- Is there a clear, complete, objective account of what happened in Charlottesville? I can’t find one. I have read about “clashes” between protesters and “counter-protesters,” who we are told outnumbered the white nationalist group protesting the removal of General Lee’s statue by about 2-1. What does that mean? Was the white nationalist rally peaceful, regardless of the racist slogans they were hurling? Were the counter-protesters just shouting back, or more physical? I see references to the “fray.” What fray? The key word seems to be that the white nationalists “sparked’ violence by marching. Do we now say that the civil rights marchers in Selma sparked the violence, and not the counter-protest racists. or is the theory that which ever group has the less popular position “sparks” the violence?
My suspicions are that the vagueness of the news media reports is a deliberate effort by the news media to avoid assigning any responsibility to Antifa thugs for the escalation into violence.
- Obviously the automobile driven into the anti-white nationalist, counter protest crowd was a criminal act. Since this was done by the racists, it became the focus of all news reports, as if this was the only violence.
Was it? Somehow I doubt that.
- Again, a counter-protest group “incites violence” as much as a protest group. The reaction from the news media and the political pundits appears to ignore the basic fact that Americans have the right to demonstrate and express their support for repugnant ideas as well as ideas most of us approve of. This was settled (I thought) with National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977).
Apparently not.
- President Trump’s statement regarding the riot was this:
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time…We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”
The immediate reaction by the newsmedia was that the statement asserted a false equivalency. CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote,
“Both sides don’t scream racist and anti-Semitic things at people with whom they disagree. They don’t base a belief system on the superiority of one race over others. They don’t get into fistfights with people who don’t see things their way. They don’t create chaos and leave a trail of injured behind them. Arguing that “both sides do it” deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this “Unite the Right” rally. These people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of their warped belief system.”
Both sides do “do it,” however, and when “it” is violence and refusal to allow a group with opposing views make their statements, there is no high ground. The starting point from the left is “the white nationalists are wrong, so they don’t deserve the same rights we do.” Yes, they do, and among those rights is the opportunity to protest whatever they choose without being attacked. “These people are bigots.” So what? They have the right to express their views. “They are hate-filled.” And the counter-protesters were not “hate-filled”? Or was the President supposed to distinguish that as good hate?
- David Gergen on CNN was even worse. “[The President] made it very, very clear by equating the violence on both sides as being sort of equivalent to each other…,” Gergen said. “He’s made it very clear he’s going to defend to the extent that he feels he can- people who are radical extremists and I think that’s a terrible mistake on his part.”
Note what these words mean. Gergen says that the President should make it “clear” that violence against white nationalists is better violence than when white nationalists strike out at those trying to disrupt their protest. The duty of the President is to protect the Constitution, and the Constitution says that even radical extremists have civil rights. It also says the government shouldn’t restrict those rights, and the Supreme Court says this means the government shouldn’t officially chill one group of citizens’ freedom of protest and expression.
Does that mean a President shouldn’t say it’s all right for one group to express hate and use violence because the United States of America approves of its position, while a group with less favored views will be held to a different standard? Yes, it does. But this is exactly what President Trump is being criticized for not saying, by Gergen, Cillizza and others.
- Gergen’s interviewer, Ana Cabrera, began by describing the white nationalists as a hate group that “incites violence.” False. As a matter of law, a group does not incite violence by stating an unpopular position that makes others want to attack it.
This is the First Amendment cancelling trick used to censor conservative speakers on campuses: “You can’t speak because your awful ideas will make people hurt you.”
- Over on Fox News, former governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was right for a change, saying about Trump’s remarks,
“And so what is he supposed to say? Is he supposed to do what Barack Obama used to do and jump to conclusions and make a decision like he did in Ferguson, Missouri, which turned out to be totally untrue? The President has to be careful in taking steps. I thought what he condemned was what we all could immediately condemn and that was the violence, the car some coward in a car drove into innocent people to try and kill them. And he condemned that! What else is he supposed to do at that point?”
Huckabee is correct that Obama habitually jumped into local law enforcement matters and started declaring heroes and villains before the evidence was in. This is not the President’s role, and is in fact an abuse of power and position.
- In contrast to the President’s correct restraint, we have Virginia’s governor Terry McAuliffe, who used the power and influence of his office to declare that people holding views he does not approve of are not welcome in the Old Dominion. In the midst of some patriotic grandstanding, he said…
“You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you….There is no place for you here. There is no place for you in America.”
This is leftist fascism, by definition. Who is Terry McAuliffe, or Virginia, or anyone, to say who can or should have a “place” in the United States of America? How is this statement applied to white nationalists any different legally or ethically from applying it to Muslims, or lesbians, or abortion advocates, or Catholics, Jews or libertarians?
