Life

[Patters]

  gdf said:

Hey Miffy, that sounds pretty great!

And I've finished my last school exams now, so I have four months off until I start uni! A lot of video games will be played, a lot of shifts at work completed and (if I can motivate myself) a lot of writing will be done.

Out of curiosity which Uni are you going to? It's been great fun in my first year, although the time for video games won't disappear.

[80's Bad Guy]

I just wanted to save my gamerscore today for posterity, because it will never be this awesomely emo again.

Also, I'm going to be the lead doctor in our company's training video, which will be unintentionally hilarious, and I'm expecting a big bag of weed today. So life is good!

[Patters]

Urgh I hate how my room looks in halls after taking down all but 4 posters, packing all of my dvds and games, feels really empty, gotta do a 4 hour train journey today too. But on the upside I get to see Anthrax in a few days, and I'm going to 2000 trees in July.

[Nevsky]

  Patters said:

Urgh I hate how my room looks in halls after taking down all but 4 posters, packing all of my dvds and games, feels really empty, gotta do a 4 hour train journey today too. But on the upside I get to see Anthrax in a few days, and I'm going to 2000 trees in July.

Man, university. I was always badly affected by that moment of silence at the end of term. Most of my friends were the go-home-at-first-chance type, so after exams were over, it would be so quiet.

Can't argue with Anthrax, though! Hadn't heard of the 2000 Trees, but good to see Rolo Tomassi on the bill!

In selfish news, this week I had an article published on Gamasutra. Yes, because the positive aspects of my life are governed by words, editors and websites (I'd put readers in there, but that would be presumptuous).

[Patters]

  Nevsky said:

Man, university. I was always badly affected by that moment of silence at the end of term. Most of my friends were the go-home-at-first-chance type, so after exams were over, it would be so quiet.

Can't argue with Anthrax, though! Hadn't heard of the 2000 Trees, but good to see Rolo Tomassi on the bill!

Yeah, it's really quiet especially the last week. Even though a lot of the people I know are still around. I'm not moving out till the 1st but I'm going home to catch up with a few people the coming back to move and for a mate's 21st... fun times. Although it does mean I get to leave the tv and wii out to come back to for the few days between. I'm glad to be moving in with better people though.

[Guest HotScoopDealer]

puffins:yep:

[castorp]

Today a lot of good people in Halle, Germany, including some friends and myself just greatly hindered a Nazi-procession by blocking their marching-routs, and thus keeping them out of the city centre and forcing them to hold their rally in the middle of nowhere. The brown-scum had registered a rout with the authorities but they kept quiet to avoid a clash between the two sides and nobody from our side knew their plan. With some guesswork, scouts, watching of police-movement, a lot of mobile communication and some fast walking and running we managed to block the right streets before the police could hinder us and so the boys in blue (green) had to change the Nazi-flow on the go. Where we were, everything was peaceful, police was mostly nice to the crowd, and vice versa, aside from the usual drunken guy teasing police and some of them being frustrated and venting on the wrong people. Total win!

On our way home, we had to pass a recently opened barely legal Nazi-clothing-store and saw that the windows were broken, trashcans were spilled in front of it and red paint was all over the place. Double total win!

My sympathies to the ones who posted sad and unhappy stories here. Sucks! Hope, it gets better soon.

[OssK]

GG CASTROP ! That's a fucking great thing you did there !

[miffy495]

While undoubtedly a positive on the whole, that sort of thing can definitely be a double-edged sword. Not sure I'd count the destruction of the store as a "win" for example. A couple of months ago there was a rally for the "Aryan Guard" in Calgary that had a big counter-protest. I was at work that day, but the march went right past my work. That night I had a lot of difficulty getting home because one of the counter-protesters had firebombed the train line. As a result, the Nazis actually seemed like the more reasonable people that day, which is not something you'd ever want to have to say.

[MrHoatzin]

  miffy495 said:

As a result, the Nazis actually seemed like the more reasonable people that day, which is not something you'd ever want to have to say.

