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
nparker says:
No one is suggesting you or any other particular person has such a moral obligation. Your mistaken impression is based on your failure to understand that a) “the most vulnerable” have never not been the targets of constant violence, and b) the last resort stage is already here.
There’s no role for antifa in a world without fascists. Their emergence is a sign that non-violent means have not been enough. If you want to champion the most vulnerable members of society, the least useful thing you can do is wag your finger at antifa for using the “wrong” tactics (ie. get up on a high horse). Worry about fixing your own tactics instead.
So… I think I posted this a while back, but it feels relevant.
I was bullied severely in Jr. High. Repeatedly physically assaulted, and had friends turn on me. The only thing that stopped the bullying was fighting back. Literally. Punching the ringleader in the gut on the dance floor. Kicking a fellow boy scout in the chest hard enough to bruise his ribs. Getting into a fight in the basement of drama class. The consensus among my friends was that you don’t fight fair with a bully; you scare the living shit out of them.
It works. And it sucks.
To this day, I have to struggle with disproportionately violent impulses when subjected to even the mildest of rough-housing. It encouraged me to accept disproportional retribution for slights.
What would have worked better would have been a functioning authority. Had I not been scolded by authorities for going to them, had I not been subject to retaliation by the bully’s network for reporting them, had the school officials given a single flying fuck about assault and battery in the hallways, it wouldn’t have been necessary.
But it was.
Police stood by in Charlottesville. Police did nothing when the Nazis pepper-sprayed the counter-protesters by the statue. They did nothing after a group attacked DeAndre Harris, and had to be shamed into it by Shaun King and amateur detectives. They did nothing as they threatened by standers, or shot at them. They only acted once someone deliberately plowed a car into protestors, an action the GOP has been trying to legalize in multiple states.
In the face of that level of institutional collapse, fucking right I support Antifa. While not every act of violence is justifiable, given the level of motivated disinformation promoted against them, I’m not going to reflexively condemn “both sides”.
Antifa shouldn’t be necessary; but they are. Never start a fight, but be damn sure to finish one.
I kind of support AntiFa but I just know I couldn’t do it. I like weapons but any real-life violence, even against people that deserve it, makes me feel bad. I read a post about how to fight someone, in the context of how not to get raped. While I support it, it made me sad because it made me realize how real violence is, that you might have to hurt someone badly enough to seriously injure or kill them lest it happen to you. I know its a result of privilege but I’m a soft person, and I hope to both live and die a soft person. My only fear is that being one is as bad as Nazism at this point.
Part of it is perhaps me thinking that my life isn’t worth much. If I had to kill someone to preserve my friend’s safety, I just might. While I’m cis, I have a good number of trans friends, including an aromantic trans friend that might be interested in being my queerplatonic partner. I want them to be safe and to be happy, they deserve so much better than what they have. But as far as defending myself? Even if I got a gun (I like them, I might) I don’t think I could use it in violence. I’m sorry, I just don’t want to be a bad person. I’ve already committed evil actions, but every day I need to try and become better, and atone.
Of course you can be a non-violent cis-white-male and do good. Please, be a non-violent cis-white-male and do good. Just act.
One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that we don’t all have to follow the same strategy, or even agree with the strategies being used. We aren’t a single coherent group with a unified policy, we’re just a bunch’a weiners tryin’ to do what’s right.
Go to a protest and bring a bunch of water for people. Circulate news. Provide moral support. And any time you hear someone lending support to the fascists by parroting their “both sides” nonsense, counter it.
We’ve got a far better chance of success if not everyone fights, in my opinion. Multiple approaches, multiple paths to victory. You can talk to those who can be convinced that maybe perhaps fascism’s a bad thing; those more inclined to confrontation can take care of the marching fascists.
Don’t feel guilty about it either. Do what you can. War’s won as much by the farmer as the fighter.
@FrickleFrackle, it is brave to dedicate yourself to gentleness when the world is harsh. Don’t forget that.
You can be gentle and still contribute to good things. I like to think that it’s vital.
An article that reiterates what Black Bloc said:
Why the Media Refuses to Understand Antifa by Malcolm Harris
@Frickle Frackle What Scildfreja said. Really. <3
Oh, God, yes. First, I’d be told by administrators that I needed to stand up for myself, and then I’d be in trouble for popping a bully in the mouth after she’d bruised me and threatened my life. I mean, WTF?
Just so, our system is broken.
…I don’t feel qualified, at this point, to speak on the more serious topics popping up in this thread.
So I’ll just mention that on the topic of “life does not necessarily need oxygen,” I’m just gonna bring up the Pikmin series, in which the protagonists of the first few games were of a species that would literally fucking DIE in an atmosphere with roughly 23% oxygen (spoiler alert: Earth about ten million years in the future). (The third game has a different species who can stand some amount of oxygen, but it’s an irritant.)
Just throwing some more evidence into the pile that police are on the side of fascism and anyone who thinks they’ll protect citizens from white supremacist violence is kidding themselves. Also evidence that being white and middle class will not protect you from fascism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihQ1-LQOkns&feature=youtu.be
A cop demands a nurse draw blood from an unconscious patient who is suspected of DUI even though he doesn’t have a warrant and being unconscious, didn’t consent. She refuses as it would be a violation of the patient’s right and she legally can’t even do it. Cop brutalizes and arrests her.
This is beyond fucked up but it doesn’t surprise me in the least.
@BlackBloc
Do you mind if i share your comment on Twitter? I think it explains things very well.
