This post was originally published on coreyscottnaas.wordpress.com on 7 July 2019.
To say “Oh well Antifa has been violent too so they’re just as bad as the fascists” is to ignore the nuances and motivations of both sides and narrow it down to an easily digestible “both = bad”, and in doing so you’re only helping the fascists.
“If you’re a political enemy of Antifa you can become a friend. If you’re a political enemy of fascism though, you either they lose or you die. Again, it does not follow from that that all violence done in the name of antifascism, or done by the Left, is okay. What it is to say is that those who draw an equivalence between the Left and Right using violence are missing a much richer and more interesting layer of philosophy.”
“There is no peaceful white supremacy. There are no peaceful Nazis: fascism is not simply an alternative political viewpoint one can hold. It is in fact incompatible with the existence of most human beings on Earth, which is why it meets with such resistance. To people who haven’t followed the white nationalist rabbit and who haven’t really investigated why contemporary fascists think that they do, antifascist action can appear to come out of nowhere and be disproportionate. But now, you can see through them and you know what’s at stake. You may still disagree with antifascist action, or, in the spirit of being local and flexible you may agree sometimes, disagree with others, and reserve the right to change your mind. But at the very least you now understand the political philosophies that are in motion in your world today.”