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canchewread · 3 years

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The Trump Suspensions, Big Tech and Section 230

If the truth is to be told, I've spent the better part of the past week and a half trying to put Trump and his coup attempt behind me; with a hyper-capitalist Biden administration on tap, and already trafficking in austerity mythology and neoliberal authoritarianism, my internal analyst's relevancy clock is ticking like a time bomb. Furthermore, I believe that the fallout from the actual chud insurrection on January 6th, has finally rendered Trump himself an impotent, and increasingly less relevant, figure in what I have repeatedly predicted will be an ongoing American fascist movement. Finally of course, after five years of writing “yes, this guy is literally a fascist” over and over, I've grown extremely weary of arguing about what fascism is, and isn't, with contrarian left types who don't realize they're still operating under the hypnotic spell of American exceptionalism.

Unsurprisingly however, the news itself hasn't really given a damn what I'd rather be analyzing, and the fallout from the chud riot in D.C., has utterly dominated the coverage and discourse; creating infuriating and irresponsible narratives about what is ultimately a clear cut act of politicized violence by far right, fascist extremists. Recently, I've been offering a lot of push-back on narratives popular among the more reactionary elements of the online “left,” but today I'd like to turn our attention to a popular “neoliberal” (but not necessarily Democratic Party) narrative being pushed by elite capital, and the cluster of companies we collectively know as Big Tech. Namely, the idea that in the wake of the coup attempt, billion dollar social media companies should be lauded for finally suspending the accounts of Donald Trump and thousands of his fascist cronies, on their various services.

Now, don't get me wrong here; this isn't going to be a rant about censorship, and I personally think it's an unquestionably good thing that Trump (and fascist organizers) have been driven off social media, but something smells like rotting fish in all this, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that greedy, crypto-reactionary Tech Bros running billion dollar social media companies, are at the heart of it. To understand my problem here however, the first thing we have to ask is “why was Trump suspended from social media?”

Obviously each of the various social media companies have released statements about their decisions, but we're not really here to waste our time dissecting what amounts to public relations and propaganda. On an extremely basic level, most people understand that Trump's accounts were suspended for using election fraud conspiracy theories to ultimately incite fascist violence, and inspire a chud insurrection that left five people dead. Reduced to its essence, this then leaves us with three major “justifications” for the Trump suspensions; spreading dangerous conspiracy theories, inciting an insurrection, and inspiring (lethal) violence – all very good reasons to suspend someone's Twitter or Facebook account, wouldn't you say?

Unfortunately for guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey however, there are in fact some obvious problems with this narrative no matter which angle you choose to approach it from; let's start with the fact that Trump's social media feeds have been creating dead bodies and inspiring reactionary violence for years. It is no great secret that racialized violence and hate crimes have risen drastically in America (and the larger Pig Empire) since Trump launched his first election campaign with an explicitly fascist speech about Mexicans and migrants. What is far less often discussed however, even on ostensibly “liberal” news networks, is the ways in which Trump (and his tweets) have already directly inspired violence and murder in America and even abroad:

In addition to the surging national hate crime figures, a May 2020 investigation turned up at least “54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.” As ABC notes, “the cases are remarkable in that a link to the president is captured in court documents and police statements, under the penalty of perjury or contempt. These links are not speculative – they are documented in official records. And in the majority of cases identified by ABC News, it was perpetrators themselves who invoked the president in connection with their case, not anyone else.”

At least three different mass shooters (Pittsburgh, El Paso, Christchurch New Zealand) can convincingly be said to be have been inspired by Trump, or Trump’s rhetoric in some direct and observable way. Their total body count is eighty-four dead people who would likely still be breathing today, if Donald Trump had never logged on to social media or been given a platform to spread hatred and fascist ideology.

All of this is of course to say nothing of Trump’s peripheral involvement with and support for other groups responsible for right wing violence, like the Q-Anon conspiracy movement, or the neo-Nazi rioters who tore up Charlottesville and murdered Heather Heyer.

Naturally then, the obvious question becomes, if Trump was suspended for inciting deadly violence on January 6th in D.C., why wasn't he suspended for doing exactly the same thing before now? Hell, I'll do you one better; if Trump is suspended for inciting reactionary violence and murder, then why aren't guys like fascist provocateur Andy Ngo, and Wilks Brothers muppet Ben Shapiro (who himself has inspired an international body count) also suspended? Right, it simply doesn't track, and therefore we can conclude that Trump's social media suspensions really didn't have anything to do with inciting violence.

Alright, so be it, maybe you personally agree that “inspiring deadly violence and hate crimes” is somehow a loose reason to suspend a guy's social media accounts, whether he's president or not. Maybe, you figure that where Trump really crossed the line was purposely inciting a goddamn insurrection, and you're happy that Big Tech corporations understand the fine line between fascist murders and fascist terrorism. Unfortunately, that narrative doesn't track either because this isn't the first time Trump has tried to inspire an insurrection on Twitter; please recall the partially-AstroTurfed “Anti-Lockdown protests” in the spring, and in particular Trump's attempts to inspire an uprising in my home state of Michigan. Do you remember the “Liberate Michigan” tweet? The armed fascist militias occupying the Michigan legislature? The chud plot to kidnap and perhaps kill, the Governor of Michigan? Would it surprise you to learn that many of the same people who participated in those prior chud protests were part of the crowd that stormed Capitol Hill on January 6th? Is Jack Dorsey really arguing that Trump's insurrectionist tweets in the spring were fine, but his insurrectionist tweets in January are not because... more people saw the later on TV? Say what?

All of which of course brings us to the somewhat nebulous, “dangerous conspiracy theories” portion of the rationale for suspending Trump now, in the wake of the chud uprising. It's not much of a leg to stand on either however, because not only has Trump been pushing election fraud conspiracy theories for the past freaking year, but that isn't even the most dangerous and deadly example of his false reality narrative causing carnage in our society. You can take your pick, but I'd wager that both the Q-Anon conspiracy movement Trump has openly supported on social media, and the unhinged coronavirus conspiracies he propagated online for months and months, have much higher body counts than anything we saw on Capitol Hill. Why should anyone believe Big Tech companies care about conspiracy theories and how many people they kill, given their prior behavior up to this point? Please keep in mind that these are the same companies that decided not to suspend Trump's accounts when he was using them to threaten North Korea with annihilation; an act that could have easily lead to a catastrophic nuclear exchange if Kim Jong Un were half as un-moored from reality as our CIA-loyal media likes to imply.

Given all that then, what is the real reason behind suspending Trump's social media accounts? Again, it’s not that I'm concerned that a flatulent billionaire fascist manbaby lost some of his favorite outlets to spread fascist conspiracy theories, but why now, and not then?

