Democracy Now: “We speak to Mark Bray, author of the new book, “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.”
MARK BRAY: And then, in the United States, we can look at anti-racist action in the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s, which took some of these methods of confronting neo-Nazis and fascists wherever they assemble, shutting down their organizing and, as they said, going where they go. Today, in an article I wrote for The Washington Post called “Who are the antifa?” I explain this and show how today’s antifa in the United States are really picking up the tradition where these groups left off. And their movement has really accelerated with the unfortunate ascendance of the alt-right following President Trump. [snip]
The other minor note I want to make before we continue is that antifa is really only one faction of a larger movement against white supremacy that dates back centuries and includes a whole number—there are a whole number of groups that fight against similar foes, sometimes using the same methods, that aren’t necessarily anti-fascists. So, it’s important not to subsume the entire anti-racist movement within this sort of one category. [snip]
And one of the other lessons of the beginning of the 20th century is that people did not take fascism and Nazism seriously until it was too late. That mistake will never be made again by anti-fascists, who will recognize that any manifestation of these politics is dangerous and needs to be confronted as if it could be the nucleus of some sort of deadly movement or regime of the future.”, etc.
Now the WaPo is behind a paywall for me; guess I’ve used up my ‘free clicks’ already, and wanted to know what Bray had to say that the MSM corporate press encouraged him to…contribute. A non-Wapo search yielded: ‘Author of antifa handbook defends antifascist violence’, ctmirror.org, August 18
Mark Bray, History Professor
“Although most of its members don’t resort to violence, the antifa believes Trump’s presidency has given new life to a white supremacist movement they’ve been fighting for years and say they must be better armed – even with guns – when they show up at future rallies like the one in Charlottesville.
Mark Bray, a visiting history scholar at Dartmouth and the author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” sympathizes with the movement and told the Connecticut Mirror its members are justified in using violence, even to the point of arming themselves, to combat “fascist violence.”
That view is rejected by others, including liberal groups fighting the radical right.
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the U.S, said fighting “fire with fire” is counterproductive, and “emboldens” Neo-Nazi groups.”
A Q and A follows; a few bits:
- Do you personally think it’s okay for antifa members to arm themselves?
- Yes. Self-defense is a legitimate response to fascist violence. I think it’s always best to accomplish a political goal with as little violence as possible. That’s why the kind of moment where an anti-fascist group defends itself is sort the last point on the sequence of the organizing. Often what they do first is write letters and make phone calls to try to cancel an event, to try to mobilize a community to pressure the event not to be held, to occupy a space so there can’t be an assembly…to try all these steps so that violence is a last resort. But as a last resort, I think it’s ethically justifiable, given the history of the holocaust. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the great mistake was not taking it seriously until it was too late. I think you have to stop fascism early, and sometimes that requires self defense.
- And that includes the use of guns?
- Well, if the fascist have guns, and they do…there are groups that are recognizing if fascists have guns, maybe antifascists should too.
- Using clubs is one thing, but guns is another. Are you personally okay with guns?
- I think everything should be done to avoid escalating violence. But if you face an armed fascist threat, I think using firearms in self-defense is an acceptable recourse.
- Most of those who demonstrate against the far right are not antifa members. Some liberal groups have a real problem with the violence….
- That is true, but less than it used to be. I think that there is a willingness to have a conversation, post Charlottesville.
Please tell me what agenda the Washington Post has by giving Bray a stage. Of course the papers of record want Trump impeached in the worst sorts of ways. But armed antifa has now been corporatized, legitimized, which is worrisome to me in the extreme. They have not only put big targets on the antifascist movement, but at the same time potentially added to the meme within the petition to ‘Formally recognize AntiFa as a terrorist organization, Created by M.A. on August 17, 2017 already has 241,796 signatures at whitehouse.gov/petitions. 100,000 is supposed to trigger the US president to ‘address’ the issue. (publishing info on Bray’s ‘Handbook’)
Yes, ‘former OWS organizer’ Bray heartily believes that the US is under attack by Nazis and other white supremacists. But then on Mark Bray’s Twitter account, I found this corroborating take as well:
‘A Call for Self-Defense in the Face of White Supremacy’, August 16, 2017 William C. Anderson, Truthout
““Of the many inhuman outrages of this present year, the only case where the proposed lynching did not occur, was where the men armed themselves in Jacksonville, Fla., and Paducah, Ky., and prevented it. The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.” — Ida B. Wells
“The stranglehold of oppression cannot be loosened by a plea to the oppressor’s conscience.” — Robert F. Williams [snip]
“The status quo is this capitalist white supremacist empire and the violence that it inflicts daily. “Law and order,” the court systems and all of the white supremacist institutions that forgive vigilante white supremacist movements are aided by liberal politics. Not only have these institutions been founded, operated and infiltrated by white supremacists since the moment the US existed, they are further empowered by them. Dr. King, whose legacy is regularly misappropriated by liberal dishonesty, mentioned this in his letter from the Birmingham Jail:
‘I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice….
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.’ [snip]
“Despite a general reverence among many progressive activists for historical armed rebellions led by Black people, Native people and many other people of color, there’s often a disconnect from arms themselves. The commodification and sterilization of armed Black revolutionary historical leaders like Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), Assata Shakur, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois and countless others disarms them in the public imagination. Sometimes they are even remembered in the context of a false, violent-versus-nonviolent (Malcolm X versus King) binary, which employs liberal and white supremacist myths about what violence is. In all actuality Dr. King and Malcolm X were both nonviolent. Anyone who defends themselves by any means necessary when they are being attacked is not the one bringing violence into the world. There is nothing violent about defending your life or the life of your loved ones. The oppressed are not and have not been the aggressors in this white supremacist society, and we should never allow untruths that label us so.
Those who oppose white supremacy and the violences it distributes out in the world should begin arming themselves if they are not already. Kind words, liberal idealism and the state are not guaranteed to protect you. In an escalating bigoted environment where the president refuses to denounce white supremacists, because he is one of them and encourages their violence, many of us are prepared to protect our lives with the same weapons that aggressors would use to attack us. Those who seek to do us harm (regularly including the police) will do so whether we’re unarmed or armed, even with gun permits. Police and other state enforcers should not cause us to willingly make ourselves more vulnerable for the sake of looking more innocent or less guilty in their eyes. Many of us carry the presumption of guilt merely because of our skin color, so we might as well carry the means to safeguard our lives as well. The question of if passivism and respectability can save us has already been answered by the countless killings of Black people who were following all the supposed rules of perfect victimhood. Abandoning some of these rules doesn’t mean that we’re bad, nor does it mean we’re violent; it means that we’re prepared.” [large snip]
“Ida B. Wells once wrote:
A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.
