AntiFa ate my baby: Today in Tweets

I gotta admit, the original antifa stuff wasn’t really my scene and there really was a property damage, street fighting reputation that wasn’t entirely unearned. Hence, I would never declare myself antifa, but I AM ANTI-FASCIST and pro-democracy. I have dedicated my entire career to being pro-democracy, so there is that…

For now, I will continue to encourage peaceful, non-violent protest and working within the system, so long as the system is somewhat functional.

I’m not a pacifist. There is a time and a place. I hope we’re not there yet.

@ Dalillama & Ohlmann

Yeah, if anyone asks me I can honestly say: “That article did not make me want to punch him.”

(Put a little bit about punching on the Discord thing you kindly set up)

MissEB47 says:

The Antifa is just as bad as Nazi’s thing reminds me of what abusers and their enablers do to remove accountability from themselves and to invalidate their victim’s experiences. The whole ‘it takes two to tango’ crap. It also stinks of projection. Is anyone else getting that impression?

Well, the current crop of Nazis are advocating for a lot of things the government hasn’t stopped actually carrying out since before the US was even a country, sooooo…

@ nparker

America might have been late for the first two World Wars, but it does appear to be trying to make up for that in relation to the third one.

@ theKND

Even if we combine all protein on the planet

Ooh, that’s the sort of thing that really gets you thinking. Anyone know what is the total biomass on Earth? And what’s that as a percentage of the overall mass of the planet? I seem to recall some bit of trivia about most of the biomass is subsurface.

@everyone re WWII & the US

Yes, yes, and yes. These stories offend my inner historian, my inner pedant, and my inner crusty old socialist (who’s still kicking around in there, somewhere).
It’s just as ridiculous here with the whole “Australians fought and died for freedom” shtick. Sure, we were actually under some threat of Japanese invasion, but overall the reason we were involved was ’cause Britain told us to be. It also sickens me how Gallipoli is held up as the “making of a nation” – it’s uber-exclusionary and celebrates a mass slaughter that didn’t even achieve its objective. Yay, nation! /s

@nparker

And the “America was barely in it” thing really annoys me. I live in the UK now and I’m fully aware of the “Johnny come lately”, “overpaid, oversexed and over here” attitude. Every man of fighting age in WWII that I knew, men of my grandfather’s age, did fight in the European or Asian theatre or occasionally were in the armed forces but were stationed in the US as part of the war effort. Both my grandfathers were in the army. Yes, civilian casualties were few and civilian America was in no way “in the war” in the same way the UK was, but the United States suffered over 400,000 military casualties in the war, actually more than the UK. That’s not really ‘barely in it’.

@ mish

Are you familiar with all the “Rainbow 5” & “Plan Orange” stuff?

To massively oversimplify, the US was originally considering a plan to let Japan pretty much do what it pleased in regard to British and Dutch territories in the Pacific and SE Asia. That included letting them have Australia if they wanted it. Pearl Harbour obviously changed all that.

The irony is that the original Japanese war planning didn’t include the Pearl Harbour attack. Japanese priorities were places like Singapore. In the end the attack on Pearl Harbour was only authorised “if it does not detract from primary objectives”.

Counterfactuals are by definition speculative; but it’s interesting to consider what would have happened if the ‘don’t awake a sleeping giant’ view had prevailed in the Japanese war cabinet.

@ rugbyyogi

civilian America was in no way “in the war”

Is this something that’s well known about in the US? At the time the Fu-Go attacks (Japanese balloons with auto released bombs) were hushed up because the US didn’t want the Japanese to learn that they were successful, or provide targeting feedback.

http://offbeatoregon.com/assets-2015/1508b.bly-balloon-bombing.351/mitchell-monument-1800.jpg

There needs to be a big letter-writing and petition campaign by Progressives to the Democratic Party to tell the later what we want, what we want in a candidate and to stop being a bunch of milquetoasts and out-of-touch boobs.

