National Guard called into Minneapolis

[Agema]

You realize Antifa doing something new and very specific in multiple places is probably more weird than it being a weird private security firm or collection thereof? Fuck, it’d make even more sense if it was organized crime. Antifa is absurdly decentralized while all of those groups tend to have actual hierarchies. Could maybe be coincidental.

Who even knows if half of this is actually Antifa?

These days "Antifa" is employed as pretty much a generic term for anyone who turns up at left-leaning rallies and throws stuff at police. Of course, that's probably part of the point, because by labelling Antifa as the origin of all manner of violence, the easier it is to turn the public against it so the far right can be left to march in peace.

 

[Revnak]

Who even knows if half of this is actually Antifa?

These days "Antifa" is employed as pretty much a generic term for anyone who turns up at left-leaning rallies and throws stuff at police. Of course, that's probably part of the point, because by labelling Antifa as the origin of all manner of violence, the easier it is to turn the public against it so the far right can be left to march in peace.

Ok, so based on my experience Antifa is more a kind of approach to political action. Do protests, do spontaneous things. Violence and property damage aren’t viewed as being off-limits, though framed through self-defense and within the bounds of what may be acceptable locally. Big focuses are put on anonymity (of themselves and fellow protesters) and a flat hierarchy, by and large Antifa don’t plan shit, they just show up, so as to not conflict with that. Diversity of tactics is important, aiding people at the protests is important, keeping people there in a good mood and from fighting is important. It’s a lot of different shit.
So yeah, labeling “Antifa” terrorists is basically labeling “bad protesters” terrorists. End goal’s fucking obvious, they want to be allowed to ignore your rights if you break curfew.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

You realize Antifa doing something new and very specific in multiple places is probably more weird than it being a weird private security firm or collection thereof? Fuck, it’d make even more sense if it was organized crime. Antifa is absurdly decentralized while all of those groups tend to have actual hierarchies. Could maybe be coincidental. In any case, this is one of those weird ass things we’ll get an explanation of in a few decades when it’s no longer some kind of confidential.
Edit- Think of it like the AutoZone, people suspicious of whether a cop did that or whatever, but ultimately other people looted it too and it got lit up multiple times, along with tons of other buildings. Maybe you can argue that guy was some kind of agent, maybe not, but we probably won’t know for years so who the fuck cares compared to the more tangible realities here.

Apparently it's not a new tactic and has been seen before at other protests that turned into riots etc.

AntiFA are de-centralised to an extent but more like a series of cells info is passed between.

 

[Revnak]

Apparently it's not a new tactic and has been seen before at other protests that turned into riots etc.

AntiFA are de-centralised to an extent but more like a series of cells info is passed between.

Cells still have leadership, Antifa has an absurdly flat hierarchy, literally anyone can and does claim membership since it’s less a group than a way of approaching activism. There is no “boss” to most groups, though some more focused organizations may have a defined structure.
I’ve also never heard of this happening in Portland, where they do a half dozen or more counter-protests a year. If this were a regular thing, Andy Ngo would’ve been posting about it constantly for years and I’d have encountered a ton of attempts to debunk it. So no, I do not even slightly believe this is a regular thing for Antifa or they’d bring this up every time rather than bike lock guy. Occam’s Razor.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

"After which some-one falls over"

Dude you can see him get hit multiple times by what looks like some kind of billy club used by the AntiFA dude and he only falls after being hit over the head with it.

Hell Clanton was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. And should by rights have been charged a 2nd time for him trying to beat that elderly guy too.

Just to be clear here.

Non lethal round that if used properly will at most cause bruising or temporary things that won't require a hospital visit are bad but spilling a guys skill open is perfectly fine?

Right, and several people were tussling over the flag, after being struck in the head he just goes down to the foetal position and is left alone. Important thing is that several people were involved, and he was hit lightly on the back (several times, didn't respond) before being hit on the head. No blood, nothing, dude just lets go and assumes the position after being repeatedly told to let go of a flag (which again, as conflicts I've had to describe go, is pretty dumb and a pretty weak display of supposed 'antifa violence').