Sometimes the virtues of Enlightenment, as showcased here, scare me. You, being a Liberal-minded free-speech kind of duder, see it as an unfortunate paradox that you have to let the Nazis do their thing. The Nazis, on the other hand, see your Liberal-minded free-speech as something they would need to abolish, were they to come to power.

Sometimes the phase shift between ideologies in theory and in practice show a very scary middle ground that is hard to define unless one tries to cross from theory into practice. In theory free speech for the win, no compromise; in practice Nazis being totalitarian, narrowsighted, jingoistic, tribal, xenophobic are the natural enemy of free speech and open expression of differences. To preserve free speech in actuality, one needs to shut the Nazis the fuck up, make them go away, ridicule them, outlaw them, break their stores, etc. One has to get one's hands dirty in the very moral dimensions one purports to protect.

On the other hand, Enlightenment has worked rather well thus far, but at the very least we have to be wary of the enemies thereof. We gotsta keep 'em in check.

[SignorSuperdouche]

  Kingzjester said:

To preserve free speech in actuality, one needs to shut the Nazis the fuck up, make them go away, ridicule them, outlaw them, break their stores, etc. One has to get one's hands dirty in the very moral dimensions one purports to protect.(

No, no, no, no absoultely not. I've been thinking about this alot since the BNP were elected over here. This will only legitimise their cause and strengthen their resolve. They can, quite rightly, say they are being victimised and we are hypocrytes which will lend weight to their rhetoric. This will make it appealing to young males who aren't really racists, but just want to rebel and do something thatis forbidden. Not to mention that it sets a hedious precident.

What you are suggesting is entirely counter productive.

[James]

  castorp said:

Nazi-flow on the go

That sounds like something from a bizarre advert.

Generally I favour people I roughly align with politically keeping their hands more-or-less clean so that they can take the moral high ground, rather than creating easy targets for the opposition ("those guys are just worthless anarchists who don't respect legal property and will smash your shop next", etc.). I do, however, appreciate that the real world doesn't allow for complete adherence to such absolutes. Nevertheless, I think it's an ideal to be strived for. If you stick to the issues, you're making an appeal to the general public ("do you see why we disagree with these people?"), whereas if you start getting destructive it gives the appearance that you are seizing control without discussion ("we know what's best, you will do as we say"). Perhaps I'm being idealistic, but I think you're more likely to win people over with persuasion than violence. Then again, I suppose by now the discussion has been had many times over, and everything worth saying has been repeated ad nauseam.

  Kingzjester said:

The Nazis, on the other hand, see your Liberal-minded free-speech as something they would need to abolish, were they to come to power.

I'd say that that just illuminates the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of their march. If people can see it that way, great, although I'd suspect the people who do see it that way are already against the whole Nazi thing. But if we don't allow them to march, doesn't that make us almost as ridiculous as them? Peacefully protest, sure, but I'm not sure how I feel about completely preventing it. I'd rather these things didn't take place, but I don't think I can justify actually stopping them.

  Kingzjester said:

To preserve free speech in actuality, one needs to shut the Nazis the fuck up, make them go away, ridicule them, outlaw them, break their stores, etc.

I don't know if that's true. I suppose it depends on the specifics of the situation. If you're shutting them up, you're making the assumption that people are likely to be won over if only they hear their siren song, and that lots of people are actually just dormant Nazis who we're trying to keep from their true beliefs. That's exactly the sort of thing extreme right-wingers keep claiming: "we're just saying what everyone's thinking". If that is what everyone's thinking . . . well, that's a depressing prospect. I would agree with ridiculing them, in as much as they are ridiculous, but to outlaw them and cause them criminal damage suggests we're scared. I don't know, perhaps people are worried they'll take control. I currently have more faith in the majority of humanity than that, despite the recent election results. Perhaps I'm foolish and complacent.

