Although Antifa members fall into a range of ideological categories - “anarchists, communists, anarcho-syndicalists, Marxist black nationalists, and so on” (BLM is more purely communist) - the group has one overarching, unifying goal: to overthrow America. “Before May 20,” recalls Ngo in his splendid new book Unmasked: Inside Antifas’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, “I never thought antifa could ever come close to achieving this goal.” (He prefers to write “antifa” with a lower-case initial “a.”) Then he saw Antifa take over parts of U.S. cities, whose elected leaders refused to fight back.
Nothing surprising about this. They are sure they know more and better than the rest of us. So why should we count? The funny thing is discovering, when you meet them, how ignorant they are. No wonder they don’t want to engage in dialogue.
Oh Frank, please don't tell me you want to believe in Antifa. There's no Antifa per se. It's made for TV jargon. There was the movement in Portland to make peaceful leftists demonstrators look like they were looters and such. People are shooting at those demonstrators, not vice versa! It's like Never Trumpers, no one calls themselves that. It's a made up enemy to keep the TV shows profitable. So here's another journalist who is getting paid to redefine a bunch of groups to be, ahem, Antifa. One problem with b.s. like this is we get a violent insurrection and people want to blame imaginary Antifa once again, when it was those far "right" groups led by the nose with paranoia and lies. In Boston, there's a branch of Refuse Fascism, but that's not Antifa, and they are intellectual types against fascism, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Next time you're in Boston or Somerville, go talk to them. They love to engage in political conversation. The weird thing is that actual Antifa was opposed to Nazism and fascist communism in WWII. Anti-fascist. Who isn't antifascist?
ReplyDeleteMr Bowden, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I live in Portland, Oregon and – here at least (and in Seattle and the Bay Area, where I’ve also lived) – Antifa is for real. There is a long history of black bloc anarchist movements in the Pacific Northwest and NorCal and they admittedly pre-date the word Antifa, but the term has real purchase today. The organization is loose, but it’s there. They proudly answer to the name Antifa and they are seriously engaged in violence and destruction in my city. The protests that fired up during the tail end of the Trump presidency started peacefully, yes, but the moms and families and BLM folks were quickly pushed aside here by black bloc Antifa rioters who have laid waste to downtown businesses, destroyed and vandalized public and private property (including churches), set fire to police stations and union halls (with police inside), and terrorized families in their own neighborhoods. Last year they briefly succeeded in setting fire to the ground floor of the condo tower in which our mayor lived at the time – and where a dozen other families (many with children) also lived. Just last week they ran riot through downtown again and did another $500K in damage there. I haven’t read Andy Ngo’s book but I’ve appreciated his reporting on Antifa activity here over the past few years – reporting which as far as I have been able to verify has always been responsible and accurate, and for which he has vilified and physically assaulted. If things are better where you live, I’m glad for you. But if you sincerely believe Antifa is a fiction, well, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you believe that Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London is a song about a real werewolf. Blame all the mayhem on Antifa.
ReplyDeleteYou're seriously asking me to disbelieve my own eyes and experience? Honestly, you're the first person I've ever heard who claimed that Antifa was a fiction. No one living here, regardless of their politics, would do that. They'd be laughed at to suggest it. I'm afraid you're the one who's living in fantasyland.
ReplyDeleteSo someone came up to you and said, guess what, Graychin, I'm Antifa! Do you believe me? Want to join?
ReplyDeleteHere is a legitimate anti-fascism organization: Refuse Fasism. They exist, are active, have been for years, and are not going to infiltrate or contaminate peaceful demonstrations by the good BLM people or anyone else with violence.
ReplyDeleteHumans love to/need to categorise, but I prefer to be careful about labels (BLM/communist?). Nonetheless, I don't think we should dismiss Graychin's experience out of hand. Perhaps reading Ngo's book as well as digging around for further evidence would give a fuller, more nuanced,and hopefully balanced assessment.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing to balance. We do not balance fiction with reality to come up with truth. We call out the fiction for what it is, how it gets in the way of truth, in the case of George Floyd, how we end up with so many murderous, racist and poorly trained police officers. To take a ridiculous and made-up Antifa tangent is follow an anti-American TV show instead.
ReplyDeleteThere are no werewolves. There is no Antifa. Ever since Trump came up with the blame-Antifa idea, there've been gullible followers, and there's been an audience wanting to hate someone, even if imaginary. News channels that earn billion by riling people up this way.
It's also very political, a way of not listening to and discussing the important BLM issues, drowning them out instead, and getting people to hate the peaceful protesters for who they aren't, who they would never want to be.
Not only is BLM not going around turning people in the crowds they gather into communists, they have no communist message to give, and they want nothing to do with violence, as it would contaminate their message that black lives matter.