Anti-antifa only means you're against the people claiming to be anti-fascist. It doesn't mean you like fascism. Nor does being antifa mean everything you're against is fascism.
I think it should be noted, the difference between antifa the organization and antifa the philosophy.
I am very much ideologically anti-fascist and I believe I would take up arms against a fascist government, however antifa the org has made some questionable calls in the past.
There is no overarching antifa organization though. Try looking for a website/forum/etc of antifa. There are websites for random local activist groups which call themselves <city name> antifa, but there is no leader or comittee overseeing these groups. There is no process to join antifa, any activist group or individual can call themselves antifa.
So there are no calls made by antifa, good or bad. There are only calls made by individuals or local groups that call themselves antifa.
Fair. I think you can understand them as a group still, similarly to how you can see anonymous as a group.
I don't think I'm educated enough to say anything against the group as a whole, as I haven't sat down to do a lot of research on them (I'm realizing now that my comment was made from a BS bias that I had picked up from when I was a conservative).
however I don't think the logic of the source meme on it's own shows someone as fascist just because they oppose the antifa orginization.
I do agree that someone isn't a fascist if they disagree with antifa. I was just talking about the part where you talked about antifa the organization.
I don’t think I’m educated enough to say anything against the group as a whole, as I haven’t sat down to do a lot of research on them (I’m realizing now that my comment was made from a BS bias that I had picked up from when I was a conservative).
You should do more research :)
Unless you're talking about this one, referring to "the antifa organization" makes as little sense as saying "the conservative organization". There are many organizations with variously overlapping goals and strategies for achieving them, but there hasn't been a singular "antifa organization" since 1933.
i hate fascists with a passion, but i might not agree with how antifa acts. i do not have any experience with the group itself, i might even agree with them.
for example, i do not like how the last generation glued themselves to streets. that doesn't make me a climate denier, does it?
EDIT: it seems i misunderstood what antifa is. i always saw it as "the group of violent extremist protesters that throw rocks and light up cars"
again, i am fully for doing everything i can against fascists. but violent protests don't contribute, all it does is make your movement the next boogeyman.
i am against throwing rocks at police and lighting cars on fire in the name of antifascism. you don't get taken seriously if you're the one comitting arson.
i have picked the side that's stopping fascists. but the enemy of my enemy isn't automatically my friend. i do not respect movents who are known for committing arson and battery regularly.
I see your edit above, i see the comments you posted after said edit, and I'm not sure you now actually got what antifa means. Especially the part about it not being a single, coherent organization doesn't seem to get to you.
Its not "the group".If you look in left and right wing violence in most countries you'll see a huge disparity, even after the right wing police has significantly biased the statistics. Most people in Antifa groups just go to demos, organize workshops and put political stickers up.
Thats alle the stuff Fox wants to villify, because they want people to be fascists.
There is no singular group called "antifa". It's a movement of loosely (at best) interconnected but independent, antifascist groups.
Also, we need all these groups. It's them who usually organize rallies against racism, fascism, antisemitism, inhuman law proposals, et cetera. Also they organize all sorts of other actions against alt right, far right and (neo-)nazis, like disrupting their rallies and standing in the way of goon squads.
Antifa groups are damn important.
How does burning a car improve anything? By what logic does not burning a car equal to "fucking over the next 15 generations"?
Misdirected rage, even if it's initially for a good reason, doesn't help anything. If there's a house on fire, you pour water on that house, not one two streets over. You do the latter, you end up with two destroyed houses: one burned, the other flooded.
There is no alternative to fighting fascists with violence. You can't have a nice talk with someone who is gunning down Jewish persons. You just shoot them in the face.
Someone supports fascists who want to genocide a group of people? Burning down their car is less than they deserve.
I invite you to learn more about the holocaust. The suffering cannot be put into words. There is no means too drastic to prevent something like it to ever happen again.
^^^ this pattern shows up right before you make a poorly thought out comment. If you don't have experience with something I'd expect your comment to be a question for someone who has.
