Chris Hedges "How 'Antifa' Mirrors the 'Alt-Right'"

I still think antifa is generally fucking stupid, but I feel compelled to side with them over liberals. And other lefties are doing a good job pointing out antifa doing good. They were doing hurricane relief in Texas apparently.

Still that tbh. Not only, I'm seriously starting to think that antifa is just a bunch of retarded american anarkiddies smashies LARPers good for nothing, so worse than liberals

truth

America is a nation of overgrown children who suddenly found itself in full Weimar-esque decadence. Their whole identity is often based on what cartoons they jerk off to. To paraphrase McLuhan: violence is the quest for identity. loss of identity generates a desire for violence. War is education.

no

Hedges plagiarized? Do go on, when did this happen?

Use google. Even if the claims are made by New Republic I think they're credible.

...

newrepublic.com/article/118212/chris-hedges-responds-accusations-plagiarism

Yea my life is so decadant that I can't afford my own place, I've been forced on psychiatric medications that make me dysphoric, and since the 1st grade no woman has ever expressed interest in me.

I'm surrounded by nothing but illusionary riches and choices.

Hedges is right.
Antifa in it's current form, and especially when it's not a defensive position, is just feel-good virtue signaling and pock rock aesthetics.

It's not a winning position. It's goal isn't to win, but just to struuuggllle maaannn, which is stupid.

The racist right feeds off of a perception of martyrdom along lines of free speech and violent marginalization. Antifa gives them everything they want.

they're also made up of cowards who can't handle public confrontation without police protection. That's the main reason why antifa exists.

Seems like a pretty shit smear to me. Hedges is one of the very few journalists left with a measure of integrity.

Nah.

Yeah, can't 'no' that enough. If this is really Weimar-esque decadence, I'm extremely disappointed in Weimar Germany. Maybe I just don't have enough friends anymore, but if anything it seems to me like America is getting safer and less active - like, the raves and orgies just aren't as common as they used to be.

Although we are seeing a (maybe?) Weimar-esque wealth gap.

that's part of the decadence. everything is getting worse, the prosperity is actually illusory. Weimar Germany was marked by hyper inflation and mass unemployment. Gen Z' will to self destruction is both similar and different to that of the interwar european generation, but you can't deny it is there. furrydom and fascist LARPing are means of running away from oneself, as are morphine and gambling.

Ok I can't take you seriously I'm sorry

You know, you're right. It's probably an accurate comparison.

flesh this out for me, what are you referring to when you talk about decadence?

The world has been battling deflationary pressures and precarious employement rather than inflation and unemployment, but if you're making a point about wealth inequality I can understand that

Unfortunately, we can’t count on everyone on the Left to behave responsibly. In “How ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right,’” the same Chris Hedges who assisted the state in dividing and repressing the Occupy movement reappears to perform the same service in relation to the movements against fascism and the Trump administration.

The irony of a war journalist perennially accusing others of being driven by a lust for adrenaline should not be lost on anyone. It is worse still that Hedges, as a journalist, arrogates himself the right to pass judgment on the events in Charlottesville from a distance rather than deferring to people like Cornel West who were actually there putting their bodies on the line. But the true irony here is that Hedges purports to be warning against precisely the problem that he himself is creating. “By brawling in the streets,” Hedges alleges, “antifa allows the corporate state… to use the false argument of moral equivalency to criminalize the work of all anti-capitalists.” Actually, it is Hedges who is equipping the state to do this, by attributing “the same lust for violence” to anti-fascists that he believes motivates fascists. He could just as easily use his soapbox to debunk this moral equivalency, but he lacks the moral courage—he simply cannot resist performing the same kind of “self-advertisement for moral purity” that he accuses others of.

In 2012, when the authorities needed a narrative with which to isolate the ungovernable elements of the Occupy movement, Hedges provided that narrative, and the FBI subsequently parroted it verbatim in their efforts to justify a series of entrapment cases. Now Hedges is providing Trump’s government exactly the same service, equipping them to declare “antifa” a terrorist organization, as many on the far right have already been demanding. Already, the mayor of Berkeley is calling for “antifa” to be designated as a gang—imagine if everyone who opposes the rise of fascism is classified as a gang member, or a terrorist!

Hedges needs to understand that it is not anti-fascists gaining ground that brings about fascist attacks and government crackdowns. If anti-fascists were not gaining power in the streets, fascists would still be taking advantage of the despair and resentment of poor whites, and the government would still be developing more means of repression—there would simply be no social movement to protect us from them. It is fundamentally paranoid, disempowering, and ahistorical to understand these developments as the result of anti-fascist activity. On the contrary, it is imperative that we build the capacity to act effectively in the streets before the fascists outstrip us and the government is able to centralize enough power to establish tyranny once and for all.

From crimethinc.com/2017/08/29/not-your-grandfathers-antifascism-anti-fascism-has-arrived-heres-where-it-needs-to-go

List me ONE TIME that this has happened? No Ghandi memes either, Britain was willing to give up India eventually.

