Stanislav Vysotsky
@professorstas.bsky.social
old punk. cranky academic. critical sociologist and criminologist. antifa and fascism scholar. author of American Antifa from Routledge and Antifa: What Everyone Needs to Know forthcoming on Oxford University Press. https://antifascismresearchnetwork.com/
Meta uses a tired horseshoe theory argument to justify suppressing antifascist posts.
The Intercept@theintercept.com · 4mo agoMeta’s new rules let it ban users or suppress comments that include the word “antifa” alongside “content-level threat signals.” interc.pt/3OfYThZ
“They will call you a terrorist even if you comply. So why comply?” bsky.app/profile/crim...
Stanislav Vysotsky@professorstas.bsky.social · 8mo agoI wrote this summary of the criminalization of antifa. Labelling antifa as a terrorist group has major implications for repression of left-wing activism but doesn't seem to have much public support outside of the right-wing echo chamber.
So much of the discussion about antifa on the right is projection of their strategies onto the left. The right has billionaire financing, so the left must also. The right joins the military for training, so the left must also. Hopefully, this doesn’t go beyond grandstanding.
Conservative MP searches for ‘antifa’ in federal government, Canadian Armed Forces - National | Globalnews.ca
Federal departments and the Canadian Armed Forces must answer by April how many members of anti-fascist groups work for the public service and the military.
globalnews.ca
This would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous. Of course there’s no leader of a decentralized, loosely networked political tendency; but the feds have been tasked with finding one, and no one is safe as long as they keep up their paranoid search.
Ken Klippenstein@kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 6mo ago🚨 Documents leaked to me reveal a federal watchlist of American protesters suspected of being Antifa - including its supposed leader. One Department of Homeland Security document says a 29-year-old resident of Portland "is the leader of Antifa": www.kenklippenstein.com/p/feds-ident...
"Trump and His Party Have Put Ilhan Omar in Danger for Years" The Minnesota congresswoman has weathered years of racist smears from Trump and his right-wing lackeys, in the lead-up to Tuesday’s attack on her. Zeteo has the receipts.
Trump and His Party Have Put Ilhan Omar in Danger for Years
The Minnesota congresswoman has weathered years of racist smears from Trump and his right-wing lackeys, in the lead-up to Tuesday’s attack on her.
zeteo.com
Over on that other fascist site, BC’s far-right party is trying the same antifa are terrorists narrative as their US compatriots.
This is just white nationalist rhetoric. This administration has moved from being fascist to straight up nazi.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 8mo agoJD Vance: "In the United States of America you don't have to apologize for being white anymore"
I wrote this summary of the criminalization of antifa. Labelling antifa as a terrorist group has major implications for repression of left-wing activism but doesn't seem to have much public support outside of the right-wing echo chamber.
The Criminalization of Antifa
In the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, and in response to ongoing protests against snatch and grab raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, the Trump administrat…
helsinkinotebooks.com
Elon's little serfs are quite literally begging journalists to come back because every publicly available source of data shows people have fled the platform and young people won't use it. They are literally begging regular people to come back. Don't do it! It is a website by and for actual Nazis!
Cooper Lund@cooperlund.online · 8mo agoYou can’t “fix” X, The Everything App by going back and posting there because the owner has this thumb on the scale of the algorithm to promote the worst ideas and people. It’s not a viable solution, you have to let it go.
Pepper spray can cause serious harm to adults, let alone a one year old.
Denise Wheeler@denisedwheeler.bsky.social · 8mo agoICE pepper-sprayed this 1-year-old girl. Once at the hospital, the doctor had to call in a poison control specialist. They had never seen anyone that young pepper sprayed. Another horrific story. More details below.
The administration is willing to engage in extrajudicial killing of antifa activists and others on the left.
White House Refuses to Rule Out Summary Executions of People on Its Secret Domestic Terrorist List
The Trump administration ignored questions about whether it would order the killings of those on its NSPM-7 list — even while answering our other queries.
theintercept.com
The way the word elites has become devoid of all meaning is interesting. It’s a placeholder for “someone I don’t like” and it fascinates me that the people who use it most are wealthy, went to “elite” schools and hold positions of power. Look in the damn mirror. You’re talking about yourself.
People should take a page out of New School faculty's book and start doing forensic accounting for their own institutions using public documents
Derek Silva@derekcrim.bsky.social · 8mo agoThere is an absolute fucking scandal going down at The New School, wherein at appears that the university is funnelling to a MEMBER OF THE SCHOOL’S BOARD while purging faculty and staff. This should be headline news. x.com/uaw7902/stat...
