Anti-fascist Radicals: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

Anti-fascist radicals: Liberals don’t realize the serious danger of the alt-right

Excerpts:

If it is true that the civic nationalism of Trump and his top strategist Steve Bannon are helping to lay the groundwork for a more radical right — intentionally or otherwise — then their self-described opponents on the left need to do more than wear safety pins and post Facebook denunciations of the president they didn’t vote for say the antifa advocates.

As Natasha Lennard, a former staff writer for Salon, wrote earlier this year for the Nation that coming to such a realization is difficult for many people on the left. Despite their posture of desiring radical change, most leftists are actually conservative in a certain sense:

Liberals cling to institutions: They begged to no avail for faithless electors, they see “evisceration” in a friendly late-night talk-show debate, they put faith in investigations and justice with regards to Russian interference and business conflicts of interest. They grasp at hypotheticals about who could have won, were things not as they in fact are. For political subjects so tied to the mythos of Reason, it is liberals who now seem deranged.
...
“Liberalism [has] proven itself unable to prevent the rise of fascism over and over again,” the activists wrote. “By the time liberals are comfortable with cracking down on fascism, it’s almost always too late. Antifa wants to make sure that no roots can take hold; that every attempt to organize and recruit for the fascist agenda is physically confronted and shut down.”
...
The world the Alt-Right wants is not that much different from the one we live in now, just one where the class, gender, and racial divisions are more crystallized.

Anarchists, who fight for a world where power is horizontally organized and political power is taken out of the hands of a centralized State and decentralized into human communities, where people don’t work for wages but instead human labor is put towards need, and where industrial production is destroyed in favor of sustainability — is such a radical vision, and one that truly seeks to liberate all poor and working-people from the sinking Titanic that we now currently inhabit, most journalists don’t want to touch it.
...
Fascists are only attempting to express their views “peacefully” in order to lay the groundwork for violent activity. Because fascists require a veneer of social legitimacy to be able to carry out their program, giving them a platform to speak opens the door to their being able to do physical harm to people. Public speech promoting ideologies of hate, whether or not you consider it violent on its own, always complements and correlates with violent actions. By affiliating themselves with movements and ideologies based on oppression and genocide, fascists show their intention to carry on these legacies of violence — but only if they can develop a base of support.


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To be honest, up until this weekend I was not aware of an organized Anti-fascist group. I had assumed the term antifa was just another term those on the Right derided anti-Trumpers, many of whom like myself fear this president has strong authoritarian tendencies.

This weekend's violence in Charlottesville, coupled with Trump's weak denouncement, may be heralding in the beginning of a very turbulent period for America. I admit, I abhor violence, but I also realize even after 50 years of the Civil Rights movement, we seem to be slipping backwards. Trump's election was not a correction in so much as an aberration, and being he has done little, even with this tragedy, to bring us together, means we are in for some dark times ahead.

I certainly do not want to resort to the violence of Antifa, but I also cannot fathom surrendering even slightly to more polarization on race, gender, or class issues. The divisions we fixate on and the false associations we make will be our downfall.

Is there an alternative path to the one we are on now?

And BTW, please do READ the article...

 

Respecting the commander in chief, not heeding the words of supremacists or antifa monsters, and restoring the natural political discourse that has been a part of our nation for the other 44 Presidents. It's as simple, and as EASY as that. Letting Mueller's investigation take its natural course, Congress should end their 'investigations' as little more than a weapon against the President.

The moment the President is given the SLIGHTEST amount of respect and dignity, we can move on. The moment we get rid of both groups from our lives, the better.

The President can do little about the behavior of the citizenry OR of Congress. They, of such little virtue must find virtue of their own.

 

Mutual respect is a good place to start. "Civil rights" ... ironic how the ephasis is placed on civility? Simultaneous, confrontational demonstrations are not conducive to civility. Arson, and property destruction and now murder are not acts of civil disobedience. Play nice, and register to vote.

 

Thank GOD, there's someone else in this country who has not age-regressed since Trump became President lol. The political dialogue in this country today is like that of a couple of kids in a sandbox. But no one is prepared to be an adult.

 

How do you define "respect" for a 70 year old man who tweets like a teenie bopper on a Saturday night to attack his perceived enemies?

 

It's....this simple: Ignore the tweets. Seriously, IGNORE THEM. He's proven he's not going to stop it. Are you going to let that stop you from acting like an adult? Whatever happened to "be the bigger man"(or woman)? We have ALL equally failed to rise to the occasion. All of us, with no exception.

