The Nazis in Greece, who over the weekend gained some seats in Parliament, are likely to continue to be a factor in a new election experts say will likely be held in about a month or so. These are the real deal … apparently they self identify as Nazis but the party name is “Golden Dawn” and they have a record of violence and nastiness. They even do the Nazi salute and everything.
Here’s the thing: Their web site is hosted on WordPress, and WordPress has a policy that should actually exclude them from using that resource. For this reason, people who dislike Nazis are invited to SIGN A PETITION asking WordPress to toss them off their servers. If this happens any time over the next week or two, it could actually disrupt their activities in relation to the upcoming vote and maybe Greece will end up with fewer Nazis in Parliament.
Please go sign the petition and get your friends to sign the petition.
Thank you very much.
But seriously. Go sign. Please.
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Signed
I’m very much against nazi’s and nazi-parties but doesn’t this implie censorship? They have a right to voice their opinions, no matter how stupid they may be…
Although direct calls for violence should be taken down, taking away their entire forum is a bit extreme.
As for the threats themselves: they should be a matter for the police.
Provided they are not threatening violence, or encouraging violence, then free speech must be allowed, no matter how distasteful the views.
Hence I will not sign the petition.
Greek here,
I don’t think any of their voters know how to use the internet so don’t worry too much about the petition. Their call to fame is that they escort old ladies to ATMs to help them against “bloodthirsty immigrants”.
Also I think the more people are exposed to their message and know exactly what they want to do, the better for the rest of us. So, not signed.
I agree with 2, 3, & 4. I’m also pretty sure that Greece doesn’t have the firepower to do anything should they somehow gain any influence.
Please read the petition! They routinely threaten violence, they use all their various media to do it, they are a hate group, and as such they violate WordPress’s agreement and rules.
And no, they don’t have a “right to free speech” … I mean, you are probably referring to the first amendment, right? THIS IS GREECE! Different Country! WordPress is an American Company. They can do what they want. They can arbitrarily exclude organizations with the letter N in their name if they want.
Anyway, free speech rules generally limit a government, not an IT company, from limiting speech. If the Greek Nazis want to be on the internet, WordPress’s refusal to host their site does not stop them. They can go get their own servers and do in from scratch, if they want.
re anti-immigrants: Here in New Zealand, aged care has been privatised, Philippina women, temporary workers care for the old. On low wages. Profit to corporates. The white citizens disdain to have their senile parents in their house. So far we dont have an anti-immigrant movement much. Shame maybe? Indigenous Maori are way over-represented in prison but. Its a cold culture after all.
I see a lot of sympathy being provided here for the poor Nazis who would be repressed by being forced to follow the WordPress service rules.
Poor Nazis.
Greg, I did not know you had so may Nazi sympathizers.
But if we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice too – right? Right? Opposing them will only make them hostile to the notion of getting along with other people.
Signed.
Free speech is something that should be universal. A site is in it’s right to refuse service on any basis; but I don’t think it’s a good idea to petition people to take down a public platform. This party or it’s ideas won’t dissapear if you take away their wordpress-account; but it will certainly use it to rile up their supporters with a claim of ‘left-wing persecution’. I am fully aware of the irony, that if things where reversed Nazi’s wouldnt give me any form of free speech (or life for that matter). But that’s what comes when you have liberal values. You have to let assholes speak as well…
I would like WordPress to make them take down their threats and maybe worn them of repercussions if they continue to violate both Greek law and terms of services. That way they can be forced to become more civil.
@Ruth Luria
I DO NOT have any symphaty for Nazi’s. Which was perfectly clear from my earlier comment. This is no more then a low personnel attack. I hope Greg Laden doesn’t encourage these kind of comments on his blog to people, just for disagreeing with him.
It is not a public platform. A private company is hosting a private non-profit’s site, under an explicit agreement, which the latter has violated. There a are no legal, implied, or moral protections.
@Ruth Luria
I DO NOT have any symphaty for Nazi’s. Which was perfectly clear from my earlier comment. This is no more then a low personnel attack. I hope Greg Laden doesn’t encourage these kind of comments on his blog to people, just for disagreeing with him.
So are you specifically saying that I should repress Ruth’s speech? Are you repressing Ruth’s speech?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/xblog/2012/05/10/the-nazis-have-been-repressed/
Given the prominence that their manifesto attaches to the way Greeks are being dictated to by self-righteous interfering foreigners, do you really think it’s a good idea to provide them with concrete evidence that they can actually point to, of how this is happening?
And, do you really mean to imply that while you are smart enough not to be taken in by their propaganda, the Greek electorate aren’t?
Threats of violence against a journalist are not OK, period. A respectable company has no obligation to give this dangerous behavior a free platform. Furthermore, when the journalists appealed to the Greek authorities to intervene legally they claimed that since the site is in the US they can’t do anything about it.
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-greek-journalist-recounts-being-threatened-by-right-wing-extremists-a-831218.html
They have resurfaced at a different wordpress.com account that is on the petition.