Stop it! Do you want another very long word? Cause that's how you get very long words. How do you think got the word, antidisestablishmentteroistism?! I already had to learn that word, I don't want to learn a longer one.
I seem to recall seeing a video or reading an article where they mention that the media turned antifa into a sort of separate word to warp its meaning. Instead of saying anti fascist, which has a clear meaning, they shortened it and changed the pronunciation 'an teefa' (something to do with which syllable you emphasise) so they could distort its meani g and demonise the word to make people think it was bad.
So now people dont realise antifa means anti fascist which is surely a good thing to be, and instead, they fear antifa as some kind of terrorist group, which is almost the opposite of what it is.
The funny thing is, as an outsider to this, living in the UK, our media doesn't ever use the term, and when i heard it, my instinct was to look up its meaning. It's interesting to me that i won't know if i would have fallen for it if the media were using it in the same way over here to lead my understanding of its definition
I think Antifa actually started in the UK even before the Nazi's. Eh actually not but they did fight against fascists in the UK as early as 1930.
The reason why we need antifa and why it's hated by the mainstream is because the establishment is notoriously bad at stopping fascism. There is a long history of it. So besides liberal antifa that uses legal means like suing the KKK out of existence, the autonomous antifa is actually needed for the continued working of our democracy.
Afaik, the first Antifa were a coalition of left wing groups in Italy fighting fascists in the 1920s. They didn’t necessarily use the term but they were the first active anti-fascists so that counts in my book 🤷
As a side note, they were left to fight both the fascists and the royalists alone, since the Italian Liberals refused to get involved until it was clear who would win and then joined the fascists.
I think that is the lesson, liberals do not effectively fight against fascism because they are too desiring of orderly and calm and polite politics and too much powered by economic interests (bourgeois). So we actually rely on antifa as a social force. Neither the state nor the liberals will fight against it. At least that is my limited understanding of it, since this is never discussed about in mainstream media.
liberals do not effectively fight against fascism because they are too desiring of orderly and calm and polite politics and too much powered by economic interests
Absolutely 100% correct.
So we actually rely on antifa as a social force.
We need to, yes.
Neither the state nor the liberals will fight against it.
Right you are again!
At least that is my limited understanding of it, since this is never discussed about in mainstream media.
Seems to me you understand it perfectly but yeah, the mainstream media is for-profit and owned by billionaires who are often friends with or at least have common interests with the fascists, so they have very logical, if despicable, reasons to be hands-off about it.
Antifa (Antifaschistische Aktion) under that name started in 1932 as action by the KPD to organise widest possible front against the nazis, in the face of SPD as a party being very reluctant to act against nazis. Many SPD members did joined, but as we know, their own party in reichstag made that futile.
Of course antifascist resistance is about as old as fascism or even older considering protofascists activity even before Mussolini coined the term, but the name itself is from 1932 KPD.
They have a constant and desperate effort to invent words they can’t define that categorize their blind rage since they’re not allowed to say one that starts with N. “Woke” is the newest one.
Yeah that's bullshit. There isn't some secret cabal that's in charge of US journalism anymore than there is in the UK. What really happens is that because the old news-media business models have been utterly destroyed by the Internet, there's a giant and never-ending competition for audience and everyone knows that sensationalism sells.
You have a similar problem in the UK but it's not as pronounced because the BBC is government funded and even though it's far from perfect, it does set a kind of baseline. Your other big news organizations are just as bad as in the US though. Your tabloids are actually a lot worse than ours, which is saying something.
And you know how.his followers hang on his every word. I mean, he literally incited a riot/assault on capitol.
I see your point, but i dont see how the old news being taken over by internet news changes who is in control of the narrative. I also dont think i was referring to any kind of "secret cabal."
I was only saying that i heard or read somewhere that antifa was demonised in the media, and thats why so many think they are terrorists. If you ask most americans what antifa means, they don't know. They only know the abbreviation 'antifa' and that they are scared of it.
