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This post doesn't blacklist any specific organizations, but rather any case that involve violence. The ACLU will likely continue[1] to defend peaceful white su

This post doesn't blacklist any specific organizations, but rather any case that involve violence. The ACLU will likely continue[1] to defend peaceful white supremacists. The ban will go for any situation or organization that involves violence. As for Antifa, I've been unable to find any videos/pictures/unbiased reports that Antifa started any of the violence this past weekend. I don't understand the need to equate the two sides. If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. If Antifa didn't exist, the KKK still would. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-history-of-the-aclu-defending-confederate-veterans-the-kkk-and-rush-limbaugh/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-...

geowwy 9y ago
> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. If Antifa didn't exist, the KKK still would. Not true. Antifa aren't just anti-racist protestors, they're a loose collection of Communist and Anarcho-communist groups. If fascism never existed those groups just rally under a different name.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  The spectrum of Antifa is very wide, not just Communists. The only thing common about the various groups that make up Antifa is that we hate Nazis and other racist/fascist ideology and their supporters. Some of us promote and use violence to protect society from them, some of us do not.
gedy 9y ago
Thanks, I'm referring to events such as the Berkeley Riots [1] where the violence was at least partly incited by Antifa. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests
- mayank 9y ago
  Correct. The ACLU is saying they would not defend Antifa if they were arrested for speech inciting violence.
  - makomk 9y ago
    The ACLU of California is carefully avoiding saying this, and it would be incredibly controversial if they did. After the Berkeley violence where masked antifa grabbed peaceful students they thought might be going to Milo's talk, pepper-sprayed them and beat them with weapons, the student newspaper ran a number of pieces supporting this and calling for future violence. I've seen numerous people on social media blaming the violence in Charlottesville on not taking the Berkeley approach, calling for this to happen at future events, and comparing antifa violence to Allied soldiers fighting the Nazis - including from respectable people in tech I follow who aren't usually political. More mainstream news organisations like CNN shy away from direct calls for violence in their flattering profiles, but they still run them. The idea that antifa violence is wrong seems to be a fringe one in non-right-wing political circles. When the father of the woman murdered in Charlottesville called for peace and forgiveness from all, it was fascinating watching people online try and word their disapproval in ways that didn't seem too disrespectful.
- cc81 9y ago
  If Antifa in the US is the similar to the ones in Sweden they will be initiating violence at protests like this. They are usually very prepared and have a lot of experience how to do it. Using violence to fight fascism is what they do even though they usually use non lethal methods. In Sweden they consist of small autonomous groups that harass nazi sympathizer by vandalizing their homes, putting their address on the internet and calling relatives, neighbors and their work etc. Sometimes they have also physically assaulted nazis. In protests they usually throw stones, pepper spray, smoke bombs, urine etc and sometimes try and brawl with their opponents using clubs etc. But I don't know at all what happened at this rally in the US but I would be incredibly surprised if you had one of the biggest white supremacy rally is in a long time in the US and Antifa did NOT try and physically stop it.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    I don't understand fighting fascism with fascism.
    - wooter 9y ago
      red shirts vs brown shirts =( and the rest of us get shafted
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      There is nothing fascist in beating up Nazis.
      - generic_user 9y ago
        Please do not condone the use of violence against (insert bad people) on HN. That is totally beyond any legitimate conversation and is illegal and morally repugnant.
        mschuster91 9y ago
        I just said that there is nothing inherently fascist in beating up Nazis. That is not what you claim I said (that I condone violence).
Banthum 9y ago
>If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Why would you say that? Antifa (and the organizations it descends from) have existed and acted, sometimes violently, in many situations unrelated to the KKK or white supremacists. For example, as we saw in Berkeley not long ago, they'll show up to violently protest Milo Yiannopolous by chasing down people in the street and using sticks to beat them unconscious. (For the video, watch the first 2 minutes of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqBxMZ-Zs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqBxMZ-Zs0) Of course they call Milo a Nazi. But calling Milo, the gay Greek half-Jew with a black boyfriend, a white supremacist just indicates that they're willing to stretch the definition to demonize anyone they don't like. If the KKK didn't exist, they'd stretch the definition as needed to recreate the KKK in their own minds.
- selllikesybok 9y ago
