Let’s talk about Antifa.

[E30 Wagen]

Forgot to post this:

[frankenbeemer]

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia:

Marines Testify About the “Antifa Mob” They Say Attacked Them in Philly

Nearly one month after we told you that two U.S. Marines Corps reservists said they were attacked in Old City on November 17th near the controversial “We the People” rally, the two suspects and their accusers appeared in a Philadelphia courtroom on Thursday morning.

The Marines, Alejandro Godinez and Luis Torres, both testified in uniform about the incident, while three Marine officers, including their commanding officer, stood in the gallery. The suspects, Thomas Massey and Tom Keenan, who have been linked to antifa on websites and social media, sat together with their individual lawyers and did not speak.

The Marines, who are not from the Philadelphia area, said that they had traveled to the city with other members of their helicopter unit, headquartered at Fort Dix, to attend a Marine event that night at a local hotel ballroom. They said that they had no knowledge of the nearby rally, which drew members of the alt-right as well as a large number of counter-protestors, Keenan and Massey reportedly among them.

According to the Marines’ testimony, they were touring historical landmarks near Front and Chestnut streets when suspect Thomas Keenan approached them. Godinez testified that Keenan asked them “Are you proud?,” to which Godinez remembers responding “We are Marines.” Torres said that he remembers Keenan asking “Are you Proud Boys?,” an allusion to one of the alt-right groups behind the rally, and one that Torres said he didn’t understand. “I didn’t know what Proud Boys meant,” he said.

Whatever Keenan said, both Marines testified that Keenan, Massey, and approximately ten other people — men and women, some masked and some unmasked — then began attacking them with mace, punches, and kicks, and calling them “nazis” and “white supremacists.”

On the stand, Godinez said that he was “bewildered” by being called a white supremacist and immediately cried out, “I’m Mexican!” After that, as the attack continued, both men said that members of the group, including Keenan, repeatedly used ethnic slurs, including “spic” and “wetback,” against the Marines. (There was no testimony that Massey used any such language).

Godinez testified that he was maced at least six times, hit in the head, and kicked in the ribs, and he said that while he was being “stomped,” members of the group, which the judge and the district attorney’s office have both referred to as a “mob,” chanted “fuck him up” over and over again.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2018/12/13/marines-assaulted-philadelphia-keenan-massey-antifa/?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true

[cale]

They'll be out with slaps on the wrist to get back to their crime fighting in no time. Using their white privilege to fight white privilege.

[z31maniac]

12 against 2, mace, calling a hispanic a white supremacist.

Brave and intelligent stuff.

[frankenbeemer]

Here's the two that were charged.



Suspects Thomas Massey (left) and Tom Keenan (right) in their Philadelphia Police Department mugshots.

[decay]

most of the marines i worked with knew how to fight, they must have been fucking POGs.

#trollanswer

this happened to me too, before i started this thread. i was assaulted at civic center bart station here in san francisco because i was coming home from a gig dressed up all gothy and someone interpreted that as "nazi", called me that, and hit me. i guess he wasn't expecting a hit back, because he didn't even try to dodge, just let me connect with his temple, he went down, and i hopped on the train he'd just got off of and some good samaritan passenger pulled napkins out of her purse and helped me stop the nosebleed.

that's when i stopped wearing the high-and-tight haircut, and i'm bitter that white supremacists stole that haircut- i earned it, they didn't.

#seriousanswer

[z31maniac]

I have no doubt Marines know how to throw down. But when you're blindsided 6 against 1, that's not exactly a fair fight.

Hell 1 person can put on the concrete when the come from out of nowhere and sucker punch or hit with you something.

There are people that have literally died from that. Sucker punch knocks them out, head smashes concrete, they never wake up.

[frankenbeemer]

I have no doubt Marines know how to throw down. But when you're blindsided 6 against 1, that's not exactly a fair fight.

Hell 1 person can put on the concrete when the come from out of nowhere and sucker punch or hit with you something.

There are people that have literally died from that. Sucker punch knocks them out, head smashes concrete, they never wake up.

If a few Marines have to die to prevent the cultural appropriation of the high and tight, how could you object?

[decay]

If a few Marines have to die to prevent the cultural appropriation of the high and tight, how could you object?

yeah, let's make this about the haircut rather than discussing what gave rise to violence as political speech in the first place

idiot

[bmwman91]

violence as political speech

The vast majority of the citizenry have no tolerance for this since western civilization has, in general, decided that violence is an absolute last-resort. I make a full acknowledgement that there are exceptions to this, but it is far from the norm. At some point, Antifa will overstep its bounds in spectacular fashion and the hard boot of the state will come down swiftly at the demand of nearly everyone. Don't interpret this as me wanting or happily-anticipating this, because I don't; it is merely what I see as the most likely endpoint. In absolute terms, I see Antifa as being about as much of a "real problem" as their right-wing counterparts: not a real problem in the grand scheme of things.

Warning: Caffeine-induced predictions of the future follow:
You have explained how Antifa is a non-organization, but the public is unaware of this and the media very much paints it as one. I think that the media does this largely on purpose because the deep state needs a way to quickly and decisively dismantle Antifa the second that its usefulness expires.

