So you believe neither side has the moral high ground?
No, that's not what I believe.
It amazes me that I have to continuously spell it out: Racism bad. Sexism bad. Bigotry bad. Prejudice bad. Mob violence bad. Full stop.
When one group of prejudiced zealots oppose another group of prejudiced zealots, they will feed into each other in a cycle and prop each other up. This is the nature of the blood feud. This happens regardless of one side being worse than the other. And both of these sides both see themselves as the good guys, no matter how demented their thinking may be. And speaking of these as sides is itself a problem, because usually the majority isn't for either violent zealot, but for sanity, peace and civil discussion.
This is rank inanity and it stinks to high heaven. What exactly are antifa zealously prejudiced against? The KKK?
Let's cut to the chase here. The only reason you and dismal (and Jason, and whoever else wants to chip in their support for the wrong side of history) are so fixated on turning a grassroots resistance movement with no central ideology into some cabal of savages is because somewhere along the way, you lost the capacity to recognize a problem that liberal institutions of governance are unequipped to solve. Giving antifa the benefit of the doubt would force you to concede that true power resides in the hands of ordinary people taking direct action in response to existential threats on their own terms, rather than technocratic elites--whether they be politicians or CEOs--deciding on our behalf when enough is enough. It's not about violence, otherwise you wouldn't rush to the defense of cops, military personnel, insurance companies, corporations, bureaucrats, and YES, NAZIS, when they inflict incredible violence on us all as a civilization with impunity. Yours is a position impossible to falsify: it will never be the case that fascism is an actual threat, and even if it were, it will never be the case that rational discussion is inadequate to stem the tide.
Despite history providing zero examples of ascendant fascism being defeated by civility, and
ample examples of fascism becoming a worldwide crisis due to nobody taking it seriously in its early phases... which, once again, could not possibly be what's happening now, and even if it were, this time we'll be okay as long as we elect smart people to rule us, etc. What you present as an aversion to violence in all forms is actually a real disdain for the working class, the poor, and anybody who has been left behind by the same system now being taken over by Pepe the Frog and his clown brigade of race realists. They are supposed to get out of the way while the best and brightest in DC and Wall Street solve all their problems for them through legislation and compromise. Or just consult the constitution, and maybe something something free market, while their neighborhoods are overrun by far-right instigators with guns and bombs. If they start having ideas about autonomous mobilization, that would mean social challenges aren't best tackled by a small minority in possession of all the merit, or all the property. That's what's actually going on here, in this thread and in every disingenuous pearl-clutching over milkshakes.