It’s rather telling that you are just as (if not more) worried about Antifa for what it what it might do or what it might become as you are about various far right and white supremacist movements for what they have already done.
You are happy to conflate the beliefs espoused by contemporary anti-fascist movements (assuming you have any idea what those even are) with Stalinism, or whatever other socialist ideology you deem ‘radical’ in order to make leftists seem just as scary as Nazis, but the truth is that Antifa doesn’t kill people and Nazis do. For every bruised right-wing craniometry enthusiast there’s at least one innocent person killed by a right-wing terrorist. And this isn’t happening in 1930s Germany or Cold War-era Europe but rather in the contemporary United States. Maybe stop pretending both sides are bad when the consequences of their actions aren’t even remotely comparable.
The only reason any of us are hearing about ANTIFA is because they are fodder for right wing extremists to pretend there is some kind of equivalent to their own murderous acts.
They are strictly a beer league group whose reputation is being inflated as a form of deflection for Trump loving nazis.
Kind of like “Political correctness” and “reverse racism”. Something far more heard about in vehement opposition than seen in real life examples.
Total sidetrack, but that article was so quaint! The graphic? Adorable.
And besides the “elaborate” faraday cage, there’s this gem, turns out the perpetrator was “deliberately mischievous.”
Thanks for the laugh.
It’s the truth. Conservative talking heads have really gotten a handle on their narrative. Probably they could replace Antifa with the ASPCA and get the same results.
I don’t think it would have to. They could use your presence there as an excuse to investigate further until they find something incriminating. I mean, we all break laws all the time. Did you know it’s illegal to drive barefoot or in flip flops? (Or so I’m told, I am not a lawyer.)
But anyway, this all reminds me of the premise for Little Brother, and I actually thought Cory was testing a new book idea when I saw the headline. So assuming it would get to court is optimistic…
I convict antifa of the crime of obviousness & stereotyping. Why don’t they show up at one protest in Hawaiian shirts, another plaid shirts etc.? Make the cops & Nazis guess.
He’s worse than O’Keefe, because he doxxes antifa for the Proud Boys/Patriot Prayer/Nazis-of-the-week to target. He publishes their photos and personal information, which has lead to assaults and break-ins.
It’s been well-documented that antifa in Portland have protected people from assault by the various neo-Nazi groups that show up to cause trouble. All the things you list here are a response by the city to the neo-Nazis, not antifa. As much as they’ve asked antifa not to clash with the neo-Nazis, the police are powerless to prevent violence because they can’t do anything until the neo-Nazis commit violence. Which they have done every single time, with or without antifa.
Why are you so against antifa, who are from Portland, and not speaking out against the neo-Nazi tourists? They’ve stated violence is their goal; Portland police should just take them into custody at the airport and hold them until their return flight.
As they mayor keeps repeating: they are not welcome in Portland!
That must be nice. What about the people who live and work there? They don’t have a choice. And antifa, whether you like them or not, have a record of protecting the vulnerable people who get targeted by the neo-Nazi groups.
I’d rather have antifa around and hey, maybe beat the shit out of a few nazis than have my brother and his wife killed by nazis just for being a mixed race couple.
You are telling lies. Please stop telling lies.
I live in Portland. I have been to every single counter-demonstration to racists like PP and the PB. The opposition didn’t attack anyone let alone indiscriminately.
I was at Cider Riot when the racists showed up. The people there did not attack anyone. The racists did.
The people opposing racists didn’t set up snipers on top of parking garages before the racist rallies. That was the racists. And the police didn’t do shit except ask them to put the guns away.
The “concrete milkshakes”. Complete bullshit. Never happened and could not have happened.
And, like the rest of the people spreading lies you act as if “Antifa” was an organization. It isn’t. There are groups that call themselves anti-fascist, but there is no single group or umbrella organization or anything like it whatsofucking ever. It’s literally a word created by Nazis to describe anyone who opposes them. Some people use it as a badge of honor. Most don’t call themselves anything.
