masked-up:

“Suppose I say the sentence ‘Today is Wednesday’ and I say it all the time every day even when it isn’t Wednesday, and I even todays Wednesday say todays Wednesday at times when it’s completely in-todaysWednesday-appropriate.

If you’re very clever you might start to suspect I’m not really talking about the days of the week, those are the words I’m using but I’m actually doing something else with them, mainly I’m taking the piss out of you while you try to explain the days of the week.

Well a lot of fascist speech works in similar ways, the myths at the core of fascism the bad statistics, the made up history, the really off the wall stuff. It really doesn’t matter to a committed fascist how many times you sit down and debunk that stuff they keep todays Wednesday saying todays Wednesday. Thats because its not so much about the content but the act of saying it, and thats how we spot propaganda.

The job of propaganda isn’t necessarily to convince anyone, propaganda is a recruitment tool, it gathers and retains the people who understand the true message and are willing to repeat it. It doesn’t really matter to a committed white nationalist how many times you sit down and debunk the ridiculous white nationalist conspiracy that the world is secretly being taken over by Jewish people. Because when they’re saying that they aren’t really saying its true, what they’re saying is they want to persecute Jewish people.

And their audience are all running around trying to explain the days of the week saying “Come on our talk show and explain your weird theory about the days of the week” and “Bring this to the free market of ideas so we can debunk it”. Whilst some of their audiance are sitting there going “Ooooh, I get it… todays Wednesday”.

The liberal love of free speech is a great thing but it assumes that everybody is coming to the table in good faith and are willing to play the game, which fascists evidently aren’t. Thats why it is worth countering fascist arguments to try and reach potential recruits before they do. But anti-fascists will try to deny fascists platforms. Because when we interview fascists or debate fascists they’re not really there for us, they’re there for our audience. While we’re up there talking about the days of the week theres a guy at the back of the lecture theatre handing out pamphlets about the Wednesday question.”

(Source, The Philosophy of Antifa | Philosophy Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ)