Nazis marching in America

I read it. It reeks of incompetence.

Remember though, that we studiously avoid attending cons that are run poorly regardless of the quality of the attendees or content. Life’s too short to interact with poorly managed things.

Then in that case I’d like to thank you for giving me your perspective. It is a good one and a hell of a lot better than the hand-wringing I was doing before.

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Cons will either solve this or dissolve.

I’m confident that if this happened at, say, a PAX, the Enforcers would make the right call and deal with it effectively. I hope that MAGFest would handle it well, but it’s hard to say for sure.

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Hotel/Convention staff will usually get rid of folks like that if the “Convention” folks won’t.

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I think they would. The head of MAG hangs out at the same spot every year all night and I hang out with him. He’s pretty good guy. Last year he had a thing where basically an attendee got complaints about him and the Gaylord tracked the guy down and he just texted them back with “throw the book at him” He’s not shy about throwing people out. For any reason.

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I know that story, that is why the Gaylord likes MAGFest.

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According to Paul (magfest guy), it often becomes a “fight” between convention staff and hotel staff. He was very grateful that the Gaylord and MAG seem to see eye to eye on this.

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Harassing someone while remaining within the letter of the law is near the top of any bully playbook. They don’t even need to be told this strategy it is so natural and obvious. When the long arm of the law doesn’t come down, the victim is forced to take matters into their own hands. They end up being the first one to break the rules as written, and are now the victim of the authorities as well as the bully, who gets off free.

This can be seen playing out on every schoolyard on earth. It is perfectly understandable why this works on children, but for it to work on adults? For authority figures, be they teachers or convention staff, to not see through such a basic situation is an utter disgrace. I dispense a thousand dump trucks of shame upon them.

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I’ve seen cons that say two basic things in their policies:

  1. The list of bad behaviors is not exhaustive
  2. Repeatedly coming close to, but not technically violating, a policy is in and of itself grounds for removal.
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I’d probably add something along the lines of “If staff thinks you’re generally being a dick, you can be removed,” albeit perhaps in more formal legalese, which also would include those cases you mentioned.

Any con whose staff doesn’t those Nazis were being dicks either is a shitty con and/or needs to fire the staff who thought their behavior was okay.

HOPE has been around for a while (20 years I think) and has overall a good rep, so I think there is a decent chance they’ll fix their issues. However, the issues do need to be addressed.

I know my dumb self is rolling in here super late to the party, but have we confirmed whether or not the WH’s editing of video footage constitutes violation of federal laws? I mean, some of us realize it’s propaganda, but it would be nice to have other institutions back up our validations officially.

Are you talking about the recent Trump/Putin summit? Because that wasn’t quite editing video footage. There actually was a mistake and a reasonable reason why part of Putin’s answer, saying he wanted Trump elected, was cut out from the transcript.

That being said, the fact that the White House hasn’t gone back to correct the official transcript is the problem.

""What happened? If you watch the videos, it’s pretty clear. At some point in the middle of that question, there’s a switch between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator. In the White House version of the video, you can hear the question being asked very faintly under the woman who is translating saying “president.”

If you’re wearing headphones, you can notice how the latter part of the question is suddenly audible in the right earpiece. At first, the right channel is only the translator. Mid-question, the reporter is suddenly heard in both left and right as the translator feed drops out. Notice, too, that Putin then picks up his earpiece — through which he can hear the translations — and puts it in his right ear.

Our transcript and the White House’s were apparently based on the feed that runs only in the right channel. A White House official told CNN’s Abby Phillip that its transcript “did not have Mason’s audio turned up in time,” referring to Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, who asked the question."

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PAX has kicked out Staff, attendees and guests over the course of it’s many years.

I think the challenge is when the con leadership is not in a position to perceive a certain behavior as harmful (e.g. privilege). Then these behaviors can go unchecked. It’s the “neutral” version of being sympathetic. This highlights the importance of diversity within leadership roles, since a native perspective on harassment is generally more acute.

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https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RRibFZinBwQJ:https://heartsucker.com/blog/2018/07/28/no-hope-for-fascists+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=cr

A google webcache of the blog? of an antifa guy at HOPE, good read. Useful for anyone who may wanna learn what to do if the HOPE kinda nonsense happens near you.

Honestly they should.

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Not sure how you could rewrite it, IANAL, but I like the way @SkeleRym worded it in the new forum rules.

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I don’t like it when people say “Nazi punks” because Nazis are not punk. Punks kick the shit out of Nazis.

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I mean, if someone shows up to our con in a MAGA hat they’re getting denied entry. I consider that hat itself to be hate speech.

Frankly, anything with a Republican logo on it is hate speech.

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Nazi punks actually existed.

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