The thread of Campus Crazy Hijinks

[JimC]

Antifa isn't trying to do any of that. The clue is in the name.

There would probably be a fair degree of membership overlap with anarchist anti-globalisation protestors, who have a tendency to indulge in destructive attacks on property. I have no beef with Antifa folk robustly protesting at fascist-style rallies, nor with self-defence (up to a point), but it would be naive to see them as blameless white knights, either...

[Animavore]

Did you really just link to a fucking Mike Cernovich video?!

Had to look up who Mike Cernovich is. Heh! Heh heh heh!

Up there with David Icke and Milton William Cooper.

[Seabass]

He's a world class nutjob conspiracy wacko. He helped spread Pizzagate for example. He might actually be nuttier than Alex Jones, although he doesn't have as big of a following.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mike_Cernovich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Cernovich
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016 ... -for-trump

[Animavore]

Ironically, Cernovich's lifestyle is only possible because he's supported by alimony from his rich ex-wife.[3]How's that for an alpha male?

[pErvinalia]

Antifa isn't trying to do any of that. The clue is in the name.

There would probably be a fair degree of membership overlap with anarchist anti-globalisation protestors, who have a tendency to indulge in destructive attacks on property. I have no beef with Antifa folk robustly protesting at fascist-style rallies, nor with self-defence (up to a point), but it would be naive to see them as blameless white knights, either...

Again, this isn't really what 42 was talking about. He said they want to END free-speech, private property and capitalism etc. It's absolute bollocks. They want to end the threat of fascism.

[Sean Hayden]

Ironically, Cernovich's lifestyle is only possible because he's supported by alimony from his rich ex-wife.[3]How's that for an alpha male?

You just have to be so careful about who you get involved with.

[Forty Two]

Antifa isn't trying to do any of that. The clue is in the name.

There would probably be a fair degree of membership overlap with anarchist anti-globalisation protestors, who have a tendency to indulge in destructive attacks on property. I have no beef with Antifa folk robustly protesting at fascist-style rallies, nor with self-defence (up to a point), but it would be naive to see them as blameless white knights, either...

Again, this isn't really what 42 was talking about. He said they want to END free-speech, private property and capitalism etc. It's absolute bollocks. They want to end the threat of fascism.

They see capitalism as inextricably intertwined with racism, sexism and fascism. They want to end capitalism as much as racism and sexism, and they think they need to end capitalism in order to eliminate sexism and racism. By eliminating capitalism, they also will eliminate private property. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/06 ... of-antifa/

In his new book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Mark Bray places current antifa struggles within a larger political ideology that is explicitly anti-capitalist. He notes that antifa has historically brought together broad segments of the left, including anarchists, communists, and socialists. “Many anti-fascists will argue that you can’t really be an anti-fascist without being an anti-capitalist, because they argue that capitalism breeds the conditions for fascism,” says Bray.

While anti-fascists have differing opinions about how fascism takes roots and grows, “what they agree on is that you can’t take fascism as a blemish on capitalist society, but instead as a key part of it.” Bray identifies this anti-capitalist analysis as a key distinction between militant anti-fascism in Europe and post-World War II modern European governments, noting that these states grew out of World War II and then juxtaposed themselves against fascism. An integral part of antifa’s politics is understanding that these states “didn’t actually thoroughly uproot traces of nazism and fascism, and by virtue of being capitalist states are still contributing to the root causes of fascism. In that sense, anti-capitalism is a key defining feature of what separates those two perspectives on what anti-fascism means.”

Mark Bray explains it here - Antifa is against free speech -- https://www.wnyc.org/story/antifa-speech-free/

[pErvinalia]

Jesus. The fact that some of them are anti-capitalist doesn't mean that Antifa is anticapitalist. Most of these people belong to mulitple movements. They aren't protesting for the end of capitalism when they are waving Antifa flags. They are protesting creeping fascism. Show me a video or properly referenced image that show Antifa as a group calling for the end of capitalism and private property. And by the way, calling for the abolition of capitalism isn't abolition of private property. Private property can exist without capitalism.

Regarding the Audio recording, I'm not going to listen to it. Hermit or L'Emmy can listen to it. Assuming he's calling for restrictions on hate speech, this isn't equivalent to an "end of free speech". As you know, just because speech is regulated doesn't mean it isn't free.

