Australian police are nowhere near as casually violent as American police, so even the riot squad were fairly restrained. Shields, batons and a few cavalry charges, but no tear gas or rubber bullets.
The most notable of the gay rights incidents was when I was marching with a GLBT Kung Fu club. We got jumped half a dozen times in two hours, but they were all dealt with fairly easily.
Yes, you can.
Which is why antifa are using swarm tactics. The optics aren’t great, but the idea is to get the fascist out before it has time to escalate into a dangerous melee. Despite repeated attempts by the right to frame them, antifa haven’t stabbed, shot, or beaten anyone into a coma. They are holding their force to the minimum required to keep the anti-racist protesters safe.
Leaving the fascists to wander freely through the crowd is not an option. They have attacked repeatedly, and are a lethal threat.
Antifa aren’t doing this for fun.
You use the minimum force necessary.
Preemption doesn’t mean you are obliged to hunt down and assassinate nazis. It means that you don’t have to wait for them to actually swing the bloody club before defending yourself.
Ideally, you have a tolerant, sane and educated society where the problem of fascism never arises.
If you can’t manage that, you keep your fascists under control with legal and cultural restrictions on hatemongering.
If you don’t do that, you need to carefully monitor the rise of fascism within your society, and work to counter it through exposure and political pressure. This is what antifa does in normal times.
If that is not done, and you end up with fascists in government, then you have an obligation to bring that government down. Your best chance of doing that is by peaceful means, of the sort advocated by Gandhi, MLK and Naomi Klein.
However, by the time that things get that bad, you are very likely already in lethal danger. In which case self-defence is required. This is what antifa is doing now, along with its peaceful activities.
If you insist on taking it to the worst case scenario, then yes.
Of course lethal violence is justified to bring down a fully-expressed revival of fascism, if such a catastrophe occurs. Not just from individual people, but from the entire world.
Which is why it is essential to stop it before it gets to that point.
