Equating antifa with Neonazis

— X — wrote:

The University of Pennsylvania, in its left-wing English department, has removed its long-standing portrait of William Shakespeare because he was white and male in favor of a more “diverse” writer. Is that not subtracting from Western civilization?

X, if I can jump in here for a moment — I know you were talking to Zooey, and not me — but the above scenario didn’t really happen as you describe (following your lead by only dealing with one thing, etc):

Students remove Shakespeare portrait from English Department at Ivy League school

excerpt:

At the University of Pennsylvania, the student newspaper reports that a group of students took down a large portrait of William Shakespeare, which had for years been displayed above a staircase in a building housing the English Department.

Why? According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the students wanted the wall art in the department to represent the world’s diversity of authors, so they replaced Shakespeare on the Heyer Staircase with a photo of Audre Lorde, an African American writer, feminist and civil rights activist.

The Shakespeare portrait taken off the wall at the Ivy League school wound up in the office of Jed Esty, the English Department chairman and a professor of English. Esty, who, his website says, specializes in 20th Century British, Irish, and postcolonial literatures, wrote a Dec. 8 email to majors and minors in the English Department and shared it with the student newspaper. This is the email in full:

Some years ago, the Penn English faculty voted on a motion stating that we would like the FBH entryway to represent the full range of writers, texts, and media that we teach and study. We planned at that time to relocate the large Shakespeare portrait, but the effort stalled as we considered options for a suitable alternative in that public space. Late last week, following a town hall discussion in the department, some students removed the Shakespeare portrait and delivered it to my office as a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department. That commitment is shared by the faculty. After winter break, we will initiate an open and collaborative conversation among students, faculty, and employees in English to come up with a plan for that public space. In the meantime, someone has posted an image of the celebrated poet and activist Audre Lorde, and it will remain until we’ve arrived at a collective solution. The department will continue to explore, in all of our classes, the meaning of important works produced by artists and writers well before Shakespeare and well after Lorde, in several media and from across the globe. We invite everyone to join us in the task of critical thinking about the changing nature of authorship, the history of language, and the political life of symbols.

It’s just a portrait on a wall. I don’t see how it’s “subtracting from Western Civilization” to replace it with one of Audre Lorde, who, after all, is also a contributor to “Western Civilization.”

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.

Billy_T wrote:

It’s just a portrait on a wall. I don’t see how it’s “subtracting from Western Civilization” to replace it with one of Audre Lorde, who, after all, is also a contributor to “Western Civilization.”

You’re immeasurably smarter than that, Billeh. Of course you know I’m not talking about the specific – but instead, the collective. It’s just (insert thing here), coupled with (insert thing here), multiplied by (insert things here), until the landscape has changed. It’s methodical, intentional, and designed to erase even the hint of white privilege. Another farce, but that’s another story.

— X — wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

It’s just a portrait on a wall. I don’t see how it’s “subtracting from Western Civilization” to replace it with one of Audre Lorde, who, after all, is also a contributor to “Western Civilization.”

You’re immeasurably smarter than that, Billeh. Of course you know I’m not talking about the specific – but instead, the collective. It’s just (insert thing here), coupled with (insert thing here), multiplied by (insert things here), until the landscape has changed. It’s methodical, intentional, and designed to erase even the hint of white privilege. Another farce, but that’s another story.

First off, nice win, right?

As for the above. Yeah, I know you were talking about the cumulative effect. But I was trying my best not to be a, um, nudge about it, so I just went after one of your examples. It’s been my experience, however, that the vast majority of right-wing media outrages just don’t withstand scrutiny. You probably feel the same exact way about the stuff we say on the left — as you mentioned when you said the threat of white supremacy, etc. etc. was wildly overstated by those left of center.

It’s likely one of those areas where we’re just not going to see eye to eye. I honestly don’t see any evidence of a left-wing conspiracy to undermine western civilization. Not anywhere — specifically or cumulatively.

That said, my own ideal, when it comes to all aspects of education in society, would be to teach it all and not take sides with any one part of the globe or another. Knowledge without borders. No home teams. A truly “cosmopolitan,” “citizen of the world” educational experience. You might see that as an attack on “western civilization.” But to me, it’s just the smartest way to achieve a really great education, and the broadest possible understanding of the world.

Don’t take sides. Teach it all. From north to south, east to west, and all points in between. No “team” to root for. We’re all humans and we should be educated as such.

Philosophically speaking, I see nation-states as fictions anyway. Money, capitalism, religion, too. Fictions — basically in the sense Yuval Harari describes in his TED talk, which I think is fascinating. And they haven’t been good fictions for the vast majority of humanity. We need to invent better ones.