Like I said above, no ideals stand up completely to the mess that is reality, but I do think it's important to avoid as much as possible the kinds of hypocrisy our enemies are guilty of.

  SignorSuperdouche said:

No, no, no, no absoultely not. I've been thinking about this alot since the BNP were elected over here. This will only legitimise their cause and strengthen their resolve. They can, quite rightly, say they are being victimised and we are hypocrytes which will lend weight to their rhetoric. This will make it appealing to young males who aren't really racists, but just want to rebel and do something thatis forbidden. Not to mention that it sets a hedious precident.

What you are suggesting is entirely counter productive.

Yeah, even the simple act of egging Nick Griffin disappointed me a fair amount. People think they're sending out the message that "we, the people, don't want you", but to me it seems more like "we, a minority, are taking matters into our own hands", which is the kind of thing that scares people who can't relate to that minority (young angry leftists, or whatever), and could potentially even make extreme politics in the opposite direction seem like the path to safety (I'm sure the BNP would enact all sorts of measures to lock those sorts of protesters up, safely out of the way of the good honest public). I don't know, perhaps that's not a good representation of how people think, but it's how it seems to me.

And yeah, it's pretty hypocritical in general. If I expect the right to go around without being assaulted, I have to support that right for everyone else, regardless of their politics. If they break the law, punish them, of course, but keep things above-board.

[OssK]

Well... I'm not sure of where this discussion can go here... Not a new subject, thing is, nazis are not a species, you can't say people are nazis and people think nazi but they don't know it...

Nazis are racists, open racists, people that rally under something bigger than them (that they actually don't understand) and has an historical value. As, when Napoleon grew to power he relied on another totalitarian period to provide him with symbols and legitimacy, these people look back and take inspiration from a period where this very ideology was at the peek of it's greatness. As catholics often look up to the renaissance, and our actual french president looks up himself in his manners and some political moves to Napoleon.

I did that one a fucking while ago and it took me half an hour to dig it out of my blog.

So yes, they're not nazis because they think that jews should be killed, they think jews should be killed because they are nazis.

I quite agree with Grouès who said "A racist is a man who is angry at the wrong thing."

So what does all this lead me to ?

Nazis should be shut up by the law, but not laws against them personnaly, laws against manifesting hate in public, which we already have in France to some extent. So you can't say racist things and encourage people to be violent to one another. Also, you can't lie and can't rape the constitution by saying anything that does not concord with "all men are born free and equal in every right."

So for instance, blacks are inferior is outlawed.

also digging for the Napoleon-Sarkozy thing, I encountered that which I made a few years ago ^.^:

[James]

I guess I'd say that we shouldn't try to shelter people from ideas, no matter how repugnant, but that we should endeavour to put all these ideas into some sort of context, and hopefully that will equip people with the ability to assess things for themselves.

I find these sorts of issues a bit overwhelming, and have difficulty working out a clear stance on them. I probably need to organize my mind somehow.

[MrHoatzin]

  SignorSuperdouche said:

They can, quite rightly, say they are being victimised and we are hypocrytes which will lend weight to their rhetoric.

Yeah, as I was writing that, I was wary of martyrs, but I just wanted to bring the thought to its extreme, whatever its implication, for the purpose of on-going discussion.

The Republican party over here is overflowing with persecution complexes, even when they are in power, they invent The Liberal Media to rail against. They refuse to recognize facts and research that flat-out disprove their biases and prejudices and philosophies. They see natural selection as some sort of very elaborate (and always patently incongruous) conspiracy. Just like Nazis cashing in on their right to free speech, these people are cashing in on modern medicine and technology while refusing to recognize as valid the science that makes it possible.

These kinds of people scare me. And there is too many of them. How does one deal with a force that not only does not respond to reason and logic and basic human decency, but rails against reason and logic and basic human decency while crassly cashing in on the reason and logic and basic human decency of the society they're in?

  Reveal hidden contents

Did I just pull some sort of reverse Godwin's Law aberration? Starting with Nazis and going on to include the Republicans?

