French government denounces American Woke Left

[Cultural Posadism]

It's not "hypocrisy", though. At all. Again, you could only see it as "hypocritical" if you had a very simplistic idea of what authoritarianism is.

They call themselves "anti-fascist" yet they violently trample on basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to associate with democratic political parties. Yes that's pretty hypocritical.

Again: very simplistic idea of what authoritarianism is if you think that antifa action is in any way akin to fascism.

Most of what antifascists do is perfectly within the law and violates nobody's "basic civil liberties". Pressuring a private institution to not give a platform to fascists is no more authoritarian than boycotting Electronic Arts because you hated the lootboxes in Battlefront 2. Heckling a fascist speaker is no more authoritarian than heckling a stand up comedian when their jokes bomb. Infiltrating and exposing fascist organizations is no more authoritarian than being a whistleblower for authoritarian regimes. And violently confronting fascists on the streets isn't inherently fascist for the same reason that owning a gun doesn't automatically make you a conservative. Fascists didn't invent political violence, and historically speaking political violence hasn't been inherently incompatible with liberalism (see: almost every single liberal revolution since the 18th century).

Fascism isn't fascism because it was the first political movement to engage in political violence or the first political movement to pressure institutions to undermine their opponents' ability to organize, propagandize and recruit in public. Liberals and conservatives were also doing that shit long before fascism became a thing.

One way in which they're not hypocrites is that they're not classical nationalist fascists but at the very least they're highly authoritarian which more than passes the bar of what they consider to be "fascist".

Further proving that you have a very simplistic understanding of authoritarianism and fascism.

What does it say about your ideology that your position on militant antifascism relies almost entirely on knowing too little about the categories you've been taught to use to criticize it.

Also, whether it's hypocritical or not is irrelevant to whether deplatforming is good or bad.

Yes it's bad, especially when it's the 'we're going to harass venue owners so that you can't speak anywhere' brand of deplatforming rather than 'we'd rather not have you at our private event'.

Let me ask you this: imagine that I found out that GAP uses third-party companies abroad to manufacture their clothing (which they do) and that said third-party companies employ child slave labor (which they do) and in very abusive and dangerous conditions (which they do). Now, imagine that, knowing that, I chose to use my own basic civil liberties to pressure GAP to stop using (i.e. platforming) those third-party companies. Would I be violating GAP's basic civil liberties if I did that? If I organized rallies outside of GAP headquarters and heckled GAP's CEO, demanding that they drop those manufacturers? Would that be authoritarian of me? If your answer is "no", then your ideology is self-contradicting.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

Now, I'm not French, so I don't claim to have a native's insight on their social and societal issues and the academics' take on them, but I can attest to a similar - and similarly nonsensical - trend in Germany.
Debates on the nature and dynamics of racism have started to use a vocabulary that has more often than not been airlifted directly from the American discourse - including the dichotomy of the exclusively and all-encompassing Whites on the one hand and the always-discriminated against BIPOC* on the other, with little adjustment into the German societal context. Something you increasingly notice these days is that activist-journalists have started to add a polit-speak glossary to their articles to give their poor readers a chance to understand what they are even talking about - not exactly a sign that it's an organically developed debate that is taking place here. It's probably also not a coincidence that less and less people are reading and are feeling represented by mainstream media.

*the irony of using the US term "indigenous" when referring to a, at best, tiny number of immigrants of Native American background as opposed to, you know, the actual indigenous population of the place, is usually lost on the author.

I find this trend both annoying and disturbing for a variety of reasons, namely:

1.) The often repeated claim that the concept of a "colorblind society" is a false narrative that only serves to mask social prejudices is one thing; however, no evidence of any kind is offered that the woke Left's counter-approach of errecting more and more tribal markers in language, behavior and who you are to socialize with/listen to etc will lead to a better and juster society instead of deepening the differences between these alleged tribal groups. The US sure as hell aren't an example.

