AntiFa: Principled Vandals or Just Thugs?

Both to an extent. Antifa is not a homogeneous group, many are anarchists who seem to delight in violence, disruption, and destruction. but the group's principles commonly include notions such as the end justifies, and are illiberal -- intolerant to any with opposing views. It attracts bad, by my standards, people. Some good ones too, I'm sure, who feel that are making a positive difference.

A group like that is going to attract thugs, and their action echo the hate and violence of the groups that they despise. That people in their ranks wear masks and largely remain anonymous is worrisome, but then the anarchist component hates the state and of course they anticipate their extralegal activities (come armed for the fight too). I'm sure that many of them revel in the new political climate in the US and elsewhere and since they don't trust the law, they are all too happy to take the law into their own hands -- how empowering.

A lot of them at demonstrations/ rallies, no doubt, are rebels without a clue, and just out for mischief.   Their actions also are leading to more support for their enemies and for ideologies that they oppose.

Antifa is a hate group that opposes hate groups, and like their extremist, fascistic counterparts, it attracts the dispossessed, the angry who feellike life let them down, alienated people who feel powerless and lack a sense of purpose, and it attracts thugs who enjoy violence, mayhem, and mischief. While ostensibly antiauthoritarian, Antifa wants to become THE authority, respect us or suffer. To them violent and property-damaging (vandalism) extralegal activities are justifiable. Such angry people in their ranks. Instead of attempting dialogue they disrupt, instead of peaceful resistance they support violent resistance, instead of dialectic they shout over, and instead of rationality they feed on base, raw emotions. And a lot of them find it fun.

To be antifascist and anti-racist is a good thing in my books, but I am a believer in central tenants of liberal democracy such as free speech (except in cases where it incites violence). When they shout people down and take over events, they are not giving people the chance to speak freely, and they believe that these people have no right to be heard. Many of them come across as very irrational and their tactics often seem quite fascist to me.

Love trumps hate in my books, maybe if more of them showed love they would be better able to trump Trump and his supporters (really since Trump came into power, and was in the running, that they have been really emboldened, but such groups have been around for a long time.

The best champions of a principle are not always the best practitioners of a principle. Such as it is. They have not yet sunk to the depths of depravity of those they oppose, but time will tell.

Most of them I think fall under the category of stupid thugs, all of them should practice some self-reflection.

Edited by someone_else - September 04 2017 at 02:19

Principled thugs. 

The T wrote: Principled thugs.  Their hearts are (somewhat) on the right place. But they are going to do more harm than good to the cause  Again, comparing them with fascists and nazis is incredibly idiotic. These groups want to specifically destroy a group of people. Antifa just want to destroy the destruction, so to speak. In theory, eliminate nazis and you eliminate Antifa.  Having said that, a true, not thuggish extreme left alternative is needed...

Edited by micky - September 05 2017 at 13:22

that is the point Greg... what has love, peace, tolerance and a deep apathy to the forces at play give us....

Logan wrote: Neither fascists nor AntiFa come across as very loving, pacifistic, or tolerant to me. Both want to control the rhetoric/ conversation, but then, to be cliche. everybody wants to rule the world.

Funny, I've always thought ruling the world would really, really suck.

Atavachron wrote: Logan wrote: Neither fascists nor AntiFa come across as very loving, pacifistic, or tolerant to me. Both want to control the rhetoric/ conversation, but then, to be cliche. everybody wants to rule the world. Funny, I've always thought ruling the world would really, really suck.

Of course there are always shades of grey in ethics, but there are ethical standards of my sub-cultural niche that I try to adhere to. Although I was trained to be a moral relativist relatively-speaking (I suppose I have some cognitive dissonance there) I don't consider myself to be one any longer, but I digress.

