After the Election - Page 15

Valk, that's total bullshit! Stop drinking the kool-aide.

The fascists were the ones carrying the Nazi flag at Charlottesville. Suggest you go back and read what I said earlier about that confrontation, and the role the anti-fascists played in protecting people!

Edit: oookay, just realized the link to the above DOESN'T WORK for some reason!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/08/what-the-alt-left-was-actually-doing-in-charlottesville.html

[quote]

Brandy Daniels
Postdoctoral fellow at the Luce Project on Religion and Its Publics at UVA

It was basically impossible to miss the antifa for the group of us who were on the steps of Emancipation Park in an effort to block the Nazis and alt-righters from entering. Soon after we got to the steps and linked arms, a group of white supremacists—I’m guessing somewhere between 20-45 of them—came up with their shields and batons and bats and shoved through us. We tried not to break the line, but they got through some of us—it was terrifying, to say the least—shoving forcefully with their shields and knocking a few folks over. We strengthened our resolve and committed to not break the line again. Some of the anarchists and anti-fascist folks came up to us and asked why we let them through and asked what they could do to help. Rev. Osagyefo Sekou talked with them for a bit, explaining what we were doing and our stance and asking them to not provoke the Nazis. They agreed quickly and stood right in front of us, offering their help and protection.

Less than 10 minutes later, a much larger group of the Nazi alt-righters come barreling up. My memory is again murky on the details. (I was frankly focused on not bolting from the scene and/or not soiling myself—I know hyperbole is common in recounting stories like these, but I was legitimately very worried for my well-being and safety, so I was trying to remember the training I had acquired as well as, for resolve, to remember why I was standing there.) But it had to have been at least 100 of them this go around. I recall feeling like I was going to pass out and was thankful that I was locked arms with folks so that I wouldn’t fall to the ground before getting beaten. I knew that the five anarchists and antifa in front of us and the 20 or so of us were no match for the 100-plus of them, but at this point I wasn’t letting go.

At that point, more of the anarchists and antifa milling nearby saw the huge mob of the Nazis approach and stepped in. They were about 200-300 feet away from us and stepped between us (the clergy and faith leaders) and the Nazis. This enraged the Nazis, who indeed quickly responded violently. At this point, Sekou made a call that it was unsafe—it had gotten very violent very fast—and told us to disperse quickly.

While one obviously can’t objectively say what a kind of alternate reality or “sliding doors”–type situation would have been, one can hypothesize or theorize. Based on what was happening all around, the looks on their faces, the sheer number of them, and the weapons they were wielding, my hypothesis or theory is that had the antifa not stepped in, those of us standing on the steps would definitely have been injured, very likely gravely so. On Democracy Now, Cornel West, who was also in the line with us, said that he felt that the antifa saved his life. I didn’t roll my eyes at that statement or see it as an exaggeration—I saw it as a very reasonable hypothesis based on the facts we had.

Rebekah Menning
Charlottesville resident

I stood with a group of interfaith clergy and other people of faith in a nonviolent direct action meant to keep the white nationalists from entering the park to their hate rally. We had far fewer people holding the line than we had hoped for, and frankly, it wasn’t enough. No police officers in sight (that I could see from where I stood), and we were prepared to be beaten to a bloody pulp to show that while the state permitted white nationalists to rally in hate, in the many names of God, we did not. But we didn’t have to because the anarchists and anti-fascists got to them before they could get to us. I’ve never felt more grateful and more ashamed at the same time. The antifa were like angels to me in that moment.

Mary Esselman
Writer

My 13-year-old son and I stood by ourselves on the corner down the street from the synagogue, in front of the Catholic Church, trying to walk back home but interrupted by a stream of white extremist marchers, with their signs and firearms and crazy regalia. I felt like an idiot but tried to look each in the eye and said, “Peace,” and “Peace be with you,” with as much sincerity as I had in me, trying to reach some humanity in them, and they jeered and mocked me, called me what you might imagine, told my son, Luke, that his mom was a this and a that. And now I learn that my son and labradoodle and I, and our little “peace be with you”s are apparently “alt-left.”

Our path home was blocked by them, and we had no choice but to face them. Just us alone on that street corner, and all of them menacing, streaming past us on their way to the rally. Later, when we were a block away from where everyone was clashing and considering going to the front steps of the public library, there was a big line of white supremacists, the leader wearing some kind of yellow spiked helmet, and as they tromped toward the rally, these lovely older women standing beside us wearing sky blue T-shirts that said “Quaker” kind of trotted alongside them gently, holding signs that said “Love.” Alt-left for sure. I was armed with my iPhone and my dog’s leash. Luke was armed with his acne and hormones.

Rev. Seth Wispelwey
Directing minister of Restoration Village Arts and consulting organizer for Congregate C’ville

I am a pastor in Charlottesville, and antifa saved my life twice on Saturday. Indeed, they saved many lives from psychological and physical violence—I believe the body count could have been much worse, as hard as that is to believe. Thankfully, we had robust community defense standing up to white supremacist violence this past weekend. Incredibly brave students held space at the University of Virginia and stared down a torch-lit mob that vastly outnumbered them on Friday night. On Saturday, battalions of anti-fascist protesters came together on my city’s streets to thwart the tide of men carrying weapons, shields, and Trump flags and sporting MAGA hats and Hitler salutes and waving Nazi flags and the pro-slavery “stars and bars.”

