What criteria would justify hurting me or my family, or damage my property?
Hard to distinguish this from just liking to fuck shit up, and slapping a label on it. The enemy of bad isn’t inherently good, and domestic terrorism is not ok whatever the reason. We still have elections, and we still have platforms where you can disseminate any message. With both those still extant, violence is unnecessary - even if it were to speed up the process.
Actually if violence can enact or legitimately accelerate policy/regime change, then it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. (Which, of course, would hinge heavily upon whether I would get caught in the crossfire.)
However I remain unconvinced that this level of violence can do more than provide justification for cops opening fire on people, which torpedoes the ‘benefit’ part of ‘cost/benefit’ pretty thoroughly.
It’s pretty notable that out of all the labels you tossed out up there, “fascist” was the only one you didn’t condemn.
Anyway, who says antifa are anarchists? This is just coming from reactionary sources who want to conflate mindless black-bloc violence with people who are specifically trying to protect people from fascists.
He’s not fighting fascism. He’s helping fascism advance by giving them a symbolic enemy they can oppose.
In fact, by doing this for free, he’s providing a service to the right wing. If he wasn’t doing the job voluntarily, they’d have to spend some of their money paying somebody to do these same things.
There’s not enough :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: for this.
Fascists have no problem whatsoever contriving symbolic enemies. If you’re suggesting that opposing fascism actually helps them, this is saying that we might as well let them do whatever they’re going to do.
What do we do when fascist thugs march through the streets threatening citizens? What if they’re lawless police who won’t identify themselves?
None of which contradicts what I wrote:
I don’t know whether your methods will succeed, but your self-sacrifice, courage and passion deserve our utmost respect and admiration.
And to stereotype antifas as only promoting violence may be to play into the hands of right-wing liars. OP implies there is much more to the movement:
My husband and I have occasionally discussed whether Ghandi’s tactics would have worked against the Nazis. However, I disagree that we are attempting a revolution, or even that most Americans want a revolution. I further disagree that violence is a necessary tactic, short of rebellion.
You are equating damage to property with violence. They are not the same thing. Further, by claiming that insurance companies will pay for it, you’re ignoring the real costs that accrue to that community; money that is removed from other services. You are simultaneously claiming that the destruction will carry symbolic meaning while stating that it doesn’t matter anywhere because a faceless Big Business will fix it.
Here is the violence. Self defense is generally accepted but, IME, antifa looks for a fight, rather than accept one if it arrives.
I have a BIG problem with this. Antifa intersperses itself into other protests. They’re not clearly communicating their agenda. They damage the message of the groups they join. They put those groups at risk of physical clashes with other groups and with the police, precisely because they are present. Make yourselves “known” (be anonymous, wear a mask, I don’t care) and protest alongside others. Don’t hide. Protesters should not be your cover and they should not be your collateral damage.
I agree. Antifa is a convenient bogeyman. Their own actions have made it easy for others to brand them as violent individuals with no agenda.
I’ve protested when the Proud Boys came to visit, and I’ve ended up alongside several Antifa members at protests. They were not attempting to hide or blend in; they were very apparent with their black masks and clothing (before everyone wore masks). I chatted with a few, and they were respectful of me and other protesters at all times. They never destroyed any property or committed any vandalism when I was around. When a couple Proud Boys came close, the Antifa members quickly formed a wall between them and the rest of the protesters, but didn’t start any fights.
I know their behavior isn’t always like this. I’ve seen the battles between them and the Proud Boys, and between them and the police. The police always say Antifa started it, and Antifa always says the police did. I’ve seen proof that the police lied on some occasions, and I suspect there are other times that some Antifa member(s) initiated things.
But just as it’s wrong to say they are always “perfect protestors,” it’s also wrong to say they are looking for a fight, or use property damage and violence as their primary tool. That’s all you see on the media reports, but you are seeing a tiny subset of their activity.
Hitler, Lenin and Mao sure thought they could. A murderer/arsonist/terrorist is a murderer/arsonist/terrorist whether his or her politics are left or right. Violence leaves in its wake real human victims.
Speaking generally, you might get punched if you publicly espoused views that endanger the lives or livelihoods of people who have nothing to do with you otherwise (that last bit being very important). Your stuff may be at risk of direct action violence if it is used for or represents systems of oppression, suppression, or state-sponsored violence.
We support human rights but we don’t believe that the right to property is more important than access to clean water (dapl) or affordable health care, for instance.
I could definitely tighten up my definitions here. I’m using “violence” broadly, to refer to a range of actions from murder to “silence is violence”. Within that range, I’m assigning relative values to different kinds of violence, rather than creating a violent/nonviolent dichotomy. Most people do this, consciously or not, but I’m not sure how consistent I’ve been.
