J
jollyjacktar
Guest
mariomike said:
Not to worry. When l want a non staffmember to modify my post into something l have no intention of saying (if it's not to interject some haha), I'll know who to approach.
Politics in 2017
- Thread starter Edward Campbell
- Start date
- Status
Not to worry. When l want a non staffmember to modify my post into something l have no intention of saying (if it's not to interject some haha), I'll know who to approach.
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
Or twisting their words.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 360
jollyjacktar said:
Or pointing out that I think you're wrong about a topic. FTFY is used all the time on here. If it will make you feel better than I wont FTFY, I'll simply say- Antifa is more or less being thrown around as some sort of right wing boogeyman. The left does not have a lock on the use of violence in extremism nor does the right (who has, as has been shown, actually killed more people than the right). McVeigh was a right wing nut job. So was the mosque shooter. And the guy who shot up the church in South Carolina. etc etc etc
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Bird_Gunner45 said:
See Reply #791.
https://milnet.ca/forums/threads/124900.775.html
"Islamists have killed about 14 times as many people as Nationalist and Right Wing terrorists who, in turn, have killed about 10 times as many people as Left Wing terrorists."
J
jollyjacktar
Guest
By all means, if you think I'm wrong and full of it, feel free to say so. I may or may not concur. I will give you that there are isolated bastards on the right whom have murdered innocent people over the last couple of decades.Bird_Gunner45 said:
But that being said, what l see are mobs of black garbed leftists who are rampaging in packs, attacking anyone that doesn't look like them or may disagree with them as well as rampant acts of vandalism against private and public property. That's what I'm seeing. Maybe one day they'll cross the line and kill some of their victims instead of just beating them.
I expect that you and l shall rarely see Aye to Aye. C'est la vie.
- Reaction score
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mariomike said:
Agree. The irrational fear of "antifa" (which can't even really be defined as a group as its a broad term used to describe many smaller groups with no centralized leadership or overarching "goals") is silly. People who identify with antifa show up at rally's, throw things, act like idiots, and then leave. to my knowledge they dont walk into churches and shoot people (South Carolina), blow up buildings (Oklahoma), or shoot up a planned parenthood centre (Colorado Springs, 2015). Antifa isn't a "good" organization, but rank in the realm of extremists who are never good (I can't think offhand of an extremist anything that I would consider good or even passable).
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J
jollyjacktar
Guest
I'm sure we could spend hours dick measuring here, but I'm not going to join you. Have fun playing by yourself.
https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/09/05/antifa-officially-an-antiamerican-terrorist-organization-n2377185
Antifa, (Officially) an Anti-American Terrorist Organization
Jack Kerwick
Posted: Sep 05, 2017 9:16 AM
Following Charlottesville, politicians and media personalities, Republican and Democrat, “liberal” and “conservative,” excoriated President Trump for condemning bad actors among the “Unite the Right” rally attendees and the so-called “counter-demonstrators” who confronted them.
According to these moral show boating pontificators, all of the blame for the violence that ensued fell on the shoulders of those “white supremacists” that lawfully assembled to protest the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. The thugs who expressed their resentment of the rally by way of baseball bats, bottles of urine and feces, flamethrowers, clubs, bear mace, and an assortment of other potentially deadly weaponry, they’d have us believe, were otherwise peaceful angels heroically demonstrating against “hate” and “bigotry.”
In age of Big Lies, this is among the biggest and most grotesque (as is shown here and here).
Charlottesville was indeed a dark day for our country, but largely because, with the sole exception of President Trump, it revealed the abject cowardice and truly scandalous moral confusion on the part of the movers and shakers of law and public opinion:
Those who legally attempted to engage in peaceful protest were vilified while the violent criminals who violated their constitutional rights were romanticized.
There would have been no violence had Antifa vermin respected the right of their opponents to peacefully assemble. That this is the truth is borne out by the following considerations:
(a)Some of the rally attendees met the previous night for their march through the campus of the University of Virginia. They exponentially outnumbered the few “anti-fascists” that heckled them. Had the “white supremacists” been looking to rumble, they could have crushed their antagonists. Yet there was no violence.
(b)Although we continue to hear from the chronically misinformed, the disingenuous, and the virtue-signalers in D.C. and corporate media (“conservative,” no less than “liberal”) that the rally in question was a gathering of neo-Nazis, most people there had neither affiliation with nor respect for neo-Nazis. Retired military personnel and law enforcement agents, resolved to uphold their oath to the Constitution, comprised the militia groups that were on the scene. Some of them were armed with firepower.
