…worked for us. We never had a revolution, but violent protest was definitely a big factor in the end of Apartheid.
Aside from cowardly, disingenuous, hypocritical, and destructive tactics some of the message is fine. But, terrorizing folks for exercising fundamental human rights is not noble. You folks wouldn’t do this in countries that are truly authoritarian. You folks don’t do this outside parts of the country where you have overwhelming numbers and a complicit local government.
If the power structure in this country were truly fascist your group would cease to exist. Unless it was convenient to keep you around as a boogeyman.
Anyways, it’s an interesting debate to consider when violence is acceptable. Almost as interesting as seeing those who claim Antifa doesn’t exist because of a variant of the no true Scotsman fallacy discussing the appropriateness of Antifa.
Aside from cowardly, disingenuous, hypocritical, and destructive tactics some of the message is fine. But, terrorizing folks for exercising fundamental human rights is not noble. You folks wouldn’t do this in countries that are truly authoritarian. You folks don’t do this outside parts of the country where you have overwhelming numbers and a complicit local government.
If the power structure in this country were truly fascist your group would cease to exist. Unless it was convenient to keep you around as a boogeyman.
Anyways, it’s an interesting debate to consider when violence is acceptable. Almost as interesting as seeing those who claim Antifa doesn’t exist because of a variant of the no true Scotsman fallacy discussing the appropriateness of Antifa.
Do you really want to oppose fascism? Then do what works. Do what Gandhi and King and Mandela did.
Go to a protest. Don’t wear a mask. Show your face.
Don’t break any laws. Don’t break windows. Don’t throw rocks. Don’t loot stores. Don’t be a criminal. Just gather in a crowd and protest. Let everyone see that you are not breaking any laws or threatening anyone or anything.
When the police and the soldiers show up, they might hit you, or tear gas you, or sic dogs on you. They might even shoot you. But if you stand up and remain peaceful and law abiding, while they turn violent and break the law, people will see you as the heroes and them as the villains.
And when people see the protesters as the heroes and the authorities as the villains, that’s what undermines fascism.
You didn’t have elections in a meaningful sense, and minimal availability of platforms to broadcast your ideas.
The other side of my post earlier is, that if voting in the US were to be significantly and systemically curtailed, and (possibly even “or”) the ability to broadcast ideas were to be dramatically limited, I can conceive of violent action being justifiable.
For example, if being a regular churchgoer were to become a prerequisite for voting, I could see armed insurrection as justifiable. Or having blue eyes. Or being right-handed. Etc etc. Or being white.
Have you *looked *at the GOP’s voter restriction efforts?
Err, Mandelawasn’t imprisoned for handing out pamphlets, bub. He was all for the armed struggle against Apartheid.
Generally, history shows that firebombing Dresden, taking beaches and bullets in the head in bunkers are whatreally undermines fascism. Not my chosen path, but just saying…
Don’t have much to ask, just wanted to say I appreciate what you all do to protect peaceful protesters.
On a side note I think the guy who punched Richard Spencer may have come to my bar afterwards.
Violence, riots, looting, burning police cars, etc. have a place.
BLM protests spurred by the latest killing at the hands of police were easily ignored, or if sympathized, forgotten about relatively quickly before. There’s even threads on this very board about how BLM is a has-been movement these days. Well, people are definitely paying attention, and the reaction on a global scale is definitely different now. Yes, violent protests are a small part of it, but you are deluding yourself if you think that violence or more importantly, the threat of violence and chaos has not been a catalyst for meaningful action.
I mean, let’s be honest, that’s exactly what this is. It’s not an organization and it’s not a movement. It’s an excuse.
It should be noted that the violence you’re talking about here bears no resemblance whatsoever to the level of violence being talked about in this thread. You’d be equally accurate if you implied that antifa was using nukes.
I knew this was coming. No, “GOP voter restriction efforts” do not rise to the level of Apartheid ZA wholesale disenfranchisement by making all black voters citizens of imaginary non-white countries inside SA.
It also doesn’t rise to the level where violence is justified. For now, at least, we still have the mechanisms in place to undo such efforts.
For now, those are the mechanisms that must be employed if change is desired.
To quote an eloquent lady in a video during the protests, after some riotous excesses: “You wanna fuckin’ do something? Make sure you’re registered to vote. Don’t start another goddamn fire”
Right, really great mechanisms. :dubious: That’s why Trump is president when he lost the popular vote. That’s why 2-bit racist senators from the “heartland” stop any meaningful legislation. That’s why Stacey Abrams narrowly lost the Georgia gubernatorial election. The “mechanisms in place” are worth shit. They basically say “wait four years, try again, and hope you don’t get screwed again.”
And then there’s these guys, which is more in line with what I’m saying than pictures of military guys in uniform or cops in riot gear.
It sure looks like wearing masks to avoid identification by an enemy is a tactic that a lot of different people have used, doesn’t it? It’s almost like, when people are considering getting into a situation with a potential for violence, they look for ways to minimize the danger to themselves.
Deciding that wearing a mask is cowardly, but piloting a drone/piloting a stealth fighter/piloting a bomber/operating a mortar/firing a rifle/driving a tank/firing a cannon/riding real fast in a chariot isn’t, requires some mental gymnastics I’m not clear on.
Of course evil people have used masks to avoid repercussions. So have good people. Avoiding danger to yourself in a conflict isn’t cowardly, it’s sound tactics, and terrible people can use sound tactics.
To be specific, Mussolini was taken out by a general uprising in the streets which caused him to lose control; as he fled, he was captured by pissed-off Italian Communists with funding from a foreign nation.
Claiming that antifa is acting outside of an historical model is a wee bit ahistorical. It’s possible to argue with their lack of structure, or to argue with their context, but the “only passive resistance ends fascism” approach doesn’t fly.
Allow me to show my historical ignorance credentials - how did riots in the streets cause Mussolini to lose control? (And what did he lose control of?)
Okay, see, I don’t see how Antifa is going to be able to replicate that level of instability, even if they were ten times their number and all had rocket launchers. There are qualitative differences between targeted sabotage/terrorism and being invaded by an external military force. Absent the external military invasion I see no reason why Trump can’t just declare the obviously-criminal people to be criminals, declare a state of emergency, and send in the military (presuming things even rise to that level).
This is not to say that militant civil insurrection can’t convince a government to step down/collapse, but obviously-inapplicable examples don’t help that argument.
Small groups don’t become larger groups by stopping, though, begbert2. Even those larger groups started smaller at one point.
Antifa got big bump recently. I mean, protesting police violence and police racism is very, very much in the anti-fascist mold.
Their opposition wouldn’t feel the need to treat Antifa as some scary group that must be stopped if they were accomplishing nothing. They’re just trying to stop them before they get too big to stop, because they’ve seen what happens if they don’t.
Don’t forget the Civil Rights riots of the 1960s, or how it was a riot that got the cop charged even just now.