Like I said before, AntiFa is not a very homogeneous group, it's a very loose group of activists on the left, and so you have different adherents acting differently. Some are anarchists who act like thugs, some no doubt also associate with BLM. It's a kind of umbrella organisation lacking centralized leadership and a agreed on and well-defined manifesto other than "no platform for fascism". The more militant amongst the ranks are not that different from the militant BLM participants. A problem I have is that they don't even seem to have some comprehensive view of what constitutes a fascist, so the targets become wide. They are commonly against liberal democracy, and like Black Lives Matter they try to shut down free speech, and they have threatened people that they don't agree with, employed violence and coercion, and are not open to the exploration of controversial ideas, so have targeted people who are not Nazis, but that that they disagree with even considering certain things. I wouldn't put blowing buildings up as out of reach for members of this group. The ends justify the means for many of them, and if certain Antifa militants think it takes blowing up buildings to get results, I wouldnt be surprised if they were willing to do that. Amongst their ranks are people who are totally opposed to the US as a state, and think that the only way to reform it is to break it. Also, of course, people who have no respect for the rule of law and would sooner take the law into their own hands as they have zero respect for the system.

Some kind of a shake-up is needed, though, and maybe antifa has the potential to become a very constructive organisation, but it also has the potential to become more destructive. Being so disorganised, lacking the hierarchy, members are not being held to a code of ethics, merely adhering to a general principle.

I have difficulty reading that, with all the smoke we have in the air due to wildfires made worse by climate change, it makes my eyes sore.

I can say that I don't like tactics that Antifa have employed while condemning supremacists, the alt-right, religious zealots who claim they have all the answers etc. It's not that I consider Antifa as bad as the other group, but I still don't think that people within the movement are operating within what I consider to be acceptable parameters. It's not even a question of the lesser of two evils, because I think that another group could have well-defined strategies while operating more within the rule of law and make a better difference. Antifa membership is too anonymous for one thing, so it attracts people that are unruly and undisciplined, and consider themselves to be above the law (people who reputable humanitarian organisations would not want int their ranks (make the organisation look bad). Antifa is more of a movement rather than an organisation (some are organised, but not all), so I know that the analogy is faulty. It's a loose sort-of grass roots organisation which is not very comparable to, say, Doctors Without Borders or Unicef. Sorry, I am prone to non sequiturs and near infinite digressions.

I no more believe in absolute free speech than the concept of free will. Of course there need to be limits on free speech, such as when it incites violence and criminality, and is hate speech. The problem is defining the parameters of hate speech. I like to say feel free to speak your mind but mind your speech, and am keen on the idea that the remedy for hate speech is more speech.

There have been various academics who have been shouted down by people who associate with Antifa, often due to misconception. To me that's idiotic, instead I would far rather they try to debate or have a dialectic with these people from an intellectual perspective. It depends upon who they are targeting, some people can't be reasoned with, but some can be, and for those use logic and well-researched fact-based arguments instead of shooting down any discussion. I believe that all assumptions should be challenged, and every idea is up for discussion. What is see from Antifa and groups like BLM is angry emotion rather than rational discussion.

Their actions are attracting some, but also push others who are on the fence into the alt-right mindset. There are some cases where I do believe that the ends justify the means, but I don't think that the means that many in Antifa support will produce desirable ends (or ends at all, instead feeding fuel to the fire). Opposition is critical, but honestly, you find insanity and irrationality on both sides.

I oppose what Antifa opposes, but I still don't support how actors in this amorphous group are behaving. And I think, at least in western countries where we do have more freedom than in other places, when protesting you should need to hide your identity. It makes a stronger statement when you aren't anonymously listed in the group, and when you don't conceal your face.   Of course people conceal their faces especially when they are about to do illegal activities, as well as for fear of losing jobs, getting expelled from school, ostracism....

I've been to quite a few environmental events and I would not have concealed my identity. And I knew people who did disobey the police in a non-violent way and were prepared to be arrested. I understand that the risk are greater when dealing with Nazis of course as one might be targeted later on. These days everything gets videoed.

I see Antifa supporters as operating much the same as many anarchist and Marxist-Leninist groups have over the years. You get these masked people coming in and doing vandalism and violence for their political and social aims, and we've seen this for decades (like here in Canada at a G8 Summit and at the University of British Columbia before). These same kinds of thugs join various causes, and those people should not be tolerated, and they rile other people up.   There are provocateurs who come in to stir up emotions and bring out the worst in people. No doubt some people who join Antifa protests aren't even really affiliated with the group, or that political, and just join in for mayhem (like the riots in Vancouver when the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup). Some people look for any excuse for violence and destruction.