By David Futrelle
Seems like only yesterday that everyone to the left of Donald Trump was mad at the Nazis. Now for some reasons a lot of these same people are yelling about AntiFa. Nancy Pelosi has officially denounced AntiFa, and a piece in the generally liberalish Washington Post today declared that AntiFa are the “moral equivalent” of the literal Nazis they oppose.
Now I’m not exactly the most militant dude in the world but WHAT IN HOLY CRAP IS GOING ON. We are up against LITERAL NAZIS. One of them LITERALLY MURDERED A WOMAN with a car, and then the rest of them LAUGHED ABOUT IT and SAID IT WAS JUSTIFIED. They go to every so-called “free speech” rally they organize with the intent of doing bodily harm to as many people as possible. and unless we stop them it’s only a matter of time before they kill more people. So fuck this shit. Hug an AntiFa today.
On to the tweets. First, the dumb shit.
Pelosi puts out statement condemning Antifa violence in Berkeley. pic.twitter.com/0RlU6RlWmX
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) August 30, 2017
Opinion: Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis https://t.co/dt9vInRh1q
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 30, 2017
Now, some rebuttals. First, a good short thread on how the discussion has shifted from ACTUAL FUCKING NAZIS to endless hand-wringing about antifas.
I am perpetually amazed at the ability of lockstep, bad-faith arguments on the right to steer and transform national conversations.
— . (@swordsjew) August 30, 2017
And here’s a response to the Washington Post thing by a Mother Jones journalist who was there at Berkeley.
https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/902969494808625152
Some historical perspective:
https://twitter.com/thalestral/status/902614776269955074
Every time I see news coverage of a protest I remember this image pic.twitter.com/ZAL0TwI61R
— Tom Hatfield (@WordMercenary) August 30, 2017
More AntiFa stuff:
https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/902790386619318272
https://twitter.com/daniecal/status/902542063543009280
Antifa dropped a piano on my head and when I popped out of the top moments later I had a lump on my head and had its keys instead of teeth
— Jules (@Julian_Epp) August 29, 2017
I defended the honor of George Orwell against an Alex Jones employee.
Orwell went to Spain to fight the fascists. With guns. He wrote a book about it. https://t.co/vdulXAE58e
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 30, 2017
Snopes also has a thing to say about the attempts to portray the fascists and AntiFa as somehow equivalent:
Lmao Snopes dot com is to the left of Nancy Pelosi https://t.co/Pf9aYyNBHR
— Ann 'tifa' Coulter Classic™ (@AntifaCoulter) August 30, 2017
AntiFa may have dealt with a lot of undeserved shit today, but happily our dear leader Donald Trump was also dealing with some richly deserved shit.
https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/903027267940491264
Turns out Trump is not making America great again. Fox News poll finds an 11-point jump in dissatisfaction with the way things are going. pic.twitter.com/YwPvEVxSoB
— Geoff Garin (@geoffgarin) August 30, 2017
Not sure that 58% believing Trump will finish his term when he's just seven months in is quite the accomplishment someone might think it is. https://t.co/QZM073IuaA
— The Darkest Timeline Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) August 30, 2017
Trump's approval rating among people aged 18-29 has reached a new low of 20% in Gallup's tracking poll. https://t.co/5VWTe33ZFN
— Axios (@axios) August 29, 2017
Huckabee Sanders: Trump was correct to say he'd seen Harvey devastation first hand because he'd been briefed on it pic.twitter.com/y4MmUp0aoZ
— Rhys Blakely (@rhysblakely) August 30, 2017
W. screwed up royally during Katrina but at least he didn't make a speech about how rich people need lower taxes WHILE IT WAS STILL RAINING.
— L O L G O P (@LOLGOP) August 30, 2017
Meanwhile, the creator of Pepe is taking the Pepe Nazis to court and winning:
https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/902700195577823232
And here are some animals!
https://twitter.com/awwcuteness/status/902839313276252160
https://twitter.com/CuteEmergency/status/902748977531162625
https://twitter.com/MeetAnimals/status/903024790675611648
https://twitter.com/lordflaconegro/status/902687000544911362
@Chimeric
A common thread with you here…
First of all, not just nazis. Klanspeople too
Second, everyone with racist relatives, break their fuckin ribs over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Next time you see an old lady hold her purse close in an elevator when a black dude walks in, kick her teeth in. Statistically, anyone who likes country music probably deserves a wailing…
Or, maybe, you’re mad at something nobody said and that nobody would even mean. And consistently expressing your anger in the absolute worst way possible. Chill your shit
I haven’t read this whole threat and… well. Frankly, I’m not fixin’ to.
