Chapter Nine: LARPING With Antifa
By Alex Van Hamme
At the beginning of this book I mentioned some of the people protesting Jordan Peterson at his initial support rallies belonged to something called antifa. Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist” is a name for a loose political movement across Europe and North America comprising autonomous groups of individuals espousing far-left/progressive politics and claiming to oppose fascism. In reality, it's basically a bunch of brainwashed deadbeats looking for an excuse to engage in violent and thuggish behaviour, and weak and timid pseudo-intellectuals who will target anyone that is even slightly opposed to their radical left-wing ideology with anything from calls for physical assault to reputation destruction and doxxing. Many of them remain anonymous online and at public events, wear black clothes and masks, and they almost always operate in groups. The modern movement can technically be traced back to the time of the German National Socialist Movement but the modern incarnation as it is today didn’t reemerge in it’s present form in North America until around 2015, and they have a much bigger presence in the United States than in Canada, although they have a reputation for being even more violent in Europe.
(I took this out from the Toronto Public Library for a read. It's...interesting to see how Bray spins things.)
They are the bottom-rung of society, and unfortunately they represent all the ideas, stereotypes and clichés that corporate media and Hollywood have fed to them. They cite Herbert Marcuse’s essay “Repressive Tolerance” to justify violence against anyone they label “right wing” which in the real world boils down to anyone who doesn’t embrace their form of radical politics. The sad deep irony of these useful idiots is that they are the foot soldiers for the status quo, supporting all the things that big corporations now enthasticallly promote, including causes like Black Lives Matter, etc. To the deep frustration of people who actually comprehend them for what and who they are, they are given a free pass by the media most of the time because the causes and narratives they push are in total alignment with what the big corporations and government are pushing and their various agendas. For example, antifa are against free speech for "right wingers" and anything they deem as “hate speech” - especially anyone who criticizes progressive transgender ideology in any way. Because many of them are at the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder and have little to lose, as well as suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues, they are more willing to engage in violence and criminal activity than an average citizen if they feel confident they can get away with it. My observation, based on years of interaction, is that these people are looking for an outlet for violence because they are troubled people and this "antifa" pseudo-ideolgoy, encouraged by the media and corporations, provides them wit the self-justification to attack/lash-out at people.
It always annoyed me that they use the term “anti-fascist” specifically to refer to their own fringe political movement, but they do not feel solitary with World War 2 allied combat veterans. These men are not considered to be part of the “anti-fascist” tradition from their point of view, just more enforcers or white supremacy some how.
Because most of the people associated with antifa are damaged low-status people, there is a predictable overlapping correlation with sociopathy and narcissism. Antifa members have been known to sneak up on people and throw cups of urine in their face, as they did to Lauren Southern. They will dox anyone they can, especially if they think they can harm someone’s career or ability to earn a living. If they can, they will post the address and as much personal information about a person as they can publicly and encourage others to take violence against that person. They have no problem mobbing people in groups, and violently assaulting them. I know multiple people who been knocked unconscious by them at various rallies. One person I know was holding a sign that said “Communism sucks” at a Free Speech rally in Toronto and was struck in the head from behind with a 2x4 and knocked unconscious.
^ This image above shows an example of well known antifa member (and ex-con) Alex Hundert labeling me a nazi and calling for violence against me. I will elaborate more on this in the coming chapter on the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, but I reference it now as a typical example of how they targeted journalists willing to talk to people with non-progressive politics.
The irony of shutting down free speech in the name of a free and tolerant society is completely lost on antifa. I have never seen a member of antifa that looked physically fit or like they respected their own body. They represent the most radical form of leftism, and advocate violence for political change.