Out of my faith calling, I feel led to pursue disciplined, nonviolent direct action and witness. I helped lead a group of clergy who were trained and committed to the same work: to hold space on the frontline of the park where the rally was to be held. And then some of us tried to take the steps to one of the entrances. God is not OK with white supremacy, and God is on the side of all those it tries to dehumanize. We feel a responsibility to visibly, bodily show our solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized.[/quote]

 

Sunsilver
i come from family which on maternal side was pretty big. they lived through horrors of war time, many family members was involved in resistance movement during german occupation and after 1945 against russian communists. fact that after russian occupation size of family shrink in half. for those red antifascist-socialists gender or age wasn't an hindrance to shot all family, if just man of family was suspected to be involved in resistance.
so keep your "that's total bullshit!" for yourself together with your imaginary marxist paradise. you also free to gain personal experience. no one obstruct your right to immigrate to North Korea, Cuba, China, Russia and try taste of such paradise personally.

Valk, seriously, have you read ANYTHING I've said?

I am not a communist. I do not support Communism.

Canada is not a communist country.

Antifa stands for 'anti-fascist' It is NOT an organized movement, and has no real leadership. It is just people who hate Nazis and white supremacists, like the ones that were marching at Charlottesville. http://snopes.com/news/2020/06/09/what-or-who-is-antifa/

Some very brave people, decidated to non-violent protest agains white supremacy would have been beaten to a pulp at Charelottesville if Antifa hadn't helped them.

[waits for Valk to say Snopes is part of the corrupt liberal media, and lies through its teeth...]

From the Snopes article, but not written by them:

P.S. - that guy with the guitar that says 'This machine kills Fascists' is the singer who wrote 'This Land Is Your Land'. 

The movement called “antifa” gets its name from a short form of “anti-fascist,” which is about the only thing its members agree on.

President Donald Trump and some far-right activists and militants have claimed antifa is allegedly conspiring to foment violence amid the protests sweeping the U.S. In my forthcoming book, “American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism,” I describe antifa as a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use nonviolent methods to achieve their ends.

Their goal is to resist the spread of fascism. That word can be an inexact term, but generally antifa activists see fascism as the violent enactment and enforcement of biological and social inequalities between people.

The modern-day anti-fascist movement in the United States, including antifa, grew out of the Anti-Racist Action Network, a decentralized activist movement resisting racist skinhead subcultures and public demonstrations by neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan organizations in the 1980s and 1990s.

Anti-fascists’ objections aren’t simply that they disagree with fascists. Their problems with fascism are much more fundamental.

Personal and collective self-defense

The arts have long been a part of anti-fascist efforts, including by American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in the 1940s.
Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and Sun/Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

 

 

My own research has found that a significant proportion of anti-fascists are women, people of color, members of LGBTQ communities, or otherwise have some characteristics fascists seek to control or eliminate.

These anti-fascists, therefore, often see fascists as a threat to their personal existence, and their physical and emotional well-being – as well as presenting threats of violence or vandalism to their communities and shared gathering spaces. They perceive their opposition as very much in personal and collective self-defense.

Because opposing fascism is a viewpoint rather than a formal organization, people’s actions vary widely. Informal or everyday anti-fascism can include speaking out against bigotry, standing up for victims of fascist harassment or confronting fascists in public places. Generally, these are relatively spontaneous actions that happen when anti-fascists encounter fascism in the normal course of their regular lives.

There are more militant anti-fascists, too, who mostly engage in non-militant activism but are willing, at times, to use more confrontational tactics. These people are more open to counterprotesting, sabotage and the use of force, which includes acts of violence.

The varied and decentralized nature of anti-fascist efforts means it includes virtually anyone who opposes violent enforcement of social inequalities to engage in activism. A diverse range of participants and tactics falls under the umbrella of a broad effort to stop fascism.

Stanislav Vysotsky, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

But of course, to the narrow-minded conservative way of thinking, anything not conservative HAS to be communist - there's no middle ground, where people can have their health care paid for by the government, so a major illness doesn't cause them to go bankrupt... [rolls eyes]

I was diagnosed with breast cancer just over a year ago. My friends in the U.S.A. shake their heads in wonder when I tell them the most expensive part of my treatment has been parking at the hospital. Even THAT was free, during the initial pandemic lockdown! 