It isn’t. The entire point of the Bill of Rights is that the government does not get to tell us what to thing, what we can chant, what we can protest, and where we can live.
McAuliffe just proved Trump’s point.
Ethics Alarms 
Is there a clear, complete, objective account of what happened in Charlottesville? I can’t find one. It’s a bit early for that.
My suspicions are that the vagueness of the news media reports is a deliberate effort by the news media to avoid assigning any responsibility to Antifa thugs for the escalation into violence. Whoa! Vagueness is a by-product of breaking news. But you’re already assigning blame here to “Antifa thugs.” I’m not saying you’re wrong. You could be right. Still…
The reaction from the news media and the political pundits appears to ignore the basic fact that Americans have the right to demonstrate and express their support for repugnant ideas as well as ideas most of us approve of. This was settled (I thought) with National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). Agree.
I’ve expanded a comment I made earlier on one of your previous posts. Pay attention to the last graph. (Below was in response to this piece on Medium. https://medium.com/everyvote/the-violence-in-va-was-anti-american-and-100-trumpian-8fc9ca9e8801)
I was not at all offended or dismayed today by Trump’s comments on the events in Charlottesville. It takes two to tango… if the people against the alt-right had stayed quietly on the sidelines there likely would have been few if any disturbances. I speak from authority here. I attended a skinhead march and rally in Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the Klan. This was when I was a journalist in North Alabama in the 1970’s. The townspeople, who wanted nothing to do with the event, watched silently from the storefronts around the town square. No counter protests. No clashes. No violence.
To be clear, I abhor the rise of the alt-right. The antifa need to come up with a better plan than simply baiting alt-right members. Instead, they need to gather their forces in huge numbers and peacefully march and rally in every city and town across America. Then, if the alt-right physically attacks them during their lawful assembly, you’ve got a leg to stand while putting Trump on notice… either he denounces the alt-right for any ensuing violence or he issues a statement similar to the one issued Saturday.
Let me add one point I believe is very important… I grabbed this of a different Medium post this morning.
Trump loves to talk tough about everything from fellow Republicans to using nuclear weapons. Pay attention to the people he’s not willing to talk tough about.
That’s just a fake gotcha. His job is to protect the country. When someone is threatening the US or US allies, he has an obligation to talk tough. He shouldn’t shoot off his mouth about any protest, anywhere. When he does, he’s wrong. When he doesn’t, he’s right.
Disagree. I call it lying by omission. The Las Crucers School Board did it when they refused to inform students (during the summer/fall of the Snowden revelations) that the NSA was aware of their online presence (so I took it upon myself to inform studetns and for which action I was fired).
Omitting what?
Lying by omission, otherwise known as exclusionary detailing, is lying by either omitting certain facts…
You mean in Trump’s case? Lying by omission is refusing to acknowledge he enjoys vast support (until yesterday) from the alt-right. This is a provable fact and, because he has not stated such fact, he is lying by omission.
What are you advocating? That every leader has to issue a list of the worst groups that support him or her, like the long recitation of side-effects in a pharma commercial? Communists, anarchists, the economics and math challenged and idiots supported Bernie Sanders—he’s lying if he doesn’t say so? This was an old Gotcha by July of the 2016 election. I cannot imagine how you think any politician is responsible for who supports him. Pure guilt by association. A bogus issue.
Yes. That would be a good start and entirely consistent with your reasoning that normal liberals have to start denouncing other liberals that step over the line.
Perhaps not in every case, but, in Trump’s case, yes, because he is so morally bankrupt and so utterly inept that the public has the right to hear him declare, “These are my people. Deal with it!”
Ok, I get your point, Jack. Above is half sarcasm and the other half I dunno.
Bingo. Well and fairly said, fm.
“Instead, they need to gather their forces in huge numbers and peacefully march and rally in every city and town across America.”
A couple of things:
1. What do you consider to be huge numbers? 3 million people would be less than one percent of the population. Obviously, that wouldn’t be a huge number. 30 million, or ten percent? That’s a lot of people, but still only about twenty percent of the number who voted a year ago.
2. What would they be marching for, exactly?
1. Huge numbers, in order to make a lasting impression) might be comparable to the numbers of people who marched on Washington, D.C. led by Dr. King. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom
2. They’d be marching for much the same thing as Dr. Kings followers were marching for, peace, justice, and jobs
In reading a collection of Al Qaeda’s public statements, it’s occurred to me that what’s missing from the philosophy is a simple acknowledgement that one might be mistaken. Not the philosophy or its interpreters, but each particular individual has to be aware that his own senses, knowledge, and reasoning could be faulty, so that In most disputes one’s first action should be a shrug while saying “you could be right.” I’m not sure how to go about restoring that sense of humility to our culture.
