I’ve read him. I think he has a valuable but very limited perspective.
The bouncer analogy is pretty cool, and I appreciate you sharing it! still, the tie that binds for anti-fascists is to fight fascism by any means necessary, including violence. philosophically it’s based in the reality that the vast, vast majority of nonviolent protest throughout human history is unsuccessful. most folks can name dozens of violent revolutions but few can name more then two nonviolent ones. Antifa would love to have a movement similar in scope and effectiveness to the NSK and Laibach but we ideologically don’t believe it’s possible in the US. this willingness to use violence as well as nonviolent methods is what separates us from BLM and Communist movements et al.
I meant movement, sorry!
Antifa is mostly grouped in the lower left of the political compass: https://images.app.goo.gl/LquWEWAwuJw6oP8H8
Libertarians in the US generally collect in the lower right.
Looting isn’t part of the ethos, though property damage against the state especially is. think sugar in cop gas tanks and burning government buildings as opposed to stealing a tv. we recognize that antifa committing violence encourages opportunistic violence and thievery and we don’t really have a solution. it’s seen as unfortunate collateral that generally the insurance companies will be paying for.
You’re more correct than you think! if you oppose fascism and feel that property destruction could be acceptable to that end, you’re ideologically aligned already. Antifa doesn’t support human rights violations on any side, but support certain types of dispersed self-defense that things like punching nazis fall under. if you’re publicly voicing your support and going to protests, you’ll run into Antifa people. some Antifa factions are more public, too, but there are a lot of fakes and far-right trap groups. since at least some of our actions are illegal and many of us are QTPOC and much more likely to experience violence or death ordinarily, we can be pretty cautious about who we approach.
we communicate with each other through social media, message boards, dischord servers and newsgroups, nothing too special. it can be really hard to find if you aren’t invited–we learned a lot from the last decade of protests, like how the police can spoof cell towers in small areas, so we don’t do a lot of direct communication and lots of us encrypt everything.