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The problem is antifa has become the new boogy man for the GOP, and they've been pushing this narrative extremely hard. It's apparent they've identified their e

• at_a_remove 6y ago
  Some of their direct action includes running up behind people and striking them with a bike lock across the back of their head for the crime of voting the "wrong" way.
  • kevingadd 6y ago
    Citation needed
    • drak0n1c 6y ago
      I believe the parent comment is referencing the 2017 Berkeley incident where a professor ambushed multiple conservative and libertarian protesters from behind, hitting them in the back of the head with a bike lock. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/08/08/eric-clanton-takes-3-year-probation-deal-in-berkeley-rally-bike-lock-assault-case https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/08/08/eric-clanton-takes-3...
      • fiblye 6y ago
        3 years probation for whacking 7 people in the head--something that could very easily result in death. A person his age knew this without a doubt. How he didn't get 7 counts of attempted murder is beyond me.
        • at_a_remove 6y ago
          Presumably, as a professor of ethics are Berkeley, he was hitting people in the head with a bike lock in an ethical manner.
  • mellow2020 6y ago
    You're just doing the same thing again, using a vague "they" to extrapolate from cherry picked examples onto an amorphous mass, without even bothering to dress up the dissonance between that and "bike lock", singular.
    • luckylion 6y ago
      > an amorphous mass No mass is 100% identical though, so "you can't use some individual actions to project on the group they chose to be part of and that chooses to accept them" really just makes the concept of groups useless. "No, that specific action wasn't covered by our shared intent, so obviously we will accept responsibility for it" is something I believe pretty much everybody will agree on after the action has happened and has resulted in negative feedback. Had it produced applause and achieved the goal of the group, they would have celebrated it.
      • mellow2020 6y ago
        > "you can't use some individual actions to project on the group they chose to be part of and that chooses to accept them" You certainly can't cherry pick them (one instance of violence versus billions of instances of peacefulness, for example), apart from "group that chooses to accept them" not applying here. > Had it produced applause and achieved the goal of the group, they would have celebrated it. Had there been anye instances of violence by people calling themselves antifa, those seeking to defend the ongoing, systematic violence would have invented instances of violence of people they call antifa. See how that works, or rather, how it doesn't?
        • luckylion 6y ago
          True, if it was billions to one, I'd probably agree with you. It's not though, not being peaceful is pretty much one of the core defining features of the black bloc. And let's not go down the road with claims of "all the other instances are Nazis or undercover cops trying to hurt the movement". I have serious doubts regarding the Nazis (I knew a few people in Antifa circles back in the day and you don't go unnoticed with your shit just because you wear a black sweat shirt, like every sub-culture they have lots of Shibboleths), and the undercover cops are mostly observers, not instigators (though I'm sure they will take part in riots if it helps their cover or their case). > See how that works, or rather, how it doesn't? My point is that disowning a member's actions when they aren't considered favorably post factum is what pretty much every group does. If Antifa/black bloc were actively promoting non-violence, that would be a different issue, but this rather sounds like the Daily Stormer saying "we don't condone violence wink wink" when another one of their goons snaps and shoots up a mosque.
• astronautjones 6y ago
  It's literally not an organization. There are lots of people that have anti-fascist stickers or flags or whatever in europe that explicitly exist to stand up for people when nazis/neo-nazis show up to protests, or to their squats, or to their homes... they exist to save peoples lives from right-wing violence. It's pitiful that this is the best boogeyman the right can come up with in 2020 and it's extra pitiful that - like everything else they project - it's just them telling on themselves.
  • throwaway2048 6y ago
    its even more pitiful how many are cheerleading this shit on HN
    • astronautjones 6y ago
      I don't think you're allowed to point it out here, but there is a large audience here that is a massive part of the problem. rich, influential people with power (whether they use it or not) riding this generation's wave of prosperity with no knowledge of or interest in the people that are affected by their jobs and lifestyles. smart enough to learn to code or to polish a pitch to a vc, but lacking any critical thinking skills or morality that would cause them to reflect on their position in society. flocking to the right at the first hint of something that does reflect these truths. supporting fascists because you're scared or uncomfortable is even worse than supporting fascists because you're a bigot imo
      • nailer 6y ago
        Antifa literally exist to use violence upon people who don't share their politics, which is one of the hallmarks of fascism. Naming yourself "the good guys" doesn't mean anyone who opposes you is bad. It's like if someone said disliking 'Make America Great Again' means you don't want America to be great. Or opposing the Patriot Act makes you not a patriot. You know this, everyone else reading this knows this, stop pretending we don't.
        • 6y ago
• th0ma5 6y ago
  Yeah I don't see much of Antifa capital A but more people rallying around the idea of anti-fascism. Those that oppose this seem to have not read about the paradox of tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  • dlivingston 6y ago
    Not to be snarky, but I can tell that you're active on Reddit, because every third person in discussions like this proffers Popper's paradox. This is, at a high level, an idea that we can all get behind. What rational and decent person can condone intolerance? But, just like hate speech, 'intolerance' can become very subjective very quickly. Thought experiment: imagine politician X tweeted "[i]n order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance" in response to a supposed war on Christmas or war on white people. --- EDIT: Instead of just downvotes, would appreciate substantive comments on where my line of thinking is wrong. Thanks.
