so... there's a reason for this
this isn't specifically thinkpiece related but i think it's something that is worth talking about
a lot of anti-fascists are really distrustful of the media for a variety of reasons
the main one, at least for me, is that white supremacists use photos and video shot by the press to find targets to dox, stalk, threaten, etc
very few news outlets have taken it upon themselves to blur out the faces of protesters who are already risking themselves to protect their community; this is an act of decency that is, for some reason, limited to license plates
the other reason is that the media landscape seems to be dedicated to treating people who volunteer their bodies to create a barrier between their communities and white supremacists who threaten it and those white supremacists as morally equivalent
a year ago yesterday, a group of torch-wielding Nazis terrorized a group of anti-racist protesters. yesterday, cops were the ones that came out to do the terrorizing
i've never been in situations as rough as the protesters in Portland, Charlottesville and DC have been in this week, but i've put effort into spoiling footage by flipping off cameras and yelling swear words before, just as an attempt to keep my unmasked comrades slightly safer
whether they're doing it on purpose or not, the media has acted as allies to fascists, Nazis, the alt-right, etc over and over for the past several years
the media has been letting Kessler air his white supremacist views on NPR unchallenged, doing soft-focus profiles of Nazis, letting the cops' version of the story go unchallenged, or releasing photos and video that make it dead easy for Nazis to harass and threaten activists
i'm drawing broad strokes around the media as a whole here because when you're on the ground trying to deal with a photographer you often don't have any way to know who's paying for them to be there
the other big mistake that the media makes when dealing with protests is assuming that by not wanting to talk to them, anti-fascists are somehow betraying their own cause by not making a case to the public
you don't usually go out in the streets and block traffic and carry signs and do chants to convince the undecided. you do it as a show of force against your opponents (in this case, nazis) and as a show of solidarity with people dealing with the oppression you're fighting against
there are lots of other reasons, too, but a lot of people are just not interested in going on camera and trying to convince the tv news watching audience that being a Nazi is bad and murdering protesters with cars is also bad.
the fact is that the majority of the media coverage of all of these protests is gonna take the "both sides" approach, and it's gonna pretend that the cops are neutral and not there to beat anti-fascists and protect the Nazis
there's no way to pick out which journalists in the crowd are interested in covering it with nuance and decency, and a lot of people aren't interested in being used to support the kind of narrative where "should Nazis be marching in the streets" is something that's worth debating
if you don't want to have protesters telling you to fuck off and obscuring your photos, you have to build some trust with them, and right now there's no guarantee that they'll be treated any better than honest-to-god swastika-tattoo Nazis
i think most people interested in actively opposing fascism have found channels they trust far more than believing any particular platform
the platforms we can trust to not take the cops' side as true by default and deliver coverage are groups like Unicorn Riot and It's Going Down
and though those two are particularly valuable, the people who do the best job of providing news that doesn't put protesters in danger tend to just be anti-fascist activists livetweeting what's happening from the ground
here's the thinkpiece angle: no matter how much a paper claims that reporting is separated from op-ed, years of shitty editorials from people who aren't actually politically involved beyond scolding the people doing the work from on high have eroded trust in *every* paper
chances are a lot of the people in the streets are there because media institutions haven't given them the opportunities that they deserve to be heard. they've no reason to believe that all of a sudden the journos and photogs there are gonna start listening today
they have every reason to believe their image will be used to push a distorted narrative and/or that they'll be senselessly put in further danger than they already are choosing to risk for someone else's profit
to those of you out there putting your bodies on the line to fight white supremacy: thank you for your work and your bravery.
solidarity from the bot family. ✊🤖. stay hydrated, stay brave.
god the piece that guy filed was so exactly the kind of shit that is why protesters distrust reporters and photogs
acting like associating the cops with nazis is some kind of stretch for the protesters to do, as if the cops didn't stand by and watch while nazis attacked anti-fascist activists for two days last year until they managed to murder somebody 
check out the ProPublica/Frontline documentary for some choice footage of Nazis beating up someone protesting them right next to a police station with 0 police intervention; that's one of a dozen similar events. Charlottesville has good reason to think the cops are fash
McCoy also failed to note that the police literally wouldn't allow access to downtown Charlottesville yesterday unless people consented to having their bags search
he's happy to tweet about how mean the protesters are being to media, but he didn't seem interested in coming to his collegues' defense yesterday when they weren't allowed into a public space with their camera equipment
the entire framing of McCoy's WaPo piece attempts to undermine the fact that anti-fascists & the people of Charlottesville in particular have every reason to identify the police with fascists and white supremacists
last week, the cops of Portland protected white supremacists who came in from out of state to gather and terrorize that community. they assaulted the people who came out to side against racism. they nearly killed somebody by shooting a flashbang grenade into the back of his head.