That’s my take, anyway.

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

3. Universities are basically leftist indoctrination machines, and not to be trusted.

=====================

Well, I tend to agree with X that, in general, Probably, most University profs are “liberal” (Ie, Clinton-ish, Obama-ish, Democrat-ish)

Though, i dont have any science to back that up, and I’m open to proof pointing to something else.

At any rate, we know damn well that the liberal-professors, and the rightwing-talk-radio-pundits, and the liberal-MSM-reporters, and the liberal-librarians, and the rightwing-evangelicals, and the rightwing-nazis, and the alt-right-conservatives, and the various kinds of plumbers, IT-experts, carpenters, football players, hockey goalies, tree-surgeons, bakers, pharmacists, lawyers, pilots, rug-pee-ers, Dude-ranch-owners, trans-gender-green-berets, Police Officers, NASA custodians, Veterans, Veternarians, Buddhist Lesbian Dock Workers, and cat shampoo-ers….are almost all
voting for the Idiot-Duplicat-Party or the Idiot-Replicant-Party.

The actual parties that would actually help this nation get 2 percent of the vote.

98 percent of the voters waste their votes on the two corporate-idiot-parties.

So…something is causing that. Something is causing 98 percent of the voters to vote for one of the two parties that will lie, cheat, steal and screw us all over.

Why the hell WOULDNT the Universities have a LOT to do with that? As well as the Idiot-rightwing media and the Idiot-liberal-media ?

Ok, i will shut up now. I shall rant no more.

w
v

WV,

You have GOT to read this article, cuz it speaks exactly to what you’re saying. Well, except for the part about transgendered Green Berets and Buddhist Lesbian dock workers. It’s going to take me a bit more time to find the relevant essays on those topics.

Found it by way of the always excellent Los Angeles Rams Review of Books, via this equally fascinating article, Philosophy and the Gods of the City: Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft’s “Thinking in Public” By Jon Baskin

The Rise of the Thought Leader How the superrich have funded a new class of intellectual.

Seriously. This is right up your alley.

Today, Gramsci’s theory has been largely overlooked in the ongoing debate over the supposed decline of the “public intellectual” in America. Great minds, we are told, no longer captivate the public as they once did, because the university is too insular and academic thinking is too narrow. Such laments frequently cite Russell Jacoby’s The Last Intellectuals (1987), which complained about the post-1960s professionalization of academia and waxed nostalgic for the bohemian, “independent” intellectuals of the earlier twentieth century. Writers like the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof attribute this sorry state of affairs to the culture of Ph.D. programs, which, Kristof claims, have glorified “arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience.” If academics cannot bring their ideas to a wider readership, these familiar critiques imply, it is because of the academic mindset itself.

In his book The Ideas Industry, the political scientist and foreign policy blogger Daniel W. Drezner broadens the focus to include the conditions in which ideas are formed, funded, and expressed. Describing the public sphere in the language of markets, he argues that three major factors have altered the fortunes of today’s intellectuals: the evaporation of public trust in institutions, the polarization of American society, and growing economic inequality. He correctly identifies the last of these as the most important: the extraordinary rise of the American superrich, a class interested in supporting a particular genre of “ideas.”

The rich have, Drezner writes, empowered a new kind of thinker—the “thought leader”—at the expense of the much-fretted-over “public intellectual.” Whereas public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky or Martha Nussbaum are skeptical and analytical, thought leaders like Thomas Friedman and Sheryl Sandberg “develop their own singular lens to explain the world, and then proselytize that worldview to anyone within earshot.” While public intellectuals traffic in complexity and criticism, thought leaders burst with the evangelist’s desire to “change the world.” Many readers, Drezner observes, prefer the “big ideas” of the latter to the complexity of the former. In a marketplace of ideas awash in plutocrat cash, it has become “increasingly profitable for thought leaders to hawk their wares to both billionaires and a broader public,” to become “superstars with their own brands, sharing a space previously reserved for moguls, celebrities, and athletes.”

Worth reading the whole thing — and the article that led to it.

Well, I tend to agree with X that, in general, Probably, most University profs are “liberal” (Ie, Clinton-ish, Obama-ish, Democrat-ish)

There’s a right wing mantra on that but it exists because it’s vague. Different fields tend to attract different types. Business, engineering, and economics for example are not dominated by “liberals.” Just the opposite. The hard sciences are iffier. The humanities tends to attract liberals but then that’s not entirely true of history. And so on. On top of it, college and university administrations are more than ever attracting career administration types and they tend to be conservative. At the same time administration is expanding, tenured faculty are shrinking, so what you end up with is administrators dominating a very large population of part-timers, and part-timers do not have the standing or resources to be a voice in the overall university or college. It’s dominated cheap labor. They have no voice in policy.

