Who said it was ok? There were numerous statements from Dems saying that protests are good, but violence isn't.
Jan 6 was a poor, but at least semi-organized attempt to overthrow the government and was directly encouraged by a Republican president.
They literally attacked Congress's security force and forced Congresspeople to vacate.
The dissimilarities are so obvious that I honestly don't know if you're being honest about your own political persuasion. I'm center-left and really hated and disagreed with the George Floyd protests and riots myself, and also generally dislike BLM as an organization.
> But then when a few yahoos walked around the capital taking selfies for an hour
Is this really what you remember from that day? I remember being glued to the TV for hours because it was obviously a Dangerous Fucking Situation. Cops who were there gave testimony, with tears in their eyes, that it was one of the most difficult days of their lives. Honestly, this comment feels like borderline brainwashing — a manufactured memory. (Or else gaslighting.)
As for “but BLM,” one might forgive (without condoning) the occasional bursts of violence among countless peaceful protests given that the country just witnessed a blatant extrajudicial execution on the streets of a nominally first world city. (Even putting aside reports that the police and embedded rabble-rousers were often the instigators.)
You write as if we all saw "...months of BLM & Antifa rioting."
Did you see it? Did it affect you? Do you know the extent to which police departments in the PNW (an all over the US) are infiltrated with brownshirt neonazi gamgs?
The person I'm replying to is posting in bad faith, as others on this thread have inferred from the fact that "months of BLM and Antifa rioting" only happened in the poster's mind. Starting with the fact that Black Lives Matter is a police reform movement and Antifa isn't an organized group at all.
Meanwhile the police departments in cities where there was unrest (and in many other places) were subsequently shown to be infiltrated members of brownshirt gangs that are very real organized armed groups. They have names like 3%'ers, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other named organized armed neofascist groups, several of which participated in a coup attempt in the nation's capital with the coordination of members of the Trump White House inner circle.
This is the first post about which I have received threatening messages. If you know some hothead who would send such messages via guerrillamail.com, or have experienced something similar, you can contact me via info in my profile. He seemed particularly concerned about pointing out that police departments have a problem being infiltrated by brownshirt gangs.
> Starting with the fact that Black Lives Matter is a police reform movement and Antifa isn't an organized group at all.
clearly wrong. First of all, BLM is a way for a few guys at the top to steal money and live in mega mansions at the expense of to some degree goodhearted fools that have been misled grossly.
and Antifa is extremely organised, you have no idea what you are talking about. I would strongly urge you to look (much) further into the subject, and you will soon find that there is a lot of it
Could you point me toward a starter link or source? Ideally I would love a link that points me to the leader (or group of leaders) of Antifa, or some sort of organizational chart reflecting their structure. I searched myself but was unable to find anything of that nature (aside from some discredited claims from a trump lawyer). Thank you, I appreciate it!
Organized does not necessarily mean brimming with marketing material about their organizational structure. Antifa obviously has members and planning. They make great effort to counter who they perceive to be their political rivals. Analyzing from the outside, I imagine they would prefer their structure remain as opaque as possible for pragmatic reasons. I can’t point you to a “starter link” of my local Catholics; yet they exist and are organized.
Your curt inquiry should be directed at journalists, who for whatever reason are delinquent in their duty to investigate this organization.
So was your comment supposed to be cute? An invitation to a purported dead-end investiture? I assume you think yourself adjacent politically to Antifa. I find that most “fellow-travelers” tend to be the most vocal defenders of them online. Would you be this cavalier and flippant if your political rivals were doing the same thing Antifa is doing but for the opposite political “team?”
Forgive as I am not sure I completely follow your comment and overall implications. To clarify — your contention is that:
1) no source confirming the existence of such an organization exists but-
2) that this absence is due to an endemic and total failure on the part of the conservative media (Hannity, The Hill, Lincoln Project, etc) to properly investigate as-
3) the organizational structure DOES exist so apparently that its obviousness renders a source unnecessary.
Is that accurate? Because if so I have to say I remain unconvinced.
And while I certainly have many cherubic qualities, I think calling someone “cute” for asking the most basic questions in response to a claim of comprehensive organizational structure is, at best, misguided. At worst, one might consider it an attempt to gaslight and minimize realistic obstacles to winning over people to your POV.
You make some very wild claims in your post. Requesting supporting evidence supporting is not a "gotcha comment" - it's a sensible thing to do when confronted with such - honestly pretty conspiratorial - claims.
And no; it's not a journalists job to investigate every accusation out there; journalists - and people tend to forget this these days - ought to have credible sources.
What, the Guy Fawkes mask isn't enough? Do you need the list of US target anonymous attacked too? White supremacists, Bolsonaro, authoritarian agencies and governments? Their support of BLM or the arab springs? Their attacks on corporations like paypal?