It kinda does since, despite GOP talking points to the contrary, Antifa is not a terrorist group or even a group at all. It's a movement with the sole purpose of opposition to fascism.
At best, being anti-antifa is being pro-fascist and the difference between that and being a fascist is miniscule if existent.
"Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.... The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country."
Soros, Bill Gates and the Bilderbergs, I guess? Probably also that Davos guy who Alex Jones et al TOTALLY aren't fixated on for antisemitic reasons either, nuh-uh!
In my opinion it would be a movement if facism was the status quo. Given most people are discussing Western nations, which while adopting facism at an alarming pace; are not yet facist. Antifa is not a movement nor an organization. Since not being facist is the status quo and antifa means that you're not going to support facism, in my opinion antifa is the current "establishment" and being facist is an effort to move the status quo. Aka a movement.
A movement can have members and leaders even without formal organizational hierarchy. It just won't look the same as something like a corporation, nonprofit, or government. The person who noticed that the Proud Boys were coming to town and rallied people to a counter-protest? Definitely a leader. The people who show up on a cold rainy Saturday instead of staying indoors with a warm cup of tea? Members. Just because membership and leadership is more amorphous doesn't mean it isn't there in some form.
The person who noticed that the Proud Boys were coming to town and rallied people to a counter-protest? Definitely a leader
Nahh you got that wrong. What usually happens is that a lot of people who are into politics (which left-extreme people often are) hear about this at the same time (through some press release, some proud boys twitter account who's rallyin their followers, etc.).
From that point the information spreads over friendsgroups, small discords, tweets, whatsapps, in person, slowly but steadily.
Any left-extreme person who hears this immediately thinks "I'm mad, I wanna show those guys that they're not welcome". Granted, some of us think about much more extreme things, but back to the point. The first reaction from that thought is often "is there a counter protest?". People are then doing the same thing but the other way around, as now everyone is trying to find some tweet, event, whatsapp message screenshot, whatever, of someone saying where the meeting point for an event would be. If none are found, someones gonna create something, which is usuqlly someone who's got a lot of connections with other left-extremists. Often there's multiple people creating the same counterprotest, which gets super messy at times, but somehow everyone manages to meet up in some general spot.
Worst case you just have a bunch of friends groups going to the meeting spot of wherever the initial event is happening.
That's "the antifa". A massive network of friends and friends of friends of friends who are all pretty aligned in their political views (which is "fuck Nazis") but who often don't know more then 5 other antifacists.
Often there’s multiple people creating the same counterprotest, which gets super messy at times, but somehow everyone manages to meet up in some general spot.
This is kind of my point, in a way. It was maybe simplistic to use one person. There is leadership, but there are many leaders, and they don't have a badge with "Antifa CEO". Though someone really needs to make stickers with "Antifa CEO". One of my former managers came from activist circles like antifa. She will always be my favorite manager because she is so great at making sure even shy people feel heard.
People are just nitpicking the meaning of the word Organization. Antifa is an organization in a very loose definition of the word. If you want to be more accurate, you'd call it a Network. Organizations (in the stricter sense) has a single leader and has a very tree-like structure with more power on top (like Corporations!), which Antifa obviously is not.
Though you're correct in that Antifa is a "movement".
I find this comment thread horribly ironic, and I hope I can show you why without starting an argument because this is genuinely kind of funny.
Fascism is when a state achieves (or attempts to achieve) totalitarianism through corporatization. All corporations are chartered and controlled through the state, and private industry becomes corporatized.
One of the ways they did this was through legitimizing specific channels of distribution, and labeling all who take a more independent route as illegitimate. Farmers, for example, were coerced into selling their products to state distributors, and pressured out of independent channels. Likewise, farmers who weren't part of the state organization were often treated with suspicion and derision.
Basically, if you were a _____ and did _____ things, but were not part of the _____ organization, then you weren't a real ______ no matter how good you are at _____.