To understand that, we're going to have to take a little bit of a detour here and talk about Section 230. What is Section 230? A portion of the American law that governs the internet, which ultimately indemnifies social media companies from legal liability for the crap other people post on their platforms. Without Section 230, victims of fascist violence organized on Facebook, could conceivably sue the pants off Big Tech companies for allowing that to happen. This is of course an existential crisis to gigantic tech firms that rely heavily on wildly unpredictable algorithms and automated processes to avoid having to hire moderators and actually keep an eye on what users are doing with their platforms. Furthermore, in the lead up to the 2020 election, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump talked about repealing Section 230, for (and this is key here) entirely different reasons.

Trump and his numerous allies in the Republican Party spent much of 2020 using the threat of repealing Section 230 as a cudgel against social media companies taking even mild action to combat these same dangerous conspiracy theories, and the spread of fascist ideology online. The GOP argument, disingenuously presented as a defense of free speech, was then that if Big Tech didn't let the fascists say whatever they wanted, regardless of its veracity or the potential consequences, they would open up companies like Twitter and Facebook to American libel laws. Of course, that's pretty laughable if we're talking about someone like Laura Loomer suing Twitter over her account being suspended, but Big Tech companies only have to look as far as Peter Theil's ultimately successful quest to destroy Gawker to realize it only takes one reactionary judge in a high enough chair, to sink their battleships entirely. Obviously then, you don't really need to be a genius to figure out Big Tech companies weren't excited about the idea of suspending Trump or his followers, because that would presumably result in an all-out assault on Section 230 from the sitting President of the United States and his (still quite influential) political party.

Ok, so great news for the Tech Bros right? Biden won after all, and barring a chud uprising on a scale not even I think they're capable of, he's about to become POTUS. Not so fast, because Biden and the so-called “centrist” neoliberal establishment in the Democratic Party are also threatening to repeal Section 230 for their own political advantage. The neoliberals too are disingenuously hiding their motives, this time behind a desire to combat hate speech and disinformation; truly noble goals, but obviously utterly irrelevant to rich white liberals who've spent the past five years conflating both Russian spies, and murderous fascist thugs, with leftists who want healthcare. Truthfully, this entire maneuver ultimately represents a ruling class, liberal elite attempt to arbitrate what is and isn't considered true, or newsworthy in the public discourse; a quest they've been furiously working on since the first Bernie Sanders political insurgency threatened to topple Democratic Party leadership, and naturally, throughout the bogus Russigate fever dream that dominated the first two years of Trump's presidency. Of course, even after Biden won the election, there really wasn't much reason for Big Tech companies to take this threat seriously; clearly the Republican Senate wasn't going to allow elite liberal censors to use a potential Section 230 repeal to dictate who can say what online, right?

Yeah, about that Republican Senate majority though; whoops. What if I told you then that the decision to suspend Trump's social media accounts sooner or later, was largely a forgone conclusion after the events of January 5th, not January 6th, 2021? What happened on January 5th? Joe Biden and the Democratic Party swept the Georgia special elections, effectively taking control of the American Senate, and putting folks like Zuck and Dorsey squarely in Biden's line of fire going forward.

Thus it can be said that the answer to both of our questions, “why wasn't Trump suspended before,” and “why is Trump suspended now” ultimately come down to who wields power in our society and our old nemesis, the profit motive. Companies like Twitter and Facebook don't really give a damn about disinformation, conspiracy theories or even Tweets that rack up their own body counts; what they care about is maintaining the warm embrace of legal impunity their business model depends on, and they'll do anything, to appease anyone with the power to remove that embrace, if they think it'll keep the gravy train going. Big Tech isn't fighting fascism, it's fighting oversight and the tyranny of having to pay live human moderators; there's nothing noble or praiseworthy about that, even if I'm still forced to admit that the censored neoliberal authoritarian alternative would be no better, and might be quite a damn sight worse.

Come meet the new boss; same as the old boss, indeed.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

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crimethinc · 6 years

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Notes on Anti-Fascist Self-Defense Training: 10 Lessons from the Russian Anti-Fascist Experience

The Trump presidency has seen a boom of fascist organizing and anti-fascist resistance in North America. Strategies and tactics that originally developed in the European context have spread around the USA. Meanwhile, in Russia, both Nazi violence and anti-fascist activity have died down to a mere fraction of what they were at the peak of the years of confrontation, 2002-2011. In the following text, a participant in the Russian anti-fascist movement suggests some conclusions about how to train for anti-fascist confrontations.

In publishing this perspective, we aim to facilitate dialogue between those fighting fascism in a variety of conditions all around the world. We believe it is crucial for anti-fascists to learn from history and from each other’s experience. If the Russian model for anti-fascist action reached its limits based on internal factors, as described below, we should take care not to reproduce those elements in our own organizing. Likewise, we encourage readers to bear in mind the political, social, and legal differences between the Russian and US contexts; you’ll do no one any good by ending up in prison on weapons charges unless the alternative would have been even worse. In the long run, fascism won’t be defeated simply by individual courage or force of arms, but by building a broad-based, participatory movement that addresses the social and economic problems fascists capitalize on to recruit for their organizations.

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Antifascist Attitude, a documentary made in 2008. Click on the option for English subtitles.

Introduction from the Author

Unfortunately, this text cannot go into detail about the history of Russian anti-fascism. That text has yet to be written. You can get a general sense from two texts that appeared between 2009 and 2011, before it was obvious that the situation was about to change:

Antifa in the Wild East—Internet Warrior Sets the Record Straight

Notes of a Co-Conspirator

There are a number of reasons why both fascist terror and anti-fascist organizing have drastically diminished in Russia over the past decade. First of all, Russian society is less dysfunctional. During the economic crisis of the 1990s, entire communities were devastated due to drugs and crime; people born in the 1980s were among the most affected. When this generation reached their twenties in the following decade, they were prone to violence and mayhem. Almost all the major Nazi terrorists were born in the 1980s. Since then, the majority of those still alive and not in prison have settled down somehow.

The police are also taking fascists and anti-fascists more seriously. A decade ago, you could bribe beat cops to get out of trouble; sometimes you could even bribe officers of the FSB (the successor to the KGB). Nowadays, beat cops contact the Center of Counteraction Against Extremists (E-Center) or the FSB, and they do not accept bribes anymore. The government has also heavily suppressed the football hooligan subculture, which used to be the biggest youth subculture in Russia.