Had they wanted to drop bodies, including and especially the bodies of those who initiated the violence against the rally attendees, they could have easily done so. That they didn’t unload on anyone proves not only that they weren’t looking for violence, but that they were far more restrained and civil than the Antifa and Black Lives Matter goons that came spoiling for a fight.
Since at least the beginning of the year, some of us have been doing what little we can to draw the public’s attention to the guttersnipes that are “Antifa.” These are the punks who, dressed in all black and wearing masks, have repeatedly descended upon Trump supporters, police officers, journalists, and anyone and everyone else who these neo-communists label “fascist.”
No one in Big Media mentioned them - until Charlottesville forced them to take notice.
At first, as was mentioned above, journalists, commentators, and politicians - Republican no less than Democrat - depicted Antifa as a virtuous lot determined to resist the forces of hatred and bigotry. And make no mistakes, those who essentially said against Trump that “there were no sides” in Charlottesville, that he was both mistaken and morally flawed in repudiating the violence of the “counter-demonstrators,” held some such view of these anti-American scumbags.
Now, though, those who were guilty of romanticizing Antifa are being compelled to retreat from their morally outrageous position of just a few weeks ago.
This is a striking turn of events. After all, their supporters, however silent they may have been, saw Antifa punks in Charlottesville with their faces covered, clogging streets, and assaulting those with whom they disagreed. Presumably, this spectacle should’ve sufficed sooner to provoke Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan to take the steps that they finally did last week and disavow Antifa.
Yet neither Pelosi, Ryan nor any of their colleagues in Congress did any such thing in the immediate hours and days following Charlottesville. Instead, they in effect ran cover for Antifa by dumping on the president for calling it out.
In fact, Antifa had been regularly unleashing mayhem against Trump supporters, business owners, police officers, and others for the better part of at least a year. But the Pelosis and Ryans of the world uttered not a syllable of condemnation.
So, what’s changed?
Shortly after Charlottesville, and emboldened by the favorable press supplied them by their fellow ideologues in the media and Washington D.C - i.e. “the Resistance” - Antifa thugs proceeded to attack statues and monuments around the country. A petition for the White House to label Antifa a terrorist outfit was created on August 17. Within but five days, it gained up to 250,000 signatures (far exceeding the 100,000 signatures that require the White House to formally respond within 30 days).
However, Antifa already is listed among the terrorist groups recognized by my home state of New Jersey. And at the close of the last week of August, word went around the media that President Obama’s FBI and Department of Homeland Security had classified Antifa “activities” as “domestic terrorist violence” back in 2016.
This is good news.
Formally, it’s a question as to whether this means that Antifa is regarded as a terrorist organization. Still, the implication is clear enough. The president needs to be explicit, but until then, we can look back at the reaction to Trump’s Charlottesville remarks in a new light:
Everyone who blasted the president for calling out Antifa blasted him for decrying the actions of anti-American terrorists.
Everyone who dumped on Trump for refusing to let Antifa off of the hook dumped on him for refusing to give a bunch of anti-American terrorists the pass that his critics were all too willing to give them.
Paul Ryan, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Charles Krauthammer, and a whole lot of other Republicans have not only been unwilling to do what Obama’s government was willing to do and label Antifa activities as “terrorist”; they expressed shock and disgust that the president of the United States, the titular head of their own party, would so much as note that Antifa is violent!
But Antifa is violent. It is a purveyor of terrorism.
And, importantly, it most certainly is a strong-arm organ of the very “Resistance” movement to which belong the members of the Democratic Party; most media propagandists, academics, and entertainers; Deep State bureaucrats; and NeverTrump Republicans.
This last point being so, it is imperative that the rest of us repeatedly force their co-“resistors” to unequivocally and loudly disavow the violent, anti-American terrorist thugs of Antifa.
Antifa, (Officially) an Anti-American Terrorist Organization
Jack Kerwick
Posted: Sep 05, 2017 9:16 AM
Following Charlottesville, politicians and media personalities, Republican and Democrat, “liberal” and “conservative,” excoriated President Trump for condemning bad actors among the “Unite the Right” rally attendees and the so-called “counter-demonstrators” who confronted them.
According to these moral show boating pontificators, all of the blame for the violence that ensued fell on the shoulders of those “white supremacists” that lawfully assembled to protest the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. The thugs who expressed their resentment of the rally by way of baseball bats, bottles of urine and feces, flamethrowers, clubs, bear mace, and an assortment of other potentially deadly weaponry, they’d have us believe, were otherwise peaceful angels heroically demonstrating against “hate” and “bigotry.”
In age of Big Lies, this is among the biggest and most grotesque (as is shown here and here).
