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Five myths about antifa

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Short for “anti-fascist,” the label “antifa” gained notoriety in 2017 over the course of several high-profile conflicts between left-wing protesters and the far right in Berkeley, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Charlottesville; and elsewhere. But antifa has been a staple of radical politics across Europe, Latin America and beyond for decades. Even in the United States, this tradition of militant antifascism has a long history under the banner of the Anti-Racist Action network. Despite this history, and a litany of journalistic “explainers” over the past three years, antifa remains largely misunderstood. Here are some of the most popular myths.

Myth No. 1
Antifa is a single organization.
On May 31, President Trump tweeted, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” Attorney General William P. Barr echoed his sentiments by arguing that antifa is “a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism.” Right-wing figure Chuck Callesto even claimed that Sen. Rand Paul intended to “SUBPOENA ANTIFA plane records, hotel records, all travel records & all funding.”
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But Trump cannot designate “ANTIFA” as a terrorist organization because antifa is not an organization. Rather, it is a politics of revolutionary opposition to the far right. There are antifa groups, such as Rose City Antifa in Portland and NYC Antifa, just as there are feminist groups, such as Code Pink. But neither antifa nor feminism is itself an organization. You cannot subpoena an idea or a movement. That’s not to say that antifa doesn’t exist, of course. Antifa is “very real,” as Rep. Jim Jordan has argued, but not in the monolithic, hierarchical way in which he and many other Americans are accustomed to thinking of political associations.
Myth No. 2
Antifa masterminds violence at Black Lives Matter protests.
Police stations were burned, squad cars were destroyed, and property was damaged across the country after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Days later, Trump was quick to blame the violence on “ANTIFA and the Radical Left.” The president also promoted a far-right conspiracy theory that a 75-year-old racial justice protester in Buffalo who was shoved to the ground by police, fracturing his skull, “could be an ANTIFA provocateur.” Rudolph W. Giuliani concurred, claiming that “antifa sprang into action and in a flash hijacked the protests into vicious, brutal riots.”




But neither the Justice Department, the FBI nor the press have found evidence to corroborate the grandiose allegation that the most widespread and significant political upheaval this country has seen in half a century was masterminded by one shadowy organization. Not even in Portland. Antifa groups are simply not numerous enough, nor their memberships large enough, nor their politics influential enough to have achieved such massive destruction. Militant anti-fascist groups heavily vet potential members to prevent infiltration from law enforcement or the far right. Some don’t open their ranks to new members at all. Significant investments of time and energy are expected. Such high barriers to entry necessarily keep numbers low.
Myth No. 3
Antifa is affiliated with the Democratic Party.
In August, a fake antifa website began to redirect users to Joe Biden’s campaign site. Though it was clearly a ploy to associate the Democratic Party with antifa, right wingers seized upon the apparent conspiracy. Speaking about the Democrats that same day, Trump claimed that “in my book, it’s virtually part of their campaign, antifa.” According to Ann Coulter, the Democrats are “the Antifa Party.” And columnists have argued that “antifa riots may be part of [a] Democrat power grab” or even that “antifa is the militant wing of the Democratic Party.”
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Not only is there no evidence to support such allegations — which are more of an effort to associate liberalism with lawlessness than anything else — but Democratic leaders have routinely condemned antifa and political violence more broadly. For example, in 2017 Nancy Pelosi denounced “the violent actions of people calling themselves antifa” after destructive protests against right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in Berkeley. When a reporter recently asked Joe Biden, “Do you condemn antifa?,” he responded, “Yes, I do.”
Nor is there any antifa love affair with the Democrats. The vast majority of antifa militants are radical anti-capitalists who oppose the Democratic Party. Some may hold their noses and vote for Biden in November, but many are anarchists who don’t vote at all.
Myth No. 4
Antifa is funded by liberal financiers like George Soros.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists have alleged that egalitarian protest movements, such as Occupy Wall Street or the women’s marches, have been secretly funded for many years by liberal financiers like George Soros. Trump is among those who have accused Soros of funding antifa, while other conservatives, such as Rep. Ken Buck, have dog-whistled this anti-Semitic trope by asking in more general terms “who is funding these violent riots.” Similarly, Rand Paul asked, after being confronted by protesters in D.C.: “Who paid for their hotel rooms? Who flew them in?”
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There is no evidence that Soros or any other 1 percenter is bankrolling antifa groups. Receiving financial support from a billionaire would be anathema to their anti-capitalist politics. Like most anarchist, anti-authoritarian or radical groups, antifa organizations don’t have much money at their disposal. What they do have generally comes from members or occasional solidarity fundraisers. Unlike political parties, unions or nongovernmental organizations, they don’t require significant funds. The International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund collects small donations primarily for legal and medical support, but that hardly constitutes the moneyed boogeyman that Republicans have conjured.
Myth No. 5


