I don't watch TV, but I've never once seen a Jimmy Kimmel bit that was even a little bit funny. All the same, this alignment of corporate and government power to silence opposing view is wicked. He was himself a corporate mouthpiece, of course; it's not like he was a human being. Not when he was speaking on ABC, he wasn't, though I'm sure he is over coffee.
My very good friend Jim Hanson is happy about the designation -- provisional, but the paperwork will likely catch up given that the Secretaries of State and the Treasury seem to be on board with the President -- of Antifa as a 'terrorist organization.' It was the considered conclusion of his wife and his after a fairly thoughtful discussion. I respect their thoughtfulness. All the same, it's hard to say what the limiting principle might be that would guarantee the rights that is the only legitimate reason for any government to exist. Antifa is barely an organization at all. That lack of structure will open anyone who's been anywhere near one of the protests at which their ilk have been seen to Federal prosecution or worse.
What worse? We're killing people in the Caribbean now without due process, on the strength of the President's word that, you know, we were really sure they were hauling drugs.
Well, I've participated in killing a lot of people myself. In Iraq, we'd blow them apart if they were out at night near a road with a shovel in their hands even if they had no visible weapons. Probably planting IEDs, obviously; and anyway, why take a chance? In Afghanistan, it was worse still.
These demons you're haunted by, they turn you. It's not for no reason that I turned to philosophy after the war. Strong feelings about what's good and evil aren't going to help you. Such feelings give you pleasure and pain, and if you've learned anything from the recent study it should have been that you should push off pleasure and pain like the old men looking on Helen at the gates of Troy. Troy, whose failure to do that led to her being so leveled by the Greeks that her very location was lost for two thousand years. Homer carefully conveyed what their helmets looked like, but they were so comprehensively destroyed that for all that time nobody could even find their high and ancient walls. Even the Wise came to believe that they were no more than a myth.
Beware.
Antifa claims to be unorganized, but is this true? I've not seen an analysis of their funding, and a few things about their activities seem carefully coordinated.
ReplyDeleteI think they're unorganized in the sense that there is not an official organization that you can join or quit. They're clearly organized in the sense of being in communication with each other; but whether or nor you count as a 'member' is not defined. Your role is not defined, and you pick it every night depending on what you feel like doing.
ReplyDeleteWhat we call Antifa is also often made up of people who came together for other reasons. A good example is the recent revolution in Nepal, if you were watching it. It was 'organized' on Discord, but the Discord servers already existed for other purposes -- particularly playing video games together. Yet these pre-existing modes of connection and communication were readily adapted to the work of revolution, so much so that the police allowed the new government to be elected on Discord (a form of communication that I would imagine a clean majority of Nepalese may not even have heard of themselves).
So a lot of the groups that are currently resisting ICE in DC are, say, holdovers from women's groups that came together to protest Dobbs; or they're groups that got together to protest Chinese actions in Tibet; or whatever other purpose. Now they're loosely networking to track the movements of ICE in the city and try to warn immigrants in advance of raids. I didn't see any evidence of funding when I was up there, just people communicating on various pre-existing channels to try to get people together to do this one thing tonight.
Are they Antifa? I expect the Trump administration thinks that they are. But they don't seem to have any actual leadership or funding sources. They're ordinary people who don't agree with what's going on, and are using their rights to communicate, to gather, to be in public and observe, to film the police, and so forth. I didn't see any violence or even any contemplation of violence.
Yet, in Nepal, their analogs overthrew the government.
If there is 'no funding' source, how do they get all those neatly-printed signs and banners? The uniform-like clothing? And, of course, the bottles and bricks used for destruction?
DeleteThese are not rag-tag peeps suddenly activated by a specific injustice which is discernable as such by others. They manufacture an injustice and become active.
I think that's a different phenomenon, although it may sometimes provide a feeder for recruitment. Those come from three sources:
Delete1) Public sector unions, which have a budget for it.
2) Churches that are left-aligned, especially the Uni Methodists;
3) The NGO archipelago, some of which was funded as it turns out by USAID, some of which is funded by the Left-leaning groups like TIDES and so forth.
