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Samizdata quote of the day – The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas

Imagine going back in time, a decade or so, and telling anti-fascists that one day they’ll be doing the bidding of fascists. Imagine telling anti-racists that they would soon become propagandists for racists. Imagine telling those woke campus feminists, the sort who thought that being propositioned at the student bar was ‘rape culture’, that in the not-too-distant future they’d be making excuses for literal rape. They’d have thought you mad. And yet it’s happened. Many of yesteryear’s self-righteous haters of bigotry have morphed into the Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas – one of the most bigoted movements on Earth.

Brendan O’Neill

23 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas

  • Kirk

    le sigh

    Look, the thing you’re talking about, here? It doesn’t now, and it never really did exist. Fascism, as the people you’re talking about use the word, is a figment of their fevered imaginations, a projection. Do note that everything they accuse others of doing, they themselves wind up doing.

    It’s always been thus. The mistake made by many was taking these childish and very evil people at their words. They use words as weapons, tools to strike at their enemies imagined and real.

    If you were to be honest about it, the only Fascists who were ever in the room were the ones wearing black shirts and following Mussolini. It was then, and remains, a variant of socialism. Whatever the hell you want to call the Nazis, they weren’t really fully Fascist in the Italian sense of the term… That whole “Fuehrerprinzip” line of rule by divide-and-conquer was a uniquely Hitlerian thing, and no matter how you want to parse it, the Nazis were yet another variant on the them of socialist.

    Yet, the Antifa types see fascists under every bed, regardless. They refuse to recognize that their bete noir is actually a lot closer to their ideals than they’re capable of admitting. Hell, go take a look at the party platform of the KKK; pure socialism with a racial tint to it, just like the Boer political parties of South Africa.

    What’s annoying as hell about all this is that we’re basically stuck in an interminable inter-faction conflict between groups whose ideas are only separable via the good offices of a microtome; there’s really not all that much to distinguish full-bore Stalinism from Hitler and his ideas. The real “far-right conservatives” in Germany at the time of Hitler would have been the very same parties he outlawed and persecuted because they weren’t “for the people” the way he claimed the Nazis were.

    Whole thing is a mass of dysfunctional sophistry, and the sooner we recognize that and quit playing these stupid little games, the better off we’ll all be.

  • bobby b

    It was back in 2009 when Whoopie Goldberg set out the difference between “rape” and “rape-rape.”

    It all depends on how much you love the victim or the offender, I guess. She loved Polanski, so it was a minor infraction.

    Nowadays, my goal is to be one of the “good facists.”

  • Kirk

    This is a War Games situation: The only way to win is not to play.

    Ever want to see someone’s head explode, get an Antifa type to explain to you what they think Fascism is, and then point out how you actually define the term, coupled with a compare/contrast with their belief systems. You usually get “heads ‘asplode” somewhere after they realize they’re losing the argument…

    The really scary ones never attain that recognition.

    I think the root problem here is that the majority of the people who espouse socialist/leftish views are people who live entirely in the liminal space of their own minds, and who’ve never actually gotten outside the boundaries of that circumscribed region. So long as they can stay there, they can construct whatever cloud-castles they like, and never have to deal with reality as it is. The problems come because they sound so authoritative and certain, when they describe the fantastic world they’ve built for themselves, the rest of us tend to go “Oh, he/she sounds smart… We ought to listen to them!!”

    Unfortunately, the problem is that just “sounding smart” isn’t enough, and we wind up getting screwed when the airy-fairy idealism doesn’t work out. No bail for criminals? Sounds good, don’t it? Everyone gets a home loan? Brilliant; that’ll make everyone a solid member of the middle class.