All this tells me that you've never been in a fight. I have and I've worked security for four years, and I've been in situations with antifa, so I wager I know more about assault than you do. The types of weapon and the types of force produced are nowhere near in scale to the equivalence that is brought up to antifa in the Oregon video.

Also read what I said above about edgelords joining in and the structure of protests. All the footage in that video (leaving aside the issues it has and that it's non-current with the outcome of the situation) conforms to what I had written about that earlier in the thread. Plus, he got put on probation and had most of his charges dropped, he didn't even try to proclaim innocence, and the medical records as to who claimed injury are scattered. Only report on that that I could find was citing 'The Sacramento Bee', with no link.

Eric Clanton takes 3-year probation deal in Berkeley rally bike lock assault case

A college professor charged with four counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon has taken a deal resulting in three years of probation, court records reveal.

www.berkeleyside.com

Former college professor takes 3-year probation plea deal in assault case

Clanton pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor charge, but his charges of four counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon were dismissed.

www.dailycal.org

This aside also being totally tangential to the fact that the police are playing cowboy in America and evidently have been for years, but don't let that distract you from a maniac with a bike lock and a flag-battle to prove that it's antifa simultaneously escalating it everywhere, not decades of resentment, alienation and discrimination spilling out during a global pandemic where the government failed its people and where americans are hurtling towards an economic recession.

 

[Fieldy409]

You know as a former builder there being bricks everywhere in a big city isn't weird to me. Big cities simply have so many structures in them that they are always full of construction. There's always some building that needs work.

It never stops. As a Tasmanian whenever I came over to Melbourne from my tiny island to a immense city like Melbourne I always felt surprised at the sheer amount of construction there was forever scaffolding, cranes and high vis vests everywhere and by the time one project finished there was always more.

I wonder if this 'where are the bricks from?' stuff is simply coming from people who do not understand what the endless construction of a big city is like.

 

[Revnak]

You know as a former builder there being bricks everywhere in a big city isn't weird to me. Big cities simply have so many structures in them that they are always full of construction. There's always some building that needs work.

It never stops. As a Tasmanian whenever I came over to Melbourne from my tiny island to a immense city like Melbourne I always felt surprised at the sheer amount of construction there was forever scaffolding, cranes and high vis vests everywhere and by the time one project finished there was always more.

I wonder if this 'where are the bricks from?' stuff is simply coming from people who do not understand what the endless construction of a big city is like.

True, there is always the potential boring explanation. Combine that with people looking for patterns in tea leaves and a large enough number of people, add a small number of grifters looking to force that pattern through deceptive editing, and you get a conspiracy.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

Don't defend those people. Don't compare to other groups. Don't do it. That's what they want. Antifa is a different thing in kind to even Nazis. Nazis are worse, don't get me wrong, but Nazi's are pretty in your face about it. Antifa's methods are to make you fight for them. Yes, true, they aren't killing people. But that isn't because they've taken a moral stance. It's because the Antifa method is to show up to other people's marches or protests, raise the tension, start a scuffle, and then hope other groups kill each other.

Please point me to any antifa group who's explicit message is to raise the intensity of the scuffle, cause there will be thousands of exceptions. Hell, the John Brown Gun Club advocate turning up to demos with rifles, and they are there explicitly to de-escalate situations by coming in with firepower.

‘If others have rifles, we’ll have rifles’: why US leftist groups are taking up arms

Armed antifascists groups say they want to protect events from other malicious and potentially armed groups – a phenomenon that is becoming more and more common

www.theguardian.com

Sounds like you're enjoying buying into the CNN narrative that there'd be no reason, none at all for people to start rioting. As if this is the first riot in America's existence regarding racial injustice and that people aren't pissed overall. Like Rodney King never happened, right? Before antifa became the favourite scapegoat?

Antifa is a bunch of communists. They wan't a violent revolution. Remember the argument not long ago about accelerationism, and people saying they'd rather Trump in office because it will destroy the system faster? That. That's what they're doing.