But good golly, if the time to start fighting isn’t when Nazis are marching in the streets, I don’t know WHEN it is.
We know who they are and we know what they want and I’m glad someone’s not waiting until after they’ve come to be before they take up the fight.
And as an aside…. I wonder what Eisenhower would think of a president of his party offering aid and comfort to the ideological cousins of those he fought to liberate Europe of.
@ChimericMind
I’m not sure that’s the easiest question, ethically, so would be interested in further clarification from Dalillama. Would we be defining Nazi specifically as those who actually identify as such? With the Alt-Reich around, that might be a limiting definition, and in the middle of a protest, it might not be easy to separate them out in any case (though, punching the ones with the Nazi flags sounds fair…). You might even get the odd dim Dem who thinks the whole thing really is about frozen peaches showing up, depending on the protest. Or, if not by admitted-Nazism, which specific aspects of their hateful ideaology would it be judged by? They are horrifically racist, but such racism is not exclusive to the Alt-Right. Calls for genocide would seem a given as an aspect justifying pre-emptive-punching, but these Neo-Nazis, even on their own sites (where they might be expected to be more open about it), don’t all actually do that, they have this fantasy where they’re handed an exclusively white state of their very own. And again, in the middle of a protest, you can’t necc. tell what precisely they believe or want, though it’ll probably be apparent they’re vile racists.
They are choosing to identify with, well Nazism, something rightly regarded as utterly hateful and destructive, but then, that’s part of why some of the Alt-Right seem to do it, because they think it’s edgy. Doesn’t mean they don’t mean it at all, but not sure their commitment to the ideaology is 100%. Does it make them all a threat (some are of course a definite threat, with histories of violence) in and of itself? Are they automatically more culpable than those supporting imperialist wars which kill tens/hundreds of thousand of brown people and destabilises a region? (they were probably all for that, too, initially. Though Trump supporters have backtracked on Iraq a bit) Which would take us back to the Dems, and to our British Labour party.
I’m not sure if we can look at as an ‘Nazism could happen again, and so we have to stop that’, because the fact we know it happened (and so do they) already changes it.
Can I also ask, how much force are you considering reasonable? Any? A punch? One which could still kill?
@Leo “I’m not sure if we can look at as an ‘Nazism could happen again, and so we have to stop that’, because the fact we know it happened (and so do they) already changes it.”
–It only changes if we heed the lesson of history.
@Axe
I think you’re being too optimistic. I really wouldn’t bet Republicans (meaning standard-issue ones, not just the Alt-Right) would think no one could possibly mean that (this is the main problem with the use of force as a tactic, and what I’m actually concerned about here, optics). Many of them are lying about Antifa, some appear sincerely confused. I’m not 100% sure what those advocating pre-emptive violence do mean, in practice, either, so perhaps some uncertainty is understandable.
Even with their horrible DV meme the other day, though that was them being deliberately disingenuous, I assume female Nazis indeed aren’t exempt from punchings? What about elderly Nazi relatives, come to that? (someone must be unlucky enough to have one)
@ChimericMind
Please go back and reread Dali’s posts and specifically point out the parts where they condemn nonviolence, requires people to engage in violence, and imply the fire bombing democratic party offices.
Because quite frankly I simply can not find any post suggesting any of that even implicitly after rereading the thread twice.
They mostly just call out people for condemning violence against nazis,
and points out that the united states basically lacks a left wing party by the standards of the rest of the world.
@Chimericmind
Okay, you really need to shut the fuck up about my alleged poor phrasing, or indeed anyone’s, now and forever. You also need to walk way the fuck back from the shit you’ve been saying in this thread, particularly about me. Your question has been answered repeatedly in my prior posts. Go read them again and don’t fucking talk to me until you have actually understood my clear fucking words.
@Leo
You march with Nazis, you’re in with them, I don’t give a rat’s ass what justification you use. You march in favor of genocide, you give speeches in favour of genocide, you wear the symbols of genocidal fuckers, you need your ass beat. It’s really pretty fucking straightforward, and y’all’s inability to grasp it doesn’t say anything good about you.