Charlottesville was indeed a dark day for our country, but largely because, with the sole exception of President Trump, it revealed the abject cowardice and truly scandalous moral confusion on the part of the movers and shakers of law and public opinion:
Those who legally attempted to engage in peaceful protest were vilified while the violent criminals who violated their constitutional rights were romanticized.
There would have been no violence had Antifa vermin respected the right of their opponents to peacefully assemble. That this is the truth is borne out by the following considerations:
(a)Some of the rally attendees met the previous night for their march through the campus of the University of Virginia. They exponentially outnumbered the few “anti-fascists” that heckled them. Had the “white supremacists” been looking to rumble, they could have crushed their antagonists. Yet there was no violence.
(b)Although we continue to hear from the chronically misinformed, the disingenuous, and the virtue-signalers in D.C. and corporate media (“conservative,” no less than “liberal”) that the rally in question was a gathering of neo-Nazis, most people there had neither affiliation with nor respect for neo-Nazis. Retired military personnel and law enforcement agents, resolved to uphold their oath to the Constitution, comprised the militia groups that were on the scene. Some of them were armed with firepower.
Had they wanted to drop bodies, including and especially the bodies of those who initiated the violence against the rally attendees, they could have easily done so. That they didn’t unload on anyone proves not only that they weren’t looking for violence, but that they were far more restrained and civil than the Antifa and Black Lives Matter goons that came spoiling for a fight.
Since at least the beginning of the year, some of us have been doing what little we can to draw the public’s attention to the guttersnipes that are “Antifa.” These are the punks who, dressed in all black and wearing masks, have repeatedly descended upon Trump supporters, police officers, journalists, and anyone and everyone else who these neo-communists label “fascist.”
No one in Big Media mentioned them - until Charlottesville forced them to take notice.
At first, as was mentioned above, journalists, commentators, and politicians - Republican no less than Democrat - depicted Antifa as a virtuous lot determined to resist the forces of hatred and bigotry. And make no mistakes, those who essentially said against Trump that “there were no sides” in Charlottesville, that he was both mistaken and morally flawed in repudiating the violence of the “counter-demonstrators,” held some such view of these anti-American scumbags.
Now, though, those who were guilty of romanticizing Antifa are being compelled to retreat from their morally outrageous position of just a few weeks ago.
This is a striking turn of events. After all, their supporters, however silent they may have been, saw Antifa punks in Charlottesville with their faces covered, clogging streets, and assaulting those with whom they disagreed. Presumably, this spectacle should’ve sufficed sooner to provoke Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan to take the steps that they finally did last week and disavow Antifa.
Yet neither Pelosi, Ryan nor any of their colleagues in Congress did any such thing in the immediate hours and days following Charlottesville. Instead, they in effect ran cover for Antifa by dumping on the president for calling it out.
In fact, Antifa had been regularly unleashing mayhem against Trump supporters, business owners, police officers, and others for the better part of at least a year. But the Pelosis and Ryans of the world uttered not a syllable of condemnation.
So, what’s changed?
Shortly after Charlottesville, and emboldened by the favorable press supplied them by their fellow ideologues in the media and Washington D.C - i.e. “the Resistance” - Antifa thugs proceeded to attack statues and monuments around the country. A petition for the White House to label Antifa a terrorist outfit was created on August 17. Within but five days, it gained up to 250,000 signatures (far exceeding the 100,000 signatures that require the White House to formally respond within 30 days).
However, Antifa already is listed among the terrorist groups recognized by my home state of New Jersey. And at the close of the last week of August, word went around the media that President Obama’s FBI and Department of Homeland Security had classified Antifa “activities” as “domestic terrorist violence” back in 2016.
This is good news.
Formally, it’s a question as to whether this means that Antifa is regarded as a terrorist organization. Still, the implication is clear enough. The president needs to be explicit, but until then, we can look back at the reaction to Trump’s Charlottesville remarks in a new light:
Everyone who blasted the president for calling out Antifa blasted him for decrying the actions of anti-American terrorists.
Everyone who dumped on Trump for refusing to let Antifa off of the hook dumped on him for refusing to give a bunch of anti-American terrorists the pass that his critics were all too willing to give them.
Paul Ryan, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Charles Krauthammer, and a whole lot of other Republicans have not only been unwilling to do what Obama’s government was willing to do and label Antifa activities as “terrorist”; they expressed shock and disgust that the president of the United States, the titular head of their own party, would so much as note that Antifa is violent!
But Antifa is violent. It is a purveyor of terrorism.
And, importantly, it most certainly is a strong-arm organ of the very “Resistance” movement to which belong the members of the Democratic Party; most media propagandists, academics, and entertainers; Deep State bureaucrats; and NeverTrump Republicans.
