It seems some in the atheist movement are casting an envious eye on the money to be made by pandering to the alt-right crowd. They’re easily spotted — they’re the ones protesting that they really are liberals (usually with a “classical” or “neo” as a prefix, or a ” but” as a permanently attached suffix), while they spend all their effort on chastising Leftists or Black Lives Matter activists or Progressives or anyone who is fucking pissed off at the state of the country, and ignoring Nazis and white nationalists to complain that the people who consider the treatment of black folk to be discriminatory and historically and currently oppressive are the real racists. I just wish they’d be honest and recognize that they’re aligning themselves in favor of Nazis in the name of Free Speech, while working hard against progressives, because they shouldn’ta oughtnota say them there things.
The latest repeat offender in this game is Dave Smalley, who has written another of his one-sentence-per-paragraph declarative jeremiads. How dare The Left call Ben Carson a “white supremacist”? (no attribution given). How dare The Left call Gad Saad a “Nazi”? (no attribution given). How dare a Black Lives Matter activist tell white people “Get your own damn people, and tell them to stop being racists!” (no attribution given). And then he says, Is this not prejudiced? Is this not discrimination? Is this not segregation?
, only a few sentences/paragraphs later to piously declare, I didn’t call her names. I’m not labeling her as a racist
. She’s just toxic
. That’s better. No name calling here, no sir!
Gah. The hypocrisy and dishonesty are infuriating. Could all you guys just admit that you’re right-leaning and that you use the claim that you’re a centrist as an excuse? (While failing to note that the American version of the “center” is somewhere close to fascism everywhere else in the world.) I prefer a straightforward wingnut to these chickenshits who like to pretend they’re liberal.
Anyway, I’m not going to delve into a sentence by sentence deconstruction of this foolish sucking up to delusional deplorables since, fortunately, the Utah Outcasts did a great job taking it apart.
I’m just going to remind you all that the people who protest the loudest that they aren’t really Nazis are the ones who enable the Nazis, and all too often are hiding the fact that they identify with and sympathize with Nazis more than they do progressives. If you have to whine and cry and repeat over and over again that no, you aren’t conservative, no, you’re not on the same side with white supremacists, you might want to ask yourself why so many people that you claim to be allies with are thinking that.
That’s gonna leave a mark. Here’s another post ripping into Smalley.
Speaking of identifying with Nazis, this story came out earlier today.
Meet the Dallas Bartender Who Kicked Milo Yiannopoulos and Some Neo-Nazis Out of Her Bar
Yep. Over and over and over again the self-described center left white guys are peering through an Overton Window shifted so very far right.
Starfleetdude @1: Oh, is that the event where Milo’s myopia was so severe he couldn’t make out the Hitler salutes a few yards in front of him?
Yeah, I replied to him on Twitter noting it was another “Do as I say, not as I do” post from him. His point wasn’t necessarily a bad point. From what I recall of the post (I read it the day it came out, which was 2 or 3 days ago now), he was essentially saying he tends to ignore our arguments if we use what he considers to be hyperbolic language. OK, I can believe that. What bothered me most is that he starts this damn post chastising us if we don’t read his argument in full. That’s how I saw it as a “Do as I say, not as I do” post. It’s OK for him to ignore our full arguments if we call people Nazis, rapists, misogynists, white supremacists, etc, but we better not dare ignore his full argument! The other thing that bothers me is that he similarly ignores the catch-22 we face. As I suggested, I can agree that people may ignore us if we use such language (Smalley has presented himself as such an example), but avoiding such language altogether could have a different effect in that our arguments may also not be taken seriously if we aren’t using such language. E.g, “Oh, Ben Carson isn’t a white supremacist? He’s just “toxic”? What’s the issue then”?
uh, that makes them the polar OPPOSITE of what liberal actually means.
neoliberals are essentially what the modern GoP is composed of.
you could boil down all of neoliberalism to :
ignorant narcissism
and not be far wrong.
…and the ones that call themselves “classic” liberals are inevitably libertarians. again, not liberal.
#4: I guess “screeching left” isn’t hyperbolic language.
So, how do we deal with this? How do we get nominal progressives to realize that they’re enabling right wing extremists?
Expanding on that last point, the second article mentions that there are apparently figures in Hollywood, academia, the tech industry, government, etc. that are sympathetic to the alt right. That article featured in the “chocolate ritual” post mentioned how the Nazis were planning on being “secret agents”; they would pretend to be progressive so they can get jobs in positions of authority. Then they would start hiring other Nazis and imposing racist beliefs into the organization they work for.
I think that progressives might need to start a campaign to ferret out white supremacists and other bigots from important institutions and get them fired. Does anyone else have any ideas for how we could counteract any sort of attempted takeover of society by white supremacists?