Posted on 08/16/2006 4:54:30 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
To counter the Nazis or not?
That's the question facing Madison as planning begins for a rally at the State Capitol next week when the National Socialist Movement says it will gather to protest illegal immigration.
The No Nazis in Madison Coalition says the community cannot afford to ignore the hate message of the neo-Nazis and is calling for a peaceful counterdemonstration on the Capitol concourse.
"We're looking for massive peaceful numbers," said organizer Chris Dols. "We want people to bring their children."
Peter Munoz, executive director of Centro Hispano, argued against that.
"Just let them show their pathetic selves and hopefully they will leave town as soon as possible," he said. "We certainly don't want to give these folks any limelight."
Steven Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Council, concurred.
"That does exactly what the National Socialist Movement wants any community to do," Morrison said today. "We don't find that a productive strategy."
The Jewish council is calling on members of the community to ignore the Nazis and instead attend a community picnic at their Verona Goodman campus - or make a donation to immigrant or other human rights groups, at a few dollars a head for each neo-Nazi who shows up.
The National Socialist Movement - which is promoting the rally to pro-white groups and offers the Nazi chant "Sieg Heil" on the recorded greeting at its contact number - has obtained a permit from the state Department of Administration to rally at 2 p.m. Aug. 26 at the Capitol.
Accommodating the group will mean the weekly Farmers' Market will close early, at 12:30 p.m., under an agreement reached with participating vendors.
Capitol Police are still planning their strategy on the rally day, DOA spokesman Tom Solberg said today. But Madison police officials expect to be called on to assist.
While he professes he understands the strategy articulated by the Jewish community, Salvador Carranza, president of LUChA, Latinos United for Change and Advancement, says he will be out on Aug. 26, standing against hate.
"They are trying to use the immigration discussion as a recruiting tool, trying to convince people that they are like everybody else with concerns about the influx of Latinos, and that what they are doing has nothing to do with hate and racism," Carranza said.
Communities United, a coalition of human rights groups in Madison, split this week on the issue, but voted not to endorse a peaceful counterdemonstration.
Latino activist Alfonso Zepeda-Capistran said that counterdemonstrators must send the message that "we welcome the immigrant community you are attacking."
Dols said that hate messages of neo-Nazis are just a more overt sounding of the "English-only" type of scapegoating roiling among the country's right-wing elements.
It's important to make that connection and take a stand, he said.
"We need to tell people, you have more in common with the low-income Latino immigrant, illegal or not, than you do with George Bush," Dols said.
He said the No Nazis in Madison Coalition has drawn support from the International Socialist Organization, the Milwaukee-based Anti-Racist Action, the Green Party, the Madison Area Peace Coalition and ACORN.
ACORN, a grass-roots organizing group working in Madison's Allied Drive neighborhood, has added anti-Nazism to its roster of concerns.
Alice Howard, president of the local neighborhood association, said Allied residents will join in the rally against the Nazis.
"We know they are only coming here to start trouble and we don't need any more trouble. We want to march for peace and unity," Howard said.
"The organized Jewish community has had so much experience with this," Morrison said. "When we proposed alternatives, it was based on a long experience in lots of communities."
I must be getting more libertarian in my old age, but I wouldn't deny anyone's right to peacefully assemble provided they aren't advocating violence or government overthrow. The First Amendment is there for a reason whether we like the speaker or not.
This reply is tendentious nonsense. Rather than defend your post on its merits (hint: it has none) you compare it to other, unnamed posts that you have not proven even exist (hint: they don't). I did not say that yours was the only illegitimate reply ever to be posted on FR. I stated quite clearly and directly that your reply was illegitimate and I stated exactly why.
It is very simple: you advocated the use of illegal violence to squelch the expression of opinions that you personally find abhorent. This is what fascists do and it is illegal, unintelligent, and despicable. Further, such fascistic posts are a violation of FR rules (look it up, genius). Therefore you should shut the heck up, as I said before.
If you choose to respond, please make an extra effort to reflect some shred of intelligence in your reply for a change. It's only fair.
I spent a good part of my teenage years running with a punk crowd, and the mortal enemies of any punk worth his salt are Nazis. As I've grown older, more accomplished, and less colorful, I'm suprised to find that my feelings towards Nazis haven't changed much. They're a usless group of mental rejects and bloodthirsty perverts who don't deserve any of the consideration that I give to other people whom I disagree with.