Yeah, we still have cops saying shit like, “we only kill black people” during traffic stops. At least some of this stuff is being caught on camera and recorded now, so some of the bad cops eventually get taken off the streets.
Then of course people argue “he was joking”… People, he had a gun, and authority to arrest. Not the time for such a dark “joke”.
The Nurse assault… Looks like he thought he had approval of supervisor, and partner, for that “arrest”. Hopefully they all get in deep trouble for that, but not holding my breath.
Trump also says “donating $1M to Harvey relief”, and some people believed him. Not until the check clears will I believe that.
@Makroth: you may. My Twitter is @XBlackBlocX, you might find more stuff to RT.
BTW, the vast majority of the work of antifa, or the sort of affinity groups that form black blocs at demos, is done by street medics and court supporters (whether lawyers/law undergrads or just the logistics of organizing court support, like keeping track of arrestees and injured, getting in touch with their contact people, getting them food and water after coming out of jail, etc). So even if you are 100% pacifist there is plenty of work that can be done as support for people who are willing to put their bodies on the line to protect people.
However, i would caution that cops and nazis don’t tend to respect the fact you’re a non-combatant (for instance, the cops threatened violence against the street medics that tried to help Heather and the other victims of the Charlottesville car attack), and in my opinion being unwilling to even act in self-defense is taking an unacceptable risk to your own safety. But you’re the best judge of your own capabilities.
I feel like siding with Antifa against the Nazis is like siding with Russia in WW1. Like yeah, we may have the same enemies, but the enemy of my enemy shouldn’t necessarily be my friend
@BlackBloc
Another way to help is by becoming a legal observer thats what my mother did,
there job is not to participate in the protest but to observe police conduct at protests and report it to a legal organization (my mother works with the “national lawyers guild”),
you can spot them at protests by the lime green hats they wear to mark themselves.
Legal observers are one of the ways groups like the SPLC know what charges to file.
@Jessica
Since antifa is not an organization but a word denoting opposition to fascism it would be more accurate to say antifa are the allied powers,
not sure who the Russians would be in this analogy though.
@Left Wing Fox
This is also a key point that a lot of the Antifa tut-tutters are missing. The Alt-Right’s mainstream prominence should have been halted at Gamergate after the sewer that is 4chan started receiving more scrutiny. But with the media constantly chattering about Trump, the deplorables hitched their wagon to him and rode him to a prominence the mainstream press were all to eager to cover. But we all knew who these people were; we’d been putting up with Pepes for years. *sigh* But the dopes in the press being the dopes they are didn’t talk to any of us, did they? No, for them, Richard Spencer with this new flashy fashy guy, treating him like a puppy to pet and do tricks for the camera. It was bad enough Trump made it through the primary, but when he did, it fell to the American public to show the world that America didn’t tolerate that kind of cruel bigotry.
And it failed. Miserably. Through a combination of voter apathy, voter suppression, misinformation, gerrymandering, James Comey and missteps on the part of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump gave these guys the figurehead they were waiting for.
There’s just a multitude of failures following in sequence that have lead to the need for Antifa. At any point along the way, it could have been stopped, but it wasn’t and the press has a large hand in that, so it’s rather rich for them to start having fainting spells about political violence when their incompetence is to blame for it.
@FrickleFrackle
During the Crimean war, a woman named Florence Nightingale volunteered to train and take 38 women to the conflict zone to work as nurses. These days, some sources suggest that she and her corps cut the rate of death in half (some even say from 42% to 2%).
That’s what you can do. Just help. If you can’t punch the Nazi, band-aid the guy who got hurt by the Nazi and if you can’t see blood, hand out snacks.
WWTH,
Omg, that is revolting. Just revolting.
And I’ll stick my dashiki on and just chip in with Mary Seacole. 🙂
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole
@JS
Hah. I’ll bet it will be from his charitable foundation and therefore will be largely other people’s money, even if it is forthcoming, which I doubt.
(now I think about it, hasn’t he been indirectly in receipt of about that much in taxpayers money, given the rent and bills that the secret service have to pay in order to do their job protecting him?)
Woke up to Twitter talking about The Daily Show’s take on Antifa. “ISIS for Vegans”, “correct pronounciation is a tool of oppression”, REALLY?!? Are they hiring writers from 4Chan?
It shouldn’t surprise me that the same channel that puts out South Park, the Messiah of Smug Centrism, would have something like that to say about Antifa. Still, it’s enraging.
The only glimmer of joy was that I got a new word from one of my favorite RPG writers in their reply to The Daily Show: “sheetcaker”.
Daily Show went a bit downhill after Jon Stewart left.
Anyone know good places to hav good faith questions answered in good faith and non condescendingly about Antifa, Black Bloc, and anarchism?
So I’m over at “the cut” reading about evil men having rights is a drug or some such nonsense and one of the links takes me to this site. This site is bizarre. The comments in this article claim the anyone who voted for Trump is a fascist, all conservatives are fascists, even democrats are fascists and it’s your duty to violently attack fascists. Also, if you aren’t into the whole violence thing you should give aid and comfort to those people violently attacking people. This site has to be a joke that is meant to rattle cages.
I gave Trevor Noah a chance because:
a) I’ve seen his standup and on average he’s funny.
b) As a mixed-race man who grew up in apartheid South Africa, I figured he could bring a lot of insight into the show.
c) Honestly, he has a disarming smile.
This was the last straw.