Anarchists on Reddit’s anarchism subreddit pleaded with Antifa Wednesday not to get into the habit of assaulting elderly disabled veterans, while protesting the rise of violent fascism.
A video posted to the anarchist subreddit Wednesday morning from April showing Antifa throwing water on a disabled vet has attracted internal criticism from the leftist community, with one user complaining about the act of petty violence and proclaiming, “We need to be able to confront the toxic elements in our own groups if we want to be able to confront the world’s scum.”
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“This is a serious problem,” Reddit user buttmunchnbutterflys wrote. “The macho posturing against regular and vulnerable folks is bad, and not just because it makes us look bad. It’s called being mean and a bully. I have only seen this kind of behaviour in videos, but everytime I do I don’t see any antifa even try to tell them to stop which is disheartening. We need to be able to confront the toxic elements in our own groups if we want to be able to confront the world’s scum.”
One California cop who spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation on background said purely from an analytical perspective there were at least two chargeable acts visible in the video, the first being theft and the second being battery.
Confronting the bullying of vulnerable individuals is a challenge because there’s a strong chance that anyone standing up to Antifa would run the risk of being labeled a secret fascist or agent provocateur.
“I’m afraid that if someone were to try and stop the jerk they may get mistaken for an undercover Fascist or agent provocateur, or perhaps the jerk has friends with him and with the mob mentality going on they might get beat up themselves,” said swoleprole, who originally posted the video.
Another poster named ProleLivesMatter with an affinity for “queer liberation” came out and acknowledged that “there is the hatred in the air among comrades in organizing left groups toward veterans. It’s important to educate people on the matter that vets are also victims of the system and potential comrades.”
ProleLivesMatter added in a separate post: “No matter what they said to antifa, you should not beat up somebody with a disability.”
That comment received numerous downvotes.
Others in the thread mocked the complaints about violence and surmised that the veteran in the wheelchair was likely “saying some really vile shit.”
The question of wanton and unprovoked violence from Antifa has broken into the mainstream, as recently radical left-wing protesters have assaulted journalists and also peaceful rally-goers in Berkeley. The violence was so unprovoked that Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin suggested Monday that Antifa should be classified as a gang.
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