  "Milo is gay and dates a Black man" is a weird thing to say, to defend him from charges of being a Nazi sympathizer. Or child sexual assault apologist. I mean, the man has a body of work to be judged by. And he has been.
vixen99 9y ago
None? http://www.unz.com/article/narrative-collapse-is-charlottesvilles-james-alex-fields-the-next-george-zimmerman/ http://www.unz.com/article/narrative-collapse-is-charlottesv...
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  I looked at some of the other articles on that site and would encourage others to do the same, before deciding whether to trust its contents. It appears to be a right wing propaganda rag with a very loose definition of "truth".
grdvnkootcvj 9y ago
clearly you're not looking then.. there's video of them attacking the peaceful kkk guys with bats and sticks prior to major fights breaking out. also what are you talking about "antifa wouldn't exist if not for kkk", they have nothing to do with kkk, they're anarchists that have coddled with the leftists like a parasite.
grdvnkootcvj 9y ago
clearly you're not looking then.. there's video of them attaching the peaceful kkk guys with bats and sticks prior to major fights breaking out. also what are you talking about "antifa wouldn't exist if not for kkk", they have nothing to do with kkk, they're anarchists that have coddled with the leftists like a parasite.
nopatternhere 9y ago
> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Antifa are anti-capitalist as well. https://www.facebook.com/pg/AntifaAustralia/about/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/AntifaAustralia/about/ shows "Promote the workers struggle against capitalism and it's puppet, fascism." They might be called Antica or some similarly silly name, but there would still be a nutty leftist movement against capitalism. In many ways, and incredibly ironically, anti-facism is the most marketable calling card. > I don't understand the need to equate the two sides I assume it is because they are all violent loonies? Or maybe because of the looting at Stanford? I dunno if that is the reason, to be honest. Maybe it is just one of those "but your guys are bad too" things? > that Antifa started any of the violence I personally don't believe that the sum total of people who are actively members or even share much of an ideology in groups like Antifa or white supremacy or the alt-right or even ISIS is anything but a rounding error on 0% out of 330 million yanks - let alone the 1 billion in the collective west. I mean, does anyone think these groups COLLECTIVELY have anywhere near 3,300,000 people? These are just umbrella terms the media can use to give something more punch. BTW, I tried to look into who antifa were, and https://www.google.com/search?q=antifa https://www.google.com/search?q=antifa shows a bunch of people talking about Antifa, but not a lot of insider info/manifestos/articles. If I were to guess, they are mostly rich, angry college-aged kids who think it is cool to "fight the man" - which is pretty much what all those groups are, including ISIS. I vote we stop talking about any of them, and simply call them X-nutters. "neo-nutters", "prog-nutters", "Islamist nutters" etc etc.
patrickg_zill 9y ago
There were the tweets of an NYT reporter, Solberg or Stolberg I think. NYT is not very far to the right. You could also look up the case of Berkeley antifa Eric Clanton, although he was not in Charlottesville- that would have violated the terms of his parole for the upcoming trial of his: 4 counts of assault with a deadly weapon at a previous rally in CA.
ptaipale 9y ago
> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Not true. In my country, KKK does not exist. Antifa still exists and occasionally tries to find excuses for violence. Mostly it's just tagging graffiti though, and LARPing a revolution.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist The Anti-Fascist movement is, as the name suggests, concerned with more than the KKK, but, more broadly, it's sole uniting purpose would be absent without fascist, neo-fascist, and related violent racist movements.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  No,the "anti-fascist" movement has other uniting purposes. For instance, opposing capitalism or market economy. There was nothing fascist, neo-fascist or racist about the G20 meeting in Hamburg. The black-clad antifas still attacked it with lots of force and violence. They were quite happy to dress up in Nike and take photos with iPhones, though.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > No,the "anti-fascist" movement has other uniting purposes. For instance, opposing capitalism or market economy. While Antifa membership is largely drawn from the an anarchocommunist community and some other radical anticapitalism groups, anticapitalism is not it's purpose. As some American Antifa members pointed out in response to criticism that Antifa did not organize against Obama in the US: “To criticize antifa for not mobilizing against Obama is to misunderstand the movement: anti-fascism is not a comprehensive critique of hierarchical society in and of itself. Anti-fascist work is done as a piece of, and not a replacement for, a larger radical vision. […] Mobilizing large radical movements against neoliberal (or populist) capitalism is not the focus of anti-fascism; this is the work of the anarchist and anti-capitalist movements as a whole.” https://anarchistnews.org/content/what-do-us-antifascists-actually-believe-reply-antifa-some-critical-notes https://anarchistnews.org/content/what-do-us-antifascists-ac...