    • klyrs 6y ago
      > Thought experiment: imagine politician X tweeted "[i]n order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance" in response to a supposed war on Christmas or war on white people. I mean, if those things were actually happening, they'd be right. Otherwise it's just sealioning.
      • th0ma5 6y ago
        Yeah reverse racism isn't a thing, and I've heard Merry Christmas about 100x more than before that made up war, but now it just makes me nervous because it has become "a thing" and seems a loaded phrase now which is a real shame ... But yeah, none of that really related to you know, like, actual genocide.
        • dlivingston 6y ago
          Thomas, you're missing my point. My point isn't that those things are real: they obviously are not. My point is that a such a philosophical principle is only valid iff you are comfortable with that same principle being used by your political enemies against you.
• croon 6y ago
  They've already tried to paint BLM as a violent organization, so no new low surprises me.
  • Gollapalli 6y ago
    Does nobody remember the riots in 2015? BLM burning cities down? Stealing the mic from Bernie Sanders (of all people! The man literally marched with MLK) might ring a bell, if you remember that. BLM is very much a violent, radical organization.
    • josteink 6y ago
      A organisation founded on a lie/fake news too.
  • humanrebar 6y ago
    Who do you attribute the assassinations of police officers to? I guess you could argue that they weren't "organized", but it seems about as organized as right-wing terrorism like the shooting in Charleston (a.k.a. the fascism the anti-fascism is counteracting).
    • croon 6y ago
      I don't consider Christianity a violent organization despite the crusades and the inquisition, nor do I consider Islam a violent organization, or most other religions. I consider an organization on their tenets, under which Black Lives Matter is completely fine. KKK for example isn't. Right-wing terrorism has no redeeming kernel of decency, nor does it have a productive movement behind the (few?) bad actors.
      • a1369209993 6y ago
        > I consider an organization on their tenets No, you don't, or you would consider a religion that endorses literally infinite amounts of torture for anyone who disagrees with them to be violent. There's also its attitudes toward homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22), slavery (Exodus 21:7), murdering people for working on saturdays (or maybe sundays?) (Exodus 35:2), and touching pig remains (Leviticus 11:7), among others.
• roenxi 6y ago
  The experience with -ism words like socialism, communism, capitalism, libertarianism, etc, is that it is very hard to rally a group together that agrees on an actual definition of what they mean. So when you say 'From what I can tell antifa is anti-fascism' - what does that mean? America doesn't have any serious fascist groups - from what I can tell the ruling powers are decidedly corporatist and the first alternative philosophy seems to be light/moderate socialism. Second is maybe libertarianism. So who/what do you think the anti-fascists are opposing, and what would they espouse if they ever decide there are no fascists for them to define themselves against?
  • akiselev 6y ago
    > America doesn't have any serious fascist groups - from what I can tell the ruling powers are decidedly corporatist and the first alternative philosophy seems to be light/moderate socialism. Corporatism was inseparable from fascism in Italy and Germany. The exploitation of the profit motive is one of the primary reasons that so many people overlooked the atrocities. Fascism is the reason so many companies like IBM, Hugo Boss, L'Oreal, Koch Industries, Audi, Porsche, Adidas, BMW, and countless other extant corporations have dark histories from supporting the German extermination camps to utilizing their slave labor to build their products.
    • roenxi 6y ago
      Fair enough; but am I going to get disagreement when I say the brand of corporatism that currently holds power is pretty obviously not fascism? Quoting a few key sentences from Wikipedia: Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. [0] America doesn't have a serious lobby that believes in those things. There isn't a lobby that is serious about autarchy, there isn't a lobby calling for complete mobilisation and there isn't a lobby calling for a one party state. Apart from maybe the anti-facists I don't know of a lobby promoting political violence. The war and imperialism stuff is possibly true, but that isn't a new thing in American politics - America has been at war my entire lifetime and mostly in the same set of middle eastern countries. The only link between fascism and American politics is that Trump is popular in the Republican party and is happy to stand up and say that the globalism pendulum has swung too far. That is a tenuous link to fascist ideology. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
• Gollapalli 6y ago
  I remember back in 2015-2016 seeing Trump supporters get their heads get bashed in by antifa, often women and the elderly. I’ve hated antifa ever since. It’s not a new thing.
  • rudiv 6y ago
    Sorry, you saw women and children being violently assaulted firsthand? I hope you filed a police report. Antifa is definitely not a new thing, having been around in Europe since the rise of fascism in the first half of the 20th century.
