Vox, ““They have no allegiance to liberal democracy”: an expert on antifa explains the group”
They other key point, which probably isn’t made enough, is that these are revolutionary leftists. They’re not concerned about the fact that fascism targets liberalism. These are self-described revolutionaries. 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 […]
CBS 12 Bay Area, ” U.C. Berkeley group invites right-wing speakers”
This would not be the first time Yiannopoulos and Coulter were scheduled for events at Berkeley, one of the most liberal schools in the country. In February, violence erupted before Yiannopoulo was to speak on campus. Windows of businesses were smashed, anarchists burned municipal property, and the university ultimately canceled the Yiannopoulos event. Continue Reading
Yahoo News, “Whitehouse.gov petition to label antifa as a ‘terror group’ generates more than 290,000 signatures”
It’s Going Down, a website that bills itself as “a digital community center from anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements,” called the idea of labeling antifa a terror group “absurd.” Continue Reading
Los Angeles Times, “Op-Ed: The best way to fight white supremacists: Ignore them”
The neo-Nazis in our midst are outcasts who do not deserve the attention of reasonable citizens who seek measured debate in the public sphere. Dressed in their helmets and capes, wielding sticks, they are like the extras of a bad dystopian staging of one of Shakespeare’s war plays. They are looking for their fellow actors, […]
Newsweek, “Is ‘Mass Nonviolent Action’ Needed to Fight White Supremacists? Civil Rights Hero John Lewis Speaks Out”
“You don’t need to get out in the street with a mask and a baseball bat. For a lot of people, that’s scary,” Vysotsky says. Anarchists and Antifa, however, use violence as “strategic self-defense,” he says. “They tactically see nonviolent responses to [the alt-right] as giving the supremacists what they want—subjects for their violence—so they […]
ABC 7 (DC), “Antifa, far-right clashes raise questions about violence as a political tool”
The Anti-fascist movement, or Antifa, have been part of the European political landscape since World War II. In recent decades, the group has predominantly centered in western Europe, in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the U.K. Their ideology is broadly anti-capitalist, anarchist and anti-fascist in the most general sense of opposing centralized state control and anything […]
The Washington Post, “No, don’t punch more Nazis”
Clear-eyed, honest political leaders on the left, whether Democrats, progressives or left-leaning independents, must confront not only the growth of anarchist and anti-fascist groups but also what seems to be a creeping acceptance, within the broad, diverse world of their political allies, of a commitment to low-grade violence as a political tool. Continue Reading
ABC 7 Chicago, “What is the ‘alt-right’? Definitions of terms in extremist language”
According to the New Jersey State Office of Homeland Security, “antifa” are a subset of the anarchist movement focusing on “issues relating to racism, sexism and anti-Semitism as well as other perceived injustices.” People associated with the “antifa” have become violent; when Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley in April, he was […]
98.1 (Kansas City), “Explaining antifa protests in the wake of Charlottesville”
“The black bloc is not a group but an anarchist tactic — marching as a confrontational united force, uniformed in black and anonymized for security,” The Nation said of black bloc. “Once deployed, the tactic has an alchemic quality, turning into a temporary object: the black bloc.” Continue Reading
CityLab, “Lab Report: How Phoenix Prevented Chaos in Trump’s Visit”
Aside from the odd anarcho-communist gun club, there were barely any armed groups either—and that’s in a proudly open-carry state. Continue Reading