They are welcome to use their own infrastructure and not use wordpress as a sanctuary to evade Greek law to issue anonymous threats.
If a group wants to make statements that immigrants should not be allowed to remain in the country, that’s one thing. But routinely threatening violence is over the line. Even in the United States, the First Amendment does not protect the right to issue credible threats of violence against other people. In New Hampshire, where I live, it is a criminal offense to issue such threats.
The white citizens disdain to have their senile parents in their house. So far we dont have an anti-immigrant movement much. Shame maybe? Indigenous Maori are way over-represented in prison but.http://www.kabbanet.ro
I’ve not called for repressing anyone’s speech: I did not ask you to remove his comment. I wondered if you would distance yourself from people that call commenters that disagree with you ‘nazi-symphatisers’. Apparently you will not and I can only assume you agree with him. Which is fine by me. In the absence of civil discourse I will not botter adressing you’re statements regarding the moral obligations of private company’s regarding free speech (apparently none) and leave you’re blog alone.
I find the similarities between current Greece and 1930s Germany very intriguing. Both have a currency issues, financial instability, foreign interference and a populous that is used to better. Sadly, the turn to fascism (and in particular the nazi variety) is a natural reaction to the Greek situation.
G127, you’ve redefined “free speech” to butress your original argument, and now you are redefining it again. And taking your ball home and all that. I don’t think you’ve made a very convincing argument for anything!
Ian Kemmish, Greece is merely an arbitrarily defined thing called a “country” on this planet with all of us humans on it. I think when one group of humans advocates violence against others because they don’t like they way the look, where they were born, or the color of their skin, others have to step in and say something and occasionally even do something.
If indeed they are Nazis, they can’t exactly play the victim card. If you’re running around advocating extermination of lesser “races” then you can’t say the lefties are being mean to me because they don’t want WordPress to host my site. They are not equivalent.
BTW Golden dawn…bite me.
“Free speech” is important as an idea, not as a law.
If your reaction to speech you dislike is to want to stifle it, then you’re as bad as any other enemy of freedom, whether that stifling is protected against in law or not.
If these nazis have broken the law, then they should be prosecuted.
If all they’ve done is upset a few lefties because they quite rightly object to illegal immigrants committing crimes on their city streets, then presumably they’re not doing anything wrong.
“If your reaction to speech you dislike is to want to stifle it”
So when fundie Islam preachers exhort their flock to kill The Great Satan, to riot, to kill the innocent in the name of Allah, YOUR reaction is “Well, they have the RIGHT to say what they want, even if I don’t agree”?
“They have a right to voice their opinions”
No, they don’t.
This may come as a shock to you, but Greece is a different country from the USA. And it has different laws. And different rights.
So no, they don’t.
Europe was damn near killed last time we let some pillock with rhetoric and an angry populace say what he wanted because he had the right.
USA, on the other hand, invested heavily in Nazi Germany, profited massively from lend-lease and, when *Germany* declared war on the USA, demanded patented technology and the usurpation of international currency enabling them to move from an also-ran country into a superpower. Therefore it’s rather less likely that they see a problem.
PS what about kiddie porn? Only those enacting are committing a non-speech crime.
You’re just giving them an additional ‘we’re being oppressed by foreign forces’ card to play; basic nazi psychology isn’t that complicated
@Phil
They can’t play the victim card because you say so?
The victim card is the nazi rhetorical vehicle no.1, this will add to their local constituency
“I find the similarities between current Greece and 1930s Germany very intriguing. Both have a currency issues, financial instability, foreign interference and a populous that is used to better.”
Note the same certainly goes for the US from a European point of view; the major difference here is your nazi’s are only explicitly so on weekends and holidays, when the white hoods come out and they decide to go do some harassing of homosexuals or of whatever is currently deviant and near.
Shouldn’t you best focus concerns on the nazi running for ‘democratic’ leader among your own people right now, and you know, step in and do something about it?
infootje, for my part, I ‘ve done quite a bit of work doing battle with racist and nazi-esque forces in the United States. Not that I have to have done that to dislike Greek Nazis, but you don’t have an argument here.
In the US, we take care of our Nazis and White Supremacists. They have various right, but they are also considered to be dangerous groups. There have been investigations, arrests, and even Al Capone-esque acts. The KKK was virtually shut down several years ago, for a while, when they lost a major civil suit and had to give up their savings.
“The KKK was virtually shut down several years ago”
Hence, unlike a previous poster’s “ideal”, not given Free Speech.
This is why infootje’s statement is what it SEEMS like from the outside to be as he says.
Any restriction of free speech is latched on to by *some* USians as Automatically And Always Bad.
It’s really very hard to hear of the same happening inside the USA and statements like that bolster the idea that the USA is some sort of Free Speech Haven.
I, for example, hadn’t heard of any problem the KKK have had being investigated.