A third reason is changing fascist strategies. Russian fascists have oscillated between organizing wide mass movements and underground terror. In the 1990s, Barkashov’s party Russian National Unity boasted hundreds of thousands of supporters; by the late 2000s, nothing remained from those days and fascists were concentrating on underground terror cells. The most prominent of those was the Fighting Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN), the speciality of which was high-profile murders, including those of anti-fascists Ivan Khutorskoy, Fyodor Filatov, Ilya Dzhaparidze, Stanislav Markelov, and Anastasia Baburova.

Murals depicting anti-fascists murdered by Russian fascists.

All the known BORN members have been dead or imprisoned since 2013. During the cycle of protests against election fraud in 2011-2012 and Alexei Navalny’s rise to prominence on an anti-corruption and anti-immigrant platform, fascists rediscovered their lost hope of building a mass movement and joined liberals and leftists in mass demonstrations—not without occasional fights with anti-fascists, however. New terror groups still occasionally emerge, such as the group around 20-year-old Pavel Vojtov, which murdered at least 15 homeless people in the Moscow area from 2014 to 2015. But this is nothing compared to the situation of the previous decade.

The last major Nazi attack on an anti-fascist concert was in summer 2010, when a group of Nazis aiming to assault a show by Moscow Death Brigade dispersed after warning shots were fired with a shotgun. The arms race had reached its logical conclusion; both anti-fascists and fascists lost interest in attacking the gigs of their opponents.

After the collapse of the movement against election fraud, the fascist movement was in a crisis, just as the rest of the opposition was. The war in Donbass (a region in eastern Ukraine torn by a Russia-backed insurgency) was another devastating blow, as Nazis were bitterly arguing about which side of the conflict to support. Eventually, both Nazis and anti-fascists ended up fighting in both sides of the front. Even anarchists have failed to reach a common position about the war in Donbass.

In a way, Russian anti-fascists had achieved a victory, as the movement was always organized around the goal of defending shows, not combating racism in Russian society in general. Since Nazis do not come to shows anymore, there is little organized anti-fascism left.

Because of all these factors, racist violence has dropped dramatically in Russia. According to SOVA center statistics, there were 692 incidents in 2007 and 93 in 2016—a whopping 86% drop. The real drop might be even more, as readiness to report crime grows as crime drops.

The reasons for the rise and fall of fascism and anti-fascism in Russia were rather local; there are probably not many universal lessons to draw from this. However, we can offer some notes regarding the practice in the streets.

The following suggestions are drawn from the experience of those years in Russia. All of this is basically common sense, but judging from what I’ve read online lately, some people may still benefit from these suggestions.

Note that self-defense in this text refers also to precautionary offense, as you cannot expect a state of peace with fascists to last indefinitely.

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A video from the classical Antifa era—2006 in Moscow, when the police were not particularly interested in what occurred in street confrontations between fascists and anti-fascists.

1. When it comes to physical confrontations, there is a strict hierarchy of tools.

A blunt weapon almost always wins against bare hands. A sharp weapon almost always wins against blunt weapons. A gun always wins against knives.

This hierarchy of tools is much more important than any disparity in size and strength; it also erases most disparity in skills. With a sharp weapon, you can easily defeat an unarmed opponent twice as heavy as you. Take this into account if you are small and weak.

Because of this…

2. There is no universal practice of self-defense.

The appropriate practice of self-defense depends completely on the cultural and legal context. For example:

-In Western and Central Europe, confrontations usually involve bare hands, sometimes blunt weapons. Most of these countries have a cultural aversion to using sharp weapons, although knives are sometimes drawn. Guns are almost never used, as firearm ownership is strictly regulated.

-In Greece, the mere possession of sharp weapons is heavily penalized. As a consequence, confrontations typically involve blunt weapons.

-In Finland, carrying knives is not unusual, and you should be prepared for the possibility that your opponent will be carrying one. Guns are also more available than in the rest of the Europe.

-In the USA, gun regulations are lax. You should operate under the assumption that your opponent may be carrying one.

-In Russia, the cultural framework is fluid. According to tradition, conflicts should be solved with bare hands, and gun legislation is rather strict. However, due to the escalation of conflict between 2002 and 2011, trauma guns and knives replaced fists; then shotguns replaced trauma guns and knives. Shotguns created a balance of terror and confrontations died out for the most part. Because of cultural and legal pressures, both of these shifts took a few years.

Antifa was born in Germany and originally spread in Western and Central Europe, but the practice of fighting barehanded is not applicable in places where the cultural and legal framework does not confine confrontations to those terms. There is no sense in training in unarmed self-defense if your opponent is likely to carry a blunt weapon. There is no sense training in self-defense with blunt weapons if your opponent is likely to carry a sharp weapon. If your opponent is likely to carry a gun, there is no sense training in self-defense with sharp weapons.

In addition to cultural and legal frameworks, scenarios also matter. I read an article about anti-racists setting up a powerlifting gym in the USA in order to be prepared for confrontations with racists and sexists in the streets and clubs. However, lifting weights is of very little use if you expect to confront a fascist demonstration. If the scenario is confronting a random racist, sexist, or homophobe in the street or serving as a bouncer at a benefit party, appearing big enough may solve the problem without violence.

This brings us to our next point…

3. Understand your priorities.

Unless you are a teenager or 20-something and plan to be a self-defense professional, you should prioritize. You cannot prepare for all scenarios; you should pick a few of them. Even if you do not have studies, a job, or a family now, you are likely to have any or all of them during the next 10 years that it will take you to become a universal expert.

You have a choice to make. If you expect to face unarmed opponents, train in unarmed self-defense. If you expect to face armed opponents, figure out how to survive the situation. If you only expect to face random harassers or drunken assholes at parties, you may lift weights. But most likely, you wont be able to prepare for all of these scenarios. Concentrate on what is most likely to keep you alive and healthy.

Therefore…

4. Do not train in Mixed Martial Arts.

Or at least do not concentrate on grappling, unless you only plan to be a bouncer and you do not anticipate any serious confrontations. This goes for anything related to ground fighting, including Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling.

If you have to fight against several opponents and you go to ground with one of them, someone will kick your head or stab you in the back. If you want to stay alive, you never want to go to ground in any serious situation. You should know something about holds, but spending years studying the complex art of grappling makes no sense if the goal is to survive in the streets.

I always feel sad when I read about anti-fascists training in MMA. Obviously, it is a beautiful form of art. However, it has little to do with the kind of self-defense you may need in political confrontations. Yes, anti-fascist MMA tournaments have been organized in the former Soviet Union since 2009, but this choice is not due to street realities but due to culture. Pulling a knife is considered disgraceful; this is why people kept training and competing in MMA even when everyone was already carrying a knife or a trauma gun.

