Dear America Antifa is not the problem

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, August 5th, 2019 - 52 comments
Categories: Christchurch Attack, Donald Trump, law and "order", terrorism, uncategorized, us politics - Tags: ,

It has been a desperately bad couple of days in the United States of America with the 249th and 250th mass shooting of the year occurring.

The 249th had significant links to the Christchurch shooting with the shooter claiming inspiration from the events in Christchurch, and having prior to the shooting posted a manifesto on 8chan just as the Christchurch shooter did.  The manifesto claimed similar white supremacist reasons for the shooting and railed against immigrants and Hispanics and the supposed destruction of the American way of life.

Eighteen people were killed and at least 24 people injured after the shooting at the border town of El Paso, Texas.

Then this morning number 250 happened.  Details of the motivation of the shooter have not been released yet but six of the nine people killed were black.  One was the shooter’s sister. The shooter was wearing body armor and used a .223 caliber high-capacity gun. He also additional magazines with him.

These are not recent blips.  From Lois Beckett at the Guardian:

In the past eight years, more than 175 people around the world have been killed in at least 16 high-profile attacks motivated, or apparently motivated, by white nationalist conspiracy theories, including the far right racist belief that nonwhite immigrants and refugees are “invaders” who pose an existential threat to the white race.

The targets of deadly attacks have included Muslim worshippers at mosques in Canada, Britain and New Zealand; black Americans in church, including during Bible study at a historic black church in South Carolina; Jewish Americans in synagogues across the United States; and left-wing politicians and activists in the US, UK, Greece, and Norway.

Now, law enforcement officials in the United States are investigating two more mass shootings with potential links to white nationalist radicalization.

An attack on Saturday at a Walmart superstore in El Paso, Texas, a majority-Hispanic city, which left 20 people dead and more than two dozen wounded, and a shooting the previous weekend at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California, packed with families with young children, which left three people dead and 15 wounded.

Many of the white male perpetrators or suspects in these attacks have explicitly described immigrants and refugees as “invaders” or an “invasion” online, and have cited previous white nationalist killers as the inspiration for their attacks.

Several of these deadly attacks have also been closely linked to mainstream political debates over refugees and immigration

So what have senior Republican American politicians been doing lately to protect American citizens from being shot by mass shooters?  They have been targeting an organisation that has been responsible for, just checking my notes, no mass shootings. 

It seems that the cause for this heightened sensitivity to Antifa was an attack on a right wing provocateur Andy Ngo.  But he has a history, similar to Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, of going into a community, stirring up hatred, then complaining about his treatment.  Vox has this description of Ngo’s behaviour:

The publication where Ngo is an editor, Quillette, is widely seen as a major hub of the “intellectual dark web” — a loose collection of anti-political correctness, anti-identity politics, anti-left media figures and reporters. Ngo is the closest thing the intellectual dark web has to a gonzo journalist, someone who goes into allegedly hostile places and documents them for his more than 200,000 Twitter followers to illustrate that the IDW is right about the threat from multiculturalism and the left.

Last year, for example, Ngo went to the UK to chronicle the supposed threat the rising Muslim population posed to British society. The resulting article, “A Visit to Islamic England,” claimed England was being quietly conquered by fundamentalist Islam.

The piece was shredded by actual Brits. Most amusingly, Ngo presented a London sign reading “alcohol restricted zone” as evidence of Islamic dominance in the Whitechapel neighborhood; it was actually a public safety ordinance designed to discourage public acts of drunkenness from patrons of nearby pubs, bars, and strip clubs.

Ngo’s coverage of left-wing protesters is similarly ideological. He views left-wing activists, like Muslim immigrants to the West, as a threat to free and open societies. His reporting plays upacts of vandalism, violence, and hostility to free speech without a comparable focus on the much more frequent and deadly actions of right-wing extremists.

Antifa is a perfect foil for Ngo. The group of typically black-clad activists are radicals who believe the best way to deal with the rise of white supremacy and hate groups in the Trump era is by confronting them on the street. Sometimes, this means organizing demonstrations against them; other times, it means brawling in the streets.

“They view self-defense as necessary in terms of defending communities against white supremacists,” Mark Bray, a Dartmouth historian who studies antifa, told my colleague Sean Illing in a 2017 interview. “They have no allegiance to liberal democracy, which they believe has failed the marginalized communities they’re defending. They’re anarchists and communists who are way outside the traditional conservative-liberal spectrum.”