Great observation.
“Obviously the automobile driven into the anti-white nationalist, counter protest crowd was a criminal act. Since this was done by the racists, it became the focus of all news reports, as if this was the only violence.
Was it? Somehow I doubt that.”
Nope, not even close. There were lots of smaller clashes and skirmishes between the protesters. However it WAS the only act that resulted in actual loss of life, not to mention it was by far the most impactful overall act in terms of hurting people.
Of course the media is going to focus on that, and rightfully so in my opinion (also most sensational = best ratings). Add in the recent similar attacks in Europe for extra juice on the story.
As far as protecting free speech here, authorities called this an unlawful assembly and I would agree. The free speech of the individuals is absolutely protected, but they do not necessarily have the right to assemble to disseminate that speech if it intentionally disturbs the peace. If this truly was about a Robert E Lee statue, absolutely, however it is clear that the true intention of the rally was to race bait and verbally attack/provoke. I concede the unlawfulness of the assembly could be argued, but that is a different issue (as authorities made that decision and it does fit into the letter of the law).
https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/9/1/18.2-406/
The law is not meeting its letter if it is unequally applied. The various groups in the white nationalist assembly told participants to fight back if attacked, but only that. “race bait and verbally attack/provoke” is still protected speech. The Women’s March on the mall was essentially about expressing hate for the President, and being provocative, aka “provoking.”
You’re making a hate speech argument, no? Hate speech is just ugly speech. If the protest was unlawful, so was the counter-protest.
If there were lots of clashes, then how is this headline not fake news: “Car plows into crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally in Virginia”?
There were two sides, but many groups. The crowd that got plowed into were peaceful.
As for why the reporting is fuzzy. Look.
I see rocks coming from both directions. So who started that clash Nazis or antifa? I know who you want it to be but I sure as hell can’t answer it.
But now look here on the car attack.
They’re not clashing with anyone.
You are right, and I did not assume otherwise. But the news media, and Trump’s gotcha critics, are using the crowd hit by the car as a stand-in for the whole antifa army. That’s misleading and deceitful reporting.
The headline is an accurate summation of the event. A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally. The clashes have also been reported, they were being reported all morning yesterday.
Side note. I’ve been searching for videos on twitter and youtube, ones that weren’t shown on CNN or MSNBC but I don’t use facebook so can’t view there. Is there anyone who can tell me if this shows what it claims to show?
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154900026806527&id=723021526
The videos show a crowd of white nationalist protestors with tiki torches marching onto the Lawn at UVA. Judging by the chants it seems at first like the crowd of counter-protestors is larger and louder, but eventually the tiki torch men are able to shout “white lives matter” with about as much volume. The first video shows a brief, minor scuffle, and it’s unclear who did what, but one of the tiki torchers is telling people to step back immediately afterward. The second video ends during a scuffle that appears to have started with a tiki torchers reaching out to grab something held by a counter-protestor, but it’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening. For what it’s worth.
One of the tiki torchers does yell “Your time is up!” at some point also.
PS you didn’t call me an idiot. Have you not yet had your coffee?
Now, you know I don’t really think you are an idiot. You’re far too clever to be an idiot.
I can fill in if you like.
I think I love you now.
Moderation queue.
Jack,
I agree 100% that the counter-protest was unlawful. However, it should have never happened and could have been prevented if the initial protest was dispersed in the “rout” stage.
I would feel very strongly about the counter-protest being worse had the initial protest been limited to Saturday as originally stated. The addition of the torch-bearing, ugly speech spouting group on Friday night set the stage for a near guarantee of violence on Saturday. I would argue that a group of white men carrying torches and saying “Jew will not replace us,” while surrounding counter-protestors falls under intimidation or threatening behavior and would not be protected speech.
In Brandenburg v Ohio, free speech was ruled to apply unless it is intended, and likely to produce, imminent lawless action. Does this not meet that standard? I am asking honestly. And as soon as things escalated to violence on Friday night, isn’t that the end of protected speech/assembly?
I am no scholar nor expert, so hoping to gain understanding as I often do in these parts.
They were also chanting blood and soil.
Two crowds espousing America hating philosophies antithetical to our core principles who’ve been ratcheting up the rhetoric and posture for the better part of a year now finally hurt each other?
Gosh. Horrible.
And people are acting as though that wasn’t going to be the ultimate outcome of these white douches and
proto-fascistI mean ‘antifa’ douches?Idiots.
It’s like watching the eastern front in WW2…
For Charlottesville citizens it more like living on the Eastern Front. Not quite as detatched as watching.