 
Antifascists are the 'real fascists.'
Recently Barr described antifa as deploying “fascistic” tactics, and Donald Trump Jr. characterized the movement as having moved “to the book burning phase.” The Internet is awash with articles about how “antifa are the real fascists,” as the Spectator’s Toby Young put it, or the “brownshirts” of the Democratic Party, in radio host Michael Savage’s words. After Charlottesville, Trump called antifascists the “alt-left,” a term that did not stick. These portrayals are often supported by references to antifascists’ disruption of the events of their (far-right) political opponents — a strategy famously deployed by fascists.
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Indeed, antifascists and fascists have one thing in common: an illiberal disdain for the confines of mainstream politics. In every other way they are worlds apart. As opposed to their far-right adversaries, antifascists are feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalists who seek to abolish prisons and police. Comparing antifascists to fascists only makes a bit of sense if one divorces the tactics from the underlying views that animate them. Such comparisons stem from the misguided horseshoe theory: that ultimately political extremes meet. But fascists are the real fascists because they pursue a fascist political agenda.
 
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Turd Polishing
 
They are the dictionary definition of a fascist.


fascism
noun

fas·cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \
Definition of fascism

1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control early instances of army fascismand brutality— J. W. Aldridge
 
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Andy Ngo, LOL:

There’s a folksy saying that grandparents of all stripes like to dispense: If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, then you shouldn’t be surprised when it starts quacking. Another, perhaps less folksy version of this idiom is Occam’s Razor, the theory that the simplest explanation for an event or phenomenon is usually the most likely.


Nowhere was this demonstrated more quickly than in the case of the meteoric rise and equally rapid fall of Andy Ngo, the provocateur and social media personality who garnered nationwide sympathy last June, when he tweeted that he was attacked by antifascist protesters at a Proud Boys rally. Last week, the local newspaper the Portland Mercury reported that a left-wing activist going undercover as a member of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group known for promoting and engaging in violent clashes with leftist activists, had given the publication an 18-minute video that included footage of Ngo with a group of Patriot Prayer members as the members discuss an upcoming brawl, including weaponry to be used in altercations with antifa. Ngo, who describes himself as a journalist, did not record the conversation, and does not appear to have his camera or notebook out. For part of the footage, he is seen on his phone.



The source told the Mercury that Ngo and Patriot Prayer have an “understanding” that the group offers him protection when he covers rallies in exchange for favorable coverage. While this has not been confirmed, and Ngo strongly denies these allegations, an audio conversation between members of the Proud Boys, released by Willamette Week seemed to confirm that such discussions between Ngo and the Proud Boys had occurred, as one man is recorded saying that Ngo was attacked on June 29th because he refused an offer of protection. “Andy Ngo was ****ing told that if he wanted protection from the PBs [Proud Boys], he went in with us and he went out with us,” the man says.


