one step to the left, another step to the left, and a third step to the left
Meet the anarchist Senate candidate…
a contradiction in terms?
I don’t believe him. I know of my anarchists, they don’t run for political office. That’s the job of those damned liberals, those damned reformists captive to the system, not seeking to overturn everything.
Know your Emma Goldman quote, damnedit — “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Carico, who is nonbinary and goes by Jae Em, wants to mainstream anarchism and push Democrats further left. White supremacists from David Duke to Tom Metzger have used political campaigns in this manner for decades, and now, according to the Anti-Defamation League, there are 10 far-right extremists running for national office, eight as Republicans. A couple have even won primaries. Self-identified members of Antifa have not yet copied this strategy — but Carico hopes to change that.
Cool, so far as it goes. But this means he’s running in the Democratic primary. Right?
No, actually he appears to be an independent. Everything about this article, and the couple wins by “Democratic Socialists” for House seats, can be tossed out the window now. Just as well. Damned Nader-ish spoiler! — Oh, wait. I’m stuck in Bourgeois politics think. (And, frankly, not very good bourgeois political analysis at that. A run for office gets some media attention, and is thus worthwhile activism I’d think– even if not the means to a revolution, and no one contemplating a vote for him is going to go for Bredesen.)
Brian Levin, Director at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, said that Antifa members don’t have the organizational skills to burrow into mainstream politics like far-right extremists.
Wait. You don’t say? Surely they have some problems in coalition building — what with viewing the “slightly progressive leftist”s as tools of bourgeois system tinkerers… deserving of a clubbing, evidentally.
A “slightly progressive leftist” by his telling, Welch is a registered Democrat in Oregon, voting records show. He cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election, he said.
The 38-year-old line cook is also no stranger to street protests in Portland. He said he attended the Women’s March held during the weekend of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
This summer, Welch, who works six days a week at a catering company, stopped by the Occupy ICE encampment on his days off to bring protesters water, toilet paper and sunblock, he said. […]
As he carried his flag, two people dressed in black and covering their faces approached Welch and demanded he turn it over to them, calling it “a fascist symbol,” he said.
Welch refused, and the counter-protesters ripped it out of his hands, he said.
Welch wouldn’t relinquish the flag.
Video captured by Mike Bivins, a freelance journalist, shows what happened next. […]
“My bones turned to Jell-O and I just went down,” said Welch, who believes he was struck with a metal object affixed to the end of the weapon.
The video shows a crowd of onlookers watching as Welch lay on the ground in a fetal position. Another counter-protester, holding a shield, appears to stand above the injured man and jabs him with a makeshift weapon.
I’m not entirely sure the thugs here make any distinction between the “Proud Boys” / “Patriot Prayer”ers and the Bernie Bro flag waver — again: just a bunch of bourgeois clods brainwahsed to saluting the “Amerikkka”…
… though, I suppose, to some in the “movement”, this may include this Tennessee Senate candidate now… fooling around with America’s crooked institutions.