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Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: An influential website linked to violence at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg last month has been ordered to shut down, in the first such move against left-wing extremists in the country (alternative source), the authorities in Germany said on Friday. Thomas de Maiziere, the interior minister, said that the unrest in Hamburg, during which more than 20,000 police officers were deployed and more than 400 people arrested or detained, had been stirred up on the website and showed the "serious consequences" of left-wing extremism. "The prelude to the G-20 summit in Hamburg was not the only time that violent actions and attacks on infrastructural facilities were mobilized on linksunten.indymedia," he said, referring to the website. The order on Friday was the latest move in a long battle against extremism in Germany. It comes in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., this month and amid worries about "antifa" factions that use violence to combat the far-right in the United States.

16 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Now you see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why we must protect freedom of political speech in the US. Fortunately we have strong laws to do this. Google and Facebook should not be the arbiters of speech. Universities should not live in fear of letting people talk.

    We do not want to hand the power they have in Germany to silence people to a man like Trump, or anyone who claims to be a fascist or anti-fascist (aka, communist)

    1. Re: Now you see by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you want to require universities to let White Supremacists speak?

      Why not? What are you afraid of? Do you think their words will somehow trigger your latent, inner-Klansman?

      Let them speak, it gives us all some comic-relief and a chance to laugh them back into irrelevance. There are only a few thousand of them in the entire US of ~350M people. They have no power. They're silly little goose-stepping idiots. They are no serious threat to anyone or anything.

      You actually empower them with media attention they'd never get anyways. Makes me wonder if maybe you're actually a recruiter.

      Strat

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    2. Re: Now you see by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, cool, so if we label someone as a Nazi they no longer have civil liberties.

      You're a Nazi, now give me all of your stuff and stop offering your opinion.

      --
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    3. Re: Now you see by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It only took one "Black Lives Matter" protestor to kill five officers.

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    4. Re: Now you see by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only way to get them to actually go away is to ignore them completely.

      I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but that's not how we got rid of the original Nazis. The Jews ignored them until they were being sent to concentration camps. Europe ignored them until they had taken Poland, France, et al. England ignored them until bombs started falling. The US ignored them until they couldn't any more.

      Ignoring nazis does not make them go away.

      --
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  2. Speaking as a lefty by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good. Every large group has it's version of Soccer Hooligans. The left is no different. The difference is (as Noam Chomsky noted) the Right is _much_ better at violence than the Left. Their love of strong authority figures means they can organize better and they've got more ex-military guys. The Left can win on issues because our policies work. But we can't win on violence because, well, we're not nearly as violent (and yes, that's probably a slightly controversial idea, but that doesn't make it less true).

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    1. Re:Speaking as a lefty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Go ahead and tell all these peopled killed by the left that you're not nearly as violent
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

  3. Re:We have the opposite problem in the US by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right wing extremist groups are not "propping up everywhere". They only reason they have a platform, and any coverage, of ANY sort... is because the misguided media keeps showing up with their cameras. Left wing extremism is real and it's causing just as many problems, if not more. I don't see Nazi groups destroying property and setting cars on fire over a speech at a college.

    Both sides have extremist factions that they ignore, because they like that those extremist factions will do the dirty sh!t that the more "normal" (read: need to get re-elected) people won't do. That is why the president denounced violence on both sides. Problem was, the left isn't used to being called out for such dirty tricks, so they kept at it with "the president needs to apologize the CORRECT way, he needs to only blame the violence on the RIGHT".

    THIS. There are no more than there ever were. But the media seeks them out and actually helps them by making it look like a growing movement, sparking idiots on the other side to come and confront. Too bad we can't take the ultra left and ultra right and put them in a room together and lock the door, let the media cover the aftermath.

  4. Re: Correct summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Christ Almighty...

    Why does this have to be left vs. right?

    Can't it be civilized people vs. violent monsters?

    I don't care which stupid insane ideology you follow if you're hurting innocent people! Fuck off everyone! If you want my attention, this is how you won't get it.

  5. Violence doesn't work. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Politically motivated violence (short of genocide) has been shown to be ineffective and many times counterproductive. However, if you think genocide is the answer then you have lost sight of what you were fighting for. Combating extremism with more extremism is a losing move.

    --
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  6. Re: Correct summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Bullshit.

    If you think hatred and violence is monopolized by any one political ideology, you're sorely mistaken. History shows us hatred and violence are an easy vice for any group to fall into, and it's one that we should attack regardless of whether "our team" is doing it or not.

  7. Re:No, not this by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's the exact opposite. A simple google search will show thatright wing violence is 74% more common than left. This shouldn't be surprising. Antifa groups are anarchists. By definition they're unorganized and loose knit. They reject authority on the face of it. The Right OTOH make authority a central plank of their ideology. Better organization leads to more effective violence. That's why militaries use a chain of command instead of voting.

    The google search does not given results that say right wing groups are growing. The NPR opinion piece you referred to limits its description of left wing violence to those done by "groups", but compares against all RW violence, individual or group. NPR is not exactly an objective source when it comes to L v R, I guess you know.

  8. Actually we don't mean conservatives by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Conservatives want to keep things as is, unchanged. The Far right has taken over that term to disguise their radical agenda (I know, I hate that word too, but I don't have a better one for a group that want to make radical changes to our civilization).

    There's an old line about the greatest trick the devil ever pulled and the Right did just that by branding "Conservative". Most folks are a tad on the Conservative side as soon as they have something to lose. By calling themselves that the Right hide their true nature.

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  9. Re:We have the opposite problem in the US by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I didn't realize that Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, Castro, etc. were right-wingers...

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  10. Again, you're missing my point by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    US "Conservatives" aren't. They're Radical Regressives. Trying to regress society back to some imaginary 'good 'ole times'. They're borrowing the Rhetoric of true Conservatives in exactly the same way Stalin borrowed the rhetoric of Progressives; to mask ill intent.

    Ignore what they say, pay attention to what they _do_.

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  11. Re:They're surprisingly well organized by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's a funny definition, considering the left does it's best to accommodate violent, expansionist Islam whenever it gets the chance.

    How does this bullshit get modded up?

    The left wants people treated fairly, not lumped together and treated as one group. Muslims, like Christians and Jews, are not one homogeneous group.

    It's entirely possible to oppose Islamic values, morality and terrorism while still objecting to mistreatment or unwarranted discrimination against Muslims.

    The rest of your claims are just slander.

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