    Never works, and I’ve gotten to the point now where if someone presents me with one of these oh-so-brilliant ideas, I start looking for the pile of horseshit I now know has to be there, somewhere…

  • Roué le Jour

    Kirk 11:00pm,
    The reason why my brand of leftism is superior to your brand of leftism is that your kind of leftism ends up with you in charge, whereas my kind of leftism ends up with me in charge. /sarc (for the hard of understanding)

  • Kirk

    @Roué le Jour:

    After a life of reading about, studying, and observing all these people? About all I’m going to venture is that they’re all expressing the same mental illness, just with minute differences.

    The root problem is that the majority of them have never been faced with doing things in the real world; there’s never been any testing of their ideas, no feedback, no pragmatic practical experience. The cloud-castles that they build remain inviolate and pristine in the fortresses of their minds, and they cannot accept that they simply cannot exist outside their fantasy-projections.

    I’ve been around on a few occasions where these sorts have had immediate and painful contact with reality. Typically, one out of five or so seem to learn from the experience; the rest either double-down on the fantasy, or they retreat into intellectual catatontia, freezing in place.

    Where we’ve really screwed up as a society and civilization is in giving so much power to all of these essentially delusional people, who live inside their own heads and never look out. If we’re going to get out of the mess we’re in, the majority of the population is going to have to cease listening to the siren call of this seductive way of thinking, and recognize that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

    It’s instructive to observe the wake-up call people are getting about raising minimum wages to the place they are; California is seeing jobs cut, restaurants downsize, and prices go up. People complain, and a few are beginning to grasp the basic economics of “Why’d that happen????”

    It’ll take some time, I fear. I hope there is enough.

  • Fraser Orr

    Yes Bobby, Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old girl, and somehow he is just a persecuted artist?

    Something I have noticed is that when someone who is “woke supported” does something bad, rather than defend it they AGGRESSIVELY accuse the anti woke (usually right wing) person of the same only worse. This is a perfect example. Hamas committed some of the most horrific atrocities on Kibbutzim settlers, something the Israel haters have been struggling to justify. So along comes this — the IDF are really the merciless rapists who put babies in ovens.

    And of course the one that really makes me laugh is the desperate attempts by the leftie media to push this narrative that Trump is suffering serious mental decline. I mean really? How stupid do you think the public are?

    Oh, wait, maybe the public are that stupid.

  • Roué le Jour

    Where we’ve really screwed up as a society and civilization is in giving so much power to all of these essentially delusional people,

    It is often said that the problem with democracy is that people will try to vote themselves rich. It seems to me that the actual observable problem with democracy is the execrable quality of the people who end up in charge, whether it’s the gurning sociopaths of the government front bench or the plump, palid, daylight shunning termites infesting the corridors of Whitehall, chewing away at the foundations of our society.

  • Roué le Jour

    Getting back to the O/P. There are two principles in play. Firstly, the ridiculous oppressor/oppressed narrative which has been swallowed whole by the left and apparently justifies any atrocities of the “oppressed” against the “oppressor”. Secondly, most left wing groups are defacto arms of the government. We’ve all noticed how supposed feminists have nothing to say about the victims of Rotherham, or how little punishment climate loonies get. The government is more afraid of Muslims than it is Jews and that sets the agenda for their cat’s paws.

  • DiscoveredJoys

    @Kirk

    The root problem is that the majority of them have never been faced with doing things in the real world; there’s never been any testing of their ideas, no feedback, no pragmatic practical experience. The cloud-castles that they build remain inviolate and pristine in the fortresses of their minds, and they cannot accept that they simply cannot exist outside their fantasy-projections.

    There are various people who find living ‘on the map’ (abstract simplification) far more satisfying than living ‘on the terrain’ (concrete complexity). Now living ‘on the map’ means that you can find fellow map readers easily. Hell, you even invent your own club definitions for ordinary words and get to wear uniforms if you are lucky. Of course it also means that if you find someone has scrawled ‘Fascist!’ (probably in green crayon) on the map it must be true. It’s on the map.

  • Ferox

    Everything being said in this thread is the longform of “the normals put down their swords a couple of generations ago and are reluctant to pick them up again.”