You seriously have no understanding of communism or of accelerationism. Accelerationism is a tendency brought forward by right-wingers like Nick Land, and accelerating contradictions is something talked and theorised about by Deleuzians who explicitly do not subscribe to an economic analysis of the development of society as the main cause for class conflict. It's another one of those buzzwords that turns up in the open that people have no concept of, it'd be like me calling you a Brazillian Integralist.

Notice also that if this were some sort of communist ploy - where are the parties? Where are the mass strikes? Where are the red militias? Where is literally any single hallmark of a communist revolution? If you want to start talking smack at least be consistent about it and say that it's anarchists, since if there's gonna be any tendency that you'd smear like this, at least let it be the one that gets associated with the Propaganda of the Deed (like you know, bombing the Tsar and assuming it will launch the revolution).

They go to right-wing protests, left-wing protests, civil rights demonstrations, anything with a chance of political tension. They go masked and armed because they want people to be afraid and stupid. They shout and spit and hope to start a riot. They do property damage and fist fighting at other people's demonstrations to drag the police in, and then hope for the police to conflict with innocent protesters, and then put that up as propaganda to villify the nation as a whole. They're trying to make the country worse on purpose in the hopes a militant revolution happens.

Yet there's nothing to rule out the current situation from being conspiracy in the other direction, i.e. that it's the police and far right also inciting shit. Pure speculation, but if you think they're trying to make the country look worse by destroying property...then how exactly is that related to them being communists? They're gonna get into fights and then expect the media (which whom antifa notoriously have bad relationships with and want to avoid, and the fact that the liberal media have been critical if not outright condemnatory of antifa since day 1) to do the depiction for them, whilst at the same time they're convinced everyone is tied to an ideology of praising property over human life? Yeah that seems logical and coherent.

The death of George Floyd is bad, I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But moving forward from that, if as a nation we supported the peaceful demonstrations and had a dialogue about meaningful reform and we progressed, that would be a blessing out of the tragedy for almost everyone. For the nation, for the black community, for every community, for liberals and progressives and conservatives. It would be good for everyone... except the revolutionary communists who actively want us to fall to pieces. That's why antifa goes out to break things, because they don't want progress, they don't want peaceful dialogue, they want riots, and they want regular people to think riots are better than peace. Don't fall for it. They're using you.

I think the key point is that people are tired of dialogues and that the system won't reform itself. But you keep pinning outrage and hyperconsumerist looting to communists (famously known for encouraging theft of petty goods to start the revolution, and not, you know, explaining crime and looting as the expression of alienation under class violence that does nothing in itself), and failing to understand that 'peace' under injustice is no peace at all. I think if anyone is playing Grima Wormtongue it's you who has never spoken to an antifa member once in their life without approaching it in bad faith.

 

[tstorm823]

Here’s what I read from Terminal. The system didn’t diminish violence, it caused it. Society protested but that was ignored. The system caused more violence which is training the rest of society to be violent.

None of this would have happened if the system wasn’t violent. You can call that inherent, but I’d say that if it was so inherent, it would have been the first response, not the last. Society has been trying for decades to deal with this peacefully and only limited progress has been made. This is a reaction to a problem and thought, ‘hey that system gets to enforce its will on others, lets copy that.)

(I’m putting in the qualifier that the system has some violence inherent to it. This is a case where someone jumped over that line and then into the next state. It wasn’t even close.)

edit: Maybe I could say it this way. Violence is inherent is the system. It’s a very poor idea that society is now copycatting.

Right, terminal is saying the system caused the violence. It's "inherent in the system". So long as the system exists, the violence exists, and if the system disappears, the violence disappears. These are the claims of anarchists and communists, who don't see the world the way most people do. The system they say is inherently violent is the Republic, it's capitalism, it's the very idea of police. Most people see government and police as a method to address their problems. Antifa sees them as the cause of the problems. That's what it means to say the violence is inherent in the system.

