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
Unfortunately, Obama ruined the “black President” brand by asking for Dijon mustard once. 🙁
He also likes arugula. How uppity could he be?
The dijon thing is more famous, but I do also remember the right getting mad at him for liking arugula salad. Apparently real Americans only eat iceberg lettuce slathered in ranch dressing and bacon bits or something.
Life as such wouldn’t necessarily produce an oxygen atmosphere, but high O2 atmosphere is a strong indicator of thriving, photosynthetic life. It doesn’t necessarily indicate intelligent life, but is apparently a prerequisite for it, as brains require high energy metabolism that is only possible with oxygen.
You might also notice the organic soil matter and vegetation sitting on said rocks…
@talonknife
Oh golly, is that a thing?
It’s just my label for them based on appearance – I’ve no idea if they self identify as such.
*spends morning when I should be marking googling pictures of teenage werewolves* Thank you for that.
@dalillama
Errrr… wow – instead of asking me where my line is, please tell me instead where MY violent action – or perhaps yours, might make a positive difference in any of these cases? If you haven’t done all you can in terms non-violent resistance (and I know I personally haven’t) then advocating violence appears to be to satisfy anger rather than to achieve peaceful progress and transfer of power. The defence of self-defence only applies with exigent circumstances for a reason, otherwise it’s just vigilantism, revenge and further provocation of violence and a descent to barbarity. By all means, enjoy your rage porn, but I’d rather keep working for the kind of society I’d like to live in rather than a fantasy of the violent left frankly not much different than MGTOW wet dreams.
When society descends into constant violence, then it’s the poor, the powerless, the weak and the meek who suffer the most. That’s not a vision I care to endorse.
I’m getting the impression that some people here, if they had been around at the time, would have been giving white feathers to conscientious objectors in the war. It isn’t a nice vibe.
Violence is something that is always a last resort, always. So no, there isn’t going to be a civil war. No, violence is not a good answer to any problem. No, there is no moral obligation here to get violent. To suggest there is automatically means telling the most vulnerable members of our society that being plunged into a state of constant violent conflict is absolutely fine and they shouldn’t be on a ‘high horse’ about it. I find that morally, just… ugh.
Just popping up and I haven’t read the thread, but I want to urge folks here to look up Clément Méric.
He was a French antifa who was killed in 2013. A lot of ink has been wasted on how he “assaulted” a nazi who acted in self-defense… with brass knuckles.
@Arctic Ape
Well, maybe. Problem is with that sort of notion is that it relies heavily on our knowledge of a single world with photosynthetic life and high O2, and a few worlds with an atmosphere with neither of those, and a bunch of rocks without even at atmosphere to speak of. That’s not many datapoints to extrapolate from.
It isn’t yet clear that this is a good model of the rest of the universe, see also: Abiotic oxygen-dominated atmospheres on terrestrial habitable zone planets (and there are other papers on similar subjects; I can’t recommend one over another at this point) for alternative views.
Off topic, hope this brightens everyone’s day… a little IN YOUR FACE, donald trump!!!
back on topic… ish…. (note, sarcasm to follow)
re: whose side are the dems on? The dems take take the lions share of the money and give it to the mega-wealthy… the rest they use to try to provide a minimal social safety net. The repubs take the lions share of the money and give it to the mega-wealthy… the rest they give to the mega-wealthy, too.
we are never going to achieve fundamental social change working through the democratic party, or through any other party. the power brokers simply are not going to let us vote them out of power.
@ pie & arctic ape
Thanks for the link to that paper. I suppose a problem of life detection is that, even in a ‘steady state’ atmosphere, there’s nothing that can be exclusively consequential on biotic processes. Even methane I gather can result from geological activity. Maybe though there’s a combination of factors that can only arise from life? (Although does that beg the question of how we define ‘life’?)
On a related note, is there anything ‘optimal’ about how life is set up on Earth. By which I mean stuff like, are CGTA the ‘best’ base pairs, or might there be other chemicals that would do a better job? Is oxygen the best energy catalyst? Is Carbon the most useful base for protoplasm? Etc.