This is exactly why making an organization like Antifa can only end in tears for everyone involved. Maybe it is simply a label for a set of political beliefs or views about how society should be. But, it is a label, it has logos and it has people who claim to be a part of "it" whatever "it" is in organizational terms. Given how tribal human being still are and how easily nearly anything can be a "group", this means that Antifa members are painting their own backs with a big target.

My prediction is that when a Democrat or non-Trump Republican is elected president (I put odds of this in 2020 at <25%), the demise of Antifa will follow swiftly. The only reason that it does not happen now is because the public is still in a mixed state of bewilderment and media-stoked outrage at Trump's presidency. The media paints Antifa in a positive light since it fits the narrative of "resistance". The second that another loyal globalist gets into the oval office, the deep state will go to work to crush any and all elements of "the resistance". If a Democrat wins, its destruction will follow most swiftly because I don't see Antifa declaring that "Nazis, fascism and white supremacy" all disappeared into thin air as soon as the last ballot was counted and going home. This is not to say that Antifa sees Democrats as any less of a problem than Republicans, but the deep state and its media/propaganda organs will not tolerate Antifa protesting one of its own. As far as the public is concerned, Antifa is basically "anti-Republican/Trump" and they will have zero tolerance for disobedience under a Democrat since the media has convinced everyone that electing one is a major step towards all things good.

Far larger and better-organized groups fighting for "social justice" have been destroyed by the deep state. In the eyes of the deep state, Antifa is a "useful idiot" that will be dispatched the second the narrative shifts. Personally, I recommend shedding the label.

[decay]

The media paints Antifa in a positive light since it fits the narrative of "resistance".

i, uhm, haven't seen many examples of that.

my counter-argument prediction: when we have a presidency that doesn't throw refugees into concentration camps where children are winding up dead, or describe alt-right groups also willing to use violence as "very good people", such as the proud boys- american antifa won't have to be "eradicated", it will just go away.

i will, at least.

[mrsleeve]

There you go with that concentration camp bull shit to attempt to conflate a refugee camp with a nazi death camp becuase you dont like and dissagree with the guy calling the shots. its shit like this that does a sever disservice to your movement, and its stated goal and intentions. You lose credibility every time one of you says shit like this.

[decay]

fuck you, because children are dying in there

if you're okay with that, that's a statement on you

i'm not

this is just the latest one

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/7-year-old-migrant-girl-taken-into-border-patrol-custody-dies-of-dehydration-exhaustion/2018/12/13/8909e356-ff03-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html

[bmwman91]

i, uhm, haven't seen many examples of that.

my counter-argument prediction: when we have a presidency that doesn't throw refugees into concentration camps where children are winding up dead, or describe alt-right groups also willing to use violence as "very good people", such as the proud boys- american antifa won't have to be "eradicated", it will just go away.

i will, at least.

The separation of children from their immigrant parents has been going on for decades. The root cause is that regulations prohibit putting minors into detainment with adults, which is for pretty obvious reasons. The detainment centers were not configured as a family shelter. Maybe they should be, I don't know. The Obama administration separated hundreds of thousands of children from their parents in the name of enforcing existing immigration laws. There was no outrage then. It will continue under all future administrations.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/parents-deportation_n_5531552.html

"ICE confirmed the authenticity of the two reports, which lay out 72,410 removals of immigrants who said they had one or more U.S.-born children in 2013."
70,000+ separations in one year alone. Parents deported, while their children got tossed into the foster care system. Children are beaten, raped and die in the foster care system all the time. The issue does not appear to be children being treated poorly: the issue seems to be Trump.

The actual quote from Trump to which you refer (emphasis mine), during a conference about the Charlottesville protests:
"What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The press has treated them [the protesters as a whole] absolutely unfairly. You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

It's more of the usual dumb Trump drivel. But, he was clearly not calling the white supremacist groups "very fine people". He specifically excluded neo-nazis and white supremacists from the "very fine people" category. The extreme left and extreme right both want to make it sound otherwise because it furthers their agendas, but anyone reading this for themselves can see what he was saying. Personally, I wish he would take a vow of silence.

If you look back over the last 20 years, you will find that Trump is a bog-standard Republican whose policies are generally in line with things that even Clinton and Obama proposed at one time or another. The media has convinced everyone otherwise because it keeps the money rolling in. The stuff that people are outraged at now probably is stuff that they should be upset at. But the only reason that they are mad is because of Trump, and as you say, if not-Trump is the next president they will likely go away. Given that none of the things being objected to are likely to go away at that point, I'd say that much of the "resistance" stands for exactly nothing. It is simply a cog in the establishment's machine to win 2020.

Here's a slightly old read, but still pertinent. Antifa is merely an element of the official narrative, even if it doesn't think so. Just be aware of what is coming, that's all.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/

Chances are that you and I are largely in agreement about the dangers of a powerful centralized power structure and the lunacy of the corporate media that does its bidding.

[decay]

Chances are that you and I are largely in agreement about the dangers of a powerful centralized power structure and the lunacy of the corporate media that does its bidding.

probably, but my thread on anarchism got locked, so, here we are :P