2.) The introduction of US-style ad hominem puritanism into debate culture. I don't disagree with you by analyzing the fallacies of your argument but by marking you as someone who has been born into - alleged - privilege and are therefore inherently immoral and only worthy of being shunned.

3.) The audacity with which some people of one ethnic minority appropriate the vocabulary and self-image of another ethnic minority with a completely different history. Some Turkish German journalists - who have roots in a nation with a long and often uncritically embraced history of empire, colonialism, authoritarianism, racism and genocide - try to claim the label of "POC" to forge a - completely artificial - common "we" with African Americans and other historically wronged ethnic groups, thus very intellectually conveniently switching places from the role of historical opressor to historical victim.

4.) The ongoing (self-)destruction of traditional Social Democracy which decided that their own voter base, yesterday's exploited working-class, have become today's over-privileged white cishet males or whatever, then stares in puzzled disbelief everytime it hits new lows in voter support.

5.) Most despicably of all, the silent erasure of remembering and understanding Germany's own historically developed brand of racism. In all the articles I've read written from the perspective of this new, US-style "anti"-racism, the Holocaust usually just gets namedropped with no further elaboration on how things got that far and what to do to prevent similar developments again, while the genocides in Poland, Ukraine and Russia might just as well not have happened at all - after all these are peoples that are filed under the "white" label, which makes them privileged, no further analysis needed.

If the situation in France is any similar to the above, I can sympathize.

I put this in the Awesome NS Quotes thread; hope that's OK with you.

And thank you for mentioning the genocides in Eastern Europe; those are often overlooked, with Poles being lopped into the "privileged" category as though the Poles haven't been historically invaded or discriminated against.

I don't know much about the Turks, so I won't comment on that.

I am sick of white people always being portrayed as the bad guys. It's discriminatory and...r a c i s t , to use the proper definition of the word.

[Salandriagado]

Private organisations deciding not to support people is not a violation of freedom of speech. Expressing your opinions to said organisations to encourage them to do so is also not a violation of freedom of speech.

Not strictly when done in good faith and within the right to protest, but it is when the intent is basically 'our political opponents cannot be allowed to speak in any public or semi-public space'.

Nope. There is absolutely no right to have someone else help you broadcast your speech. And, indeed, literally nobody is stopping you from doing so: you can go outside your house right now and tell anybody who'll listen whatever shit you want to tell them.

[SD_Film Artists]

They call themselves "anti-fascist" yet they violently trample on basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to associate with democratic political parties. Yes that's pretty hypocritical.

Again: very simplistic idea of what authoritarianism is if you think that antifa action is in any way akin to fascism.

Sometimes simple ideas are all that's needed when the problem is simple. Not that I'm saying that it was an over-simplistic idea, mind.

Most of what antifascists do is perfectly within the law and violates nobody's "basic civil liberties".

Antifa*

If 'antifascists' was accurate then that'll solve a lot of what's wrong with them.

Also, "most of"??

Pressuring a private institution to not give a platform to fascists is no more authoritarian than boycotting Electronic Arts because you hated the lootboxes in Battlefront 2. Heckling a fascist speaker is no more authoritarian than heckling a stand up comedian when their jokes bomb. Infiltrating and exposing fascist organizations is no more authoritarian than being a whistleblower for authoritarian regimes. And violently confronting fascists on the streets isn't inherently fascist for the same reason that owning a gun doesn't automatically make you a conservative. Fascists didn't invent political violence, and historically speaking political violence hasn't been inherently incompatible with liberalism (see: almost every single liberal revolution since the 18th century).

Again, they're not just targeting fascists and that's one of the main problems with them, so much of what you've just said is hypothetical rather than actually applying to Antifa in any way.

Heckling people is not a breach of freedom of speech and I never said that it was.

I only wish that these people would "infiltrate" a bit more as then they might learn a bit more about who their organisers claimed to be "fascists".

