Football Lads & Lasses Against Fascism

Some posters need to read up on what Fascism brought to the lives of their grandfather's and thousands of people including disabled around Europe in the 20th century.
Facism today has even more potential power with the avenues of communication we can enter.. and links to 'secret' organisations hiding behind religion, i.e Opus Dei and others sweating money and greed!
As far As football is concerned ..we would do better to ignore it for now, not fuel it by giving it a bigger stage..unless we are forced to by events.
 
Topmodtony said:
In his own autobiography? Of which Michael Foot wrote

Tortuously we are urged to believe that the Mosley quarrel with “certain Jewish interests” had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, that Mosley’s opposition to immigration and his defence of apartheid had nothing to do with racialism, that the thugs who could spread terror in the poor East End houses were uniformed John Stuart Millses, solely concerned to champion free speech….

Page after page, the self adulation grows more strident, the egotism overpowers. At last the man who saw himself as Caesar looks more like a posturing Coriolanus. He cannot tear himself away from the looking-glass where he cuts so fine a figure to the real world where he stooped so low.

Michael Foot
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There’s a certain irony with all the news of anti Semitism in the Labour Party today that your claiming he couldn’t be left wing because he was an anti Semite .
 
BillMcgarrycherry said:
Some posters need to read up on what Fascism brought to the lives of their grandfather's and thousands of people including disabled around Europe in the 20th century.
Facism today has even more potential power with the avenues of communication we can enter.. and links to 'secret' organisations hiding behind religion, i.e Opus Dei and others sweating money and greed!
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But... but... but... Oswald said he was a socialist so he cant be a fascist.

It really doesnt matter what label you give him, or the 'lads' following Yaxley-Lennon, although I suspect the latter might baulk at being called socialists.
 
wallmth said:
There’s a certain irony with all the news of anti Semitism in the Labour Party today that your claiming he couldn’t be left wing because he was an anti Semite .
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And that, my friend is a different set of arguments. But cant argue other than that this stuff resonates with what is happening today.

I'm saying he started as a Tory, beacame a socialist and then beacame a fascist. Sounds like someone who's political point of view was whatever suited them.

Who had a dressing up fetish
 
RobTrent said:
But... but... but... Oswald said he was a socialist so he cant be a fascist.

It really doesnt matter what label you give him, or the 'lads' following Yaxley-Lennon, although I suspect the latter might baulk at being called socialists.[/QUOTE

Fascism , Comnunism ,socialism all much the same .the only “ism” we really have to worry about is Totalitarianism .
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Fascism is such an ambiguous and misunderstood term that seems to be used as shorthand for 'Hitler' half the time and 'authoritarian' the rest - I say this as someone who has never really understood it, partly because it is constantly misused by people.

Years ago I asked a politics professor to define it for me and he smiled smugly and told me to buy his latest book. I asked him if it would help me understand what people mean when they use the term fascism in everyday speech - he laughed again and said "probably not". I did buy it and he was right.
 
beds cherry said:
I do understand it - but what wrong in opposing the right wing? Yes we don't want it to get in the way of the football and I doubt it will..I can't see pitched battles raging etc etc..

Glad that there's at least something to remind normal folk that we aren't all like the FLA idiots.
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Topmodtony said:
How the hell is that supposed to work?
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I just mean that Anti-Fascism, intellectually, is a bit of an oxymoron. The typical definition of “fascism”, usually, is forcefully shutting down another persons views.

So if you’re anti-fascist, you’re forcefully shutting down a fascists views, which is technically a form of fascism if you’re going by the definition of the word.

OBVIOUSLY I’m not saying you shouldn’t stop fascism. I just don’t think anti fascism as a concept, by definition, can exist without being hypocritical. Same as way as it’s hard to argue that free speech exists when the term “hate speech” is a thing.

I’m not trying to be controversial here, I just thought it was interesting.
 
redharry said:
Whats so hard to understand ? We don't want any of that left/right, fascist/communist, brexit/remainer, confrontational crap at football. Let the authorities deal with any of the so called right wing stuff where it exists. The last thing we want is a bunch of equally deluded opposing idiots spoiling the game and frightening football supporters and sponsors away.
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Good post. Through my work I spend a lot of time focusing on somewhat depressing international issues; football is my way to turn off and escape from all that. If fascism, or any other violence, were a problem at DC then of course it would need to be dealt with. Outside of that, let's enjoy football for what it really is; a fun, but in truth relatively meaningless, way to enjoy ourselves.
 
NWCherries98 said:
So if you’re anti-fascist, you’re forcefully shutting down a fascists views, which is technically a form of fascism if you’re going by the definition of the word.
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This is the important question. Do you allow freedom of speech to people who want to take away your freedom of speech?
 
Kudos said:
This will probably seem like I'm trolling but I'm not, just a bit young to remember the troubles. I've never understood why "no surrender" is considered offensive beyond it bringing politics into sport.

I'm sure I'm missing some subtlety but the IRA was/is a terrorist organisation that's murdered more British people than all Islamic terrorists put together but I've heard plenty of jokes/songs about Daesh or Bin Laden which aren't considered offensive.
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Kudos - when you say you are too young to remember the troubles - so were the "herberts" I referred to in the original post - I think England had played Ireland just before, some were singing it there, and these kids probably heard it on the TV and thought it was big and clever so started singing it - which is probably why they stopped as soon as they were shouted down - I don't think they had even thought about what it might be about.

The peace accord had started long before - I can accept that some who lived through it might still hold grudges - but propagating hatred will solve nothing - we will never progress if these things are allowed to continue.
 
Kudos said:
This will probably seem like I'm trolling but I'm not, just a bit young to remember the troubles. I've never understood why "no surrender" is considered offensive beyond it bringing politics into sport.

I'm sure I'm missing some subtlety but the IRA was/is a terrorist organisation that's murdered more British people than all Islamic terrorists put together but I've heard plenty of jokes/songs about Daesh or Bin Laden which aren't considered offensive.
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aahhh - my specialist subject... ;-)

The phrase has deep political, religious and sectarian roots in ireland. It just about pre-dates 1690 and all that and due to it's fairly mythical status (was it ever really said?!) and propagation throughout the ages (apprentice boys, Ian Snr, fleg wars, others) it has gone beyond being a phrase and taken on an entire other meaning. It became one of the most antagonistic things you could say to half the population.

It gained popularity on English football terraces a while back (1970s and 1980s) when football hooliganism was on the rise at about the same time that us lot were blowing each other up. So the link between that song and football is an association of timing that the new enemy in the middle east doesn't have.

Like most things nowadays, I'm not sure if those offended by hearing it are actually offended or are just looking for a reason to pretend to be offended so they can have a fight.
 
There's a very good series on iPlayer about the history of Ireland by Fergal Keane - it covers some of the origins of the phrase. I say very good but I'm sure that there will be plenty of claims of bias as there always is with anyone who tackles the subject.

More info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Derry?wprov=sfla1

I think Norn's last para sums it up well - when you look into the history it's fascinating but quite difficult to define who's the goodies, baddies, powerful, underdogs, etc. It's not even easy to define what 'English' and 'Irish' means in this period or what religious loyalties anyone really has. That's not stopped people picking sides 300 years later and re-writing history to justify their current prejudices.

To an extent you can understand the use of the term on English terraces because the IRA are never likely to be popular in England and being offensive is part of terrace tradition. I'm no fan of it though because to me it represents ugly nationalism - it's also quite sad to see young lads signing about past military 'successes' that involved poor people like them being killed in the interests of rich people like the king/queen or pope.
 
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