J842P
Veteran Member
Antifa seems to me to be exactly like the sort of ‘loose’ movement that will have quite a wide range of views and approaches within it, under the umbrella term. As such there will be relative moderates and relative extremists.Antifa does not exist and is not part of the protest/riots. And here's an interview: Antifa Supporter On How People Misunderstand The Movement
isn't the below from the NPR article exactly what everyone keeps saying in these threads? they can't be a terrorist organization if they aren't an organization, right?
MACAULEY: Antifascism is more like a set of practices and a philosophy than it is an organization. No, actually, we don't have any kind of, like, big, giant hierarchy. It comes from your heart. It comes from your sense of justice. That's real. That's what's real.
individual terrorists who happen to be fighting against fascism, they think.
She does make a pretty good point at the end:
MACAULEY: Donald Trump absolutely would love to see all of us in jail. He would love to see all of us political refugees in another country or persecuted into silence. And if you can start with a group like antifa that is actually, like, not very well-organized or anything like that, well, you can label everyone antifa.
Given institutional America’s appalling record of responding to anything even slightly ‘left’ with anything other than over-reaction, disinformation, misinformation and manipulation, I tend to assume that I’m seeing reruns of versions of or partial analogies with McCarthyism a lot of the time.
Antifa is a distraction, but it does exist and its ideas are definitely radical. It is disingenuous to claim that to be a part of "antifa" you merely have to be "against fascism". Its modern incarnation came about in the late 80s, early 90s, around the time of German reunification. It is a militant alliance of anarchists and communists formed against fascists. Hence the Black/Red flags, and the Black Bloc tactics. The original antifa incarnation was in the 1930s and were part of the German communist party. Of course, the late-century manifestation draws inspiration from the early-century manifestation. And of course, it is loosely associated, especially across countries, and there are different groups with different particulars about their thoughts. And of course, you can say there are relative moderates and relative extremists, you can say that about pretty much any political group, but antifa as far-left, anti-capitalist, and militant.
And of course, the right in America uses it as a bogeyman. In the US, you'll generally find a contingent among the critical theorists on university campuses, but outside that, there isn't a huge presence.
But they still exist, and in places like the San Francisco Bay Area, or Seattle, they can be quite large and people are quite open about it, so I think it is counterproductive when people on the left come off as claiming like they don't exist at all.