But clearly the Republican Party senior leadership had its finger in the pulse of America when it was working out what was wrong with American society:

Yet apart from the subversive use of milkshakes and some rough treatment of Ngo this as far as I can ascertain ntends to be the extent of Antifa violence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfwpkNu8t40

America you have a problem.  And it is not Antifa.

52 comments on “Dear America Antifa is not the problem ”

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  1. Sabine 1
    5 August 2019 at 12:24 pm

    no they have an issue with the economic anxiety of the white working class male and the orange dipshit in the white house who gets off on violence and misery.

  2. weka 2
    5 August 2019 at 1:22 pm

    I agree, antifa aren't the problem at all. The Republicans are a lost cause imo, and will always choose guns and try to blame radicals. The only hope I can see is mass mobilisation on the streets and via strikes. So many people are still in denial of how bad things are in the US, and denial not just there. If the worst happens in the US, I can't see how we will not be affected here. We should be preparing for that now.

    Re Ngo, I'm not condemning US antifa generally, I see them as the inevitable result of the mainstream in the US not stepping up to stop fascism as it is happening. Someone needs to do something, urgently. But some tactics are not helpful and this was one of them.

    The antifa plan to attack, and then the attack, on Ngo was wrong. Push back against his work definitely needs to happen, but if the left sanctions violence against journalists, especially premeditated violence, we're going to have no moral or rational ground to stand on when the fascists start attacking LW journalists. We know where that's going to go.

    He didn't get roughed up, he got physically assaulted.

    • Sabine 2.1
      5 August 2019 at 1:37 pm

      I guess if you want to promote white supremacy, might makes right, women back to the kitchen barefeet and pregnant, blacks back in the bus, and hispanics only when you have tomatoes to pick, then yes anyone not marching lockstep needs to be shut down and fast. Bye Antifa – you are now a terrorist group.

      Never mind that young white bloke with the guns shooting up people in shopping centre. That is not a terrorist, that is just a lone wolf with economic anxiety who can't get laid and is mentally ill.

    • Grumpy 2.2
      5 August 2019 at 3:12 pm

      You need to think this through some more. Both shooters were registered Democrats. The similarity between them and Antifa (a white fascist group) is stronger than you realise.

      • weka 2.2.1
        5 August 2019 at 3:23 pm

        I'd be surprised if very many antifa were Democrats, other than for tactical reasons.

        • Adrian Thornton 2.2.1.1
          5 August 2019 at 6:26 pm

          I would say that a large amount of them would be sanders supporters..with good reason.

  3. Adrian Thornton 3
    5 August 2019 at 2:03 pm

    You know it is really funny that this article quotes from the news sources like The Guardian and Vox, they along with most other so called liberal media have been at best undermining and delegitimizing and at worst straight out slandering and lying the two Left Wing political leaders with the longest and best histories of fighting racism in both their respective parties…of course I am talking about Corbyn and Sanders…so fuck The Guardian and those other bullshit 'liberal' media outlets..IMO they just as responsible for these right wing nutters feeling emboldened as FOX.

    If you suppress the natural Left wing shift, acting effectively as a safety valve during periods of mass push back against the status quo then the anger and dissatisfaction will find that release somewhere else…usually expressed as the far right, just like now in the US.

  4. Treetop 4
    5 August 2019 at 2:40 pm

    It is never all right to express being disillusioned using a firearm.

    Once again some state governor uses sincere words to calm and sooth. It is clear to me that the amendment to carry a firearm is a licience which does not have the right restrictions to prevent harm.

    About 6 months ago a woman from the states made this comment in regard to a mass shooting. I don't want your prays, I want the gun laws to be tightened.

  5. Grumpy 5
    5 August 2019 at 3:42 pm

    You need to think this through some more. Both shooters were registered Democrats. The similarity between them and Antifa (a white fascist group) is stronger than you realise.

    • mpledger 5.1
      5 August 2019 at 3:53 pm

      Credible citations please. The names have barely been made public so I don't see how their party registration can be known so quickly.

      • Dukeofurl 5.1.2
        5 August 2019 at 4:01 pm

        Right to correct that mp..

        Its likely to be complete bulls%$#

        "Finally, the manifesto ends by decrying interracial couples and proposes separating the United States into territories based on race. The author points to white supremacist theories that “stronger and/or more appealing cultures overtake weaker and/or undesirable ones.”

