A five year old article that writes in vague terms about a twitter following and treats opposition to hate-speakers in the same tone as beating a man to death with a baseball bat.
Did you even read it?
"Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot.
"Leftist" violence, defined by opposition to the right, and right-wing violence with its tens of millions of followers. Talk about motes and beams.
""Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot."
I really don't understand why you're so determined to ignore the flaws of the extremists on the Left. Yes, there are dangers on the Right. But nobody here is denying them. It's just silly to say things like "there is no such thing as Antifa."
Where are the headquarters of QAnon? What is their organisational structure? Who is their head honcho? Would questions like these persuade you that the QAnon doesn't exist? Or would you be more likely to accuse anybody making them of being disingenuous?
Please point out my determination to ignore extremism on the left. I can't recall writing a word like that in my life. OTOH I've written copiously against the irresponsibility of the "social" left. With 95% of the political violence coming from the right, I'm not taking a lot of symmetry seeking. Left wing political violence makes me think of the 1968 Chicago DNC and the Weathermen, not this decade.
Qanon has video channels, web sites, an organizational network to summon people to gatherings. The only mystery is the identity of its titular leader.
From all I've seen, Antifa is just a bogeyman, a shorthand for alleged "perpetrators of leftist violence" but without any identified members. The masked man who punched Richard Spencer, presumed antifa. The guys who beat up Andy Ngo, presumed antifa.
After sending his own followers to trash the Capitol, Trump said it was antifa.
It's nothing to do with equivalence or symmetry. This is exactly the problem. If your first instinct when presented with a problem on the Left is to say, "well look at what the Right is doing!" then this is exactly the desire to ignore exremism that I'm talking about.
Sitting and arguing about who is worse is childish and counterproductive. But you saying "there is no such thing as antifa" is a clear example of a desire to ignore extremism on the Left. It's just flat out untrue. And I think if we were talking about any of the comparable groups on the right you'd come down extreely hard on anybody who made such a claim. You have a really bewildering blind spot here.
Antifa is a loosely defined group. Or more correctly, a collection of different groups. As is QAnon. They are extremely able to organise as demonstrated by the numerous times they've done so at various events. I don't know if they have their own website. I'm not sure if Qanon does either. But this is a silly argument to make to dispute whether a group exists.
The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol. Their leaders are on trial. They have identified members. They have a network.
I just read a bunch of online sources. The head of the FBI says that antifa is an idea, an ideology, that there is no organization.
I've never even seen a t-shirt.
I don't do whataboutism and I don't sympathize with purveyors of mayhem. But I have never once read of a single name of someone "in" antifa. Certainly no Democrats are affiliated with any organization as the Republicans are with white supremacist groups.
Next time you read about some violence from Teh Left you ask me if I'm good with it, OK?
You're conflating Antifa with the Proud Boys, which isn't what we were talking about. I've never heard of a single source "in QAnon" either. They don't give official interviews. I dont know of any identified QAnon members.
Again, I'm not trying to make the case that Antifa is a carefully structured organisation. Which is why I compared them to QAnon. Which isn't structured either. But it clearly exists. My disagreement was with you bluntly claiming that it doesn't.
No, I do not approve of rioting and property damage in response to Floyd's murder. Reagardless of what I think his killers deserved, which I will not put on record, the simple fact that the dishonest right will use the footage to rile up resentment means that kind of behavior is political suicide.
I was just reading about vaccinations on EpochTimes, a right wing agitation site. They were showing people convulsing supposedly from vaccines; I recognized several scenes from Dario Argento movies. Zombie stuff.
The t-shirts? Please. That's just people trying to make a buck, not the antifa swag store. Look at the white supremacist organizations and they are practically in uniform.
I do know (of) one QAnon member. I don't know if she carries an embossed plastic card but she's a member.
"Antifa has no central leadership or organizational structure. Individual Antifa groups exist but they are unrelated to each other and act independently."
Your article did not establish that antifa exists and none of the authoritative sites, all of them considerably more recent, did either. They say that antifa is just a name, short for anti-fascist or anti-fascist action.
There are lots of widespread sentiments and political views with a lot of believers but not actually organizations. Anti-Fascism goes back as far as fascism because there have always been people who rightfully found it to be abhorrent. There may have been millions of antifascists in their beliefs and there were in fact organizations in the 30s, with membership and strategy. And not only in Germany; Communist and Fascist dockworkers fought brutally before the ACP dissolved in 1939. Iron pipes to the teeth.
