The title of this post is sarcasm, for those of you who aren’t following along at home.
One thing that struck me about the Beltway’s coverage of the Berkeley protest was how commentators accused the anti-fascist protesters of feeding into Nazi persecution narratives. I found this accusation to be badly misdirected. The media were deliberately trying to get the white supremacists on film and on their microphone, and what they printed a day later confirmed that they were selling a very familiar drink: Red bait. I was disappointed to see self-avowed skeptics swallow the media narrative uncritically, as the material from the non-professionals clearly shows a different story from “vicious hoodie thug attacks innocent Trump supporter”–a Trump supporter who had pepper-sprayed a crowd of people while wearing a Pinochet shirt, the Chilean capitalist dictator legendary for his torture & mass murder program against socialists [not going to link to it but LITERALLY ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS if you look it up].
At minimum, please take the time to browse amateur footage. Yes, you’ll have to sift through the alt-right versions, but that’s how I also found this hilarious tweet: alt-right dude says the protest turned into a “massive militant demonstration,” but shows exactly nothing happening. Not even the people actively trying to smear anti-fascist protesters could find something incriminating, but you can trust the Beltway to play something up for clickbait and distort the picture.
Assume they’ve got a slant at least as severe as the anti-fascists themselves.
Shortly after a coalition of counter-protestors, the one including the black bloc, arrived at the park, the Berkeley Police Department promptly hid themselves behind their riot gear and poised to shoot rounds of tear gas into the crowd. The black bloc put their hands into the air in a now rallying gestureand continuously and necessarily confrontationally yelled “put the gun down!” at the officers. Had the officers shot the tear gas at the crowd, multiple people would likely now be dead or injured: not only would the police have probably killed the frontline anarchists that their canister-loaded weapons were trained upon, but people would have also been killed or injured in the panic of a tightly packed crowd of hundreds of people trying to escape the eye and throat-burning gas. The police lowered their arms and absconded their posts in the park shortly thereafter: both masked and unmasked protestors jumped over police barricades and assembled throughout the park, a people’s park.
Somehow I doubt those details will make the Washington Post‘s propaganda piece.
Read more here.
And for pete sake, stop being so credulous with the corporate media and their slant on anti-fascist protesting. These are the same political commentators who think arsonists and the fire department are equally bad. They really haven’t had anything worthwhile to contribute to political discourse since they started to pretend that Bush and the other Bush and Reagon and Nixon never happened.
-Shiv
Jews invented communism, and communists were anti-fascist, therefore antifa is – you know – invented by ((them)) and therefore bad. Or something.
Considering that fascists seem to like to pick off communists first, why wouldn’t anti-fascists be communist sympathisers?
I think this is a symptom of how indoctrinated the media is. They’ve snorted their own propaganda.
@1 Marcus Ranum
“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media.”
There were ~4000 anti-Nazi protestors, ~100 black bloc protestors, and still only one or two incidents of violence. It’s pretty clear that when the media says 100 black bloc protestors turned violent, or that the whole protest turned violent, it is a gross exaggeration.
I’m still unhappy about those one or two incidents though. The Berkeley black bloc group is an organized group that has demonstrated ability to coordinate tactics. My impression based on some friends who I suspect to be part of the Berkeley black bloc, is that they think the negative media coverage is 100% inevitable, and not their fault or concern. That seems to be your argument as well. I don’t buy it.
@3 Siggy
I find that a naive leap of faith. See for yourself:
https://www.washingtonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/garbage-fire-994×746.jpg
Outrage is what sells. They know it looks bad to outright say “you shouldn’t be mean to fascists,” so they’ll dance around that by specifically seeking something even remotely objectionable and inflating its importance.
It’s hardly a conspiracy. Your media are capitalists. “Peaceful protest” doesn’t sell. Put two and two together.
Peaceful protests don’t sell to the point that they are rarely reported at all. I have no particular knowledge of the American press, but I know most of the British press’s reports on protests are highly distorted so it fits their agenda and they just don’t report most peaceful protests at all.
Siobhan @4,
To clarify, which part are you referring to as my “naive leap of faith”? Is it the part where I inferred the beliefs of the Berkeley Black bloc group? Or was it the part where I asserted that the beliefs in question are wrong? I’m not sure and wouldn’t want to mischaracterize what you said.
@6 Siggy
I interpreted your comment as meaning “negative coverage isn’t inevitable” (i.e. “can be avoided”). I disagreed. If a protest is even marginally effective at sending its message, it will be covered and smeared by corporate media, because outrage sells. See: 20+ reporters crowding around a lone tipped over garbage can.
@Siobhan,
I don’t think it’s inevitable though. If it’s inevitable, then it was inevitable for the San Francisco and Boston protests too. Last I checked those protests got relatively positive coverage. (Although jazzlet appears to be correct that they also got less coverage.) I don’t really want to contribute to the media’s blowing the Berkeley stuff out of proportion. But it is still my opinion that the local group misplayed and that they should have an internal discussion about it. I mean, I don’t have any power over what they do, so I guess I’m just unhappy with them and won’t defend them, and that’s the end of that.
The garbage can photo is pretty funny though. Thanks for that.
To Marcus, I think it’s (((three))) parentheses, not two, if you want to properly mock them.