This last point being so, it is imperative that the rest of us repeatedly force their co-“resistors” to unequivocally and loudly disavow the violent, anti-American terrorist thugs of Antifa.
FBI, Homeland Security warn of more ‘antifa’ attacks
Confidential documents call the anarchists that seek to counter white supremacists ‘domestic terrorists.’
By JOSH MEYER 09/01/2017 04:55 AM EDT
Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.
Since well before the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, DHS has been issuing warnings about the growing likelihood of lethal violence between the left-wing anarchists and right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups.
Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.
After President Donald Trump’s election in November, the antifa activists locked onto another target - his supporters, especially those from white supremacist and nationalist groups suddenly turning out in droves to hail his victory, support crackdowns on immigrants and Muslims and to protest efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy.
Those reports appear to bolster Trump’s insistence that extremists on the left bore some blame for the clashes in Charlottesville and represent a “problem” nationally. But they also reflect the extent that his own political movement has spurred the violent backlash.
In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies - first as a candidate and then as president - helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.
“It was in that period [as the Trump campaign emerged] that we really became aware of them,” said one senior law enforcement official tracking domestic extremists in a state that has become a front line in clashes between the groups. “These antifa guys were showing up with weapons, shields and bike helmets and just beating the shit out of people. … They’re using Molotov cocktails, they’re starting fires, they’re throwing bombs and smashing windows.”
Almost immediately, the right-wing targets of the antifa attacks began fighting back, bringing more and larger weapons and launching unprovoked attacks of their own, the documents and interviews show. And the extremists on both sides have been using the confrontations, especially since Charlottesville, to recruit unprecedented numbers of new members, raise money and threaten more confrontations, they say.
“Everybody is wondering, 'What are we gonna do? How are we gonna deal with this?'” said the senior state law enforcement official. “Every time they have one of these protests where both sides are bringing guns, there are sphincters tightening in my world. Emotions get high, and fingers get twitchy on the trigger.”
Even before Charlottesville, dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of people on both sides showed up at events in Texas, California, Oregon and elsewhere, carrying weapons and looking for a fight. In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.
California has become another battleground, with violent confrontations in Berkeley, Sacramento and Orange County leading to numerous injuries. And antifa counter-protesters initiated attacks in two previous clashes in Charlottesville, according to the law enforcement reports and interviews.
Rallies are scheduled over the next few months across the country, including in Texas, Oregon, Missouri and Florida. Authorities are particularly concerned about those in states where virtually anyone, including activists under investigation for instigating violence, can brandish assault rifles in public.
Tensions have gotten so heated that after activists traded accusations after Charlottesville, a rumor circulated online that antifa would try and shut down the massive Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally because there were too many Confederate flags and Trump signs. It wasn’t true, but it prompted an outpouring of pleas by attendees for anti-fascists to come so they could assault them. One displayed a “Sturgis Survival Kit” for potential antifa protesters, complete with a tourniquet, morphine, body cast and defibrillator.
“Both the racists and a segment of violent antifa counter-protestors are amped for battle in an escalating arms race, where police departments are outmaneuvered, resulting in increasingly violent dangerous confrontations,” said former New York City police officer Brian Levin, who has been monitoring domestic militants for 31 years, now at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It’s an orchestrated dance. The rallies spill over into social media and then even more people show up at the next rally primed for violent confrontation.”
In recent decades, authorities have focused almost exclusively on right-wing groups as the most likely instigators of domestic terrorist violence, especially since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.
More recently, the antifa groups, which some describe as the Anti-Fascist Action Network, have evolved out of the leftist anti-government groups like “Black bloc,” protesters clad in black and wearing masks that caused violence at events like the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests. They claim to have no leader and no hierarchy, but authorities following them believe they are organized via decentralized networks of cells that coordinate with each other. Often, they spend weeks planning for violence at upcoming events, according to the April 2016 DHS and FBI report entitled “Baseline Comparison of US and Foreign Anarchist Extremist Movements.”
Dozens of armed anti-fascist groups have emerged, including Redneck Revolt and the Red Guards, according to the reports and interviews. One report from New Jersey authorities said self-described antifa groups have been established in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
Some of the DHS and FBI intelligence reports began flagging the antifa protesters before the election. In one from last September, portions of which were read to POLITICO, DHS studied “recent violent clashes … at lawfully organized white supremacist” events including a June 2016 rally at the California Capitol in Sacramento organized by the Traditionalist Workers Party and its affiliate, the Golden State Skinheads.
