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Antifa Website Promotes Criminal Acts, Supported On Patreon

(Photo credit: ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Ian Miles Cheong Contributor
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A website called It’s Going Down, which calls itself a “platform for revolutionary anarchist, anti-fascist and autonomous anti-capitalist movements” showed up on our radar during the riot that shut down Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech at UC Berkeley in February this year.

As I previously detailed in a Heat Street report, the website features a variety of materials that promote violence against supporters of Donald Trump and capitalist society. New research on the website reveals that it has posted 19 pages (archive) about “sabotage,” which detail countless instances of acts of sabotage against law enforcement, corporate entities, and individuals opposed by leftist anarchists. The articles tacitly endorse these crimes that range from mild to extreme.

An article dated to April 20 details how anarchists “poured concrete on the train tracks that lead out of the Port of Olympia to block any trains from using the tracks” to stop fracking equipment from being transported.

In December 2016, anarchists sabotaged three different Canadian banks in a show of solidarity with the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, bragging that they “glued locks and ATM card slots at branches of Toronto Dominion and the Royal Bank of Canada.”

Militant vegans calling themselves the “Revenge of the Cows” destroyed a mobile slaughter unit in Portland with corrosive chemicals to “directly disrupt the operations of this company from carrying out the contract killing of cows and pigs.” The anarchists called the crime “the ultimate act of love.”

While most of their acts of criminality seem like little more than malicious pranks, some anarchists have resorted to terrorism. In Mexico City, Antifa took credit for detonating an explosive device at an Exxon Mobil facility this April against what they call a “complete criminal, murderous, genocidal, ecocidal state.”

In the Mexican city of Ecatepec de Morelos, terrorists destroyed police vehicles with explosive devices. A manifesto posted to It’s Going Down says that “violence can and should be demystified and made commonplace,” committed by the common man rather than the masked vigilante.

“We want revenge,” the manifesto continues. “We have no program or ideology, we just have our guts, our delusions, desires, whims, tantrums, etc.”

While not as violent as their Mexican counterparts, anarchists in the US attempting to intimidate police officers in Olympia, Washington declared war by sabotaging parking meters, spraypainting “kill cops” on homes, and performed other small acts of vandalism to “make [the middle class] feel a little less safe.”

“The cop shop also got a visit and a makeover, with some cracked windows and a new paint job,” bragged the Antifa writer. “We expect that some pigs will be demoralized tomorrow when they show up for work and see our hatred writ large across their walls.”

Beyond bragging about their criminal acts, the site also provides suggestions on how to derail police investigations into Antifa cells and individual Antifa-affiliated criminals by filing false reports. “Let’s make sure that any real messages from citizen-snitches get drowned out by a cacophony of white noise,” It’s Going Down suggests.

It’s Going Down receives some of its funding through Patreon, where it gets over $1k a month in support from over 120 patrons. One of the site’s employees, DevOps Engineer Aaron Ringgenberg, stepped up to say that he saw nothing wrong with the site.

“This looks like a great group with a good mission statement. I see no problem. We need active anti-fascist groups in the age of Trump,” he tweeted. Ringgenberg has since deleted the tweet, but not before it was archived.  

Without material support from platforms like Patreon, it’s doubtful that the Antifa movement, which has been designated as a domestic terrorist organization would be as prolific in spreading its violent ideology through websites like It’s Going Down.

Tags : antifa
Ian Miles Cheong