Antifa

Saturday

Daniel McCarthy

The roots of riot

That LEGO set or Louis Vuitton bag you’ve always wanted can be yours free if you just wait for the next black suspect to die in police custody. That’s the lesson so far from the riots in Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta and elsewhere following the death of George Floyd. Arson and luxury looting are not the most obvious ways of fighting racism or police brutality, but at this point riots are a ritual. ‘Antifa’ means bourgeois bolshevism — college-educated mock revolutionaries performing to a predictable script. This is the most sterile rebellion any country has ever seen. Far from terrifying the establishment, it reflects exactly what is taught in schools and preached over the airwaves and in respectable op-eds.

riot

Friday

Amber Duke

Where is the law and order President?

Donald Trump announced on Twitter this morning that the National Guard is standing by in Minneapolis. The Guard is ready to be deployed to quell the riots stemming from righteous anger over the death of George Floyd. The only sensible question is: why has it taken so long? President Trump ought to be the tough but moral leader the city needs right now, but his initial response was just as spineless as the rest. When the protests first started, Trump was busy tweeting about Joe Scarborough’s dead intern. As the city burned, he whined about Twitter fact-checking him on voter fraud and had his administration quickly draft an executive order on social media.

law and order
riot porn
Freddy Gray

Twitter spreads riot porn — but censors a President vowing to restore law and order

If you have been following the Minneapolis riots on Twitter or Facebook, you may have come across an edgy new media channel called Unicorn Riot. The company is five years old and describes itself ‘viewer-supported’, ‘independent’ and ‘alternative’. In fact, it thrives by circulating images and videos of social unrest with indisputable glee — on riot porn, in other words. Unicorn Riot's Twitter channel has about 150,000 followers. The account specializes in fanning the flames of racial aggravation. It also helpfully informs viewers where the National Guard blockades are in case anyone might want to avoid or attack them.

Tuesday

Gavin McInnes

The mob and me: my life in the crosshairs

Millennial journo-geeks have declared cancel culture over. Tim Pool cites Ricky Gervais’s ability to host the Golden Globes despite a campaign to stop him and J.K. Rowling’s refusal to apologize for insisting there are only two genders. TIME magazine’s resident black Muslim Sarah Hagi also claims that cancel culture is a non-issue and tells us, ‘While some powerful men may not have the status they once did, they have hardly been canceled.’ She then goes on to cite Louis C.K.’s recent sold-out shows. She ignores the fact that his sexual transgressions cost him $35 million and forced him into hiding for half a decade. Well, as someone who has been canceled, I can tell you this culture is far from over.

gavin mcinnes

Friday

Andy Ngo

How I became an ‘extremist’ overnight

Ever since being beaten and robbed by Antifa in Portland in June, I have continued to receive threats of violence, which have prompted attention from police. But the scale of the abuse I received on Tuesday morning after waking up was unprecedented. The source of the rage? A Daily Beast hit piece headlined, 'Right-wing star Andy Ngo exits Quillette after damning video surfaces.' This was followed by another story in the Washington Examiner, shared in a tweet, which said I was out at Quillette 'after controversial video surfaces showing him doing nothing to stop or report violent attack.' This was followed by more hit pieces on VICE and Media Matters.

andy ngo extremist

Thursday

Cockburn

What’s ngext for Andy Ngo?

Andy Ngo has flown the Quillette nest. The Portland-based provocateur, famous for his hate crime-debunking Twitter threads, CCTV coverage of Antifa protests and narrative-driven writing on Islam, left his role as subeditor for the Australian Intellectual Dark Web magazine this week. The circumstances of his departure are unclear, but the timing is suspect: last Thursday a Portland Mercury reporter circulated a video that shows Ngo near to members of the far-right group Patriot Prayer immediately prior to a violent clash with Antifa. Ngo himself is yet to comment. https://twitter.com/alex_zee/status/1164406638519803905 Quillette editor Claire Lehmann said this was a coincidence.

andy ngo

Monday

James Adams

Will Hong Kong’s revolution come West?

A specter is haunting the world — the specter of a new kind of revolution. The Hong Kong protesters’ technology and tactics have baffled the Chinese authorities, leaving them apparently powerless to restore order, except by extreme and counter-productive violence. Hong Kong's revolutionary template will be adopted by all groups wishing to destabilize existing orders. The Hong Kong riots have unfolded despite the most intrusive surveillance state ever created. The Chinese government gathers information on every citizen, and is working to assign each a social credit score that will determine who may buy a house, get a promotion, or move to a different city.

hong kong

Monday

Jarvis Dupont

Conservative snowflake Andy Ngo can’t handle a peaceful beating

Right-wing possible Nazi collaborator (I have no real evidence of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was) Andy Ngo was ‘attacked’ at the Portland rally on Saturday. For those unaware, Andy Ngo is a so-called ‘journalist’ who is apparently well-known for aggravating situations by attending political events armed with his fascist GoPro camera and ‘reporting’ what happens. Now, if this isn’t an act of right-wing terrorism, I do not know what is. Mr Ngo supposedly sustained ‘injuries’ after a small group of around 25 or so noble Antifa comrades bravely surrounded him and peacefully protested by throwing objects at his head. The subsequent outcry from the alt-right has been depressingly predictable.

Sunday

Dominic Green

Did Andy Ngo get what he deserved?

When is it fine for an all-white gang to assault an Asian American in broad daylight? When he’s a conservative journalist. Where is it fine to do this? Portland, Ore. How do you do it? By all means necessary. The footage of Andy Ngo being ganged up on by black-clad, masked protesters in Portland shows the truth behind the cool slogans of radical chic. Ngo, a physically slight man, is punched in the face, has what appears to be a rock thrown at him when his back is turned, and is doused in milkshakes that, Portland police believe, contained cement mix, which can cause skin burns. It looks like a racist assault, but it’s alright, because they’re attacking a ‘fascist’. ‘Fuck you, Andy Ngo,’ one of his male assailants shouts.

andy ngo

Sunday

Roger Kimball

How the mob was made

I am a little surprised that the English essayist Walter Bagehot is not a more conspicuous part of our intellectual furniture. His was a gently disabused, quietly penetrating sensibility, at once sophisticated and manly. How much wisdom is packed into his warning that ‘History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it.’ Then there was his observation, drawn from the same basket of anthropological canniness, that ‘Civilised ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilised circumstances.

antifa washington mob