[MrHoatzin]

  OssK said:

I did that one a fucking while ago and it took me half an hour to dig it out of my blog.

Oh, man that's awesome. My French is really rotten tho. I understand most of the words, but the meaning still escapes me.

[OssK]

  Kingzjester said:

Oh, man that's awesome. My French is really rotten tho. I understand most of the words, but the meaning still escapes me.

It's a parody of one of the most renowned french poems, Ce siècle avait deux ans by Victor Hugo, it talks about the state of France at that time and how Napoleon rose from these ruins after the revolution and how in that time Victor Hugo was born.

Little translation of the original here:

This century was two years old ! Rome replaced Sparta

We could already see Napoleon behind Bonaparte,*

And under the mask of the first consul, in many a spot

The face of the emperor could be seen

*(because as you probably know, Napoleon was his imperial name, Bonaparte was his political name under which he was elected first consul)

I could try to translate it all because it's a fucking masterpiece but I'm not sure it's of any interest to anybody ^.^

  Quote

Ce siècle avait deux ans ! Rome remplaçait Sparte,

Déjà Napoléon perçait sous Bonaparte,

Et du premier consul, déjà, par maint endroit,

Le front de l'empereur brisait le masque étroit.

Alors dans Besançon, vieille ville espagnole,

Jeté comme la graine au gré de l'air qui vole,

Naquit d'un sang breton et lorrain à la fois

Un enfant sans couleur, sans regard et sans voix ;

Si débile qu'il fut, ainsi qu'une chimère,

Abandonné de tous, excepté de sa mère,

Et que son cou ployé comme un frêle roseau

Fit faire en même temps sa bière et son berceau.

Cet enfant que la vie effaçait de son livre,

Et qui n'avait pas même un lendemain à vivre,

C'est moi. -

Je vous dirai peut-être quelque jour

Quel lait pur, que de soins, que de voeux, que d'amour,

Prodigués pour ma vie en naissant condamnée,

M'ont fait deux fois l'enfant de ma mère obstinée,

Ange qui sur trois fils attachés à ses pas

Épandait son amour et ne mesurait pas !

Ô l'amour d'une mère ! amour que nul n'oublie !

Pain merveilleux qu'un dieu partage et multiplie !

Table toujours servie au paternel foyer !

Chacun en a sa part et tous l'ont tout entier !

Je pourrai dire un jour, lorsque la nuit douteuse

Fera parler les soirs ma vieillesse conteuse,

Comment ce haut destin de gloire et de terreur

Qui remuait le monde aux pas de l'empereur,

Dans son souffle orageux m'emportant sans défense,

A tous les vents de l'air fit flotter mon enfance.

Car, lorsque l'aquilon bat ses flots palpitants,

L'océan convulsif tourmente en même temps

Le navire à trois ponts qui tonne avec l'orage,

Et la feuille échappée aux arbres du rivage !

Maintenant, jeune encore et souvent éprouvé,

J'ai plus d'un souvenir profondément gravé,

Et l'on peut distinguer bien des choses passées

Dans ces plis de mon front que creusent mes pensées.

Certes, plus d'un vieillard sans flamme et sans cheveux,

Tombé de lassitude au bout de tous ses voeux,

Pâlirait s'il voyait, comme un gouffre dans l'onde,

Mon âme où ma pensée habite, comme un monde,

Tout ce que j'ai souffert, tout ce que j'ai tenté,

Tout ce qui m'a menti comme un fruit avorté,

Mon plus beau temps passé sans espoir qu'il renaisse,

Les amours, les travaux, les deuils de ma jeunesse,

Et quoiqu'encore à l'âge où l'avenir sourit,

Le livre de mon coeur à toute page écrit !