My own experience is that with requirements being what they are in higher education, students are exposed to a wide range of types.

I’ve read actual real study after study that confirms all of the above.

In terms of right-wing site style writing about universities and colleges, what I have encountered from that world I find to be uselessly paranoid and sensationalist.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Worth reading the whole thing — and the article that led to it.

=============
OK, BT. I’ll read it. I got a big jury trial Wednesday so I cant delve into long writings for a few days. But I’ll get around to it.

I read the cover article of The ATLANTIC the other day. Made me so mad i almost wrote a letter. It was a long article about How and Why Americans Have gone crazy and believe in Conspiracy Shit.

The writer listed all these reasons and they all lead directly (essentially) to blaming the people themselves. He lamented the fact that the people no longer believe in the noble American institutions they used to believe in — and he blamed the people for that.

I wanted to tell him, “Yes, people have turned to all kinds of batshit crazy ideas. And yes, they no longer believe a damn thing those fine institutions tell them — know why? Cause those damn institutions LIE. And the people know it. They know they are being lied to. But rather than having the tools to think-critically they turn to batshit-crazy stuff. Not their fault. For all kinds of reasons.

blah blah blah, wv continues to be a system-blamer :>)

w
v

Agreed. The article I linked to doesn’t do that. But, yeah, a lot of that voter-shaming, scolding, blaming going on, especially from Clinton supporters. Sick to death of it.

Political parties need to earn our votes. It’s on them. Institutions need to earn our support. It’s on them. The system needs to . . . etc. etc.

zn wrote:

Well, I tend to agree with X that, in general, Probably, most University profs are “liberal” (Ie, Clinton-ish, Obama-ish, Democrat-ish)

There’s a right wing mantra on that but it exists because it’s vague. Different fields tend to attract different types. Business, engineering, and economics for example are not dominated by “liberals.” Just the opposite. The hard sciences are iffier. The humanities tends to attract liberals but then that’s not entirely true of history. And so on. On top of it, college and university administrations are more than ever attracting career administration types and they tend to be conservative. At the same time administration is expanding, tenured faculty are shrinking, so what you end up with is administrators dominating a very large population of part-timers, and part-timers do not have the standing or resources to be a voice in the overall university or college. It’s dominated cheap labor. They have no voice in policy.

My own experience is that with requirements being what they are in higher education, students are exposed to a wide range of types.

I’ve read actual real study after study that confirms all of the above.

In terms of right-wing site style writing about universities and colleges, what I have encountered from that world I find to be uselessly paranoid and sensationalist.

=====================

Well, I’d have to see these studies. And I’d have to see how they are ‘defining’ right and left, etc. Course I’d also have to talk to each rightwinger that thinks the universities are too ‘liberal’ — I mean some rightwingers think anyone who is pro-choice is ‘too liberal’. Etc, etc, and so forth.

Its complicated. In general though, i think its true most Univ-profs lean left, if by left we mean lean Democrat. Though i do agree there are differences based on whether its social science or hard science etc etc etc.

My main point though is that MY own complaint (as opposed to the rightwingers complaints) is that the Universities lean REP/DEM. Just like every other institution in Amerika. That there would be my complaint. 🙂

SOMETHING is making amerikans into political-idiots, zn. Something. So, is it the water? What would your answer be to the question: What is making Americans vote for the two-parties that screw them over everyday? If its not the Universities, public schools, government, and the Media — what is it?

w
v

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by wv.

My main point though is that MY own complaint (as opposed to the rightwingers complaints) is that the Universities lean REP/DEM. Just like every other institution in Amerika. That there would be my complaint.

SOMETHING is making amerikans into political-idiots, zn. Something. So, is it the water? What would your answer be to the question: What is making Americans vote for the two-parties that screw them over everyday? If its not the Universities, public schools, government, and the Media — what is it?

w
v

It’s all the above. That, of course, is the easy answer. But it’s true. And it’s also something that rarely gets talked about: Our economic system is literally driving people crazy. It puts waaaaay too much stress on humans, well beyond what our biology was designed to deal with. Humans weren’t supposed to be surrounded by neck-breaking hierarchies, and about the only way we’ve managed this long is the endlessly increasing distractions generated by, ironically, the economic system itself. As in, capitalism makes us crazy, AND it produces the temporary fixes for that craziness — Netflix, HBO, shopping on Amazon, staring at our cell phones, game consoles, political food fights, etc. etc. All these things serve the interests of billionaires several times over. They make them rich, they keep us distracted, and they keep us relatively docile and confused. Oh so confused.

