> Looting and Rioting are not the same as Protests despite the media conflating them.

Looting or rioting may be protests, depending on whether they're performed in protest or for some other purpose.

> Antifa equates capitalism to fascism as something that must be stopped, the governments and police of included. And that violent means are acceptable to those goals.

No, it doesn't. You will certainly find some folks who have the believes you're describing, but antifa does not inherently take any of those positions. It only takes the position of opposition to fascism. It leaves the definition of fascism ambiguous, and there are quite a wide range of definitions people use. Antifa takes no position on violence whatsoever.

> Who paid for the stacks of bricks conveniently placed throughout the protest areas?

In some cases, cops. In many other cases, the stories are completely made up.

> Who is ambusing and killing cops in various cities?

No clue.

> This behavior should not be encouraged or excused.

Not sure where you got the impression I was encouraging or excusing this or any behavior other than understanding that antifa is not an organization and its only criteria is opposition to fascism.

Then assume, when I speak to Antifa, I am referring to those who endorse violent action and seek to overthrow the government. Since I don't see a lot of people identifying as antifa that are expressing otherwise.

In my mind, the violent Antifa types, which are prominent, are very similar to Jihadist minded islamic extremists. And classifying them as a terrorist group is not much different than ISIS as a terrorist group.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, you are clearly outside of this movement with clearly stated biases that you use to determine membership in a group which you oppose but refuse to let define itself, and you are using that to justify violence against the group.

Heh... I was once very deep into Communist/Antifa culture... so don't assume.

Antifa considers capitalist governments as fascist. They consider fascism to be violent in and of itself and violent means to overthrow fascism is ergo justified. They consider any organization that serves to protect, serve or enforce a fascist government (police, fd, etc) as fascist and that they should also be violently opposed.

All I can conclude now is that your "very deep" experience didn't even involve reading the literature or understanding the arguments. Your description of "antifa" is not reflective of anything actual antifa people say about their own beliefs. There are certainly people who also are antifa who express beliefs like you're expressing, but it doesn't define antifa. The only thing that does is being anti-fascist.

It it possible that you found yourself attracted to a particularly violence-prone group then, fell out with that group, detached yourself from the underlying philosophy and attached yourself to another violence-prone ideology that just happens to target your former in-group for violence?