There’s a rich tradition in many Black families, resistances and communities that embraces armed self-defense. Black defense provides us with a historical handbook. This stretches back to the earliest moments enslaved Africans were brought to this country. Ever since then, many Black Americans have cherished the ability to defend our loved ones from the violences they’ve faced. It’s this history that established the Black American gun clubs and organized movements for self-defense we shouldn’t be pressured to disassociate ourselves from today.”
(Ida B. Wells, July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931, may she still rest in power.)
No, those affinity groups who join white supremacy/Nazi/Klan/the Vanguard counter-protests certainly can’t count on the police to defend them, but if more come armed, what do you imagine the police will do to them directly? And when the sites that host them get wind of the calls…what happens next? Bigger weapons? More rallies in defense of Confederate monuments?
Will local officials give counter-protestors ‘permits’? Do they care? Likely not, if it’s…a war for their futures against living under indirect white supremacist rule. For most people of color, especially the Rabble classes, it’s been thus for many lifetimes, hasn’t it?
Sadly, Truthout doesn’t seem to enable commenting, at least not on Anderson’s essay; I’d have been really interested to see them.
And while media follows the alleged race wars’, what are they not showing us? A lot, of course, unless it’s more Russiagate, or Trump’s rerun of The Apprentice stuff, which may just lead to rule by military junta in Amerika, some posit, noting the many rats so hypocritically deserting the ship post-Charlottesville .
Yes, I’m sure you’ll let me know your thoughts and musings. ;-) Oh, and mic.com is tracking the Confederate statues that have be ‘removed’ since C’ville, and is crowd-sourcing all that exist in America. May most be ‘preemptively’ removed, even in the dead of night.
Ajamu Baraka, one more time:
@ajamubaraka ‘You are being played. The state is not your friend. All efforts to restrict the right will be used against us a thousand times over.’
@ajamubaraka ‘If you want to remove symbols of white supremacy why are you limiting it to confederacy? Yes Trump, Jefferson & Washington must be next. (wd here: I’d certainly add Andrew Jackson.)
@ajamubaraka ;Does anyone really believe Obama wouldn’t have condemned both sides in C’Ville? I don’t.’
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Amy Goodman had played a clip of Cornell West on an earlier DN! program saying this:
CORNEL WEST: The anti-fascists, and then, crucial, the anarchists, because they saved our lives, actually. We would have been completely crushed, and I’ll never forget that.
yes, we’d heard it before, but I got to wondering if she or Bray were using it as a case for antifas arming themselves. so…for a second time i poked around and found ‘Meet the clergy who stared down white supremacists in Charlottesville’, think progress, highlighting the ‘Congregate CVille’ group, which had formed five weeks earlier and had put our a call for 1000 clergy to come to C’ville and promote peace
it contains an extraordinary array of photos of social gospel in action; whoosh. but the sole mention of weapons that were brought to bear on the nazis/white supremacists was…fists.
I agree that this is very dangerous and not a good idea for antifa to carry guns. Seems like a recipe for escalation and possible civil war. If this seems to contradict what I said yesterday, perhaps it does, perhaps it’s a step in the evolution of my personal dialectic. Or….
Perhaps not. Clubs and pepper spray were sufficient thus far for antifa to save lives, with the unfortunate exception of Heather Heyer ( though I note that a well-placed shot could have shot out a tire and disabled the car that killed her.) Thus far, no Nazis have been audacious enough to shoot a person wielding a stick; the presence of guns imo would very likely encourage Nazis to shoot first and claim self-defense and they could very well walk free, or provoke a shooting war which could lead to many horrific outcomes, forfeiting the moral high ground, mass slaughter, or rule by military junta.
i appreciate the considered response, c seeker. i’d seen photo purported to be long stakes with the bidness end of large nails embedded in them…on sites condemning antifa violence, a la trump. i wouldn’t want that sort of arming, either, as those hefty nails could cause death, who knows what other grievous bodily harm.
i was just considering updating the OP with some bits from this essay at CP: ‘‘A Plea for Nonviolence: Fighting Fascism in Trump’s America’ by Anthony DiMaggio, Aug. 21 (and its not that i agree w/ all of it, including his use of labels.)
“The stakes involved in this conflict cannot be understated. There are two nightmare scenarios which I can see that threaten to emerge from the events that transpired in Charlottesville. One, is that we see the rise of vigilantism in the streets across many American cities, with the president rationalizing violence on the right. This appears increasingly likely with right-wing reactionaries announcing plans for more marches. There is little indication that this president will stand in their way.” [snip]
Antifa and Redneck Revolt will not succeed against this threat. Rather, what will happen if the violence continues is that the U.S. simply deteriorates into vigilantism, as left-wing and right-wing protesters duke it out in the streets in the face of intensifying suppression of leftist groups.”
“There is a second, even more ominous nightmare scenario that may play out – that the Trump administration may seize on recent and future events to establish emergency rule and martial law. There would be little at that point, short of public resistance, to stop him from a massive suppression campaign against his political critics. Essentially, the United States of America becomes the fascist state of Donald Trump. Detractors will argue that this scenario is unlikely and far-fetched. I sincerely hope they’re right. But I also believe we are quickly reaching the point of escalation in which it’s foolish to not start thinking about worst-case scenarios.”
“If we choose to forfeit the moral high ground (non-violence in the face of fascism), we are playing into the hands of a political system under Trump that increasingly embraces reactionary, right-wing violence.”
now i only vaguely remember hearing of redneck revolt, but here’s a tweet, and i’ll embed their website, plus his ‘future events’ hyperlink. yeah, so much other shit’s going down as Cville and related confrontations are so on display, but these calls to arms…really did get my knickers in a knot. and really, it’s not that i don’t understand the emotions behind them, or share similar murderous rage. but they’re looking at it as ‘pragmatic and necessary’ from what i can gather.
on edit: two Qs i’d forgotten w/ dimaggio’s piece in the front of my noggin: did you click thru to bray’s wapo rag piece, and do you have any thoughts on the reason they gave him that big stage? the rule of thumb is that the msn are part of the deep state, and want this stuff known…for a reason. does the wapo enable comments? i’ be curious to know what responses might have been, but i ain’t curious enough to pay to see!