Two crowds espousing America hating philosophies antithetical to our core principles who’ve been ratcheting up the rhetoric and posture for the better part of a year now finally hurt each other?
This is a very weird way to describe a Nazi murdering a woman.
It’s really not. You’re observant enough to know the rhetoric that has been flying since the campaigns and the election, your own hyper-ventilations regarding the election bear witness the emotional extremes people have been whipped up to. The ‘antifa’ crowd and the ‘alt-right’ crowd are by products of this derangement. Both sides have been ratcheting up the vitriol and rhetoric that can ONLY lead to one direction
I don’t know, your comment seems to imply you don’t think so, that this is a one sided affair. Maybe because a large amount of what ‘antifa’ says you possibly have an affinity to is why you don’t see this, I don’t know.
Either way, my comment is thoroughly logical. The kind of hate being spewed by extremists like ‘antifa’ and ‘alt-right’ only goes one place.
Violence.
Tex: Two crowds espousing America hating philosophies antithetical to our core principles who’ve been ratcheting up the rhetoric and posture for the better part of a year now finally hurt each other?
Chris: This is a very weird way to describe a Nazi murdering a woman.
_____________________
I probably will not write too much here on this go-round, fear you not! I see this Blog as embodying more or less what Tex has described as its core value, what it desires, how it interprets America, what it wants and hopes for. And I respect this. I personally think America is inevitably headed to further crises and that the country will (eventually) be reorganized. Thus I am of no use here. I have no ill-will to anyone.
But I do want to say that when he (Tex) writes ‘antithetical to our core values’ he is pretty obviously making a statement that goes against the ‘core values’ that were defined by the men who started the country. When he speaks of ‘core values’ he is speaking of values that were forged later. Essentially, or perhaps most notably, after the WW2. And it was at that time that numerous people noted that the country was beginning down a path of radical transformation into some new(er) entity.
I cannot say that my research has been completely thorough but it has been fairly extensive. There were many people, many voices, that expressed ‘American values’ at that time who were deeply critical of the direction that was begun at that time, and which came about through an alliance between governmental agency, intelligence agencies, domestic and international industry, the military in the background, and media, Hollywood and ‘Tin Pan Alley’ (I guess no one uses that reference any more but it means the music and the lyrical industry). There were socialist radicals operating at that time, and certainly in the 20s and 30s, who engineered or contributed to the engineering of the ‘American present’, and this is why the critics of today speak of radical Marxism and ‘cultural Marxism’.
So, what I mean to say is that many of the people who are drawn to an Alternative Right-wing are sincerely attempting to define an America that makes sense to them. Through unlikely channels I have been in touch with an older man from S Carolina who has opened up to me about his view of things and what he is trying to do (email). He defines himself in patriotic terms and his cultural link, maybe his ‘spiritual’ link, is to T Jefferson although perhaps more to Calhoun because he more Southerner. I know that this man, and many like him, are not haters of other men. Hate is not what motivates them. But love of their own, yes. Love of what they understand themselves to be. They resist, obviously, the later ‘American values’ that you say is original to America. That’s the stuff of ‘the American civil religion’ and it is deeply tied-up with overt propaganda narratives and the Postwar. This is the stuff that came out of that War. And out of that war came ‘social engineering’ as a serious policy option.
You say that the lefty-progressive radicals are ‘antithetical’ in their values to the American values you define. I think you need to look more closely at that value-set as a later creation. I don’t think you would do that though. It would bend your way of seeing too far. It would make it unsustainable. The radicalism of the Progressive sorts has very much a home within late-developing America. The civil war and after wards. Is that not so?
I have said this many times, I repeat it again: whether you like it or not, whether it makes sense to you or not, the country is in the beginning stages of an acute identity crisis that will not be solved by Horkheimer’s or Fromm’s psychologics. The later-psychologics and the constant reference to anything similar to the original America as being ‘Nazi-like’ smacks of ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ and this radical, and distorted, way of seeing things, and its way of engineering the ‘ethical personality’. Like it or not there is a rising current in people — yes in the demographic that identifies as ‘white American’ — that is desirous to get out from under these oppressive narratives (I am sick of the word ‘narrative but have not other to replace it).
But *you*, what do you want? You want exactly what we now have: the multiracial culture, the multi-cultural culture with all its strange ideological foundation in American civil religion and economics, and you want that to be part of the reigning ethic which is to you ‘proper Americanism’. Put some see this as the Americanopolis and they don’t wish to participate. So, to all appearances, they desire another America. And that is the part that you don’t seem to be able to understand. Actually you will not to understand.
