janetgas
janetgas
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

I resent this retroactive smearing of the bravery of people in the past. Fascism and its violence has been a large part of the 20th century for many Europeans. It didn’t end in 1945.

It seems that the whole thing is being Americanised and so has lost its context and link to reality. And I’m not so sure you can understand it without direct experience of the short century and actual war against the thugs of the panicked international ownership class, on your soil.

Fascism was a curated reaction to the demands of organised labour (against the backdrop of the end of WW1, general strikes, huge increases in unionisation - and the Russian Revolution, of course) which itself was a reaction to the long-term effects of enclosures and then the increasing pauperisation of the urban and industrial labour force. The make-up of the USA is largely the result of the only other possible tolerated reaction to these effects: mass European emigration. I think I remember reading that the 2nd largest German city, at one point before WW1, was New York?

Anti-fascism was originally a continuation of resistance to fascism by Italian refugees from Mussolini’s Italy- the preferred bulwark against communism of the Imperial powers-in the countries they escaped to. Fascism was maintained in southern European countries up until around the time the UK joined the EEC-which took over that preferred bulwark role.

Hence the origins and long roots of the Antifa are absolutely clear in Europe(and the reason for their continuation: I remember reading the obituary of Vidal Sassoon- the hairdresser- where he was quoted talking about street fighting against Nazis/proto-National Front in the streets of London, early post WW2).

As is the equally long-term and ongoing police infiltration and international surveillance of these movements and allied unions(as described in Le Spie del Regime, Mauro Canali)-hence the ambivalent achievements of “anarchists” over time: if you want to control the opposition, you be the opposition.

Anarchism has never posed a threat to cartel capital. Communism, and its influence on democracies - purely by existing as an alternative- have.

The “elite”, as you call it, has always reached for its thugs and fifth columnists when worried by dissent — and is well aware of the causes of that dissent. They don’t hang about and wait for the disaffected/disenfranchised to organise, which is why you have been seeing the mediatic ringing of the “fascism” bell for a while now… and, right in the nick of time, you have guerilla warfare/chaos as the justification for whatever they like.

As you so astutely point out, there’s been nearly a decade since the financial crisis to prepare the ground — and to get provocateur boots on that ground.

But respect where it’s due-to the real anti-fascists.

Do you really think all that 20th century bloodshed was a street scrap between -ism fanboys that got out of hand??? I mean there are always lads who like to scrap, as Nicolás Rodríguez says …but seriously?

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    janetgas

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    janetgas

    We have two jobs: Observe the world;control ourselves- not vice versa! Every little (act of humanity) counts…