According to police, counter-protesters linked to antifa and affiliated groups like By Any Means Necessary attacked, causing a riot after which at least 10 people were hospitalized, some with stab wounds.
At the Sacramento rally, antifa protesters came looking for violence, and “engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, and coordinating the event via social media,” the DHS report said.
The intelligence assessments focus less on guns than handmade weapons used by antifa, with photos of members brandishing ax handles and shields, often with industrial-sized bolts attached to create crude bayonets. A senior state law enforcement official said, “A whole bunch of them” have been deemed dangerous enough to be placed on U.S. terrorism watch lists.
The FBI and DHS had no comment on that, or on any aspect of the assessments, saying they were not intended to be made public.
By the spring of 2016, the anarchist groups had become so aggressive, including making armed attacks on individuals and small groups of perceived enemies, that federal officials launched a global investigation with the help of the U.S. intelligence community, according to the DHS and FBI assessment.
The purpose of the investigation, according to the April 2016 assessment: To determine whether the U.S.-based anarchists might start committing terrorist bombings like their counterparts in “foreign anarchist extremist movements” in Greece, Italy and Mexico, possibly at the Republican and Democratic conventions that summer.
Some of the antifa activists have gone overseas to train and fight with fellow anarchist organizations, including two Turkey-based groups fighting the Islamic State, according to interviews and internet postings.
In their April 2016 assessment, the DHS and FBI said the anarchist groups would likely become more lethal if “fascist, nationalist, racist or anti-immigrant parties obtain greater prominence or local political power in the United States, leading to anti-racist violent backlash from anarchist extremists.”
The assessment also said the anarchist groups could become more aggressive if they seek to “retaliate violently to a violent act by a white supremacist extremist or group,” they acquire more powerful weapons or they obtain the financial means to travel abroad and learn more violent tactics.
Several state law enforcement officials said that all of those accelerating factors have come to pass. And recent FBI and DHS reports confirm they are actively monitoring “conduct deemed potentially suspicious and indicative of terrorist activity” by antifa groups.
But one of the internal assessments acknowledged several significant “intelligence gaps,” including an inability to penetrate the groups’ “diffuse and decentralized organizational structure,” which made it difficult for law enforcement to identify violent groups and individuals. Authorities also “lack information to identify the travel patterns linking U.S. and foreign anarchist extremists,” the assessment said.
The two agencies also said in their April 2016 assessment that many of the activities the groups engaged in “are not within the purview of FBI and DHS collection” due to civil liberties and privacy protections, including participating in training camps, holding meetings and communicating online.
In another assessment this past August, DHS warned about the potential for unprecedented violence at Charlottesville. The agency also acknowledged gaps in its understanding of antifa, saying it had only “medium confidence” in its assessments regarding both the affiliations among the various groups and the motivation of attackers.
Said one senior New Jersey law enforcement official following the antifa groups: “There’s a lot more we don’t know about these groups than what we do know about them.”
- edit to add link -
Confidential documents call the anarchists that seek to counter white supremacists ‘domestic terrorists.’
By JOSH MEYER 09/01/2017 04:55 AM EDT
Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.
Since well before the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, DHS has been issuing warnings about the growing likelihood of lethal violence between the left-wing anarchists and right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups.
Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.
After President Donald Trump’s election in November, the antifa activists locked onto another target - his supporters, especially those from white supremacist and nationalist groups suddenly turning out in droves to hail his victory, support crackdowns on immigrants and Muslims and to protest efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy.
Those reports appear to bolster Trump’s insistence that extremists on the left bore some blame for the clashes in Charlottesville and represent a “problem” nationally. But they also reflect the extent that his own political movement has spurred the violent backlash.
In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies - first as a candidate and then as president - helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.
“It was in that period [as the Trump campaign emerged] that we really became aware of them,” said one senior law enforcement official tracking domestic extremists in a state that has become a front line in clashes between the groups. “These antifa guys were showing up with weapons, shields and bike helmets and just beating the shit out of people. … They’re using Molotov cocktails, they’re starting fires, they’re throwing bombs and smashing windows.”
Almost immediately, the right-wing targets of the antifa attacks began fighting back, bringing more and larger weapons and launching unprovoked attacks of their own, the documents and interviews show. And the extremists on both sides have been using the confrontations, especially since Charlottesville, to recruit unprecedented numbers of new members, raise money and threaten more confrontations, they say.
“Everybody is wondering, 'What are we gonna do? How are we gonna deal with this?'” said the senior state law enforcement official. “Every time they have one of these protests where both sides are bringing guns, there are sphincters tightening in my world. Emotions get high, and fingers get twitchy on the trigger.”
