This time last month, many Americans had never heard of “Antifa,” though it has been around in various incarnations for several years, and had made its presence known at a Berkeley, California “free speech” event in May. Their first exposure to the group came when thousands of its members turned out in Charlottesville, North Carolina earlier this month to counter a much smaller rally by a collection of neo-Nazi groups.
Inevitably, the groups clashed, violently, culminating with 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. ramming his car into the counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Antifa, which is short for Anti-fascist, the most visible of the counter-protesters, was initially hailed in popular by media outlets like the New York Times and CNN for their anti-White supremacist stance. But that assessment has been soured because, unlike the bulk of general anti-capitalist, leftist protesters, a very visible part of Antifa is violent, a collection of anarcho-Communists not averse to destroying property, attacking people who “look like” Nazis, and calling for “dead cops.”
According to its Facebook page, Central PA Antifa is “an autonomous organization of anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist individuals…We are directly against any form of oppression and bigotry: Racism, Homophobia, Sexism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Transphobia, and all the various flavors of Fascism.”
Their methods and appearance, however, make them appear more like those they profess to combat. Antifa activists hide their faces behind masks—like the Klan. They dress in black—like Benito Mussolini’s Fasci di combattimento, and use violence and intimidation against their enemies. And their flag is almost a direct copy of the 1932 German Communist Party flag.
The group’s tactics led to one of the fastest about-faces ever performed by the Washington Post. On Aug. 18, it published “Why the American Left gave up on political violence.” Ten days later, it published “Black-clad Antifa attack peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley.”
About 150 Antifa infiltrated a much larger crowd countering those holding a “No to Marxism in America” rally. Washington Post reporter Kyle Swenson wrote: “Their faces hidden behind black bandanas and hoodies, about 100 anarchists and Antifa—‘anti-fascist’—barreled into a protest Sunday afternoon in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park…A pepper-spray wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifas, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.”
Locally, confusion about Antifa’s goals can be found in a Twitter response by user Tom Altman to the April announcement of various actions to be staged when Donald Trump visited the city: “So are we rallying as anarchists, or as socialists? i.e., freedom lovers or lovers of big government? Because it matters not if it’s Trump or Hillary, or Joe Shmoe, THAT is the real question.”
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