Anyway, antifa is a real thing that exists, and that's the thing people here are talking about. They're a group that has identifiable goals, and they work together under the label. It's really funny to me that so many here are appealing to "they're not even a real org" in the face of dissent, because that's one of the most fascist mind sets that exist commonplace today.
There is a huge overlap between people who would participate in Antifa and Anarchists, so you can imagine the problems getting a structured organization setup and keeping on task and purpose.
I'm sure that's part of it. Antifa is definitely not well structured, and anarchists could probably be opposed to any official organization.
Let me put it this way, the post talks about a journalist who investigates antifa, which the op of this comment chain mocked because they're not an organization. But, this is an argument of semantics, and the post didn't use that word to begin with. Regardless of what you call antifa, he's trying to investigate and see what they're about.
It's a very dishonest way to deride people. If you don't mind me asking, if you don't think the word organization is appropriate, what's better? I mean I just say group, can't really be wrong going that general but it also doesn't say much. Like, when you said "people who participate in Antifa...", what type of thing are those people participating in?
Organizations do not necessarily require structure, association is a synonym for a reason. Decentralized organizations and associations are a thing. Decentralized workers solidarity movements and co-op/community strengthening initiatives can be/are "organizing" even if no one is in charge. You don't need to be a member of a union or an official neighborhood association to be part of an organization, there just needs to be general or vague common intention among a group and something of a shared identity. You might not get as much done a fast when not structurally organized, but you also don't not exist if your not a card carrying member. I don't understand the desire to divorce Antifa from being an organization or even existing. It's like saying that the Deadheads aren't a real thing because no one was directing the vast majority of fans who packed up and followed the band across the country.
I haven't argued anything before that post, but this conversation about the semantics of the word organization means is interesting to me. To answer your question, I'd say Yes? Deadheads were a group of people associating with each other under common interest and intent. They didn't particularly have leaders or any hierarchical structure, but they gathered in locations of common interest (concert venues and the surrounding local) based solely on individual discussion and desire, participated in the event alongside and with the group, and almost everyone participating identified as a deadhead. I really don't understand the problem with them falling under the edge of the umbrella of the term organization.
They were an organization when viewed as an association or society: in this case a voluntary association of individuals for common ends. Deadheads were a distinct subculture in and of themselves, and I don't understand in what universe that wouldn't qualify. Keeping with the musician fandom, I'd say the same for the Juggalo's. Being on the outer edge of the Venn diagram is still part of the whole picture.
Many issues with this headline, but one of them is the word journalist, which implies some form of neutrality. The headline should either be a L out a journalist that writes about antifa, or a pro-facism activist. I suspect from the context (Fox) that it’s the latter.
I believe that's Andy Ngo, so yes, absolutely a pro-fascist activist. He was caught on camera actively coordinating with Patriot Prayer, a far-right extremist group.
The vast majority of journalists work for some sort of publication or news agency, in which they're beholden to the company owners' agenda and have to report to an editorial board, which decides what can and can not be published in accordance with their views.
You're thinking of independent journalists, of which there are very few.
Ok, the fact that you honestly believe this is how legitimate newsrooms work is both deeply disheartening and an indication of how little the average person knows about the news business.
Editors decide what gets published, not the editorial board which is an entirely different and unrelated body that traditionally has zero contact with the content side of things. In the business we say that there is a "firewall" between the editorial board and actual news content. The NYT or WaPo would have mass resignations of their reporters if either of their editorial boards tried to influence content.
Ownership is a bit different and obviously --as we know from the Murdoch empire-- can influence content, but in traditional operations they've always been very hands-off. It's a fact, for example, that Jeff Bezos doesn't care what the WaPo publishes and has no interest in it beyond as a business concern.
Editors do have control over content, but overwhelmingly they are concerned with doing a good job and furthering their careers and professional reputations. You're completely misunderstanding the incentive structure in mainstream news media. Outside of the extremist advocacy journalism ecosystems --mostly but not only on the far right-- no one has any incentive to push an agenda and risk ruining their career by getting something important wrong.