When it comes to the bases of their pseudo-philosophies and rationalizations for their violence, many of them claim to believe in a subset of anarchist thought known as Anarcho-Communism, which attempts to fuse elements of anarchism with communism. This school of thought was first formulated in the Italian section of the International Working Men’s Association, and then expanded as a theoretical school of thought with Peter Kropotkin and his most popular book, The Conquest of Bread. I'm not at all opposed to ideas that attempt to fuse socialism with non-hierarchical forms of authoritarianism, but this particular philosophy has a lot of things that it needs to update and take into account. I would also add, on this note, that I believe human beings are inherently socialistic by the very fact that we come from a tribal background and evovled to be social creatures. A great book I recommend on this subject is "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger.
While I view Marx as a rotten guy with an obviously streak of resentful nihilist running through him, I think Kropotkin’s heart was in the right place when we wrote The Conquest of Bread and I think some of his observations about cooperation in nature are astute, however unrealistic his ideas may be at this point in time. During the Spanish Civil war, the ideology (essentially) was put into practice in anarchist Catalonia, but ultimately ended in disaster.
I still believe in the basic concepts of liberalism (individual rights, civil liberties, relatively free enterprise) but I’m also aware of and can acknowledge many of the problems and drawbacks that can come with it, especially problems that come with democracy when it's given to a people who aren't ready for it.
I don’t think most antifa types actually understand anarchism as a political theory, but I’m certain they don’t understand fascism, the thing they define themselves against. From their point of view, Nazism, fascism, authoritarianism and tyrant are all the same word, literally synonyms. They are not able to distinguish between various fascist schools of thought, such as the Italian brand and German National Socialism, and they completely ignore any kind of political tyranny from the left. The fact that antifa go out and condemn fascism while simultaneously promoting communism, which has it’s own long history of genocide and oppression, reveals their deep cognitive biases and lack of self awareness.
Antifa represent pure authoritarianism, which is why I could never resonate with their views, at all. They project themselves as opposing "facsism" while simultaneously being the biggest supporters of authoritarianism. I view this as an intelligence litmus test that they are failing spectacularly.
Part of the reason for all of this confusion is that somewhere around the early 1980s left-wing academics began to define fascism as a right wing movement, rather than honestly acknowledge it for it is was - a left wing socialist movement. Modern leftists often claim that fascism can’t be leftist because it was a nationalist movement, but nationalism in itself isn’t right wing or left wing, so their entire premise is false. Nazism is a slang term for German National Socialism, which believed in collectivism and hierarchical central authority within a national framework. Communism and German Nationalism Socialism, aka Nazism, were both forms of authoritarian collectivism, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum as Classical Liberalism or Libertarianism, which places the value of the individual against society. So when antifa, in the name of an anarcho-communist ideology shut down a free speech rally held by classic liberals, it is the collectivists shutting down the individualists, which means they aren’t close to “fighting fascism”.
Although Antifa members generally focus on shutting down events and trying to “doxx” people on the right, I have always maintained a policy, as stated in a video on the FBM YouTube channel, against doxing. My intention with my journalism has never been to see it escalate or result in real world violence or get in the way of a person’s ability to earn a living.
Because antifa operate anonymously and use violence for political purposes, I believe they should be considered domestic terrorists. The definition of terrorist is: a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. This is literally what precisely and exactly what antifa members do. They wear black masks and go around and try to assault or harm anyone who they disagree with politically. I’ve personally witnessed a lot of this violence and I know many people who have been seriously hurt or injured by random group assaults by antifa. I have seen members of antifa hit a man in the head with a pipe, knocking him unconsciously, simply for holding up a sign at a rally at Nathan Phillips Square that said “Communism Sucks”. There have been multiple events I’ve gone to alone, such as the protest at the Toronto Public Library against Megan Murphy, that I had to leave because I was recognized by antifa and they would have assaulted me as a group if I’d stuck around to livestream. I wasn’t so much afraid of a physical altercation with them out of fear of injury but more because I was usually carrying around my camera equipment, which I could not afford to replace. The same was often true for my glasses. I was living paycheck to paycheck during this time and replacing any of those things would have set me back considerably.