Why not address his point about revolutions not succeeding without mutiny, without help from those who have the big guns?

...

Yea, those that think they can overthrow the state without getting bigoted white people with the big guns on board are delusional.

I mean that with all sincerity.

that dashie drawing is actually pretty cool

our hyper-sanitised atomised consumer environment of soon to be automated big box superstores, b yourself panoramic ads, blinding fluorescent lights, and pop culture racial manufacturoversies seems designed to drive people insane. and it is only going to get worse. at least the youth of interwar europe had brothels and avant garde poetry. we are denied even that consolation.

I can only focus on the weird eyes, the rest seems like a jumble of floating signifiers that have long ceased to mean anything.

That made me chuckle. I went to a brothel once, cost a ton of money though to travel there.

Hedges is so fucking weird man. He changes his stance on violence constantly. He advocates for it in Wages of Rebellion.

He never said he was outright against it, like Chomsky he said it only makes sense if you pose and existential threat to the thing you are trying to overthrow, antifa comes nowhere close to that and fundamentally can't unless it gets the white people it hates on board and encourage mutiny

Antifa is still dumb, but the reasons liberals reject them are completely retarded. I'll argue against the violence is bad meme all day regardless of my thoughts regarding these sort of street fights.

The idea of decadence was at the core of European culture from c.1870-1939. think Nietzschean pessimism, the poetes maudits, occult societies et. al. the post war era was an era of optimism and faith in the future, think golden age sci fi and the utopian pretensions of late modern architecture. postmodernity is a hopelessly nostalgic age, obsessed with self referential pop culture, the return to childhood, tormented and enthralled by its past, which it sees as something 'oppressive' that needs to be 'deconstructed', yet it remains unable to leap into the void. humanity is now being torn apart from the roots by market forces that demand a completely malleable human object. make no mistake, this is a violent and traumatic process of amputation. The gleaming spectacle of progress and modernity is an empty spectacle that hides the reality of decay and universal misery. postmodernism has degenerated into a class ideology. it is very convenient for the people who make a living managing texts and discourses to pretend reality is nothing but a collection of texts and discourses. the return of blind and violent fascism, absolutism, fundamentalism is a logical and innevitable product of our reigning order.

it shouldn't matter in regard to the issue in question.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Wrong fallacy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

that's part of what makes our current situation so dangerous. we are alienated from our own surrounding and have forgotten how to take anything seriously.

vimeo.com/75534042

American intellectualism at it's finest

that would be a type of ad hom, so not "wrong fallacy".

doesn't matter anyway.

I don't understand how people can be this retarded

Yeah, modern antifa is actually from the 80s. There's still 30 years difference.

he's still right.
when something mirrors another one, doesn't mean it's copying it. your criticism is invalid.

How are antifa in any way preventing this from happening?

Antifa is not a cure. It doesn't claim to be. The claim that fascists are often poor and the violence doesn't affect the elite are true. But when your options are to let fascist proles march around growing in power and daring, or force them back to make them realize that there's a lot of people who won't take their ideology lying down, what do you pick? This criticism is the broken theory of someone who won't be affected by violence either way, ever.

Well, they helped suck all the steam out of the aut-right which I 100% support. Beyond that they haven't really done anything.

I pick the workers, who are often the victim of media sponsored smear campaigns, and then attacked as "Nazis" by the antifa idiots desperate to uphold the liberal status quo. I'd have more respect for antifa as anything but a shill organization if they also attacked Hillary supporters, Obama supporters, corporate media, and all of the other capitalist poison in the system. But, there's a reason they never did.

Neither.

it won't stop them. if there's a lesson, and one that the left should known is that repression never works. You can't kill an idea.

They're a bunch of LARPers, whose existence depends exclusively on the attention they get. Ignore them and they'll wither away because nobody likes literal nazis. Keep getting triggered by them and you might end up inadvertently giving them the platform they crave to get to power, like you did with Trump.

This has no relevance at all: it doesn't invalidate the criticism.

What sucked the steam out of the aut-right was one them murdering somebody, and I doubt antifa want to claim responsibility for that.

The state has a monopoly on violence and has trained the population into that mindset. The democrats and msm are pulling the escape hatch now because 2018 is coming up and because i think the morons realized antifa are not american patriots, they are anarchists and communists that want to overthrow capitalism.
The optics do look bad when an antifa is beating an alt light (based black dude!) while carrying shields that say "no hate". The

I find it curious that antifa have seemed to just pop into existence the second trump was elected, i dont recall them existing before. Even if you dont like trump, he isnt a fascist. I imagine antifa is crawling with feds.

Anyways, i think antifa should have seen this coming, they arent exactly friends with corporate journalists and i think i have seen "liberals get the bullet too" spread around a lot

Like clockwork.

