Alright, it's been a month and I need to talk about some things from August 12.
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These actions were more similar to pre-a12 actions than not, the difference being a much larger community opposition turnout than before...
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and much more intense media scrutiny as well. In these actions, we see a pattern so familiar that I play-by-played it in advance for PDX.
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That pattern is this: a small group of alt-right instigators uses "free speech" as a shield to try to entrap the left into violence.
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They know they can even take the first swing because the media won't catch it. In Portland, Proud Boys even drive-by pepper sprayed.
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The alt-right shows up *to create violence*. Nothing prevented them from speech in PDX last weekend. Nothing. They didn't show.
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Instead they lured people onto streets to create more chaotic, violent scenarios. This is what happens when they number a couple dozen.
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In Charlottesville on August 12, they numbered several hundred. It was the largest nationalist gathering in decades. And someone died.
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In Charlottesville we knew it was more than community defense. We were trying to protect something much bigger. The risks scaled.
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What we faced: - The largest nationalist rally in decades - SIX different law enforcement agencies - The National Guard - Indep. Militias
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August 12 was at least an order of magnitude more complex than anything we've seen in decades. We talk about Skokie... this was bigger.
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The antifascists in PDX and Berkeley who deal with this more regularly know how dangerous just a couple dozen Nazis with 1 LE agency can be.
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What we saw on August 12 is what happens when that scales beyond a couple dozen. Imagine if it scaled more.
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When I said, "this is the end of America" that's what I was seeing. I was seeing what would happen if we couldn't contain the next step.
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Berkeley and PDX antifa keep their movements from scaling to what we saw in Cville. What they do saves lives.
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August 12 in Charlottesville was a natural extension of what that can be if it grows. They picked Charlottesville as a "soft target."
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Heather Heyer died because the alt-right specifically picked Cville as a good place to kill people.
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"Both sides are bad" isn't just dangerous rhetoric. It masks the issue of what happens if the alt-right scales.
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The actions in Portland, Berkeley, Seattle, etc. aren't about antifascists getting their rocks off punching Nazis.
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It's that these folks *know* what happens when 2 dozen Nazis becomes 600.
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Nothing stopped Joey Gibson from speaking at Waterfront in Portland on Sunday. He had a shitload of police protection. He didn't show.
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It's because the right wants violence. And if no one is there to counter them, and to stop the state from enabling that, it grows.
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Charlottesville showed the world what happens if we let it get that large. We can't let it get that large ever again. Done.
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End of conversation
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