To be accurate Chris is the clearest representative of the ‘America’ that expresses this later shift in the definition of ‘America’. I do not say this with disrespect, honestly. His America is just what we now have, absent of any meaningful religiousness that is not American civil religiousness, in a LGBTXYZ republic of open perversion (but he does not define it like this nor does ‘perversion’ exist as a concept except if you deviate from his defined hyper-liberalism), that will end up as a giant blending project of all the races and sorts into one New American Man. Really. Not kidding. It is a truly bizarre construct when you think it through. If you really take it down to its elements that is what it desires, what it proposes. I cannot relate to it, that is for sure. And we are not few.
I cannot see any way around them — Antifa et cetera in cooperation with the reigning government, economic, intelligence and military powers — as setting up the conditions whereby this New American Right is crushed. This will become a necessary social engineering project. You-all must surely recognize that, right? This is just what the US gov has done in so many different countries: got together to decide how to socially engineer that given country into some desired and benign direction.
That is really what *you* are or what you have become. I do not say this with rancor. I say it because it is true.
PS:
I have been called a ‘Nazi’ so many times and it is such a frequent terms that I have decided to more seriously investigate just what these real Nazis were actually about. It has been super-interesting and rewarding. Do you see how this works? When you define someone so unfairly, so ruthlessly, to be your enemy and the enemy not only of man but of God and the Good, you push them into that role. You give them no other choice. They either cave in to your assault on their integrity, or they plan ways to get even with you or defeat YOU.
What I find — and many of us find this I should say — is that the ‘Nazi’ you hate is a propaganda narrative created by British and American war departments. But many of the programs of the National Socialists were people’s programs. It has led me to a significant unraveling of so much that I had been taught and simply accepted. (I know that this can make sense to neither of you but I mention it because it is true).
So Nazis got bad PR? You have been unfairly villified?
Actually, yes, Nazis are my enemy. You have freedom of speech – a good thing so we know who you are, and a better thing because few movements are 100% evil, if they were they wouldn’t be as popular. It’s a matter of principle too. Those who fight monsters must beware they too don’t become monsters thereby. Remove freedom of speech,and that’s a Nazi victory.
Freedom of speech you have, freedom of action, freedom to practice your beliefs – no. That you do not have. Kill people and you will be neutralized. Don’t kill, and you’re free to sieg heil and horst wessel leid till your voices grows hoarse.
I doubt you’ve ever even battered anyone, let alone murdered them. That’s to your credit, a mark of civilization, not cowardice, no matter what your philosophy says it is.
In effectively opposing an enemy and neutralising threats, hatred just gets in the way of effectiveness. Best to understand them first. Converse with them. Exchange ideas. The danger is of course that they may persuade you that you’re wrong – but truly committed idealogues have no need to fear that, they know what they know, and mere facts will never persuade them. Those who are not idealogues should welcome correction, and embrace that danger.
“Don’t kill, and you’re free to sieg heil and horst wessel leid till your voices grows hoarse.”
And if you organise Winterhilfe as well in a way that doesn’t involve theft, murder, graft and corruption, I’ll even join you in that. What it purported to be was a good thing. The practice, not so much.
Does Alizia remind you of anyone?
That film is a product of people we would now call Social Justice Warriors.
Anti fascism was the Political Correctness of the time. Within a few years though, anti fascism was all but illegal, seen as a Commie plot. The SJWs who had instigated this and other such works of leftist propaganda were investigated by Senator McCarthy, and the House UnAmerican Activities Commission.
Made by the War Department in 1943, and re released in 1947, it was deliberately designed by leftists to make the case for desegregation of the armed forces, as well as being antifa as we’d say how.
Now.. the new rightist Political Correctness is “Making America Great Again” and “Heil Trump – white lives matter – build that wall”. And purging the military of undesirable minorities.
History may not repeat, but it sure rhymes. “America First”.
As for who Alizia reminds me of – I prefer to engage with ideas not personalities, so would prefer not to comment.
Thanks for posting the film. I think many will be watching it in common by weeks.
I saw Valkygrrl’s post-war propaganda film sometime back and found it instructive. This one also:
This is virtually libelous, as is fattymoon’s comment. Trump has never made a single statement that could be fairly called white supremacy. This is the failed smear from those who equate wanting to enforce immigration laws with racism. When I ask people who make this despicable claim—which it is—to back it up, they mutter, “Well, he said Obama wasn’t born here.”
Ugh. An unjust attack on a single figure does not indicate hostility to every member of that individual’s group. That’s all you got? Yup. That’s all.
That Trump’s election “emboldened” white nationalists isn’t an idictment of Trump. FDR “emboldened” communists. Obama “emboldened” black racists. Hillary “emboldened” male-hating and demonizing uber-feminists. You know who emboldened white nationalists most of all? The Left’s full embrace of tribal politics and divisiveness. Trump has never endorsed the white nationalists, but Obama, Hillary, Bernie and the Democratic party explicitly endorsed BLM, an anti-white, anti-police, racist organization.