Part of the Chanukah tradition is to place the light menorah either outside or in a window where outsiders can see it. This is supposed to advertise the miracle of Chanukah. These days, it is also a way of saying, “This is a Jewish home.” Every year I think about how it is also an act of bravery.
From his defense of the free speech rights of Holocaust deniers to his more recent statements opposing antifa activism, Chomsky has been consistently wrong on fascism in its social movement form.
Nolan Void@wolter.bsky.social · 8mo agoAt some point in the past, Chomsky did a lot of good getting Americans to at least recognize the horrors our government was responsible for, but we have long moved past the need for him, and it’s been decades since he was actually on the side of the angels so much as just vaguely tangential to them.
They’re trying so hard to make antifa a terrorist threat because it gives them a broad brush to criminalize and persecute the left. They will go after locally based antifascist affinity groups to try to look like they’ve made progress on their threats.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 8mo agoGLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered? GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now THOMPSON: What does that mean?
The DOJ is moving from vague threats against antifascists and the left to targeted persecution.
Ken Klippenstein@kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 8mo ago🚨Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list" of Americans who may be extremists, per signed memo leaked to me: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/leak-fbi-l...
This is indicative of how little these people actually know about antifa activism, but it’s still a dangerous open-ended method for persecuting antifascists and the left.
Pam Bondi tells law enforcement agencies to investigate antifa groups for ‘tax crimes’
Move is part of Trump’s broader crackdown on leftwing groups, including designation of antifa as ‘domestic terrorism’ group
theguardian.com
Apparently, possessing anarchist zines makes someone “antifa.” Further proof that this is just a war on the left. The administration is going for more radical and marginalized activists before it turns its attention on more mainstream ones.
The Feds Want to Make It Illegal to Even Possess an Anarchist Zine
Daniel Sanchez is facing federal charges for what free speech advocates say is a clear attack on the First Amendment.
theintercept.com
Identifying fascists is a thorough, methodical, and verifiable process.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network@antihate.ca · 9mo agoOn Monday, we published this investigation into "Exiles of the Golden Age," a fascist conference in Vancouver this July. We identified 18 of the 50+ people our photographer captured outside the venue, including small business owners and neo-Nazis. Here's how we did it. 🧵
The administration is going to have a hard time proving any link between domestic antifa groups and any of the networks listed in today’s designation, but that won’t stop them from bringing the full force of federal law enforcement against antifascists domestically.
Ken Klippenstein@kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 9mo agoMy NSPM-7 coverage has for weeks been met with smug assurances that there's no law for domestic terrorism. Well, the Trump admin just designated Antifa groups as Foreign Terror Orgs - for which there is a law: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trump-slap...
There seems to be no justification for how they determined any of these groups are foreign terrorist groups. And certainly no evidence that they have direct ties to any U.S. antifa groups. Just like with the rest of this antifa panic, they’re just randomly creating boogeymen.
Brian Finucane@bcfinucane.bsky.social · 9mo agoThe administration appears to be laying the groundwork for designating "antifa" as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. www.state.gov/releases/202...
Fascists tried to have a conference in Vancouver. It was infiltrated. Now, they’ve been identified.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network@antihate.ca · 9mo ago1/ NEW: We identified 20 people who attended a white nationalist conference and, despite their efforts to keep it secret, caught another 30 people on film to identify in the future. Several MMA/combat sports instructors were discovered and their gyms have cut ties. 🧵👇
The conflation of movements in this excerpt is really troubling but not unexpected. This is the same logic of all counter-extremism thinking that lumps different movements and ideologies into one amorphous enemy.
Andrew Zammit@andrewzammit.bsky.social · 9mo agoThis is the first time I know of ASIO publicly describing a specific incident as “anarchist and revolutionary extremism”:
Shapiro and Weiss seriously thought they could fan the flames of reactionary politics and it would spare them. Did they think they could spew racist and transphobic bigotry and it not end up growing into a monster that eventually came for them too? They made this bed for all of us.
This story speaks to the essence of antifascism as a form of self-defense. “The American left is armed and getting organized, not because it wants to wage war, but because it refuses to be an easy target.”
Inside the World of Leftist Gun Nuts
Graham Platner’s firearms trainings are only the most public example of the left’s efforts to arm themselves.
theintercept.com
Forget Monday's two-hour Tucker Carlson interview with Nick Fuentes-- this 2.5 minute video from the head of the Heritage Foundation just completely shattered the right-wing pro-Israel consensus. The leading MAGA organization welcomed antisemitism into the movement with open arms
The fascist movement in Canada is growing and becoming more militant.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network@antihate.ca · 9mo agoNEW: Whether you measure it by number of supporters, fundraising ability, or by the size of its militant groups, the white nationalist movement in Canada has never been larger or more of a threat.
