As your picture shows, you are wrong. Those people are carrying flags. The Neo-Nazis had riot shields, helmets, batons, guns, and while the Antifa are ready for violence, it wasn't equal in this case. The pictures including the ones in your post show a group far less prepared to start violence than the armed and armored white supremacists. You can certainly start a thread condemning Antifa, but this isn't the incident to do it. The two groups were nowhere close to equal in their violence at this protest.
You might enjoy the recent book, Spain in Our Hearts, about the many Americans who went to fight the fascists in Spain. A number of Americans understood that the Spanish battle would be a dress rehearsal for Hitler and the real deal. They did not prevail, clearly, but it's hard not to have some admiration for them. I am in no way carrying water for today's Antifa, because I very much worry about what @JuanValdez articulated, re: feeding into law and order. You already have 2 in 3 (!) Republicans surveyed believing "both sides" were totally to blame. But clearly now, if there hadn't been an Antifa side, you might have some dead or mutilated clergy on your hands too. Not to ramble, but the dilemma was played out on Dan Rather's facebook page, of all places, recently. He posted one of his favorite and restorative songs from the Civil Rights era, "We Shall Overcome." And one of the first responses (either from Baylorbear09 or a real black woman) calmly and respectfully said that the time for singing those old songs was over. It didn't work and it won't work, she said. It was time to fight back. Scary, of course, and I disagree with her (with admittedly less at risk).
LOL, those were AntiFa members at different rallies, the point is that they ARE a Communist group, the fact that they showed up this time with bats and mace instead of flags doesn't dispute that. AntiFa bring violence everywhere they go, if you were paying attention, you'd know that. It wasn't long ago that they were selling these concealable knives in order to stab people at their protests There is NEVER a time to praise AntiFa, just like there is NEVER a time to praise Nazis or white supremacists.....the fact that you seem to not understand that means that this is absolutely the place to do it. Just because another group pushed the violence further than they did this time, doesn't mean that they aren't awful people....it means that awful people showed up to fight other awful people and it resulted in people dying.
There is plenty of information out there if you care to read about it. Yes, antifascists can be communists. But all antifascists are not communists. I do not support the violence of either, but one should be clear on these things. Also, the main point here is, as many others here have said, is that the counter-protesters were not antifa in the main. And, further, one has to acknowledge, if one is intellectually honest, that the antifas seem to have saved some innocent people from serious bodily harm and possibly death. To attack all the counter-protesters (most of whom were not antifa) as being just as bad as the Nazis is to implicitly absolve the real evildoers (borrowing a word from George Bush the Younger).
That's just propaganda. The group itself is a Communist group so saying that members "can be Communist" is disingenuous at best. Sure, some are Anarcho-Communists and some are more Marxist, but the group is a Communist group.....it would be like saying "Some white nationalists are racist" when you know that statement is BS. All of them are. As to the "main counter-protesters", I'm talking about those who were violent because those are the ones that caused the problem. Would you really want someone talking about the non-violent protesters on the other side? Of course not. In the context of this conversation we're talking about the violent Nazis/white nationalists and the violent AntiFa because those are the people that made this national news. It would be just another random protest by hicks that wasn't newsworthy unless AntiFa showed up and caused it to get violent. The blame goes on both violent groups for the violence overall and the act of terrorism goes on the guy who did it. Suggesting that AntiFa "saved people" by causing violence is pants on head r****ded and honestly just parroting their propaganda. If they weren't there to begin with, there wouldn't have been any violence to be "saved" from.
Here is some information on the antifas from W Not sure if you bothered to read the accounts linked in this thread. These are eyewitness accounts of people. But you seem to be missing the point: most of the counter-protesters were not antifa. And most of them were not violent. The young lady who lost her life: do you feel she was part of the problem, too? The real problem here is the Nazi movement and their apologists.
It's not relevant. The guy claiming that AntiFa "saved his life" is a Marxist apologist....not exactly a neutral party, of course he things that the Communists are great. If you asked a Nazi apologist, they might tell you the Nazis saved his life...would that be relevant to you? Would those eyewitness accounts change your mind about Nazis?
I don't understand your obsession with linking communism with a moral claim. Communism is a amoral ideology revolving around the means of production. You can think communism is a bad idea but someone who supports economic systems like communism tells me NOTHING about their moral principles. Nazism makes explcit moral claims.
guys stop arguing with the mentally ill. it's not nice. I am sure there was a mix of anti-hate protesters out there. It's a poor strategy. You will be more effective marching against hate than causing violence and giving racists national news coverage. Charlottesville won't accomplish anything for either side. If you want to strike out against white nationalists...protest them peacefully
No, the propaganda is coming from your take on this particular incident and trying to apply every past evil done by the group onto every person at the counter protest, even though Antifa didn't organize the counter protest and did in fact rescued non-violent counter protesters. Again, I'm not going to pretend I agree with violent protest/counter-protest. I'm also not going to pretend that all the violence at this rally was started by the group that didn't show up with riot shields, helmets, firearms, and other weapons. I'm not going to pretend that all the violence was initiated by Antifa even though the white nationalists were proclaiming themselves to be there for the purpose of partaking in violence. I get it that you don't like them, and want to make sure everyone realizes they do bad things. But exaggerating what happened and labeling them with instigation unwarranted to their group in this instance doesn't help make your point.