Avoid any fancy Japanese or Chinese technique with a thousand-year-old noble tradition unless studying it is your chief goal in life. These arts were developed for the purposes of a professional caste in feudal times; they require years of full-time study to master and involve impractical and outdated weapons. If you are landed gentry, perhaps you can afford to become a samurai. Otherwise, that is unlikely.

You know best what to do with your own life. Mastering Kwan Dao or Katana might be just as fascinating as mastering model train collecting. But in the streets, all three of those options are comparably useful unless you always carry a Kwan Dao or Katana with you.

If you have a job or other demanding commitments in your life, you haven’t studied martial arts since childhood, and you do not possess natural talent, you should concentrate on learning the most essential and rudimentary skills. If you expect to face an opponent in an unarmed confrontation, the first thing to learn is how to deliver kicks and punches. Muay Thai is good for this. If you live in an area where it is more likely that you will find yourself in a scenario involving blunt and sharp weapons, I recommend Filipino martial arts such as Kali or Escrima—and nothing else. If you live in an area where everyone has a gun and issues are likely to be resolved through confrontations with firearms, just get a gun and learn how to use it.

And also…

vimeo

A video summarizing the first No Surrender anti-fascist mixed martial arts tournament in Moscow in October 2009. The chief referee, Ivan Khutorskoy, was murdered by BORN the following month.

5. Be prepared to use your weapon.

Even in countries where there are strict cultural norms or laws against weapons, they are sometimes used. Sticks and stones are everywhere; your opponent will probably find one if he is really in trouble. There is no country in which you should concentrate only on unarmed training.

Even if you do only prepare for unarmed confrontation, you should think about how to protect your knuckles. You are not going to go around with boxing gloves—nor would you want to use them in a serious confrontation, anyway. But if you break your hand with your first punch, you are in trouble. You should think about this. Always be prepared to protect your knuckles.

And when you train with weapons…

6. Do not spend much time studying disarming techniques.

Most likely, you will never have the opportunity to use them. Attempting to disarm a person of any weapon is always extremely dangerous. You should only try it if your opponent is obviously drunk and inexperienced and there are no other opponents around. Otherwise, you should not attempt to disarm someone, but rather, use your own weapon instead. If you don’t have a weapon of your own and there is no way to escape… you’re probably in trouble.

But besides training…

7. Be prepared to use what you have learned.

There is no point training in Filipino martial arts if you do not carry a weapon with you. It is pointless to do target practice if you don’t carry a gun. When you have learned your art, you should always carry your weapon anywhere that you expect you may be involved in confrontations—and sooner or later, even where you do not expect them. If you are not able to do this, you should be prepared to deal with confrontations without your weapon.

8. What about running away?

Self-defense gurus often say, “First of all, you should attempt to run away.” This is often good advice—but not always. First, it is always easier to catch someone than to run away, so it only makes sense to run if you believe that you are faster and you know your escape route. Second, you may not be the only one whose life and health is at stake. What if you are able to escape, but that would mean leaving your comrade to face your adversaries alone?

Obviously, it is a good idea to stay in good shape and do cardio training. Almost any street confrontation requires stamina and at least a bit of running. But you should be prepared for situations in which running away is not an option.

But even if gurus sometimes give bad advice…

9. Always train with professionals.

Or at least study under very experienced trainers. It might be nice to hang around and practice with your friends from time to time, but in order to learn something and to develop your skills, you have to join a serious group.

Yes, many trainers and people in clubs are assholes. Both trainers and regular students might be unfriendly, unsupportive, sexist, or otherwise insensitive. However, the people you’re likely to face in street confrontations will not be nice, either.

I’m not saying that you should pay to participate in a class that is almost unbearable. If the other people are such assholes that you can’t concentrate on the exercises, it’s not worth the money. But any major city has plenty of options; if one trainer or club doesn’t suit you, look for another one. You should only train exclusively alone or with friends if there really is no other choice.

However, although it is better to train with professionals, a professional trainer is probably not the best person to seek life advice from. If you ask your trainer how you should train and how much, she or he will probably answer that you should train six days a week and go to a competition on the seventh. Perhaps you only want to train to win in the streets, or at least to stay alive out there. Your trainer will probably have different life priorities than you. Not every anti-fascist has to be a professional trainer or fighter. If the art of your choice can only be useful after you’ve been practicing it three times a week for five years, it’s not a good choice. One of the stupidest choices I made in my life was to train in ancient varieties of kung-fu for years. I never had enough time or skills achieve anything in them.

And at last of all…

10. Practice sparring in every training.

Only sparring can prepare you for serious confrontations. You should practice with many different rules and many different scenarios, such as one person against many people and many people against many people. You should train to draw your weapon fast. Do this in every training, even if you’re a beginner. If your trainer does not understand importance of sparring, change classes.

Don’t take it too hard, as you don’t want to have CTE. But don’t take it too easy either.

-Cloudbuster

I would like to thank Jew Bear, xAx, and CrimethInc. agents for valuable comments.

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An example of football-hooligan-style fighting. In 2010, Arsenal Kiev, known for its anti-fascist fans, played Karpaty Lviv, which was known for its fascist fans, in Lviv. Many anti-fascists from Russia came to support Arsenal. Arsenal fans managed to stand their ground, although outnumbered more than 2 to 1.

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allthecanadianpolitics · 7 years

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In front of Calgary City Hall, a couple dozen of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder in an attempt to make an unbreakable human wall. Each of them wore a uniform consisting of a black T-shirt emblazoned with a Roman helmet—a look that wouldn't be out of place in a biker gang. It was a line filled with mostly men, and a few women, who you wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with in a bar. All of them were white.

Some of the III% (the "three percent," as they call themselves) brought shock canes—a non-lethal weapon that can deliver up to a million volts to the person hit—while others had billy clubs or regular old canes. On many of the shirts was the III%'s credo, "NSA"—Never Standing Alone. Scattered throughout the rest of the square were small groups overseeing the proceedings from an elevated position, as well as III%er members dressed in plain clothes milling about the crowd gathering "intel" on what they considered to be the day's enemy—Antifa, the anti-fascist group.

In front of the line their leader, Beau Welling, the president of the Alberta chapter and national vice-president of the III%, stood calling commands quietly into a mobile phone he held like a walkie talkie.A few hours earlier, the group had swept the perimeter checking the potted plants that surround the municipal building for any improvised explosive device. They were concerned that ISIS might target the event or that Antifa may have planted weapons beforehand.

The group of III%ers was attending the rally as "security detail" for a controversial anti-Islam speaker named Sandra Solomon, who was involved in a dust up with anti-fascists in Winnipeg a few days prior. Welling had made it clear to the group beforehand that attendance was mandatory, citing the Winnipeg incident and partisan violence south of the border.

