Antifa World Headquarters
Guys, I’m usually pretty good at understanding, and when I look at things I can semi-acknowledge what I am seeing.
But Antifa stumps me. Nobody can seem to explain to me what the fool tarnation it is and why it does terrible things in secret. I don’t get this secret thing. How does that happen? There are supposedly thousands of Antifas all over the country who operate in complete silence. I know for a fact that’s not possible.
Take Thelma, for example. Thelma, who is known as The Texas Chainsaw Manicurist, knows every damn secret in this town and can keep a secret like it was her grandma’s heart. But if you offered Thelma a fully equipped pink Winnebago with the Dolly Parton interior package and $10,000 cash money, she’d tell you everything she knows.
People can’t keep secrets. And if you don’t believe that, look at Donald Trump. Everybody he’s hired at the White House eventually rats him out.
There’s a thing in Texas that there’s no such thing as a live armadillo. Nobody has ever seen one – all you see are dead ones in the middle of the damn road. Somebody out in West Texas goes all over the state leaving dead armadillos in the road. Those suckers are born dead. It’s a big conspiracy and I’m surprised if you haven’t heard it.
Which brings us to Antifa.
I figure I’m anti-fascist as anybody. I’m also anti-Trump, which is pretty much the same thing. So, I have decided that the beauty salon can be the Antifa World Headquarters. We’ll get a banner and everything. Let’s see who shows up.
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As I understand it, antifa was a regional (Pacific Northwest) phenomenon, more like the loose association of like-minded Southern racists than the more focused ones who joined the White Citizens Councils. A few Internet suggestions, a sign or two and a riot were enough for the press to establish that something called antifa existed when it never did.
Not so unusual. Remember the McCarthy era (if you’re old)? Lots of wholly imaginary or, at most, social gatherings were promoted to the status of existential threats to the US state.
When antifa got started its opponent — the fascists — were equally imaginary. There were plenty of fascist-minded people but outside a few tiny groups (seldom with more than 3 associates) no meaningful fascist organization, and, importantly, no fuehrer.
Times change. The fascists now have a fuehrer and have to a great extent captured the government but there is hardly a fascist political party in the US. That’s not what the Republicans are.
If you take a cold-eyed view of it, antifascism in America ended on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died. Truman was quickly captured by the anticommunists who were, by default, pro-fascist. That is how the supposedly democracy-loving US overthrew more democracies (Iran, Guatemala etc.) than communism ever did; and supported fascist regimes everywhere (Taiwan, Spain etc.).
If you take Nolte’s definition of fascism, most of the required elements are present in Trumpism — nationalism, racism, exclusionism. Missing are the mass organizations (Black Shirts) and Catholicism.
1Well, they are also anti-capitalists; so, that might affect the profits in the WMDBS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
2Alexandra Petri of the WP is amazing. She has one called “Trump’s Favorite Bible Stories”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/10/know-signs-how-tell-if-your-grandparent-has-become-an-antifa-agent/
3You don’t hae to have a grad degree in psych to deduce that “spooking” is the name of hte game for both antifas and the fascists. As long as only a few people can keep the spooking alive, thats their whole game. As miserable and harmful as it is.
Now her ]e comes the however. The fascists CURRENTLY do not have a fuehrer. But I was assured by my college professors that somewhere in this country such an organism is alive. Couldn’t believe it then. Gotta give them a lot more credit now.
4I wouldn’t joke about it, there’s a billion-dollar media company whose business model is making bogeymen out of thin air to keep their viewers enthralled. All they need is a face and an address to give their propaganda legitimacy. I personally ain’t in a hurry to be the face of heavily armed racists’ nightmares.
5Brad in Dallas makes an excellent point.
6WOW! I just realized that my Dad was a founding member of ANTIFA
7(a.k.a. A WWII veteran)
I can’t find the article I read earlier this week, but it said that antifa (at least it’s current iteration here in the U.S.) started in the punk rock scene. White supremacists were trying to take over the scene, so antifa was formed as a way to prevent that. While antifa has been seen confronting racists IRL, they mostly do research to identify and out racists, such as what happened after Charlottesville when several fascists were fired from their jobs.
Antifa is not an organization; it is an ideology that supports pushing back against fascism in the U.S.
8Here’s a June 9, 2020 article:
“How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The U.S.
