Monday, 1 April 2019

Internal files reveal how US law enforcement classes anti-fascists as fascists, and actual fascists as "anti-anti-fascists"

The Property of the People transparency group (previously) has published another damning US intelligence file, this one a report circulated by the Regional Organized Crime Information Center (RICOC, a joint state/federal intelligence body), revealing how the US intelligence bodies advised local law enforcement after the Charlottesville white supremacist march.

RICOC appears to have taken Trump's "very good people on both sides" doctrine to heart, from the report's title ("Antifa/Anti-antifa: Violence in the Streets") and through its conclusions, which claims that white supremacists are animated by an opposition to antifa, ignoring the movement's actual genocidal ambition to use ethnic cleansing to establish a "white homeland."

The framing paints antifa as the antagonists, and the white supremacist terrorists -- one of whom committed a brutal murder that day -- as beset by the antifa activists. It quotes a newspaper editorial from that branded the antifa protesters as terrorists.

In the ROCIC report there is also no discussion of the specific groups actively organizing the Unite the Right rally not long after the report’s publication date. Neo-confederate groups such as the League of the South; neo-Nazi and Identitarian groups such as Vanguard America, the National Socialist Movement, the Rise Above Movement and Identity Evropa; and street-fighting groups such as the Fraternal Order of Alt Knights and the Proud Boys are not mentioned.

All of these groups were involved in the demonstration in Charlottesville, which culminated in the killing of Heather Heyer by James Alex Fields, who marched with Vanguard America.

The report also extensively sources information from conservative media and rightwing advocacy groups. It quotes a report from Glenn Beck’s the Blaze, which cites the Washington Times, and Laura Ingraham’s conservative lifestyle website LifeZette alongside more reputable sources, including the Guardian.

Intelligence report appeared to endorse view leftwing protesters were 'terrorists' [Jason Wilson/The Guardian]

ROCIC Special Research Report Antifa / Anti-Antifa Fighting in the Streets [egional Organized Crime Information Center/Property of the People]