When reached for comment, Ngo directed Rolling Stone to his attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who refuted the allegations made by the Portland Mercury.There have been suggestions made by that story and others that he is part of that group or embedded in that group or took protection from that group, which is absolutely false,” she tells Rolling Stone.


Nonetheless, the footage was highly embarrassing for Ngo, who has long claimed to be an independent and objective journalist, despite many left-wing activists in Portland accusing him of antagonizing them at rallies and selectively editing his footage to malign the left. Shortly after the footage was released, Quillette, a “free thought” publication with a libertarian bent, deleted Ngo’s byline from its masthead, though founder Claire Lehmann denied to the Daily Beast that it had anything to do with the recently surfaced Patriot Prayer footage, as did Ngo in an op-ed published by the Spectator. (When asked about this, Dhillon says, “the suggestion that the video coming out is tied with [Ngo cutting ties with Quillette] is false and defamatory.”)


But the issue wasn’t so much that Ngo had finally been “exposed” as a right-wing provocateur as opposed to a journalist. It was that he’d managed to successfully convince so many ostensibly reasonable people otherwise, despite significant evidence to the contrary — and, in so doing, did some serious damage in the process.


Ngo has a long and rich history of trolling those on the left. While getting his master’s degree in political science at Portland State, he became convinced that a “social justice frenzy” was rapidly sweeping the nation, as he told a reporter who profiled him for BuzzFeed, becoming particularly focused on what he viewed as the increasingly urgent threat of Islam. In 2017, Ngo attended an interfaith student panel and tweeted a paraphrase of a Muslim student’s comments about how non-Muslims would be treated in an Islamic state. After he posted the tweet, which used inflammatory language out of context, Ngo was fired from the campus newspaper, the Portland State Vanguard. At the time, the editor-in-chief of the Vanguard said the firing was not motivated by partisanship, and that Ngo was removed from his post because the tweet was a “half-truth” that “incited a reaction and implicated the student panelist,” thus putting them in imminent jeopardy. But Breitbart and other national right-wing news outlets salivated over the story, painting Ngo as an innocent victim on the pyre of political correctness and liberal media bias.

More at:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/andy-ngo-right-wing-troll-antifa-877914/
 
The Antifa arsonists caught on video with Molotov cocktails (some investigated and arrested) high grade fireworks and incendiary materials while chanting America sucks and burn it down are fake people
 
All the looting, rioting and demand chanting isn’t happening, it’s an Illusion
The Antifa arsonists caught on video with Molotov cocktails (some investigated and arrested) high grade fireworks and incendiary materials while chanting America sucks and burn it down are fake people

Where in the OP does it say it is not happening?
 
If the right didn't have conspiracy theories, they couldn't exist. Packing six shooters 'cause there's enemies around the next corner. Stocking up on ammo and camo gear. Commies and fascists. JFC. Like they're goddam grade schoolers. Now they have antifa as the boogeyman.
 
Socialists are real. Nazis are real. The KKK is real. Democrats are real. Republicans are real. The NRA is real. The NAACP is real.

Antifa is not.

Socialists are fragments of wingers fart fumes.
 
Lol "they're not a real organization "

Also "they're not part of the democrat party"

Whos not a part of the party? Lol if theyre not an organization then who are they talking about?
 
If the right didn't have conspiracy theories, they couldn't exist. Packing six shooters 'cause there's enemies around the next corner. Stocking up on ammo and camo gear. Commies and fascists. JFC. Like they're goddam grade schoolers. Now they have antifa as the boogeyman.

What if it was a caravan of Marxist antifas escorted by the new black panthers???
 
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Lots of effort here trying to convince people that something doesn't exist. The nightly videos posted really must make your jobs hard.
Those are white BLM supporters.
The same BLM a great many African
Americans are completely embarrassed about .
Actually they’re campaigning for Trump every night
 
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Those are white BLM supporters.
The same BLM a great many African
Americans are completely embarrassed about .
Actually they’re campaigning for Trump every night

Idiot'
 
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