What did they expect?
What comment are you referring to, Jack? Whatever it is, you’re saying that “…Trump has never made a single statement that could be fairly called white supremacy.” You’re correct. But, in Googling around, I found enough evidence that he does support white supremacy to make my stomach turn over.
Members of the self-declared “alt-right” have exulted over the Nov. 8 results with public cries of “Hail Trump!” and reprises of the Nazi salute. The Ku Klux Klan plans to mark Trump’s victory with a parade next month in North Carolina. Civil rights advocates have recoiled, citing an uptick in harassment and incidents of hate crimes affecting African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Muslims, Latinos, gays, lesbians and other minority groups since the vote. http://fortune.com/2016/11/26/trump-white-supremacist-support/
The president-elect has drawn repeated criticism for being slow to offer his condemnation of white supremacists. His strongest denunciation of the movement has not come voluntarily, only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets of racist social media posts during his campaign.
Further, Trump has named Stephen Bannon, the conservative media provocateur who shaped the final months of Trump’s campaign, as a White House chief strategist who will work steps from the Oval Office. Bannon’s appointment has become as a flashpoint for both sides.
Trump’s detractors and his “alt-right” supporters broadly agree on one thing: It may not even matter what Trump himself believes, or how he defines his own ideology, because his campaign rhetoric has emboldened the white identity politics that will help define his administration. http://fortune.com/2016/11/26/trump-white-supremacist-support/
Trump Selects a White Nationalist Leader as a Delegate in California On Monday evening, California’s secretary of state published a list of delegates chosen by the Trump campaign for the upcoming Republican presidential primary in the state. Trump’s slate includes William Johnson, one of the country’s most prominent white nationalists. [Update: Responding to this story late Tuesday, the Trump campaign blamed Johnson’s selection on a “database error,” and Johnson told Mother Jones he would resign. Here are documents showing the Trump campaign’s personal correspondence with Johnson yesterday.]
“Why we voted for Donald Trump”: David Duke explains the white supremacist Charlottesville protests David Duke, the former KKK grand wizard, is unambiguous about what Saturday’s alt-right and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, means to him: It’s the fulfillment of President Donald Trump’s vision for America.
“We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said from the rally, calling it a “turning point.” “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.” https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138358/charlottesville-protests-david-duke-kkk
I don’t know any of the ins and outs of libel, but I know a fucking white supremacist when I see him. And, I think I can recognize a sympathizer from his writings.
Happy now? You pissed me off.
Your response, pissed of or not, is weak and lame. You still did not provide a single example of a Trump statement in support of white supremacy—which was, you know, what I challenged you or anyone to produce. All you have is guilt by association–like, say, Obama and his leftist terrorists pals, like Bill Ayers, and his racist minister. Not evidence. And no enough to win a libel suit, if the President wasn’t a public figure.
First you said this… “Trump has never made a single statement that could be fairly called white supremacy.”
And now you say this… “You still did not provide a single example of a Trump statement in support of white supremacy…”
The above statements are, to a degree, dissimilar. My examples (above) provide more than enough proof that Trump is a sympathizer.
And please stop bringing up crooked Obama and his cronies. At the very least they didn’t turn the country into a battleground.
Seriously, Jack. You doth protest too much.
“Trump has never made a single statement that could be fairly called white supremacy.”
And now you say this… “You still did not provide a single example of a Trump statement in support of white supremacy…”
What, now we’re into Clintonism?
Obama indeed turned the country into a battle ground with specific racially divisive actions and policies. Trump has not.
I am protesting as much as I have to to protect democracy and the constitution from self-righteous hypocrites, anarchist fantasists and totalitarian thugs.
More of Jack’s fake news from the despised Washington Post, a newspaper also despised by Mr. President.
Why Trump had to be badgered to condemn neo-Nazis https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/08/14/trump-cannot-reject-those-who-worship-him/?utm_term=.406fdd997547
The following are excerpts.
After two days, blistering criticism from his own party and tougher anti-white-nationalist statements from the company that makes Tiki torches and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Trump dragged himself to the podium for a statement that specifically condemned white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other racists. He had to begin with some self-congratulations on the economy — because his accomplishments are what he really cares about. He told the country, “To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered.” He finally spit it out by calling racism “evil” and condemning the “KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups.”