(and dayum, i wish wordpress hadn’t disabled my old font choices; i really can’t like any of the myriad i’ve tried lately.)
Yes wendye, i am very concerned about provocateurs. The bray article could very well be a gladio-style provocation. This ties into the sticks with nails thing: i don’t know if you read my comment on the charlottesville thread about how i grew up in chicago and i was 11 years old during the ’68 convention and all the newspapers had pictures of baseballs and bats with spikes, and stories of urine and feces thrown at police. I learned many years later such things were common COINTELPRO tactics. Very effective propaganda too as it was the first time hippies came on my radar and i was shocked and horrified and thought they must be degenerates to do such things. So i became a vicious little right winger who supported the war and held political views to the right of my conservative parents. ( The second time the hippies got my attention was Charles Manson, which didn’t help matters). If I had a 1973 calendar i could almost pinpoint the exact date and time that i suddenly switched loyalties and became a leftie, and her name was Suzi Wells. Hee hee ( I’ve been musing about the personal and the political, tribalism, and the evolution not only of my political thought, but also the methodology i use to try to separate wheat from chaff and I’d like to write something about it on an appropriate thread.
I have more to say but its almost 6 am and ive been in insomniac creative mode, writing apocalyptic poetry and chatting with an insightful ex about various personal and political issues. And i have a big day tomorrow. An emergency bankruptcy filing and a shrink’s appointment.
But that tale is too levity-filled for a thread on this very serious topic. I share ypur concerns that something nefarious afoot and if the anti fascism didn’t stop at the water’s edge and more people were hip to provocateurs, I’d be very hopeful. But they aren’t and I’m not (subject/ predicate disagreement i know but I’m tired. Finally. Night and prayers this is not the beginning of a u.s. nazi/deep staye maidan. ‘ night.
i’m concerned even more given trumpeter’s speech. i’ve been reading alt-opinion and news pieces since 4:30, and am even more…’hair on fire’. and yes, i’d read your comment via email, but it’s hard to answer all of them, or even find them in the nested system. but it’s one of the reason i encourage y’all to converse w/ one another as well.
wouldn’t have called manson a hippie, myself, but then that’s the sole club i’ve ever belonged to. ;-) and good on suzi wells, lol. good luck in court…today.
Yikes. Super busy day no time to read about Dumpster fire yet. Ironic thing us Suzi became born again right ,christian” in college and we lost touch.
ha ha; how odd-bodkins! hope your case went in your client’s favor. but mainly in case i need to borrow some money. ;-) don’t worry, though, i haven’t had time to read it, either. 2 damned long!
cut & paste job cuz screw WaPo:
“On Monday, President Trump capitulated to the popular demand that he distance himself from his comment that “many sides” were to blame in Charlottesville by explicitly denouncing white nationalism. “Racism is evil,” he appeared to grudgingly concede, “including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.”
A day later, however, Trump reversed course by clarifying that there were “very fine people” at the white power rally, while casting “blame on both sides” including the allegedly “alt-left” antifa.
First bursting into the headlines when they shut down far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February at the University of California at Berkeley, antifascists again captivated the public imagination by battling the fascists assembled at the “Unite the Right” white power rally in Charlottesville.
But what is antifa? Where did it come from? Militant anti-fascist or “antifa” (pronounced ANtifa) is a radical pan-leftist politics of social revolution applied to fighting the far right. Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists who reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy. Instead they advocate popular opposition to fascism as we witnessed in Charlottesville.
There are antifa groups around the world, but antifa is not itself an interconnected organization, any more than an ideology like socialism or a tactic like the picket line is a specific group. Antifa are autonomous anti-racist groups that monitor and track the activities of local neo-Nazis. They expose them to their neighbors and employers, they conduct public education campaigns, they support migrants and refugees and they pressure venues to cancel white power events.
The vast majority of anti-fascist organizing is nonviolent. But their willingness to physically defend themselves and others from white supremacist violence and preemptively shut down fascist organizing efforts before they turn deadly distinguishes them from liberal anti-racists.
Antifascists argue that after the horrors of chattel slavery and the Holocaust, physical violence against white supremacists is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective. We should not, they argue, abstractly assess the ethical status of violence in the absence of the values and context behind it. Instead, they put forth an ethically consistent, historically informed argument for fighting Nazis before it’s too late. As Cornel West explained after surviving neo-Nazi attacks in Charlottesville, “If it hadn’t been for the antifascists protecting us from the neo-fascists, we would have been crushed like cockroaches.”
Though antifa are often treated as a new force in American politics since the rise of Trump, the anti-fascist tradition stretches back a century. The first antifascists fought Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts in the Italian countryside, exchanged fire with Adolf Hitler’s Brownshirts in the taverns and alleyways of Munich and defended Madrid from Francisco Franco’s insurgent nationalist army. Beyond Europe, anti-fascism became a model of resistance for the Chinese against Japanese imperialism during World War II and resistance to Latin American dictatorships.
Modern antifa politics can be traced to resistance to waves of xenophobia and the emergence of white power skinhead culture in Britain in the 1970s and ’80s. It also has its roots in self-defense groups organized by revolutionaries and migrants in Germany, as the fall of the Berlin Wall unleashed a violent neo-Nazi backlash.
In the United States and Canada, activists of the Anti-Racist Action Network (ARA) doggedly pursued Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other assorted white supremacists from the late 1980s into the 2000s. Their motto was simple but bold: “We go where they go.” If Nazi skinheads handed out leaflets at a punk show in Indiana about how “Hitler was right,” ARA was there to show them the door. If fascists plastered downtown Alberta’s Edmonton with racist posters, ARA tore them down and replaced them with anti-racist slogans.
Responding to small fascist groups may seem trivial to some, but the rise of Hitler and Mussolini show that resistance is not a light switch that can simply be flipped on in a crisis. Once the Nazi and fascist parties gained control of government, it was too late to pull the emergency brake.