I don’t mean to handwave the collateral damage done by looters who can follow property violence by antifa for any reason. I’m sorry it came off that way. I meant to say that antifa generally sees this as unfortunate collateral damage that we don’t know how to stop when it happens, since usually by the time looting starts, the police have arrived and are indiscriminately tear gassing. Antifa folk will refuse to protect property when actual people are being hurt.
We don’t look for fights but generally see the growth of fascism as an attack on people to the benefit of things that aren’t people, like businesses and property. To that end, we tend to pop up wherever we think we can apply effective pressure against that growth. If more people like yourself consistently peacefully protested, ran for office, and tried to change things, the members of Antifa would be peaceful protesters alongside you. It’s the nature of fascism to encourage complicity and apathy.
Opposing fascism is good.
Going out and committing crimes is bad.
Going out and committing crimes and telling everyone you’re doing it to fight fascism is bad and it helps fascism.
If you want to go out and commit crimes, just call yourself a criminal. Do the rest of us a favor and don’t pretend you’re part of a political movement. You’re making it harder for the people who are actually trying to accomplish something.
Again, the vast majority of Antifa work is nonviolent and within the law. The leadership our more experienced folk offer new protesters is powerful, as is our ability to respond to unconstitutional police violence. Much of Antifa is active in local politics and many people volunteer for campaigns. We organize peaceful protests and provide medical care to individuals who would be unable to access it or would be endangered by doing so.
Simplifying this to “breaking the law is bad” not only is ignorant of all the other work we do, but also presupposes the absolute correctness of all laws. Considering SESTA-FOSTA makes it a criminal offense to discuss sex work and Anwar Nasser al-Awlaki showed that due process is not guaranteed, the idea that the law is absolute is demonstrably false.
We believe that America should be by the people and for the people, and to that end we will fight against laws and power structures with any means available to us.
Property rights should not supercede human rights. Police should not arrest protesters for talking to media or providing medical care, even during a violent riot, and lawful gun owners should not have to fear shaky cops cutting them down.
Go search hard and try and find people antifa members have injured. Try and find any deaths. When white nationalists drive cars into protesters, pshoot up schools and gatherings, bomb buildings, the nation clucks its tongue, but when an empty building is torched as a symbol, martial law is threatened. This is an upturn of the principles by which human beings coexist.
I’m sorry for the long screed, but this is very important to me. Accepting the law cart Blanche paves a gilded path for authoritarianism–for fascism. If you believe so much in the system, then please do this for me: get police departments to track and publish statistics on who they kill. If you do this, you’ll have done something 80 years of nonviolent action couldn’t do yet, and I feel like it’s a very low bar. Simply get them to publish their statistics. That’s all. If you can’t do this or you feel powerless l, perhaps consider that there might be other ways to send a message. Democracy dies when the voices of the people can’t be heard. America dies when the government and its influences Ave no longer by all people, for all people.
I just want to thank Commeatus for starting this thread. It’s a very interesting discussion.
I would have some respect for the Antifa movement if they didn’t hide behind masks. It’s a cowardly thing to do.
If you say so. (Note that the last picture isn’t hiding behind a mask, it’s hiding behind a costume, but you get the idea).
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The idea that people without power should prioritize looking brave over accomplishing their goals is a really useful cultural norm for people in power to promote, but from the time of the Revolutionary War it’s not been an idea that our nation has really adhered to for our own people.
Yes. Crime bad. Good job rolling the goalposts to a more defensible position, because the “providing them a symbolic enemy” thing was silly.
I have condemned the police and white nationalists when they break laws. But that doesn’t give you guys a pass. Believing in a cause doesn’t give you a pass to break laws.
And breaking laws hurts your cause. As I have said before in this thread, you do not fight fascism by committing crimes. You are helping fascism.
When you break a window, it doesn’t hurt fascism. It hurts the man who owned the window. Fascists love it when you break windows. It scares people and when people are scared they turn to the authorities to protect them. Breaking the law is what paves a gilded path for authoritarianism and fascism.
You guys are not fighting fascism. You’re just playing a game of cops and revolutionaries. And you can afford to play that game because you know that when the cops and the soldiers start cracking down for real, you can just take off your mask and go home and go back to be a privileged white man who isn’t part of the crowd the police crack down on. It’s the people who live in those neighborhoods where you start riots who will have to stay there and pay the price.
No, I’m standing on that one as well. Antifa are just a symbolic enemy. Breaking windows and looting stores isn’t going to take down any regime. It’s meaningless as far as opposition.