Trump moots declaring ANTIFA a terrorist organisation

So, three things.

1. Trumps white nationalist mates will love this, as ANTIFA are a serious irritant for them.

2. Not a single person has been killed by ANTIFA, against dozens by right-wing groups who are not being treated in this way.

3. ANTIFA is a loose network of people rather than a centralised group, so this essentially allows the government to criminalise any number of people, protests and protest groups.

The slide towards a police state is becoming an avalanche...

@Paladin is overjoyed

So since Antifa isn't one organisation but an allegiance for several individuals, small organisations, and individual events, I suppose you can classify Nazis as a terrorist organisation too now. Will he? Oh, wait, don't tell me.

Antifa is the very definition of a terrorist organization. Fact.

I'm not a fan of Antifa, but there are two problems with this: One, Antifa is not a specific organisation at all, and two, terrorism as used in recent laws is notoriously undefined.

So white supremacists are?

Shared from a friend:

- Antifa is not an organization; nobody belongs to it, there are no membership roles. So you cannot prove you do not belong to it.

- If you have shown up to a protest, if you have been in a picture showing you were near a protest, if you have offered first aid at a political demonstration, carried a sign, made a Facebook post or LIKED a post saying you're against fascism, you could be accused of being a "member of Antifa," and you can't prove it's not true.

- If this measure to declare "Antifa" "domestic terrorists" passes, that means you and I can be arrested and prosecuted as "domestic terrorists." Let me make this clear: if you have been vocally antifascist in any capacity or made illusions to punching/milkshaking nazis, this means you.

- America passed a plethora of laws and rulings back in 2002 or so declaring that accused terrorists don't get due process, and can be held indefinitely without trial, tortured, and so on.

- The Trump administration also just declared that they're opening up the death penalty for federal crimes, like terrorism, for the first time in 16 years.

- America has whole bunch of new for-profit detention camps for holding people in indefinitely without trial, where people are dying right now from nightmarish conditions.

- ICE is running around right now, without badges or uniforms or warrants, disappearing people--including US citizens--and locking them up, and fully half their agents belong to a Facebook group where they shared racist jokes, bragged about the violence they'd done to the "subhuman animals" they're locking up, and talked about how they wanted to assault and rape political figures they don't like. Canada is not immune: immigration has been in Toronto, at the Dufferin Mall, asking people for identification.

- This is a license to lock up and execute political dissenters and community organizers without due process and the pieces have all been put in place to use it.

- If this doesn't frighten you, or shock you into understanding how Germany fell under Hitler in 1933, take a long hard look at what is happening right now. This shit doesn't happen overnight. A system is being put in place as I type.

the Kafkaesque implications of the first two points are rather numbing to consider.

prove it.

Long since done, beyond any reasonable doubt.

Sorry.

No. There has been no proof hat the U.S. has opened a bunch of "for-profit detention camps".

Despite what many of the wordforge idiots claim, most prisoners in the U.S. are NOT held in "for profit" facilities.

You seem to be drifting away from the point.

You don't want proof.
You do this all the time, you demand shit you could easily Google for yourself, and with presented with it, you don't bother to read it.

Meanwhile, you believe in sky-fairies with no proof.
Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.

Obscurantism is all he's got.

Can we cut to the chase here? Which part are you denying? That there are camps at the border, that they are used to detain people, or that they operate for profit?

Ok you're right. I was under the impression that most of the detention facilities were operated by the federal govt. much like federal prisons

Well, then I'm dead meat for passing along the Doctor Suess political cartoons, and the Anne Frank meme.

Hey! Surely Our NRA pals will rescue us with their flag waving anti-tyranny heroism!

Yeah, right.
They'll be the first to beat off on our corpses.

Anyone who negs me, prove me wrong, heroes, prove me wrong.

What are you trying to say boy? Is there a fire down at old man witherspoon's farm, or do you just have to poop again?

ANTIFA is not one single organization so it's hard to call them a terrorist organization, but I wouldn't have a problem charging someone with terrorism who identifies as ANTIFA should they commit an act of terror. Right now I would say those people are just fascist bullies.

Yeah, to Nazis.

Those poor Nazis.
Won't someone think of the Nazis?
Won't you please donate pennies a day to keep a fatass biker Nazi from getting milkshaked?

That's right, if you're against ANTIFA, you're for Nazis. Can you be even more hyperbolic?

If you're anti Antifa, and are crickets silent about Nazis, then yeah, you're probably pro Nazi.

I'm not an Antifa fan, but nothing in the universe will make me cry for Nazis, or make me see them as victims of "bullying".

Likewise, I'm very much against political violence of any kind, but let's be realistic here.

They're the lesser of two evils.

I'm not cricket over silent Nazis and even if I were, that doesn't make pro Nazi. Also, I didn't say Nazis were being bullied, you brought that narrative.

For Antifa to be "fascist bullies", they have to be bullying someone.
Where are the little old ladies they've pushed down the stairs?
Where are the 6 years olds whose lunch money they've stolen?

There aren't any.
They punch and milkshake Nazis.

I think there are many different meanings for the word 'antifa' going around in the US right now. Many people seem to use it just as a shorthand for 'against fascism'. That is historically quite wrong, but the more people use it that way, the more dangerous a ban connected to the word will become.

Historically, the 'anti' in 'antifa' does not mean 'against' but 'opposite'. Antifa is about using fascist methods against fascists. Antifa, historically, are willing to murder -- not just Nazis, but anyone who would not want them to murder Nazis. Several traditional antifa have told me at different times that if they had their way, I should be killed, because I support due process for Nazis as opposed to lynch justice, or because I oppose the special German legal restrictions against Nazi propaganda, which limit the general concept of free speech otherwise embodied in our constitution.

At the same time, violence is necessary in instances in which the state's forces, police especially, refuse to protect you against violence from the extreme right in turn. We have seen a number of such cases recently, both in Germany and in the US. In Charlottesville, several people probably owe their lives to antifa creating a credible counter threat to Nazis.

So in short, this stuff is complicated. But unless you know what you're talking about and have made a specific political decision, best don't call your opposition to fascism 'antifa'. And at the same time, don't trust any government under the likes of Trump to make a good law around a complicated situation. Terrorism is already illegal. You can persecute each terrorist for their acts, no matter what they call themselves.

I'm going to spell out clearly that I agree with this post, because things are already too muddled to let that go.

Here's the part where you pretend they don't harass people in the street.

Oh, well if those are the criteria, lock up the fucking Hellfire Christians on the street corner shouting at folk for being damned because they have a partner of the wrong gender, or the wrong skin colour. Or because they dressed wrong. Or had long hippy hair.

Fuck's sake.

They call out people wearing Nazi or fascist symbols. We used to shoot or hang the fuckers.

Progress