Thread by @rechelon

For fourteen years I've listened to local (A)s bash each other in the harshest terms while still aligning against threats and rapists.

And believe it or not there's a path that doesn't involve either antifascists turning into liberal careerists or insurrectos embracing ecofash.

Professionalized antifascist groups *can* -- because they have serious security risks involving actual murderous prison nazis -- lean into formal organization to the point of reproducing hierarchy and haughtily give marching orders while withholding information. That's fair.

Additionally the current wave of pop antifa -- while a desperate strategy to build cover in the face of looming mass repression -- *has* made for some weird implicit bedfellows, some distraction from radical action, and promoted careerist liberals who will shy from some shit.

But at the same time it's true that spaces that fetishize attack and criminality have provided a lot of cover to reactionary trash over the years. Covered up for abusers because they were militant, tolerated ecofascists and "national anarchists", focused on edge over strategy.

Immediatism and the notion that "pure negation" is a politic sometimes make for shitty strategies and poorly thought out actions, which get papered over because none of us feel like fighting over someone who at least showed up and acted. This too can be a failure mode.

I've been listening to antifa and insurrectos whine about the other camp for so many fucking years, and I've always agreed that there are valid critiques of both. But like, jesus, this is a stupid split mostly reinforced by festering grudges rather than cleareyed communication.

With the state turning its eye on fascists, utilizing the public research of antifascists, and with establishment libs embracing certain pop antifa figures who dance with respectability there is a danger of "antifa" betraying radical struggle. But it doesn't have to be the case.

Similarly there's a risk of reactionary elements using this momentary shift in the alignment of the establishment to push anti-antifa narratives in insurrecto spaces, to circle wagons again and provide cover for abhorrent entryism. But again this doesn't have to be the case.

There's space in anarchism for secretive formal groups, public respectability cover providers, and informal militants. There are no singular magic strategic bullets.

My hope, is that every camp remembers to keep their preferred strategy without doing grave harm to the others.

This means not throwing hardline militants under the bus when it's not perfectly opportune for your respectability narrative.

It also means recognizing the threat models and inherent operating constraints of formal groups and public figures.

I assure you, it's possible to push back on national narratives to defend anarchists from repression without doing powerpoints for the FBI. It's also possible to live a life of armed joy without defensively going to bat for literally any shitbag or irresponsible act.