Why the trope of the 'outside agitator' persists : Code Switch

Be interesting if Supporting FACTS were posted and not rumors. Arrest records would be easy for such a specific claim:

1.). “ More than half of those picked up by the police and/or campus security were not students”

“IF” over 1-2/half picked “ the police and/or campus security were not students” … that means they have been identified legally by name and at least received a citation for trespassing. Meaning that staff at these colleges and universities, were contacted to state that they weren’t students.

2.) “ and many were previously involved with Antifa.”

Again, an FACTUAL data based must have been obtained by law enforcement to identify that these were actually “ANTIFA” members, officially or unofficially … to state as a FACT … that these were Anti-Fascist.


A Brief History of Anti-Fascism

As long as the ideology has threatened marginalized communities, groups on the left have pushed back with force

Eluard Luchell McDaniels traveled across the Atlantic in 1937 to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War, where he became known as “El Fantastico” for his prowess with a grenade. As a platoon sergeant with the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the International Brigades, the 25-year-old African American from Mississippi commanded white troops and led them into battle against the forces of General Franco, men who saw him as less than human.

It might seem strange for a Black man to go to such lengths for the chance to fight in a white man’s war so far from home—wasn’t there enough racism to fight in the United States?—but McDaniels was convinced that anti-fascism and anti-racism were one and the same.

“I saw the invaders of Spain [were] the same people I’ve been fighting all my life," Historian Peter Carroll quotes McDaniels as saying. "I’ve seen lynching and starvation, and I know my people’s enemies.”

Historian Robert Paxton’s Anatomy of Fascism—one of the definitive works on the subject—lays out the motivating passions of fasicsm, which include “the right of the chosen group to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law”. At its heart, fascism is about premising the needs of one group, often defined by race and ethnicity over the rest of humanity; anti-fascists have always opposed this.

Anti-fascism began where fascism began, in Italy. Arditi del Popolo—"The People’s Daring Ones”—was founded in 1921, named after the Italian army’s shock troops from World War I who famously swam across the Piave River with daggers in their teeth. They committed to fight the increasingly violent faction of blackshirts, the forces encouraged by Benito Mussolini, who was soon to become Italy’s fascist dictator.

The Arditi del Popolo brought together unionists, anarchists, socialists, communists, republicans and former army officers. From the outset, anti-fascists began to build bridges where traditional political groups saw walls.
Those bridges would quickly extend to the races persecuted by fascists.

SOURCE : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-anti-fascism-180975152/



2.) What is Antifa?

An amorphous group takes on “fascists”

The word Antifa has its roots in Anti-Fascist Action, a name taken up by European political movements in the 1930s. These groups, especially in Germany, were a failed attempt by the left to unite against the threats of fascism and nazism. The end of the second world war and the chaos of occupied Germany briefly revived them as organised alliances of socialists and communists who went after prominent Nazis and engaged in political activism, before being shut down by occupying powers.

Antifa resurfaced in the late 1980s in Europe, particularly in East Germany, as loose networks of radical activists came together in reaction to neo-Nazi and right-wing skinhead movements. The decade also marked the Antifa’s entrance onto the American stage in the form of the Anti-Racist Action, a network which originated in 1987 with the Baldies, a multi-racial crew in Minneapolis, leading to the creation of other groups across the country to fight neo-Nazis.

Where the first iteration of Antifa groups based their actions on rhetoric and political activism, the later groups organised to fight on the streets.

SOURCE : https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/07/29/what-is-antifa?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID= [login to see] &ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=Cj0KCQjwm66pBhDQARIsALIR2zCj70k1VctXF00i5xFK0jpFDL1JRNYN9rodyy_xqEcpr45zsna1WxYaArGeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds



3.) Who Are Antifa, and Are They a Threat?

Q1: Who are Antifa?

A1: Antifa is a contraction of the phrase “anti-fascist.” It refers to a decentralized network of far-left militants that oppose what they believe are fascist, racist, or otherwise right-wing extremists. While some consider Antifa a sub-set of anarchists, adherents frequently blend anarchist and communist views. One of the most common symbols used by Antifa combines the red flag of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the black flag of 19th century anarchists. Antifa groups frequently conduct counter-protests to disrupt far-right gatherings and rallies. They often organize in black blocs (ad hoc gatherings of individuals that wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, and other material to conceal their faces), use improvised explosive devices and other homemade weapons, and resort to vandalism. In addition, Antifa members organize their activities through social media, encrypted peer-to-peer networks, and encrypted messaging services such as Signal.


Q2: What role have Antifa groups played in the protests?

A2: While it is difficult to assess with fidelity the identity or ideology of many of the looters, my conversations with law enforcement and intelligence officials in multiple U.S. cities suggest that Antifa played a minor role in violence. The vast majority of looting appeared to come from local opportunists with no affiliation and no political objectives. Most were common criminals.
Still, there was some evidence of organized activity by left-wing and right-wing extremists, including from individuals that traveled from other states. John Miller, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism at the New York Police Department, warned that a small, fringe network of extremists organized violence in New York City. “Before the protests began, organizers of certain anarchist groups set out to raise bail money and people who would be responsible to be raising bail money, they set out to recruit medics and medical teams with gear to deploy in anticipation of violent interactions with police,” he said, based on intelligence collected by New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. “They prepared to commit property damage and directed people who were following them that this should be done selectively and only in wealthier areas or at high-end stores run by corporate entities.” There were also multiple reports of white supremacists infiltrating peaceful protests in cities like Boston, Denver, Tampa, and Dallas.


Q3: What is the broader threat from Antifa and other types of extremists?

A3: The threat from Antifa and other far-left networks is relatively small in the United States. The far-left includes a decentralized mix of actors. Anarchists, for example, are fundamentally opposed to the government and capitalism, and they have organized plots and attacks against government, capitalist, and globalization targets. Environmental and animal rights groups, such as the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, have conducted small-scale attacks against businesses they perceive as exploiting the environment. Antifa followers have committed a tiny number of plots and attacks.

Based on a CSIS data set of 893 terrorist incidents in the United States between January 1994 and May 2020, attacks from left-wing perpetrators like Antifa made up a tiny percentage of overall terrorist attacks and casualties. Right-wing terrorists perpetrated the majority—57 percent—of all attacks and plots during this period, particularly those who were white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and involuntary celibates (or incels). In comparison, left-wing extremists orchestrated 25 percent of the incidents during this period, followed by 15 percent from religious terrorists, 3 percent from ethno-nationalists, and 0.7 percent from terrorists with other motives. In analyzing fatalities from terrorist attacks, religious terrorism has killed the largest number of individuals—3,086 people—primarily due to the attacks on September 11, 2001, which caused 2,977 deaths. In comparison, right-wing terrorist attacks caused 335 fatalities, left-wing attacks caused 22 deaths, and ethno-nationalist terrorists caused 5 deaths.

Viewed in this context, the threat from Antifa-associated actors in the United States is relatively small.

SOURCE : https://www.csis.org/analysis/who-are-antifa-and-are-they-threat

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel thanks for the share.

Because it's the truth. More than half of those picked up by the police and/or campus security were not students and many were previously involved with Antifa.