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We camped out with the antifa activists plotting to disarm the alt-right
Vice News ^ | May 9, 2018 | Elle Reeve

Posted on 05/11/2018 8:33:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The alt right is struggling to hold itself together. It’s dealing with infighting and money problems, and some of its leaders have decided they can’t risk holding events that are open to the public. One reason for that is antifa, the anti-fascist activists best known for punching Nazis but who also engage in digital counterintelligence, infiltrating white nationalist message boards and chat rooms to find out who they are and what they’re doing.

In late April, anti-fascist activists camped out in the woods of rural Tennessee the night before the American Renaissance conference, an annual gathering of white collar white nationalists who try to put an intellectual sheen on racism. They hoped to get the conference cancelled, or at least make it unpleasant for attendees. For some, it did not matter if some of the tactics they used were seen as unethical. In the conference’s hotel parking lot, they’d seen a car with a license plate that referenced Zyklon B, the chemical used in German gas chambers in the Holocaust.

“They're proud of things that cost millions and millions and millions of deaths. It makes them happy. And I don't feel bad for ruining their f*****g weekend,” an activist who goes by Naya told VICE News.

"You're a badass"

The brutality of these particular activists’ physical violence contrasts with the sophistication of their intelligence gathering. Much of that is done through catfishing. Specifically, “pretending to be a girl,” an activist called Junto said. They create female identities on social networks where white nationalists congregate like Gab and VK, and give them praise. Lines like, “‘You're a badass.’ ‘You're so good at what you do,’” Junto said. “‘Teach me.’ ‘How do I be a part?’ ‘Where can you pick me up in a parking lot?’” He explained, “That's using their misogyny against them. They can't quite fathom that they could ever be duped by a female.”

The weekend before, several of the anti-fascists campers had been in Newnan, Georgia, to disrupt a neo-Nazi rally of reportedly less than 30 people. But it was in Michigan in March they experienced what Junto described as the “most successful operation we ever had.”

Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer had successfully sued to be allowed to speak on a few college campuses, but his speech at Michigan State University did not go well. He ended up speaking to a couple dozen people, many of them journalists, in a dreary building that held livestock auctions. The anti-fascists fought off a line of white nationalist supporters.

The night before, the anti-fascists say they figured out where the white nationalists were staying, paid a hotel worker for information, and booked a room across the hall. They got in car chases. Matthew Heimbach, then head of the white supremacist Traditionalist Workers Party, confirmed to VICE News that nails were thrown in front of their cars, and popped their tires.

A few days later, Spencer cancelled his college tour. "Antifa is winning to the extent that they are willing to go further than anyone else,” Spencer said in a video posted on YouTube. “In terms of just violence, intimidation, general nastiness, they are willing to do things that no one else is willing to do.”

Rough tactics

Naya admitted it was possible there were people among the anti-fascists who were there to do violence for the sake of violence. How do they weed them out? “We don’t,” he said. He does not worry that that could mean the movement was morally compromised. Asked whether violent people might create a backlash, Naya said, “I don't know. I honestly don't know. ... I mean that's a possible eventuality. But at the very least if that were to happen hopefully we would have beaten them and then Nazis don't organize anymore and they go away forever.“

But in a way, violence has made face-to-face interactions with white nationalists harder. Police are better prepared. In Tennessee, the American Renaissance conference appeared to go on as planned. It was hard for the anti-fascists to know, because they weren’t allowed in the building. They were limited to a protest pen across a road that was filled with police. A sniper was on the roof. Naya and Junto briefly entertained the idea of an amphibious assault, because a triathlon was happening in the same park that day, and the swim portion was in a lake behind the building. But it was deemed to risky. “You don’t win every battle,” Naya said. But, “I wouldn't I wouldn't feel right tomorrow morning if I hadn't been here.”

Junto said that Spencer’s decision to quit kept him motivated. “To see it visually come from the mouth of the f*****g leader of those fools… To say 'I give up.' I mean he was probably is the most prominent and most widely accepted within the alt right... And he gave up,” Junto said. “That's what we're there to do. Our entire, our goal isn't to, you know, beat people up, break s#*+, or do violence. Our goal is to make them quit doing their s#*+. And so every one of them that falls apart and quits or gives up, that's a huge victory.”


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: antifa; banglist; theleft
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I take it that by "alt. right" they really mean you and me.
1 posted on 05/11/2018 8:33:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Antifa is a duplicate of the antifascist party of Germany in the thirties. To them, anybody who wasn’t 100% communist was a fascist.


2 posted on 05/11/2018 8:37:42 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death by cults.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Soon, we’re going to be in open warfare against these pieces of communist shit. They’re arming up and we had better do the same.