So when it’s time to vote, we’re too tired, confused and docile to check out third and fourth and fifth parties, and they don’t get any air time anyway. So people just pull the lever, or stay home altogether. And that suits the powers that be just fine. Vote Dem, GOP or stay home. It doesn’t matter to them, except around the edges. Heads they win, tails we lose. Doesn’t matter.

Next up . . . the Castle Dilemma, which I’ve just invented, I think . . .

;>)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.

Billy_T wrote:

…As in, capitalism makes us crazy
AND it produces the temporary fixes for that craziness — Netflix, HBO, shopping on Amazon, staring at our cell phones, game consoles, political food fights, etc. etc. All these things serve the interests of billionaires several times over. They make them rich, they keep us distracted, and they keep us relatively docile and confused. Oh so confused.

So when it’s time to vote, we’re too tired, confused and docile to check out third and fourth and fifth parties, and they don’t get any air time anyway. So people just pull the lever, or stay home altogether. And that suits the powers that be just fine. Vote Dem, GOP or stay home. It doesn’t matter to them, except around the edges. Heads they win, tails we lose. Doesn’t matter. . . .

======================

Yes, i think thats quite true.

It certainly made ‘me’ crazy.

Perhaps other systems make people crazy in ‘other’ ways. Maybe feudalism made people ‘feudalism-crazy’ etc, and so forth.

Or maybe humans are just always crazy and the whole idea of ‘sanity’ is….crazy.

I dunno.

Rams won though. Thats certainly crazy.

w
v

I’ll chime in here.

I’m 57 years old. And I’ve never met an avowed white supremacist who was part of an organized movement. Sure, I’ve met more than a few racist white people (“I’m not prejudiced, but”…Yeah, you are). But I’ve met plenty of racist POC, too. To me, it’s a sick human condition borne of, on the white side, fear of diversity and on other, resentment and anger over historical injustices. And a whole lot of ignorance all the way around.

I watched Charlottesville and seethed at the tiki-torch march while 200 fucking loons chanted anti-semitic filth. See, my girlfriend is Jewish. And I’ve never understood anti-antisemitism, even when it was explained to me by a person with a deep background in Jewish studies. That said, I put it in perspective…it was 200 loons, not 2000, 20,000 or 200,000. Out of a population of 310 million in the country. But as ugly as it was, they had every right to march and demonstrate. At the very least, they can be watched as long as they’re out in the open.

Which brings us to Antifa which -is- underground..I live in San Jose and saw the violence downtown at the infamous Trump rally where his supporters were spat on, egged and assaulted while the cops sat back and watched. It was sick and chilling. But Antifa wasn’t involved…most of the troublemakers were -allegedly- bussed in by the SEIU labor union…Up in Berkeley, that is/was another story. Antifa marched in – like Nazis- intent on cracking heads and breaking shit. Just for the sake of cracking heads, breaking shit and silencing by force any message they didn’t like (the Milo riot). Again, the cops stood by while this all happened, evading the fireworks shot at them in order to avoid “escalation.” It was chilling to watch it all unfold.These Antifa types are what they profess to hate- fascists. And I think they should labeled as a domestic terrorist organization or at least use Gang suppression laws to deal with what I believe is a true threat to our freedoms, particularly the FA. I was pleased to see so many Antifas charged with Felony Rioting in Washington during the inauguration and also the mounting arrests here and in Portland (Yvette Felarca, Bike-Lock Professor, etc) To me, this is serious shit and has to be dealt with before 100 people are killed at one of their riots…

Now I know what’s coming…what about the right-wingers who came just to rumble with communists and anarchists? Arrest them, too. All these fuckers are a threat to us all, left, middle or right…

Along the lines of that second item, I thought this article made a lot of sense. I don’t agree with all of it, but enough of it strikes me as just common sense to warrant sharing:

The Left’s Supporting Role in American Hate Theater White supremacists from the KKK to the alt-right hold rallies solely to troll liberals— and they’re succeeding. It’s time for a new resistance strategy. By Bob Moser August 7, 2017

It came out just a few days before the tragedy in C’ville.

