In light of the Oregon legislature drafting an anti-doxxing bill to be potentially passed in 2021, here are a few reasons why doxxing is an important tactic for antifa and why –as always- there is not an equivalency with the Far Right’s use of this tactic. wweek.com/news/state/202…
The motivation for the bill is presumably the Far Right use of doxxing to harass anyone who goes to left protests, especially #BLM. So we’ll point out how the right use of the tactic differs markedly from what we do & how a blunt legal instrument could create harm.
The typical right-wing “doxx” uses easy-access, public info from a left protest to pretend every person swept up in a mass arrest is a member of antifa. The low critical thinking of the intended audience makes it unnecessary to produce any evidence for such claims.
Anyone who is antifa or just has firsthand knowledge about left dynamics knows it is patently absurd to assert that hundreds upon hundreds of ppl are #antifa because they were arrested at a #BLM protest. (TBC: Being pro BLM or being antifa are not shameful, unlike being a Nazi.)
There’s a widespread right-wing fiction that antifa is a massive nefarious cabal sowing chaos and running BLM. So these lousy, malicious “doxx” jobs reinforce their confirmation bias. It’s a circular argument created from disinfo: antifa is huge/BLM because all BLM = antifa.
As usual what the right accuses the left of, they are actually doing. While often the right & press say something like “antifa doxxes those they *believe* to be fascists” RCA actually supplies a very large amount of evidence to back such claims. We don’t publish hunches.
RCA has existed for 13 yrs & every person we have ever doxxed has proven ties to white supremacist &/or fascist organizing. Every fact can be independently confirmed. We actually don’t publish some info we have bc even something 99% confirmed doesn’t meet our high standards.
Our audience is the PDX community so we want to maintain a level of trust that we provide good quality info. The Far Right audience is Atomwaffen Division and similar. Not ppl especially known for impeccable ethics or judgment.
The difference in audience is important & something that the Far Right is well aware of. Nazis are in fact the actual worst. Despite the widespread efforts of the Republican Party & Far Right to push the “both sides” idea, it remains bullshit. Here’s some stats (CW murder):
Anti-fascists:
1993: John Bair, a SHARP, killed Eric Banks, a neo-Nazi.
Victims were known hate group members & motivation was self-defense.
Far Right:
1995-2020: 329 people murdered by the Far Right.
2015-2019: 64 killed in 34 attacks by white supremacists
Victims were children, pregnant women & others killed at religious & community spaces. Motivation was creating fascist terror.
It should be noted that these figures on the Far Right are likely underestimated e.g. the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, was Far Right yet his 58 victims are not included. Also several murders by Boogaloo Boys have happened after this study. theguardian.com/world/2020/jun…
Aside from these type of stats on violence, what you fight for matters. Antifa simply is not the same as Nazis because what Nazis want is to dehumanize, exploit, and exterminate the majority of ppl. We want to prevent that. Just as many other antifa have throughout history.
The motivation shapes the tactic. The Far Right doxx, just like Far Right violence, mostly targets vulnerable, normal ppl in order to spread fear. Whereas the antifa doxx targets fascist political actors w/ objectively horrible ideas & who are working to hurt a lot of ppl.
This legislation has the potential to be a major boon to fascist organizing by debilitating one of the most effective tools we have to expose and shame fascist organizers. Antifa doxxing uses social pressure and community accountability to modify racist/fascist behavior.
While fascists are looking for new places to live & new jobs, that is time & energy that they aren't spending on organizing Unite the Right recaps, attacks on PDX Pride, & similar dangerous activity. It provides a disincentive and material obstacle
Our doxx: a bunch of community members call a company to urge them to fire a white supremacist.
Right-wing doxx: an unhinged Nazi shows up at a Black mom’s house because she protested police brutality.
There are multiple ways these results & methods can be distinguished.
Anti free speech laws historically end up being used mainly against the left. As antifa we are using slingshots while the right has the mega-cannons of Fox, Breitbart, etc. The right has a lot more options & resources to get around such laws. And who enforces the law matters.
Law enforcement doesn’t prioritize prosecuting the Far Right. They have repeatedly indicated this in statement & deed, from the Feds to PPB. Legal consequences for the Far Right are mainly due to antifa, journalism, & the resulting public pressure on authorities to act.