3 posted on 05/11/2018 8:40:19 PM PDT by ScottinVA ( Liberals, go find another country.)
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To: Jonty30

The Red Front.


4 posted on 05/11/2018 8:41:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I wonder how these communists would react, if they knew everyone of us, would be armed to the teeth?


5 posted on 05/11/2018 8:41:38 PM PDT by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Everyone who is not far-left is alt-right to them.


6 posted on 05/11/2018 8:42:56 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Mark17

I know guys who could arm everyone for blocks around without much diminishment of their collections. They must buy a gun every payday.


7 posted on 05/11/2018 8:44:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

We are not alt right, we are old school patriotic Right.

Alt right is far too much like antifa.

Antifa can forget disarming anybody. So can the big city idiots.

They have no idea what there are messing with.


8 posted on 05/11/2018 8:45:47 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: ScottinVA
Right!🙄..I don't think we have the guts or walnuts to confront them or else they would not have gotten to this point were we are intimidated! Shit you can't even wear your MAGA hat or T-shirt without causing a freakin riot!
9 posted on 05/11/2018 8:47:52 PM PDT by RoseofTexas
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Whatever they mean the article is delusional. I expect that out if the left because they have no shame.

They cry like babies when they try and hurt people and instead they get hurt. They think that they are tougher than those who would oppose them, by that I mean folks like us. They run and hide behind the police when they encounter folks like us.


10 posted on 05/11/2018 8:48:14 PM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

https://www.thedailybeast.com/unsafe-and-just-plain-dirty-women-accuse-vice-of-toxic-sexual-harassment-culture

VICE has their own problems to worry about.


11 posted on 05/11/2018 8:49:59 PM PDT by BookmanTheJanitor
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I have a friend like that. Every time I stop by, he shows me a gun he just bought.

Last weeks was a new Colt 1911 in 9mm.


12 posted on 05/11/2018 8:50:38 PM PDT by digger48
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; Mark17
I know guys who could arm everyone for blocks around without much diminished of their collections. They must buy a gun every payday.

you're making me blush :)

13 posted on 05/11/2018 8:52:33 PM PDT by onona (Hope, Faith, Love)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yes and the Red Chinese guard as well.


14 posted on 05/11/2018 8:56:51 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death by cults.)
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To: ScottinVA

Many of us already have.


15 posted on 05/11/2018 8:58:48 PM PDT by rlmorel (Leftists: They believe in the "Invisible Hand" only when it is guided by government.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The time will come when if we want to have any free speech or free assembly, we will have to fight for it, in the streets, up close and personal. Some of the fracases which have happened in California, and in Charlottesville, Va., and other places, show that we cannot always rely on the authorities to keep order and protect our rights (and us physically). It is ultimately our own responsibility.

And that means that we are going to have to prepare for it. We are going to have to train ourselves, equip ourselves, and organize ourselves. Personally, I recommend joining a Civil War Reenactment unit to learn drill and formations, and a live action battle gaming group to learn construction of weapons and armor, and individual fighting skills. Does that sound silly? Yes, it is. But who would have thought that Antifa and Anarchists would be bragging about closing down ‘alt-right’ free speech and assembly by physically threatening us and with the collusion of the authorities?


16 posted on 05/11/2018 9:03:33 PM PDT by VietVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I know guys who could arm everyone for blocks around without much diminishment of their collections. They must buy a gun every payday.

I sometimes would shoot at target ranges, for sport, but I mainly had my Sig for defense purposes, so I didn’t quite have THAT many weapons. 😁🤣😂

17 posted on 05/11/2018 9:03:55 PM PDT by Mark17 (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning GOD....And the rest, as they say, is HIS-story)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’m not a fan of Richard Spencer but I do believe whites have rights and those rights are not on par with minorities. The only thing that saves whites from being dragged out of their homes and their property confiscated is numbers. That won’t last.

These beliefs apparently make me a white nationalist to Antifa and most liberals. But really, I’m just a guy that sees the writing on the wall. I see the racism of the Left and the complete disregard for civilized behavior.


18 posted on 05/11/2018 9:04:32 PM PDT by Crucial
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Those car chases can be deadly, and it isn’t just white people who get killed in them.

Black Confederate flag supporter dies in crash after ‘angry’ exchange
https://nypost.com/2015/07/20/black-confederate-flag-supporter-dies-in-crash-after-angry-exchange/


19 posted on 05/11/2018 9:06:01 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: RoseofTexas

You are so right. The red lines drawn by the right have as much credibility as did Zero’s. I can hear it now.. Once we get to camps then we’ll show ‘em!


20 posted on 05/11/2018 9:08:05 PM PDT by coaster123
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