In retrospect, antifascists have concluded, it would have been much easier to stop Mussolini back in 1919 when his first fascist nucleus had 100 men. Or to stamp out the far-right German Workers’ Party, which had only 54 members when Hitler attended his first meeting, before he transformed it into the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party). Though the regimes that inspired their original protests are long dead, antifascists have devoted themselves to treating small fascist and Nazi groups as if they could be the nucleus of a murderous movement or regime of the future.
[President Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan was popularized by Nazi sympathizers]
For years, antifascists have been maligned for treating groups of 40 or 60 Klansmen or fascists with the utmost seriousness. Members of the 10-year-old Rose City Antifa of Portland, Ore., the country’s oldest currently existing antifa group, confronted criticism even from the left for devoting themselves to unmasking and exposing the activities of small groups of local racists, Islamophobes and fascists rather than focusing on more large-scale, systemic injustices.
Years before the alt-right even had a name, antifascists were spending thankless hours scouring seedy message boards and researching clandestine neo-Nazi gatherings. They were tracking those who planted the seeds of the death that we all witnessed in Charlottesville. Agree or disagree with their methods, the antifa, who devote themselves to combating racism, are in no way equivalent to alt-right trolls who joke about gas chambers. Behind the masks, antifa are nurses, teachers, neighbors, and relatives of all races and genders who do not hesitate to put themselves on the line to shut down fascism by any means necessary.
It should not have taken the murder of Heather Heyer for so many of us, especially white people, to take seriously the threat of white power that has plagued communities of color for generations. The history of anti-fascist demands that we take seriously the violence of white supremacists. The days of “just ignoring them” are over.” Mark Bray in Wapo
———–
a quick glance at a few comments did not reveal anything of merit. here in Olympia I met some walking, talking, unmade, unwashed bed spouting off about how he’s here to “Hulk smash!” on the neo-Nazis. I wished him happy hunting after commenting that he’s really putting himself at risk…here.
staging provocations is part of the game plan. was Italy or Germany as deluged w/guns as we are, back in 1930? I doubt it. but they were surely not as media saturated. and a much, much greater % of people still called the farm home. more openly fascist expression in this country will take some different forms. (one thing won’t change: they’ll be the biggest whiny crybaby losers if something doesn’t go there way. “see! the libs/jews/commies/gays/gypsies are oppressing us!”)
but why isn’t the carceral & deporting state already fascistic, if not outright fascist? whether the state is fascist, fascistic, fascistical, might depend on where one is on the social totem pole. I don’t think that in the fascist countries of the ’30’s, employers had quite so much control over the total populace as they do now, for the simple fact that many were still farmers. I could be wrong, but again, it’s a different dynamic. and why aren’t labor relations also fascistic?
I just say all this cuz i’m suspicious of people, esp. public figures, finding their inner democracy warrior right at this moment. where the hell you been?
as for acts of violence, self-defense yes, but doesn’t it have to be coupled w/ *anti-government, anti-state* actions & attitudes in general? otherwise, it’s just a silly delusion. and in general the idea that it is *guns* we need…I think DHS & the cops lick their chops gleefully at that notion. any eruption of violence can be, and will be, perverted & manipulated, by the state for its own ends. suspicion about why Mark “any means necessary” Bray and the like are being promoted by state organs certainly is very warranted.
‘You are being played. The state is not your friend. All efforts to restrict the right will be used against us a thousand times over.’ well said.
strategy of tension anyone?
from the little bit I’ve seen of Heather Heyers’ spotlight craving mum, we may also be in for a new reality show: America’s got martyrs. celebrity martyrdom. I already see it. “you out in the audience: vote now by texting to *1232456 for the person who died this week ‘defending’ *your* cause. standard texting rates apply.” have the parents, family, friends, college perfessers, come out & give a weepy performance about what a sincere trooper their little flower was. no one w/a daughter bulldozed in Gaza need apply.
oh, my. i’d seen allusions too heather’s mum testifyin’, but hadn’t ever clicked in. one photo may have been on up against the wall ya redneck mothers twitter feed. guess i should look when i have time? yer thinkin’ 15 minutes of fame reality teevee? wow, that’s cynical, but entirely possible.
yeah, bibi’s take on c’ville and trump i did look at. ptui and ptui to him and likud, and the nukes and aipac, bds criminalization laws they rode in on.
couldn’t resist:
http://www.consumertrap.com/2017/08/market-totalitarianism-nutshell/
“In the end, it’s a mindshare race. You want the customer thinking about your product as often as they can, for as long as they can.”
— Eytan Albaz, cofounder and chief strategy office of Social Native, and cofounder and chairman of Render Media.
[Advertising Age, August 15, 2017]
why isn’t this b.s. fascist(ic)? but yeah, in our environment, we also have market totalitarianism to confront in a way i’m not sure was true in 1933.
and they quote chomsky? but yeah, this ain’t the 1930s. as with the ida wells quotes as probative, definitive exemplars of the past is the present.
bless you six ways from sunday, amigo. first, oh, fuck me: “pardonnez moi, i’ve got someone to kill”; brilliant as all-giddy-up, fight fascism with fascism!!!! second of course, for bringin’ the wapo version.
“Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists who reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy” ??? c’est vrais? maybe that’s one of the tells, eh? they’re commies?
“…they conduct public education campaigns, they support migrants and refugees and they pressure venues to cancel white power events.” not at the connecticut mirror, they should though, as in vancouver.
your “I think DHS & the cops lick their chops gleefully at that notion. any eruption of violence can be, and will be, perverted & manipulated, by the state for its own ends. suspicion about why Mark “any means necessary” Bray and the like are being promoted by state organs certainly is very warranted.”: yeah, that’s where i’m sittin’, and thanks for bringing baraka’s true observation again.
I think david walsh at wsws came w/ “fight fascism w/fascism.” yes.
i can dig it. ;-) i’ll add a graphic on one of the antifa twitters, i cant remember which, but it was huuuge;
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’
~ Martin Luther (sic)
there’s a lotta ‘charlottesville murderer linked to assad silly stuff out in the twittersphere, obviously w/ russia as proxy, tra la la. but as a good night gift:
Eclipsegate!
Phoenix (Democrat mayor) tear gassing of peaceful protest last night
This one has a screen shot of some of them
The claim was “water bottles”
i wasn’t familiar w/ trend maps, but i finally chose a local story that describes why they were there, and has videos, etc.