Ozoneranger wrote:

Hey, Billy-

Antifa has a violent past in the country going back to the 90’s. Remember the G8 meetings? And they are underground- the covered faces, how they organize- Twitter, other social media (and contrary to popular belief, they do have a leadership model). The alt right? I don’t see them as a threat at all. I mean, historically, violence has been a hallmark of the left here (two dead presidents, Weathermen, SDS, Black Panthers) and in Europe (Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhoff, Action Directe). Here.

http://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

Meanwhile, the Alt right forms their little militias, get infiltrated and monitored. And the Klan> The dumbshits in the pointy hats haven’t done much in decades, save for the odd Lone-wolf nutjob.

In any case, I like your starters. I completely agree for the safety of all.

Well, again, we’re not going to agree about this. Antifa has never killed anyone. It’s very small, with very few members, and no, there is no leadership. And, yes, as mentioned, they mostly act in self-defense and protect peaceful protesters. As mentioned, they saved lives in C’ville:

Yes, What About the “Alt-Left”? What the counter-protesters Trump despises were actually doing in Charlottesville last weekend. By Dahlia Lithwick
Historically, right-wing violence has been far more prevalent in America and Europe overall, and more deadly. Yes, the left had its time of horrible bloodshed, but that was mostly in the 1960s and then it ended. The right has an older and far more sustained history of deadly violence and terrorism, worldwide.

You dismiss the KKK, but it’s been involved in deadly terrorist acts here for 150 years. America and Europe have violent right-wing militias, skinheads, nazis and fascists and their neo versions. Timothy McVeigh, right-wing Christian extremists, like Breivik in Norway, etc. And you have right-wing Islamic extremists, responsible for 9/11. ISIS and Al Queda are hard right, ideologically.

It’s not close.

A recent look regarding right-wing violence here, by the SPLC:

Terror from the Right

and another:

The Rise of Violent Right-Wing Extremism, Explained Experts say attacks like the mass shooting in Charleston have been a growing threat. Jaeah Lee, Gabrielle Canon and Brandon E. PattersonJun. 30, 2015 10:00 AM

Remember when conservative pundits (and then Congress) torpedoed the report on right-wing violent extremism here that Obama was going to bring out? The Bush admin actually started the report, and experts and scholars have been warning about this rise for decades now. But right-wing media whined and moaned loudly enough to suppress it.

IMO, “conservatives” don’t think it’s an issue because their media suppresses reality — deadly reality. Or just blames everything on “the left.”

Oh, well. Likely one of those “We’re never going to see eye to eye on this” topics.

zn wrote:

ZN,

That’s spot on.

Basically, you have sociopathic predators (nazis, fascists, skinheads, the KKK, white supremacists in general, etc.). And you have people fighting against those sociopathic predators. If the antifa go away, the sociopathic predators are still out there. They still want to create a world wherein only white Christian males rule, and everyone bows or is wiped out.

If the sociopathic predators go away, however, antifa will too. It will actually disband. It has no more reason to gather or be a “group.”

They are light years apart — morally, ethically and in practical terms.

wv wrote:

Wonder why X disagrees with us on the anti-nazi thing?

Maybe he’ll explain it.

w
v

The conservative media have been banging away that Antifa are violent commies who have started all the fights, and who are much more inherently violent than the Fascists who – it they were just left alone – would just march a little bit in small numbers, then go home without any consequence to society. That’s the unbroken storyline on the right.

Steve Fraser, in his important The Age of Acquiescence, talks about media coverage of strikers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even such pillars of liberalism such as The Nation often (mis)portrayed strikers, anticapitalist and antiwar movements as violent and an assault on American values, leaving out the fact that private companies pushed governors and even presidents to call out violent strike breakers, etc. I think the center-left has gotten a great deal better on those issues in the last few decades, but centrist media like the NYT and the Washington Post have done their share of false narratives regarding who is really assaulting whom.

The right has been rigid in its contempt for these movements from Day One. But it can be seriously depressing to note that it’s not exclusive to the right and falls into the centrist MSM as well.

America is NOT being well served by our media overall. In general, it presents a wildly false view of reality, oftentimes through omission. In the case of violent clashes, this isn’t always — though it often is — a matter of a purposeful distortion for ideological reasons. In many cases, it’s just the the usual “if it bleeds it leads” mindset. Writing about, photographing, filming peaceful demonstrators and dissenters is just not going to sell or hold the attention to the degree of those violent clashes. So the camera isn’t going to focus on the 99.9% peacefully protesting. It’s going to focus solely on the 0.1% doing the fighting.

If it bleeds it leads.