if he hadn't been wearing a helmet, he'd have died. the Nazis and assorted other racists and bigots who were bussed in from across the border with Washington faced no such ill treatment; the cops wear kid gloves when they deal with Nazis.
literally the day after an anti-racist is shot in the back of the head by a cop and only lives because he is wearing a helmet, the Berkeley police department brags on twitter about the helmets they're confiscating.
they also dox a group of protesters who they have arrested, but not charged, posting their wallet names and photos to twitter-- a clear attempt to get the community to do the dirty work of harassing leftists for them
and then a couple of days later the Frontline/ProPublica documentary comes out and we get to see a video compilation that really shows how little the cops of Charlottesville gave a shit about protecting their community from white supremacist agitators
so it's nice and fresh in all of our minds that last year they stood by and watched-- and this year, they came out in force and terrorized the community
meanwhile the couple dozen Nazis who came out to terrorize DC were provided with transportation AND so much police protection that their little walking safe space had a cop personally protecting every individual Nazi
it doesn't take much *trying* to associate cops with racism and fascism. it's a pretty fucking obvious connection to anybody who's been paying attention this WEEK, let alone the past several years
the good news is that even though twitter is a Nazi-filled hellspace that @jack refuses to lift his littlest finger to fix, we still have more tools for spreading this information than we ever have before
you can look up the twitter feeds of hundreds of activists to get a clear view of what actually is happening at these protests and find the holes in the versions of the story that are put out by the cops or the press
misinformation spreads a mile a minute but people who are motivated to find out the truth can do so if they want to, and i have faith that there are enough people doing so to turn the tide of fascism
just like how white supremacy isn't something you can debate because you can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into, we don't actually need to convince *everybody* to stand up to fascism
we just need enough people to make Nazis pants-shittingly terrified
there are way more of us than there are of them and we don't actually need media access to ruin fascist lives. so let's keep doing that!
and keep supporting your comrades near and far-- bail and medical funds are essential right now. i'll try to post some from here tomorrow, i need a bit of time to make sure i'm sharing the ones that are legit and not accidentally signal boost scam artists in the chaos
fuck this
shout out to @PetulaD for pretending to be an expert on anti-fascism while conflating "antifa" with "black bloc", but good job looking up the battle of cable street on wikipedia
calling antifa "flip side of the Heil Trump crowd" is particularly offensive
apparently the ~extreme violence~ of antifa in DC consisted of:
-glitter bombing
-making a reporter drop their cell phone
-egging some cops
this is, apparently, morally equivalent with active campaigning for genocide
-glitter bombing
-making a reporter drop their cell phone
-egging some cops
this is, apparently, morally equivalent with active campaigning for genocide
this isn't surprising from someone who also wrote a column about how Trump staffers are bad but it's beyond the pale to confront them at restaurants
i just want to throw in this as a reminder of what antifa and black bloc did during the first Unite the Right rally slate.com/articles/news_…
this is also worth reading psmag.com/social-justice…
this paragraph is particularly useful for how to think about counter-protesting Nazi rallies in particular
the idea that you should only show up to protest fascism when the marching Nazis number in the thousands is completely fucking absurd. the whole point is to keep the 5,000 Nazi march from happening
it's comforting to know that we don't actually need the mainstream press to cover anti-fascism and anti-racism movements well to turn the tide
but dealing with a world that is ready to tut-tut people for glitterbombing a Nazi when children are in concentration camps is fucking rough
sometimes half the reason i write this shit and update the bot is because it helps me feel less like i'm losing my fucking mind
i'm just some asshole who decided to get into satire and then realized that satire was useless and so started using the satire as a platform for media criticism in hopes that will be in any way useful
the whole society-wide gaslighting that comes with fascism and the liberal defense of it is just hard. i'm guessing it's probably worse for people who face it more directly than reading bad op-eds as part of their weird robot job
anyway thanks to everybody who's been out there doing the work on the ground these past few weeks, and who's writing the useful stuff about anti-fascism and telling the real story. it helps all of us keep going.
if you're like me and this shit has you constantly feeling like you're losing your mind, though: it's not just you, and you're not. this is literally one of the psychological techniques that fascist societies use. it's a natural reaction to propaganda.
if you like this bot or this essay or have $5 burning a hole in your pocket, please consider donating to one of the Cville funds that really needs it
a lot of those crowdfunding sites have the option to donate anonymously or under your name: i recommend using caution about donating under your name as occasionally Nazis use that to find people to dox and harass.
take care of each other, everybody. thanks for reading. <3
