Antifa When Your System Fails and You Try Again
(CNN)As protests over George Floyd'due south decease spread across the country, officials have blamed the violent nature of some demonstrations on members of a controversial group known as Antifa.
President Donald Trump on Sun said the U.s. would designate Antifa a terrorist organization, though the federal government has no legal authority to label a wholly domestic grouping the way it designates foreign terrorist organizations.
Speaking at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Trump said the recent "violence and vandalism" seen beyond the country "is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings."
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien echoed Trump'due south comments on CNN'due south "State of the Union" Sunday forenoon, telling Jake Tapper that the violence "is being driven by Antifa."
CNN has not independently verified whether the grouping is involved in recent protests.
Here's a closer expect at Antifa protesters, who have become more visible in the last several years.
What is Antifa?
Antifa is short for anti-fascists. The term is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but exercise non conform with the Democratic Party platform. The group doesn't have an official leader or headquarters, although groups in sure states hold regular meetings.
Antifa positions tin be hard to define, just many members support oppressed populations and protest the amassing of wealth by corporations and elites. Some employ radical or militant tactics to get their message across.
Scott Crow, a former Antifa organizer, says the "radical ideals" promoted by Antifas are starting to exist adopted by liberals. "They would never have looked at (those ethics) before, considering they saw us as the enemy every bit much as the right-wingers."
The bulk of Antifa members don't fall into a stereotype. Since the election of President Trump, yet, most new Antifa members are young voters.
How did the grouping start?
The verbal origins of the grouping are unknown, but Antifa can be traced to Nazi Germany and Anti-Fascist Action, a militant group founded in the 1980s in the United Kingdom.
Modern-day Antifa members have become more agile in making themselves known at public rallies and within the progressive movement, says Brian Levin, manager of the Heart for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
"What they're trying to do at present is not just become prominent through violence at these loftier-profile rallies, only also to attain out through small-scale meetings and through social networking to cultivate disenfranchised progressives who heretofore were peaceful," Levin said.
Where do they protest?
Members have been spotted at high-profile, right-wing events beyond the country.
In August 2017 members of the group showed upward in Charlottesville, Virginia, to condemn racism and counter protest hundreds of white nationalists opposed to the removal of a Gen. Robert East. Lee statue. The protests turned fierce when James Fields, who is not a member of Antifa, plowed his car through a crowd of counter protesters, killing Heather Heyer.
Earlier that year, Antifa protested the appearance of Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right provocateur, at the University of California, Berkeley. They also protested President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017.
While it can be hard to distinguish Antifa activists from other protesters, some clothes head to toe in black. Members call this the "Blackness Bloc."
They also wear masks to hide their identities from the police and whomever they are protesting.
Why are they controversial?
The group is known for causing damage to property during protests. In Berkeley, black-clad protesters wearing masks threw Molotov cocktails and smashed windows at the student union center where the Yiannopoulos event was to be held.
Crow, who was involved with Antifa for almost thirty years, said members use violence every bit a means of self-defense force and they believe property devastation does not equate to violence.
"There is a identify for violence. Is that the world that we want to alive in? No. Is it the earth we want to inhabit? No. Is it the globe we want to create? No. But will we push dorsum? Yes," Crow said.
Levin said Antifa activists experience the need to partake in violence because "they believe that elites are controlling the government and the media. And so they need to make a argument head-on against the people who they regard as racist."
"There's this 'Information technology's going down' mentality and this 'Striking them with your boots' mentality that goes dorsum many decades to confrontations that took place, not only here in the American South, but also in places similar Europe," he added.
White nationalists and other members of the so-called alt-right accept denounced members of Antifa, sometimes calling them the "alt-left." Many white nationalists from the Charlottesville rallies claimed it was the Antifa groups that led the protests to turn violent.
Peter Cvjetanovic, a white nationalist who attended the Virginia protests, said he believes the far left, including Antifa, are "simply as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the right wing could ever be."
"These are people who preach tolerance and love while at the same time threatening people with a different political credo. Nosotros go to our rallies and they harass us and attack us but they held theirs and nosotros ignore them. You don't meet correct-wing protests get similar this," Cvjetanovic told CNN affiliate KRNV.
But Crow said the philosophy of Antifa is based on the idea of straight action. "The idea in Antifa is that nosotros get where they (right-wingers) go. That detest speech is not gratis spoken communication. That if y'all are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then y'all do not have the right to do that.
"Then we become to cause conflict, to close them down where they are, considering we don't believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece."
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa-trnd/index.html
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