    Which explains why the freakoids have flourished and now believe that they are in charge.

    Eventually either the freakoids will actually win, or else the normals will once again have to pick up their long-disused swords and forcibly restore order.

  • When Fishy Rishi finally names the day we’re going to see just how stupid. Or how hopelessly optimistic, which usually amounts to the same thing.

  • We’ve beaten them into ploughshares, though, and now that farmers are ‘the enemy’ thanks to climatebollocks, we can’t even use them!

  • Jim

    “Eventually either the freakoids will actually win, or else the normals will once again have to pick up their long-disused swords and forcibly restore order.”

    I don’t think there are many normals left. Certainly they are in the minority, and old. The young believe all this sh*t, so there’s only one way they are going to be shown the error of their ways, and thats by nasty old reality destroying their civilisation around them.

  • Roué le Jour

    The funniest thing I heard recently was Sunak solemnly advising the party that “dividend parties don’t win elections.” Firstly, the problem for the Tories is not winning the election but surviving it. Secondly the main reason why they may not survive it is because of their bizarre decision to select a wealthy Indian businessman who has no concern for either the party or the people as PM against the wishes of their own electorate. Finally I see no reason for Sunak to waste his time and energy fighting an election he is guaranteed to lose. Surely he will step down in the autumn and be home in time for Thanksgiving.

  • Martin

    Imagine going back in time, a decade or so

    They were doing all this a decade ago and more. Maybe not as overtly and loudly, but they were. When people nowadays rhetorically make out the left hand suddenly got awful, I don’t know whether to just welcome these people to reality or question why it took them so long.

    Eventually either the freakoids will actually win, or else the normals will once again have to pick up their long-disused swords and forcibly restore order.

    The side that wants to win will always beat the one that wants to be left alone

  • Ben David

    There’s a word for it:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

    Events like these encapsulate a lot:

    This morning an Arab opened fire at point-blank range at Israeli vehicles near Jericho (West Bank) then fled.
    It turns out that the wounded are members of a Leftie Israeli group called “Looking the Occupation in the Eyes” whose members gather to “protect” the poor, poor Palis from those “violent fundamentalist settlers” (cue thunder and organ music…)

    A few weeks ago their car was stolen by their Arab “allies” during one of their patrols… But instead of learning from that – they just bought another car.

    The new car was shot at this morning while these bien-pensants “were on their way to assist Palestinian Arab shepherds in the area.”

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387516

    One encouraging note – the organization’s Twitter about the new car indicates it was purchased second-hand… so maybe, maybe funding is drying up for these nutjobs…

    horse… water… drink!!!

  • Paul Marks

    The pro genocide “from the river to the sea” marches started within a day or so of the October 7th mass attack.

    There are two things to get from that – firstly that people such as Neil Oliver (GB News television station) are not telling the truth when they claim that the marches came in response to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) going into Gaza – because the marches started BEFORE that. They started before the bodies of the raped and mutilated women were even cold.

    But also Islamic and socialist (often atheist socialist – in this unnatural alliance) organisations in the Western world must have known of the attack in advance (at least known that “something big” was coming) – they were ready for the marches, the signs printed, everything prepared.

    In which case – why did not Western intelligence services, including the Israeli intelligence service, not know?

    Evil people in universities (and other such places) knew that something big (very big) was coming – but highly paid intelligence professionals did not know? If that is so – then these “intelligence” bureaucrats should be dismissed (with no pensions) – they should be OUT right now.

    But there is an even worse possibility – namely that they did know that there was a massive attack coming, but choose to say nothing in order to “get Bibi out”.

    It is open secret that the American intelligence services (whose loyalty is to the “international community” – they hate and despise ordinary Americans and the principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, for example the Bill of Rights) have been working against the “right wing” Prime Minister of Israel for a long time, were elements in the Israeli intelligence services working with the Americans for this objective?

    In which case they are guilty of treason.