I think Pelosi has been greatly misinformed and someone needs to educate her. It seems folks like her are still in a moderate, Pre-Trump/Pre-Alt-Reich/”‘Godwin’s Law’ is still valid”/”BiPartisanship is great”/”It can never happen here”- mindset. She likely doesn’t understand the severity of the threat and is misinformed about this AntiFa stuff.

I don’t believe in voting a Third Party at this point. As much as I would like to see it someday, it shouldn’t be now. It’s important to be pragmatic and work on getting the Far-Right out of power COMPLETELY, first.

At this point; The majority of Americans don’t see Third Party voting as feasible and the GOP has done a lot of stuff like gerrymandering. Many GOPers have been elected because a few Progressives voted for a genuinely Progressive but very small and niche Third Party.

We need to reform the Democratic Party from within. If Far-Righties can turn the “Party of Lincoln” into the “Party of Davis” then a bunch of Greens, Democratic-Socialists, etc. can become and run as Democrats.

Also; WE THE PEOPLE need to hold the Dems’ feet to the fire and TELL THEM EXPLICITLY what we want if they expect to be elected or get anything done! The Democratic Party needs to unite and get it’s act together if it is to usurp the Far-Right menace!

That said: I JUST HAD A THOUGHT….What if Pelosi’s statement is “Fake News” and rumor-mongering meant to divide and conquer The Resistance? WE NEED TO KEEP THAT IN MIND!

Something to keep in mind – the federal level Democrats and Republicans have been under sieges of communication from their constituents over the last several months. Republicans have had their ears scorched off. Democrats have as well. These jerks know where their constituents stand, they just don’t care.The only way you’ll change their minds on something is a massive coordinated phone/mail effort, and with the media crying “Both Sides!”, that’ll be hard to get the numbers on.

I really don’t know what to do about it, guys. They’re legitimizing fascists with this “both sides” nonsense. That can’t stand. But I don’t know what to do about it.

Thank you so much for this, Dave. I was all worried yesterday seeing the WaPo and Vox pieces that I would wake up as an “enemy combatant terrorist” in Trump’s America today because I’ve marched with our local antifa.

I would like to say for the record, the antifa groups we have here in Minneapolis are excellent, level-headed people who are not afraid to put their bodies on the line, but also very willing to talk and try diplomacy. When alt-righters tried to piggyback on a pro-Trump rally in early May, the GDC (antifa) talked to them, got them on their side and actually ended up sort of protecting the Trump rally from the fascists. The non-fascist pro-Trump organizers ended up using our megaphones to denounce the white supremacists. It was a good day. Unicorn Riot documented it all.

These jerks know where their constituents stand, they just don’t care.

This. I oppose violence that isn’t in self defense. The vast majority of progressives are the same way in my experience.

It’s not true that antifa are just as violent as the right. They only use these tactics to intimidate organized groups of white supremacists. Not the population as a whole. Not the white population as a whole. But I do fear that there will be actual violent political unrest in the future and if there is, it will be because when there is no way to obtain justice through proper channels, vigilantism starts to look attractive. Even the only acceptable to white people civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr. knew this and said so. The fact that the media and political establishment have done nothing to stop the comeback of fascism is the reason that the left is starting to become more radical.

I think the seeds for this were planted in the US with the acquittal of George Zimmerman. They sprouted with Ferguson and are blossoming under the administration of Trump.

The establishment doesn’t believe that the left is ready for violent revolution but they’re scared we will be and that is why we’re seeing this false equivalency narrative being pushed. But that’s the exact wrong strategy for them to take. We’re here because they’ve done nothing about police gunning down marginalized citizens with impunity. We’re here because sovereign citizens/white supremacists put on armed takeover of first a town in Nevada and then a federal building in Oregon and the government did nothing. We’re here because there were waves of hate crimes following the election of Trump and this was handwaved away. When Pelosi, CNN, whoever say the left is just as bad, it’s only going to add fuel to the far because it does nothing but confirm the fears that the only justice left available is vigilante justice. Progressives inherently want peace and justice, but everyone has a self preservation instinct and will defend themselves. I’m not sure why so many people don’t understand this or pretend not to.