I like to think that there's a group of leather-jacketed and mohawked young men living in Madison who agree with me.
My sentiments exactly. Further, anyone who thinks that leftists will be appeased once they establish their "right" to silence Nazis is a fool. You might as well try to appease the jihadis by tossing Israel overboard. It won't work.
I'm with you, mgstarr.
If you want to quench this fire, just ignore them TOTALLY - no crowds, no opposing demonstration and, above all, no press!
Denying these hate-filled individuals attention is to deny the fuel that fans the flame.
Of course, it would take monumental cooperation to achieve it which is unlikely considering the morbid curiousity of many people and, particularly, those in the press.
"I spent a good part of my teenage years running with a punk crowd, and the mortal enemies of any punk worth his salt are Nazis."
So did I. But, today, a fair number of self-styled "progressives" associate the punk scene with NeoNazis. I have gotten into many near-arguments trying to get the point across that the two were diametrically opposed. But, there's no harder head than a self-righteous liberal on a soapbox.
Good morning, Schicklgruber,
Why did you break so soon?
You swore that you would rule the world,
And, maybe, the stars and moon.
What happened to that super race
You had in '39?
Mein Kampf has backfired in your face
And trickled down your spine.
Carson Robison, 1945 Mother Goose
Too right! Trying to explain that not all punks are lefty socialists gives me a headache.
Your hair-splitting razor is too fine and your analogy too remote. Leftie is leftie and despicable.
Soviets were lefty, Nazis were right-wing.
"Soviets were lefty, Nazis were right-wing."
Nazis were to the right of Stalin, but hardly right wing by our own standards. I recall reading a speech on The Propaganda Archive, of Goebbels going on and on about "We are Socialists!"
I thought it was because the Nazis had better fashion sense.
Settle down tiger. I threw you a very offhand response due, in part, to the aggressiveness of your first response.
Beyond the remnants of fights remembered from my youth, personally I believe that in advocating a regime bent on violence, racism, and murder, neo-Nazis have forfeited the protections normally given by the First Amendment. I don't respect them, and I choose not to follow the law in regards to them.
...you compare it to other, unnamed posts that you have not proven even exist (hint: they don't).
I direct your attention to any of the numerous posts made on FR regarding Islamic terror and what should be done to combat it. Frequently, there will be posts declaring that the best and only way to deal with the problem is to slaughter Arabs/Muslims down to the last man, woman, and child. Example post here.
I did not say that yours was the only illegitimate reply ever to be posted on FR. I stated quite clearly and directly that your reply was illegitimate and I stated exactly why.
I disagree with you. While the post might have been against the letter of the posting guidelines, it was not out of bounds so far as common practice is concerned. I voiced my opinion that neo-Nazis should get their butts kicked, but I didn't use the forum as an organizing point for illegal activity.
It is very simple: you advocated the use of illegal violence to squelch the expression of opinions that you personally find abhorrent. This is what fascists do and it is illegal, unintelligent, and despicable.
I am well aware of the irony of using violence to suppress a political minority being Naziesque in and of itself. I'm willing to live with the cognitive dissonance.
Further, such fascistic posts are a violation of FR rules (look it up, genius). Therefore you should shut the heck up, as I said before.
Having not received a warning from an admin mod or had my posts pulled, I'm going to assume that I'm still on the reservation, so to speak. Until I hear otherwise, I'll do as I please, thank you for your input.
If you choose to respond, please make an extra effort to reflect some shred of intelligence in your reply for a change. It's only fair.
I'll go you one better and make it both civil and without insult (implied or otherwise).
Excerpted from "Those Damned Nazis," by Joseph Goebbels, circa 1932:
Why Are We Socialists?
We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.
Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!
Link: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/haken32.htm
I found a similar archive a while back. Makes for some interesting, if disturbing, reading.
However they may have started, by the time they took power, the Nazis were a conglomeration of the most conservative political forces in Germany: The Militarists, the Nationalists, the Monarchists, and the Freikorps. I don't think that any of those had a left-leaning bone in their collective bodies. The left in Germany (communists, et. all) had mostly been driven to emigrate or driven underground by the end of the 20's.
I read that these people are going to stop at that Nazi shrine in Walworth County. The local paper gave the shrine a big story and put it on the map. It was built by a former Nazi soldier because he said that we should see both sides of the story, and Hitler actually liked Jewish people and didn't kill any! Mind-boggling!
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