This was effectively the III% Alberta's coming out party—a planned operation that they called "Operation Shock N Awe"—and a show of force by a far-right anti-Islamic organization that claims to be heavily armed and ready for "war" on Canadian soil.

An eight-month VICE Canada investigation into the inner workings of the group has found it to be a tight-knit openly anti-Islamic group that is unique in Canada's far-right ecosystem—one that, as one expert puts it, seems to be a "wholesale lift of an American militia." During VICE Canada's investigation, the group's rhetoric and tactics rapidly escalated from virulently anti-Islam online posturing to IRL monitoring of mosques, live fire paramilitary-style training, claiming to buy land, and plans for creating smoke and flash bombs.

Welling, a key figure in the group, told VICE that he suspects that the Canadian government considers them "domestic terrorists."

"What we like to consider ourselves is Canada's last line of defence from all enemies, both foreign and domestic," Welling told VICE. "If the time would come and we would need to use force and take action, you know, we will do that."

Insular groups like the III% are hard to nail down when it comes to sorting toxic online rhetoric from what has the potential to lead to real world actions. But experts told us it's important not to underestimate the risks associated with a group playing with the potentially lethal cocktail of xenophobia and firepower.

When Dr. Barbara Perry, a leading researcher on far-right groups and hate crimes in Canada at the University of Ontario, was briefed on their activities she responded with a simple, "I'm scared of this."

#right wing terrorism #white terrorism #terrorism #islamophobia #islamaphobia #alberta #calgary #xenophobia #antifa #fascism #Canada #cdnpoli #canadian politics #canadian #canadian news #right wing extremism #white supremacy

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queernuck · 7 years

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Why Theory?

That the outgrowth of critical theory has lead to theory-unmodified, the name “theory”, coming to totalize a wide range of discourses, of ideas and ideologies, of some of the most basic claims and some of the most particular, that any given claim will rest upon is in part due to the particular manner in which American speech has developed, and in particular when discussing online communities the way in which the turn-to-theory is structured by the manner in which such turns took place in a similar temporal sphere as the growth of the internet as a tool of communication, there is a great deal which needs to be critiqued as part of posing “theory” as something other than a hopelessly neutralized word or an implicit denigration, a specific neutrality that carries its own dismissal with it.

That such wide ranges of questioning are brought under a singular label can be at least vaguely useful in order to highlight the similarities in process and often in authorial goal (if not the actual realized goal of the text) of “theoretical” texts. Badiou’s The Communist Hypothesis is a work that touches on issues of collective memory, of critiquing and offering a new historical basis for Maoist claims of subjectivity, and of situating various “moments” within their larger context as well as delineating what makes the locating of the moment possible. Foucault, in works such as Discipline and Punish uses rough historiographies (vivid but rarely terribly good by historiographical standards) in order to describe a movement through the body as well as how that movement is represented upon the body, what the supposed individual “means” to the penal system and how that reflects upon their place within a larger socius. Deleuze and Guattari, in offering a critique of the psychoanalytic apparatus and its violent structure, critique moreover the process of naming and Oedipalizing performed not only by Freud but by later psychoanalysts like Lacan as well as the manner in which they have named a process of the operation of Capitalism and its violence through structuring, naming, renaming, so on. They introduce a paradigm of schizoanalysis in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, and this is part of what Foucault names as a work of anti-fascism, which resonates rather deeply given the manner in which they have described the enabling of fascist violence by liberal-democratic structures. Freire, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is not merely making specific claims about pedagogical practice: there is relative little about discourses that dominate the field such as proper lighting and the influx of the Standing Desk into the field: instead, working upon a notion of what a meaningful pedagogical process entails, drawing upon a great deal of theoretical knowledge in order to structure his claims, he not only puts forth a model of education counter to that of typical schools (even radical ones) he does so in a manner that is itself a claim about discursive education, about the encounter between teacher and student, the necessity and moreover potential of a revolutionary subjectivity and the communality of such a subject.

Freire is perhaps the best example to move forward with at this moment, in that he so clearly presents a moment where the categorical structure of “theory” is obliterated but “theory” is still being done. Freire draws heavily on a consciousness of revolution that is almost unmistakably Maoist in its consideration of the “peasantry” as a class, how Mao repudiated Stalinist ideas for the necessity of urbanization-for-itself in order to create an apprehendable proletariat out of peasantry. Meanwhile, Maoist writing, and Freire’s following claims, consider the location of peasantry and work from it in a manner that is radically different and a radical development upon the concept of proletarian subjectivity. Freire poses a model of pedagogy that specifically rejects that which he calls the “banking model” of education because it restructures the way in which the bourgeoisie relate to the peasantry, the “well-to-do” peasants of Mao relate to other peasants, so on. It is through an encounter within the group that education occurs, and Freire does not merely see this as a potential accessory to learning, to raising proletarian consciousness, he sees it as entirely vital, as vital in the most basic of fashions.

Freire spends a great deal of time discussing how, through education, those entering a classroom will be specifically imbued with a subjectivity that has precluded them from understanding their situation. They are either unaware, or moreover aware but have become aware in refutation, in an articulation of proletarian consciousness that redoubles upon structures of violence, that owes to the neoliberal myth of development. Freire talks of how the most vital aspect of a pedagogy of the oppressed is in realizing the oppressive structure at hand, in being able to describe it and moreover to organize from that moment of realization. The greatest break that Freire requires in his theory is one from the previous consciousness of situationality that makes peasantry into a life of the static, of unchanging relations no matter whether a tractor has a gearshift or a touchscreen, a vital status that cannot be meaningfully elaborated upon. Freire recognizes the specific quality of this previous realization, of the manner in which the “theoretical” and the “radical” are excluded before any encounter may occur specifically through the concept of self passed down from bourgeoisie concepts of self. Only they, only the definable other, may pass through a becoming-subject, not those collected in Freire’s classroom.

The questions of discourses labeled theoretical are so often posed by experience, and in fact are often critiqued and elaborated upon by those experiencing them, to a point where one must absolutely accept the turn by which involvement in theory is so frequently increased by experience of oppression. Freire’s pedagogy lies in not only working against the notions of what may constitute meaningful engagement, but in fact in opening up the flows of engagement, flows of desire, that enable and structure an outpouring onto texts, a critique thereof, the radical readings that become so important for liberatory practice.