He read from a teleprompter. Speaking from his heart would have been impossible, given his obvious lack of passion and willful blindness over the past couple of days. He did not mention the “alt-right,” nor did he announce he is firing Stephen K. Bannon, who once bragged he gave the alt-right a platform at Breitbart. He did not announce any specific policy measures. He did not apologize for his moral obtuseness. This was the weakest statement he could have gotten away with, 48 hours too late. Why did it have to come to this?
The white nationalists in Charlottesville did not hide their intentions. They were there to revel in the Trump presidency, which explicitly told them it was time to “take their country back.” Former KKK grand wizard David Duke left no confusion as to his followers’ admiration for the president:
“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
His invocation of the president’s name and campaign rhetoric makes the president’s equivocation all the more appalling — and revealing. Whereas any normal president or politician would renounce support from neo-Nazis and white nationalists, Trump — until forced to do so — would not criticize them, let alone refuse to accept their support. (Contrast that to 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole’s remarks at his convention: “The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents — The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. But if there’s anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.”)
As did Kamala Harris.
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.politics.guns/rkOPVZdFTEM/GPb5UtdHBwAJ
“Local law enforcement must be able to use their discretion to determine
who can carry a concealed weapon,” said Kamala Harris, who was then the
California Attorney General.
I have always wondered how #BlackLivesMatter would view this. After all,
according to their narrative, cops are just Klansmen with badges who
habitually gun down unarmed black men. How could we trust such people with
discretion to determine who may carry a concealed weapon.
And yet, just yesterday, she tweeted this:
Today, we remember #MikeBrown and recommit to ensuring truth,
transparency, and trust in our criminal justice system. #BlackLivesMatter
So I wonder if any reporter from the network broadcast and print media would
ask her any of the following questions:
– If the reason that “[l]ocal law enforcement must be able to use their
discretion to determine who can carry a concealed weapon” is because they
are just Klansmen with badges, why shouldn’t the Stormfront White
Nationalist Community also get to decide who can carry a concealed weapon?
– If the reason that “[l]ocal law enforcement must be able to use their
discretion to determine who can carry a concealed weapon” is because they
habitually gun down unarmed black men, why shouldn’t the Crips also get to
decide who can carry a concealed weapon?
– Is more black men dead or in prison a worthy price to pay to make lawful
gun ownership more difficult?
– Is making lawful gun ownership more difficult a worthy price to pay to put
more black men in prison?
– Does some magical guardian fairy turn these Klansmen with badges into
freedom riders whenever they exercise their “discretion to determine who can
carry a concealed weapon”?
Just finished watching that video. I reposted it on Twitter as A Nation of Suckers – Trump needs these people cause it sure seems to fit… like a glove.
This is Twilight Zone territory… “Obama indeed turned the country into a battle ground with specific racially divisive actions and policies. Trump has not.”
Seriously, Jack, you’re comparing the state of the nation under Obama with the current state of the nation under Trump?
Charles! Chris! Anyone!
I’d love to help, but I have no idea what that statement by Jack could even mean. We’re not as divided under Trump? We are, but it isn’t Trump’s fault, it’s the fault of the Resistance, because the buck stops at Democratic presidents but never Republican presidents?
Some clarification would be helpful.
The state of the nation after 8 years of Obama is why you HAVE Trump. Obviously.
You think Trump did all this in six months? We had 8 years of a leader who intentionally, with his party, turned men against women, religious against non-religious, blacks against whites, straights against gays, rich against poor, urban against rural,and more, and you are seriously blaming this divided culture—which this blog warned against long before Trump—on Trump? Incredible.
Obviously not obviously. Not at all obviously. Obviously. Let’s look at some numbers… The America Donald Trump Is Inheriting, By The Numbers http://www.npr.org/2017/01/19/510491692/the-america-donald-trump-is-inheriting-by-the-numbers
What does this have to do with attitudes, and why would I regard NPR as an objective source anyway?
Read between the lines, Jack.
And, you ask why NPR? Of course they exhibit a liberal bias. Every news organization in the world exhibits a bias. I don’t know of a truly objective source, do you? (That’s why I read across the spectrum.) ProPublica, maybe? https://www.propublica.org/
More… How America Changed During Barack Obama’s Presidency http://www.pewresearch.org/2017/01/10/how-america-changed-during-barack-obamas-presidency/
U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around World Question Trump’s Leadership (Gee, I wonder why? C’mon Jack, let’s invade Venezuela.) http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/
See previous comment.
You do realize that nothing in this link is remotely relevant to the issues at hand, right? I hope so!
We had 8 years of a leader who intentionally, with his party, turned men against women, religious against non-religious, blacks against whites, straights against gays, rich against poor, urban against rural,
You actually think Obama did this intentionally?
Yet when leftists here have accused Trump of intentionally dividing the country, you’ve responded with some variation of “That’s ridiculous; every president wants to do what’s best for the country.”