Even before Charlottesville, dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of people on both sides showed up at events in Texas, California, Oregon and elsewhere, carrying weapons and looking for a fight. In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.
California has become another battleground, with violent confrontations in Berkeley, Sacramento and Orange County leading to numerous injuries. And antifa counter-protesters initiated attacks in two previous clashes in Charlottesville, according to the law enforcement reports and interviews.
Rallies are scheduled over the next few months across the country, including in Texas, Oregon, Missouri and Florida. Authorities are particularly concerned about those in states where virtually anyone, including activists under investigation for instigating violence, can brandish assault rifles in public.
Tensions have gotten so heated that after activists traded accusations after Charlottesville, a rumor circulated online that antifa would try and shut down the massive Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally because there were too many Confederate flags and Trump signs. It wasn’t true, but it prompted an outpouring of pleas by attendees for anti-fascists to come so they could assault them. One displayed a “Sturgis Survival Kit” for potential antifa protesters, complete with a tourniquet, morphine, body cast and defibrillator.
“Both the racists and a segment of violent antifa counter-protestors are amped for battle in an escalating arms race, where police departments are outmaneuvered, resulting in increasingly violent dangerous confrontations,” said former New York City police officer Brian Levin, who has been monitoring domestic militants for 31 years, now at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It’s an orchestrated dance. The rallies spill over into social media and then even more people show up at the next rally primed for violent confrontation.”
In recent decades, authorities have focused almost exclusively on right-wing groups as the most likely instigators of domestic terrorist violence, especially since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.
More recently, the antifa groups, which some describe as the Anti-Fascist Action Network, have evolved out of the leftist anti-government groups like “Black bloc,” protesters clad in black and wearing masks that caused violence at events like the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests. They claim to have no leader and no hierarchy, but authorities following them believe they are organized via decentralized networks of cells that coordinate with each other. Often, they spend weeks planning for violence at upcoming events, according to the April 2016 DHS and FBI report entitled “Baseline Comparison of US and Foreign Anarchist Extremist Movements.”
Dozens of armed anti-fascist groups have emerged, including Redneck Revolt and the Red Guards, according to the reports and interviews. One report from New Jersey authorities said self-described antifa groups have been established in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
Some of the DHS and FBI intelligence reports began flagging the antifa protesters before the election. In one from last September, portions of which were read to POLITICO, DHS studied “recent violent clashes … at lawfully organized white supremacist” events including a June 2016 rally at the California Capitol in Sacramento organized by the Traditionalist Workers Party and its affiliate, the Golden State Skinheads.
According to police, counter-protesters linked to antifa and affiliated groups like By Any Means Necessary attacked, causing a riot after which at least 10 people were hospitalized, some with stab wounds.
At the Sacramento rally, antifa protesters came looking for violence, and “engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, and coordinating the event via social media,” the DHS report said.
The intelligence assessments focus less on guns than handmade weapons used by antifa, with photos of members brandishing ax handles and shields, often with industrial-sized bolts attached to create crude bayonets. A senior state law enforcement official said, “A whole bunch of them” have been deemed dangerous enough to be placed on U.S. terrorism watch lists.
The FBI and DHS had no comment on that, or on any aspect of the assessments, saying they were not intended to be made public.
By the spring of 2016, the anarchist groups had become so aggressive, including making armed attacks on individuals and small groups of perceived enemies, that federal officials launched a global investigation with the help of the U.S. intelligence community, according to the DHS and FBI assessment.
The purpose of the investigation, according to the April 2016 assessment: To determine whether the U.S.-based anarchists might start committing terrorist bombings like their counterparts in “foreign anarchist extremist movements” in Greece, Italy and Mexico, possibly at the Republican and Democratic conventions that summer.
Some of the antifa activists have gone overseas to train and fight with fellow anarchist organizations, including two Turkey-based groups fighting the Islamic State, according to interviews and internet postings.
In their April 2016 assessment, the DHS and FBI said the anarchist groups would likely become more lethal if “fascist, nationalist, racist or anti-immigrant parties obtain greater prominence or local political power in the United States, leading to anti-racist violent backlash from anarchist extremists.”
The assessment also said the anarchist groups could become more aggressive if they seek to “retaliate violently to a violent act by a white supremacist extremist or group,” they acquire more powerful weapons or they obtain the financial means to travel abroad and learn more violent tactics.
Several state law enforcement officials said that all of those accelerating factors have come to pass. And recent FBI and DHS reports confirm they are actively monitoring “conduct deemed potentially suspicious and indicative of terrorist activity” by antifa groups.