Trump could have spoke more forcefully(not like he hadn't in the past though), but it doesn't matter. For those against the President they would plausibly deny anything he's done, or would do. The President's statements on love and empathy literally FLEW past the entire nation, because he didn't utter a few words.

As if, adding those words would somehow redirect them back to the love and empathy part(I actually doubt it, btw.) The politics of children, is gonna destroy the US. And it's beyond Trump's term. I can't see proper etiquette possibly being restored, if this childishness is deemed acceptable.

 

OK. It is the digital age. I'm not delving into tweets ... a lot have been regretable. But yes, the presidency, the office, needs to command respect. That said, this Charlottesville crisis was completely manufactured. This fringe group would have stomped around the monument and gone home. Politically, they'd have achieved nothing. City officials will decide the monuments fate, and out of town protesters, right or left, aren't going to make that decision for them. It's a mistake to elevate these fringe groups. Why even acknowledge them? Anyone who thinks these guys are a threat, is paranoid.

 

It's not hard to respect people. If you disrespect the president, that doesn't affect him. It affects you.

It's not hard to show respect. Just love your enemies and remain humble.

Loving your enemies doesn't mean you have no enemies. It means you don't take delight in defeating them--that's what hate does. Hate turns people into, not democrats and republicans bickering over tax law, but something more akin to the Capulets and the Montagues in Romeo and Juliet. How did that turn out for either side? Also, hate is worthless. It doesn't affect your opponent. It affects you--it clouds your judgment, makes you incapable of objectivity, causes you to exaggerate the faults of your opponent while being blind to your own. It's a cancer. Oh, and I'm talking about "HATE" as it is defined in the dictionary. Some people consider "hate speech" anything they disagree with, anything that could be considered a "micro-aggression."

Humbleness is also important. it enables one to exercise a bit of self-skepticism. The Greeks wrote almost all their tragic plays about the flaw of Hubris, which is the attitude of "I am right. I KNOW it!" The Greeks felt that only a fool thinks this way. I know sometimes it feels that way, and we feel like everything we believe is as clear and obvious as two-plus-two-equals-four and that there is a mountain of evidence for what we believe and none for what our opponents believe. Guess what. Our opponents feel the same way, and we would do well to remember we are fallible. The alternative is to be blind.

 

Isaiah 11:6 New King James Version ... And a little child shall lead them. . . .

 

What happened in Charlottesville? Easy assorted groups of haters showed up, and hate broke out which was followed by violence. Pardon me but that is the reality. Hate begets hate, Antifa is no better morally than the people they condemned and attacked simply because they attacked them physically. You cannot fight hate with hate. You cannot achieve victory over haters by hating them or denying them the same free speech rights every one else expects. Antifa did more to legitimize those scum by attacking them than anything Trump did by his failure to immediately single them out, not only that they gave them a bunch of free publicity. Good job Antifa, you went and wrestled with the pig. Now you are both dirty. Good luck trying to get clean.

 

Sounds a lot like my uncle.

Especially if someone gets him a bottle.

He's batshit crazy, but the family all loves & respects him.

 

Ya only SOME people should have free speech eh?

 

It's an official record of the president. Are we supposed to ignore that?

 

Great job of attempting to apologize for the abhorrent racist behavior of the White Supremacists, neo-Nazis and KKK.

(That led to the death of an innocent person and 2 law enforcement officer in Charlottesville.)

Are you seeking a job in the Trump Administration?

 

Just like Trump did with Obama? The whole birther thing, was that respectful to the presidency?

 

Great job in absolutely ignoring the other radical faction Antifa.

 

After what the right-wing did to President Obama during his 2 years, we're going to have to say no thanks to the right's offer to take it up the ass for the good of the country. Not that we don't want good for the country, it's just after 20-30 years of the right-wing's constant attacks, degradation, total disrespect, and general sliminess, I personally don't feel that the right-wing is capable of standing by any ceasefire so they will have to make the first steps. It also doesn't help to cry for respect for a "president" who was a figurehead in the birther movement.

 

Did they drive a car through a crowd?

Were they trying to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma?

 

You must have missed this part from my OP:

 

I have read your article.

Do you condemn antiFA, and their tactics?

 

So all of the derision is early 2020 campaign rhetoric?

 

No, but they showed up with weapons and committed violent acts just like the white nationalists. BTW if it were an antifa that drove a car into the white nationalists wanna bet some would be celebrating? Yeah and they'd say he was just a nutbag.

Deflection ignored.

 

My answer is in the OP.

 

What you got to say about these, @toddwv?

 

Trump started the birther stuff in 2008.

Trump is already running for reelection, or have you not been paying attention?