Violently confronting one's political opponents on the streets is illegal, and also another indication that they have no interest in free speech.

I also never claimed that fascists invented political violence.

Fascism isn't fascism because it was the first political movement to engage in political violence or the first political movement to pressure institutions to undermine their opponents' ability to organize, propagandize and recruit in public.

Again, I never claimed that. Infact I specifcally outlined how they're more just authoritarians rather than blackshirt style fascists. Their lack of knowledge about true fascism is exactly part of why they're so wrong. If one is going to be an anti-fascist then it's generally a good idea to know what fascism is first. I shouldn't be surprised though, as a lot of self styled anti-colonialists are pretty pro-colonialism when it suits them.

One way in which they're not hypocrites is that they're not classical nationalist fascists but at the very least they're highly authoritarian which more than passes the bar of what they consider to be "fascist".

Further proving that you have a very simplistic understanding of authoritarianism and fascism.

What does it say about your ideology that your position on militant antifascism relies almost entirely on knowing too little about the categories you've been taught to use to criticize it.

Yes it's bad, especially when it's the 'we're going to harass venue owners so that you can't speak anywhere' brand of deplatforming rather than 'we'd rather not have you at our private event'.

Let me ask you this: imagine that I found out that GAP uses third-party companies abroad to manufacture their clothing (which they do) and that said third-party companies employ child slave labor (which they do) and in very abusive and dangerous conditions (which they do). Now, imagine that, knowing that, I chose to use my own basic civil liberties to pressure GAP to stop using (i.e. platforming) those third-party companies. Would I be violating GAP's basic civil liberties if I did that? If I organized rallies outside of GAP headquarters and heckled GAP's CEO, demanding that they drop those manufacturers? Would that be authoritarian of me? If your answer is "no", then your ideology is self-contradicting.

No as that's called investigative journalism and the right to protest. Antifa and similarly alligned groups would decide that they prefer Primark, then- regardless of any employment of child slave labor which may or may not happen- would then try to harrass GAP staff, anyone who wears GAP, starting a campaign of harrassment, defamation and sometimes violence with the intent to force the victims through intimidation by a mob rather than education through protest. And why? Not because of child labour, but because they have their interests in Primark.

There has been a consistant pattern of complaints from Liberal Democrat members during the 2019 election that harrassment and intimidation (some criminal, some less so) have consistantly came from Momentum. And if you think that's off-topic, let me remind you that the very subject of this thread is the legal combating of far-left groups which are heavily influenced by American politics...like Momentum. Let me also remind you that the Lib Dems are centre-left. They're not just going after right-wing people.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Not strictly when done in good faith and within the right to protest, but it is when the intent is basically 'our political opponents cannot be allowed to speak in any public or semi-public space'.

Nope. There is absolutely no right to have someone else help you broadcast your speech. And, indeed, literally nobody is stopping you from doing so: you can go outside your house right now and tell anybody who'll listen whatever shit you want to tell them.

That's not entirely serious is it? There are stricter limits on what you can say directly to someone, even in public, than on what you can say to anybody who'll listen. By as you say, "broadcasting" speech.

Any analogy between internet things and real world things will obviously be suspect. An internet "place" like Nationstates can restrain free speech almost however they like (I won't go into the exceptions). The analogy of a private club on private property fits well enough. Facebook is not quite so clear cut: it's more like individual rooms that users "rent" by curating information there which Facebook assumes will attract other users to the Facebook community. Facebook is not just a publisher, and deserves no credit for attracting users to its site with other users' content and extracting profit from both. Publishers pay for content, Facebook doesn't.

Twitter is less modelled on rooms, and more on a bazar. Each user's "virtual territory" is bigger or smaller depending on ... this is where the analogy shouldn't be trusted ... what kind of freaky shit draws the most attention from the crowd. They don't necessarily like the shit, and they sure wouldn't buy it, but rating users and Tweets by attention (rather than engagement as FB does) has caused the illusion of being a private property "place" to collapse. A service is not a place that users "visit" like a website. But nor can it be considered a public space that people need freedom to enter and leave (a road).