If earth life does represent the optimal solution then it might suggest abiogenesis is more ‘inevitable’ than if say, we’re a mash up of sub-optimal solutions that just happen to work.
@Alan Robertshaw
Fluorine would give you more bang for your buck than oxygen, but it is much rarer in the universe, because it is harder to synthesize in stars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule). Also, it’d produce some excitingly reactive biochemistries, which probably isn’t ideal. Alternatives to carbon do exist, but they seem to form compounds which are less chemically stable and they, too, are much less cosmically abundant. Clarke talked about “carbon chauvinism”, but it does seem like it is a pretty good basis for things.
CGTA (y’know, ATGC seems to be the most common abbreviation for the bases; where’d yours come from?) though… well, I’m much less sure. I suspect that most terrestrial biochemistry from RNA strands and proteins on upwards is probably in a local maximum of efficiency, and I don’t think there’s any particular reason why alternative structural and catalytic chemicals could be just as good, or even better.
(“could” should have been “couldn’t” in that last paragraph)
@Bobbie
Agreed. If I have to give the alt-right any credit, their capacity to latch on to a single individual and caricature them to the point of internet-memedom is remarkable. Despicable, but remarkable.
By contrast, if I have one wish of the left, it would be to understand that their opposition, while they can be dangerous and even scary at times, are fundamentally ridiculous people. A guy following the Proud Boys around with a tuba might just be more effective at deflating them than a gathered crowd with signs. Just a thought.
@ pie
Went something like this.
“It’s got a C in it. What else? That bit in Jurassic Park, in the book, with the question marks….Hmm, can’t remember…Oh what about that film with Jude Law?….No, not Jude Law, the other one……Ethan Hawk….Gattaca!, So that’s GTA…….Oh hang on, Jude Law is in it.”
It may not be appropriate to post this on such a serious thread, but when I saw “Every time you twist a nut” on that World War 2 era poster, I immediately thought of testicular torsion. It really does sound painful, and I don’t even have testes.
I’ll be visiting my mother and sister for Labor Day, those fascist sympathizers. I’m girding my loins for the weekend. Gonna bring my cat. I’m hoping my mommy doesn’t insist upon her sleeping on the enclosed porch.
Help –
I really wanted to click on Violet’s article here
but I’m not sure the link is working …
@littlem
Try this
Not ignoring the rest of y’all but I need sleep.
I meant the former; Propaganda meant to demoralize Progressives.
Yes; I’m aware that the Democratic Party is rather “Establishment” as well and Centrist in nature. However; They are the closest thing to a Progressive MAINSTREAM Party that the nation’s got and THEY can be reformed into something more Left-Leaning and revolutionary. There is currently a new crop of Progressive-thinking Democrats running for offices all over the country.
I’m aware that Pelosi is FAR from the ideal.
Also; What J.S. said….It was an OPINION piece by a GOPer….not news and the writer likely misrepresented what Pelosi actually meant.
FOR NOW; Rather than starting a Third Party (which takes time to become mainstream….time we DON’T have) we should fill the Democratic Party from the lowest local offices up with new GENUINELY PROGRESSIVE blood and change it from within.
********
In regards to the bickering, fussing and fighting, here, CAN’T YOU GUYS GET ALONG?!
Now; Some here are Moderate, Some are more Radical. Some see “America” as a salvageable thing while others are like “America = EVIL!”. Some are fine with the Democratic Party while others see it as “GOP-Lite”. And everyone here with differing takes on things are divided and arguing.
STOP! This is what makes Great Causes go belly-up! Find COMMON GROUND AND WORK TOGETHER, GUYS?!
********
As for this stuff about the “BLM/AntiFa/Occupy/etc. Brand”….THESE ARE NOT SET ORGANIZATIONS WITH A SET OF DESIGNATED LEADERS. These are disorganized grass-roots groups united in a common cause. However; There will be a few bad apples.