Again, I am only talking about those who showed up to be violent....which is AntiFa, I don't doubt that there were non-violent counter-protesters just like there were non-violent protesters. No one is really talking about them because they weren't the problem. I never said AntiFa organized the counter protest, they just showed up to cause it to be violent....and the "rescue" bit is 100% propaganda. No, instead what you are going to pretend is that a known violent extremist group who showed up with weapons with the express intent to cause violence didn't do that and instead that they are some kind of heroes for "saving" people that they put in danger by causing the violence to begin with. There's no exaggeration of what happened, it's just me dispelling the AntiFa propaganda that was posted here. Nazis are awful people Communists are awful people The problem in this forum is that a lot of you only agree with one of the two statements and as a result, you post puff pieces and propaganda supporting a violent extremist group.
Here there is a problem. As someone else already mentioned, Communism is an economic ideal. There is nothing inherently immoral about it. Nazism, however, is more than just an economic plan and there is something inherently immoral about it. Not all communists are in favor of evil. All Nazis are in favor of evil. That is true even if you disagree with communism.
I've criticized Anti-Fa before and do think that they are often too eager for violence and don't help their cause. That said though they are not comparable in motivations to the groups that were chanting "Blood and Soil" at Charlottesville. The Anti-Fa from what I've seen are young people who believe in opposing extreme nationalism and white supremacy. Admirable goals but too often they allow their zealotry to get the better of them. On the other hand we have groups that advocate racial superiority and racial purity of this country. I will criticize the Anti-Fa on tactics but there is nothing redeeming about the other side. I also brought this up in the other thread but this bears repeating. The threat from the extreme Right is and has been a far greater to this country than the Anti-Fa or Black Lives Matters. The 168 lives lost at the Murrah Federal building is testament to that. This threat still persist as just this week another Rightwing extremist attempted to bomb another Federal building in Oklahoma city. Many people like to say that 9/11 changed everything yet we've forgotten lesson of 4/19.
Communism is an inherently violent ideology that has directly led to the murder of millions....so yeah, it's inherently immoral. Nazism is another inherently violent ideology that has directly led to the murder of millions....so yeah, it's also inherently immoral. The fact that I have to spell this out to you, is again, the reason why I need to call these people out. While the Nazis enjoy almost no support, the Communist extremists are becoming mainstream due to how far to the left the political left in this country has moved in the past decade. That's what makes it a considerably bigger problem than a small group of rednecks in the sticks. You'd never see a puff piece in defense of Nazis or white supremacists in a major newspaper.....but clearly that's not the case for radical violent Communists.
Oh I'm sure there are some of you knuckle draggers who say things like that, but no one with a fully functional brain takes you seriously. I understand that to you, anyone that doesn't agree with you is a bigot....and that's fine, now head back to the corner and put your head down.
Bobby is like Trump, if you say the sky is blue he will argue you to death with logical fallacies and half-truths. The nut factor five resemblance to Trump is uncanny.
Communism is a amoral economic system that states how the means of production is controlled and distributed. Nazism is an ideology that makes explcit moral claims about other races, religion, ethnicities etc. You can state a rational statement such as 'communism is a bad idea' but like I stated before I'll know signficantly less about someone's moral character if they verbally tell me that they support communism than someone who states that they support Nazism.
I swear... is there any way to get people a freaking history book or something(not you... the people you are talking to)? The pure ignorance from some of the folks you are trying to explain this to is astounding, and its as if one side just thinks they are slinging an insult at the other group by throwing out Commie, Facist, Nazi, etc. without any semblance of connecting to a societal ideology that one group follows. Antifa closest resembles Anarchist Militia groups more than anything, and if they had an organized political party to take on a group to take over power I'd probably compare them more to the group that fought against Franco in early WW2 in Spain. Again... they don't have enough of an organized political party to establish what ideology they follow so one member could be reading Marxist literature and one member was reading Abraham Lincoln. So far I've seen no doctrine presented by their leadership that tells me they have any sound ideology unlike White Nationalists who have organization, funding, propaganda outlets, and doctrine. Its just ignorant to mudder the words Commies to this group. They frankly don't even deserve that much recognition sort of like how White Nationalists probably shouldn't be called Nazi's. We just use the term because its highly denigrating. Also.... Bobby, and Co. know that Antifa isn't a threat compared to White Nationalist Terrorist. Its a political tactic trolls on the right use to create false equivalency because they know those not on the Right care about their moral compasses, and they want us to feel as if the left did something wrong that we should feel guilty about. Its a tactic that has been used for many many years and we shouldn't fall for it. Only a complete monster would think that its morally equivalent for a group like Antifa or BLM to stand up to White Supremacist Hate groups who are inciting violence on innocent unarmed protestors. Debate their methods all you want, but if they kept the White Supremacists from hurting or killing more people than more power to them. Long story short.... I'm not sure this is worth our time. We know what the White Nationalists did, and we know what Trump did to support their cause this week. We have to just call it what it is, and not get sidetracked into false equivalency (speaking to myself more than anyone).
