by Cpt._Funkotron » Wed Aug 22, 2018 2:41 am
This is a horrible crime, I hope the assailant gets identified and the authorities throw the book at him, but I don't think this is indicative of the entire movement. The victim wasn't the only person among the counter-protestors carrying an American flag, there were apparently several others, but this guy here seems to have been the only one who was assaulted. What I'm guessing at is that it seems that the assailant is a lone nut, although I don't know for sure, since it's been almost three weeks since the incident and there doesn't seem to be any followup reports online.
In fact, does anyone else find that really weird? The incident occurred on August 4th, the video was uploaded pretty much immediately afterward, and then today, August 21st, 17 days later, the story explodes in all the kinds of places you'd expect it to explode. Infowars, Fox News, the Daily Wire, Free Beacon, you name a right-wing soapbox and it's put up an article about this in the past 24 hours.
Going to don my tin-foil hat for a moment, if you'll permit me, but if for example you wanted to distract people in the conservative news-sphere from the fact that the President's campaign manager has just been convicted on eight charges, and the President's lawyer plead guilty to doing illegal shit at the President's instruction, what's the kind of thing you'd try to throw up? Antifa giving a man a concussion for carrying an american flag is pretty saucy. It reminds people that although it's looking more like their golden boy is a crook, the left is full of vicious thugs who hate america and everything it stands for, and they have to resisted at all costs, especially in the upcoming midterms.
I'm not insinuating that this is fake news, although again, there doesn't seem to have been any follow-up reporting of any kind, but I think the promotion and proliferation of this story is meant as a well-timed political ploy.
One final point, unlike the alt-right, antifa does not have leaders or really any wider-ranging organization by it's nature. Anyone who wants to dress in black and counter-protest fascists can call themselves antifa, so forgive me if I have to scoff a little at the idea that they've got "goals beyond stopping the nazis" that they're not telling us about, as you say. A lot of them are anarchists and communists, so yeah some of the individual members have got their own axes to grind, but the unifying principle among all antifascists is anti-fascism.