cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/54018469

On Monday, just one day after the Republican Party staged a Horst Wessel-style memorial for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The order claims that antifa is a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” that uses “illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide.”

Antifa, as even FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit in a September 2020 congressional hearing, is not an organization but a broad current of opposition to fascism. “Antifa is an ideology, not an organization,” said Wray, who also testified that the bureau had no data showing any lethal violence committed by the organization.

Since antifa as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand political dissent and opposition to his fascist regime as “terrorism.”

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    23 hours ago

    WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
              We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

    https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

  • ravenaspiring@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 day ago

    Antifa, as even FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit in a September 2020 congressional hearing, is not an organization but a broad current of opposition to fascism. “Antifa is an ideology, not an organization,” said Wray, who also testified that the bureau had no data showing any lethal violence committed by the organization.

    Since antifa as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand political dissent and opposition to his fascist regime as “terrorism.”

    The order signed by Trump on Monday did not present any specific incidents or examples of alleged “antifa terror.” It claimed without evidence that antifa elements “coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing [sic] of and other threats against political figures and activists.”

    The executive order directs all agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” the activities of anyone alleged to act on behalf of antifascism or to provide “material support.”

    As of this writing, no evidence has been publicly presented that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old alleged to have shot and killed Kirk on September 10, was part of any organized left-wing or anarchist group, including antifa.