@Dali
That helps clarify somewhat, thank you. So, you’d base it on there being identifiable Nazis (are you including the Alt-Right as Nazis, or not, if so why/why not?) present, and would include people marching with them as targets. Advocating genocide, though, have they openly done that? I’m sure some of them would be for it, but even among themselves (where they have less reason to just lie), some are claiming not to be.
If genocide is the crux of the issue, would the same extend to other genocidal groups?
I don’t think it’s just straightforward. I don’t think the use of force as a tactic ever is. It’s not like I’d be safe from Nazis, as a disabled woman, so I don’t feel it says anything bad about me that I’d question the pre-emptive use of force as a tactic – it’s a question of ‘will this work?’ more than anything.
If Democratic party offices are ever bombed, it’s highly unlikely that antifa would be the ones involved. It would probably be Nazis or sovereign citizens (not much difference there) emboldened by the fact that it’s considered all impolite and improper to object to them too strenuously and emboldened by the lack of law enforcement objection to them even when they are armed and/or beating people up.
@Leo
YES, IT FUCKING DOES WORK, YOU BLITHERING NINNYHAMMER!!! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, HAVE YOU READ A SINGLE WORD I’VE WRITTEN!? Follow the links I gave. read what I and others have explained. Because I’m heartily fucking sick of rephrasing this very simple concept to pander to petty liberal sensibilities.
@Leo
Chimeric isn’t a Republican, what’s their excuse? Which is the thing. Dr King was labelled a domestic terrorist. For marching and boycotting. A certain type of person will always think the worst of anyone fighting the status quo. Worrying about optics seems a waste of time. Optics isn’t what’s there to see but what the powerful choose to see
When fascists march thru Charlottesville in full riot gear, I don’t think gender or age matters as much as you seem to. Between the nazis and antifa, only one group has killed someone. With a car. Maybe I’m the bad guy here, but, if the point is to neutralize the threat of fascist violence, I’m not appreciably more bothered if the punched person is based stick granny rather based stick man
If they’re Nazis actively marching in the streets and egging on the rest of their scum to attack marginalized people, and advocating for a return of Nazi and fascist policies? Yeah, having a walker while doing that isn’t going to get any sympathy from me.
If they’re sitting alone in their house thinking their nasty little Nazi thoughts, then they’re assholes and I still despise them. However, thought crimes aren’t things that can be addressed by barging in on people’s private opinions and beating them out of them, and no one here is suggesting that that is what should be done.
Antifa activities at marches aren’t intended to get Nazis to stop being Nazis by punching the Nazism out of them. It’s intended to get them to stop gathering together and forming enough of a support base to become a threat. It’s intended to get the Nazis to scuttle back under the rocks they came from and stop endangering people overtly.
Call me an extremist but I don’t think “how hard of a target they are” matters when it comes to scum like literal nazis. If the point is to remove them from the public stage and keep them away from it, then I’m not sure there’s any relevance to just who among them gets punched.
Now it’s actually a moot point anyway. If that old nazi woman is marching onto a black church to burn it down, you punch, period. Debating whether or not it’s okay is both wildly inappropriate and a waste of time – time you should be using to keep that church from burning.
Let’s not forget that nazis never “peacefully demonstrate”.
“Antifa poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses!”
“They did?”
“No, but are we just gonna wait around until they do?”
“Punching women Nazis” seems tossed out there as a shield against Nazi-punching. Has it not been noticed just how many women there are donning black bloc? Rose City Antifa is one case where many women are on the front lines, but if you look at the recent pictures in Berkeley, you’ll see many women in the ranks. I don’t see images of the strong preying on the weak.
Also keep in mind, the Black Bloc goal is not ‘punch every Nazi anywhere forever no matter what they’re doing’ but to confront those out in public rallying and, thereby, de facto recruiting. We can certainly discuss whether or nor the tactics used are successful toward that end, but let’s not pretend that this is “I’m gonna punch your racist grandma”. It seems like Black Bloc tactics have managed to go on for decades without assaulting senior citizens and the otherwise frail. I have every confidence this will continue to be the case.
I’d also like to offer this piece. I know Rev. Blackmon was among those rescued by Black Bloc in Charlottesville along with Dr Cornel West.