The idea that we should retire & let the authorities handle the situation is naïve and unsupported by evidence e.g. Gov Brown increasing police power to deal with Proud Boys created a welcome wagon for the right and a brutal beatdown of the press and left.
Antifa generates intel, educates, and mobilizes the public to deal with the problem of fascism. By undercutting this public pressure mechanism, you end up with rogue and/or actively right-wing state bodies responsible for overseeing groups they admittedly view as comrades.
If the purpose of this law is to target the Far Right, it would make more sense to not simultaneously harm the main groups opposing them. It is easy enough to find things the right alone does. Dems legitimizing "both sides" by focusing on doxxing is unstrategic & unethical.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
) flew alt-right agitator & Proud Boys hate group affiliate Philip Anderson up for a hasty & incoherent "First Amendment rally" (also promoted by Audra Price twitter.com/search?q=from%…) in Vancouver, WA last weekend
Joey Gibson's tired tactic of platforming fascists & neo-Nazis who are organizing for (& carrying out) violence under a transparent shield of "free speech" whining has not evolved much since 2017.
The far-right misogynist featured in this video is Timothy Clayton Ryerson. He is licensed (# 536) as a Bail Bond Recovery Agent in Washington state.
You can send in a complaint about Ryerson to the email address found here: dol.wa.gov/business/bailb…
Yesterday Ryerson aka John Dee took credit (along with violent Patriot Prayer follower Chandler Pappas & others) for the theft of the "nightmare elk" from downtown PDX, boasting in far-right facebook groups controlled by Audra Price & Shelby Walman
Ryerson also attended the extremely violent fascist rally on 2020/08/22 in downtown PDX alongside neo-Nazis and fascists from the Proud Boys hate group.
For reasons which remain unclear, Tim required a change of pants partway through the event.
Fascist collaborator Audra Ann Price's (rosecityantifa.org/articles/s26/#…) weekly pro-cop flag wave has attracted a sizable & aggressive crowd of far-right agitators, many of them armed, who are currently harassing & threatening people in downtown PDX.
Large aggressive far-right crowd is traveling South on Third toward the Justice Center. Fascist collaborator Sorbeah Almosa is with them. rosecityantifa.org/articles/s26/#…
Violent far-right & fascist agitators currently threatening & harassing Portlanders at 2nd & Madison in downtown PDX.
Given some of the recent coverage treating anarchist, antifa, & black bloc as interchangeable terms, we would like to offer up a quick glossary explaining the distinctions between these things. (Hint: none of these are a cabal running BLM. That is a Trump/Far Right lie.)
Antifa: It has been widely circulated that antifa is simply an ideology. However there are 2 primary strains of antifa in the US rn: organized groups who do ongoing antifascist work, and individuals who identify loosely with the term & help out in an ad hoc manner.
In v short summary- the idea of a mass movement, large protest form of antifa in the US is rather recent and relates specifically the ascendency of Trump & the Alt Right that propelled him. This is when most Americans learned the term.
Throwback to that time in June f r e a k i n 2018 when we published the first of a series of articles--all chock full of concrete evidence--taking an in-depth look at the core components of the Proud Boys' white nationalist ideology.
Time for some quotes?
"McInnes has argued that the Proud Boys are the revitalization of an American tradition, a lineage that can be traced back to 19th century fraternal orders like…the violent anti-immigrant political party, the Know-Nothings."
"Another men’s club from the era of McInnes’ nostalgia, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, invented deliberately absurd ranks and titles (Grand Cyclops, Imperial Wizard), and rituals to both intimidate and entertain.”
1/5 The MAGA hoards are quick to point out POC membership in Far Right groups as if that is unassailable evidence that they are neither racist or fascist. We will briefly address this here.
2/5 This is not really different from right-wing women who advocate against feminism. They are providing a valuable service --plausible deniability-- so they receive a lot of personal reward within the movement they are in. Haley Adams started her activist career w/ "himtoo".
3/5 Having a lot of brown faces out front helps these groups tremendously. Tarrio and Gibson have profited personally from their involvement in the Far Right. It's basically a matter of placing self-interest over solidarity. thedailybeast.com/why-young-men-…