In my experience, what happens is that the NGOs also organize non-violent "direct action / Civil disobedience" groups that do things like get themselves arrested -- having pre-arranged with the police to make sure no one really does any time. It's got well-established police liaisons and the membership of the union or the church provides personnel.
To some degree Antifa mimic the structure because they've encountered it and learned from it, or even been part of it at one time. But the confrontational to violent direct action is not accepted by the actual organizations; it's too risky to them. They're hands-off of it as far as I can tell.
Another illuminating thing about the Nepal event is that the servers were used for many purposes during the action. There was a lot of arson during the revolution; the servers were also used to organize cleanup and repair efforts.
ReplyDeleteSo who is a 'member' of this 'terrorist organization'? Anyone on the server? Anyone who participated in revolutionary organizing on the server, even if it was directed at firefighting or cleanup? Only those who can be demonstrated to have contemplated violence, or those who maybe just endorsed violence by others? Does tacit endorsement count? Or maybe, only those who can be demonstrated to have engaged in violence?
The temptation will be to expand this grouping over time. Even if you choose one of the tighter groups, as the struggle goes on you'll tend to creep (or rush) outward to target additional people that you can identify. Eventually it's likely to capture everyone, even those who were never (say) on Discord but had demonstrable relationships with people who were.
Functionally, most government is no different than a crime cartel with better suits. The difference being a cartel will leave you alone, pretty much, if you pay the tax and don't complain.
ReplyDeleteThe government will regulate you to the point of paralysis given free rein.
Our county is considering a host of new regulations about agriculture and equestrian use. I suspect none of them have ever turned a shovel or brushed a horse.
Every citizen is a potential enemy of the government. They are the only enemy the gov truly fears, as all the rest are incidental. The citizen enemy is existential.
Yes, I agree with you about all of that, I think. The difference is that the government thinks it's doing it for your own good, so there's no end to their interference in your life. The mob just wants a vig.
DeleteWell, the cartels will leave you alone as long as they don't need you as slave labor to grow their weed, or for sex trafficking, or for some other way you can serve to make them money.
DeleteBy the way..........notice that we only have Trump's word that those boats were full of drugs and drug-runners? Consider the very real possibility that those were "show" sinkings. Trump is very smart about visual effects; his purpose here could have been to put the fear of God into certain people.
ReplyDeleteI do notice that we only have his word about what happened.
DeleteAnent the Antifa thing, see: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/09/18/president-trump-announces-intent-to-designate-antifa-as-a-major-terrorist-organization/#more-276162
ReplyDeleteThe danger with Trump is usually overreach. He was elected on overreach as a corrective, and I have at least moderate support for that. But counting some judicial victories as an endorsement of his overall methods, rather than permission for narrow actions worries me.
ReplyDeleteI was encouraged that the Guard left DC as planned. When it is about crime and temporary I can stomach it. But will there be city where the decision is made to say "we have to stay longer?"
I still approve of most of it. I have every recognition that a victory for the Democrats would have been more quiet changes via the overwhelmingly sympathetic civil servants covered for by media organisations that remain influential with half the electorate. But I am concerned. The libertarian part of the conservative movement needs to think carefully from here on out.
I thought Grim might be overdoing it on the Kimmel thing, but, no, this seems pretty bad.
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2025/09/18/media/heres-the-real-reason-abc-suspended-jimmy-kimmel-live/
If it were only him, I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.
DeleteYes and No, Thomas. FCC regs require that licensed entities tell the TRUTH about significant events--such as the assassination. Kimmel lied. Blatantly. That threatened the future success of the merger. It threatened the viability of ABC, too.
DeleteIt's a good point, although it seems like a power that could easily be abused, and I think was abused under past presidents.
DeleteThe actual language: "crime or catastrophe." 47 CFR @ 73.1217
ReplyDeleteThank you for the citation. They do have to prove that the harm was both substantial and actual under that statute; and that he knew it was false.
ReplyDeleteHe KNEW or should-have-known it was false. The perp and his affiliations and beliefs were all over the 'net, even in the MSM. Did he do actual and substantial harm? Actual, yes, as lies harm the liar and the addressed body. Substantial? Matter of opinion, but clearly, Disney/ABC thinks a case could be made.
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