I’m including a picture this go round to illustrate how sometimes the passage of time will cloud our perception of reality. What you see in the picture is the largest antifa protest ever organized. This is the view of an American soldier who is about to land on the beach at Normandy, France on D-Day. This relates to me personally because my dad was on the battleship U.S.S. Texas that day providing artillery support for the invasion.
The D-Day Center relates that the “D-Day protest” included 156,115 U.S., British and Canadian troops, 6,939 ships and landing vessels, and 2,395 aircraft and 867 gliders. Of these brave men, 14,000 would die on the beach. This collection of patriots were in that location at that time to register as strong a protest as possible to the takeover of Europe by the Fascist regimes of Germany and Italy.
The White House archives reports that From D-day through August 21, the Allies landed more than two million men in northern France and suffered more than 226,386 casualties: 72,911 killed/missing and 153,475 wounded. Wikipedia states that between 70 to 85 million people died as a result of World War II. Think of it, 70 to 85 million died as a result of the world trying to oppose Fascism. Fast forward 80 years and we live in a world where the President of the United States wants to have an Anti-Fascist group categorized as a terrorist group. ????
In the South we have a saying, “you’re either fer me or agin me” The phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a little too deep for most of us. We have a tendency to just line people up one side or the other of the chalk line and proceed. How we got to the point of the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy is some seriously convoluted thinking. Everyone who loves democracy, freedom and liberty are opposed to Fascism. How can one be opposed to an anti-fascist group?
WiKipedia offers us a pretty good definition of Fascism, “Fascism is a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.” Hmmmm! So, if I was a person seeking absolute control, wanted to suppress criticism of me by the press, wanted all industry in the hands of my family or loyal supporters, wasn’t inhibited by any moral standards and was willing to stoop to using racism or xenophobia or bigotry to further my goals, I might be a Fascist. Hmmmm!
Occam’s razor works pretty well here. It makes perfect sense why an authoritarian President might want to label an anti-fascist group as a terrorist group. A terrorist group in the U.S. would be under the constant scrutiny of the FBI. Labeling Antifa as a terrorist group would make it simple for the FBI to persecute/prosecute them. I guess in the end it all boils down to the southern solution, “you’re either fer me or agin me”. If we’re picking up sides, put me in the anti-fascist camp.