“The reality — which is underdiscussed but essential to an understanding of our current situation — is that the civil rights work of Dr. King and other leaders was loudly opposed by overt racists and quietly sabotaged by cautious moderates. We believe that current moderates sincerely want to condemn racism and to see an end to its effects. The problem is that this desire is outweighed by the comfort of their current circumstances and a perception of themselves as above some of the messy implications of fighting for liberation.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/civil-rights-protest-resistance.html
I’ll give you this in a hand-basket: Civil rights leaders are so much more gosh darn eloquent than their fascistic opposition. I mean, really. These motherlovers speak like poets, with a depth of knowledge and soul that should make us all weep at the state of the education of our children, and ourselves. Meanwhile, the other side’s Pepe memes and racist pun chants.
Eloquence isn’t a sign of being right, but it’s sure a sign of deeper thought.
Why did this thread move over to the thought experiment of whether it is okay to punch old lady Nazis with bad hips, and off the real, concrete question of whether is is okay to punch young, able-bodied Nazis who are pepper-spraying peaceful counterprotesters and threatening bodily harm on nonviolent clergy?
The reality is that frail old ladies with walkers are not factually marching with Nazis, so the question of whether it would be okay to punch them in the fantasy land where this happens is a slippery-slope distraction. We’re not in actuality on a slippery slope where our logic might lead us to an absurd result. The result is absurd because the thought experiment is based in absurdity.
@ scildfreja
Isn’t the problem though that visceral and simplistic soundbites work?
You’re quite right that there’s more thought in progressive circles. But is that necessarily effective, especially when there’s a climate of almost anti intellectualism. Like the “people are sick of ‘experts'” motiff that was so successful here in the Brexit campaign.
How many people can quote MLK beyond “I have a dream” or “content of his character”?
“Make America Great Again” is contentless duckspeak, that dissappears into a puff of smoke on the most basic analysis.
But note that even that is more than enough for the target audience. Just stick “MAGA” on a baseball hat and they’ll rally to the cause.
It’s not about thought, it’s about feelings. Symbols are more important than ideas. If Socrates was around today he’d probably be ‘corrupting the youth’ with memes rather than dialogue.
@Axe
I take the point about optics being what the media wants to see, rather than what’s there to see. I think it’s still better to try not to give them anything to see, though, or rather to give them something obvious to see that will come over well. Recent counter-protests have looked better than Berkely did.
@Dali
I’m not a liberal. Far left, ecosocialist (not thrilled by the ‘ISIS for vegans’ stupid Daily Show anti-Antifa comment). It isn’t as though it should be remotely surprising for someone on the left to question the pre-emptive use of force, some would be entirely pacifist, which I am not.
I’ve read what you said, I’m still not sure. It’s early days so not totally clear how the Nazis will react in the longer term, and if Antifa are really seen as a violent commie threat or whatever the narrative becomes, more might join them. It’s not simply about whether it works on the Nazis, though, but the impression Republicans, ‘centrists’, Dems get. Look at the (unfair, false equivalence) reaction you’re getting from the Dems now, this was pretty much to be expected. This isn’t going to stop here even if you stop the Nazis, right, the underlying problem won’t resolve? Because it goes much deeper than that, as we can see in the police response. So, as far as I can see, either the options are violent revolution (in which case I’d be more inclined to plan directly for that than focusing just on the Nazis), which I’m thinking you don’t want, if you don’t see Dems as targets unless they’re marching with Nazis. Or, you work within the existing political system, either attempting to reform the Dems, or to create a third party. Both of those things might be harder if you have another red scare on your hands, rather than positive associations built up about what your ideaology means.
@Sinkable John
I can definitely see the argument that Nazis can’t peacefully protest basically by definition, but as for what they’ve actually done, it’s not always been violent, from all of them, and Dali is including those marching with them as targets. Maybe they would have become more violent if Antifa hadn’t been there, it’s hard to know. It’s about the optics rather than just whether they’re seen as having deserved it – beat up Lauren Southern, a young, pretty, white blonde woman who often seems to act as reporter (which makes her come over as a less direct participant, even though she is), I don’t think you’ll get a good response.
Acting to prevent a black church being burnt and to protect the congregation is a responsive use of force, defence against a direct and immediate threat, it’s not a pre-emptive one. I suppose there might still be a question over amount of force precisely necessary, if you don’t want to kill anyone.