Si parfois de mon sein s'envolent mes pensées,

Mes chansons par le monde en lambeaux dispersées ;

S'il me plaît de cacher l'amour et la douleur

Dans le coin d'un roman ironique et railleur ;

Si j'ébranle la scène avec ma fantaisie,

Si j'entre-choque aux yeux d'une foule choisie

D'autres hommes comme eux, vivant tous à la fois

De mon souffle et parlant au peuple avec ma voix ;

Si ma tête, fournaise où mon esprit s'allume,

Jette le vers d'airain qui bouillonne et qui fume

Dans le rythme profond, moule mystérieux

D'où sort la strophe ouvrant ses ailes dans les cieux ;

C'est que l'amour, la tombe, et la gloire, et la vie,

L'onde qui fuit, par l'onde incessamment suivie,

Tout souffle, tout rayon, ou propice ou fatal,

Fait reluire et vibrer mon âme de cristal,

Mon âme aux mille voix, que le Dieu que j'adore

Mit au centre de tout comme un écho sonore !

D'ailleurs j'ai purement passé les jours mauvais,

Et je sais d'où je viens, si j'ignore où je vais.

L'orage des partis avec son vent de flamme

Sans en altérer l'onde a remué mon âme.

Rien d'immonde en mon coeur, pas de limon impur

Qui n'attendît qu'un vent pour en troubler l'azur !

Après avoir chanté, j'écoute et je contemple,

A l'empereur tombé dressant dans l'ombre un temple,

Aimant la liberté pour ses fruits, pour ses fleurs,

Le trône pour son droit, le roi pour ses malheurs ;

Fidèle enfin au sang qu'ont versé dans ma veine

Mon père vieux soldat, ma mère vendéenne !

[Ginger]

Rather than scuffling with the extreme-right or thinking of ways to repel supporters from their ranks wouldn't we better served by trying to fix the moderate political terrain to re-attract the people who feel unrepresented, impotent and angry. Fighting and marginalising the groups will push people on the fringes further into it and likely swell their numbers.

I liked the idea of the blockade as a peaceful protest but those oppose nazis with aggression have many of the same failings as those they fight (imo) but just march behind a different coloured flag. I'm fearful of the plan of ridiculing them, Hitler played on the fact that people in the ruling and intellectual elite didn't take him seriously to gain power. While we are busy looking down our noses at them and those who vote for them they are busy connecting with the people, if people from the political mainstream and our own "enlightened" social circles did more of that a few years ago they probably wouldn't have gained such support.

[OssK]

  Ginger said:

Rather than scuffling with the extreme-right or thinking of ways to repel supporters from their ranks wouldn't we better served by trying to fix the moderate political terrain to re-attract the people who feel unrepresented, impotent and angry. Fighting and marginalising the groups will push people on the fringes further into it and likely swell their numbers.

I think we all agree that a fight, any fight should be fought on different fronts, here you go a bit off topic I think, fixing your own party will not make racists less racists.

  Quote

I liked the idea of the blockade as a peaceful protest but those oppose nazis with aggression have many of the same failings as those they fight (imo) but just march behind a different coloured flag. I'm fearful of the plan of ridiculing them, Hitler played on the fact that people in the ruling and intellectual elite didn't take him seriously to gain power. While we are busy looking down our noses at them and those who vote for them they are busy connecting with the people, if people from the political mainstream and our own "enlightened" social circles did more of that a few years ago they probably wouldn't have gained such support.

Nope, wrong here, there are I think three kind of people against nazis

•on the other extreme of the spectrum, those who militate to resurect Stalin, they might be not better than the nazis or from different goups but they are still extremists

•in the middle there are those who will gladly resort to violence because they feel like it's needed or because they really like it inside but can act as civilized persons in the rest of their lives

•and then there are persons that will not admit that you have to fight on their ground and will say, like el signor that you must let them do what they want and try to either ignore them or at least let them express themselves.

