenty of culturally influential people on the right, some of which might also quite like some of the semi-fascistic stuff, seem to enjoy trying to make that link, which is a bad faith attempt to make out that social democrats are a stone's throw from the same thinking as Stalin/Pol Pot, which is nonsense. 

[delboy54]

I guess if we analyse the character of Hitler, Mao, Franco, Stalin, Pol Pot, the fat boy in North Korea and Putin et al, we would probably find that they had psychopathic tendancies.            All men.......

Far right facism and far left communist, both evil and both regimes responsible of the death of countless innocent people...surely there are alternatives to this "pendulum" that swings from one extreme to another?

Or really is it that the far left is the same as the far right, the same points on a circle?

I bloody detest extremist views, political or religious .....

[bickster]

Communism and Fascism are very similar politically. The terms far left and far right are pointless as they allude to a linear scale of political thought, when a circle is a more relevant description. Communism and Fascism would be very close to each other on the circle

[blandy]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

a circle is a more relevant description

There are no extremes on a circle

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

There are no extremes on a circle

You can be as far away from a more normal position as possible on that circle but if it helps you can go for the modified horseshoe

The real answer is obviously the political compass approach but that doesn't really help normal not really engaged people where their affiliations lie

 

[mjmooney]

The trouble with this 'hard left' is as bad as 'hard right' argument, is that it suggests that 'moderate left' is therefore equally as bad as 'moderate right'. 

My belief is that communism is NOT equivalent to fascism, at least in terms of its intent. The problem with the so-called 'left wing'  totalitarian regimes is that they tend to take what - on paper - is a well-intentioned philosophy (social equality) and hi-jack it into what then becomes practically indistinguishable from fascism. Whereas fascism isn't even a laudable idea in theory - it's just brutal and evil, and plays to the worst elements of people's natures. 

Of course, there is the inevitable argument that we are naturally cutthroat and selfish, so the right-wing view is simply pragmatic, and left-wing one naiive and unachievable. 

I prefer to stay on 'the side of the angels'. 

[blandy]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

You can be as far away from a more normal position as possible on that circle but if it helps you can go for the modified horseshoe

I was just being geometrically pedantic.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

The trouble with this 'hard left' is as bad as 'hard right' argument, is that it suggests that 'moderate left' is therefore equally as bad as 'moderate right'. 

My belief is that communism is NOT equivalent to fascism, at least in terms of its intent. The problem with the so-called 'left wing'  totalitarian regimes is that they tend to take what - on paper - is a well-intentioned philosophy (social equality) and hi-jack it into what then becomes practically indistinguishable from fascism. Whereas fascism isn't even a laudable idea in theory - it's just brutal and evil, and plays to the worst elements of people's natures. 

Of course, there is the inevitable argument that we are naturally cutthroat and selfish, so the right-wing view is simply pragmatic, and left-wing one naiive and unachievable. 

I prefer to stay on 'the side of the angels'. 

Perfectly put.

[HKP90]

Left wing and Right wing traditionally just speak to levels of state involvement in everyday affairs, though, right?

You can be a psychopath demagogue on either wing as I see it. On the left wing the state controlled by a psychopath does the killing? On the right wing the individual does the killing on behalf of the state?

Soneone with more knowledge by all means set me right (or left).

[bickster]

15 minutes ago, blandy said:

I was just being geometrically pedantic.

Its also a fair point though the linear scale allows extremes but that in itself presents other problems

[bickster]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

The trouble with this 'hard left' is as bad as 'hard right' argument, is that it suggests that 'moderate left' is therefore equally as bad as 'moderate right'. 

Good / Bad is a personal decision, it's not really relevent apart from to the individual

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

My belief is that communism is NOT equivalent to fascism

No-one said it was, just that they had more in common than they don't

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

at least in terms of its intent

Intent doesn't really matter anywhere near as much as actions. Stalin was better than Hitler because his heart was once in the right place doesn't really cut it as an argument to my way of thinking

[mjmooney]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

Intent doesn't really matter anywhere near as much as actions. Stalin was better than Hitler because his heart was once in the right place doesn't really cut it as an argument to my way of thinking

My point is that Stalin's heart was very much NOT in the right place, and by virtue of his autocratic rule, had betrayed any ideal of communism. 

[mjmooney]

I what I was trying to say in my post above was basically that if I have to choose between (a) a philosophy that may be somewhat naiive and idealistic, and (b) one which is blatantly cynical and pragmatic, I will always choose the former. 

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

My point is that Stalin's heart was very much NOT in the right place, and by virtue of his autocratic rule, had betrayed any ideal of communism. 

That really wasn't your argument about the intent of communism

[mjmooney]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

That really wasn't your argument about the intent of communism

It was meant to be, but I didn't express it very well.