@Policy of Madness
The point at which Dali advocated the pre-emptive use of force against Nazis and those marching with them. I don’t think the question is over whether it’s Ok to use force in direct self-defence, or in defence of others.
I might be mistaken but I thought some of the Nazi men/those with them did look older, I wasn’t thinking an old lady. The odd younger woman, possibly more likely.
I don’t want to get too thought experiment-y, though, but I think it’s important, if pre-emptive use of force is advocated, to think a bit about what that means and how it might pan out. If an Antifa kills a ‘free speech protester’, even if they were actually an actual Nazi, it will look bad. Also, I don’t think Nazis are worth going to prison for, if it can be helped.
@Leo
There’s no such thing as pre-emptive use of force against Nazis.
If Nazis or white supremacists or white nationalists are present, they’re there to murder innocent people or gather a support base to murder innocent people later. The presence of Nazis is the force they’re using against you. Punching Nazis is always self-defense.
Like, this is fucking obvious. If you see a KKK rally, you disrupt or destroy it because they will lynch innocent people for no reason. If you see a Nazi rally, you disrupt or destroy it because they already have a body count of 11 million and WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE EVIDENCE THAT NAZIS ARE THREATS TO ALL HUMANKIND.
It’s like arguing that when Orcs advance on your city waving weapons and talking about how much they’re gonna like it when they disembowel everyone in it, you’re the person saying “But we have to let them disembowel us!” Or maybe you’re the one saying “I don’t actually live there. The Orcs won’t disembowel me, and I don’t care about the people they will kill.”
You’re being intentionally obtuse, and I don’t care enough to diagnose if you’re being obtuse because you refuse to understand reality or because you’re a nazi sympathizer. Fundamentally, whatever your motivation to stand by while white supremacists murder people (And it’s more than just Heather Heyer – I have a list somewhere as of Aug 15) is irrelevant – you’re still standing by while these butchers kill the people you have a responsibility to help protect.
But that’s not what you’re arguing. You’re making up a story about what if there were kittens marching with the Nazis, would it be okay to punch the kittens. There are no kittens marching with Nazis so trying to find the answer to that question is navel-gazing.
If for some reason you are squeamish about punching a female Nazi on the grounds of her femaleness, be comforted by the fact that male Nazis perform hard gatekeeping and keep most women away. They are highly misogynist and don’t think women should be outside the kitchen, let alone marching in rallies.
Where has anyone advocated hunting down Nazis and punching them or
murdering them? The whole point is to keep Nazis from organizing, not thoughtpolicing the populace.
Nazis are not worth a prison sentence, but freedom from Nazis might be. Don’t elide the two. It’s disingenuous.
There’s a significant difference between the former and the latter. The former is an immediate threat, the latter is not, and is conditional on them gaining support, which is a bit hard when even Republicans backed away from Trump’s disgraceful ‘both sides’ rhetoric. It’s easy to frame Nazis as unpatriotic.
The KKK are a more immediate risk of the former, yes. That’s what they do. These Neo-Nazis? I’m not sure that is their immediate aim. Among themselves at least some of them claim not to be genocidal (not that I would trust them, obvs., but they’re not directly advocating it). Dali is also including anyone marching with Nazis, and hasn’t yet specified if the Alt-Reich count as Nazis or not.
These are not the actual Nazis who killed 11 million, and they don’t yet have that political power. Some of them seem more like utter racist idiots trying to be edgy than an immediate threat, although some certainly are.
If you have a better term than pre-emptive use of force that still distinguishes it from immediate self-defence, I’d be glad to use it.
There are however more options to disrupt their rallies than showing up with the intent of beating them up.
I don’t doubt for a second some are violent, we do know they are. They’ve yet to kill more than one person at a protest (RIP, Heather Heyer), though, though it could have been more and Antifa may well have helped prevent that, so I’m not sure whether they are all gathering with immediate violent intent, though violence very much remains a possibility from them. I’m again not questioning the use of force in direct, immediate, self-defence or defence of others.
I’m looking at the long-term aims, many more will indeed die unless that can be achieved, and it might be Dems killing them as much as it might be Nazis.
@Leo
Are you fucking serious right now? Do you read this blog?