Or simply, i was in an Antifa group from 2010-2013. Not in a street occupation group, but in a "search and confirm" group where we observed far right events and took notice of who went there, correlate that with police/military files (or politics). Social media watch too. The scandal about actual Nazis in the French army came from a parallel group from mine (i was in the west, the scandal is from a similar group in the east is think, i don't have that much info).
I was also an anonymous script kiddie between 2007-2010, anonymous pushed me towards local antifa groups. And this is one reason why i went into tech btw.
So your personal story confirms an unsurprising overlap.
Is everybodys story identical to yours?
Did one group actually spawn the other (given the timelines, loose structure, and global diffusion) or is it merely the case that some members in common moved from one group to other?
Short answer : I don't really know. Antifa is way older than anonymous, but the intersection could have happened naturally, as both groups have the same "anarchist" ideology. That would mean that anarchism as a way to organize is somehow viable? Not sure.
You might want to try to find some better sources of information than the ones you're relying on now.
The good news is, nothing in your second paragraph is true, that's all QAnon-style made up stuff, no different than stories about pedophile rings hidden in pizza shops or the Earth being flat. The bad news is, you probably need to find some new websites to get reliable information from.
a significant number of U.S. police instructors have ties to a constellation of armed right-wing militias and white supremacist hate groups, a report that adds to a fast-growing body of evidence showing a deadly threat inside U.S. police departments.
The analysis found that some of the instructional information presented by police trainers was explicitly racist, and that some instructors endorsed and interacted with white supremacist criminal groups such as the Proud Boys.
I think you missed the point completely. Rioting affects the political and cultural ambience of our times. It does not need to affect you directly or be a nuisance in your local communities for one to voice displeasure. Your take feels very dense in this regard and concern trolling is not a sufficient description of the post your responding to.
This is not the first time I have heard about police departments infiltrated by supposed fascist elements. Unfortunately, these accusations never seem to come from honest actors; usually from agents with a dedicated agenda to push.
I don’t doubt that there is a presence. I’m sure there is some symbiosis between the police departments and right-wing elements and I’m open to understanding the severity of the issue.
The question now is do you have any evidence of the severity that isn’t from paid political agitators? Keep in mind, snarling out invectives like “nazi” is currently in vogue; I expect the evidence to be excellent and demonstrable irrespective of political affiliation.
You don't think Proud Boys deserve a great deal worse than "snarling invective?" Also it seems that George Soros has been missing agitator payments. Where's my 1099?
Whether the acting party is a friend or an enemy distinguishes the guilty from the blameless. Anything can be rationalized post facto. It’s the bedrock principle of contemporary politics and it’s breathtaking to witness.
You're "bad at tribalism," but describe "BLM & Antifa rioting, looting, and assaulting random people" on the one hand, and "a few yahoos walked around the capital taking selfies for an hour" on the other. The double standard you're astounded by is that the media didn't sufficiently demonize the left and exonerate the right?
No, you're not bad at tribalism, you're just bad at false-flagging. I'll agree you are typical for a HN political poster, though.
This post shows a lot of the "tribalism" I'm referring to.
I don't believe the rioters represent "the left" and I don't believe the capital stormers represent "the right". And most of all, I wish people didn't tend towards exaggerating one and excusing the other based on allegiance to a two-party system.
Denial of the validity of the 2020 election is widespread in the Republican party, especially among voters, so yes, it arguably does represent "the right".
I have friends and family living in Portland who got a close-up view of the BLM/Antifa activity there. People were afraid to go downtown. Women were afraid to go alone to the market or out for a walk. I know some people who were never interested in guns before who signed up for gun-safety classes and went shopping for a pistol for home defense. The violence, destruction, and fear were very real and had a lasting effect on how they view living in Portland. So, I have strong feelings about the ideologically motivated posts denying that the violence ever happened.
I'm a middle-aged father of two, and I participated in the BLM/Antifa activity in 2020 with another middle-aged father. The idea that the Park Blocks were a locus of violence and destruction is a straight-up lie. You saw the usual after-dark anarchist/hoodlum behavior on the news, but they never seemed to portray the peaceful community that occupied those blocks for several months, children and elderly included, unified in their desire for police reform.
So, I have strong feelings about ideologically-motivated posts trying to describe what I experienced as wanton rioting and looting. You weren't there.
"They" were there (where they lived) and I just related their direct experience as related to me. This is an serious question I have for someone who was part of the movement, do you genuinely feel no empathy for the people who felt trapped in their homes and were buying firearms to protect themselves from events your group incited?
Do they live downtown next to the north Park Blocks? Because the area in question was four blocks centered on the Federal building and the county courthouse. Portland is a large city, and if you didn't pass by those blocks in question, you wouldn't have seen anything out of the ordinary. It was pretty surreal going there for the first time, because it was actually hard to find the protest without knowing where the Mark O. Hatfield building is located.
