Quote from: NO PART OF IT on February 27, 2020, 03:36:14 PM
I don't feel like it was too long ago that I saw Skrewdriver for sale on discogs. This banning of the sale of questionable items seems to be happening rather quickly to me.
Discogs, Spotify, Ebay, Paypal, I've noticed a lot more bans recently, in some cases only for having track titles with the word "Genocide" in them, or some other apparent guilt by association.
In the USA, there is a lot of anti-nazi sentiment, for sure, as the Atomwaffen continue to gain attention (It's not for me to say if they are gaining momentum or not, these kids are usually under 25).
I wonder if there is anything more specific than simple anti-racist sentiment here. Last time I checked, and whenever I have ever checked, the numbers for racist skinheads and so-called "neo-nazis" was less than 6000 countrywide. It's not that I believe that they have an adequate census system for such things, but it's still a lot to get into a huff over. Trump has simply made people feel comfortable in being more vocal about their little maligned ideas, and maybe that has something to do with the backlash. I do wonder how they are applying their policies to adult items and such. If I were in this situation, I'd probably look to those channels and sell my tapes as "fetish items".
Obviously this is a matter of controlling discourse in general. With or without the FBI goading edgy shitposters to plan bombings, the dangers of white nationalism are even more overstated than the dangers of Islamist terrorism in the US. Much like 9/11 was used to implement previously unthinkable intrusions into privacy and what you guys call civil rights, the Nazi scare is used to sell and legitimize an increase in corporate power over public debate and culture. Possibly it will also be used to motivate more direct government intervention (i.e. literal censorship). Once the 1st amendment becomes a relative and limited right, you can just go through with European style hate speech laws. Given the structure of the United States political system, it will then once again be possible to dictate what legitimate discourse is from board rooms.
I'm not saying that anyone will implement Chinese style censorship in the US. Some European states are edging towards just that, but it's still not even close. Even so, having major public platforms routinely banning ideas you don't want to spread, and the additional opportunity to prosecute your political enemies, is an excellent way to tip the scales if corporate media consensus isn't enough. This should be particularly obvious to the Left: if the state and tech capital is fine with banning CDrs printed in 50 copies and persecuting politically irrelevant dudes in SS uniforms, what the fuck do you think they will do when you bring out your important, efficient, socially transformative platform to reshape society and expropriate the oppressors?
Basically you've got the Nazi boogeyman to scare the ostensibly sensitive social revolutionaries that make up the Left and much of the "soft" professional class (not least the ACLU, who've come a long way from defending Ginsberg's pedo org), the Islamist terrorist boogeyman for border line retarded, mreeeerrica boomer yokels, and Russia/Vladimir Putin/the Russian bots for both of these camps. If you play things right you can implement just about any limitation on just about anybody once you've got the structures in place. For what it's worth, I think all of this will remain privatized for the time being. There are many negative things to say about Trump, but he won't touch the first amendment, and if Biden is elected and actually survives four years I doubt he'll do much about separating hate speech from free speech either. Unfortunately, with the ever dwindling power of established media, the people who call the shots (all of them, in case you're wondering of whom I speak) are going to have to come up with something to prevent the ole' CHANGE (understood as any redistribution of power, rather than any particular radical vision) from actually happening. Even though Islamists or Nazis obviously won't take over the US regardless of what happens, there may be other threats that need to be stopped in their tracks, and people with power and privilege will want tools to do so.
If this wasn't the case, you'd see none of this bullshit happening. The developments we've seen over the past twenty years in surveillance and private/public censorship are obviously detrimental to the credibility of Western corporations and governments alike, and they have done literally nothing to reduce "hate" or "fundamentalism" at all. If I can see that, so can the fuckers who create Terms of Service
or define public policy.