The analogy itself might be the problem. We've naively used words like "site" and "service" and even "speech" for the puny trappings of a town on the vast potential plain of what the internet will be. "But where's my free speech?" is a bit like new users in the 1980's saying "But if the Home Page is like a Front Page, why doesn't it say who owns it? Isn't that illegal?"

[SD_Film Artists]

Not strictly when done in good faith and within the right to protest, but it is when the intent is basically 'our political opponents cannot be allowed to speak in any public or semi-public space'.

Nope. There is absolutely no right to have someone else help you broadcast your speech.

I never said that people 'have to help you'. If a local radio station decides- by their own will without duress- that they don't want you being on their show then that's fine.

Though since you mention it (and it was you who mentioned it, the strawman) I do admire how French elections involve being sent an envelope with political leaflets from every political party; ensuring that every party gets a bare minimum of exposure to every household.

And, indeed, literally nobody is stopping you from doing so: you can go outside your house right now and tell anybody who'll listen whatever shit you want to tell them.

You *could*, but then you might go to jail for it. The stupid thing is that it doesn't even have to be about what you say or the intent, but rather how it's percieved.

[Nilokeras]

Though since you mention it (and it was you who mentioned it, the strawman) I do admire how French elections involve being sent an envelope with political leaflets from every political party; ensuring that every party gets a bare minimum of exposure to every household.

What a bizarre double standard. The state gives a hand up to every political party in influencing peoples' decisions but private citizens can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations?

[SD_Film Artists]

Though since you mention it (and it was you who mentioned it, the strawman) I do admire how French elections involve being sent an envelope with political leaflets from every political party; ensuring that every party gets a bare minimum of exposure to every household.

What a bizarre double standard. The state gives a hand up to every political party in influencing peoples' decisions but private citizens can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations?

I've said more than once that people have the right to protest, so I'm not sure where you got 'can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations' from; unless your idea of 'influence' is duress via libel, intimidation and violence.

[Nilokeras]

What a bizarre double standard. The state gives a hand up to every political party in influencing peoples' decisions but private citizens can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations?

I've said more than once that people have the right to protest, so I'm not sure where you got 'can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations' from; unless your idea of 'influence' is duress via libel, intimidation and violence.

You seem to have twitter hashtags mixed up with Kristallnacht. An easy mistake to make, no worries.

[SD_Film Artists]

I've said more than once that people have the right to protest, so I'm not sure where you got 'can't act to try and influence the decisions of corporations' from; unless your idea of 'influence' is duress via libel, intimidation and violence.

You seem to have twitter hashtags mixed up with Kristallnacht. An easy mistake to make, no worries.

No I'm talking about Antifa and the like....and I think you know that.

[Nilokeras]

You seem to have twitter hashtags mixed up with Kristallnacht. An easy mistake to make, no worries.

No I'm talking about Antifa and the like....and I think you know that.

Antifa is trying to get Joss Whedon fired?

[SD_Film Artists]

No I'm talking about Antifa and the like....and I think you know that.

Antifa is trying to get Joss Whedon fired?

No idea, but it does like to dehumanise the far-right and then claim that anyone who disagrees with them is far-right, thus dehumanising anyone who disagrees with them. They know that their victims know this, which is part of how the duress is supposed to work. 'Do what we say or you're a Nazi.'

[Nilokeras]

Antifa is trying to get Joss Whedon fired?

No idea, but it does like to dehumanise the far-right and then claim that anyone who disagrees with them is far-right, thus dehumanising anyone who disagrees with them. They know that their victims know this, which is part of how the duress is supposed to work. 'Do what we say or you're a Nazi.'