Perhaps there should be a list of “Rules of Conduct” or “What The Cause Is Not” and “What’s Not Permitted” or some very loose organizational structure….as well as spokespeople who can refute things when they’re misrepresented or a bad apple does a dumb thing.
Many were like “What does The Occupy Movement want?!”. There needs to be a list of demands and goals.
********
REMEMBER: WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER!
Capitalism is constant violence. White supremacy is constant violence. Patriarchy is constant violence. We’re not “descending” into anything. We’re there. It’s just that “constant violence” is not equally distributed in society and is mostly invisibilized when performed by our institutions and dominant groups towards marginalized ones.
As for the idea that antifa is bringing preemptive violence, even if you don’t agree with the above principle, this betrays a complete lack of knowledge of how white supremacist rallies operate. Everywhere white supremacists assemble, when they are not confronted by an active counter-protest, they feel empowered. During and after the march the participants are still in the community, and attacks on marginalized groups spike. There were multiple reports of male sex workers being assaulted by fake “clients” just prior to the San Fran nazi march, for instance.
There’s nothing preemptive about antifa. When they are not around as a lightning rod for nazi violence, the nazis attack marginalized people. And when they are around, whether violence occurs is purely a matter of numbers and how emboldened the nazis get. In Boston, where the counterprotest overwhelmed the nazis, there was no violence. In Berkeley and Charlotteville, where the counterprotesters were outnumbered AND the police both encouraged and looked away from nazi violence, there was a need for self-defense from antifa… which was spun by the collaborator media into antifa violence towards peaceful nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Racist_Action#Points_of_Unity
@SpukiKitty
I’m not sure that’s a fact that you can get across to the regressive right; they view the world through authoritarian eyes, and couldn’t imagine that there isn’t a hierarchy, or oligarchy, or clear insider/outsider demarcation.
@SpukiKitty
One friendly suggestion. It’s not very nice to describe the quite serious disagreements between members of the community as bickering or fussing, and suggest that they should just stop doing it. The people who argue here tend to have strong feelings about what they’re arguing. You are implying that they could just drop their ideas and move on, as if they’re only arguing because they like to argue. This is more than a little condescending.
What you’re doing is explaining to others that they shouldn’t take their own feelings seriously, because you don’t find their feelings interesting.
It’s also a leap to assume that just because we’re all commenting on the same blog, we’re all on the “same side”. This is not a safe assumption. We can, and do, often disagree on very serious matters. Some/many of us appreciate an environment in which we can have heated and frank discussions about contentious issues.
If you don’t like the current discussion, you don’t have to participate in it. Personally, I’m staying out of this particular one. This doesn’t mean you have to abandon the blog forever. You can just stick to commenting on other posts. You can even stay on this post and comment about something different.
When people argue about things that are very important to them, it’s to be expected that the tone won’t always be perfectly friendly. (In my view, a much bigger problem occurs if people adopt a pissy tone when not engaged in contentious discussion. That’s just bad form and creates a toxic environment.)
Is it possible for me to be a good person as a cis white male that doesn’t want to use violence? Personally, I’m not going to fault other people who hurt Nazis and their ilk, but I’m uncomfortable at the thought of hurting people, even if someone wanted to hurt me I honestly think (and hope) that I’d let myself get hurt or killed.
@BlackBloc, that was really well put, thank you very much. Antifa isn’t generating violence, it’s just collecting it in one place where it can be decisively opposed. That’s a great way to put it, and a really powerful way to explain it to people who are all “both sides are bad”. It’s quick to say: “If Antifa wasn’t there, these tiki-torch terrorists would be dispersing through the community, beating up LGBT people and Muslims and destroying churches and mosques. Antifa’s just putting a willing target right in their faces.” And there’s piles of evidence for it.
It’s compact, evocative and flips the script – puts the onus right where it belongs again. I like it. Thank you.