I've often dumbed it down to the body-count. "Murder will out" and where stats are shaky, the number of dead is more reliable than trying to count concussions and broken limbs.
Watts Riots, 1965: 34 dead (violence in Los Angeles)
I've often dumbed it down to the body-count. "Murder will out" and where stats are shaky, the number of dead is more reliable than trying to count concussions and broken limbs.
Watts Riots, 1965: 34 dead (violence in Los Angeles)
Detroit Riots, 1967: 43
Rodney King, 1992: 63 (L.A. again)
BLM, 2020: 25 (combined, all over America)
....there is just no sign of left-wing violence rising in response to all these threats from the right. Most of those BLM marches happened after they'd been threatened with federal troops. Helicopters overhead. Marchers bloodied on TV. And, obviously, the Heather Heyer vehicular murder left 5 in critical condition, injured 35.
That's a lot of provocation for very little violence, and of course, the dead in 2020 were more often marchers than people assaulted by marchers.
I'd like to see the argument against the statement that the Left has done nothing but moderate since the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Black protests have never again gone the Black Panther route of armed Black men patrolling neighbourhoods. I can't remember the last left-wing bombing or shooting.
So, there's Justin, having to resort to the subjunctive: "IF the left feels" [they must], they MAY take...".
Call me when the first Lefty militia has formed, JL. The right has been forming them in numbers since, oh, about Gingrich.
I think that's all fair. I think there's a few dimensions to this: One being that 'left' (or at least anti-right) violence doesn't tend to look like right wing reactionary violence. Rather than violence against civilians or government institutions, it tends to be mass protest which *might* target property. In rare cases, it's violence against police/politicians. (2016 Dallas police shooting, 2017 Congressional baseball attack.) So it does happen.
There's no guarantee it will get worse, but I think there are plenty of indicators that it will тАФ growing urgency amongst climate activists, e.g.
But all to say, yes, the right tends to be more prone to political violence. But it goes back to one of my axioms: Polarization manifests differently on different sides.
Thank-you; I was not thinking of lone-wolf violence when writing that; my mind's eye was on militias (def: *organization* for committing violent acts) and mass-actions like protests.
Of course, I also forgot antifa, but I'm unaware of any actual hospitalizations from them, much less murders. I don't think they've ever been more-armed than sticks? Or planned actions beyond showing up at other demonstrations.
You mercifully didn't open the can of worms as to whether all Islamic terror is left-wing by a right-wing definition: it's against imperialism. The American political left-wing was basically forced to sign off on the Iraq War so that they could disassociate themselves from terrorists. They were called "soft-on-communism" for decades, and knew they had to get way out ahead of the accusations of "soft-on-terror", "terrorist sympathizers", etc. Obama didn't close Guantanamo, it might have cost him ObamaCare.
For what it's worth, I think we can say that the current state of the far-right militia movement тАФ that is, actual paramilitary groups with proper command structures тАФ is probably less than it was in the 90s. Now we've got a lot of militia cosplaying.
And yeah, like I wrote, we also need to realize there's more than single axis. Yes there's left/right extremism, but also religious/environmental/animal welfare/etc extremism (which may or may not be left/right)
And if one of these sides has fascistic tendencies, look out. We've been taught to fear the wrong bogeyman since shortly after the Allies won the second world war.
We didn't defeat fascism....we sent it underground for a few decades. It's a mindset.
And hard to eradicate. Wilhelm Reich wrote a book about it, and I remember his claim that all you have to do to bring out the fascist is tighten the economic screws ever so slightly. We're hard wired to be fascists he claimed.
I hate to believe that..........but recent activity around the world has me worried. Because economically, given the degree to which we're in overshoot as a planet, it can only get worse.
I might venture to suggest that left-wing violence seems to manifest more in actions like doxxing, cancellations, riots and so on. No armies or deaths (?) involved, but a lot of damage done nevertheless. Having said that, those have become right-wing tactics as well these days.
As I understand the word "cancellation", it's the same as ancient ostracism, shunning, excommunication: nobody will work with you, buy from you. That's not violence.
"Doxxing" can be alarming, but only in the context where it might lead to violence, the victim must have concerns that there are left-wing attackers out there who will use the address, as "Gamergate" journalists were made to fear physical attack by multiple threats.
Letting a fascism-proponent's boss know that they have a fascism-proponent on the payroll is a sort of "doxxing", but not violent.