The people gathering at government buildings and police precincts obviously don't believe that. They're going to these places seeking reform and redress. They believe the system can be rid of this violence and are demanding it. If you think the violence is inherent in the system, you don't waste your breath demanding reform, that would just be shouting at a brick wall expecting it to move. The system cannot be reformed, the violence cannot be removed from it, it is inherent. If a problem is inherent to a system, the only options are accept the problems in perpetuity or revolt and tear that system down. It's not police reform, it's no police. It's not pay for people's needs, it's eliminate the idea of payments. It's not change the nation's laws, it's the total elimination of the nation-state as we know it. These are the desires of anarcho-communists, of Antifa. Most people see violence occurring in spite of the systems we have in place to protect us. Antifa sees all violence as the result of those systems, and revolution as the answer.

So when people are peacefully demonstrating for change, and somebody shows up with bricks, it's not far out there to suggest it's the people who see violence inherent in the system. Those who see peaceful protest as utterly meaningless are left only with the options of give up or break things. Antifa breaks things.

Cells still have leadership, Antifa has an absurdly flat hierarchy, literally anyone can and does claim membership since it’s less a group than a way of approaching activism. There is no “boss” to most groups, though some more focused organizations may have a defined structure.

You don't need a boss to be violent. You don't need a hierarchy. A Discord server is the level of organization you'd need to get bricks to city centers uniformly.

Please point me to any antifa group who's explicit message is to raise the intensity of the scuffle, cause there will be thousands of exceptions. Hell, the John Brown Gun Club advocate turning up to demos with rifles, and they are there explicitly to de-escalate situations by coming in with firepower.

You do understand this is super dumb, right? You've said this before, and it was dumb then, and it's dumb now. You're not going to convince reasonable people that showing up with rifles is promoting peace. You wouldn't suggest the armed idiots marching on coronavirus responses are more peaceful because they have guns, I'm not giving you even the suggestion that your armed idiots are somehow different. This is dumb.

 

[Fieldy409]

Get a load of that: demanding they get out while making it impossible to do so thanks to the constant tazering. Geez...

Protests are spreading. Should we start another topic? In Washington they have Trump hiding.



They're even in London now.


I even saw the same copy/pasted message posted over and over in a facebook group for discussing events in my own city here in Tasmania.

Saw that same message copy/pasted 4 times. I reply every time reminding people that they should not group up for protests because of Covid-19.

Because I think people have forgotten covid-19, which is really sad because this is literally the worst time in recent history to protest. I hope protests don't take off in Australia, I'm no expert but I think our numbers of cases are so low and our borders are closed so that complete eradication of the virus in our country is possible. If people keep calm and don't give it a chance by gathering in groups.

Warning: Disturbing video.

So a truck ran into protests.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

You do understand this is super dumb, right? You've said this before, and it was dumb then, and it's dumb now. You're not going to convince reasonable people that showing up with rifles is promoting peace. You wouldn't suggest the armed idiots marching on coronavirus responses are more peaceful because they have guns, I'm not giving you even the suggestion that your armed idiots are somehow different. This is dumb.

One is to de-escalate, the other is to make demands. Big difference bucko.

 

[Seanchaidh]

a) I didn't.

At the very least you conflated them. In any case, it's pretty clear that your concern is property damage even while people are being hurt or killed.

b) Equating property ownership to violence is your entire ideology.

I can point to how the relations of production in capitalism literally cause death and other harms, otherwise known as structural violence, but no, that is certainly not the whole of my ideology.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I find it interesting that Covid apparently no longer exists as a concern in these particular giant gatherings of people where as a couple weeks ago it was seen as evil...

 

[lil devils x]

Hate to say it but

It worked do.

Trump may be a complete moron and have the equivalent tact to the grace and appreciation of a bull in a china shop.
However it seems he gets something.

Some-one once said before Trump is conducting office like a WWE script and it's true. In this case people think he's a monster so he (likely not by design) is playing into that and also sort of calling their bluff. An "Oh you want to come get me, you think I'm a monster, well what kind of evil villain doesn't have a highly guarded lair with dogs, you still want to run the risk as to if I'm the villain you say I am or not?"

Also to be clear he said if they breached the Whitehouse grounds they'd face the dogs I think.It's like WWE heel 101 what's going on.

That makes no sense. He was in Florida at the time and the protesters knew that. Second, What did it 'work' to do except show the world how stupid America is to have elected this idiot and should feel ashamed and humiliated as a nation to have allowed this to happen? The only thing Trump accomplished here was embarrassing and disgracing his nation and people.