“”They had their own gas and they threw it at police. They didn’t throw our own gas,” Police Chief Jeri Williams said.
She said that’s what an employee told her what happened. Williams said it happened near the Herberger Theatre along Monroe Street. Williams said there was no destruction of property and that it was a “successful celebration.”
lotta disconnects there. thanks, marym. any thoughts on my questions in the OP? and shall i delete the first one as the second one has much more?
“an employee told her” (employee of whom? of the theater?), then the mayor repeats it. Very frustrating.
ha, let’s rewrite it for her: “i took the word of an anonymous employee of i-forget cuz: believable. but at least they brought their own gas! and as no property was destroyed, it was a fine celebration!”
An employee of Cointelpro Enterprises, Inc.
telesur coverage of trump’s ‘make amerikkka white again’ rally has a lot in it, including photos, inflammatory quotes from his big mouth, but notably this:
“Members of Redneck Revolt and the John Brown Gun Club, Phoenix-based anti-racist community defense organizations, also attended the protest armed with rifles in case the protesters came under attack. Arizona is an open carry state where the exercise of Second Amendment gun rights isn’t considered controversial”.
another day in paradise. at least according to the music being piped in non-stop at the local gas stations & mickey d’s. it’s all “walkin’ on sunshine” and “i’ll stop the world & meld w/you”. it’s pretty funny: shopping for the body’s and the car’s death juice in these fiberglass dungeons while the cheesiest pop love songs, (your favs from Motown to Nikki Minaj!), are pounded into your school.
I do notice that the NYT has got the full cheer leading corps out for the Trumpster’s oh so unexpected decision to keep at it in AfPak. No pictures of Kabul in their little “photo essay” either. you know, the places where they just dump the bodies of the dead heroin addicts.
‘love will keep us together’, too? gads, how long it’s been since i’ve been to a city; fiberglass dungeons: very colorful metaphor, trump for emperor of space. back in the day, sheet metal and slump block ruled, abandoned big box stores were either repurposed, or left as standing hulks to failed capitalism, much like dead coal-generated power plants, refineries, and what have you.
ah, well, save your thoughts on af/pak, as this diary might have been…that; it’ll be next. quite a queue i’ve built up lately. and i’m in fact writing a bit of a satirical comment on it for another website. and yes, this theme is definitely related to it, as you know, as per: the speech. jaysus.
…hi wd
…Plain to see DeeTee has now been roped and tied by the orcs and warmonger mutates who infest WarMonger$$$WarCriminals+Killers DC with announcement by McMaster/Mattis/Kelly WH regime that USian Empire has no intention(s) of not being/staying in Afghanistan and will continue with doing more 9/11 The Terrorists Did It!! So Let’s Invade and Occupy Afghanistan Bernaysian Styled Charades.
…Factually it has been / is viewable and knowable that those who orchestrated and executed the monstrous plan(s) of/for the WTC twin towers 9/11 demolition and deaths of 3,000 plus innocent human beings had little or nothing to do with Afghanistan+ Iraq and likely were based out of Langley, TelAviv and Saudi Arabia. With plenty of well placed and tethered connections to USian PNAC / MICC advocates and purveyors. Following the $$$ profits/pillage/plunder trail(s) of who has been / is doing the $$$ getting and taking post 9/11 easily shows what any so called 9/11 Winning was / is about and where the big $$$winnings are and who is pocketing them.
… War Criminal Innocent Human Beings Killer Barack Obama The Big Liar and Fraud could have been what he is not and exposed 9/11 crimes and criminals but instead did serial betrayals, sell outs and polished deceptions routinely. Barack Obama let Libya be sacked and plundered and plainly wanted to do the same to Syria. The Clintons were useful to Barack Obama as political deflection with Bill and Hill intent on gaming how to get back into the WH full time in late 2016. The Clintons losing to DeeTee was unforseen and since then pro Obama/Clinton Big Sellout Dems have been been working to obstruct and cover up what the Dems are and are not while throwing mud and manure at DeeTee. Meanwhile see unfolding ObamaCare Debacle and GOPs who do not want to demolish Obama’s all along GOP Big Idea inspired based ObamaCare. Golly imagine that.
… It seemed/seems BLM was some done by hidden/unseen hands manufactured Eddy Bernays inspired USian MisDirection Politics Theatre and it now seems all too likely this suddenly out of nowhere so called ANTIFA ” movement ” is some more manufactured / synthetic USian political misdirection. Too bad WarMongerKiller Barack Obama was not held accountable ANTIFA for what Obama was and was not. That would have been legitimate politically don’cha think? Barack Obama let the likes of Dick Cheney remain free and not being in a jail cell. Barack Obama now belongs in a jail cell too.
…DeeTee is now sitting in the WH Oval Office as the Trump WH mascot with the likes of McMaster/Mattis/Kelly now actually deciding and running USian Empire MICC affairs. Staying in Afghanistan is going to move lots of $$$ from USian taxpayers into MICC profits and payouts. Too bad it had to be this way. Looks like Russia and China will at some point have to all out militarily confront USian Empire orcs, crooks and sowers of mayhem, death and destruction.
…So where is WarMonger WarCriminal Innocents Killer Barack Obama these days? Not in jail yet? Gosh imagine that. DeeTee likely should have stayed in the RE and Reality TV biz and stayed clear of USian Empire politics and affairs …too bad DeeTee did not.
…Meanwhile ANTIFA now going up against USian Nazis but who was the USian POTUS who installed Nazi thugs in Ukraine from 2009 – 2016? Barack Obama was who. Tearing down memorial statues of long dead and gone USians who fought in War Between USian States back in the 1860’s surely is USian history ignorant conduct being done for mostly very stupid and wrong reasons.
…Both the Dems and GOPs deserving of a steep political demise. Sooner. Better.
…Feeling some Early Autumn in the air wd ….🍂🍁🐿🌻🌞
…Take care wd…best wishes always…sta 🏹
okay, folks want to talk about 16 more years in afghanistan. but save some of this for my next (she sayed hopefully) diary. for now i’ll disagree about black lives matter, although some certain ones seem to funded well, and iirc, the rockefeller foundation offered to fund others by way of dem gatekeeping, for sure.
but as you might note in the OP, antifa (antifascism groups) began in the ’30s in berlin and other locales, was revived in europe in the
2000s1990s, and spread to amerikkka as well. first i’d rembered hearing the term was at berkely, when milo yiano-whozzit was due to make a lecture, and all hell broke loose w/ protests.and yes, ajamu barka’s tweet on his essay in the OP was the simpler version of the discussions we’d had here: the empire loves nazis and white supremacists when they can control them. do come back, i gotta go for now.
wooops, p.s.: why this? ‘Tearing down memorial statues of long dead and gone USians who fought in War Between USian States back in the 1860’s surely is USian history ignorant conduct being done for mostly very stupid and wrong reasons.’