In my personal observation, what antifa truly are a group of psychologically damaged people who are low-status members of society and are looking for a socially acceptable way to lash out violently at people to vent their existential resentment, while simultaneously looking to establish themselves within their own social hierarchy of fellow misfits. Intellectually and morally speaking, they are completely, absolutely, full of shit. Almost everything they accuse others of is a projection of themselves. For a group of people who claim to be against “hatred” they are literally the most hateful people I have ever encountered. It’s obvious that most of them are abuse victims, which is probably the cause of their sociopathy. Many of them have clarified for me on Twitter and other social media platforms many times bluntly that if we were at a rally, and I were to have a medical emergency suddenly like a seizure, they would enjoy standing by and watching me die. This has also been expressed to me directly by many social justice warriors on Twitter. Now, I may not like these types of people and I may strongly disagree with them about politics, but even at a political rally I would not wish physical harm to them. If anyone at a rally or event of any kind had a medical emergency of course I would try to get them help, because I am a healthy human being that experiences empathy. People involved with antifa generally do not, although this is not obvious to the common person on the street until they interact with them personally.
The spiritual nemesis of antifa became another group known as The Proud Boys, which were started as a drinking club by VICE media founder Gavin McGuiness. This group labeled itself "proud western chauvinists" as a reaction to antifa rhetoric and would often go to various rallies looking for a chance to be rowdy and maybe engage in some brawls, like soccer hooligans. Antifa targeted and declared this “far right extremists” for believing in Western values like free speech, even though they made it clear their core philosophy was based in “Classical Liberalism” which is largely based on the writings of John Stuart Mill, one of the prominent writers on individualism that led Kropotkin to declare himself an anarchist. They contrasted themselves with the alt-right, which was defined mainly by race, and labelled themselves "alt-light" saying they were focused on Classical Liberalism without any racial aspects. Over time, as violence between antifa and Proud Boys continued as rallies in the US and Canada, the media always demonized the Proud Boys and covered for antifa. Eventually the Proud Boys were labelled domestic terrorists in the US, but not antifa, which always seemed crazy to me. If the drunk hooligans in the Proud Boys were getting into trouble and assaulting people in brawls, they should be charged with the laws they broke, but they clearly weren't terrorists in my view. I interviewed a lot of the Toronto Proud Boys early on. Many of the early followers were just students, as time went on a lot of the students stopped associating and older guys and bitter guys looking to battle antifa became more prominent, but overall I don't think it's reasonable for any fair person to say they should have been considered "domestic terrorists".
Because antifa promote radical far-left and progressive values, and because the mainstream media in Canada has a strong left/progressive slant now, they haven’t received the scrutiny from the mainstream press that they should. During the initial Jordan Peterson controversy in 2016 prominent antifa members were connected to the Toronto students Union and other university papers in Toronto, which also choose not to reflect them accurately, in my opinion.
Likewise, antifa have typically (although not always) given mainstream media journalists a pass, probably understanding it’s best not to antagonize them so as to continue operating without bad press.
One exception to this that we caught on tape and can be viewed on YouTube is City News reporter Pam Seatle getting harassed by a crowd of antifa after covering a PEGIDA rally. In the footage you can see Pam telling the crowd that she’s trying to walk away, and they are following her. The crowd surrounds her and begin yelling “no platform for racists” as Pam desperately tries to reason with them. The idea that the mainstream media in any way support overt racism is nonsensical.
After the initial Jordan Peterson/Free Speech rally at U of T onwards, I had the experience of interacting with antifa many times at various events and rallies. During this time I captured a lot of the violence on video on posted it online, much of which occurred during Free Speech rallies at Nathan Phillips Square centered around issues like M-103.
Motion 103 (M-103) was an anti-Islamaphobia motion that called on the government of Canada to condemn Islamophobia in Canada and “all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination”. The motion passed by a vote of 201-91on March 23, 2017.