I didn’t mention Cider Riot. It was clear that it was a post-march hangout and the altercation was instigated by Patriot Prayer. I’m talking about the broader problems. If you want to accuse me of lying, here are some videos from The Oregonian anyone can watch:
The first video is a compilation of vandalism at an anti-Trump march. I contended above - and still contend - that this sort of random vandalism doesn’t do anything to stop white nationalism.
The second video is Andy Ngo being beat up. You can try to say he deserved it because of reasons, but he is not a white nationalist. It appears, from the outside, that he was beaten for reporting on Antifa violence and vandalism in the past. It seemed more like a vendetta than any sort of anti-facist action. They said his name while they hurt him, so they obviously knew who he was. The only reason I waded into this discussion was to point out that no, Antifa doesn’t only hurt white supremacists. Ngo is a great example of this. (“But he supports the system that supports racists!” You can lump literally anybody you disagree with into that camp, so it is meaningless.)
The third video is Antifa attacking one of their own counter-protestors. Why? Because he was a racist? No. Because he was carrying an American flag! In America! The nerve!!! Again, the mob mentality caused them to assume he was a bad guy, thus ripe for hitting. Mob rule is chaos.
The evidence is clear, to this lying liar, that there are many members of Antifa who just want to cause destruction and chaos. There are many, many more examples online. You clearly also have a dog in this fight, so it isn’t surprising that you support Antifa.
I know some Antifa types, and they also are either into heavy metal or goth music, so there is that. And for people who are supposedly so violent, they are some of the most compassionate and gentle people I know.
Besides, as one active “black block” friend of mine said, it lets them recognise the undercover police agitator who is trying to goad them into violence better if they have an obvious uniform with more subtle actual identifiers.
Just to quell the bad faith arguments cropping up.
Calling oneself or others by a label does not really identify a person or group, their actions do.
By the bard, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, or foul, in this case.
The trolls are tying you up in semantic arguments instead of discussing the actual topic at hand.
Very much this.
The government is siding with fascists, racists, and neo-Nazis. It is using Orwellian tactics to track down and eventually prosecute as terrorists anyone who opposes these groups.
My level of care for your outrage is zilch. Especially since “Antifa” is most often brought up specifically to deflect and avoid discussing the MURDERS committed by the group they counter-protest
So pardon me if I tell you to piss off with your heavily edited Youtube videos about those being annoyed or inconvenienced when the people you are deflecting for are the leading domestic terrorists we have.
This simply isn’t true. Here is the relationship, in mathematical logic format:
neo-Nazis + antifa = violence
neo-Nazis + regular people = violence
regular people + antifa = zero violence
You keep trying to assert that the first equation proves that antifa = violence, but that neglects the other known relationships. Antifa only gets violent in the presence of neo-Nazis. All your videos happened when there were neo-Nazis in town. The Portland antifa are home-grown. They’re always there, and there’s no violence except when the Hate Tourists come to town.
As for you being a “centrist,” well, it’s time to call BS on that one. You always jump in to defend the neo-Nazis and push the narrative that antifa are just as bad.
In early 1965, while [Martin Luther] King was jailed in Selma, Alabama, Malcolm traveled to Selma, where he had a private meeting with Coretta Scott King. “I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult,” he assured Coretta. “I really did come thinking that I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King” (Scott King, 256).
I am not a troll. And I am, indeed, a centrist/libertarian, at least according to every test I’ve taken to measure such things. In fact, about a year ago there was a political test here on Boing Boing and someone noted that almost every person who took the test was far left, politically. I posted my own results, which showed me almost dead-center.
I definitely don’t defend neo-Nazis, white supremacists, racists, or any of their ilk. I condemn them with 100% of my being.
I will repeat that point to make it absolutely clear: I DO NOT SUPPORT RIGHT-WING GROUPS, THE MESSAGES THEY ESPOUSE, OR THE VIOLENCE THEY INVITE.
But hating white supremacists does not mean that I can’t also dislike Antifa and the problems the people who gather under that name often cause.
Accusing me of carrying water and deflecting for alt-right groups - or calling me Joey, as if I am one of them - is disingenuous. I have said nothing that supports any of those groups or their viewpoints. All I have tried to do is point out a big image problem Antifa has among those of us who aren’t far left.