So your bringing Antifa into this conversation has nothing to do with a theatre director deciding not to do blackface.

Weird flex but okay.

[SD_Film Artists]

No idea, but it does like to dehumanise the far-right and then claim that anyone who disagrees with them is far-right, thus dehumanising anyone who disagrees with them. They know that their victims know this, which is part of how the duress is supposed to work. 'Do what we say or you're a Nazi.'

So your bringing Antifa into this conversation has nothing to do with a theatre director deciding not to do blackface.

Weird flex but okay.

The OP didn't say anything about blackface. You brought it into the conversation. You're still on-topic as part of the issue did involve blackface in French theatres, but it's not as if the OP is just about blackface and I also haven't seen anyone here trying to defend blackface. It almost looks as if you don't have an actual response to my posts about Antifa; which to be clear is just as on-topic as your discussion around blackface.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Nope. There is absolutely no right to have someone else help you broadcast your speech.

I never said that people 'have to help you'. If a local radio station decides- by their own will without duress- that they don't want you being on their show then that's fine.

Though since you mention it (and it was you who mentioned it, the strawman) I do admire how French elections involve being sent an envelope with political leaflets from every political party; ensuring that every party gets a bare minimum of exposure to every household.

Yeah, can't find fault with that. There must be some requirement (minimum votes, filing fee, petition) or else the envelope would be the size of a sea trunk!

[SD_Film Artists]

I never said that people 'have to help you'. If a local radio station decides- by their own will without duress- that they don't want you being on their show then that's fine.

Though since you mention it (and it was you who mentioned it, the strawman) I do admire how French elections involve being sent an envelope with political leaflets from every political party; ensuring that every party gets a bare minimum of exposure to every household.

Yeah, can't find fault with that. There must be some requirement (minimum votes, filing fee, petition) or else the envelope would be the size of a sea trunk!

I'd guess it's similar to the UK in that a four-figure deposit (filing fee) and perhaps other hurdles is normaly enough to keep the joke spam options out of the ballot box. Normaly. Actually I would love to see what a Lord Buckethead political leaflet would look like. It could make for better reading than most other leaflets.

[Nilokeras]

The OP didn't say anything about blackface. You brought it into the conversation. You're still on-topic as part of the issue did involve blackface in French theatres, but it's not as if the OP is just about blackface and I also haven't seen anyone here trying to defend blackface.

The OP doesn't care about any of this except as a reason to grind an axe against 'wokeness'. Hence why they have nothing to say on the subject, because articulating why not using blackface is bad would reveal it. If you want to hop in that wagon with them be my guest.

It almost looks as if you don't have an actual response to my posts about Antifa; which to be clear is just as on-topic as your discussion around blackface.

I'm not engaging with your posts about Antifa because they're a bizarre conflation of two issues. If you want to talk about Antifa supersoldiers terrorizing people great, it just doesn't have anything to do with 'cancellations' or 'wokeness' and its relation to corporate decisionmaking.

[SD_Film Artists]

The OP didn't say anything about blackface. You brought it into the conversation. You're still on-topic as part of the issue did involve blackface in French theatres, but it's not as if the OP is just about blackface and I also haven't seen anyone here trying to defend blackface.

The OP doesn't care about any of this except as a reason to grind an axe against 'wokeness'. Hence why they have nothing to say on the subject, because articulating why not using blackface is bad would reveal it. If you want to hop in that wagon with them be my guest.

The OP is under no obligation to lean the thread into avenues of thought which you deem to be more palatable. More to the point, it's unfair to imply that I'm going off-topic by not talking about blackface when there was literally no mention of blackface in the OP; unless you count the source links and even they don't claim that this is all about blackface. They instead lead with France's stronger stance against imported American ideologies and 'woke leftism'.

Since blackface is technically related to the story(s) you're free to talk about it, but please don't try to own the thread just because the OP "doesn't care".