geowwy 9y ago

> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. If Antifa didn't exist, the KKK still would. Not true. Antifa aren't just anti-racist protestors, they're a loose collection of Communist and Anarcho-communist groups. If fascism never existed those groups just rally under a different name.

mschuster91 9y ago
The spectrum of Antifa is very wide, not just Communists. The only thing common about the various groups that make up Antifa is that we hate Nazis and other racist/fascist ideology and their supporters. Some of us promote and use violence to protect society from them, some of us do not.

gedy 9y ago

Thanks, I'm referring to events such as the Berkeley Riots [1] where the violence was at least partly incited by Antifa. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests

mayank 9y ago
Correct. The ACLU is saying they would not defend Antifa if they were arrested for speech inciting violence.
- makomk 9y ago
  The ACLU of California is carefully avoiding saying this, and it would be incredibly controversial if they did. After the Berkeley violence where masked antifa grabbed peaceful students they thought might be going to Milo's talk, pepper-sprayed them and beat them with weapons, the student newspaper ran a number of pieces supporting this and calling for future violence. I've seen numerous people on social media blaming the violence in Charlottesville on not taking the Berkeley approach, calling for this to happen at future events, and comparing antifa violence to Allied soldiers fighting the Nazis - including from respectable people in tech I follow who aren't usually political. More mainstream news organisations like CNN shy away from direct calls for violence in their flattering profiles, but they still run them. The idea that antifa violence is wrong seems to be a fringe one in non-right-wing political circles. When the father of the woman murdered in Charlottesville called for peace and forgiveness from all, it was fascinating watching people online try and word their disapproval in ways that didn't seem too disrespectful.
cc81 9y ago
If Antifa in the US is the similar to the ones in Sweden they will be initiating violence at protests like this. They are usually very prepared and have a lot of experience how to do it. Using violence to fight fascism is what they do even though they usually use non lethal methods. In Sweden they consist of small autonomous groups that harass nazi sympathizer by vandalizing their homes, putting their address on the internet and calling relatives, neighbors and their work etc. Sometimes they have also physically assaulted nazis. In protests they usually throw stones, pepper spray, smoke bombs, urine etc and sometimes try and brawl with their opponents using clubs etc. But I don't know at all what happened at this rally in the US but I would be incredibly surprised if you had one of the biggest white supremacy rally is in a long time in the US and Antifa did NOT try and physically stop it.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  I don't understand fighting fascism with fascism.
  - wooter 9y ago
    red shirts vs brown shirts =( and the rest of us get shafted
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    There is nothing fascist in beating up Nazis.
    - generic_user 9y ago
      Please do not condone the use of violence against (insert bad people) on HN. That is totally beyond any legitimate conversation and is illegal and morally repugnant.
      - mschuster91 9y ago
        I just said that there is nothing inherently fascist in beating up Nazis. That is not what you claim I said (that I condone violence).

Banthum 9y ago

>If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Why would you say that? Antifa (and the organizations it descends from) have existed and acted, sometimes violently, in many situations unrelated to the KKK or white supremacists. For example, as we saw in Berkeley not long ago, they'll show up to violently protest Milo Yiannopolous by chasing down people in the street and using sticks to beat them unconscious. (For the video, watch the first 2 minutes of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqBxMZ-Zs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqBxMZ-Zs0) Of course they call Milo a Nazi. But calling Milo, the gay Greek half-Jew with a black boyfriend, a white supremacist just indicates that they're willing to stretch the definition to demonize anyone they don't like. If the KKK didn't exist, they'd stretch the definition as needed to recreate the KKK in their own minds.

selllikesybok 9y ago
"Milo is gay and dates a Black man" is a weird thing to say, to defend him from charges of being a Nazi sympathizer. Or child sexual assault apologist. I mean, the man has a body of work to be judged by. And he has been.

vixen99 9y ago

None? http://www.unz.com/article/narrative-collapse-is-charlottesvilles-james-alex-fields-the-next-george-zimmerman/ http://www.unz.com/article/narrative-collapse-is-charlottesv...