The Greeks actually had something to complain about tho

Yeah, we totally can't win a revolution without overweight dads who LARP in the forest in a "unit" with 17 ranks and 15 people.

If anything, we should just raid their homes and take their guns. These guys stock fucking armories like they've got their own fucking army instead of just themselves, the dumbasses.

Both groups are workers. Antifa is not specifically socialist and that must be understood as such. Despite the fact that imperialism should be resisted, that isn't the goal of antifa.

I don't specifically support antifa, mind.

Yeah because Hillary supporters aren't borderline genocidal, calling for an ethnostate, or, you know, fascist, as in the name anti-FASCIST

I don't recall them either. they're useful idiots, just like the alt right. just like anyone willing to voice extremist ideologies in real life for that matter

I meant the army, but yea I don't know about racist militias

I feel like ever since Muke has been using spectacle (conspicuously following questions on Twitter about Debord) that people on leftypol have been using "spectacle" more, and I can never tell if they intend it in the sense of Debord or just colloquially.

Not that I think your post is bad. Just confuses me why I keep seeing this word.

Right wing YouTube was making fun of antifa years ago. This was in the libertarian days, but they were definitely not as prominent as they are now.

Weimar Germany's economy was much worse, and in cities a large percentage of youth engaged in prostitution to survive.

It's stupid to say America is as bad now as Germany was then. Doesn't mean there isn't a fascist undercurrent, it just means you're wrong.

Well, they helped suck all the steam out of the aut-right which I 100% support. Beyond that they haven't really done anything.

youtube.com/watch?v=OE7Xj9hNFZA

I'm not alienated enough to take you seriously.

They're there to show it's not okay to murder somebody and have your president pat you on the head.

I was done with liberals after they said they were "morally equivalent". Being on the right side of Nazis vs everyone else isn't a high standard to uphold. Criticise them, mirror maybe. Not equivalent

Not a fan of Hedges article - too absolutist.
But I think there is room for criticism of antifa tactics from the left.

This article is better written, imo:
zcomm.org/znetarticle/revolutionary-politics-and-non-violence/

Some are, but is this true in general about the ones marching and engaging in streetfights? Lots of them seem to come from middle class and/or suburban backgrounds.

Thanks for the laugh at least.

Honestly, my biggest problem with Antifascism is that fascism doesn't fucking mean anything. And because it doesn't mean anything, they spend a good chunk of their time attacking a straw man. Now is the time, more than ever, for the Left to articulate a coherent alternative to capitalism for the public. Antifa not only fails to do this, they flail around at something that can't even be defined.

It literally means Trump voters to them. Has there ever been a rally organised by them that wasn't about the adrenaline rush of violence?

Workers in and of themselves aren't somehow without criticism. If you are a worker and you support fascists and organize with them, you still deserve to have your shit rocked in my book. Education only goes so far. Some people, when it comes to their nationalism and racism, are irredeemable.

Trump is not a fascist, agreed, but fascists do support him. The way people just gloss over this is mind boggling or it at least calls into question where their sympathies lie.

He's a fuckin' lib, end of story

This comment is lmao and more true than you think. I know people like this. And you're so right. They have more guns than they know what to do with. And more ammo. It's truly insane.

Honestly how many genuine Fascist are there in the United States?

I mean, I thought there was *some* truth to his words, but when he got to the "I can't be a feminist cause i'm a white male" bit it just got super fucking hysterical, like wtf.

Just no to the whole thing after that, wtf

Probably not a lot, but they've already killed and beaten enough people. The thread you're on seems to indicate to me that you want to say they should be ignored, or worse, that they aren't dangerous, when in fact, they do pose a direct threat to the same people communists deem as "natural allies" all too often. So… fuck 'em. The way this board is willing to split hairs over such a topic is laughable.

And, no, I don't fully support antifa. I definitely have criticisms, but this board sometimes goes too far into liberal-tier criticisms of antifa, and I honestly can't tell at what point it's a Holla Forums false flagger or someone LARP'ing as a leftist but really just spewing comfortable chomsky-esque "vote for hillary!" kind of faux-leftism

To put it simply, the numbers aren't all too much of a big deal. There was obviously enough sympathizers of Nazi style politics to get someone like Trump elected, and to think those same people are just going to turn from such a strong kind of reaction on a dime I'm not so sure.

It seems that this country is going down the toilet and fast, and the left really should be in a mode of damage control right now more than anything. I mean, I think *anything* at this point should be thrown out there, but certainly those who insist we should just relax and stop worrying about the direction the country is headed (libs, centrists, etc.) are easily the most cancerous to getting us out of this rut.

Not saying that is YOU, but I've ran into WAY too many of these types lately. Just venting I guess.

People can change.

Ayy, I voted for that sexy gmilf

ANTIFA and Anarchists have no fucking relation to one another whatsoever. Stop fucking using that shit as bait to generate your gay thread about a cool dude.

UPHOLD ANARCHO-STEINISM

They are liberals.