But one of the internal assessments acknowledged several significant “intelligence gaps,” including an inability to penetrate the groups’ “diffuse and decentralized organizational structure,” which made it difficult for law enforcement to identify violent groups and individuals. Authorities also “lack information to identify the travel patterns linking U.S. and foreign anarchist extremists,” the assessment said.
The two agencies also said in their April 2016 assessment that many of the activities the groups engaged in “are not within the purview of FBI and DHS collection” due to civil liberties and privacy protections, including participating in training camps, holding meetings and communicating online.
In another assessment this past August, DHS warned about the potential for unprecedented violence at Charlottesville. The agency also acknowledged gaps in its understanding of antifa, saying it had only “medium confidence” in its assessments regarding both the affiliations among the various groups and the motivation of attackers.
Said one senior New Jersey law enforcement official following the antifa groups: “There’s a lot more we don’t know about these groups than what we do know about them.”
- edit to add link -
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J
jollyjacktar
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So..... not the hero's that some would trumpet..... I'm shocked, l tell you, shocked. :sarcasm:
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Toronto has a long history of anti-fascism. At least as far back as the swastika riots in the west-end.
When I was younger Anti-fa in this city was called ARA ( Anti-Racist Action ).
Their objective seemed to be to never let the white supremacists have the street.
This created lots of police OT.
Back then, before the internet, the white supremacists had to rely on handing out flyers at city high schools. Their primary organizing tool was a telephone hate line.
ARA used to paste "UNWANTED" posters on telephone poles exposing the faces of Toronto's white supremacist leadership and some of their more prominent supporters.
( Primitive by today's standards. But again, this was before the internet. )
When I was younger Anti-fa in this city was called ARA ( Anti-Racist Action ).
Their objective seemed to be to never let the white supremacists have the street.
This created lots of police OT.
Back then, before the internet, the white supremacists had to rely on handing out flyers at city high schools. Their primary organizing tool was a telephone hate line.
ARA used to paste "UNWANTED" posters on telephone poles exposing the faces of Toronto's white supremacist leadership and some of their more prominent supporters.
( Primitive by today's standards. But again, this was before the internet. )
Thanks for adding the link to my last post, milnews. I know that I copied it, but obviously did not paste it in prior to dashing off this morning. I have a bunch of other similar articles open on my machine as well.
Anybody that thinks that antifa is just "some sort of right wing boogeyman" which should not be taken seriously is RTFOOI. That they have not actually caused any deaths, so far, is purely chance.
Concerns about leftist violence are much more than "irrational fear". They are perfectly valid.
"can't even really be defined as a group as its (sic) a broad term used to describe many smaller groups with no centralized leadership or overarching "goals".
Many/most/perhaps all "legitimate" terror organizations use/have used cellular structures and non-traditional hierarchies to achieve their aims. It makes penetration by law enforcement agencies very difficult, as intended. This should not be confused with a lack of organization. The "overarching goal" is the destruction of free society. That can be achieved not only through open violence and intimidation, but also through incessant wars of words, including artificially-constructed pronouns, and suppression of the free speech of others.
"People who identify with antifa show up at rally's (sic), throw things, act like idiots, and then leave. to my knowledge they don’t (sic) walk into churches and shoot people (South Carolina), blow up buildings (Oklahoma), or shoot up a planned parenthood centre (Colorado Springs, 2015)."
Or shoot Republicans at congressional baseball practices. Or shoot up nightclubs in Florida. But those are just regular registered Democrats, although the latter was also a Jihadi. Antifa are the more extreme shock troops of the left. They have not yet committed murder, true, but please be patient.
This guy, a college professor who taught "ethics, critical thinking, and comparative philosophy East/West", came close:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/24/berkeley-college-professor-arrested-as-assault-suspect/
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/26/professor-suspected-in-berkeley-bike-lock-attack-arraigned-in-oakland-court/
He was lucky that he was not arraigned on homicide charges instead.
Both extremist factions are vile. One, however, is noisy but largely impotent yet gets the majority of the press coverage. The other is truly violent yet has generally been ignored by press and politicians. That, finally, appears to be slowly, but still only slightly, changing.
Anybody that thinks that antifa is just "some sort of right wing boogeyman" which should not be taken seriously is RTFOOI. That they have not actually caused any deaths, so far, is purely chance.
Concerns about leftist violence are much more than "irrational fear". They are perfectly valid.
"can't even really be defined as a group as its (sic) a broad term used to describe many smaller groups with no centralized leadership or overarching "goals".
