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.

Comments

Now you see

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re: Now you see

[BlueStrat]

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

Re: Now you see

[CanHasDIY]

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.

Re: Now you see

[Whibla]

At the risk of seeming callous:

There are roughly 15,000 murders a year in the US, and this year so far there have been 9 mass shootings. Sounds to me there's serious threats to those living in the US alright, but mostly not from those far right groups. Singling out one killing from all of these, although very emotive, in order to make your point probably doesn't do what you think it does...

Moreover, the point of posters above you is that the best tactic to employ when one of these far right groups or individuals wants to talk or protest is simply to let them. Now I in no way approve or support what happened to Heather but ask yourself, if she had followed the advice of these posters, (i.e. just carried on with her life and let the various groups march in protest against the removal of the statue) what do you think would have happened to her?

Now, I know whatever I say at this point is going to be 'tainted' by what I've just said but, it's possibly still worth emphasising:

What happened to Heather was a tragedy. She did not deserve it and she did not 'bring it on herself'. The only person responsible for her death was the driver. But, while she had a right to peacefully counter-protest, and props for standing up for what she believed in, everyone on 'the other side' also had a right to be there. If there had been no counter-protesters there would have been no violence*.

But the media got their 'story'...

*(Ok, this bit is actually an unprovable assertion, and one I'm not totally sure I believe myself. There are substantial questions over the entire affair, and it's entirely possible that 'quislings' within the protesters would have sparked violence anyway. But, even if that were the case, at least then the responsibility for it would be fully with the protesters.)

Re: Now you see

[LynnwoodRooster]

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

Re: Now you see

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re: Now you see

[lucm]

Heaher Heyer's death is squarely on the shoulders of the US Left.

But only the white US Left, as the black US Left wisely mentioned that "#SAYHERNAME IS NOT FOR HEATHER HEYER OR OTHER WHITE WOMEN".

Heather Heyer’s death is not an excuse to further perpetuate white supremacy and the erasure of women of color.

https://wearyourvoicemag.com/i...

You don't stop people from talking

[Crashmarik]

You stop them from breaking the law.

This is just bass ackwards.

Speaking as a lefty

[rsilvergun]

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).

Re:Speaking as a lefty

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Speaking as a lefty

[LynnwoodRooster]

Is that why Antifa violently attacks and destroys property on UC Berkeley's campus?

Re:We have the opposite problem in the US

[Mr D from 63]

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.

Not sure, this was a good decision

[mseeger]

If this web site was the worst site that needs to be shut down, Germany would be a happy country ;-). It was in the large part only a forum with anonymous usage. The name associated it with the left and the moderators surely had their sympathies rather on the left end on the spectrum.

The site was used by extremists to announce their deeds and to blurp their justifications. On the other hands, they were constantly taking a beating by the far bigger majorities of lefties. It was always clearly visible, how isolated the extremists were.

Tactically the police robbed themselves of one of the best intelligence sources they had on the extreme left.

Re: Correct summary

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Violence doesn't work.

[Gravis Zero]

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.

Re: Correct summary

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:They're surprisingly well organized

[JaredOfEuropa]

I live in Europe and believe me: the right do not control the media in my country. Not at all.

Antifa aren't anarchist, they are mostly anti-establishment. And over here they are highly organized, there really isn't any comparison with the far right on that score. I'm not sure what the situation is in the USA but it would seem to be very different. As for the islamic terrorists, that's where the notion of left and right kind of break down. For one, the left are far more sympathetic to fundamentalist islam than the right. Fundamentalist islam (not necessarily terrorists) identifies and associates far more with the left than the right as well. The idea that islamic terrorists can simply be lumped in with the far right extremists is ridiculous beyond belief... a bit like saying that the actual Nazis were left wing ("National Socialism, says so right there on the tin!")

No, not this

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:No, not this

[Mr D from 63]

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.

In related news

[cirby]

Congressman Scalise is improving, and is undergoing physical therapy so he can walk again.

After, you know, a Bernie Bro shot him and some other people.

