this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
536 points (96.7% liked)

News

23275 readers
3512 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Violence erupted at the University of California, Los Angeles after pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators attacked a pro-Palestinian campus encampment. Bubbling tensions on the campus boiled over following the alleged breach of a "buffer zone" between the rival groups.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 63 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think this is a good example of how vigilantes often work to support the state's goals when it can't legally/easily complete their goals.

For every fascistic government still bound by laws, there will be fascists willing to ignore them to support it. See this. See the KKK carrying out lynchings on people who are barely escaping the grasp of the state. See the settlers illegally settling on Palestinian land to carry out the state's goals of ethnic cleansing.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Hate is a powerful tool used by fascists to rally people to violence. Every one of these attackers should be arrested and thrown in prison.

[–] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 6 months ago

Hate is a strong motivator but it uses up too much fuel and burns itself out. To see it only as hate is a bit reductionist. You can only use hate to motivate yourself for so long.

Fear, envy, and uncertainty/fear of the future are much more longstanding motivators used to continue fascist creep.

Regardless, fascists align themselves with the state. The police often can’t get away with crushing protesters without suffering bad PR, and risking strengthening popular support when images of police brutality evoke memories of past brutalities.

Fascist vigilantes don’t care about PR, and they might get the support of the police (or they get the police’s non-support of their enemies) or even the government

[–] tburkhol@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Vigilante porn is too useful as propaganda. Americans, especially, love the imagery of a tough person who steps up and does "the right thing," where traditional tools of enforcement are weakened by corruption, incompetence, or policy. Doesn't matter if it's Dirty Harry, Batman, or some Christian Nationalist with a sharpened flagpole.

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In situations like this, it's common that the vigilantes are not actually rogue. They're working together with the police. They might be friends, they might be off duty cops, and they could easily be messaging each other about what ought to be done when.

I don't have any specific evidence that this situation is as described above, but we know that many others have been and will be.

[–] bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yep.

If we travel back in time a little bit you will find obvious examples, such as the police working directly with the klan (specifically the 2nd klan) and instances of sherrifs deputizing people to allow them to carry out extreme violence against bipoc