On Wednesday night ANTIFA came to ASU. Gabriel Nadales, a former member of ANTIFA, brought the group to life in his presentation to ASU’s College Republicans United in the basement of a Tempe Campus building.
Nadales discussed his involvement with the group and how its members use violence to suppress free speech at all costs.
Nadales explained that he joined ANTIFA, and the Young Democratic Socialists of America as a teenager.
Nadales said he started doubting ANTIFA and Socialism when he developed the desire to earn better grades in his Economic class. To serve that purpose, Nadales said he did something none of his fellow other Socialists did; open and read the Economics textbook.
It was long before Nadales began to realize that the information about various economic systems was far different than what he and his fellow socialists understood. They were operating under and touting a very different set of “facts.”
After his firm understanding of economic systems was shattered, he looked deeper for the truth and was eventually “outed for being a doubter” and forced to turn in his “black mask.”
Over time, Nadales adopted more of a Libertarian philosophy and is now in post-graduate school on the East Coast and works for the Leadership Institute.
It was Nadales description of the methods and goals of ANTIFA, that brought the group to life. His explanation that the group’s members do not accept any form of compromise, that gave students a glimpse into the zealotry behind the movement and the narrow course it follows.
ANTIFA members seek to suppress any information that doesn’t support their goals using, and will go to any lengths to ensure dissent is squelched. Nadales recently learned this first-hand when he was physically attacked by an ANTIFA member at a recent event in California. Assault charges were filed against the radical and the case is ongoing.
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According to Nadales, it is likely that if you have faculty on campus that supports the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), you will have ANTIFA on campus, as they are closely related. ASU has both.
The faculty advisor for ASU’s Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) is Benjamin Fong. Fong is on the faculty of the Barrett Honors College.
ASU website bio:
Benjamin Y. Fong
Expertise: Philosophy, Religious Studies, Critical Social Theory, Psychoanalysis, Psychology
Benjamin Y. Fong came to Barrett from the University of Chicago, where he was a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows and a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Division. He studies ideology in the forms of religion, psychology, and drugs.
His first book, “Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism,” which seeks to strengthen the psychoanalytic dimension of first generation critical theory in the hopes of rejuvenating its conception of subjection in late capitalism, was released in 2016 by Columbia University Press. He is currently at work on two book-length projects: an academic monograph tentatively titled “The False Dialectic of Modernity,” which will examine the history of the interrelation of psychology and religion beginning in the west in the 18th century; and a trade publication titled “Drugs in the History of Capitalism.”
- “The Climate Crisis? It’s Capitalism, Stupid,” The New York Times, November 20, 2017.
- “Inventing the Weekend,” Jacobin, July 6, 2018.
- “Twin Peaks and late capitalism,” The Immanent Frame, November 1, 2017.
- “On Pleasure,” LARB’s Philosophical Salon, August 21, 2016.
Education
Ph.D. Religion, Columbia University
As ASU Professor Ben Fong wrote in the New York times last year, there’s no mystery why we’ve failed to solve the climate crisis—it’s capitalism, stupid.https://t.co/6JE4V2CCfw pic.twitter.com/5HujssbwOI
— DSA ? Tucson ? (@DSA_Tucson) September 6, 2018
Surprisingly, the meeting was free from protesters in black pajamas, but ANTIFA – in accordance with its policy to silence opposition and limit free speech – posted a message on Facebook asking all members to remove any flyers on campus in an effort to prevent Nadales from having an audience.