Extremist messaging now woven into music and YouTube videos, with one expert saying: ‘You can be radicalised sitting on your couch’
The two men chop peppers, slice aubergines and giggle into the camera as they delve into the art of vegan cooking. Both are wearing ski masks and T-shirts bearing Nazi symbols.
The German videos – titled Balaclava Kitchen – started in 2014 and ran for months before YouTube took down the channel for violating its guidelines.
But it offered a glimpse of how far-right groups have seized on cultural production – from clothing brands to top 40 music – to normalise their ideas, in a process that researchers say has hit new heights in the age of social media.
It’s frightening because there’s too many Lefties that are complete pacifist wimps that only wave signs and waggle fingers on Saturday afternoons.
You either completely do not tolerate any of it and use their same aggressive rhetoric back at them (including violence) or expect normalcy of right-wing extremism to stay in the zeitgeist forever.
pacifism ≠ tolerance
And if you want more than waving and waggles, you’re going to have to sway them into joining your mission with a comprehensive plan to fix things. They’d be on board with a general strike, jailing fascists in power, efforts to deprogram, and offering enticing alternatives to the followers, so we can end their beliefs and actions for this and future generations.
Most of the work against fascism will need to be done in our personal relationships in everyday life. Even the most massive violent movements have not rid the world of fascism. Critical mass of public opinion is the most effective weapon. Unfortunately, the necessary educational opportunities and social supports were not sufficiently protected, leaving us where we are today. We need to tend the garden of ideas.
In a decade, that might bear fruition. In the meantime, we need to make it too costly and dangerous for them to hold power. Until they’re driven out, sweet reason isn’t going to be enough.
Wow your current governments are doing so great enjoy your 50 year mortgage and renting a virtual computer from Nvidia.
Well they do try to force lefties into acting like crazed Karens before anything. As long as the Nazis are being polite and not inconveniencing them, they tolerate it.
“They” being business, government, and anyone who has real power to do something besides scream and yell and create a scene until power is annoyed into taking action.
I’m not sure the anti-chaos economic elite theory holds anymore. This has been the most chaotic year in recent history, spurred by far right racism, with pretty direct impacts on the shut up and shop economy of the United States, and the elite pushback has been tepid to non-existent. A few of them have been lighting money and their customer base on fire to support it.
It might be time to start entertaining the idea that the robber barons aren’t just bad people because they want to maximize profits through hyper-capitalism. At some point money alone isn’t the core pursuit and they’re more desirous of unfettered power. A weaker economy, but one where the government is powerless to regulate their activities and a normalized culture of corruption may yield less profit, but it gives them freedom and control to be untouchable lords.
I think a lot about my old coworkers that were like “yeah it sucks but like I’m just going to play Dota”. They don’t care. It’s not affecting them so it’s not important. Even though they claim to be left wing or at least anti-trump
And honestly if it did affect them I kind of expect them to either quietly go along into the gas chamber, or be utterly shocked that no one is risking their comfort for them.
Or you face the fact that society isn’t working for people. Desperate people sometimes do dumb shit. You don’t get to eat a steak unless you kill a cow.