The first ones are the ones that might be close to the nazis in their religisation of ideologies

The second ones are, in my opinion normal human beings, who like the nazis have an urge to be violent but are intelligent people so they contain it because the are civilized

The third ones are people who believe that going to their level makes you one of them, the famous "to fight a monster you have to become one / you become a monster when you fight them too much" movie cliché

[SignorSuperdouche]

  Ginger said:

Rather than scuffling with the extreme-right or thinking of ways to repel supporters from their ranks wouldn't we better served by trying to fix the moderate political terrain to re-attract the people who feel unrepresented, impotent and angry. Fighting and marginalising the groups will push people on the fringes further into it and likely swell their numbers.

This.

I don't want to over generalise, but I think it's fair to say that far-right groups are mostly supported by poor, undereducated white people. These people have genuine reason to be angry, they're just misappropriating their anger. In my view the best way to tackle the far right is to tackle poverty and education.

[OssK]

  SignorSuperdouche said:

This.

I don't want to over generalise, but I think it's fair to say that far-right groups are mostly supported by poor, undereducated white people. These people have genuine reason to be angry, they're just misappropriating their anger. In my view the best way to tackle the far right is to tackle poverty and education.

  Quote

I quite agree with Grouès who said "A racist is a man who is angry at the wrong thing."

Oh man, we're on the same page !

No, I don't mean on the forum I mean... er nevermind...

[James]

  OssK said:

The second ones are, in my opinion normal human beings, who like the nazis have an urge to be violent but are intelligent people so they contain it because the are civilized

I think it's entirely normal to have violence in you, but I don't think it's really acceptable in modern society to act out those impulses in such a dramatic way. We're civilized people, and I'd much rather these issues be fought in terms of the values and ideals behind them rather than with exhibitions of physical might and destructive intent. If you smash up a shop, all you're saying is that you don't approve, not why or why people should agree with you. The fact that violence appeals to innate drives, if anything, works against the cause, as it suggests the protesters are just thugs looking for thrills, rather than people with serious things to say. Violence makes protesters seem intimidating and uninviting, which seems completely counter-productive to me.

[OssK]

  JamesM said:

I think it's entirely normal to have violence in you, but I don't think it's really acceptable in modern society to act out those impulses in such a dramatic way. We're civilized people, and I'd much rather these issues be fought in terms of the values and ideals behind them rather than with exhibitions of physical might and destructive intent. If you smash up a shop, all you're saying is that you don't approve, not why or why people should agree with you. The fact that violence appeals to innate drives, if anything, works against the cause, as it suggests the protesters are just thugs looking for thrills, rather than people with serious things to say. Violence makes protesters seem intimidating and uninviting, which seems completely counter-productive to me.

Hey, we're in the life part of the site, I can tell my life story... here it is :

For seven month I have been beaten sometimes to an extent you can harldy imagine by six kids when I was in what I think you call Fifth form I think ? When you're like 16.

So yeah, I was basically once beaten till I fainted in the street where they took me after class and no matter what I said I got beaten. You could try telling it to an adult, they're punished and then they hate you for it and their friends come along, you can try giving them what you got you still get the feet, same thing if you don't... So yeah, I pretty much have experienced that. And then, I started rock climbing and gymnastics, and when I started to compete in those sports I said, meh, I might be stronger than I imagine, an arm was broken and five asses were kicked that night and they tried to come back a few times but I still was stronger than six of them so they did not advertise it too much.

I have no shame at all to have such violence in me and that I sometimes consider the fact that when playing fighting with girls I have to be very careful because I could break them, but I have a brain and a conscience which in my opinion makes me different from animals... and nazis...

[James]

OK, but that's different than smashing a shop up. Perhaps your retaliation was justified, perhaps not, but it was in response to actual violence and the threat of further violence. I'm not a pacifist; I won't claim that war is always avoidable, but that shop wasn't about to beat anyone up. More generally, I don't think violence at protests is justified unless very strongly provoked (who provoked who is, of course, a very difficult matter to untangle, butthere has to be an element of self-defence for it to be at all legitimate, and even then I think it should be as restrained as possible while remaining effective).

[zomboid]

I just want to state, for the record, that I think Nazis are totally uncool.