    It is treason to work with foreign intelligence services for the objective of overthrowing the elected government of your own country.

    And it is treason to shut your eyes to preparations for a massive Islamic attack – in the hopes that such an attack will undermine a democratically elected government you dislike.

    I am NOT saying they are guilty – but either they are guilty, or they, the intelligence and security bureaucrats, showed a truly incredible level of incompetence.

    Remember the SCALE of the attack – there were thousands (yes – thousands) of Islamic attackers. And they came in with a lot of equipment – bulldozers, hand gilders, the works.

  • Paul Marks

    As for whether the left really care about the rights of women – of course they do not, women (to them) are just a “victim group” to be exploited in the war against the “capitalist West” – they, the left, are indifferent to such things as the rape or forced prostitution of women if it is done by their allies.

    Just the other day I was listening to someone attacking Andrew Tate (and I make no comment on the charges against him – for all I know, he may be innocent), and to find out what would happen – I mentioned, in a neutral tone, that Mr Tate is a convert to Islam – there was an immediate gear change.

  • Paul Marks

    None of this is new.

    Way back in the 1960s David Horowitz (from a once Jewish family which had adopted socialism as its religion) was close to the Marxist-racist “Black Panthers” group (the BLM or Antifa of the day) – and he got a friend of his to do their accounts for them, yes Revolutionary groups do have accounts, they have book keeping to do.

    This lady found out that some of the Comrades were stealing money from “the cause” (keeping the money for themselves) – and complained.

    In response the Comrades murdered her.

    David Horowitz was horrified – one of his closest friends had been murdered, but his “liberal” (the bizarre American practice of using the word “liberal” to describe socialists) “friends” told him to SHUT UP – he was undermining “the cause” by complaining about the murder of this women, in the great scheme of things what is one human life compared to creating a “better world”, a true leftist would not let personal friendship interfere with “the cause”.

    On reflection David Horowitz decided that they were correct – a leftist would not care about an individual human life, so, therefore, he was NOT a leftist.

  • Kirk

    Martin said:

    The side that wants to win will always beat the one that wants to be left alone

    I think that this has to be viewed as the precise opposite of a truism; a “falsism”, if you will.

    The problem isn’t that the “side that wants to win” always beats “the side who just wants to be left alone”, but that it’s sometimes the side that is objectively doing a better job of “living in reality”. Yeah, the English maybe wanted to win a little more than my Scots ancestors did, but the thing was… Those Scots wanted to be left alone just about as hard. The real issue that decided things was not “want”, but “reality”, which was that the trend in technology and power was heading in a direction far more beneficial to the English than the Scots…

    So, you have to look at these things more in line with “What are the underlying conditions” than with “What do they desire, and how hard do they want it…”

    The Communists around Lenin wanted socialism to be a thing; they insisted on it, as a matter of fact. 80 years later, under Breznev, they found the limits on “want”. The underlying reality was that what they wanted was not in alignment with reality, and so… No more Soviet Union.

    Similarly, the idjit class in the US that wants leniency on crimes because holding criminals responsible for their acts puts more blacks and minorities into jail are running up against the hard stops of reality, in that the crime rate is doing exactly what anyone with sense could predict: Going up. That’s not going to last, before we start seeing either a return to what worked, or a rise in “alternative justice”.

    Which could get right spicy, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo…

  • Paul Marks

    Kirk – take the little example of the multi billion Dollar video games industry.

    Everyone knows that games that have lots of DEI messages in them will not do as well as games that do not – but more and more games have these DEI messages in them, indeed almost all games now do.

    Why is that? It is because the reality of losing money by annoying potential customers is less important the reality of upsetting vast corporations such as MicroSoft (who control X Box) and BlackRock (who, along with State Street and Vanguard, control most shares in the free market economy America is NOT – and why are, in turn, backed by the funny money of the Federal Reserve).

    The reality of trying to please customers is less important than the reality of trying to please the money men – who get their money from entities that just create money, from nothing-at-all.