And the former professor - again, a leftist - who slammed a bike lock into four people's heads, is still awaiting trial.

Not to mention the 200 or so leftists who are facing charges after their violent riots in Washington, DC.

Actually we don't mean conservatives

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Actually we don't mean conservatives

[markdavis]

>"Conservatives want to keep things as is, unchanged. "

As far as USA Conservatives, no they don't. That is a big and unfair over-simplification. Conservatives want to keep the PRINCIPLES things were built on unchanged. Most importantly the concept of smaller government, especially Federal. Most Conservatives emphatically support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights inside it; they do not believe it is a flexible document that should be changed on a whim or twisted to meet the latest craze. They want people to be free of overbearing and over-reaching laws and regulations, and free to pursue happiness while also forced to take responsibility for their own actions and lives. They believe in equal rights and opportunities, not in quotas, handouts, reparations, affirmative action, and generations of people dependent on government spending with high taxes and debt. They also believe that free-markets work, and much better than government, as long as monopolies are kept in check and consumers are informed and free to make choices.

Re:Actually we don't mean conservatives

[Pfhorrest]

To be fair, conservativism and right-wing politics, while not cointensive (don't mean the same thing) were coextensive (referred to the same people) at the start, far predating the modern conflation of the two terms. The original right wing were the party of the established elite, who already had all the power and didn't wan't anything to change from that, aking authoritarianism originally coextensive as well. The original left wing, representing the interests of the general populace, wanted change, making them progressive, and they wanted to achieve that change through reducing the authority of the elites, making them liberal.

That original left-wing, the liberal progressives, won, and established a new status quo. Then over time, after Marx, the left wing (still, by definition, representing the common people) started to think authority could be used as a tool for good (i.e. to help the common people), and so stopped being technically liberal; but in some places, like the US, we continued calling anyone on the left "liberal" anyway. Those who opposed those authoritarian-egalitarian changes in favor of the new status quo thus became the new conservatives, who in some places (outside the US) continued to be called "liberal" as well.

Since then the right have adopted many of the same authoritarian techniques of the new left (that's what's called neoconservativism), and then gone further into the worse authoritarianism of the old right, while the left, still more authoritarian than the original left or the until-recently-new right, are once again less authoritarian than the right, so things are tilting back toward their original alignment, at least between left-right and liberty-authority. But for a while back there, the until-recently-new left had largely won, so the direction of change away from their status quo (the New Deal) is now toward the right, making the left technically the conservative side, and the right the "progressive" side, at least inasmuch as "progress" can just mean "change" without value judgement. (i.e. since everything is drifting toward the right over time lately, those wanting to keep things more to the left are the ones in favor of keeping things how they were, or in other words, conservative).

Re:We have the opposite problem in the US

[LynnwoodRooster]

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

Again, you're missing my point

[rsilvergun]

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_.

Re:Again, you're missing my point

[markdavis]

>" US "Conservatives" aren't. They're Radical Regressives. Trying to regress society [...] to mask ill intent. "

If you think that following both the words and intent of the Constitution is "radical" then nothing else I say to you will make any difference.

Re: Correct summary

[Rei]

Where exactly do you get your information on "antifa"? You are aware that there is an active movement right now by pro-Trump trolls running fake "Antifa" twitter accounts, don't you? Even the pro-trump troll who created the "declare antifa a terrorist group" White House petition claims to have twitterbot armies of his own stoking the fires.

Antifa is not a "movement". It has no "ideology". It simply means "anti-fascist". Anyone who considers themselves anti-fascist can (or not) adopt the label.

Re:They're surprisingly well organized

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:They're surprisingly well organized

[AmiMoJo]

I agree to some extent, but I think even moderates on the right tend to want to force people to accept their morality and religion. For example, on same sex marriage or abortion rights.

The left tends towards the principle of doing what you like as long as it doesn't harm others. I suppose conservatives would argue that too, except that two guys getting married "injures" them somehow, but leftists are just making trouble when they complain about naming that building after the guy who owned their ancestors.