        The conservative Democrats of Texas went over to Republicans around the time of Nixon. This guy is Make America Great Again fodder not Democrats

        Grumpy is another MAGA stooge

        • Sabine 5.1.2.1
          5 August 2019 at 4:57 pm

          two different shooters.

          the one in El Paso is the one with the manifesto, who drove 10 hours – some 650 miles to kill hispanics.

          the other one – registered dem – is the one who started by killing his sister (who was on a night out with a male friend), did not succeed in killing her male friend (was in hospital i read) and then went on to kill nine people out for a drink and laugh. btw, the majority of people killed by that fuckwit are black. But hey, that might just be a mighty coincidence.

          I find it funny that people believe that only R can be racists, or supremacists, or just simply fucked up in their heads.

          It is however true that only the republicans refuse to do something about health care – inclusive mental health care, that it is only the republicans that refuse to do something about gun violence – 15 month a go a bipartisan bill passed congress to allow for back ground checks, red line laws (i.e. remove guns/weapons from people with a history of domestic violence) etc yet the republican leader of the senate #massacremitch refuses to allow this bill on the floor for a vote, and that so far the only president to be openly racists -i.e. invasion of people of color, all mexicans are rapists and murderes, send them back chants, etc.

          As for antifa, i don't think a whole lot of them are registered to any party in US. Why would they bother?

          • Poission 5.1.2.1.1
            5 August 2019 at 5:34 pm

            The Ohio Shooter has a different profile,and a history of kill lists ,which would suggest mental health issues.

            Local news is often more informative.

            https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/local/new-details-dayton-shooter-obsessed-with-killing-bellbrook-classmates-say/uCuyd2JeZzo70NDgArsqOI/

            • Sabine 5.1.2.1.1.1
              5 August 2019 at 7:05 pm

              i think all of these shooters have an issue with mental health.

              however mental illness should not serve as a cheap excuse for those that are white while those that are brown and / or muslim are held to a different standard. And that is what is happening here.

              Brown? terrorist of the worst type

              white? lone wolf, mental illness, can't get laid / incel, etc etc etc.

              and really i think this is the double standard that people are getting sick of. they are all terrorists be they white, brown or speckled. They are all terrorists.

              and non of that takes away from the fact that there were 250 mass shootings in the us as of today, 900 odd people hurt and 250 odd dead.

              Add in a bit of casual racism, a bit of butt hurt cause white does not equal might anymore, a bit of pent up sexual frustration – not before marriage, a bit of boredom at low wage jobs or no jobs and easy access to all sorts of weaponry and you quickly have a recipe for disaster.

      • Grumpy 5.1.3
        5 August 2019 at 4:08 pm

        El Paso shooter – cant do cut and paste here but Google works.

    • Gabby 5.2
      5 August 2019 at 4:03 pm

      Any fuckknuckle can register as whatever s/he fancies grumpers.

      • Grumpy 5.2.1
        5 August 2019 at 4:13 pm

        True but retweeting Antifa? Google is interesting but shows (as you say) fuckknuckleness is universal.

    • Macro 5.3
      5 August 2019 at 4:05 pm

      You have proof of that assertion?

      • greywarshark 5.4.1
        5 August 2019 at 5:15 pm

        Kids – Info Pending (Just checking to see if one is in the womb and what the ultrasound shows to be its gender; or is it amniotic fluid? No worry if they don't know they can always make it up.)

        What a country. But I don't know why they shoot other people, surely they should respect the right of others to walk the walk of America.

        Tacky kacky?

      • joe90 5.4.2
        5 August 2019 at 10:56 pm

        Surprise, the dumbest man on the internet makes shit up.

  6. Stuart Munro. 6
    5 August 2019 at 3:43 pm

    The meeting of people taught a call-out culture with those with significant grievances holds considerable potential for ongoing violence and unrest, which serves the interests of shoddy governments like Trump's, that always need plenty of distractions. A violent Antifa is tailor made for demonizing by a kakistocrat like Trump irrespective of the justice of their cause or actions.

    Maybe direct confrontation is not the best way to deal with the issue – an approach like forming a group Nazis for Trump parodying the worst aspects of his low demagoguery might have some advantages – it could be a lot of Mitchell & Webb type fun.

  7. Richard@DownSouth 7
    5 August 2019 at 4:47 pm

    Antifa by definition aren't an organisation… it'd be like saying you're being arrested or shot because of your skin colour… oh wait we're talking about the USA

  8. Chris T 8
    5 August 2019 at 5:39 pm

    No, ANTIFA nutters are a problem.

    They are just currently a slightly lesser problem than the the far right nutters.

    You don't have to have one is, one isn't

    The radical lot on both sides can be bad at the same time.

  9. SHG 9
    5 August 2019 at 5:49 pm

    Fuck Antifa and fuck everyone who supports them. They are the Right’s greatest marketing tool.

