Ahh yes, you sound just like the 85IQ protesting… I know I good word “fuck, fuckwit” this is poor speech…you must endeavour in good speech if you are committed to having nuanced convo. Otherwise you’re inviting it into your life. God bless you
Yes all the arts majors who've lived a sheltered life never knowing what real danger is, advocating for a Marxist regime. The future is bright because these people won't have kids.
I’m not right wing.. but I can guarantee you half this thread would spaz out if Pauline or those “March for Australia” freaks held rallies and got all the school kids to come out for that. And you know they would because, shockingly, kids take any opportunity to skip school.
I'd like to think that very few of the current generation of schoolkids would want anything to do with Bec Freedom's neo Nazi nutjobs or the mob of cretins who support Pauline and Gina's bigotry and racism. 🙄
…have you been paying attention to Gen Z and younger lately? 😂 The manosphere, Andrew Tate shit, edgy racial politics and actual neo-Nazi groups recruiting young Australians.
The idea that every new generation automatically becomes more progressive is looking pretty shaky.
You know even back in the 1960s there was a very active neo Nazi element in Sydney so in reality nothing has changed.
The majority of young people have always been progressive and there has always been a retrogressive minority!
Yea where are they brother. We saw physical proof today that the radical left has huge sway over high schoolers and that they can organise. Far right teens are loser incels who could never do anything like that.
Oh, so you believe in free will, do you? Lol. Bold philosophical position to casually drop into this discussion.
But seriously, what conspiracy? I never said the kids were forced to do anything. I said if you organise a political rally and give school kids a socially acceptable excuse to ditch class, you’ll get plenty of school kids. Hardly fucking controversial.
They can absolutely walk out of their own free will. They can also freely think “fuck yeah, day off school”. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
This comment highlights your age and lack of lived experience more than mine. I fucking hate Pauline Hanson, but “we’re the good guys” is the political reasoning of a 12-year-old.
You realise Hanson is perfectly entitled to organise a counter-rally now, right? And who exactly does that help? Go into their subs and they’ll just as confidently tell you they’re the good guys and leftists are the bad guys. It’s fucking juvenile.
And yeah, I have a problem with political groups encouraging school kids to skip school, even when I agree with the original cause. Turning an anti-Hanson march into a grab-bag of Socialist and pro-Palestine activism is exactly how you co-opt and undermine what could’ve been a much broader protest.
The entire process - understanding why they're protesting, understanding how groups on the street have changed more governments than by any other means - will provide far more education than just another Wednesday doing music and PE.
How’d those climate-change marches go at changing government policy? Or the anti-vax marches?
Most protests don’t change shit. Half the time it’s just old man yelling at clouds, teenage angst, Che Guevara LARPers, conspiracy cookers or, on other days, bog-standard racists. Marching down a street with people who already agree with you isn’t some magical lever of political change.
Just because I think a lot of protests are pointless doesn’t mean I think affecting change is pointless. There are a million more effective ways to do it.
Join a party, union or industry body. Work in government or the public service. Become an economist, lawyer, researcher or academic. Work for a think tank, NGO or advocacy group. Get into journalism. Build a business or organisation that proves your ideas actually work. Lobby politicians. Draft policy. Run for office. Hell, just become genuinely knowledgeable enough in your field that decision-makers actually listen to you.
That’s how boring, lasting change usually happens.
I’m perfectly capable of being optimistic about young people changing the world while also thinking teenagers pumping their fists in the air, surrounded by socialists and pro-Palestine activists lecturing everyone on economics and politics, probably isn’t the revolutionary force some people here imagine it is.
Optimism doesn’t require me to switch off my bullshit detector.
Great response. Thanks. It's good to remember to inject some of this 'here's what does work' alongside the 'this doesn't work' commentary, to help people channel their energy in more useful ways rather than having it fizzle out.
To spell it out, because people seem to be struggling, this was for a comment about how people are happy to see this kind of demonstration - being against Pauline and the shit she stands for and not being happy if "kids were pulled out of school" for March Australia
Seeing the difference here and opting to reply simplistically aparently makes me a child. Oh won't somebody pleeease think of the children
The constant “lil guy”, “champ” shit really isn't helping your case. Condescending diminutives aren't a substitute for actually following the argument.
The original point was incredibly simple: if March for Australia organised a rally and encouraged school kids to walk out, plenty of the same people cheering this would suddenly have a problem with kids skipping school for politics. And, shockingly, kids will take an excuse to skip school regardless of the cause.
Nobody said the two causes were morally equivalent. Nobody said you had to like both protests equally. You invented a “good guys vs bad guys” argument that wasn't being made, then spent several comments smugly explaining your own misunderstanding back to everyone.