…Had not seen or heard much ( nothing? ) about ANTIFA at any of the politics themed websites I have been visiting for past 2 – 3 years wd. Then suddenly Charlottesville / ANTIFA showed up as tho some unseen hands wanted to redirect USian domestic ” 7/24 news cycle(s) ” from exhausted / expiring from plain lack of truth(s) and fact(s) to back up claims of Russian / Putin malfeasance post November 2016 RussiaGate but was/is more about Dems internal leakers ( Seth Rich? ) leaks and likely crimes / acts of murder.
…It has become readily easy to see and know Obama/Clinton Dems were desperate to divert USian attention from what Obama WH principles and House of Clinton principles and assorted lesser minions had been doing or not doing since 2009 or since 2013. Hence one can surmise the desire and likelihood of Obama/Clinton Dems to create murky diversions or cover up dubious ethical and political conduct or obscure what may simply be outright criminal conduct. RussiaGate plainly was a ruse to misdirect legitimate examination of Obama WH and Clinton Dems ethics Sleaze and Slide. As ongoing RussiaGate BS runs out of gas all of a sudden Chartlottesville/ANTIFA explodes into/onto USian 7/24 ” politics and news ” cycle. Imagine that. Gosh imagine that. Obama Apologists and Clinton Clingers may keep playing self deception See / Don’ t See games but eventually truth and fact will win out.
.. Barack Obama was a lousy POTUS for many ( most ) African Americans when one examines what the actual and factual record and results of what Barack Obama’s being in the WH from 2009 to 2016 were. In addition anyone letting Barack Obama skate on the pro militarism/corporate fascism politics/policies Barack Obama plainly / wantonly authored, advocated and implemented but evidently ( oddly? ) saw no ANTIFA protests being directed towards him during Obama’s 8 years as POTUS? Somebody needs to call that BS and call out the ongoing See / Don’t See Obama gaming.
…Tearing down/toppling Civil War memorial statuary that was erected by USians over many decades post Civil War here in 2017 as act(s) of protest may seem satisfying to some as dramatic and graphic camera candy but falls woefully short on measures of being conduct based on clear thinking, historical knowledge and rational reasoning. If one is going to condemn the conduct and acts of 1930’s German Nazi book burners or the ignorant and often brutal acts done by Xtian, Jewish and Muslim fanatics, zealots and missionaries over the centuries to Native Americans, Europeans or Africans and Asians but then go along with mindless defacing and destruction of legitimate USian historical based memorials where does that lead to? Who ends up stopping such debased conduct?
…It surely makes more sense to learn more about USian history and try to understand who did wicked and evil acts and who had wickedness and evil done to them and then work towards seeing and knowing what not to be or what not to be doing would it not?
…As a gay USian I know firsthand what ignorance can be and do. I will not condone the conducted ease of USian ignorance when it suits the desires of some to seek out EZ media camera candy.
I did read some superb comments and observations last week having to do with too many USians being too lazy about learning and knowing more about historical prominent USians and how this USian Empire came about. Toppling Civil War memorials to long dead and gone USians but not confronting very much still alive Dick Cheney, Bill and Hill Clinton, the Bush Clan or Barack Obama over what has been done by them in USians name just since 1988 is doing what? Is being what? Lazy? Ignorant? Seems so.
…sta 🏹
because at the end of a long day, i’ll have to admit that it took me three reads to at least somewhat grasp what you’re say, sta. your communication style, you must know, is out of the ordinary sort. by now i believe i know what the thrust of your several criticisms are, but allow me to answer just one, about the confederate monuments. (i’ll leave the ‘where were they under fascist obomba’ alone for now, esp. as i don’t have a ready answer.)
i suppose the easy answer about the statuary is that, as i understand it, much of them were erected in the jim crow era,,,to make a *salient* point. i assume that you’re a while man, as i’m a white woman, born northern to boot. but given that for especially blacks of the underclass and their comrades in heart, the civil war has essentially never ended, even to this day, they feel the sting of ‘the pride of the confederacy’ far more than i do, perhaps you, as well.
but a long day of RL intra-family communications on the aftermath of mr. wd’s father’s death/transition and burial (a good death, as is said), trying to build an afghanistan diary, arranging buckets and baskets of our garden flowers artfully in vases, baking in the evening for ourselves and others, answering a few emails…oh, my, have i hit the wall! i’ll try again tomorrow, okay? let me say that in my dotage, i don’t multi-task at all well.
but here’s an out of the ordinary fave good night lullaby for us all. (pierced ♥) ;-)
..wd
…Thank you wd for your thoughtful comment and response wd.
…The passing of a dear family member takes high precedence in family and life affairs…the passing of both my parents was and remains close at heart and in mind…I extend sincerest condolences to you, Mr.wd and your family.
…As it is lots of bits and pieces of actions and events in motion these days of which so much seems interwoven by intent and design while also cloaked by devious misdirection and deception.
…Just read a new/current article over at The Saker that describes a possible USian Empire 3 letter agencies and Pentagon 20 year plan / quest to sow global mayhem, conflict and unending war and death dealing. Intent of USian Empire ptb being to attain and cement global USian Empire military / monetary hegemony dominance at high costs of inflicted economic, social and political discord, chaos and collapse for Europe and Asia. Evidently the goal of USian Empire orcs now or has been since 1990 is to sow chaos, destabilize, spread death and destruction and rule over the never ending outcomes of chaos and devastation this opens upon.
…This being so would be / is Vile. Wicked. Evil.
