To serve and protect

[sabotabby]

I was feeling really guilty about prancing around the world whilst my comrades back home prepared for a counter-protests against the fascist World Coalition Against Islam (WCAI) and its cronies. Fortunately, owing to infighting, the main rally was cancelled (they blamed a Bollywood festival which was supposedly happening in the square, even though no such festival was planned—though now I desperately want a Bollywood musical about punching Nazis and you know I deserve one). The exchanges online were all screenshotted for the lulz.

Our local fash are dogged, however, and a few still planned to show up, and I was worried as usual that our side wouldn't have the numbers to keep them from marching.

Fortunately, very few showed up and the ones who did were forced to hide in City Hall until the cops could get them away. But they showed up late, I guess, hence this amazing picture.



Toronto Police Services
But Freezed Peach!, 2018
Site-specific performance art

(Title courtesy of rdi. Photo courtesy of No Borders Media.)

While it's pretty funny that cops showed up to guard an empty space that fascists were supposed to be in, well. I've gotten into a lot of internet debates with people who are fully willing to cede the fight against racism and authoritarianism to the state, condemning antifa as needlessly violent, etc. And this picture is a good example of why we can't do that. Because despite the fact that there is zero threat to public safety here, the cops find the prospect of anti-fascism dangerous enough that they must assemble in large numbers to protect the idea of fascism.

That should scare the shit out of you. And piss you off if you pay taxes in Toronto.

Comments

[dewline]

Anti-fascism is not a threat...unless you'd rather not live in a "small-l" liberal democracy. So, I don't see antifa people as a Problem.

I prefer them as one of several parts of a solutions toolkit, though.

[sabotabby]

Agreed. You can't punch Cheeto Benito (or Drug Fraud) out of power. Would that we could.

[moon_custafer]

Don’t feel guilty — Andrew really liked seeing your photos of Macchu Picchu.

[sabotabby]

I'm glad! And I do make 90% of antifascist counterprotests, so it's not like I'm a complete slouch. I'd have felt far worse if anyone was actually charged.

[ironed_orchid]

the cops find the prospect of anti-fascism dangerous enough that they must assemble in large numbers to protect the idea of fascism.

This is both fascinating and terrifying.

[sabotabby]

Yup. I can't stop laughing but also we are kind of screwed wrt the state's monopoly on violence.

[ed_rex]

I've gotten into a lot of internet debates with people who are fully willing to cede the fight against racism and authoritarianism to the state, condemning antifa as needlessly violent, etc.

Except for the term a lot, that's the opposite of my experience. Instead, I've seen cheering when, eg, Facebook & Google on the same day (last Monday?) gave up any pretence of being common carriers (albiet with distinct terms of service) by openly declared themselves agents of the Pentagon in dumping InfoWars into the obscurity of its own website.

No loss in itself, but today I read that Facebook took down Venezuelanalysis.com last week, and this week did the same to telesurtv.net's English language page. Temporarily, admittedly, but you know they'll be going after left-wingers far more often than they will the right.

Leftists cheering for Facebook or Twitter et al to police speech reminds me of Communists cheering the success of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in May, 1941.

[sabotabby]

There's a fundamental difference, I think. For one, FB and Google aren't common carriers. We should expect them to attack the left more than the right and prepare accordingly. I understand the pragmatics of using FB as an organizing tool, but the entire purpose of the site is surveillance and data mining, so we're kind of screwed there unless we want to get all old-fashioned and actually talk to our neighbours and co-workers in person.

Not shedding any tears over Alex Jones, but then, I don't believe in free speech. I don't think anyone ought to be guaranteed a platform to harass the family of a murdered child until they have to go into hiding. Were I in charge, I'd deprive him of a lot more.

[ltmurnau]

Robyn Urback (CBC) got upset because apparently a reporter from the Toronto Sun was assaulted by an antifa member. Do you know what actually happened?

[sabotabby]

I wasn't there, so no idea. I'm guessing he got up in someone's face and got shoved away from what I heard.

[wolby]

I assume (maybe unfairly) that it was something like the incidents detailed in this article: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/12/17681986/antifa-leftist-violence-clashes-protests-charlottesville-dc-unite-the-right

(tl;dr: if you are standing near cops, you might have to dodge an egg. if you are filming people with a big camera, they might try to cover your camera lens with their hands and tell you to bug off.)

[wolby]

Thankfully the only time I saw any fash from a distance of less than 200 yards on Sunday in DC were two people surrounded by 10 reporters and at least 40 cops.

(Inexplicably, one of them was wearing a rainbow flag as a cape. Very much explicably, both of them were chatting and joking with the cops.)

I think there were actually more people trying to unobtrusively film the crowd than showed up to officially rally, muttering to themselves about the terrible terrible threats antifa were making. :/

[sabotabby]

At least one of our fash likes to wear rainbow things because the Muslims are so anti-gay or whatever, but the fact that he tends to stand next to another guy with homophobic Christian signs really undercuts his message.

[wolby]

That's, uh, wow. A weird intersection of "the West's greatness is proved by our tolerance of our gays/Jews" and "Western values are being undermined by degenerate gays/Jews"?

[minoanmiss]

I think you deserve happy things.

Stuff is happening tin background or I'd say more.

[sabotabby]

Maybe! But I still feel guilty over it.