Your average age of the original antifa is 98 years old - WW2 veterans
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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Authoritarians misunderstanding history? Who could have thought?
There is probably some nuance between KPD Antifaschistische Aktion, SPD Iron Front, and WW2 Resistance antifa, but none of that is relevant to modern discussions about American Antifa.
The most important thing to note about KPD, SPD, and the resistance during 1930s-1940s is about violent resistance to fascists rising to power. My hypothesis is that political violence is unproductive before rule of law breaks down, but then becomes the only option after rule of law breaks down.
Those who make peaceful protest impossible make violent revolution inevitable
The beaches of Normandy on D-day were full of antifa members...
Fuck I've grown some serious hate for white Americans since 2016.
What does white have to do with anything? You do realize most people opposing this movement are also white...?
Hating people for their skin color will surely show those racists.
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“Hate” can exist in all colors.
Don’t bring yourself down to the same level as the fascist, friend.
what a racist piece of shit.
edit:
if you don't have a problem with
Fuck I've grown some serious hate for white Americans since 2016.
but have a problem with
Fuck I've grown some serious hate for black Americans since 2016.
you might just be a racist piece of shit.
So are they disavowing famous antifa like Dwight D. Eisenhower yet? You could make a case that Eisenhower was personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of fascists.
Founding fathers were antifa
...what?
Fascism as a movement didn't exist then but if you do want to label people as fascists then the founding fathers, many of whom owned people of other races as "property" and built slavery into the system they created definitely qualify.
It didnt have a name or a clear, written set of ideals until Mussolini coined it; but the sentiments that led to it have existed since the dawn of humanity.
In which case, as I said, the founding fathers were fascists.
Do you think I am disagreeing with you or something?
I was just joshing. Though, do fascists want to own slaves? When I think of fascism, slave owning is not something that comes to mind.
Nazi Germany built it’s war economy on the backs of slaves. Jews, and political dissidents didn’t all go straight to the death camps; many went to slave labor facilities/camps until the conditions broke them and they were no longer useful.
So maybe not individual slave ownership, but mass state run slave labor absolutely. The end stage fascist economy can’t exist without it.
I have my existence thanks to those forced laborers. They sabotaged production, including the tank shell that didn’t explode when it hit my grandfather’s position back in 1944.
I just don’t think owning slaves equals fascism the way the comment I replied to says.
I was mostly being silly when I made my original comment cause fascism didn’t exist back then. But I do wonder if fascism did exist, just without the name.
But I also don't think a fascist would create the constitution as it was back then. Free speech, right to privacy, all the rights surrounding justice… Seems like a fascist would be against these things.
I’m definitely unqualified to participate in a debate on what fascism is and isn’t, so if there’s something I’m missing, please let me know as this stuff is very interesting, and Google doesn’t usually help.
I'm just confused what definition of fascism you're going off of where the British parliament imposing a tax on tea is fascism but people of one race owning people of another race and forcing them to work though beatings and abuse isn't.
But yes the real answer is that they were neither pro- or anti-fascist because fascism wasn't a thing. In terms of history, I don't really think we should label it fascism anytime someone does a bad thing. But if we are going to use it that way then we should do so consistently.
What about the constitution and bill of rights? That honestly feels like something an anti fascist would write to prevent a fascist from taking over.
When I read about fascism, though, it is never about owning slaves. It’s more about how the government treated its citizens/media/economy/etc. Maybe it’s something they did, but owning slaves was not what made them fascist.
If the colonial empires existed today, what would you call them?
Orwell wrote an essay on Kipling that applied the label of "pre-fascist" to him so feel free to use that instead. For the sake of conversation we can then agree that anti-pre-fascists are antifa or close enough. You could also insist on pre-antifa, that's pretty catchy.
After all, lesser evil empires fighting fascists still earn the title of antifascist, do they not?
Even if they, say, starve, imprison, and use "forced labor" on millions of their own citizens as a form of political control.
Otherwise you'll find that pretty much the only people that deserve the term of antifa are anarchists, which I'm also fine with, welcome to the right side of socialism.
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....But they still very much got rid of the feudal equivalent of a dictator - a king - which is a step in the right direction, especially at the time. Notably many founding fathers were against slavery.
Eg this abolitionist from the 1500s originally was okay with slavery for black people, but not Natives, and then later changed his mind. He was FAR from perfect as an activist or abolitionist, but the steps he did were PROGRESS, and that counts. That you can criticize the past is a good thing, it means society did better.
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Yeah... no. White America is pretty much the spiritual godmother of fascism.
Nazis literally looked to some of America's founding fathers and the Confederacy for inspiration.
The confederacy was also defeated by Americans
Yes, but the the cowardly founding fathers were nowhere to be seen.
(I said nothing about "Americans")
With Nietzsche as the godfather
I'm not familiar with that; what's the relationship between Nietzsche and fascism?
Nietzsches sister was a fascist and claimed her brother was too (edit: after his death). A cursory glance from the Nazis showed them the concept of the Übermensch so they ran with it, but there’s not actually much there to support fascism. Nietzsche was a dick and there are all sorts of horrible things he wrote about non white men, but he wasn’t really a Nazi.
If I've got my Nietzsche right, then wouldn't the idea of Ubermensch as something you can become rather than something you are not really line up with fascism anyway? Seems like they just took a word that sounded cool if anything.
Yeah, but the thing about fascists is, they’re dumb, so they didn’t think about it any further.
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How about a new synonym? Antifa just triggers all the people that didn't understand what it means. They think it means devil worshipping terrorists or something like that. It's not winning at this point. Maybe that's a good thing, 😂.
Just say Against Fascism, and don’t let anyone abbreviate it. When they complain, ask, “are you pro-fascism?”
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Antifa is the modern version of the Soviet kulaks, which was their contemporary version of medieval witches. There are no shortage of historical examples of people making up groups that dont exist in reality to be afraid of, and thereby justify extreme and depraved actions against their countrymen. Anti-facism, anti-communism, or anti-christian, the social justification is pretty much irrelevant. Its all just an excuse for people in power to label anyone they want for execution. Its literally a witch hunt
His head looks bloated
...according to him, they were...
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