I don't see the gray area that you and Steve do. What is the threshold between a widespread sentiment and an identifiable organization? The KKK, the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, these are organizations. They have leaders, they have organization, they have strategy. The KKK is an organization founded on racism. Racism itself is not an organization, it is a sentiment. Antifa is a sentiment.
Where does the line cross? Buying a web domain? Renting a building and electing a hierarchy? Bombing a post office? (I just checked. There is no antifa.com, it redirects to whitehouse.gov).
Take any nutty belief you like. I'm sure there are creationist web sites; are creationists a movement? Are they going to invade museums and smash fossils?
This is getting kind of ridiculous, frankly. That Jason guy said an acolyte of James O'Keefe was beaten up at some rally and he claimed it was antifa beating him. None of his assailants were identified but Jason confidently asserted that this was proof of antifa's existence. The acolyte was an Asian named Andy Ngo and he was filming a Proud Boys rally. OK, an Asian at a white supremacist rally beaten up by unknown assailants so blame antifa, never even freaking consider the fact that a nonwhite guy at a supremacist rally could have been beaten for being nonwhite. JFC.
Just as Trump tried to blame them for the Capitol invasion he incited at his own rally.
Thugs and criminals. I lived near Seattle at the time of the WTO protests, where a "left wing" mob demonstrating was blamed for widespread property damage. That lie had circled the globe before the truth that the smashers were a bunch of violence junkies got its shoes laced.
Chaos always attracts violence junkies. The press is quick to call them "left wing thugs" when in reality most of we on the left are a little too savvy to short-circuit our press coverage like that. I'm willing to concede, starry-eyed though I might be in doing so, that violence junkies play similar roles at right wing events but then we have federal statistics that 95% of domestic terrorism is right wing.
But then, I'm gay and have been to "pride" parades where the whole goal was to be as offensive as possible. Maybe not violent, but disgusting.
You go ahead and believe that antifa is as real and organized as the KKK. I would need a lot more evidence.
A five year old article that writes in vague terms about a twitter following and treats opposition to hate-speakers in the same tone as beating a man to death with a baseball bat.
Did you even read it?
"Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot.
"Leftist" violence, defined by opposition to the right, and right-wing violence with its tens of millions of followers. Talk about motes and beams.
""Antifa" is a fantasy created by the fascist right to garner sympathy and to revel in the joy of feeling persecuted, just like another group we discuss in here a lot."
I really don't understand why you're so determined to ignore the flaws of the extremists on the Left. Yes, there are dangers on the Right. But nobody here is denying them. It's just silly to say things like "there is no such thing as Antifa."
Where are the headquarters of QAnon? What is their organisational structure? Who is their head honcho? Would questions like these persuade you that the QAnon doesn't exist? Or would you be more likely to accuse anybody making them of being disingenuous?
Please point out my determination to ignore extremism on the left. I can't recall writing a word like that in my life. OTOH I've written copiously against the irresponsibility of the "social" left. With 95% of the political violence coming from the right, I'm not taking a lot of symmetry seeking. Left wing political violence makes me think of the 1968 Chicago DNC and the Weathermen, not this decade.
Qanon has video channels, web sites, an organizational network to summon people to gatherings. The only mystery is the identity of its titular leader.
From all I've seen, Antifa is just a bogeyman, a shorthand for alleged "perpetrators of leftist violence" but without any identified members. The masked man who punched Richard Spencer, presumed antifa. The guys who beat up Andy Ngo, presumed antifa.
After sending his own followers to trash the Capitol, Trump said it was antifa.
Sorry I am not seeing the equivalence.
"Sorry I am not seeing the equivalence."
It's nothing to do with equivalence or symmetry. This is exactly the problem. If your first instinct when presented with a problem on the Left is to say, "well look at what the Right is doing!" then this is exactly the desire to ignore exremism that I'm talking about.
Sitting and arguing about who is worse is childish and counterproductive. But you saying "there is no such thing as antifa" is a clear example of a desire to ignore extremism on the Left. It's just flat out untrue. And I think if we were talking about any of the comparable groups on the right you'd come down extreely hard on anybody who made such a claim. You have a really bewildering blind spot here.
Antifa is a loosely defined group. Or more correctly, a collection of different groups. As is QAnon. They are extremely able to organise as demonstrated by the numerous times they've done so at various events. I don't know if they have their own website. I'm not sure if Qanon does either. But this is a silly argument to make to dispute whether a group exists.