    • jjgreen 6y ago
      Anti-Fascism is not new, but "antifa" is an invention of German Nazis in 2016, https://www.einprozent.de/hallesaale-steuergelder-fuer-extremistenvilla/ https://www.einprozent.de/hallesaale-steuergelder-fuer-extre... the name shortened and popularised by Breitbart https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2016/11/25/german-city-accused-of-funding-left-wing-extremists/ https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2016/11/25/german-city-accu...
      • rtz12 6y ago
        You are either lying or misinformed.
      • lippel82 6y ago
        No, Antifa is certainly not an "invention" from 2016. Growing up in the 90s in Germany, local Antifa groups were a very normal and common phenomenon.
      • DanBC 6y ago
        Wikipedia has an "antifa" page in 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa&dir=prev&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa&dir=prev&a... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa&type=revision&diff=25763654&oldid=25763556 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antifa&type=revis...
• Gibbon1 6y ago
  Antifa as a bogyman fits with the golden quote from Umberto Eco. "However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."
  • masnao 6y ago
    source http://interglacial.com/prose/Umberto_Eco_-_Eternal_Fascism.html http://interglacial.com/prose/Umberto_Eco_-_Eternal_Fascism....
• eddhead 6y ago
  For the GOP? Even Trevor Noah called them Vegan ISIS.
  • yipbub 6y ago
    Trevor Noah frequently makes fun of the side he finds reasonable way more than the side he disagrees with. He hosts a comedy show.
• rtz12 6y ago
  "Antifa" is not just "anti-fascism". It is short for "Antifaschistische Aktion" and is an umbrella term for loosely related groups of extremist Anarchists/Communists who share the same symbolism, rethoric and tactics. This is the definition of the word, no matter how much lefists try to whitewash the term and shift the overton window.
  • rtz12 6y ago
    Those are some quick downvotes although I literally wrote the definition of "Antifa" that you can find on Wikipedia. Some people really don't like the truth.
    • junke 6y ago
      Maybe because you are cherry-picking one definition, as-if what matters is what the term used to mean 75 years ago? Wikipedia points to many resources about Antifa movements, starting from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa And you only care to pick one narrow definition.
      • rtz12 6y ago
        > what matters is what the term used to mean 75 years ago? You got it backwards. The only definition from that page that is not related to some extremist marxist/anarchist movement is this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism And even that one uses the logo of the Antifaschistische Aktion. None of the other historic Antifascist movements described in that article are in any way relevant today. Today, "Antifa" is synonymous with "Antifaschistische Aktion".
        • junke 6y ago
          > The only definition from that page that is not related to some extremist marxist/anarchist movement is this article Why is it important for you to filter some definitions out? > And even that one uses the logo of the Antifaschistische Aktion. None of the other historic Antifascist movements described in that article are in any way relevant today. There are historical reasons that explain why Antifa caught up as a name, what logo activists use, etc. The abbreviation did not change, it still stands for "anti-fascim actions" today, or "Antifaschistische Aktion" in German. But you are saying Antifa is synonymous, ie. equal to "Antifaschistische Aktion", not for what the words mean, but in a literal way, to restrict the definition. No matter how the name came to life, the spirit behind it is broader that the name; nowadays it is a perfectly fine shortcut for anti-fascism. I mean, dictionaries tend to agree on this one: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/antifa https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/antifa https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Antifa https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Antifa https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antifa https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antifa
• z9e 6y ago
  If you’ve watched the ubiquitous video footage of protests where the left and right confront each other over the past 4 years, antifa is a clear group and aggressor. I have a friend in the “chapter” here, what loose categories have chapters? They treat it as a group/organization. They seem to be more organized than the Proud Boys, which plenty of people on the left deem a white supremacy organization. It’s funny to me that now they are a target, people are trying to play down their involvement in the political landscape the past few years. I’ve watched them shut down speech, aggressively block events from happening, attack people in MAGA hats, there is so much hate pouring out of them that they are more fascist than anti-fascist.
  • happytoexplain 6y ago
    And yet, viewing that same myriad of videos, I see the exact opposite: That more hatred, threats of violence, and actual violence comes from the alt-right / white nationalists / MAGA provocateurs (depending on the video), and antifa simply returns that antagonism. Of course there are examples both ways, but speaking in terms of averages here, it doesn't even seem like a close call. Antifa's reaction's aren't always right, but neither is belting a guy who spits on you in a bar, yet I can't blame the puncher, and the bias is obvious if somebody gets up on a pulpit and claims moral superiority over the despicable violent puncher who viciously attacked the poor innocent spitter. I wish everybody could be Ghandi in the face of the ever-growing tidal wave of hatred, mockery, and gleeful threats of violence, but it's unrealistic to lay the blame primarily at the target's feet when they fail to rise to that level.
    • z9e 6y ago
      I totally agree. I think the far right and far left groups that act in this manner are both despicable. These groups are each possessed by an ideology and their primitive nature makes them try to force their will on one another. I personally wish we can someday go back to diversity of thought without worrying about getting your head bashed in.