![]() ![]() I'm curious, as well, to know which "civil rights" organizations *don't* criticize Antifa violence. adversaries." I would think that the harm done to their victims is the problem with "violent measures", not the way that it's "counterproductive" (which assumes that the ADL and Antifa are on the same side). It's interesting that the ADL says that "most established civil rights organizations criticize Antifa tactics as dangerous and counterproductive" because its "use of violent measures. (The %15 of the country that excuses one-or-the-other, though, is a problem.) And although domestic right-wing violence has claimed many more victims than left-wing violence, it's a stretch to call it a "threat to American democracy". I don't know about any of you, but I still recognize American democracy (despite the many things that urgently need improvement). "The greatest threat to American democracy comes from the right." One hears about many "greatest threats to American democracy" nowadays, and certainly for the past four years. I agree with the author's thesis - that the Left has to recognize and disavow any violence done in its name - but don't care for the supporting arguments. Indeed, what's become clear in recent years is that the embrace of these means to achieve radical ends has become a kind of litmus test for the acceptability of political views in many spaces, including across humanities disciplines. It's not hard to confirm these conclusions: students and faculty aren't shy if you just ask them what they think about violence, looting, defunding police, abolishing prisons, etc. This isn't my interpretation of what many say this is what they say. If the question is whether many recent or current university students and rad-progressive faculty support looting, destruction of (public and/or private) property to achieve what they understand as anti-fascist goals the answer is: yes. If the question is whether college-educated young adults and some rad-progressive university faculty support violence on the part of antifa individuals/groups, the answer is: yes. But I would add that Antifa’s success at being ungovernable is an serious challenge.Īs a qualification of any comments I make on Antifa, I'll note that I'm not an expert on what I understand as a loose assemblage of mostly young white men who operate in tandem with progressive protests and counter protests and believe in (some degree of) violence to achieve (what they understand as) anti-fascist goals. I tend to agree with the author: Antifa is real. Our elected officials come from another world and don’t have strategies for ending this. These folks don’t want to solve anything they just want to disrupt. As for their demands, I’m sure that if Seattle abolished its police force, we’d face other demands that would keep the protests alive. The ongoing protests of 2020 have led them to develop more organization, but organizing anarchists is always a tricky business, and fractures ensue. I don’t really know why they are allowed to continue.Įver since WTO, anarchists show up at other people’s protests and taunt police. (Presumably) Anfifa disrupters continue to block traffic whenever and wherever, gather forces to prevent the city from reclaiming the park at the center of the autonomous zone, break windows and plaster the city with graffiti. As another reader who resides in the middle of Seattle, I wonder if there are actually rules that can be enforced. Both seem to adhere to the “We are ungovernable!” slogan, refusing to accept established authority. I see one similarity between agitators on the left and right. I hope this community and this author are ready for more rigorous thinking on this topic, and a more honest investigation of what is a concerning, but relatively minor and reactionary cultural challenge. You can't talk about the current situation on the left without at least some longer view of how we got here. ![]() Has the level of violent action (or the percent of fringe who support it) increased? Decreased? Stayed level? We can go back to 1999 for an inflection point, and consider "The Battle of Seattle" and the WTO riots, for instance. If we want to have an honest discussion about leftwing tendencies to violence, let's at least put it in perspective. He seems to be conflating "random assholes" with the thing we call antifa then acknowledges that antifa isn't actually an organization or entity, but is "more than an idea". The author in his effort to identify the (real) issue of disorganized violence on the left - as opposed to mass organized and condoned violence on the right - both overstates his thesis, and muddily misrepresents it. For the first time, I find myself deeply disappointed by one of these posts. ![]()
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