Ah yes, it's only the evil right wing news outlets that have issues with transparency and corruption, but don't worry, all the left wing ones are totally honest.
And all billionaires are evil exploiters... unless they own liberal newspapers, then they're totally ethical and there is no grounds for concern.
Everybody has some sort of bias towards something. It’s ultimately just an opinion.
Journalistic integrity isn’t about being non-biased, it’s about being upfront about bias and ideally the journalist actively trying to counter their own bias within their work.
I don't support fascisms, but I also don't support violence and property damage to get the message across.
I will never take a "movement" seriously that uses vandalism to get a message across.
One is an attempt to overthrow democracy and install a fascist theocratic dictatorship.
The other is protesting directly against that. While you may not agree with their methods, which is frankly childish and placing the responsibility for our social climate in the laps of the oppressed, you cannot in good faith smile smugly and say "same".
In that case, I suppose you also oppose the Civil Rights Movement, considering it too was often violent and had a significant amount of property damage.
But their methods were a result of their material conditions, and resulted in the liberation of Black Americans from segregation. Do you not equally take fault with the white moderates who opposed ending segregation and used disapproval of their methods as rhetoric?
Unfortunately, when protests get extreme, there is inevitably some level of violence, whether that be to people or property. It is the responsibility of the state to prevent it from getting this bad. People don't just think "hmm, today I will do some violence," violence erupts as a consequence.
Not what I said. If protests last long enough and are founded on unsustainable material conditions, the State has failed and protests will become Riots. "Riots are the voice of the unheard," after all.
If you think peacefully asking people to stop being pieces of shit works, then you learned a completely whitewashed version of the Civil Rights Movement. MLK led marches and tried to maintain peace, but alongside the militant Black Panthers there was genuine revolutionary pressure that forced the state to act.
I shank them with a rusty scrap of metal to the neck
One of these is obviously worse. Yes, both are violence. Yet to simply try and paint them as such would show you're either not arguing in good faith, or, as respectfully as possible, your brain hasn't fully developed.
But let's mix it up. I slap someone. But I, a man that's 6'2" and does physical labor, slapped an infant for crying. Seems a little worse than it did at first, huh?
I am being attacked by a random person who is trying to murder me, and in a panic, I grab something, and attack him with it. Turns out it was a rusty piece of metal. Now we have hints of self defense.
Once again, still violence, but both were to different degrees, and the context changed both of them.
We live under a hostile occupation by security forces employed by the wealthy class, there are deaths everyday due to the systems maintained by wealth and greed.
I didn't say the US was fascist, I'm saying our world is controlled by hoards of wealth and nearly all state actions are to protect that wealth and the people that hold it at the cost of the well-being of the proletariat.
Do you think people normally resort to mass murder in protest of, say, slightly decreased toilet paper thickness? If there's an issue that is so pressing that there's actually mass murder, then the State is an utter failure for not addressing said issue before it got to that point, and is almost certainly a fascist system.
yes, let's hope the protestors are well adjusted and their measures are proportional. After all ideologies have never caused anyone to commit a tragedy.
People are driven by their material conditions far more than ideas. Mass protests happen for a reason, there are genuine grievances that are not being addressed. It is the responsibility of the state to properly address protests, and if they fail, they become riots.
No, violence is not good. Nobody is saying it is. However, people are correctly placing the responsibility of the origin of said violence on the oppressor, not the oppressed lashing out.
That's quite the slippery slope fallacy. I replied to your comment of:
I don’t support fascisms, but I also don’t support violence and property damage to get the message across. I will never take a “movement” seriously that uses vandalism to get a message across.
Which at no point mentions mass murder. "Oh, you support people protesting? What about BLOWING UP THE PLANET IN PROTEST?! Is THAT okay then?"
The fact that you equate property damage with mass murder really says a lot about you.
