The way the term terrorism is used so indiscriminately in the US and even more widely recently, is really worrying. I’ve heard Flock spokespersons casually refer to Antifa as terrorists. Like it’s a (largely) undisputed fact.
This also spills over into other countries that have long-standing agreements with the USA.
Despite most of them actually giving up on the term terrorism entirely.
Around the time a 14-year-old Arab kid brought a clock to class and was arrested as a suspected terrorist, I wrote about this. At the time muckrakers were being called FOIA terrorists for daring to engage in public oversight of the government. Things were already getting pretty fashy, just in time for Trump to take his escalator ride.
At the time I observed that terrorist had turned into a generic derisive, the way gay was used in the early aughts or communist during the McCarthy red scare… which Trump and the Republican party seem to be trying to resurrect.
So yeah, it really doesn’t surprise me that the State Department is defining Antifa as a terrorist group and an enemy of the state. In this context, Antifa and terrorist don’t actually relate to their original meanings, but serve as a catch all to lend legitimacy when the regime wants to persecute its political enemies.
Much the way that anyone who opposed McCarthy could be investigated and tried as a communist, anyone who opposes Trump or MAGA or ICE can be investigated and tried as Antifa.
Some of that nonsense should get halted at the courts – ICE and the DoJ have already lost the presumption of regularity – but we’ve seen already protestors get disproportionately long sentences for alleged and minor crimes based on alleged association to terror groups. And Trump is still getting awful people confirmed to federal benches.
The way the term terrorism is used so indiscriminately in the US and even more widely recently, is really worrying. I’ve heard Flock spokespersons casually refer to Antifa as terrorists. Like it’s a (largely) undisputed fact.
This also spills over into other countries that have long-standing agreements with the USA.
Despite most of them actually giving up on the term terrorism entirely.
Around the time a 14-year-old Arab kid brought a clock to class and was arrested as a suspected terrorist, I wrote about this. At the time muckrakers were being called FOIA terrorists for daring to engage in public oversight of the government. Things were already getting pretty fashy, just in time for Trump to take his escalator ride.
At the time I observed that terrorist had turned into a generic derisive, the way gay was used in the early aughts or communist during the McCarthy red scare… which Trump and the Republican party seem to be trying to resurrect.
So yeah, it really doesn’t surprise me that the State Department is defining Antifa as a terrorist group and an enemy of the state. In this context, Antifa and terrorist don’t actually relate to their original meanings, but serve as a catch all to lend legitimacy when the regime wants to persecute its political enemies.
Much the way that anyone who opposed McCarthy could be investigated and tried as a communist, anyone who opposes Trump or MAGA or ICE can be investigated and tried as Antifa.
Some of that nonsense should get halted at the courts – ICE and the DoJ have already lost the presumption of regularity – but we’ve seen already protestors get disproportionately long sentences for alleged and minor crimes based on alleged association to terror groups. And Trump is still getting awful people confirmed to federal benches.