by Sunsara Taylor and a RevCom.us writing group
For the past week, "Antifa" has come under a sustained and many-sided political attack, including from liberal and some "progressive" voices. These attacks would be almost laughably idiotic if they were not so dangerous and deadly serious. These attacks echo Trump, as well as other organized forces. ("Antifa" refers to a range of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups with varying viewpoints, who act in different ways to defend against and take on fascist and white-supremacist thugs, on the street and on the internet. Significant sections of Antifa identify themselves as anarchist in some way.)
A sample of the range of the attacks: Noam Chomsky, the progressive anti-imperialist, and a self-identified "anarchist" himself--shut out of the major media for decades--suddenly finds himself quoted in every corner of that media for saying that Antifa is a "gift to the right." Chris Hedges, the "progressive" commentator, echoes similar themes. Liberal democrats warn that Antifa is causing the legitimacy of the government's right to the exclusive use of force and violence to come under question. A former speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld takes to the Washington Post to loudly assert the "moral equivalency" between Antifa and the Nazis whom it takes on. (Rumsfeld, as George W. Bush's "Defense" Secretary, directed the utterly unprovoked and illegitimate war against Iraq that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and still counting.) Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Party leader, rushed to denounce them, calling for arrests and prosecution.
At week's end came the punch line to this vicious show--an article on the liberal-Democratic Politico website announcing major FBI and "Homeland Security" investigations (and no doubt actions) against Antifa.
Let's pull the lens back here and get some clarity.
Point Number One: The mobilization of organized groups of fanatical thugs is integral to fascism
The Trump/Pence regime is a fascist regime. 1
The Trump/Pence regime has step-by-step taken dramatic draconian moves, stripping away democratic rights, targeting group after group, and suppressing dissent and resistance. Trump himself whips up and foments hatred and vicious violence at his fascist campaign rallies: "take 'em out on a stretcher," "punch 'em in the face," referring to protesters, and systematically going after the press as "enemies of the American people." Trump signaled to the whole world his support of the fascists in Charlottesville. When fascists march with torches chanting racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and outright NAZI slogans--in a country with historic and vicious white supremacy and male supremacy--people opposed to all this should wake the f*ck up!
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