https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/part-one-the-birth-of-american-fascism.htm https://www.behindthebastards.com/podcasts/part-two-the-birth-of-american-fascism.htm Just for you crash5179, not that I think for a second you'll listen.
The extremes people will go to create a narrative that Antifa is as large of a problem as white nationalism and supremacy in the US is comedic and disgusting.
My reply had nothing to do with masks. It was in regards to your comment of what law enforcement should or shouldn’t allow. The point is that the goal is to push people to believe new police enforcement is justified.
But not at all surprising. It’s a convenient enemy to create to seize more political power. Could you imagine the outrage if Obama or Hillary were in office and the left was pushing the narrative through Social media and other outlets that the Tea Party or some other right wing activist group is a terrorist organization and new policing is required? And let’s face it... the Tea Party gained actual power through mobilization. There are currently zero Antifa affiliates within any faction of our government or military. I’m pretty damn liberal and I cannot even find who the hell these people are that apparently exist. Nobody on the left cares about Antifa as an organization. I wish they’d go away. They care about Antifa the boogeyman who is used as a foil to justify seizing more policing power on the right for political gain.
All hate groups are a problem. Not sure how that is even remotely in question but apparently it is to some people. I blocked a bunch of posters about an hour ago because I just came to the conclusion that anyone that spends that much effort trying to trivialize and defend terroristic attacks are just bad people. Racially biased hate groups are evil. I’m not sure how many times I need to repeat that in this thread. For some reason people continue to bring up as if I’ve taken sides between racial biased hate groups vs politically biased hate groups but that is not the case. Some have been around longer and done more bad things but all are all evil. It’s not about who is the least evil of the two sets of groups. It feels like arguing about who is more evil, which of course I’m not doing. I’m saying they are all evil and you should have no moral issues agreeing with that. I don’t see evidence of a lot of organized public white nationalist activities today. Please don’t confuse that with me saying they have gone away or that they are not a problem. White Nationalists and White Supremacists as well as Neo Nazi’s are considered out casts in both political parties. When there are public white nationalist activities they usually draw enough white nationalists to fill up a Volkswagen. Having said that we should continue to denounce them when ever they raise their heads. They are evil groups. What makes ANTIFA so dangerous today is that they are publicly defended and legitimized by the extreme left, which has become the leaders of the Democratic Party. We see public ANTIFA activities fairly regularly across the nation in Portland, Seattle, LA, Chicago, NY and other places. Although they call themselves Anti Fascists, they are actually exercising fascism when they use force and terror to try and shut down speech of people who’s views they do not agree with. I’m not arguing that the KKK, Neo Nazis etc... don’t have a longer and more vile history of hate crimes than ANTIFA. What I am saying is that they are all hate based organizations that use physical violence, terror and fear to suppress people based on their particular agenda.
The primary person in this thread spewing vile and hatred would not realize he is part of the problem if he crashed into it. See what I did there? I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.
I thought it was well written. I get that this is an ongoing dialog and people are locked into their views of who has legitimate opinions and who doesn't. However, crash appears to have moved in how he expresses his view and is trying to make clear that he isn't trying to differentiate between degrees of wrongness. You may disagree with him about whether ANTIFA is a hate group. But, his overarching point is that all hate groups are bad. Hard to argue with that. And, his tone has shifted and he goes out of his way to concede points that you and others have made in what appears to be an attempt to find some common ground. (not comparing degree, etc.). That is the primary reason to have debates and discussions -- to see if there is room to agree and move forward. You and others seem way too locked in to winning or belittling him/her to recognize that he/she is agreeing with you on some key points.
His point seems to be that all hate groups are equally bad. I'm not sure which group other than fascists are the target of Antifa. He has likened them to terrorists. That kind of equivocation can't be nor should it be taken seriously. The fact that he also hates neo-Nazis and the Klan is great. The idea of putting Antifa in the same league with those groups lessens the problem of those groups. They simply aren't the same even if he could point out which group Antifa hates.
I sometimes feel like it wouldn't even matter. Before Antifa it was Black Lives Matter, you had people here seriously equating BLM to the KKK and other hate groups, I could get the receipts if I cared to but those who have been here long enough know what I say is true. BLM was made as the evil terrorist group that must be stopped. That was their boogeyman when Obama (coincidentally...) was president. My argument now is the same as my argument then. The groups stated intentions and goals matter. BLM goal had nothing to do with hating white people and everything to do with seeking fair justice. Antifa's goal is to basically be violently opposed to fascism. White Supremacist goals usually boil down to bringing back institutional racism. White Nationalist goals usually boil down to genocide as there is no way to get a white ethnostate without displacing or murdering millions of people. These just aren't at all equal and it shouldn't be a big deal to say that one is worse than the others. It is also wrong to say that the left encourages it, when you have a politician come out and root for them or if you have one connected to them then go after that person. Just because someone on your twitter feed makes some snarky comment about it, doesn't represent the left. People on the left barely talk about antifa, only time they come up is when people on the right bring them up.