It almost looks as if you don't have an actual response to my posts about Antifa; which to be clear is just as on-topic as your discussion around blackface.

I'm not engaging with your posts about Antifa because they're a bizarre conflation of two issues. If you want to talk about Antifa supersoldiers terrorizing people great, it just doesn't have anything to do with 'cancellations' or 'wokeness' and its relation to corporate decisionmaking.

They are two issues and they're often linked. You can be woke without being antifa, yet antifa is around pretty much because of wokeness. Also terrorising people is a pretty significant component of duress.

[Nilokeras]

The OP is under no obligation to lean the thread into avenues of thought which you deem to be more palatable. More to the point, it's unfair to imply that I'm going off-topic by not talking about blackface when there was literally no mention of blackface in the OP; unless you count the source links and even they don't claim that this is all about blackface. They instead lead with France's stronger stance against imported American ideologies and 'woke leftism'.

Since blackface is technically related to the story(s) you're free to talk about it, but please don't try to own the thread just because the OP "doesn't care".

You're not going off topic by failing to mention blackface. You're going off topic by trying to drag Antifa supersoldiers and their campaigns of terror into a story about an opera director deciding to not do blackface and the French political establishment getting their feathers ruffled about something something 'wokeness'.

They are two issues and they're often linked. You can be woke without being antifa, yet antifa is around pretty much because of wokeness. Also terrorising people is a pretty significant component of duress.

So who exactly is terrorizing who in this case of an opera director deciding to not use blackface?

[SD_Film Artists]

The OP is under no obligation to lean the thread into avenues of thought which you deem to be more palatable. More to the point, it's unfair to imply that I'm going off-topic by not talking about blackface when there was literally no mention of blackface in the OP; unless you count the source links and even they don't claim that this is all about blackface. They instead lead with France's stronger stance against imported American ideologies and 'woke leftism'.

Since blackface is technically related to the story(s) you're free to talk about it, but please don't try to own the thread just because the OP "doesn't care".

You're not going off topic by failing to mention blackface. You're going off topic by trying to drag Antifa supersoldiers and their campaigns of terror into a story about an opera director deciding to not do blackface and the French political establishment getting their feathers ruffled about something something 'wokeness'.

You decided to make this about "an opera director deciding to not do blackface". Antifa is one example of wokeness; I can say other groups if you'd wish. Exactly what kind of American woke left groups are acceptable to you in a thread which is explictly about the American Woke Left?

Also I'm not sure where you're getting "supersoldiers" from.

They are two issues and they're often linked. You can be woke without being antifa, yet antifa is around pretty much because of wokeness. Also terrorising people is a pretty significant component of duress.

So who exactly is terrorizing who in this case of an opera director deciding to not use blackface?

That's not what I said and you know it.

[Adamede]

Good for them. Really don’t care for either the woke movement or the French government.

[Polish Prussian Commonwealth]

wtf... I love france now!!!!

[The Alma Mater]

It's not "hypocrisy", though. At all. Again, you could only see it as "hypocritical" if you had a very simplistic idea of what authoritarianism is.

They call themselves "anti-fascist" yet they violently trample on basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to associate with democratic political parties. Yes that's pretty hypocritical.

Why ? The war against facism was not won by having polite conversations over tea. It was violent. VERY violent.
You can certainly disagree with the methods or the rather liberal definition of "fascists" some people calling themselves "antifa" employ; but them being violent terrorists is not hypocritical.

[Baltenstein]

They are two issues and they're often linked. You can be woke without being antifa, yet antifa is around pretty much because of wokeness. Also terrorising people is a pretty significant component of duress.

Not quite. The antifa movement has arguably been around since the 1920ies and is about as old as Fascism.

[Vassenor]

Good for them. Really don’t care for either the woke movement or the French government.

wtf... I love france now!!!!

So you support blackfacing and the stereotypes that come with it? Since you clearly disagree with someone deciding to eliminate it from their theatrical production.