An organization does have to have a clear set of shared plans, toward which it takes a program of coordinated action. That's what an organization is. It's about being organized. A bunch of random individuals who share some opinions, occasionally use similar tactics, may cooperate sporadically, and describe themselves using some term or gravitate toward certain symbols, is not an organization. And it's not clear that "antifa" even does most of those things.
Nor are a bunch of small groups a single "organization" if they don't have some kind of ongoing, systemematic structure for coordinating their actions.
I'm an atheist. That doesn't make atheism an organization.
I've remember news and reporting about neo-Nazis (adjective) but not a lot of "the Neo-Nazi international terrorist organization..." (singular noun).
Seems like an ideology, not an organization.
If you look at the Treasury wording here: "so-called antifascist groups (“Antifa”)" they do this weird thing where they refer to groups, plural, but give it a singular noun as if it's one big global thing.
And that seems very intentionally misleading compared to, say, "self-described Antifa groups" or such.
It all seems consistent with right-wing/American-evangelical victimization propaganda techniques going back to talk radio in the 80s.
Copy-pasting my comment to the other poster making the same point:
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
having a hierarchy like that would make the group easier to deal with. similar groups use cell structures or leaderless approaches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaderless_resistance
That always reminds me of a graffiti I saw once, which simply commanded "Anarchy!"... the irony of which got a bit lost on the artist I think...
That doesn't seem ironic at all. It would be ironic if "Anarchy!" had an HQ.
Where's ISIS headquarters? Where's the headquarters of drug gangs?
An organization doesn't have to be centralized, just like communists weren't. This is a lazy argument.
An organization does have to have a clear set of shared plans, toward which it takes a program of coordinated action. That's what an organization is. It's about being organized. A bunch of random individuals who share some opinions, occasionally use similar tactics, may cooperate sporadically, and describe themselves using some term or gravitate toward certain symbols, is not an organization. And it's not clear that "antifa" even does most of those things.
Nor are a bunch of small groups a single "organization" if they don't have some kind of ongoing, systemematic structure for coordinating their actions.
I'm an atheist. That doesn't make atheism an organization.
What do you think _soviet_ are
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)
A unit of organization that was quickly made obsolete and purely symbolic during the era of Stalinism
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The communists were very centralized. They held world governments. Even the American communists were centralized.
There was a national Communist Party as well as several Cominterns. Communists are pretty big on democratic centralism.
"Several cominterns" - each country had its communist party, meaning a certain level of decentralization.
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I've remember news and reporting about neo-Nazis (adjective) but not a lot of "the Neo-Nazi international terrorist organization..." (singular noun).
Seems like an ideology, not an organization.
If you look at the Treasury wording here: "so-called antifascist groups (“Antifa”)" they do this weird thing where they refer to groups, plural, but give it a singular noun as if it's one big global thing.
And that seems very intentionally misleading compared to, say, "self-described Antifa groups" or such.
It all seems consistent with right-wing/American-evangelical victimization propaganda techniques going back to talk radio in the 80s.
Copy-pasting my comment to the other poster making the same point:
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
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In America, probably the KKK? They do in fact have a leader and a second in command (not that I know or care who).
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
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