SwellJoe 9y ago
I looked at some of the other articles on that site and would encourage others to do the same, before deciding whether to trust its contents. It appears to be a right wing propaganda rag with a very loose definition of "truth".

grdvnkootcvj 9y ago

clearly you're not looking then.. there's video of them attacking the peaceful kkk guys with bats and sticks prior to major fights breaking out. also what are you talking about "antifa wouldn't exist if not for kkk", they have nothing to do with kkk, they're anarchists that have coddled with the leftists like a parasite.

grdvnkootcvj 9y ago

clearly you're not looking then.. there's video of them attaching the peaceful kkk guys with bats and sticks prior to major fights breaking out. also what are you talking about "antifa wouldn't exist if not for kkk", they have nothing to do with kkk, they're anarchists that have coddled with the leftists like a parasite.

nopatternhere 9y ago

> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Antifa are anti-capitalist as well. https://www.facebook.com/pg/AntifaAustralia/about/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/AntifaAustralia/about/ shows "Promote the workers struggle against capitalism and it's puppet, fascism." They might be called Antica or some similarly silly name, but there would still be a nutty leftist movement against capitalism. In many ways, and incredibly ironically, anti-facism is the most marketable calling card. > I don't understand the need to equate the two sides I assume it is because they are all violent loonies? Or maybe because of the looting at Stanford? I dunno if that is the reason, to be honest. Maybe it is just one of those "but your guys are bad too" things? > that Antifa started any of the violence I personally don't believe that the sum total of people who are actively members or even share much of an ideology in groups like Antifa or white supremacy or the alt-right or even ISIS is anything but a rounding error on 0% out of 330 million yanks - let alone the 1 billion in the collective west. I mean, does anyone think these groups COLLECTIVELY have anywhere near 3,300,000 people? These are just umbrella terms the media can use to give something more punch. BTW, I tried to look into who antifa were, and https://www.google.com/search?q=antifa https://www.google.com/search?q=antifa shows a bunch of people talking about Antifa, but not a lot of insider info/manifestos/articles. If I were to guess, they are mostly rich, angry college-aged kids who think it is cool to "fight the man" - which is pretty much what all those groups are, including ISIS. I vote we stop talking about any of them, and simply call them X-nutters. "neo-nutters", "prog-nutters", "Islamist nutters" etc etc.

patrickg_zill 9y ago

There were the tweets of an NYT reporter, Solberg or Stolberg I think. NYT is not very far to the right. You could also look up the case of Berkeley antifa Eric Clanton, although he was not in Charlottesville- that would have violated the terms of his parole for the upcoming trial of his: 4 counts of assault with a deadly weapon at a previous rally in CA.

ptaipale 9y ago

> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Not true. In my country, KKK does not exist. Antifa still exists and occasionally tries to find excuses for violence. Mostly it's just tagging graffiti though, and LARPing a revolution.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist The Anti-Fascist movement is, as the name suggests, concerned with more than the KKK, but, more broadly, it's sole uniting purpose would be absent without fascist, neo-fascist, and related violent racist movements.

ptaipale 9y ago
No,the "anti-fascist" movement has other uniting purposes. For instance, opposing capitalism or market economy. There was nothing fascist, neo-fascist or racist about the G20 meeting in Hamburg. The black-clad antifas still attacked it with lots of force and violence. They were quite happy to dress up in Nike and take photos with iPhones, though.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > No,the "anti-fascist" movement has other uniting purposes. For instance, opposing capitalism or market economy. While Antifa membership is largely drawn from the an anarchocommunist community and some other radical anticapitalism groups, anticapitalism is not it's purpose. As some American Antifa members pointed out in response to criticism that Antifa did not organize against Obama in the US: “To criticize antifa for not mobilizing against Obama is to misunderstand the movement: anti-fascism is not a comprehensive critique of hierarchical society in and of itself. Anti-fascist work is done as a piece of, and not a replacement for, a larger radical vision. […] Mobilizing large radical movements against neoliberal (or populist) capitalism is not the focus of anti-fascism; this is the work of the anarchist and anti-capitalist movements as a whole.” https://anarchistnews.org/content/what-do-us-antifascists-actually-believe-reply-antifa-some-critical-notes https://anarchistnews.org/content/what-do-us-antifascists-ac...