    I would say this is all criminal – just as criminal as the thugs on the street. Perhaps that is why they (the Credit Money people – and it is not just George Soros) love the criminals on the streets.

    And, as they are well protected, the money-men do not have to worry about being attacked themselves.

    Well… not just yet. As society collapses the money-men (the people who create money from NOTHING and can thus indulge their insane cultural and political whims – such as DEI) will find they are not safe at all.

    As for Islam – well it does not look too fondly on lending money for interest, especially “money” that never-existed-in-the-first-place (that the Corporate types have created, from nothing, by book keeping tricks) – but that does not stop regimes such as the Islamic Republic of Iran playing the same sick Credit Money games (scams) as the West.

    They are oddly selective in what parts of Islam they enforce.

    As for the money-bags (well not really “bags” as there is no physical money to put in the bags) people in the West – they handed 25 Million Dollars to the Biden campaign, and that was on ONE EVENING event.

    Why not? They get endless money-from-nothing (that is what the “expanding GDP” is – money created from nothing, a massive scam, and pushed to the elite – the Average Person does not suddenly find themselves with more money, they just find that everything is vastly more expensive, but the regime is denying there is much inflation) so why not give a few million, or a few hundred million to Biden and co.

    Why not? It is not as if the elite had to work for the money – or if the money was actually real anyway.

    “Reality will hit them” – I hope so, the question is when?

  • Kirk

    Paul Marks said:

    Everyone knows that games that have lots of DEI messages in them will not do as well as games that do not – but more and more games have these DEI messages in them, indeed almost all games now do.

    OK… This is a thing. Now, do what the idjit class hasn’t, and extrapolate out to line up what is going on with Disney with this process. Observe all the lost dollars? The billions wasted on buying properties like Star Wars and Marvel, only to drive said franchises straight into the ground?

    Reality will ensue. It may take awhile, but all these big companies are going to lose their asses, which will eventually lead to lessons being learned about what they’re doing. Being as most of these idjit-class people are very, very stupid and very, very slow learners, expect it to take awhile. But, it will happen. When? When the money runs out, and nobody is buying their products.

    Believe me, the market will route around it all. With the rise of more and more tools to do so, production houses will get smaller and the price to enter will get lower. Eventually, a market-winning game will eventually be sourced out of someone’s bedroom, created by that “someone” with only the sort of tools you can download. This factor alone means that all these idjit types are doing is dooming their own companies, which the money men are going to have to start paying attention to.

    It’s a lot like Microsoft with Windows. They’ve gone nuts with the intrusive AI bullshit you can’t take off your system, which will eventually piss enough people off that Linux-on-the-desktop will finally become a “thing”, if only in self-defense.

    All of the idjit class are operating on a mentality that is predicated on the past. They think that taking control of an institution or a company means that they have won, and that they are going to be able to do all these things they’ve planned for generations. Guess what? That only works so long as they don’t piss everyone else off, and they are still providing value. Piss everyone off? Cease to provide value? You’re going bankrupt.

    The timeline is the only thing in question.

    Observe the eventual fate of the control freaks running China, with their “social credit” schemes. Those things will be corrupted, inevitably, totally destroying their value to the regime. What will happen along with that corruption by the usual cast of Chinese subverters (ever wonder how opium got to be a thing, when the Chinese Imperial government banned its importation…?) is that they will also create a huge underclass of people who aren’t invested in the system. And, that leads to…? I think you can do that math. China has maybe another couple of decades of this bullshit before the inevitable collapse into another Warlord era. And, that’s if they’re lucky; about the time the facts of the demographic collapse become clear, the rest of the contradictions and the implications of the wasted resource investments will become clear. Follow-on effect on the CCP? You tell me; the history ain’t got a lot of positive examples for “peaceful transitions”.

  • Paul Marks

    Kirk – it is not just video games, it is just about everything.

    And it is based upon a monetary and financial system which is insane.

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