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Comment by jachee | Hacker News Reader

I'm seeing false accusations of Antifa starting violence all over the place. It's the right-wing's boogieman-du-jours, and likely false-flag representation at best.

Edit: Downvoters– tell me why you're downvoting this?

Why would Antifa purposefully take actions that would deliberately cause an armed police response to otherwise-peaceful protests?

Edit 2 since I can no longer post responses: Clearly the misinformation campaign continues alive and well here on HN. Dare to defend those with less privilege and get downvoted to hell.

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The right uses 'Antifa' as a catch all term for anyone on the left doing anything they don't like. It's a meaningless label, but not enough people get that.

There are definitely people who proudly identify as "Antifa". And a pretty good number of them are what one might generically describe as agitators (at least).

If nothing else, they seem to be the douchebags defacing war memorials.

"War memorials."

> defacing war memorials.

What an odd thing to do. Which memorials?

Just in the last day or two:

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/world-war-ii-memorial-vandal...

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/05/25/veterans-ange...

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/05/25/Wa...

https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/va-headquarters-vandal...

https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Veterans-memorial-monument...

A bit older:

https://www.kptv.com/news/3-arrested-vandalism-suspect-wante...

This is just a few links--there are many more. As far as I'm concerned, this is all you need to know about Antifa. You should make up your own mind, though.

1) Despite your preamble, this is the only linked instance actually from the last day: Unknown persons tagged DC structures during the protest, with the same single person spraying messages on the WWII and Lincoln memorials.

2) Memorial Day: Unknown persons damaged two stones on a monument to Puerto Rican veterans for an unknown reason.

3) Memorial Day: Unknown persons painted an obscure reference to Peruvian communists on an unrelated WWI memorial.

4) This is the same news as (1).

5) May 4: Unknown persons tagged the wrong monument for not counting soldiers of color.

6) February 8: A counterdemonstration against a KKK rally (not mentioned as such in this Fox News article) found itself aimless when the Klan was intimidated by them into late-canceling, with some becoming restless and opportunistically tagging.

This is clearly a desperate search through Google News looking for any vandalism of war memorials other than the high profile reported ones you obviously had to make an effort to exclude (because you definitely didn't want to mention them now), blaming them all on "antifa" even where literally nothing is known about the vandals or their motives and concluding with "this is all you need to know."

If by desperate, you mean low effort, I'll sort of accept that. I spent about 90s on it.

But as to these not being "Antifa", get real. If any weren't done by Antifa, Antifa would nonetheless cheer the perpetrators on with great enthusiasm. That's what Antifa is about. They are denigrators and destroyers of that which is decent and noble in humankind.

> They are denigrators and destroyers of that which is decent and noble in humankind.

...fascism, as per their name?

The KKK, as in your own link?

Or currently, multiple Confederate memorials[0] created specifically "to further a white supremacist future"[1], which you ever so gingerly avoided referencing directly?

[0]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/01/george...

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues...

I'm speaking most specifically of those who served in WWII, which in my opinion was the most heroic service in living memory. They prevented what would have been world-wide tyranny, and though not soon enough, prevented the extermination of the Jews in concentration camps.

Antifa has shit on the memory of these honorable warriors--many of whom gave their lives--by defacing their monument. For shame.

One person did that (or possibly a small group; I'm not certain of the details). Are you suggesting that an entire nebulous, poorly-defined movement is responsible for one particular action by one particular person?

It's starting to look more concerted. Check out the story about the defacement of the memorial to the black Civil War regiment in Boston. Something's up.

I guess it's the mirror image of the word "fascist" being sometimes used as a catch-all term.

It all depends on where the violence is directed.

People are protesting police killing a black civilian. Now, if Antifa were to show up, who would they attack, the protesters or the police? The police. If the alt-right showed up, who would they attack? The protesters. Well, who's getting attacked? Not the protesters. So that fits with it being Antifa rather than the alt-right...

... unless it's a false flag, or alt-right accelerationists. In that case, it could be either.

Here in Pittsburgh, it was literally the latter.

Sorry, literally the latter what? Violence aimed at protesters? Or accelerationists?

False-flag instigators, intentionally escalating in bad faith to provoke a violent response from protesters and police alike.

EDIT - Watch the instigating jerk flip off the protesters who dared confront him as he triggers what would become a failure cascade of protests that had been peaceful for hours.

https://reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/gtn3ps/video_of_the...

What exactly makes you think that this person was a false-flag instigator?

The fact that he flips off the protesters who try to stop him and continues instigating until the police escalate.

Did you watch the video?

> The fact that he flips off the protesters who try to stop him

Because he wants to break the police car obviously.

> continues instigating until the police escalate

More like until he is shooed off. I do not see the police in the video at all actually. Regardless, would that not be the best idea if you are going to cause trouble? You would not want to be arrested after all.

And yeah, I did watch the video.

The whole point of the entire thread (which you seem to have missed) is that the protesters were peaceful and wanted to stay that way, and this guy came in and screwed that up, while dressed like the very force that's supposed to help defend protesters and keep things peaceful.

That's the very definition of false-flag instigation.

You're implying that attacking a police officer, by definition, makes you antifa, which is more than a little convenient.

We have always been at war with antifa. 1984

I deny you the right to put words in my mouth. That is not what I am saying, nor implying.

I am saying that, in the circumstances where a white police officer killed an unarmed black person, Antifa's ideology is to be on the side of the victim, not on the side of the police. When there are protests about that death, Antifa's ideology is to be on the side of the protesters, not on the side of the police. And Antifa isn't afraid to mix it up in the streets. If they're going to be fighting in that situation, they're going to be fighting the police, not the protesters.

That does not imply that all who fight the police are Antifa. Logic doesn't work that way.

What I am saying is that, if outsiders showed up, and if those outsiders were not running a false flag operation, then their behavior fits that of Antifa better than that of the alt-right.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is "agents provocateur."

it seems like the term "antifa" is code for "militant lefties".

So how does one be a part of the "Anti Fascist" movement without being "antifa" ?

wow, being down-voted to hell. It was actually a legit question... I wasn't asking because I want to be part of that movement it was more about the fact that the word is being re-defined to mean something that it was originally not meant to mean.

Unfortunately the mainstream has portrayed "antifa" as some kind of covert organization acting inappropriately. They fail to point out that antifa is literally short for anti-fascist. In other words, unless you're pro-fascism, you're anti-fascist by default. It's akin to calling yourself a liberal or conservative.

No. Antifa is more than just anti-fascist, and not everyone who is anti-fascist is Antifa. There are plenty of people who are not pro-fascist, but also are not pro-brawling-with-the-Proud-Boys-in-the-streets.

In fact, the Proud Boys could use the same logic. Are you ashamed of America's heritage? No? Then you're one of the Proud Boys. The logic in either case is completely false. In fact, this is one of the standard fallacies, but I can't remember the name of it.

I think you’re referring to the “false dilemma” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)

This is not how it works. Antifa has a specific meaning. Similar to how having carbon in a product is not enough to say that it is organic. Or how just publishing your source code online is not enough to make your program open source.

I wonder how long until a militant group starts calling themselves, "The Human Beings"

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