Is that it exists. It's a group of radicals doing things that are only supposed to happen on the right. At least some of its members happily subscribe to violence and destruction. Many cheer for anarchy. Not a few throw their hats in the ring of radical left wing and Communist sympathies. And in addition to hating fascism (assuming, for a minute, they're not actually a branch themselves), some have made it clear they hate other things as well, like America, Christianity, religion, you name it.
In other words, they're a pain in the Left's butt. And they're a problem for the press. Just as the press tends to avoid talking about the bitter suffering and human misery brought about by decades of the sex and drugs culture which is so crucial to helping modern liberalism appeal to youngsters at an early age, so focusing on something like Antifa is also a problem.
If Antifa were all things, but flipped over, and opposing ideals near and dear to the Left while advocating radially right wing viewpoints, betcha the Left would have round the clock coverage - and condemnation - of the group? Oh yeah.
As it is, the press is forced to cover it, thanks to Trump's doubling down and refusing to play the game. It does so as it always does when forced to cover something that could make the Left look bad. It appeals to the tactic of endless confusion: What is Antifa? Can we know what Antifa is? Is there really such a thing as Antifa? Isn't it too complex to define? Can we ever really be sure of anything? Couldn't C-A-T really spell dog? And on and on.
ABC does a nice job demonstrating the approach. Part of the result of this is leaving the reader with the notion that Antifa is something or other, hard to define, if anything bad happens it's just a few malcontents who don't speak for the vaguely defined group, Racism!(TM), and so on.
It's somewhat funny to watch. It's also frighting. Because we now know that the press is no longer about informing us, it's about indoctrinating us. It has become the Ministry of Truth. And Antifa has jumped the gun, forcing the Left to double down when forced to (perhaps violence and hate are acceptable for the right reasons), or trust in the 'here today, gone later today' attention span of the post modern who really only cares about the latest Smartphone release.
A far cry, BTW, from the days of my youth, when Gandhi and Atticus Finch were the god-heroes of liberalism, showing that violence and hate are always wrong, and promising a world of endless diversity, tolerance, love, and non-violence. Trust not the movement that promises a land where all animals are equal, but then begins to backtrack by insisting it really means some animals are more equal than others.
The saddest part, of course, isn't the Left's desire to turn America into a Bolshevik styled Orwellian dreamscape. It's how many Christians, including Catholics, have taken to ignoring such a hate group at best, and even excusing it at worst.
Those of us who lived through the 1960s, specifically the 1968 democrat convention, recognize antifa easily. They are the full on spiritual descendants of the Chicago and other rioters of that period. Nothing new here. The usual childish rebellion against authority and self indulgence of the new me generation.
ReplyDeleteI'm too young to remember that, but I've certainly studied it. And I can't help but notice the Left's willingness to cast a blind eye toward violence when convenient, even when it spends so much time preaching the non-violent way at other times. Which, again, makes it just like everyone else: Violence is bad except when necessary. For the Right, that means defending the nation or the innocent against evil, for the Left it appears to mean advancing the interests of the Left.
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