Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has started giving away an e-book claiming to expose antifa. Of course, there's melodramatic writing to promote it:
Statues of American heroes desecrated or ripped down nationwide. Supporters of the president of the United States attacked in the streets. Peaceful gatherings of conservatives targeted with bomb threats or even acid attacks.
“Antifa” has emerged as one of the most terrifying forces on the American left since the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Short for “anti-fascists,” these black-clad, masked and sometimes heavily armed activists more often resemble their supposed enemies as they attack peaceful protesters, police and even animals during the riots they have conducted all around the country.
Examples of violence perpetuated by antifa are continuous.
[...]
The spectacle of a Republican openly siding with far-left revolutionaries instead of President Trump shocked the conservative grassroots. But it wasn’t surprising, considering how little many Republicans know about what WND columnists Jason and David Benham have called the “paramilitary arm of the radical left.”
Now, a new WND Special Report, for the first time, reveals who antifa really is, what antifa activists want and what all Americans, especially conservatives, Christians and libertarians, desperately need to know. “Antifa: What Americans Need to Know about the Alt-Left,” a FREE download from WND, is an in-depth look at antifa.
Already the No. 1 new release in the category of “Communism & Socialism” at Amazon.com with blazing sales, it reveals antifa is less a singular organization than a “brand” that can be utilized by left-wing extremists to further their goals, much like the brand of ISIS.
First: we weren't aware that Confederate generals were "American heroes." Second: You can't claim something has "blazing sales" when it's being given away.
So we downloaded WND's little e-book like the masochists we are (in exchange for our email address, which WND already has, though this link may work as well without the transaction) and skimmed through the thing.
The book carries no byline or any other indication of authorship -- either the author didn't want his name associated with the work (despite a reference in the book to something "this writer" claimed to have observed) or WND wanted to play the game of being anonymous lest the author receive death threats. The only named credit is the book's designer.
Which is an odd decision, because the e-book is not your typical slapdash WND effort. The 88-page tome is pretty densely written, what with chapter subheads like "The Implications of Unlimited Egalitarianism" and "Fascism as a Response to Socialism in Theory." In fact, it may be too densely written for the typical WND reader.
The anonymous writer generally portrays all antifa activists as violent or violence-supporting,and insists that liberals who criticize antifa's violence are missing the point because "militant tactics have the effect of shifting the Overton Window by making less extreme protest tactics seem moderate."
Tha author also surprisingly deviates on a few other points -- conceding, for example, that the ugly events in Charlottesville were fueled in paret by "attention-seeking Alt-Right activists" and admitting that many of the counterprotesters there were peaceful. The author further declares that "the Alt-Left, if only because it has been branded by Donald Trump, now exists -- apparently forgetting that WND editor Joseph Farah is demanding credit for creating the term "alt-left."
It's not until the end of the book that the anonymous author finally gets back to some good ol' WND-style right-wing ranting:
Decent Americans should not be deceived. No matter how reasonable their rhetoric, apologetic their tone, or inoffensive their positions, Antifa will always consider them as enemies. No matter how furiously good Americans denounce fascism or parade nonwhite supporters for the cameras, they will still be called fascists and racists and homophobes. And the rights of freedom of speech, assembly and association will continue to fade away until real Americans, those who truly love their country, culture and Constitution, fight back.
WND puts bylines on much less thought-out and much more jingoistic stuff than this. Why doesn't it want people to know who put in the massive time and effort required to write this thing?
