I think it's weird that antifa is being presented as too singularly focused. There's nothing stopping people from being involved in anti-fascist work along with other projects or efforts. There's usually a fairly wide overlap between anarchist and antifa groupings, you can do both.

What the fuck is this? I click this with an open-minded curiosity but this is just a string of blatantly unsubstantiated claims the author doesn't even try to support. Just one apparently baseless statement after another. Antifa is white people. Antifa is subcultural. Antifa doesn't have a structural analysis. Blah blah blah. Why should the reader believe any of this when nothing is supported with any examples, evidence, or even argumentation and the objections to each statement are so apparent and left unacknowledged? I guess we should feel worried our cultural capital is on the line. Wouldn't want to get caught supporting something people are weakly criticizing on the internet as not radical enough.

In my personal experience with a singular antifa group in a major American city, they were predominantly focused on disrupting the activities of overtly white nationalist organizations or, when none of those were doing anything, beating up whatever random racist they could find or reel in via trolling Stormfront. A lot of the participants genuinely weren't doing much else, and the theory and communiques they published always tended to hype up the threat of the fascist menace and make sort of broad calls for anti-racist solidarity and...that's pretty much it!

Despite being a group ostensibly made up of anarchists, they would have been indistinguishable from a militant anti-racist organization of any background other than that they occasionally mentioned that white nationalism goes hand in hand with capitalism and the state, and even then only at a kind of entry-level depth. I agree that maintaining the capability to fuck up nationalist organizations in a serious way when necessary is an important part of anarchist practice and nothing prevents people from doing other shit while also doing that, but the problem, I think, is that they often don't - and that their theory and strategy often centers anti-racism while leaving anarchism as a tacked-on afterthought.

Thanks for writing this. And to the moderators for reposting (though if you could add the numbered points back in, it would be easier to read).

Contra the criticisms made of this text above and in the long reply posted elsewhere, the description made by LNF of antifa ring very true to me (though it's been 10 years since I've rolled on an antifascist action in the northeast, so maybe it's different now in Philly and NYC). Machismo, a tunnel-vision focus on explicit white nationalists (paired, in some cases, with lip service about structural analysis and the occasional "intersectional" organizing drive), organizational patriotism, and a lack of strategic intelligence in the streets: these are the hallmarks of antifa I know best.

I was on a great mobilization earlier this year against a nazi demo - hundreds of people (anarchists, communists, pan-Africanists, lots of "non-politicals"), pushing to clash against the nazis and cops, and exhibiting great collective responsiveness. Broke out of a kettle attempt or two, and kept the focus on the cops as the hidden iceberg beneath the nazi tip. Unsurprisingly though, it was the couple small antifa crews who were there who couldn't read the rest of the crowd, couldn't "harmonize" with us I guess, and just deliriously pushed for man-to-man confrontations with the actually-irrelevant specific nazis. The fetish for physical confrontation trumps the instinct for collective power or political victory.

The fact that the TORCH response denied the existence of this fetish or of any reductionism at all (in any current antifa at all!) reflects their ongoing commitment to circling the wagons. The TORCH people in my region have certainly backed off of revolutionary politics (in favor of some kind of "more authentic" prole-y generic socialism) and are a nightmare to work with - arrogant and uncurious enough that they refuse to listen to information about specific nazis that other people have gathered outside their super-secret TORCH recon.

Similarly telling is their smear of Dauve. Dauve isn't blind to the far-right, he's just clear that the popular front strategy and "antifascism" as such were not effective at stopping fascism. It's not a choice of fighting for revolution or fighting fascism, it's that the former (directly, against the system, including against it's fascist wing) is the best way of accomplishing the latter. And don't tell me that that's what antifa are already doing: fighting for revolution means participating in and spreading mass struggles and fighting against their management/cooptation. That looks very different than spending your time watching and conspiring against the nazis. Sometimes it means going up against the nazis, but generally only when you can directly challenge them in territorial struggles - driving them out of your neighborhood once they start harassing organizers and other, more vulnerable people. There's a fundamental divide between proactive subversive struggles, and reactive organizing (like antifa). By the way, Dauve has been quietly, modestly engaged in the former for decades, so let's put down the bogeyman of armchair activist, the idea of which is only offensive "real warriors."

Progressive Antifa is where it's at. More tolerant towards Nazis and other marginalized groups. My local proantifa crew even has some skinheads in it. We started a community garden to help build some bridges and heal some old wounds. I never thought selective breeding could be such a bonding experience, but then again plants arent people so it's way less contentious. Ended up naming the garden das Ubermunch! We say fuck nazis, but also we actually fuck nazis. Speaking of breeding programs, we also have a rescue-rescue-dog kennel in the back, too, 'cause all the local hipsters have been dumping their pit bulls now that they're seen as symbols of appropration. Poor things. Gotta play a mixture of gangster rap & Bon Iver just to get 'em to eat anything. They breed about as often as a palestinian panda, but their offspring are really obedient and docile. Like, the stockholm syndrome is already bred-in. Great around kids. Insodoing this was a great teaching moment for our nazi friends, who just wanted to build "doggie showers." But we postantifa/proantifa new better and eventually we all saw eye-to-eye, and the beauty of rescue dog breeding was born. They need a lot of doggie-Prozac to keep their little paws going, but beyond that their owners love them. Cutest little vacant eyes you've ever seen, with a little drool always running out of one side of their mouth :) One look at a face like that and the weight of your personal failures just floats away. We'll be protesting the expansion of a local state-run animal shelter later this week if anyone's interested in a report back.

Who ever made this is very much so misinformed. I am part of an Antifa crew that I started up in my area and we are all very intersectional, not only are we all very intersectional the crew is actually predominantly POC.The crew works in many forms of organizing we have established a garden, we are all anti capitalist, participate in prison solidarity, as well as dealing with working class issues and protecting the interests of the working class. Our crew is made up of all anarchists as well. Antifa is not separate from anarchism at all the idea and practice of establishing an Antifa crew is merely a tool that can be used by anarchists.

Antifa is not a political stance. It is a moral stance.

You can be antifa and communist, antifa and anarchist, antifa and socialist- hell, there are even antifa capitalist.

If you act against fascism, you are acting as an anti fascist. It does not matter why you are doing so.

Stop treating your allies like they're enemies. If your revolution can wait until your house is clean, if your revolution can wait until your dog is fed, if your revolution can wait until you've had lunch and finished a blog post, then your revolution can wait until you have done your part against fascism.

I am Jim Wood, founder of www.AnarchyForever.com, and inventor of the tax audit lottery, tax audit insurance, and tax audit charity, to give people a reason to go tax-less. International tax law is such that no one has to pay taxes, but it disproportionately favors the rich. I am near LA. When Leona Helmsley said, "Only the little people pay taxes", she was right, but we can fight back. it may lead to a repeat of the French Revolution, where everyone accused of being an aristocrat has their head lopped off, but doesn't have to. We need to meet and step up these riots/protests, and force the media to report tax audit lotteries, which play into a collective subliminal mindset that no one in their right mind will pay taxes, laying off all the tax auditors so no one gets audited. I need competition for what I do. To force the media to report what I do, because they don't want you to know there is a legal peaceful way to get rid of the government, i created a dead pool for public officials, funded by the tax audit lottery. See https://anarchyforever.com/forum-and-customer-support.