I'm not minimizing the fear your relatives experienced. I do believe that the protest activity was selectively portrayed by the media deliberately to induce that fear, and to minimize the efforts of multiple community organizations working tirelessly to keep the protest civil, peaceful, and focused on communicating our desire for systemic reform. It's tragic and disgusting that the main legacy of that effort is the BLM/Antifa Boogeyman.
This was the typical experience in Portland during the "riots", filmed by yours truly [0]. You know, in the direct center of what the news media described as a "war zone". My grandparents from the East Coast begged me not to attend, in fear for my life.
It was like this, day after day, always normal folks exercising their right to peacefully assemble.
I upvoted to counteract a downvote. Although I don't know how well this represents the truth of the whole situation in Portland, I think the only proper way to respond to plain information is with more information.
I'll give you this: "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
Now, please define what violence mean here. Only physical, against persons, or agaisnt property too. Does moral violence exist? Do people who have been abused have a right to organize protests and strike together, even if they don't have the same job (Learned recently that general strike was forbidden in the US, nice)? And if they don't, do they have the right to be incompetent ?
I fell infinitely more compassion for any jan6 participants than for people who forbid rail workers from striking.
Id argue any violence used to create a sensation of fear in order to coerce specific behavior. When the system itself is also a source of coercion I guess violence against the system can be justified if you're reacting to a threat to your personal liberties.
But all in all, i think that it cuts deeper, there is definitely a mix of political opinion on hackernews, but i havent seen any significant examples of a facist militia member or black block antifa rioter.
Those are both extreme ends of the american political dichotomy, but i dont think either are an embodiment of their respective ideas because they dont allow those ideas to flourish on their own.
They're idealogically bankrupt so they MUST turn to violence.
I dont see them as liberal or conservative but as nihilists (possibly even unknowingly) with no real association outside of an easy larp.
46 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 92.8 ms ] threadJan 6 was a poor, but at least semi-organized attempt to overthrow the government and was directly encouraged by a Republican president.
They literally attacked Congress's security force and forced Congresspeople to vacate.
The dissimilarities are so obvious that I honestly don't know if you're being honest about your own political persuasion. I'm center-left and really hated and disagreed with the George Floyd protests and riots myself, and also generally dislike BLM as an organization.
I suggest you read the reports that detail what all they did as it was a bit more than that.
Is this really what you remember from that day? I remember being glued to the TV for hours because it was obviously a Dangerous Fucking Situation. Cops who were there gave testimony, with tears in their eyes, that it was one of the most difficult days of their lives. Honestly, this comment feels like borderline brainwashing — a manufactured memory. (Or else gaslighting.)
As for “but BLM,” one might forgive (without condoning) the occasional bursts of violence among countless peaceful protests given that the country just witnessed a blatant extrajudicial execution on the streets of a nominally first world city. (Even putting aside reports that the police and embedded rabble-rousers were often the instigators.)
so did that actor from the empire with the whole "this is maga country".
Did you see it? Did it affect you? Do you know the extent to which police departments in the PNW (an all over the US) are infiltrated with brownshirt neonazi gamgs?
Your post reeks of bad faith concern trolling.
What's wrong with caring about things that affect others instead of only about things that affect yourself?
Meanwhile the police departments in cities where there was unrest (and in many other places) were subsequently shown to be infiltrated members of brownshirt gangs that are very real organized armed groups. They have names like 3%'ers, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other named organized armed neofascist groups, several of which participated in a coup attempt in the nation's capital with the coordination of members of the Trump White House inner circle.
clearly wrong. First of all, BLM is a way for a few guys at the top to steal money and live in mega mansions at the expense of to some degree goodhearted fools that have been misled grossly.
and Antifa is extremely organised, you have no idea what you are talking about. I would strongly urge you to look (much) further into the subject, and you will soon find that there is a lot of it
Organized does not necessarily mean brimming with marketing material about their organizational structure. Antifa obviously has members and planning. They make great effort to counter who they perceive to be their political rivals. Analyzing from the outside, I imagine they would prefer their structure remain as opaque as possible for pragmatic reasons. I can’t point you to a “starter link” of my local Catholics; yet they exist and are organized.
Your curt inquiry should be directed at journalists, who for whatever reason are delinquent in their duty to investigate this organization.
So was your comment supposed to be cute? An invitation to a purported dead-end investiture? I assume you think yourself adjacent politically to Antifa. I find that most “fellow-travelers” tend to be the most vocal defenders of them online. Would you be this cavalier and flippant if your political rivals were doing the same thing Antifa is doing but for the opposite political “team?”
Just a thought.
1) no source confirming the existence of such an organization exists but-
2) that this absence is due to an endemic and total failure on the part of the conservative media (Hannity, The Hill, Lincoln Project, etc) to properly investigate as-
3) the organizational structure DOES exist so apparently that its obviousness renders a source unnecessary.