Iqua Khalid, the liberal MP who introduced the motion, admitted that the motion was designed before an actual definition of Islamophobia was determined. For this reason, M-103 became a serious issue for free speech activists. Many people saw it as a ploy to keep the public from being able to criticize any aspect of Islam, rather than simply preventing unwarranted hatred towards the religion. Given that whether or not Western values and Islamic values are truly fundamentally compatible is, and has been a matter of serious debate for a long time, the notion that criticizing Islam could become illegal greatly concerned those of us who deeply value freedom of speech and expression and other liberal values.
This anxiety was strengthened when news footage captured an interaction between Khalid and a group of reporters in the fall of 2017. Their brief conversation went as follows:
Reporter: “Do you think you could have allayed the conservatives concerns by putting a definition of Islamophobia between a couple of comments in the motion?
Iqra Khalid: “I’m really looking forward to the committee making that decision.”
Reporter: “But you haven’t answered my question…”
Iqra Khalid: I don’t think so, no. (Turns away from reporter) Any more questions?”
Other Reporters: “We want an answer to that.”
Iqra Khalid: “Ok, what was your question?”
Reporter: “So why couldn’t you put a definition of Islamophiobia between a couple of comments in the motion?”
Iqra Khalid: “No, it was a really collaborative effort amongst all Canadians and amongst all parliamentarians and I was not able to find a consensus. And like I said before, you know, a lot of grass roots organizations came forward”.
Because of the vagueness and nature of M-103, frequent protest rallies began being held at Toronto’s City Hall. Initially, various groups that attended the anti-M103 events included the Soldiers of Odin, The Jewish Defense League, university students in general, and the Proud Boys.
These rallies were always counter-protested by leftist groups including union members, antifa, communists, Black Lives Matter etc, and the majority of the time the leftist side would outnumber the Free Speech activists significantly. The actual point of the rally was almost always drowned out and became simply symbolic demonstrations of the two political paradigms competing within our society; cultural Marxism and Western culture. It was common for me to see signs with slogans such as “Muslim Lives Matter” and “Refugees Welcome! Fascists Not!”
Attending these rallies was always an opportunity to converse with culturally Marxist ideologues face to face. One of the most entertaining memories I have is attending an anti-Trump rally in early 2017 at Toronto City Hall (I don't know what the point of Canadians protesting an American president was). A crowd of progressive protestors were standing around in a group when suddenly a van pulled up on the street curb in from of them and around eight individuals hopped out with signs and a megaphone. The largest sign simple read “Make Canada Great Again!”. As soon as the protestors noticed the group pure chaos erupted. It honestly felt as if some of them were going to start foaming at the mouth. The guy with the megaphone started reading bible verses into the microphone and the protestors started screeching at him. A brawl began to break out and then suddenly police were everywhere. It was really fun to witness. As I witnessed the strangeness unfold I thought of the NOFX lyrics in my head “Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool, now angry mob mentality’s no longer the exception it’s the rule, and I’m starting to feel a lot like Charleton Heston, Stranded on a primate planet. Apes and Orangutans that ran it to the ground, with generals and the armies that obeyed them.”
To this day I don’t know if this group of guys was authentic or just purely trolling, but it was pretty funny and entertaining either way.
After the initial chaos died down, the hysterical crowd began marching from Nathan Philips Square to Trump Hotel on nearby Adelaide Street. The fact that Trump did not own that building, and that we were in Canada, was not relevant, as it was meant as a symbolic meeting point to express the group rage. I had bumped into several of my friends I’d recently made through SSFS. We followed the crowd and arrived at Trump Hotel, watching the crowds of people chant their various chants, including the very common “No Trump! No Hate! No Racist KKK!” Another common slogan was “Love Trump’s Hate!”.
In February of 2017 Students in Support of Free Speech and Generation Screwed held an event titled “The Action Forum 2017: Free Speech & Fiscal Responsibility”.” It featured Janice Fiamengo, Jordan Peterson and Ezra Lavent as speakers. I was very thankful they scheduled Peterson’s talk for early in the morning, as it was extremely unlikely Antifa would be awake at 9:30am and ready to protest. Peterson gave a talk and I found it interesting.
