Free Republic

After decades of relative obscurity, the fringe "antifa" movement is becoming a household name after followers clashed with white supremacists at the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally where extremist Alex Fields is accused of murdering 32-year-old activist Heather Heyer in a car attack. But the movement is still loosely defined and organized, making it difficult to get a grip on its size and aims. Professor Mark Bray, a historian and lecturer at Dartmouth, has tried to fill the gap in his new book, "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook," that chronicles its rise. While Bray doesn't participate in the group's protests, he...

I experienced hate firsthand today. It came from these people dressed in all black at a protest in Berkeley. Ironically they were all chanting about no hate. Some had shields and gloves. Some had helmets. Some had gas masks. I was watching them and taking it all in. I came there on my own time. Because I wanted to see things first hand. I was dressed in shorts and a tank top. I took two pictures and afterward they started screaming at me. I thought for sure they were going to attack. I was just waiting for it. I grew...

Antifa chase cops out of MLK plaza in Berkeley. Police fire teargas.

As of Tuesday evening, more than 250,000 people had signed the petition,...On "The Fox News Specialists," Kat Timpf pointed out that Antifa activists claim to be fighting fascism, but their tactics are actually very fascist. "The ones that I've encountered are not these kind, social justice-y type of people," Timpf said. "They're anarchists. They don't want government period, whatsoever."

Choose Sides? You Bet. But Antifa and Fascism Are the Same Side. Advocates of liberal society are a side in themselves, and the left- and right-wing thugs battling in the streets are rival siblings from an illiberal family....The problem many Americans had with Trump's weasel words was that Heather Heyer was dead, and many other people injured, in Charlottesville, allegedly at the hands of James Alex Fields, Jr., a neo-Nazi who drove his car into a crowd in an act of political terrorism. And Fields was in Charlottesville to attend a rally featuring a dollar-store version of a Leni Riefenstahl...

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides, President Trump commented August 12 after bloody and lethal violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. "On many sides." He got a public tongue-lashing for his words. That's because Trump has lost the moral authority to lay into thugs of all types. But the rest of us can do better. The problem many Americans had with Trump's weasel words was that Heather Heyer was dead, and many other people injured, in Charlottesville, allegedly at the hands of James Alex Fields, Jr., a neo-Nazi who drove...

While Conservatives are petitioning for the government to label Antifa a terrorist organization, two professors are embracing Antifa and organizing a “Campus Antifascist Network” (CAN) to fight against “hate groups” on campus. According to Inside Higher Ed (IHE), the Campus Antifascist Network is the brainchild of Bill Mullen, a professor of American studies at Purdue University and David Palumbo-Liu, a professor of comparative literature at Stanford University, and is committed to functioning as a “big tent” for “anyone committed to fighting fascism.” CAN brands fascism as a “historical expression of capitalism’s tendency to dominate the poor, working class, and oppressed...

The counter protest to the Free Speech Rally on the Boston Common went off nearly as expected. The Free Speech people were already at the Boston Common bandstand, protected by a ring of Boston Police on foot, then a second ring of police on bicycles, then a third ring of metal fencing about 200 feet from the bandstand. At that distance, none of the protestors could throw anything and hit the Free Speechers in the bandstand. About half to two thirds of the protestors were there by 11 A.M., organizing, milling about, shouting obscenities while touting their equally obscene signs....

Antifa is the gift that keeps on giving. I mean “gift” in a metaphorical sense. We recently told you about the “anti-fascist” goon who stabbed a Navy sailor after mistaking him for a Nazi. Well, I’ve got one for you that gloriously tops that. Not least of all for the poor guy who got stabbed. Antifa idiots mistook one of their OWN fellow protestors for a Nazi and beat the ever-loving crap out of him. For realsies…

Bray’s book is many things: the first English-language transnational history of antifa, a how-to for would-be activists, and a record of advice from anti-Fascist organizers past and present—a project that he calls “history, politics, and theory on the run.” Antifa activists don’t often speak to the media, but Bray is a former Occupy Wall Street organizer and an avowed leftist; he has intimate access to his subjects, if not much critical distance from them. Especially in later chapters of the book, that access helps him to provide an unusually informed account of how antifa members conceptualize their disruptive and sometimes...

Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal called for President Donald Trump's assassination Thursday. Now she just got devastating news about her political career. Chappelle-Nadal was stripped of all committee assignments Tuesday by her own party's leadership and was called a “distraction.” The senator has been removed from the eight committees, a devastating blow to any potential political effectiveness for Chappelle-Nadal since the committees are where all legislation begins.

As the nation becomes evermore aware of Antifa activists and the violence they bring with them wherever they rear their masked faces, left-wing college professors seem set on helping the militant left-wing group advance its goals. Many were shocked last week after Mark Bray, a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College, penned a Washington Post opinion piece in defense of Antifa violence. Bray defended Antifa’s violent tactics designed to “preemptively shut down fascist organizing efforts” on the grounds that “physical violence against white supremacists is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.” Bray defended his stance on an appearance on NBC's "Meet...

It claims that Antifa...has earned the label 'terrorist' for 'due to its violent actions...and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers'...It gives no evidence for either claim... Anti-fascism as a movement has been around for around a century...Since then, Donald Trump has come under fire for quavering about condemning white supremacists, and for equating neo-Nazis with their anti-fascist counter-protesters. If Antifa groups are declared terrorists it will come as a surprise to many, as they do not fit traditional terrorist models.

CNN published an article today based on interviews with members of Antifa. The headline notes, “Activists seek peace through violence.” That seems to suggest there’s a real problem with what Antifa is doing but the rest of the article comes across as sympathetic to the group, even to their violence: Antifa activists often don’t hesitate to destroy property, which many see as the incarnation of unfair wealth distribution.“Violence against windows — there’s no such thing as violence against windows,” a masked Antifa member in Union Square told CNN. “Windows don’t have — they’re not persons. And even when they...

New York Times reporters Thomas Fuller, Alan Feuer and Serge Kovaleski are responsible for this admiring profile of the far-left Brownshirts called antifa: “‘Antifa’ members are ready to literally fight right-wingers.” "Members of antifa have shown no qualms about using their fists, sticks or canisters of pepper spray to meet an array of right-wing antagonists whom they call a fascist threat to U.S. democracy." Is antifa violent? Well, that depends on what the meaning of “violent” is: “You need violence in order to protect nonviolence,” she said. “That’s what’s very obviously necessary right now.” *** “When you look at this...

Yvette Felarca, the Berkeley area school teacher and militant left-wing protester responsible for organizing the riot at the University of California, Berkeley in February 2017, claims that violence against the far-right is “not a crime.” Felarca, who belongs to “By Any Means Necessary,” a far-left group, is currently facing assault charges after she was caught on video assaulting a white supremacist during a July 2016 rally in Sacramento, Cali. The school teacher and her compatriots engaged in violent clashes against members of the far-right Traditional Worker’s Party, which had a permit to march in the city. The violence between the...

Sometimes, you don’t need a crystal ball to see the future. Sometimes, the future says, “Hey, I’m planning for all hell to break loose on this date.” And then you know. The future is telling us right now that on November 4th, there will be sedition and riots across the country to end the Trump-Pence “regime.” Today, groups of people with communist leanings who intend to overthrow the United States government will be meeting in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin for “regional conferences,” which makes it sound like they’re a bunch of dentists of something. But...

A new White House petition this week is calling on the Trump administration to formally recognize the Antifa movement as a terrorist organization. "AntiFa has earned this title due to its violent actions in multiple cities and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers throughout the United States," the petition, started Thursday, states. Antifa is short for anti-fascists, and the people involved are generally extreme leftists known for their face-offs with right-wing activists, including recently in Berkeley, Calif. Antifa counter-protesters made an appearance in Charlottesville, Va. this past weekend and clashed with white supremacy and neo-Nazi groups protesting...

Thousands filed into Newton Thursday afternoon for the 128th annual Soldiers Reunion Parade. During the parade, Channel 9 saw that one man with a gun was taken into custody. Eyewitness News reporter Dave Faherty witnessed the incident and said the man went over to some Civil War re-enactors and pepper sprayed them.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Last weekend, when a 27-year-old bike messenger showed up at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., he came ready for battle. He joined a human chain that stretched in front of Emancipation Park and linked his arms with others, blocking waves of white supremacists — some of them in full Nazi regalia — from entering. “As soon as they got close,” said the young man, who declined to give his real name and goes by Frank Sabaté after the famous Spanish anarchist, “they started swinging clubs, fists, shields. I’m not embarrassed to say that we...