Antifa Calls for Revolution

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by me again, Aug 25, 2017.

Loading...
  1. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    "You guys"? That's racist. :lame:

    White supremacists are terrible people, but they are also utterly incompetent and next to powerless in the United States. Unless their numbers start to substantially grow again, I'm not so worried about them. There will always be racists and it will always be a going concern for the rest of society to deal with them in proportion to their actual level of threat.

    The consequences of overstating the threat should be evident in our current political climate, where swarms of people feel justified to lash out violently against people with whom they do not see eye-to-eye politically and socially. Everyone is a Nazi, and Nazis deserve to be punched. :banghead:
     
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I haven't seen any skinheads attacking people on public streets, throwing urine bottles at police, stabbing police horses, and destroying property in the US lately.

    Antifa? PLENTY of that.
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    NRA members and other conservative lawful gun owners currently possess over 300 million firearms and literally countless of trillions of rounds of ammunition. If they were a national security problem, you'd know it by know, believe that.

    The problem with that strategy is the members of Antifa themselves. Besides being avowed members of a group that advocates both violence and the overthrow of the government (both automatic diaqualifiers for gun ownership), every member I've seen who's been arrested already has a lengthy criminal record. Again, automatic disqualification for gun ownership.

    Who would you rather have move-in next door to you, an NRA member of an Antifa member?
     
  4. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

  5. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    This applies to "Antifa" in spades. They're the margin of a margin.
     
  6. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Sure it's not a function of what web sites you like to frequent?

    LMGTFY
     
  7. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Depends on who you ask, doesn't it? Besides, problems always stem from the radical fringe - and, by extension, it's hard not to worry at least a bit about fringes of a group that is THIS heavily armed. And can potentially command some sympathy among the law enforcement. You know, like the original KKK was.

    I was talking more as an alternative to Antifa membership for left-leaning, young people. More productive alternative. It's more effective and realistic, if harder, to effect incremental change by legitimate work within the existing system. It's a professed Hillary Rodham doctrine, btw.

    Of course, this would not be realistic if law enforcement was corrupt to the core. Which happens in some countries, but is not the case in US.

    As for most Antifa members, I have a hunch that their alternative would be joining a white supremacist group. They just want an ideological "excuse" to harass people. Some grow out of this and pursue something less pointless. I've read a glowing article focusing on former members of rival soccer hooligan groups: they were supporting different clubs, and one self-identified as Antifa, while another - as Skinhead (to have a better excuse to beat each other up). That was in Kyiv, Ukraine; according to the article, these guys, in significant numbers, joined Kyiv-1 volunteer battalion within the nation's armed forces and are fighting Russian invaders in the East, shoulder to shoulder. The need to defend the country against a real enemy extinguished fake animosity.

    Similarly, I've met a guy, an undergrad, while at Florida State. He was an ethnically Russian immigrant from East Ukraine. As a youth, he joined a far-right Ukrainian nationalist group (for guys from the old country - UNA-UNSO); they were essentially walking around the streets and mugged anyone not able to pronounce a couple of especially tricky Ukrainian shibboleths. In all likelihood, there was also a local Antifa gang of teens "devoted" to harassing guys suspected of sympathy to that cause: in a mostly Russophone region, that could be as simple as talking with a different regional accent - or in Ukrainian. Well, he moved to US with his mother in his late teens and ended up joining the Marines; he was at FSU on GI Bill. After graduation, he got back as a commissioned officer and, last I've heard, was stationed in one of the U. S. embassies. One of the nicest guys I knew. Of course, it's likely that a good portion of his "comrades" (and "Antifa" counterparts) used this as a springboard to an exciting career in professional petty crime - or, in that time and place and barring formal criminal record - joined the police. Which was a lot like another gang that eventually got rid of the competition.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 28, 2017
  8. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    As of yet, no one has a reliable count of how many of them there are. However, it is clear that they are growing both in number and in mobilization. Their deluded understanding of reality coupled with their will to act make them a worrisome trend.

