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. …
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.
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.