[Forty Two]

Mark Bray wrote a book about it. It's not just "some" of them.

Antifa are primarily communists and socialists, and Marxists, and so they are against private property. That's the cornerstone of communism, socialism and Marxism, an opposition to private property and capitalism.

Look, this is not controversial. Antifa is a far left grouping or faction which advocates the use of any means necessary, including violence, to combat those who they dub "fascists" (whether or not the people they attack dub themselves to be fascists or the equivalent), and they generally believe that the capitalist patriarchy is what feeds and fosters fascism. The two go hand in hand, as I noted above, with citations.

You aren't going to find liberal antifa members. You aren't going to find antifa members declaring the merits of defending the right of those they oppose the most's right to free speech.

https://www.vox.com/2017/8/25/16189064/ ... -interview
As Mark Bray stated

It’s also important to remember that these are self-described revolutionaries. They’re anarchists and communists who are way outside the traditional conservative-liberal spectrum. They’re not interested in and don’t feel constrained by conventional norms.

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 traditional conservative-liberal spectrum.

I think that reasonable people can disagree about this. I can’t speak for the individuals who committed these political actions, but the general defense is that the rationale for shutting down someone like Milo has to do with the fact that his kind of commentary emboldens actual fascists. The Berkeley administrators issued a statement in advance that they feared he was going to out undocumented students on campus, and previously he had targeted a transgender student at the University of Milwaukee Wisconsin. Antifa regards this as an instigation to violence, and so they feel justified in shutting it down.

Again, though, this is much easier to understand when you remember that antifa isn’t concerned with free speech or other liberal democratic values.

He recently explained in The Post, “Its [ANTIFA's] adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists” who believe that physical violence “is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.”

Those adherents overwhelmingly consider free speech, private property and capitalism to be tools of the ruling class or the patriarchy and they want to smash all that, because that's part of fascism. That's who they are. That's why you get so many of that ilk running around calling everyone fascists.

[pErvinalia]

Mark Bray wrote a book about it. It's not just "some" of them.

That's one person's take on it. I've actually met lots of Antifa activists. How many have you met?

Antifa are primarily communists and socialists, and Marxists, and so they are against private property. That's the cornerstone of communism, socialism and Marxism, an opposition to private property and capitalism.

Again you are conflating two separate realms. What the individuals believe in in their own time and/or separate protest movements is not equivalent to what any particular movement adheres to. Imagine a situation where the majority of a population believes in the death penalty, but the death penalty at the scale of the nation is not adopted. You would have us believe that a nation adheres to the principle of putting people to death for certain crimes just because the majority of its members adhere to that principle, in spite of the fact that it demonstrably doesn't. This is why I want to see actual evidence of Antifa as a large scale movement calling for the end of capitalism. Antifa "governance" is anarchist, I believe, so it's a horizontal hierarchy. No one person can speak for the movement as a whole. We'd need to see large chunks of the movement acting in the way you claim, to verify your claim.

I might get to the rest tomorrow. It's too late at night now.

[Forty Two]

Mark Bray wrote a book about it. It's not just "some" of them.

That's one person's take on it. I've actually met lots of Antifa activists. How many have you met?

Lots. But, Mike Bray is an expert on the topic. He's met many more than you, and has studied and written a book on the subject. Your or my personal experience is not as relevant as that, as he has what amounts to data. He is also sympathetic to ANTIFA -- he's not saying it with any negative intent -- he likes antifa. He defends antifa.

Antifa are primarily communists and socialists, and Marxists, and so they are against private property. That's the cornerstone of communism, socialism and Marxism, an opposition to private property and capitalism.

Again you are conflating two separate realms. What the individuals believe in in their own time and/or separate protest movements is not equivalent to what any particular movement adheres to.

No no. You are missing it. They conflate fascism with capitalism, and they say capitalism is inherently racist and sexist and oppressive. That's their philosphy about it. It's not me failing to separate what people do "in their own time." What they do in Antifa is "in their own time."