…sigh…did not have to be or go this way…a lamentable failure
…sta 🏹
The Saker article ” Pentagon 20 Year Plan ” was authored by Scott Humor and the Kulak and is dated August 23, 2017 and currently front paged in top header at The Saker website. sta 🏹
here’s the saker link, my friend. but i’m stretched so far in so many directions again…that i dunno whether to scratch my butt or wind my watch. meaning: no time to read it, it looks looooong. ;-) and thanks for your condolences; i passed them on to mr. wd.
as far as i can tell, that mess of image links doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with this diary, bruce if i’m wrong, please advise me. other wise, i may delete it, as with this wretched font, its seriously unappealing to look at.
Very nicely put together wd. The shaping of the movement in the press, as well as the reaction to the shaping, is indeed a serious concern. Pistols or no? As far as I know, I’d never bring one.
I’m a Naptown homie from way back and am familiar with a dynamic that stems from something homie Vonnegut worked into almost every novel: my state with its Crown Point is the northern capital of the Killer Klown Krackers, many o’ wannabe, and self-proclaimed wannabes when the talk is tough. As you can see from my avatar, I’m as white as they come (notwithstanding my clichéd 16th or 32nd of Cherokee (depending on who you believe)) and as such have a lifetime privy pass to Shit Whitey Says to Other Whitey, Just Cuz. Therefrom know I the generally racist attitude of my brothers in shade.
As well, Martinsville was just outside of town, and I know of a fella who picked up a hitch on the way thru, which hitch ducked down until they were out of the jurisdiction… because of the color of his skin. ‘Twas the coppers, y’see, who based on the experience of hitcher’s acquaintance, a color’d fella don’t wanna be caught in M’ville, especially after sundown.
Back in Naptown, when the Colts were still freshly stole, a friend of mine from a not entirely cross-town high school had a happening that shook me no doubt way less than he. I knew him from about sixteen, from sports, me pretty good, him better. While he was a heck of an athlete, his dominating characteristics, which I can tabulate without the slightest exaggeration, were that he was literally soft-spoken, carried wherever he went a gentle humility, and projected congenial kindness. And he was black. What this meant in Naptown (as in Anytown, as one of Chris Rock’s routines’d tell you) was that he got up at least two hours before I did to take a couple of buses, one from the north aaaaaaall the way down the length of one line, and the other from the west aaaaaall the way over the length of another, and if he wasn’t lucky enough to get a ride, he got home that much later than most of us. But I only knew him from across town. Our contact was limited to various extracurricular events and a couple other occasions.
Anyway, about a year out of town, I heard about his happening. We’d’ve been about 19 at the most, I think. Shorter version: he was arrested and tried for murdering a kracker in his front yard. The longer version came out in an article in the paper as well as more from the trial and subsequent follow-up reporting. Right about when we were seniors he and his family moved closer in town, to an all white neighborhood. It began to occur regularly that the same group of, often drinking or already drunk, white dudes would harass and threaten him as he walked his last block or so home. They were apparently emboldened by the kick it gave them and came closer to his house on subsequent occasions. This culminated in the most brazen of the group standing in his front yard making verbal threats on his and his parents and siblings lives, whereupon he went in, got a gun, came out, and shot one of them dead where he stood at his doorstep.
My guess is that in addition to details I am not entirely privy to as a non-juror, that the combinations of character witnesses of the lighter shaded persuasion were indeed persuasive. I recall that the press was theoretically neutral, but in Hoosierville that means in this case that it came across as downright sympathetic to the accused by comparison. It couldn’t have hurt that he’d never so much as raised his voice to speak of, or so it would seem, and had coaches and faculty to vouch for his clean record behind the scenes. So he was acquitted. Simply because of how I knew him, I am entirely convinced of his innocence by any real or theoretical measuring stick.
Now I’m agnostic re. people arming themselves. On the one hand, the only remnant of Christentum that stuck from my Catholic indoctrination is Peace, man. Like, in a scientific sense, violence begets more. The conundrum, of course, is that there’s an apparent risk involved in turning one’s face from their would-be assassin. But just as the soldier is willing to die for the cause, so should the Christian soldier be willing to die while loving his enemy. That’s my take. But I’m a descriptivist at heart, which means I do not apply this philosophy as a prescription for others’ behavior — and not least of which because I’m an atheist. And, anyway, though I’ve never owned a gun or shot anyone, I have not practiced what I’ve described, and probably wouldn’t when pushed.
Were I to wade into the activist discussion on how to face and/or deal with violence as antifa, big or little a, I’d say the first box to check is Numbers. Berlin is a town with plenty of neo-nazi gatherings that always encounter counter-demonstrations. Technically, of course, the approved initial demo is never officially neo-nazi, as the Nazi symbols brandished in Charlottsville are all illegal in Germany — as are Hitler salutes. “Heil Hitler” alone will get you booked. Again, I say this not as prescription, just a fun fact, with the original point being that it’s various orgs of particular interest or party that get the permits to march, and the unmistakable worshippers of all things fascist (even without the regalia) who largely turn out.
By my count, which is hardly scientific, counter-demonstrators usually outnumber the Nazis by about 10 to 1. Typically, you’re looking at several hundred to a thousand countering anywhere from ten to thirty to a hundred.
But Merica is indeed different. The uniqueness of her chattel slavery and award winning genocide, the history of the reconstruction and crow era, the white systemicists’ use of law enforcement and secret state security to follow, harass, coerce, and assassinate influential black figures, and introduce the crack epidemic to the burgeoning gang society that grew out of all the aforementioned, and last but not least, the kind of society that would allow, enable, or facilitate and carry out the aforementioned, there’s a different paradigm at work in the states.
Still, here, as there, the state is blind in the right eye. Indeed, here, I recall the fascos chanting (translated) “They’re protecting us! They’re protecting us!” meaning the cops standing between the “left” and “right”. It was not so much to imply that “it is not us who are violent, but you” — though that certainly is one bit of propaganda they try to purvey (methods the alt-right match) but meant to taunt with the all-too obvious reality for anyone who knows enough cops (or, as I, have been privy – to hear Shit Whitey Says to Other Whitey, whether coppers, or in the military), their sympathies do in fact lie in greater number with the Neos. That’s just the way it is. It’s systematic insofar as even black cops and presidents will turn their eye to their brethren under foot, or give a good stomp for fun while they’re at it. The extent to which the “good cops” exist, is attenuated by their being buried in the midst of this threat, that proverbial blue line and likely a greater threat behind it.