Sunsilver, I’m afraid you’re the one who’s been drinking kool-aid. Besides failing to address the points I have brought up (I guess beating people up, raping kids, and killing them aren’t worth comment?), you’ve decided to cite the world-renowned Slate, a magazine better known for tongue-in-cheek commentary than actual reporting. Even its former editor-in-chief, Julia Turner, admits that when it comes to Slate, “witty and entertaining writing” comes before being “a breaking news source” (Wikipedia entry for “Slate (magazine)”). For an intellectual so deeply concerned about valid sources, you should really set your own bar higher than pop-culture magazines. But even if we assume that the Slate article is accurate (I checked a few other sources—yeah, the Charlottesville gathering was disgusting, and a bunch of people got hurt, and one was even killed), you’re using a single event to make a sweeping statement about the state of the entire country. No one in their right mind pretends that violent, xenophobic skinheads aren’t a problem—a dangerous one, even—in the U.S. But pretending that violence is a purely right-wing phenomenon and overlooking the countless deaths at the hands of the left is more than dishonest. It’s misleading and dangerous. Sunsilver, how can you compare that one incident to the hundreds of riots that are destroying our country’s capitals? People are getting hurt. Many are dying. Businesses are being destroyed. ABC news, hardly an alt-right chem trail sympathizer, reported in July that police officer deaths have jumped 28% since the George Floyd riots started in May (https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-officers-killed-surge-28-year-point-civil/story?id=71773405). And it’s not just police officers—back in June, a Forbes article was reporting that “at least 19 people—a majority of whom are black”—had died in the mayhem (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/?sh=346a713e4de4). Are you really going to overlook these deaths—totally unnecessary deaths built on hate and fear-mongering—only to pretend that Southern hucksters are the greatest “fascist” crisis that America has ever known? I’m wholeheartedly ready to condemn the wrong on both sides—neo-Nazis are nasty people, and it’s past time that Confederates move on from their antebellum pipe dreams—but if we’re approaching the subject with even an ounce of respect, we need to be honest about who’s doing what. As far as I know, right-wing extremism still hasn’t hurt nearly as many people as left-wing radicals. If you have any clear evidence (not a one-off event) that says otherwise, please do share, and I’ll be glad to condemn them in the blink of an eye. One last point: when I brought up how people’s lives are ruined for supporting the president, you countered that Trump has tossed various staff members during his term. First of all, that’s a faulty analogy: ambassadors, FBI heads, and European Affairs directors are not only subject to replacement by the next president, but are actually juggled in and out of the unofficial presidential Cabinet all the time. On the other hand, normal, working people build their lives around their one career, so firing them for purely political convenience is completely unacceptable. We can question Trump’s replacements and judgment all we want, but it’s not right to compare his cycling of government bureaucrats with Big Business’s canceling of people’s jobs and lives. Unless this conversation becomes less of a shouting match and more of a productive exchange, this marks my last post on this thread.
PS I made an error in my original post. This is the edited version.

 

Sunsilver

you right, it's just bunch of peaceful but bored housewives and retired moms entertaining themselves and who do not even know such word marxism and meaning behind it.
about century ago Lenin call type of people with mentality like your an "useful idiots" and emphisised an importance to drawn them on side of communist as a tool to be used for own agenda.

Valk, would like to know where these pictures were taken, and what this flag-waving group calls themselves. You can't just post something like this and say they are Antifa.

I've seen videos that were supposed to show Muslims rioting in the United States. Turned out it was FRENCH cab drivers rioting over the government allowing an Uber-type service to operate in their area.

Need something more concrete, please. No, I am not accusing you of lying, just need more facts, please.

Crazystyna, most of what I posted from Slate are ACTUAL INTERVIEWS with people who were present. No matter what Slate's political slant is they DID NOT make up the words these people said. And I'm getting extremely tired of being told something is 'fake news' just because it comes from a source that's not on YOUR side of the political spectrum.

Here's how Slate checks out: Overall, we rate Slate, moderately Left Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that favor the left and High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a reasonable fact check record.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/slate/

As for the video posted of the woman screaming, and saying she wants your children raped, etc. would like to know where and when this took place, please. Who was she? Why do you assume she's 'antifa' and not some drug-addled crazy?

I stopped following the protests and rioting in the States because I was getting burned out with it all. But from what I have heard, there has been very bad behaviour on all sides. I know there was looting, burning and destruction of property by BLM protesters. On the other side, the unmarked 'police' in Portland were throwing random people into vehicles and taking them away. Totally peaceful protesters were being pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets for no reason. And yes, I have that as an eyewitness report from someone I trust. This behaviour was seen by a doctor, who was there to observe and help out. He was not part of the protest, so had no personal bias.

Okay, a little bit of digging found this: http://https://medium.com/annie-lab/misleading-photo-of-ussr-flag-waving-protestors-not-related-to-this-years-blm-movement-8d1a8d7c1f64

Some members of the antifa movement do have a flag: it's the one to the left of the Soviet flag in the second last picture.

That's all I can do for the moment. This was supposedly the Portland protest.

Going to bed!

Hello everyone !!

Has anyone seen or heard from Slamdunk lately?

I was just wondering with all that's going on with the Police and all. I think of him often. Hope all is well.

Interesting times we live.

Stay healthy.

He is no longer a member here and hasn't been for years!

Sunsilver

did search "images" on word "antifa".

you're correct. albeit there are make-believe of spontaneity and not centralization of this movement, curiously enough they do have own logotype, consisting two flags, black one represent anarchist ideology and red are symbol of marxsist-communist movement worldwide.
also they practices for action very distinguishable dress code - black dress, mandatory mask to hide face, heavy boots and elements of some sort of equipment resembling military styling irregardless of geographical location.