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Dispatch → Factbook → Politics
Anti-Anti-Fascism, OR, Why To Fight Back
Anti-Anti-Fascism, OR, Why To Fight BackDISPELLING THE SEMANTIC GAME
You've likely heard it before; two "anti-'s" negate each other, and those wielding this label expose themselves as crypto-fascists with something to hide. One need not volunteer the label themselves; the anti-fascist is ever eager to place the label in their opponent's mouth, and the same accusation will follow in immediately. Although no one, outside the very ranks & facilitators of Antifa themselves, takes this haughty backflip to be anything more than just rhetorical misdirection, it is deployed too often with the intended effect manifesting. Its targets stumble to exonerate themselves and onlookers feel too timid to rebut it, lest they be swiped by it next.
In the postwar era, self-styled fascism ceased to exist as a geopolitical phenomenon, at most persisting until the death of Francisco Franco in Spain, contingent on one's definition. Through the generation in which "anti-fascist" existed as a common label, it denoted ideologies & actors which opposed fascistic ideologies & actors to the extreme that they would strategically collaborate with all other peers whom adhered to the same zeal. This label is remembered as involving a broad spectrum ranging from anarchists to monarchists. It is often ignored as having involved not only totalitarians & authoritarians, but indeed, imperialists, segregators, perpetrators of genocide (as would be designated in the contemporary era) and even slavers in the form of Ethiopia at the time of its confrontation with Fascist Italy. The label did not apply to those non-fascistic ideologies & actors which merely refrained from conflict with the fascists of their time.
Those who style themselves as "anti-fascists" or "Antifa" in the postwar era represent nowhere near the tolerance, diversity nor simple focus of those whom they portend to emulate. Whenever polling themselves on individual convictions, one is fed a diet of predominantly "far-left" stances, with stances approaching the "center-left" dwindling in representation. Still, there remains the rhetorical practice of playing on not only the clumsiness of the term "anti-anti-fascist" by grammatical convention, but indeed, assigning their opponents with the very label so as to misrepresent them as fascistic by semantic description.
This semantic game would never be respected in other circumstances. Indeed, during the Cold War era in the West, there were those who 
reacted to what they saw as overbearing efforts by anti-communists, despite not following communistic convictions of their own. To employ an even harder example, could one not classify all those whom oppose anti-Semitism as anti-anti-Semites, thus revealing them to necessarily be Semites themselves? Evidently, only a Jew is capable of taking issue with hostility towards Jews. Or, are we to admit that one may oppose a reaction without belonging to the target of reaction? This author rests his case by this point. An anti-anti-fascist, whether self-styled or styled as such by others, is opposed to the anti-fascist in particular, especially in the contemporary era of anti-fascism excluding many souls opposed to fascism itself.
reacted to what they saw as overbearing efforts by anti-communists, despite not following communistic convictions of their own. To employ an even harder example, could one not classify all those whom oppose anti-Semitism as anti-anti-Semites, thus revealing them to necessarily be Semites themselves? Evidently, only a Jew is capable of taking issue with hostility towards Jews. Or, are we to admit that one may oppose a reaction without belonging to the target of reaction? This author rests his case by this point. An anti-anti-fascist, whether self-styled or styled as such by others, is opposed to the anti-fascist in particular, especially in the contemporary era of anti-fascism excluding many souls opposed to fascism itself.ANTI-FASCISM AS A FUNCTION OF POWER
We have examined the underhanded semantics which the "anti-fascist" label intends to play. Here, we must progress into why contemporary anti-fascism is worthy of animus. As stated before, anti-fascism is comprised of zealots subordinating the positive pursuits of their ideology, or themselves as an actor, to the opposition of "fascism". As observed before, those partaking in this anti-fascism range almost wholly from anarchists to libertarian Marxists to communists (by which this author means the sum of totalitarian & authoritarian approaches to abolition of private property) to reform-minded socialists and, most sparingly, mainstream social democrats.
Each of the aforementioned ideologies are understood as enhancing the economic equality of the governed, as well as expanding cultural inclusion of the governed. Their differences subsist solely in terms of how accessible or inaccessible the levers of civic power are, and by how drastically the new order is to be imposed upon the old. The communists, while advocating for power inaccessibly reserved for its envisioned party, do however decry authoritarian & totalitarian practices by the regime they seek to overthrow. The socialists and social democrats decreasingly lobby for a powerful state & party apparatus, with the libertarian Marxists and anarchists decreasingly lobbying for such an apparatus on their own end.