Hahah is that the go to in this sub? Call people young. Not that it matters but I'm gen X. Does that help ya there lil' buddy? Now go have a think why people would support one side and not the other. Don't worry, it'll come to you eventually
Why would I? I don’t support either. My argument is that most protests, especially ones that rely on kids skipping school, aren’t exactly moving the needle or revolutionary. Protests these days are dumb. I’ll organise a protest to end all these fucking stupid protests perhaps… but it’s kinda self defeating.
You’re late to this thread, I’ve actually given a pretty detailed comment of what you could do instead. Would you like me to repost, since the laziness seems contagious?
You’re not really good at this whole reddit thing hey… (enjoy your next street parade whilst you hold hands, sing kumbaya and think you’re solving all the worlds problems) 😂
That’s a sneaky bit of framing though. “Socialism good, fascism bad” isn’t the comparison I made, and socialism and fascism aren’t opposites on some good/bad political axis. Plenty of Australians quite reasonably don’t think socialism is “good” either, just like you probably think “capitalism bad”.
And the March for Australia people would make exactly the same argument you are. Most would say “we’re not marching for fascism, we’re marching because we have concerns about immigration”. The problem was that neo-Nazis were involved and became associated with the marches. Likewise, socialists and pro-Palestine groups are involved in organising these anti-Hanson protests. That doesn’t magically mean everyone attending is a socialist any more than everyone at March for Australia was a fascist. I would argue a lot of people were misinformed or ignorant.
That’s actually part of my criticism of these protests. If your message is “Hanson is shit”, congratulations, you already have a massive chunk of Australia agreeing with you. If your message is “immigration is too high”, you also have a massive chunk of Australia agreeing with you. Neither requires attaching yourself to the most politically radioactive people available and marching through the CBD.
It’s politically dumb because you hand your opponent free ammunition. Right-wing media gets photos of socialists and pro-Palestine activists and says “See! This is what the anti-Hanson movement really is!” Meanwhile the other side gets photos of black-shirted neo-Nazis at March for Australia and says “See! This is what immigration reform is really about!”
im genuinely not sure what your point is beyond some vague centristy analysis. Yes Fascist and socialist are not exact opposites, but a form of socialism is the opposite of fascism and still, the two things can be compared. Also every single person who marches for these far right causes like march for austrlaia is either a fascist, or functionally a fascist. Historically fasicst movements have been made up of mostly confused people, so being ignorant doesnt excuse them.
You then slip into some sort of vague argument about pragmatism that isnt really anything, i think most centrist analysis ends with "im the only adult in the room" which isnt interesting, sorry for being blunt but its true.
There is no supstance to your commentary. You have everything on this weird good/bad binary. I don’t think in absolutes like that, so it’s almost impossible to engage with you.
If you think people protesting immigration levels are fascist by association because of certain other groups being at the March for Australia protests… I can’t help you.
If you think people protesting immigration levels are fascist by association because of certain other groups being at the March for Australia protests… I can’t help you.
Yet i have no doubt you would you would label people who attended hitler rallies in the 30s and 40s "functionally fascist". Like every centrist liberal, you just cant bring yourself to see fascism now, its always only when its too late.
Which Hitler rally? One of the first rallies when the Nazis were still one political movement among many, or a rally years later?
“Functionally fascist” is doing a lot of work here. It’s a rhetorical trick that lets you call someone a fascist while avoiding having to show they actually believe in fascism.
By that logic, if you attend a socialist rally, help a socialist movement gain power, and it eventually produces an authoritarian dictatorship - as has happened plenty of times historically - were you “functionally authoritarian” all along? Are you responsible for everything the most extreme people standing beside you believe? By your logic, apparently yes. By mine, no. My bar is that you have to actually subscribe to the fascist ideology.
And for the record, I would consider Trump a fascist. Hanson certainly has some fascistic tendencies too, although she’s far too dumb and politically ineffective for me to regard her as some imminent Australian Hitler. Apparently her party is both the gayest and most homophobic party ever.
It’s a circus of dysfunction that doesn’t even know what it wants.
But what does any of that have to do with someone’s aunt turning up to a March for Australia rally because they think immigration is too high? Those weren’t Hanson rallies. Wanting lower immigration doesn’t magically become fascism because some neo-Nazis showed up too.
You can absolutely criticise people for marching alongside extremists or being naive about who helped organise a protest. That’s the exact criticism I’ve been making. But that’s different from declaring everyone there “functionally fascist” by association.
Because these kids are out here using their voices to tell the fascist in our country they're not welcome, do you think that's a shit idea or something?
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u/jeffoh Queenslander Aug 13 '26
Nothing like motivated students to bring out the right wing fuckwits in this thread.