    • Adrian Thornton 9.1
      5 August 2019 at 6:30 pm

      No they are not..centrist liberals are ' Right’s greatest marketing tool' ..idiots like Maddow give them plenty of ammo almost nightly.

  10. Poission 10
    5 August 2019 at 5:56 pm

    The publication where Ngo is an editor, Quillette, is widely seen as a major hub of the “intellectual dark web” — a loose collection of anti-political correctness, anti-identity politics, anti-left media figures and reporters.

    Hilarious its IYI central.

    https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/889819353906110474

    https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/1158016723347484672

    • Stuart Munro. 10.1
      6 August 2019 at 6:14 am

      It's a curious piece of confirmation of the 'shy Tory' hypothesis that they lurk on the dark web. Though of course if Dawkins really valued clarity logic and objective truth he wouldn't have spent so much time recycling Huxley, nor would he have found himself on the wrong side of E O Wilson.

  11. vto 11
    5 August 2019 at 6:04 pm

    In the olden days I imagine many revolutions were quite noticeable. They were either on or they weren't.

    I just wonder if this no longer applies and a revolution is already underway, thanks largely to the internet aiding the congregation and planning by groups. Sometimes such societal change can be sneaky and quiet and is found to be happening after it is already well underway.

    There are a whole bunch of things happening around the globe, all largely seen as isolated and unrelated, but if they link up then it might be too late to stop, or do anything about.

    Are we at this point already? Has a revolution begun and we haven't really noticed? (of course we have noticed, but perhaps haven't recognised it as such).

    It all kinda has the feeling of being unstoppable…. I said to someone close a few years ago… I wonder when the day will come that the USA has a mass shooting every day…

    what does that actually mean? A mass shooting every day…

    care to take a guess?

    • Andre 11.1
      5 August 2019 at 6:13 pm

      Mass killing was defined by Congress in 2013 to be the murder of three or more people in one event (excluding the perp). USA gun deaths are over 100 a day as it is. Of those, roughly 40 a day are homicides. Mass shootings are just a teeny-tiny part of the American gun problem.

      • vto 11.1.1
        5 August 2019 at 6:18 pm

        Yeah, I don't think its a gun and murder thing per se. I think there is more going on, much more… the gun is just an enabler for the underlying movement which is happening I suspect

        • Macro 11.1.1.1
          5 August 2019 at 6:51 pm

          Many of the 100 deaths by gun per day in the US are suicide by gun. The ease of access to guns – around 1.2 guns per person in the US – makes the act of taking one's life so much easier in the US than any other country. Death by gun is the most favoured method of suicide in the US over 50% who take their lives do it by firearm. They represent over 20,000 of the around 37,000 deaths by gun in the US per year.

  12. New view 12
    5 August 2019 at 8:02 pm

    The USA population is no different to any where else. It’s the availability of hand guns and automatic weapons that is the difference. But more than that it’s because the population knows they can buy these weapons and the appalling violence seen there is only an encouragement for people to to load up to protect themselves. It will take a Government prepared to be voted out to change the gun laws. That takes courage, and politicians are notoriously gutless.

  13. Jenny - How to Get there? 13
    6 August 2019 at 3:30 am

    No photo description available.

  14. Jenny - How to Get there? 14
    6 August 2019 at 4:50 am

    Whatever happened to Trump's claim that there were fine people on both sides?

    It seems that in Trump's eyes there were fine people on only one side, and it wasn't the antifascist side.

    The sooner this right wing extremist is out of office the better.

    It concerns me that the Democrat Party establishment are favouriing Biden as their candidate.

    Just as he did with Clinton, Trump will wipe the floor with an establishment candidate.

  16. Jenny - How to Get there? 16
    11 August 2019 at 4:38 am

    Dear New Zealand Maori land protectors are not the problem.

    Instead of deploying dozens of police to Ihumateo to protect the commercial interests of Fletchers All available police resources should be deployed to track down the neo-nazi white supremacist killer on the loose, before he commits another atrocity.

    Who knows what could happen if this racist killer gets hold of a weapon, or his known associates supply him with one.

    …..a member of a notorious and extremely violent white power gang, the Fourth Reich, co-founded by convicted murderer and rapist Malcolm Chaston while he was in Christchurch Men’s Prison in the 1990s.

    Witnesses at the nine day trial said the day before the murder they heard Howie say: “If any Māoris get in the way we will knock them down,”. His brother gave evidence that Howie told him: “We killed that n….. and threw him in the river.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/114906063/dangerous-convicted-killer-aaron-howie-on-the-run-from-police