The presiding political economy which has manifested throughout the West, within which the phenomenon of Antifa has
as networks of unarmed "direct action" militants proliferated, in the contemporary era has been universally characterized as neoliberalism. This neoliberal order has presided over the empowerment of the state to surveil, censor and prosecute expression, the entrenchment of multinational corporate executives in acquiring wealth, as well as the publicly-privately-jointly induced inclusion & promotion of what can broadly be termed as "minorities" (across parameters of racial background, immigration status, religious confession, sexual orientation, gender profession and bodily condition).
On the latter parameter, every victory the anti-fascists have pursued has been won and institutionalized, as the goal has aligned with the aims of the grander neoliberal system. Indeed, anti-fascism can be understood as frustration with public policy failing to advance even more quickly along this dimension at any given time. On the former two fronts, the ideological factions comprising the anti-fascist bloc, including the communists (who only wish an overbearing state once their clique has seized sovereign power), have shouldered every loss imaginable over the span of decades. The legal & fiscal precarity of being a propertyless & dissident individual of a nation's historic stock & sensibility has never been greater in the West than the current day.
Still, despite these developments within our lifetimes, the "leftists" comprising the anti-fascist bloc have solely orientated the anti-fascist cause along achieving ever more of the cultural & demographic agenda sought after by the neoliberal order. The practices of ostracism by what are known as "doxxing" and "cancellation" remain essentially reserved for those opining or demonstrating against the aggrandizement of aforementioned "minorities". Gone are the days of militant labor activity from these "leftists" to hash out firmer standards for the toiling class. Gone are the days of militant opposition to intrusion by cop & boss alike into the private lives of the citizen. There are always, always, loud denouncements of these developments by the "leftists". Yet, their will to militantly contribute to public policy's evolution remains constricted to those anti-fascist causes pertaining to aforementioned "minorities".
Advertently or inadvertently, the individual anti-fascist is overriden from tangibily militating for their professed economic & civic obligations, on behalf of all including the historic stock & sensibility, and consistently aligns with the neoliberal order in deed, if not in thought. The situation is sicker still when considering how the anti-fascists define the very "fascism" they oppose as the state's totalitarian or authoritarian empowerment of the propertied against the unpropertied by invoking defense of an identity group to justify police powers set upon all. In an ironic twist, lame conservative memes notwithstanding, it may indeed be Antifa who qualify as the "real fascists" by this standard.
ANTI-ANTI-FASCISM AS ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM
As demonstrated above, anti-fascism is a technology of neoliberalism to direct the economic & civic frustrations of those individuals who would otherwise imbue a threat to the system in their various "leftist" orientations. It exists to co-opt fervor which would otherwise offer defense against predations against you & I by the grander system, in the favor of causes which either do not represent us, or do not advocate on behalf of our primary frustrations with the standing order. Sadly to say, the logic of anti-fascism is difficult to escape, including the very platform on which this treatise has been posted. What is the way forward then?
As elaborated by now, those "leftists" who practice anti-fascistic methods have forfeited the right to name themselves by their own "left wing" labels. Amongst the anti-fascists, every anarchist may be stripped of their circled A, every libertarian Marxist shorn of Karl's beard, every communist thrown to a gulag, every reform-minded socialist singed with a dollar sign's brand and every social democrat disregarded on principle. Deny the anti-fascist their leftism. Call them the neoliberal which they functionally are, and throw their attempts to profess as otherwise into the dirt. Deny them acknowledgement of their "leftism", as they threw it away the moment they called themself an "anti-fascist". They are to be regarded unflinchingly as the shock troops of neoliberalism, and their professed ideology as a lie which they tell to themselves. A delusion which they lack the coherence to qualify.
This treatise applies not only to those who self-identify as fascistic, nor to ideologies which are conventionally classified as adjacent to fascism. It does not apply solely to those who are "right wing", as defined by a bankrupt spectrum promulgated by mainstream pablum. To be an anti-anti-fascist is to consisely be an anti-neoliberal, accepting the anti-fascists as nothing less than the guard dogs of the system which has heaped difficilties upon you for what you are, and have somehow scrapped together for yourself what you could in spite of it all. The anti-fascist deserves no platform when they personally will not devote their evident fervor towards causes which would benefit you (likely, as well as them) and is to be reviled as an executioner of every liberty & allowance you may wish your government would pledge to you.
TO OPPOSE FASCISM IS A CHOICE....TO OPPOSE ANTI-FASCISM IS TO SURVIVE
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