Imagine a situation where the majority of a population believes in the death penalty, but the death penalty at the scale of the nation is not adopted. You would have us believe that a nation adheres to the principle of putting people to death for certain crimes just because the majority of its members adhere to that principle, in spite of the fact that it demonstrably doesn't. This is why I want to see actual evidence of Antifa as a large scale movement calling for the end of capitalism. Antifa "governance" is anarchist, I believe, so it's a horizontal hierarchy. No one person can speak for the movement as a whole. We'd need to see large chunks of the movement acting in the way you claim, to verify your claim.

I might get to the rest tomorrow. It's too late at night now.

By your logic, as usual, there is no way to define the beliefs of antifa as a whole because not everyone holds exactly the same beliefs. Obviously, that's true of Republicans, Trump supporters, Democrats, existentialists, objectivists, and every other group or belief system - that doesn't mean we can't glean the basic concepts. What, we have no idea what Tea Party wanted because not all tea party members adhere to the same exact principles and there was no central governance?

[JimC]

Actions speak louder than words. To the extent that Antifa provides robust counter demonstrations to Nazi-style marches (within some bounds) then they get the JimC tick. If, in addition, they wish to put forward a basically Marxist, anti-capitalist philosophy, then let them do so - they have bugger all chance of making serious political change occur, IMO. If their actions were to veer into the area of wanton destruction of property, as shown by other extreme left/anarchist groups, then a pox be upon them. The grey area for me is that some of their actions in shutting down right-wing speakers (who are not always guilty of what can be legitimately called hate speech) are over the top.

[Forty Two]

.... even if they are guilty of what you think can be "legitimately" called hate speech (which is not in any respect objective or even subject to a reasonable consensus), why would shutting down speakers (not just right wing, right?) be justified?

What about the mean speech of the left wing groups? You seem to be o.k. with them as long as they don't get into "wanton destruction of property" -- I mean, why? What about when they start a lot of nasty talk and threats, as they are wont to do in their protests?

[pErvinalia]

Mark Bray wrote a book about it. It's not just "some" of them.

That's one person's take on it. I've actually met lots of Antifa activists. How many have you met?

Lots. But, Mike Bray is an expert on the topic. He's met many more than you, and has studied and written a book on the subject. Your or my personal experience is not as relevant as that, as he has what amounts to data. He is also sympathetic to ANTIFA -- he's not saying it with any negative intent -- he likes antifa. He defends antifa.

Antifa are primarily communists and socialists, and Marxists, and so they are against private property. That's the cornerstone of communism, socialism and Marxism, an opposition to private property and capitalism.

Again you are conflating two separate realms. What the individuals believe in in their own time and/or separate protest movements is not equivalent to what any particular movement adheres to.

No no. You are missing it. They conflate fascism with capitalism, and they say capitalism is inherently racist and sexist and oppressive. That's their philosphy about it. It's not me failing to separate what people do "in their own time." What they do in Antifa is "in their own time."

Imagine a situation where the majority of a population believes in the death penalty, but the death penalty at the scale of the nation is not adopted. You would have us believe that a nation adheres to the principle of putting people to death for certain crimes just because the majority of its members adhere to that principle, in spite of the fact that it demonstrably doesn't. This is why I want to see actual evidence of Antifa as a large scale movement calling for the end of capitalism. Antifa "governance" is anarchist, I believe, so it's a horizontal hierarchy. No one person can speak for the movement as a whole. We'd need to see large chunks of the movement acting in the way you claim, to verify your claim.

I might get to the rest tomorrow. It's too late at night now.

By your logic, as usual, there is no way to define the beliefs of antifa as a whole because not everyone holds exactly the same beliefs. Obviously, that's true of Republicans, Trump supporters, Democrats, existentialists, objectivists, and every other group or belief system - that doesn't mean we can't glean the basic concepts. What, we have no idea what Tea Party wanted because not all tea party members adhere to the same exact principles and there was no central governance?

Let's see the evidence then.

[JimC]

.... even if they are guilty of what you think can be "legitimately" called hate speech (which is not in any respect objective or even subject to a reasonable consensus), why would shutting down speakers (not just right wing, right?) be justified?

Hate speech is illegal in many jurisdictions - it would be the job of the law enforcement agencies to deal with it...

And I don't know if you noticed, but I made it clear that I generally don't approve of shutting speakers down for political reasons, unless the speech is a clear and deliberate provocation; and I know that the borderline is hard to draw...