    Of course, I could be wrong in my worry. Antifa could fizzle out in a year or so and we'll all move on like it never happened. At the same time, white supremacy might just be on the rise after all and I'll have to have a contingency plan for when Molotov cocktails are thrown through my windows.

    Maybe. However, that's not the current observable trend. Not even close to it.
     
  9. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Antifa are invariably paid-for and are transported from location-to-location nationwide, depending on where their planned protests are to be staged. It's primarily the same paid-for people (over and over). Most of them are not grassroots in origin.
     
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    This is much easier explained by assuming someone wants to promote these guys.

    C'mon. Few years back, "New Black Panthers Party" was an "observable trend". Where are they now? In all likelihood, the same place they always were. It was Bill Maher, I think, who observed that all that coverage was accompanied by a photo with the same three guys on it - so "three" is the most reliable estimate of the strength of that "growing movement". Maybe at some point they even had, like, seven "panthers".
     
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Err... grassroots "Antifa" groups definitely exist on the left margins, as a violent youth subculture, in many countries. But you may well be right that most of the recent violence is committed by a hired group of thugs posing as "Antifa". It would explain why the relatively low-key 1980s phenomenon is suddenly in the news. In that case, the number of them is, what? between 10 and 30? Some "threat".

    Obvious interpretation is that someone wants to portray the "left wing threat" as bigger than it is. I wonder who and why.
     
  12. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I use that same argument on people who are afraid of Muslims, since there are roughly one million of them living in the U.S. (To be clear, Bruce, I'm not passive-aggressively accusing you of Islamophobia, I only mention it because the similarity of argument made my ears perk up in general.)

    The NRA member, hands down.
     
  14. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Paid Antifa Recruits

    Many of the Antifa in the pic look like a mixture between (1) unshaven and unkempt homeless people and (2) drug abusers or addicts (3) who were recruited from the streets to be violent protestors:

    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.809372.1503916717!/image/3918112775.JPG_gen/derivatives/headline_857x482/3918112775.JPG

    Are the "recruited Antifa" being bused from protest-to-protest? They are "protest crashers" who bring violence to otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

    Who is paying the Antifa recruits?
     
  15. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    It's not a fair comparison, isn't it: a group of extremists vs. a legal membership group. So, yeah, technically, an NRA member - but it is an unfair comparison.

    For the record, I know only one real gun enthusiast (as such - maybe others own guns but didn't share that interest with me). A retired Army Lt. Colonel whose librarian wife met my wife while proctoring her LSU exams. He took us to a gun range once. He'd make a great neighbour, although I suspect we would not vote the same way, ever.
     
  16. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

  17. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    To be fair, the look on that picture is not far from what I expect a far-left activist to look like... so proves nothing either way.

    But I like your suggestion that this group is employed by someone. Seeing how the best they achieve so far is discrediting the left, it's not far fetched to assume that's the actual goal. In other words, the most visible and stupid acts may well be false flag.

    BTW, a Ukrainian term for a thug hired in large numbers to intimidate political opposition is "titushka", after one Alexander Titushko, a random weightlifting enthusiast employed in this capacity around the time of first Maidan in 2004. He was no different from others of his kind - just had a misfortune of being photographed and identified. Reportedly he regrets his actions at the time.
     
  18. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    If this is a legitimate anti-Trump group, I must say their tactic is extremely stupid. Very, very stupid. But then again, fringe on either flank is not the place to find great thinkers, so who knows, maybe they're legit - if counterproductive.

    On the other hand, the current Left is not in business of forming heavily armed "militia" groups - unlike self-proclaimed Conservatives.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 29, 2017
  19. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Hell, after militia groups were demonstrably more useful for keeping the peace in Charlottesville than the police were, even The Guardian isn't mischaracterizing them the way you are.
     
  20. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Now you're trying to compare the NRA to the KKK? Are you freaking serious?

    The very first thing the media does after a mass shooting is check to see if the perpetrator is an NRA member. Care to guess how many have actually been NRA members?
     

Share This Page