If his intent was to escalate and make this worse, goal accomplished, however, as president his goal should have been to lead his nation through healing and instead continues to prove his incompetence to the job he is so blatantly unfit to do.

 

[lil devils x]

I find it interesting that Covid apparently no longer exists as a concern in these particular giant gatherings of people where as a couple weeks ago it was seen as evil...

You are acting as though this has changed. It is just as bad then as it is now and people will die from this. While we have seen many in masks, I worry due to their prolonged exposure, masks are not enough. Simply because we have more than one tragedy happening at once, it does not change the fact that both are bad. Yes, these protesters are risking their lives and the lives of others, however, so was Trump already by forcing the workers and general public into unsafe conditions without even providing the proper PPE to ensure their safety.

 

[Adam Jensen]

This seems pretty intentional.

It's almost impossible to prove that murder was the intent.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

It's almost impossible to prove that murder was the intent.

Wondering what would it have taken to prove so though, emptying his mag in his face?

Quite a few cops here seem to think this *should* be a pretty cut and dried charge, but yeah the exacerbating issue here is our incredibly flawed legal system which should allow for more civil intervention when a murder is clearly taking place. Because as it stands it seems to assume the personal judgment of all law enforcement is infallible when clearly any rational member of it could even agree that is not the case.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Violence is inherent to human nature. We have a system to diminish the violence, not cause it.

"Violence is inherent to human nature" is an excuse people make when they want to justify violence.

This idea that individual human beings are violent and dangerous, that they can't be trusted to do things for themselves, that they need a firm guiding hand to ensure their natural wickedness is kept in check, is one we've heard before. In reality, there is no evidence that most people are inherently violent, and the violence we do see in our society mostly serves a clear motivation or purpose, which generally has nothing to do with human nature. This is one of those times.

They're going to these places seeking reform and redress. They believe the system can be rid of this violence and are demanding it.

..And they have been met with violence. They have been accused of violence, or even outright framed for violence. They have been accused of being too shrill, of making their demands too stridently, of causing too much disruption, of violating the peace. They have been told it is not the time. They have been told this is not what Martin Luther King would have wanted. They have endured vacuous platitudes about the need for forgiveness and reconciliation and love.

What did you expect? We do not live in a fair society. You do not even want to live in a fair society.

The system cannot be reformed, the violence cannot be removed from it, it is inherent.

It could be replaced with a better, more equitable, less destructive form of violence.

But when I put it like that, it sounds a bit scary doesn't it. Isn't it easier to talk about how we need to move on, and to focus on the positives, and to muse sagely about how this has brought us all together. Isn't that the real reform we needed? Isn't that much nicer? Isn't that much more polite? Doesn't that make us seem like nice, polite, respectable people?

 

[Specter Von Baren]

You are acting as though this has changed. It is just as bad then as it is now and people will die from this. While we have seen many in masks, I worry due to their prolonged exposure, masks are not enough. Simply because we have more than one tragedy happening at once, it does not change the fact that both are bad. Yes, these protesters are risking their lives and the lives of others, however, so was Trump already by forcing the workers and general public into unsafe conditions without even providing the proper PPE to ensure their safety.

And yet no one seemed to care about it in this thread until I brought it up.

 

[ObsidianJones]

I find it interesting that Covid apparently no longer exists as a concern in these particular giant gatherings of people where as a couple weeks ago it was seen as evil...

People are tired, Specter.

They are worn out. They are hurt, angry, and confused. These are people who have lost jobs, family members, humanity and comfort, and sadly hope. As much as it hurts me to condense a man's life like this, Floyd was a spark that landed on a dry haystack in the middle of a forest.

Not only has the African American community been hit the hardest during Covid, health wise and job wise, we're now reminded that our lives aren't worth a possibly fake 20 dollar bill.

And literally the next day we see a woman fabricating a story in order to try to threaten a black man after he asked her to put a leash on her dog.

People are broken at this time. Their anger is overriding their sense of.. well, anything else. It just seems to never stop.