In between speakers I got up to use the washroom, and as I left the main auditorium headed down the hall, I was hit head on with a huge mob of student protestors and Antifa activists marching straight at me. A security guard quickly told me to shut the doors to the main auditorium behind me, trapping me in the hallway between the doors and the crowd, who were blocking the antifa members. The chanting mob of hysterical students had signs with slogans such as “fear makes the wolf grow strong”. Kaiser Ali was at the front of the crowd. Rebel Media personalities Faith Goldy and Lauren Southern were present in hallway behind where the mob had entered. My phone started receiving texts from the students trapped inside the auditorium. Ultimately the event was canceled, and security had to begin escorting everyone outside.
Eventually the crowd grew, security and police were called, and the event was ultimately ended prematurely. I found the ability of these obnoxious student protestors to shut down whatever event they wanted incredibly irritating.
Another event successfully shut down by antifa/far left protestors was a Free Speech comedy show that was supposed to take place at the Comedy Bar on August Saturday 26. The managers of the venue received threats about the show and eventually the venue was vandalized, including having the locks filled with gum.
Many people at the time believed it was Kevin Metcalf himself who ruined the locks at Comedy Bar, but it was never proven. I used to watch Metcalf harass a lot of people at free speech events, including women. He'd just stand directly beside them and hold his phone directly in their face and telling them there was nothing they could do about him filming them. I always thought he seemed like a pure scum bag. He's a video of him harassing people at a PPC event in Hamilton a few years later that saw him arrested.
After the event was cancelled, National Post Headline read “Toronto ‘Free Speech’ Comedy Show canceled amid backlash”. The organizer says the event was meant to poke fun at controversies around things like The Proud Boys.
^ This is the description of the event given by one of the organizers.
I have found that a lot of people who aren’t self-employed or working in the private sector don’t understand how bad the societal problem with antifa really is for some people, and therefore lack sympathy for the innocent people that antifa and far-left activist protestors negatively affect. That bothers me to this day.
In November 2021, the Kyle Rittenhouse case was reaching its verdict. From what I’d been able to observe through non-progressive media online, it seemed obvious that this was a clear-cut case of self-defense and that Kyle would be found innocent. The mainstream media had done everything they could to make Kyle look guilty of murder, and so therefore I was bracing for the chaos that would likely ensure when Kyle was found innocent. Here in Toronto, many small business owners were terrified. I remember seeing many shops along College Street literally putting boards up on their windows in anticipation of the chaos. One store I saw had a sign on the door claiming to be run by a single mother and begging for mercy.
This is because small business owners typically understand that although these activists project their anger as righteous indignation against a corrupt system, they don’t actually give a shit about the people they harm. Most of the small businesses that live in fear of them are owned by non-whites. I knew a black guy who was running a coffee shop downtown at this time and he lived in constant fear of activists smashing up his store. The worst he ended up dealing with was a brick through his window.
I had a close female friend who came here as a child refugee from El Salvador and was now running a small restaurant downtown. The anxiety over the potential riots, and seeing her neighbors boarding up their windows, drove her to drink a lot and suffer from anxiety constantly. I have a deep sympathy for all these people who strive to be independent, hardworking and self-employed, living in fear of thugs who feel entitled to act violently whenever the mainstream media feeds them a bullshit manipulative race-baiting content.
In conclusion, this is the point I'd like to make: from 2016-2020 I watched antifa act as goons for the status quo, constantly shutting down events that shouldn't have been shut down, and using violence and terrorism to silencce many people and create an environment of intimidation. While the Proud Boys were overall an obnoxious group of frat boy types, antifa was much, much worse, and should have been labeled a terrorist group years ago. I speak from much experience interacting with them, and studying their ideologies.
#antifa #antifascist #markBray #blacklivesmatter #kevinmetcalf