To entirely reject a theoretical discourse is, in many ways, to endorse a certain claim regarding it. Claiming that a question of gender is irrelevant is not a refusal of the question, but rather an articulation of one’s relation to the question at hand. When the expanse of capitalism, its gaping maw, stretches so wide that even externality is included in the expanse, simply claiming that there is a sort of Real onto which the theoretical cannot be applied is itself a claim that supports other concepts of the theoretical, other manners of applying epistemic and ontological claims onto bodies, the socius, structures of political and psychiatric and medical and gendered and all sorts of other differentiated violences. Not reading Butler is simply not reading Butler, but to reject any reading of Butler is to imply that notions of performativity are useless even if one endorses them in one’s critique of another’s claims. Spivak’s reading of Derrida is especially pertinent here, in that her Translator’s Preface to Of Grammatology is in many ways a work-in-itself, discussing a process of translation in particularity, but moreover the conceptual framework by which translation becomes possible-or-impossible and the implication that has upon language regarding coloniality and its violence. Spivak’s specific reading of Derrida not only shifted the larger American perception of his work, but in fact lead to Derrida writing in response to that shift, effectively engaging in a sort of metatextual turn whereby Spivak realizes a potential flow within Derridean theory and writes upon it to great effect. This is an unusual example due both to the way in which Spivak was able to access Derrida himself and maintain a friendship during the translation, as well as Spivak’s own theoretical claims and their interaction with Derrida’s. However, conversely, even a more conventionally faithful translator such as Massumi (rarely mentioned regarding A Thousand Plateaus itself) can develop theoretical frameworks following the works they approach: Parables for the Virtual is a thoroughly Deleuzean book that resonates with great strength over a decade and a half after its publication despite its hypercontemporary subject matter: Massumi’s “virtual” is particularly tied to the internet technology of the early 2000s but the questions of the Virtual posed in the text are still incredibly fruitful today.

There is more than a bit of irony in writing with the style I use about issues of ignoring the theoretical for its density, obscurity, so on. However, critiquing the particularity of an author’s style in order to critique their claims rather quickly devolves into putting forward a concept of the text that assumes its death, that not only revives the author as a revenant but kills them in turn, that does not and moreover cannot lead to a meaningful engagement with the question of the usefulness of “theory” instead leading to incoherent posturings of what one or another “belief” constitutes, what can be truly meant by any claim, and a maintaining that totality over a text can be easily come to.

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teachanarchy · 7 years

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Anti-fascist groups, often called “antifa,” are popping up all around the United States, and a number of people have asked us for advice on forming a group. Because antifa work is different from other forms of radical organizing, and because the antifa groups themselves are changing, we have written down some of our suggestions, based on years of experience. However, this article has been written in a very fluid political situation (February 2017), and some of these specifics may or may not be relevant in the coming months and years.

This essay covers a number of points, including: the advantages, disadvantages, and obligations of working under the anti-fascist banner; questions involving anonymity and visibility, both in person and online; self-defense and firearms; working with problematic people and dealing with infiltrators; state repression; and actions to take as anti-fascists.

WHY“ANTIFA”?

The first question is: Why are you forming an “antifa” group? The label has advantages and disadvantages, and you should consider this before adopting it. The antifa name gets you a certain level of brand recognition and built-in credibility, but it also includes certain obligations and distinct disadvantages.

If the purpose of your group is to do public organizing where your members are clearly identifiable—organizing anti-Trump rallies or supporting refugees and immigrants—using the antifa label and the traditional antifa symbols will likely lead to blowback that could be avoided by naming your organization differently. “Las Cruces United Against Racism” will not draw the attention that calling yourself “La Cruces Antifa,” and using traditional antifa symbolism, will.

DISADVANTAGES

The primary disadvantage is that fascists will try to identify members of your group and cause you physical harm.Staying as anonymous as possible is the easiest way to minimize this. Members’ pictures may appear on white power websites with any personal information they can find, and many anti-fascists have been injured, even killed, doing this work. If you are exposed, you will also be remembered by fascists for several years. (Keep in mind that anti-fascists who are not white men have been targeted more heavily by fascists: women garner greater online harassment, and people of color have been singled out in fights.)

OBLIGATIONS

If you form a local antifa group, you will be expected to do a few things:

1) Track white nationalist, Far Right, and fascist activity. Your group will be expected to document fascist groups and organizing in your area. This means gathering information on who is doing what, and knowing the makeup and key players of the various groups that are active.Once information is verified, antifa groups periodically release this information in a publicly available format. It is also crucial to alert any intended targets about specific threats you find while doing research.

2) Oppose public Far Right organizing.If the Klan or the National Socialist Movement hold a public rally, if AltRight speakers come to town, or if the Daily Stormer holds a meet up, you will be expected to organize a counter-demonstration. If they hold postering or sticker campaigns, you should not only take down their materials but also put up your own; public outreach campaigns should likewise be countered.

3) Support other anti-fascists who are targeted by fascists or arrested for antifa-related activities. This could include supporting regional groups, or organizing benefits and fundraisers for prisoners and injured comrades.

4) Build a culture of non-cooperation with law enforcement. If you have any intention of working with the police, FBI, or other agencies; or if you publically condemn anti-fascists who break the law: don’t call yourself an anti-fascist. The cops will be Trump supporters; do not collaborate with them.

VISIBILITY

Both the authorities and fascists will be interested in your group’s membership, so you should consider the question of public visibility carefully before you start. We strongly recommend against antifa groups being organized using the open, public model of most contemporary activism because of the risk of infiltration. If an emergency situation—such as responding to fascist public event—calls for public meetings and a traditional mass organizing activist model, this should be kept separate from the long-term group structure.

In fact, we recommend that you stay anonymous both while forming and until your first action. Anonymity is your best defense, and you should keep it intact as long as you can. Develop your group, get on the same page, and decide what you want to focus on. Also, note that once groups are formed, it’s very difficult to change the type of person who is in the group. Whether this is about gender, age, race, or counterculture—it will be hard to alter later on.

Use a “closed collective” model: this is a membership-based policy with no open meetings. Don’t allow new people to walk in off the street. Instead, develop a process for researching and vetting people who want to be involved.

One extreme option is to function as a group but not give yourself a name, and not tell fellow activists what you are doing. Once you have a name, fascists will try to figure out “who is in the group.” Not having a public face makes your actions even more anonymous. If people are being targeted, for example after a conflict with fascists, a publicly known group will draw attention first. If there is no public presence, or no formalized organization with a name, this will complicate the process of identification and retaliation.

Consider using a cell model whenever possible, in which one member meets with others when required. For example, you might need a public face to talk to other groups, club owners to convince them to cancel Nazi bands, to meet people to receive information they don’t want to share online, orto table at events. To limit exposure, make sure one person is designated as the semi-public face, even if they never admit they are a group member. This limits how many people can be exposed.