The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol. Their leaders are on trial. They have identified members. They have a network.
I just read a bunch of online sources. The head of the FBI says that antifa is an idea, an ideology, that there is no organization.
I've never even seen a t-shirt.
I don't do whataboutism and I don't sympathize with purveyors of mayhem. But I have never once read of a single name of someone "in" antifa. Certainly no Democrats are affiliated with any organization as the Republicans are with white supremacist groups.
Next time you read about some violence from Teh Left you ask me if I'm good with it, OK?
"Next time you read about some violence from Teh Left you ask me if I'm good with it, OK?"
Here you go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/washington-dc-george-floyd-protests.html
Also, here (amongst other places) is where you can get your antifa t-shirts:
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/antifa+t-shirts
You're conflating Antifa with the Proud Boys, which isn't what we were talking about. I've never heard of a single source "in QAnon" either. They don't give official interviews. I dont know of any identified QAnon members.
Again, I'm not trying to make the case that Antifa is a carefully structured organisation. Which is why I compared them to QAnon. Which isn't structured either. But it clearly exists. My disagreement was with you bluntly claiming that it doesn't.
No, I do not approve of rioting and property damage in response to Floyd's murder. Reagardless of what I think his killers deserved, which I will not put on record, the simple fact that the dishonest right will use the footage to rile up resentment means that kind of behavior is political suicide.
I was just reading about vaccinations on EpochTimes, a right wing agitation site. They were showing people convulsing supposedly from vaccines; I recognized several scenes from Dario Argento movies. Zombie stuff.
The t-shirts? Please. That's just people trying to make a buck, not the antifa swag store. Look at the white supremacist organizations and they are practically in uniform.
I do know (of) one QAnon member. I don't know if she carries an embossed plastic card but she's a member.
"Antifa has no central leadership or organizational structure. Individual Antifa groups exist but they are unrelated to each other and act independently."
https://www.counterextremism.com/
Kind of like saying racism is an organization.
Your article did not establish that antifa exists and none of the authoritative sites, all of them considerably more recent, did either. They say that antifa is just a name, short for anti-fascist or anti-fascist action.
There are lots of widespread sentiments and political views with a lot of believers but not actually organizations. Anti-Fascism goes back as far as fascism because there have always been people who rightfully found it to be abhorrent. There may have been millions of antifascists in their beliefs and there were in fact organizations in the 30s, with membership and strategy. And not only in Germany; Communist and Fascist dockworkers fought brutally before the ACP dissolved in 1939. Iron pipes to the teeth.
I don't see the gray area that you and Steve do. What is the threshold between a widespread sentiment and an identifiable organization? The KKK, the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, these are organizations. They have leaders, they have organization, they have strategy. The KKK is an organization founded on racism. Racism itself is not an organization, it is a sentiment. Antifa is a sentiment.
Where does the line cross? Buying a web domain? Renting a building and electing a hierarchy? Bombing a post office? (I just checked. There is no antifa.com, it redirects to whitehouse.gov).
Take any nutty belief you like. I'm sure there are creationist web sites; are creationists a movement? Are they going to invade museums and smash fossils?
This is getting kind of ridiculous, frankly. That Jason guy said an acolyte of James O'Keefe was beaten up at some rally and he claimed it was antifa beating him. None of his assailants were identified but Jason confidently asserted that this was proof of antifa's existence. The acolyte was an Asian named Andy Ngo and he was filming a Proud Boys rally. OK, an Asian at a white supremacist rally beaten up by unknown assailants so blame antifa, never even freaking consider the fact that a nonwhite guy at a supremacist rally could have been beaten for being nonwhite. JFC.
Just as Trump tried to blame them for the Capitol invasion he incited at his own rally.
Thugs and criminals. I lived near Seattle at the time of the WTO protests, where a "left wing" mob demonstrating was blamed for widespread property damage. That lie had circled the globe before the truth that the smashers were a bunch of violence junkies got its shoes laced.
Chaos always attracts violence junkies. The press is quick to call them "left wing thugs" when in reality most of we on the left are a little too savvy to short-circuit our press coverage like that. I'm willing to concede, starry-eyed though I might be in doing so, that violence junkies play similar roles at right wing events but then we have federal statistics that 95% of domestic terrorism is right wing.
But then, I'm gay and have been to "pride" parades where the whole goal was to be as offensive as possible. Maybe not violent, but disgusting.
You go ahead and believe that antifa is as real and organized as the KKK. I would need a lot more evidence.