I think because there is just a fundamental disagreement. Crash believes that this is black/white issue, that if a group is bad, it is bad. He also said that the extreme left are leaders of the democratic party and that antifa is legitimized by them. That's just an outright lie. Someone is going to have to bring me the quotes on Pelosi, Schumer, Obama, Biden, Sanders, Warren, or any prominent liberal politician legitimizing Antifa. I don't even think AOC has and I wouldn't consider her a leader at all but she's about as far left as possible in this country and not even she stands behind them, maybe she does though, I really don't pay as much attention to her as people on the right do. This is a trick. And the irony is that we have a sitting president that openly called for political violence. It's the perfect form of projection if anything, because it's actually the other way around, that there is a leader on the right, the president himself, the roots for political violence.
"All hate groups are bad" is objectively true on it's face, but in this specific case it's an exercise in false equivalency to EQUATE antifa with all other violent groups, which is not objectively true. False equivalence is perhaps the number one rhetorical tool that American conservatives with some conscience are turning to in the age of Trump. They know that their side is awful, so they find any kind of event or group on the left that might be 3% similar and shout "same thing!"
My wife has a couple of friends who live in Burbank in California. One of the two is Hispanic. Last night their parents were in town. They decided to walk to see some fireworks. As they were walking a large group of young men started screaming "Trump, Trump, Trump!" at them, followed by "Build the wall, build the wall, build the wall!" She has an audio recording of this which I heard. The mother, a perfectly legal American citizen little old lady who happens to be Hispanic, was so terrified and intimidated that she made them retreat back home by a long circuitous route to make sure they weren't being followed and they cowered inside rather than watch the fireworks. As my wife was relating this, my wife's conservative brother who is in town visiting responded to this with a sarcastic, "Orange man bad." and nothing else. Happy Fourth of July guys. Antifa is totally unnecessary.
Ouch. That got to hurt to hear that from your relative. I never thought much about "organ man bad" but hearing this story indicates to me that that meme has taken place as an overall excuse for everything the man does or said, plus a rejection and refusal to understand what others see and experience. The symbolic wall have not been physically built on the southern border, but it seems to have been firmly rooted in the mindset of Trump supporters and with that their inability to see and feels others that are different from them, keeping them out, while keeping their own views safely tucked inside.
Don't be naive. This is nothing more than right leaning people trying to find something equivalent to white supremacy on the left so they can go "wHaT AbOuT AnTiFa!". Every right wing peer I've served with, every right wing poster I've encountered all go "what about Antifa" when bringing up the massive issue of white nationalism. It's nothing but whataboutism. There is no empirical data to even remotely suggest that Antifa is as prevelant and as dangerous as white nationalistic propaganda. There ain't no Antifa members creating giant manifestos of left wing memes and shooting up a white southern Baptist Church
Have had unprovoked exchanges with MAGA Individuals when walking with my mother who wears a hijab. It's frustrating. Im not religious at all and I've hurt her before by telling her she shouldn't wear the hijab here. It's a giant target on your back.
Which is justifiable as a way to defend yourself. I think the reasoning is something like this... Antifa is using violence and intimidation against neo-nazi, white supremacists, and other right-wring extremists groups. We are victims. As victims, violence isn't what we want to see, but is necessary and something ok to use to defend ourselves. Antifa themselves uses similar reasoning to justify their violence. This is why, violence isn't an answer, but is a creator of more violence and extremism. Other than "victimhood" feeling as justification for violence, the equivalent ends there. Anfita is so loose of a group with no clear leader that you may compare them to a bunch of lone wolf actors randomly popping up. I'm sure there is probably some network, but we just aren't clear who they are. I see them more similar to shadowy hacker groups where members are unknown. Completely different from the much more organized and popular right extremists groups. While, as I said above, the idea of defending yourself as victims are probably likely common across the public, support for this group is nill among liberals (and of course conservative). Certainly there is no support from leaders on the left political spectrum. Support for white supremacists is much larger just based on the fact that the group has more members and is unfortunately on a rise. Plus, we have leaders and members of a whole political party that support these groups. The violence acts from this group is both individually small compare to the right extremist groups and as a whole, can't compete with the damaged done by the right extremist groups. At the end of the day, the only thing might stand as similar is the "victimhood" feeling and a right to defend yourself, even through violence.
On what level are you categorising this? If we're talking just the ideological position sure, hate is hate is bad, Antifa are communists, so there simply is no "they're worse than antifa", a couple almost as bad, but none worse. But no it's not a false equivalency, perseveration is certainly a useful strategy for getting people to believe things, even though repeating it over and over doesn't actually make it any less false. You just told a "little old lady crossed the road because of young black men" story but changed it to young Trump men and you wonder why he mocked you?