ONLINE PRESENCE

As part of staying anonymous, you should carefully manage your online presence. We recommend only using Twitter; it limits the amount of personal information you expose and makes tracking your connections more difficult. Facebook presents numerous, major risks for the security of your members and supporters.A recent doxxing of “antifa” was the result of information bigots culled from people who had interacted with an antifa facebook page. The targets were not even antifa, just sympathizers, but they were identified via facebook.

Websites imply that your group is more legitimate, and should be used especially if you want to doxx local fascists or put up group statements. Again, if you don’t have a group name, you may choose not to have any online presence.

Individual members, when possible, should get off social media, especially facebook, altogether. Where they don’t, they should maintain strictly separate personal and political accounts.

SELF-DEFENSE

Antifa groups engage in self-defense work. While most antifa work does not involve direct confrontation, and the amount of confrontation varies from group to group, sometimes it is necessary. Your group members and the supporters around you should be prepared.

We recommend regular martial arts training for anti-fascists, as well as for the larger radical community. It’s a good place to meet people who are serious about this.

Find out what the laws are in your city and state about a variety of self-defense weapons and make sure to practice with, and carry, everything that is legal— whether that is pepper spray, retractable clubs, or other devices.In some cases, what is legal to carry for self-defense is considered assault with a weapon if used in an offensive capacity.Laws vary community by community and ideally a lawyer should be consulted regarding this.

GUNS

A word about guns. Ask yourself: Can another weapon suffice instead of a gun? If you do choose to own guns, engage in regular practice. A gun can give you a false sense of security and if you’re not in practice, you’re more likely to be injured than if you don’t have one. Keep in mind that gun shops and range owners themselves are often connected to right-wing political groups.

If you choose to engage in firearms training, make sure everyone understands basic gun safety—as well as local laws—when it comes to owning, transporting, and potentially using firearms.

Above all, don’t front with images of guns unless you own and are ready to use them. Which is better: to pretend that you have guns and then have one pulled on you when you are unarmed, or for fascists to try to roll on you without realizing you are armed?

However, if right-wingers have been threatening people in your area with guns, or have already shot people, we recommend you arming yourselves immediately and getting concealed carry permits, where possible.For more information, see “Know Your (Gun) Rights! A Primer for Radicals.”

MANIPULATORS, BIG MOUTHS, LOOSE CANNONS, AND PROVOCATEURS

A diversity of people are joining the anti-fascist movement today, which both strengthens it and broadens its base. However, people may float into your circles who put your core goals and membership at risk, and so here are some warnings:

1) Some people use the antifa name as a way to promote their specific political views, especially members of some ideologically driven left-wing groups. If someone is more interested in recruiting people to their own group than doing anti-fascist work, get rid of them.Same with someone who seem to be interested in being publicly identified as antifa so they can gain public acclaim. Real antifa strive to remain anonymous—that’s what the masks are for!

2) Insist on mutual respect. Some people will be more interested in identity politics than others, and some people will be new to all of these discussions. This diversity is a healthy development, but establish a minimum level of respect that must be observed for all group members. Disputes over patriarchal behavior tore antifa groups apart in the 1990s. Work to create a culture of mutual respect and support that can also help bring in new people.

3) Avoid those who insist you must “follow their leadership” because of their identity, or who lay out a preset plan based on experiences from a decade or more ago.The Far Right threatens a broad range of identities. Also, this is a new situation, and nobody knows what the correct course of action is.

4) Be wary of people who just want to fight. Physically confronting and defending against fascists is a necessary part of anti-fascist work, but is not the only or even necessarily the most important part. Macho posturing and an overemphasis on picking fights and physical combat can be reckless, un-strategic, and unnecessarily dangerous for your group.

5) Drop people who have loose lips and openly talk about illegal actions around people they don’t know, or who pressure newer and younger people to engage in illegal activities. Antifa work is intense and potentially dangerous: We face threats from both the state and the fascists. If someone in your group likes to brag and talk about various illegal actions they have done or plan to do, especially when they are in public settings (including meetings or people who aren’t in the core group), quickly remove them.

Be particularly vigilant against anyone who attempts to pressure young or new members to carry out actions that might put them in unnecessary danger. This is a classic provocateur move with the potential to bring a group down.

Make good group dynamics and security culture part of your chapter’s inner dynamics and when people make mistakes, remind them in a good way that they have done so. For those that can’t get with the program, show them the door.

INFILTRATORS

Over the years, we have dealt with a variety of infiltrators. Sometimes they are random contacts. Sometimes they are fence sitters in the punk rock and skinhead scenes who are known to people in both fascist and anti-fascist circles. On one occasion, a black man tried to get involved with antifa groups, but ended up being affiliated with a neo-Nazi party and was feeding them information. AltRight supporters in particular can be from the same social demographic as many left-wing activists, and have infiltrated several meetings and demonstrations, including January 2017 planning meetings in DC before the protests at the inauguration. You will have to screen out and deal with them.

If people contact you and ask to meet, ask yourself: Do you need to meet with them? Vet them first. Consider asking them to show ID or reveal other personal information before any in-person meetings.

STATE REPRESSION

The state sees anti-fascists as an enemy. Activists will be monitored and the state will not hesitate to jail people. Until now, U.S. antifa have been spared the harsh repression that the animal rights and radical environmental direct action groups received, which included terrorism charges, long sentences, and harsh prison conditions. However, because Trump is allied with the AltRight, this has the possibility of changing soon, and antifa may face increased targeting on a federal level.

In the past, police tended to show up in large groups at public demonstrations to prevent clashes between antifa and racists. This may no longer be the case (as happened in Anaheim in February 2016), or police may start openly taking the sides of racists in public conflicts. This happened in Seattle in January 2017 when an AltRight supporter shot an activist at a demonstration; police refused to arrest the shooter.

Prepare legal support ahead of time; make sure you know a lawyer who is willing to represent anyone who is arrested.A trial lawyer, if necessary, can be found later. Get used to doing political prisoner support.Many anti-fascists are in prison around the world, and they would like our support now.Remember: It may be your turn later. Contribute to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, and apply to it if members need financial help with legal, medical, or other expenses.

POLITICAL ORIENTATION

The anti-fascist movement has come from multiple theoretical currents; it is based on an agreement on tactics, not ideological uniformity. In the U.S., most activists are anarchist, although a few are Maoist or anti-state Marxists. (In other countries, the movement is predominately Marxist.)There is a general agreement to live and let live regarding political disagreements that would be divisive in other activist circles.