Rumors of roving bands of Antifa have followed small protests all over the United States. Why are people so ready to believe them?”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/antifa-rumors-george-floyd-protests
9I’ll let Kathleen Wallace “speak” for me. She describes BLM and associated activists which would be all of us BLM allies and those who directly identify as anti fascist, or Antifa which would also speak for me.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/11/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-unearned-authority/
In respect for the concept of “stay in your lane” I have elected to this point to roam no further south than Reno and Carson City to avoid the appearance of being anything other than sincere, and not branded or dismissed as an outside agitator. However, I do reserve my right to pass go and stomp square into the passing lane and up the median strip, if the fascist powers that be demand my presence elsewhere due to their continued criminal activities. They’ve met with resistance, but it is their responsibility and totally their call, if the situation disintegrates.
10I wish we had access to the Presidential Daily Briefing. Even knowing the title of events listed would be useful. Because I’d love to see how many times Antifa has been mentioned in the PDB since Trump took office.
I’d also like to compare the PDB’s compilation of updated national and world developments, events which a president should be focused on, with Trump’s Tweets. Would there be a 5% correlation? 10%?
Off topic, but here’s my prediction for this year’s October Surprise:
11One month (or less) before the election Trump announces a 100% beautifully safe, fantastically effective COVID-19 vaccine. Developers even used some of his ideas and suggestions made during the televised COVID briefings in April, he’s taken an early test sample, and it’s perfect, he’s completely impervious to the virus like Superman – – and oh yes, we’re all saved, just like Jesus did.
This reminds me of the lynch mobs that form in India based on social media rumors. In India, it’s cow killers, Muslims trying to marry Hindus (“love jihad”, according to the Hindu equivalent of Alex Jones fans), or child kidnappers. Happens in many other places, too – but India’s been in the news lately.
Social media spreads rumors very quickly. For millennia, mobs have formed once rumors of the right type spread. Social media merely amplifies the problem.
12My research acknowledges a putative explosion of anti-rite-wing bias and resistance to fundagelical and charismatic christianity hogging the debate at some local town meetings some place North of Florida and West of Maine (rumored to be northern California or southern Oregon — definitely not Idaho and probably not Nevada) and the radical infidels called the christians “Fascist” in their thinking. The Joe-Bob’s, Jimmy-Earl’s, Freddie-Mac’s, Nancy-Lee’s, Suzy-Que’s and Mary-Lou’s decided it was a conspiracy facing them and the conspiracy grew since we all know 3 or 4 loud liberals can’t redirect the behavior of a hundred sharers of the “prosperity gospel”. The “good Ole Boiz” of the Grand Emerald Green Wizard of the KKK” up in muscovitch-mitch’s backyard and Exxon-Eddies neighborhood decided to become antifa’s and terrorize some solid Amurkan ciytzenz while in disguise as “antifa’s”. This was a good idea so the word went out … from pulpit to pull-pit … drees in “antifa’s” uniforms and lett antifa get the blame.
13There!
History lesson complete. Antifa’s are gude ole boiz from the farm (fallow that it be – since they’re too lazy to wirk). Mama, come git yore lil boi by the ear and frog-march him home like a 5-year-old.
Hey, I live in the PNW and I haven’t got a clue who or what is Antifa. Just something the righties can jump on and become outraged at.
14… and less than a week ago the world observed the 76-th anniversary of one of the largest and most violent Antifa operations ever staged.
15Rick says: [above] “this year’s October Surprise:
One month (or less) before the election Trump announces a 100% beautifully safe, fantastically effective COVID-19 vaccine.”
I’m with him, except the vaccine has to be announced as CLOSE to completion, but not quite complete. It will clear the FDA in mid-November, go into production, and be pumped out in massive doses starting in January……
Trump uses “vapor” rather than real accomplishment.
16Yeah, I don’t get this Antifa stuff. Isn’t everyone anti- fascist? Sooooo, those who are anti Antifa are pro-fascist?
17Good to know I am not the only one confused.
God help us all!
Surly Professor, the anniversary of an even larger and far more significant one comes up on the 23rd. Operation Bagration.
I doubt whether one American in 500 ever heard of it.
18The GOP/Right can only exist by having enemies. Their enemies don’t have to be real, its all about beliefs.
19Harry Eagar @18: you’re right on both counts, Bagration was far larger, and only old folks who read way too many history books know what it was.
And right now “conservatives” and Trumpoids need to start asking themselves, “are we the baddies?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
20Antifa is why our parents and grandparents fought the Second World War.
21