(PS while here, on the subject of WW2, the American Forces who aided Europe were deserving of all thanks possible. THEY risked and gave their lives to help others retain their freedom. The problem is three generations later and after all that payment, there are still many americans who want europe to doff their caps for americans who have paid nothing to keep the world free. THOSE people are a different matter)
Some info from Teh Wiki on various actions that limited or curtailed KKK activity:
“Jerry Thompson, a newspaper reporter who infiltrated the KKK in 1979, reported that the FBI’s COINTELPRO efforts were highly successful. Rival KKK factions accused each other’s leaders of being FBI informants. Bill Wilkinson of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was revealed to have been working for the FBI.[122]
Thompson, the journalist who claimed he had infiltrated the Klan, related that KKK leaders who appeared indifferent to the threat of arrest showed great concern about a series of civil lawsuits filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center for damages of millions of dollars. These were filed after KKK members shot into a group of African Americans. Klansmen curtailed activities to conserve money for defense against the lawsuits. ”
“After Michael Donald was lynched in 1981 in Alabama, the FBI investigated his death and two local KKK members were convicted of having a role, including Henry Francis Hays, who was sentenced to death. With the support of attorneys Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, sued the KKK in civil court in Alabama. Her lawsuit against the United Klans of America was tried in February 1987. The all-white jury found the Klan responsible for the lynching of Donald and ordered the Klan to pay US$7 million. To pay the judgment, the KKK turned over all of its assets, including its national headquarters building in Tuscaloosa. After exhausting the appeals process, Hays was executed for Donald’s death in Alabama on June 6, 1997. It was the first time since 1913 that a white man had been executed in Alabama for a crime against an African American.”
“Klan splinter divisions grew substantially after the 2008 election of U.S. President Barack Obama, the first African-American to hold the office.[136][137] The Klan has expanded its recruitment efforts to white supremacists at the international level.[138] But in the long run, the Klan’s numbers are steadily dropping, with membership estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 as of 2012. This decline has been attributed to the Klan’s lack of competence in the use of the Internet, their history of violence, a proliferation of competing hate groups, and a decline in the number of young racist activists who are willing to join groups at all.[11]
Recent membership campaigns have been based on issues such as people’s anxieties about illegal immigration, urban crime and same-sex marriage.[139] Many KKK groups have formed strong alliances with other white supremacist groups, such as neo-Nazis. Some KKK groups have become increasingly “nazified”, adopting the look and emblems of white power skinheads”
Congratulations on suppressing the nazis. It’s depressing to see how many goddamned apologists they’ve got out there though.
Oh the Nazis can try to play the victim card. And the press may let them. But if they are in fact real Nazis, who advocate the elimination of Jews and committed war crimes during their occupation of Greece, to compare this to not have a WordPress account…….really?
Dear Greg,
I generally respect your blog, and love your sarcasm. I attended a school that is respected in the areas of international relations and political theory, and I consider myself fairly informed. I have been following your posts on this issue, and I see that you often respond to people who write you, so I am hoping for a response 🙂 !
I am somewhat concerned about the situation with Golden Dawn, more than I have been concerned about anything that I have observed in recent history. On the one hand, I see that Golden Dawn has potentially spread rhetoric that supports violence against members of Greek society based upon ethno-racial characteristics. Notice something important here: I say POTENTIALLY, because I have not seen any “official” statements from the organization advocating or calling for violence against immigrants or the domestic Jewish population, despite that I recognize that Golden Dawn makes public statements denouncing those groups, and speaking against them publicly. I have seen on your website that you claim that they advocate violence, and I am curious to understand what you mean by that … Did the Golden Dawn explicitly call for the citizens of Greece to “take up arms” — if you will — against other individuals, citizens or not, of the nation? Or when you assert that they have incited violence, are you saying that there are inexplicit components, observed in the rhetoric, of their statements or speeches that encourages greeks to take up violence?
But building upon this point, it does seem to me that there have been overt attempts, and their continues to be an overt attempt in the media, to label the Golden Dawn as having incited violence. Again I don’t know if they have or not, but I see that they claim they have not, and I cannot find any explicit evidence of the fact that they have. I see allegations with no evidence.
Beyond this, I see no acknowledgement of the validity of their central claim … which is that mass immigration into their country , mostly from the muslim world, is hurting their domestic citizens, and their government is not responding to the issue. I have heard 20% of the population in Greece ( the actual population) are immigrants, and that the government is not doing anything about this. A critical fact about this situation, and about past situations, is that the rise of the Golden Dawn can most appropriately be attributed a flaw in the political system, and the belief of the “the people” that their government is not acting in their interest. Instead, the situation is most often attributed to the irrationality of the Greek People under the economic pressures of the times, and it is not so clear that the people are behaving irrationally. Are the Greek people behaving irrationally?
Or are they behaving in their own immediate interests? It seems hard to argue that stopping immigration when you’re totally broke and 20% of the population are illegals (even 5% would justify the position in a country their size) is irrational. If they are not behaving in their own interests, then potentially this represents some sort of meta-conflict between political systems of government, and human beings. What do you think?
— J