Other than tracking and countering fascists and white supremacists, it’s your choice what your group wants to focus on. Some antifa groups pay a varying level of attention to other radical right-wing forces, such as the anti-immigrant movement, the Patriot and militia movement, Islamophobes, Men’s Rights Activists, homophobic organizers, etc. Regarding what radical movements you actively support, it’s also your choice who you want to make your ties to.Today, this is commonly to Black Lives Matter and other activism against police oppression of the Black community, immigrant and refugee movements, work with prisoners, and Rojava solidarity work.

Working with other groups can be challenging. It is not uncommon for liberal activists to immediately smear anti-fascists as violent thugs who delegitimize their movement, and others will be willing to inform the authorities if they suspect illegal actions are being taken. However, a few will be sympathetic—and we have run into a number of people who privately have told us they were antifa in the past and understand the need for this approach.

However, in general we have found that, unless there is an existing relationship with a more mainstream organization, they will almost always reject collaboration if you approach them as an antifa group. It’s best to build relationships prior to any request for working together, or if this can’t be done, to approach them under a different name (“Las Cruces United Against Racism”). In general relationships with Black Lives Matter and immigrants rights groups have been positive. However, be sure that any conflicts with fascists are done in a way that does not draw police repression onto these activists: keep a separation in time and space.

On the national level, your group can affiliate with the Torch Network if you are in agreement with their points of unity: www.torchantifa.org.

TAKE ACTION!

Now that you have a group, what do you do?

1) Establish an online presence

If you are a public group, establish an online presence. Again, we recommend limiting this to a webpage and/or twitter. If you make a facebook group for an event, make sure you set the invite list to private: many people have been doxxed based on information from invites. For some more ideas on basic online security, see: https://itsgoingdown.org/time-beef-defense-against-far-right-doxxing.

2) Start monitoring

Find out about your local Far Right groups and collect information about them, including organizations, names, pictures, addresses, and work places. These can include AltRight activists, KKK, Nazi skinheads, neo-Nazi parties, suit-and-tie white nationalists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, anti-immigration activists, Patriot and militia groups, and others. The SPLC’s Hate Map lists groups by state, although itwill be incomplete. You can also look at established national groups such as Identity Evropa and the Traditionalist Worker Partyand see if they have local chapters in your area. Also, reading reports by other anti-fascist groups may give insight into who is recruiting in your area.

3) Stickering and wheatpasting

If racist groups are stickering or flyering in neighborhoods, organizepatrolsto tear them down. Use a scraping tool, as there have been occasional instances of razors being placed behind the stickers. Create anti-fascist stickering, flyering, wheatpasting, and graffiti campaigns of your own.

4) Doxxing

After doing your research, present information about racist organizing in your community. The information you release should present enough information to convince an average reader that the target is clearly a racist. Information should include, if possible: a picture, home address, phone number, social media profiles, and employment information. Be sure to include organizational affiliations and screenshots showing concrete evidence of racist and fascist views. Follow up the doxx with a pressure campaign: call their work and try to get them fired, and inform their neighbors through flyering or door-to-door campaigns.

When you present your intel, you’ll have showed your hand, however, and generally it’s difficult to collect more after that. Also be aware that you will enrage your target by naming them: you might have been ignored as a public group for a year doing antifa stuff, but once you refer to a local racist by name, they will fixate on you.

Make sure your intel is correct. You will lose credibility and create unnecessary enemies if you list a home address or work place that the fascist is no longer associated with. The majority of research can be done online, but some things can only be verified in the real world.

5) Event shutdowns

Pressure venues to cancel racist or fascist events. Make sure you have your dossier on the subject prepared beforehand to present, as the first question will always be “How do you know they are a racist?” Approach venues with a friendly phone call, as often they are not informed about the politics of events at their space. However, if they don’t cancel immediately, they will almost always need to be pressured. Collect phone numbers, emails, and social media contacts and call for a shutdown. (We have found that it is helpful to make easily sharable graphics and short videos.) Threaten a boycott of the venue if they event goes on, and follow through on this. In Montreal, one racist concert was cancelled after antifa physically blocked the entrance.

6) Self-defense trainings

Set up an antifa gym or regular self-defense trainings. Some groups set up two parallel ones: one mixed gender, and one women/trans/gender non-conforming folks. In addition to providing skills, trainings are good ways to increase confidence and meet new people.(An antifa gym network exists in Europe.)

7) Events: benefits and tabling

If your group has a public presence, table at events with anti-fascist literature, stickers, buttons, patches, etc. This is particularly important in cultural scenes where fascists are recruiting, to help organize resistance to them, as well as to reach out to new participants and pressure fence sitters.

If you have a friendly political situation, throw benefits to raise funds. Concerts are a favorite, but be creative! The anti-fascist movement is going to need a lot of money, and it’s better to collect it before rather than after it’s needed. Also get in the habit of having letter writing nights and doing other support work for anti-fascist and related political prisoners. Consider donating to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, which collects funds for prisoners around the world.

8) Demonstrations

If racists are having public rallies, organize mass demonstrations against them with allied groups who are willing to work with you. You can also join other demonstrations, such as Black Lives Matter or for immigrants and refugees, with antifa flags and banners—though he sure to be respectful of the organizers and not get in front of their message. Take photos with antifa banners, blur the faces, and put them on social media.

In general, antifa work should be a certain set of practices within the broader radical movement against white supremacy in particular, but hierarchy and oppression in general. Antifascism is not a stand-alone ideology; it is a piece of a whole, just as prisoner support is. Fascists, after all, don’t just threaten people of color—they also are against Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people, immigrants and refugees, feminists, leftists, etc. Make sure that antifascism is a part of the other movements in our society towards liberation.

SECURITY CULTURE & INTERNET SAFETY

Especially if you are new to the kinds of activism where police and others may be targeting you, be sure to familiarize yourself and your comrades with security culture protocols, and to implement online security measures, from the start. It’s common for groups to be more open early on and closed in later; try to avoid this dynamic by starting out with your cards close to your chest, and keep playing them that way throughout the game.

It is best that individual members leave social media. This is a double-edged sword, but it will provide more protection if antifa avoid facebook and similar platforms.

Also keep in mind that some security measures are primarily aimed at keeping you anonymous from the fascists, but might not do much to shield you from the deeper resources of the state. The FBI has much greater surveillance resources than the local police, who in turn have more resources than your local white power crew.

Some applications that can help you with security include Signal (text and calls), KeePassX (password manager), TOR (internet browser), Pad.riseup.net (“real time collaboration of text documents”), Jitsi.org (web conferences), PGP (email & document encryption), Mailvelope (encryption for webmail),OwnCloud (alternative to dropbox and googledocs),and PowerBase (database solution). In addition, spend some time removing yourself from search directories.

An extended discussion of security culture and digital security is beyond the scope of this primer, but starting points have been included in the reading list below.