Antifa, such as the Communist NorthWest Arkansas Antifa group led by Martin Bemberg, who was arrested last year for violence at a Confederate statue protest in Hot Springs, Arkansas, have pledged to come out to attack second amendment supporters this Saturday in league with the “March For Our Lives” anti-gun rally.
Similar to the ongoing optics debate on the right, splintered factions on the left are arguing about whether or not violent opposition to those whom they disagree with, or attempting to doxx them and ruin their lives, is the preferable tactic.
For those of us who don’t fear either their doxxing or their physical confrontations, they’re all just shit out of luck.
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In “Antifa Has Richard Spencer on the Run. Does That Vindicate Its Tactics?,” Nation contributor Joshua Holland (@JoshuaHol) discusses the longstanding debate on the left about whether violence, specifically, is self-defeating—and highlights a number of the creative nonviolent tactics antifa activists have adopted.
“There’s good reason to believe that antifa has the Nazis on the run despite the violent tactics and not because of them,” writes Holland.
“A study of black liberation movements in the 1960s by Princeton University political scientist Omar Wasow found a clear, mainstream backlash to political violence.”
“Antifa’s big-picture strategy—making it clear that inherently violent, racist ideologies are not acceptable in a pluralistic society andcreating a tangible cost for those who adhere to them—is laudable. But given that most of what they do is in fact nonviolent, they have a public relations problem that stems entirely from the widespread perception that they represent a mirror image of their fascist opponents.”
“It should matter to other progressives. As I wrote last year, since the end of the Vietnam era, the far-right has held a near-monopoly on political violence in the US. So while violent confrontation is just one antifa tactic out of many, in addition to being a potent recruiting tool for right-wing hoodlums, it also muddies the waters around the primary source of political violence in America. That’s a problem for everyone.”
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