Many/most/perhaps all "legitimate" terror organizations use/have used cellular structures and non-traditional hierarchies to achieve their aims. It makes penetration by law enforcement agencies very difficult, as intended. This should not be confused with a lack of organization. The "overarching goal" is the destruction of free society. That can be achieved not only through open violence and intimidation, but also through incessant wars of words, including artificially-constructed pronouns, and suppression of the free speech of others.
"People who identify with antifa show up at rally's (sic), throw things, act like idiots, and then leave. to my knowledge they don’t (sic) walk into churches and shoot people (South Carolina), blow up buildings (Oklahoma), or shoot up a planned parenthood centre (Colorado Springs, 2015)."
Or shoot Republicans at congressional baseball practices. Or shoot up nightclubs in Florida. But those are just regular registered Democrats, although the latter was also a Jihadi. Antifa are the more extreme shock troops of the left. They have not yet committed murder, true, but please be patient.
This guy, a college professor who taught "ethics, critical thinking, and comparative philosophy East/West", came close:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/24/berkeley-college-professor-arrested-as-assault-suspect/
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/26/professor-suspected-in-berkeley-bike-lock-attack-arraigned-in-oakland-court/
He was lucky that he was not arraigned on homicide charges instead.
Both extremist factions are vile. One, however, is noisy but largely impotent yet gets the majority of the press coverage. The other is truly violent yet has generally been ignored by press and politicians. That, finally, appears to be slowly, but still only slightly, changing.
mariomike said:
Were they beating people, throwing large rocks, bottles of urine, and small explosive devices at their opposition? Heaving barricades through windows? Whacking people over the head with bike locks? Suppressing free speech?
I have no problem with law-abiding protesters. I do, however, have a big problems with thugs of any political or "-ist" affiliation.
I concentrate on antifa here because there are still deluded people who believe that antifa have noble goals in mind and do not constitute a threat.
And, yes, I am aware of those numbers. Historical numbers are not necessarily, however, an accurate predictor of the future.
Three statisticians went hunting for deer. They spotted one up against a tree line. The first took careful aim and lightly squeezed his trigger. The round struck a tree three feet to the left of the deer. The second lined the deer up in his sights, and gently let off his shot. The round struck another tree, three feet to the right of the deer. "Nailed him", yelled the third statistician in rapturous glee.
Trends - numbers of activists, their actions, and the encouragement that they receive through insufficient law-enforcement action to date - are more reliable predictors.
Unless firm action - investigations, arrests, charges, findings of guilt, and appropriate sentences - are taken, their violence will continue to grow and spread.
FJAG
Army.ca Legend
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Loachman said:
You might be more persuasive if you weren't citing witers like Jack Kerwick; author of such brilliant pieces like: The Fake Controversy of the Confederate Flag - And Why It Matters.
https://www.unz.com/article/the-fake-controversy-of-the-confederate-flag-and-why-it-matters/
[cheers]
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Loachman said:
Who are you speaking to about believing there's noble goals with antifa? From what I've read, it's been more or less "All extremists are bad" whether they are right or left wing ones. This is usually followed up by some sort of "Antifa is bad" reiteration, etc, etc, etc.
As for the violence- the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), found 92% of all "ideologically motivated homicide incidents" committed in the United States from 2007 to 2016 were done "with a right-wing extremist or white supremacist motive". According to the Government Accountability Office of the United States, 73% of violent extremist incidents that resulted in deaths since September 12, 2001 were caused by right wing extremists groups.
if we review FBI in 2006 we see the following list of victims:
Target Number of hate crime incidents
Blacks 2640
Jews 967
Whites 890
Gays 747
Hispanics 576
Lesbians 163
Muslims 156
Taking a non-partisan view at the hate crime statistics, I would suggest the evidence indicates that left and right wing people are somewhat equally represented in these crimes.
Here's what I suggest is a reasonable and rationale world view:
- Right-wing terror exists.
- Left-wing terror exists.
- Islamic terror exists.
- Organised groups carry out attacks with logistical support and widespread applause in all examples of terrorism.
- Loners carry out attacks with no support and no applause and no allies.
- Mentally ill people carry out attacks that look like terror.
And I hope we can agree:
- It is wrong to blame right-wing peaceful republicans for right-wing terror.
- It is wrong to blame left-wing peaceful democrats for left-wing terror.
- It is wrong to blame peaceful anti-extremist Muslims for Islamic terror.
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Loachman said:
Here's some antifa links for you (It's even "written" by Rex Murphy, the "old guy yelling at kids on his lawn" of Canadian politics):
https://www.thebeaverton.com/2017/09/antifa-dangerous-group-world-rest/
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Dis you just try to counter a real argument with a satire website? What's next, using Duffel Blog as a primary source for military policy debates?
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