I've often dumbed it down to the body-count. "Murder will out" and where stats are shaky, the number of dead is more reliable than trying to count concussions and broken limbs.
Watts Riots, 1965: 34 dead (violence in Los Angeles)
Detroit Riots, 1967: 43
Rodney King, 1992: 63 (L.A. again)
BLM, 2020: 25 (combined, all over America)
....there is just no sign of left-wing violence rising in response to all these threats from the right. Most of those BLM marches happened after they'd been threatened with federal troops. Helicopters overhead. Marchers bloodied on TV. And, obviously, the Heather Heyer vehicular murder left 5 in critical condition, injured 35.
That's a lot of provocation for very little violence, and of course, the dead in 2020 were more often marchers than people assaulted by marchers.
I'd like to see the argument against the statement that the Left has done nothing but moderate since the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Black protests have never again gone the Black Panther route of armed Black men patrolling neighbourhoods. I can't remember the last left-wing bombing or shooting.
So, there's Justin, having to resort to the subjunctive: "IF the left feels" [they must], they MAY take...".
Call me when the first Lefty militia has formed, JL. The right has been forming them in numbers since, oh, about Gingrich.
I think that's all fair. I think there's a few dimensions to this: One being that 'left' (or at least anti-right) violence doesn't tend to look like right wing reactionary violence. Rather than violence against civilians or government institutions, it tends to be mass protest which *might* target property. In rare cases, it's violence against police/politicians. (2016 Dallas police shooting, 2017 Congressional baseball attack.) So it does happen.
There's no guarantee it will get worse, but I think there are plenty of indicators that it will тАФ growing urgency amongst climate activists, e.g.
But all to say, yes, the right tends to be more prone to political violence. But it goes back to one of my axioms: Polarization manifests differently on different sides.
Thank-you; I was not thinking of lone-wolf violence when writing that; my mind's eye was on militias (def: *organization* for committing violent acts) and mass-actions like protests.
Of course, I also forgot antifa, but I'm unaware of any actual hospitalizations from them, much less murders. I don't think they've ever been more-armed than sticks? Or planned actions beyond showing up at other demonstrations.
You mercifully didn't open the can of worms as to whether all Islamic terror is left-wing by a right-wing definition: it's against imperialism. The American political left-wing was basically forced to sign off on the Iraq War so that they could disassociate themselves from terrorists. They were called "soft-on-communism" for decades, and knew they had to get way out ahead of the accusations of "soft-on-terror", "terrorist sympathizers", etc. Obama didn't close Guantanamo, it might have cost him ObamaCare.
For what it's worth, I think we can say that the current state of the far-right militia movement тАФ that is, actual paramilitary groups with proper command structures тАФ is probably less than it was in the 90s. Now we've got a lot of militia cosplaying.
And yeah, like I wrote, we also need to realize there's more than single axis. Yes there's left/right extremism, but also religious/environmental/animal welfare/etc extremism (which may or may not be left/right)
And if one of these sides has fascistic tendencies, look out. We've been taught to fear the wrong bogeyman since shortly after the Allies won the second world war.
We didn't defeat fascism....we sent it underground for a few decades. It's a mindset.
And hard to eradicate. Wilhelm Reich wrote a book about it, and I remember his claim that all you have to do to bring out the fascist is tighten the economic screws ever so slightly. We're hard wired to be fascists he claimed.
I hate to believe that..........but recent activity around the world has me worried. Because economically, given the degree to which we're in overshoot as a planet, it can only get worse.
I might venture to suggest that left-wing violence seems to manifest more in actions like doxxing, cancellations, riots and so on. No armies or deaths (?) involved, but a lot of damage done nevertheless. Having said that, those have become right-wing tactics as well these days.
As I understand the word "cancellation", it's the same as ancient ostracism, shunning, excommunication: nobody will work with you, buy from you. That's not violence.
"Doxxing" can be alarming, but only in the context where it might lead to violence, the victim must have concerns that there are left-wing attackers out there who will use the address, as "Gamergate" journalists were made to fear physical attack by multiple threats.
Letting a fascism-proponent's boss know that they have a fascism-proponent on the payroll is a sort of "doxxing", but not violent.
Okay, I guess we're in the realm of opinion now and I'll leave it there.
Not very different opinions, either. "Well, that's not reallllly violence, just alarming" is still highly reprehensible.