Let’s take a minute to break down this fucking fascist asshole’s question:
“George Soros” - is apparently a Jewish billionaire that survived nazi-occupied Hungary when he was a child. We of course don’t know any billionaires (and can’t imagine we’d have a lot of common ground with one if we did), so we’re going with what his wikipedia entry tells us.
“pay your organization” - like most of them, this conspiracy theory fails the Iron Test of Conspiracy Theories: if George Soros is paying us and the thousands of anti-fascist organizations around the world, which consist of hundreds of thousands of people, how is it that not a single person has come forward with a shred of credible evidence to support this assertion? Why, for example, would The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund continue to rely on donations, if Soros was paying the bills? Why would there be a need for a Defence Fund at all, if Soros is paying all anti-fascists? How exactly would the hundreds of thousands of anti-fascists apply for and receive this money without a single credible document ever coming to light? This anti-semitic conspiracy fails on a balance of probabilities - meaning that any reasonable person, upon examining the “evidence” would rightly conclude that it’s a pile of horseshit.
“your organization” - it’s really pitiful how limited the imaginations of fascists are. They can’t conceive that something as powerful as the anti-fascists that have consistently confronted them and shut them down around the world can happen without leaders, or a hierarchy, or a formal organization structure.
Anti-fascism is a movement. Like environmentalism. Like feminism. Like all those movements, there are thousands of groups and organizations within it, but there is no singular anti-fascist organization and antifa is arguably the least hierarchical movement around today.
“create violence at protests” - anti-fascists exist to oppose, confront, and shut down fascists. Fascists exist to do violence against people based on disability or ethnicity or gender or gender orientation or language or migration status or race or sexual orientation, etc. Last year, we documented 576 violent attacks by fascists that killed 372 people and injured 1153 others
So when you feign concern about violence but ignore the very serious violence fascists are responsible for, it ain’t hard to tell what you’re really all about.
But what about all the “violence” at BLM protests in DC? Sorry, nope, the FBI found zero evidence of any connection between antifa and “violence” there. Minneapolis? Nope, arrest records show that just ain’t the case.
Well, what about the video of cachés of rocks & bricks that “antifa” had hidden to use in their evil property-destroying riots? The White House tweeted out that one, so it had to be true, right? Nope, every example shown was debunked and the White House - ON THE FUCKING OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE TWITTER ACCOUNT - had to delete the video out of sheer embarrassment.
Guess you’re still a true believer though, huh Anon?
Final point: the protests are happening because the police continue to regularly abuse, attack, and murder black people. Suddenly trying to shift that discussion to “outside agitators” or “evil antifa” causing “violence” at protests (and especially at protests where the levels and severity of police violence against peaceful and unarmed protestors has been beyond appalling) is a classic fucking bait-and-switch tactic designed to derail attempts to achieve racial justice and save the lives of black people by holding a racist and horrifically violent institution accountable.
In the words of Dr. Yohuru Williams, “in a lot of communities, southern sheriffs and politicians would raise the spectre of outside agitators to deflect from the legitimate concerns of local activists. The Communist Party, for example, is one of the favourite whipping boys of the southern segregationists who claimed that it was communist influences that were really stirring up civil rights protests.We’re now focused singularly on the issue for these outside agitators. And that bait and switch historically has been detrimental to social movements because it then becomes all about catching the so-called bad guys. It has a damning effect on the message because, ultimately, it takes the attention away from the core issue here in Minneapolis right now. This is a question of police brutality.“
We can do little to guide the way this movement unfolds (nor would we want to), but we hope that some of the tools and tactics employed by our friends and comrades in Hong Kong might be of use to those in the streets of other cities. In particular, we offer for your consideration the evolution of the “frontline” role in the Hong Kong movement, in hopes that it might be helpful in bridging gaps between militants and peaceful participants in the streets elsewhere.
As in past movements, there have already been significant disagreements about how to engage with the forces of the state in the US. As with other movements since Ferguson and before, some (but not all) formal activist organizations have begun to engage with the “soft” wing of the local repressive apparatus, springing into action to tamp down the militancy of the initial uprising: “Community leaders” collaborate with the police, walking crowds into ambushes and kettles, and literally point out “violent” protestors in the crowd. Meanwhile, local governments nationwide claim that those initiating property destruction or fighting the police are “outside agitators,” with the mayor of Seattle tweetingthat “much of the violence and destruction, both here and across the country, has been instigated and perpetuated by white men.” But it is abundantly clear that pent-up rage against the police is extremely widespread, and on the streets a broad consensus has emerged that they must be opposed.
Hong Kong may offer one path that escapes the seeming inevitability of conflicts over violence, nonviolence, and how to engage with the forces of the state. For those who are looking for a new way to bridge gaps between militant and peaceful forms of participation, we think one of the city’s most important contributions to the new era of struggles has been the development of particular roles and formations to be deployed on the streets, as well the structures behind them that helped to better link those willing to fight the cops with others in the movement. In particular, we want to highlight the concept of Hong Kong’s “frontliners,” who not only developed many successful techniques for confronting the police, but also established a new kind of relationship between the militant and nonviolent elements of street actions through many months of experimentation.