Is that accurate? Because if so I have to say I remain unconvinced.
And while I certainly have many cherubic qualities, I think calling someone “cute” for asking the most basic questions in response to a claim of comprehensive organizational structure is, at best, misguided. At worst, one might consider it an attempt to gaslight and minimize realistic obstacles to winning over people to your POV.
Just a thought ;)
And no; it's not a journalists job to investigate every accusation out there; journalists - and people tend to forget this these days - ought to have credible sources.
And my the way, Anonymous emerged from antifa, and is probably the most prominent antifa group online. Do they feel organized to you?
Post DJT (US) AntiFa that came well after US Anonymous, or ~ 1935 Spanish Civil War Antifa ?
Either way, it bears no relationship to any discussion of either group at any time that I'm aware of.
But by all means expand on that and provide solid referenced details.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(hacker_group)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
Or simply, i was in an Antifa group from 2010-2013. Not in a street occupation group, but in a "search and confirm" group where we observed far right events and took notice of who went there, correlate that with police/military files (or politics). Social media watch too. The scandal about actual Nazis in the French army came from a parallel group from mine (i was in the west, the scandal is from a similar group in the east is think, i don't have that much info).
I was also an anonymous script kiddie between 2007-2010, anonymous pushed me towards local antifa groups. And this is one reason why i went into tech btw.
Is everybodys story identical to yours?
Did one group actually spawn the other (given the timelines, loose structure, and global diffusion) or is it merely the case that some members in common moved from one group to other?
Short answer : I don't really know. Antifa is way older than anonymous, but the intersection could have happened naturally, as both groups have the same "anarchist" ideology. That would mean that anarchism as a way to organize is somehow viable? Not sure.
The good news is, nothing in your second paragraph is true, that's all QAnon-style made up stuff, no different than stories about pedophile rings hidden in pizza shops or the Earth being flat. The bad news is, you probably need to find some new websites to get reliable information from.
a significant number of U.S. police instructors have ties to a constellation of armed right-wing militias and white supremacist hate groups, a report that adds to a fast-growing body of evidence showing a deadly threat inside U.S. police departments.
The analysis found that some of the instructional information presented by police trainers was explicitly racist, and that some instructors endorsed and interacted with white supremacist criminal groups such as the Proud Boys.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-su...
and the guys at the capitol are the gang leaders, the absolute worst of the bunch.
This is not the first time I have heard about police departments infiltrated by supposed fascist elements. Unfortunately, these accusations never seem to come from honest actors; usually from agents with a dedicated agenda to push.
I don’t doubt that there is a presence. I’m sure there is some symbiosis between the police departments and right-wing elements and I’m open to understanding the severity of the issue.
The question now is do you have any evidence of the severity that isn’t from paid political agitators? Keep in mind, snarling out invectives like “nazi” is currently in vogue; I expect the evidence to be excellent and demonstrable irrespective of political affiliation.
No, you're not bad at tribalism, you're just bad at false-flagging. I'll agree you are typical for a HN political poster, though.
I don't believe the rioters represent "the left" and I don't believe the capital stormers represent "the right". And most of all, I wish people didn't tend towards exaggerating one and excusing the other based on allegiance to a two-party system.
So, I have strong feelings about ideologically-motivated posts trying to describe what I experienced as wanton rioting and looting. You weren't there.
I'm not minimizing the fear your relatives experienced. I do believe that the protest activity was selectively portrayed by the media deliberately to induce that fear, and to minimize the efforts of multiple community organizations working tirelessly to keep the protest civil, peaceful, and focused on communicating our desire for systemic reform. It's tragic and disgusting that the main legacy of that effort is the BLM/Antifa Boogeyman.
It was like this, day after day, always normal folks exercising their right to peacefully assemble.
[0]: https://youtu.be/zyf7Jn1QvBU
"If you need violence to enforce your ideas, your ideas suck."
Now, please define what violence mean here. Only physical, against persons, or agaisnt property too. Does moral violence exist? Do people who have been abused have a right to organize protests and strike together, even if they don't have the same job (Learned recently that general strike was forbidden in the US, nice)? And if they don't, do they have the right to be incompetent ?
I fell infinitely more compassion for any jan6 participants than for people who forbid rail workers from striking.
But all in all, i think that it cuts deeper, there is definitely a mix of political opinion on hackernews, but i havent seen any significant examples of a facist militia member or black block antifa rioter.
Those are both extreme ends of the american political dichotomy, but i dont think either are an embodiment of their respective ideas because they dont allow those ideas to flourish on their own.
They're idealogically bankrupt so they MUST turn to violence.
I dont see them as liberal or conservative but as nihilists (possibly even unknowingly) with no real association outside of an easy larp.