Given this reality, I would say you’d be out-gunned no matter how armed you were at a counter-protest. It would seem the modus operandi of outnumbering the hell out of them still applies. By my take, it’s essential anyway.
oh, my; that was quite a vignette about your cross-town fellow athlete and his acquittal; it’s truly hard to imagine. stunning, in fact. and yes, on another thread i’d asked if it were my white skin talking when i’d even wondered if, given everything, i’d have shown up for the war’, as in the old hippie anti-war question: ‘what if they gave a war…and nobody came?’. thd’s southern (many friends of color) take was that this is the time to put a stake thru the heart of white supremacy, or close. will it ever happen? it’ll sure take a revolution of consciousness (MLK).
yes, the numbers matter a hella lot, as with boston; marym brought us: ‘Police estimate: 50 people at the white supremacist rally, 30-40K counter-protesters, 27 arrests. similarly in vancouver, counter-protests to ‘The far-right rally, organized by “anti-Islam and anti-immigration” groups Worldwide Coalition Against Islam Canada and the Cultural Action Party, drew inspiration from their counterparts in Charlottesville.’ (heartening photo, i’ll embed the coverage…i hope.) ;-)
in fact, we briefly discussed wsws.org’s report on ‘‘Demonstrators block neo-Nazi march in Berlin-Spandau’, august 21’; the counters outnumbered them 2-1, they said. but i do remember yourr having called bullshit on their german correspondent. ;-)
guess we’ll see how it goes after trump’s recent implication that there’s an all-out race war brewing in amerika. thanks, davidly.
The benchmark of non-violence always has been the presence of a conscience in the persons and institutions that are the agents of oppression. That worked with the UK Labor government in India and it worked with the Kennedy administration in the US. One can make a strong argument that other administrations in both of those cases (Churchill, Nixon) would have resulted in a fruitless and bloody effort. Morality lies in accurately assessing the consequences of strategy.
For strategy, we are in the gray area of Clausewitz’s insight that war is politics by other means. War without a parallel political strategy is mere brutality as we in the US have seen for 50 years. It is the political strategy and how the political strategy de-escalates to normal politics that is the practical issue. Overwhelming force is so seductive that it can allow the powerful to crumble. The propagandizing of white supremacy in the US military and police forces has made inroads among white soldiers and police officers, but when push comes to shove, just as in Vietnam allowing open white supremacy destroys unit cohesion, opens the way to fragging of political opponents, and creates the environment that can lead to general mutiny that presages a change of regime. The generals in Trump’s cabinet seem to be aware of this even if the Trumpists aren’t listening. Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces turns out to be a long term guarantee of some degree of equality in society; just look how the general backpedaled on discrimination against transgender soldiers.
Those are not realities yet but they are vulnerabilities. On the police force side of things, the NYPD officer grassroots support for Colin Kaepernick might have the same anti-white supremacy effect.
That is the political environment as the visibility of white supremacist grow.
As to the topic of this post. During the Occupy Wall Street movement and for the #NoNATO movement in Chicago in 2012, organizers, anarchists, and antifa affinity groups worked out principles called “diversity of tactics” that sought to honor people’s personal decisions on tactics without having people who had not signed up for risky tactics being shanghai’ed into a bad situation.
Charlottesville was compact and a tough situation to separate tactics in time and space between black bloc tactics and scrupulously non-violent peaceful demonstration tactics. The white supremacists used the permitted status of their march to used the police force as auxiliary troops. They also allowed a lot of free-lancing as in the guy who ran down Heather Heyer. At the same time, they intimidated the police by using Virginia’s open carry law as the NRA intended it.
So the first question relative to antifa (or Dallas’s Huey P. Newton Brigade) is whether open carry makes sense as a tactic in a situation like that in Charlottesville. Remember the object is de-escalation and winning both. If one has enough numbers to de-escalate the police response and if one can demonstrate that in this event, de-escalation is the point, it would be a helpful tactic to have a large number of lefties open carry with the same discipline of use that the open carry bunch showed outside of Obama events in the 2009 period. The Huey P. Newton Brigade in Dallas was able to pull off a couple of events in their own neighborhoods; doubt that they would have been left alone in a place like Charlottesville. But that requires a political discussion about whether the police are (in small towns) going to be ideological or just law enforcers. (Yes, that does sound like a strange realignment if that conversation can occur.)
Beyond that, there should not be a general discussion of tactics. That makes it easy to fearmonger about things that antifa might not likely do at all. And it takes away responsibility and accountability of the people who actually on the scene and replaces it with some philosophical stance that might be totally misadapted to the situation.
Yes, the left must start asserting its Second Amendment rights of self-defense as a deterrent to aggression. There is too much assumption on the right that they are up against “liberal wimps”. Or that they can continue to manipulate the white supremacy institutions of society to do their bidding out of fear of general chaos.
But the political case does involve outlining the consequences for the larger society of continuing to perpetuate notions of white supremacy and their institutional support. White power is more fragile and vulnerable than the guys with the tiki torches assume.
i’m soooo glad that you finally got to your belief by your second to last paragraph, mi amigo. ;-) yes, and the new black panthers’ open carried to no ill effects in a few locales, as well. while i disagree as to what may ensue, especially after herr trump’s recent speech, i do value your opinion. thank you for it.
p.s. on edit: why do you think that the wapo gave mark bray their stage?
That (WaPo) is a very interesting question. They’ve had a quite interesting conflicted stance relative to Trump’s presidency. But they’ve never been helpful to movements for social change?
Who was the reporter? Often that makes more of a difference than a particular institutional stance.
On asserting a Second Amendment right, the sole purpose is to see whether the current position of the police on open carry is indeed ideologically/politically neutral. That will require some pretty careful thinking about how to make that test. It is helpful to know who exactly is looking for armed struggle. And who thinks it is not to their advantage. My opinion focuses on not being so consumed with the debate about displaying arms that one misses the political analysis of why it is or is not necessary.
did you intend this as a question? ” But they’ve never been helpful to movements for social change?” well, i dunno the answer to that, but i’d imagine they’d featured the pink pussy marches in deecee, no?
but the author was mark bray; fight fascism w/ fascism pasted it in just below the johnny paycheck video. yes, i appreciate your having reminded us that the political analysis is important, and we may just see, esp. in large metro/urban areas how ideologically neutral open carry is. thank you; gotta go work on the afghanistan piece, and do chores. too much to read and consider on the former, dunno how to even present it coherently.