You hold Trump to a lower standard.
I take back what I said earlier. You don’t have a bias toward false balance. You have a blinding bias against the left, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s negatively influencing your analysis.
Sure he did. Lousy President, ruthless politician. You think he racialized and personalized the Trayvon Martin shooting accidentally? Allowed his party to claim opposition to his policies was based on racism by accident? Sent out the “Dear Colleague” letter by mistake?
And you think those were deliberate attempts to divide the nation? You don’t think he personalized the Martin shooting because he genuinely believed the shooting was part of a racist trend? You don’t believe he allowed his party to claim racism because he genuinely believed he was experiencing racist attacks? You don’t believe he genuinely thought the “Dear Colleague” letter was helpful to women?
None of these were attempts to divide, they were attempts to help marginalized groups. They were attempts to unite. That they were unsuccessful, and perhaps always doomed to fail, does not mean he had the intention to turn groups against each other.
Nope. I am properly calling the left on its frightening drift to totalitarianism and a rejection of democratic principles. That’s not bias at all. You have such hard bias against Trump that you can’t possibly be objective, and, like so many others’ you aren’t. It is, of course, ridiculous to claim I do not hold Trump to a high standard—just read the blog sine 2011. I will continue to defend him when he is subjected to an unfair standard and double standards.
Barack Obama never condemned Black Lives Matter, a fair comp for “white Lives matter” Indeed he endorsed them, specifically, even as they were promoting violence against police. Reconcile that with how Trump’s “both sides’ statement has been treated.
I’m going to let you spew by yourself, now. You are self-rebutting.
Non-responsive. You said Obama “intentionally” divided the nation while balking at similar statements about Trump. Show some support for this, or it can fairly be described as a double standard.
Simple: Trump is an idiot, and says whatever pops into his head at the time. He’s not a strategist, nor a deep thinker. I’ve explained and shown this. he lashes out: his ethics is, “Criticize me, and I’ll hurt you.” Obama was not an idiot, he understood language, He generally planned what he said. He did what he wanted to do: divide the nation into the progressive good guys while trying to demonize the bad guys—anyone who wasn’t sufficiently Left. He demonized them, and marginalized them, and encouraged legal action against, for example, simple Americans raised by their parents to think that being gay was a sin, who didn’t flip-flop when the Left snapped its fingers–you know, like Obama did. And that’s how the Democrats lost the House, the Senate, the statehouses, and the White House. Americans don’t like being told how to think, or being called evil for not conforming.
The Left has made Trump decisive by claiming that it you don’t condemn him all the time—like the news media– you must be stupid or evil.
Jack, these guys are spewing a lot of hot air, and saying nothing. They obviously suffer from TDS.
Why isn’t it obvious to them? That’s what I find fascinating and depressing.
So when smart presidents are divisive, it’s because they’re doing so on purpose, but when idiot presidents are divisive, it’s because they’re too stupid not to be. Got it. How you think that response disproves my statement that you hold Trump to a lower standard is beyond me.
That or the Left has gone so far off it’s rockers that Objective Analysis (like that which Jack conducts) will almost always conclude that contemporary Leftist conduct is unethical.
The Black Lies Matter movement started under President Obama.
Can you notice how you start with a statement that is a restatement? I have noticed this strategy (if I may call it that) time and again. If I say something, the other takes it, reworks it, and then restates it back and ask me to defend myself against their own concoction! To understand where I am coming from this must be avoided. But I have been made aware, because it has happened time and again on this Blog (even), that this is almost asking too much.
Therefor the issue becomes really very complex because it hinges in our mutually differently-organized psychologies. We are not only dealing in ideas, we are dealing with very deeply rooted sentiments about value. But also about interpretation of *the world*. History. And if what I say is so we have no choice but to examine ‘social and political coercion’. For example, open propaganda (like in those military propaganda films which certainly ‘worked’).
If ‘the Nazis’ are your enemy — please excuse me for rushing in with this rather complex example — how do you look upon those who, according to very strong interpretations which are not going away, engineered the 9/11 attacks which put in motion destructive wars that have done unreal harm to foreign societies and killed between 1-2 millions of persons and many many soldiers? I ask the question not because I want to veer off in that direction (apparently highly contested still) but more because you seem to want to focu on who is killing or harming who. I assume you are referring to the kid who killed the woman? And I assume that you are going along with the national MSM description of those events. And I assume that you might have a hard time separating out the ‘actual facts’ from the ‘interpreted facts’. But I suggest — I am suggesting — that a careful going-over the actual facts will reveal different truths, different take-aways, than what most people are now repeating. I won’t go into that because it will deviate too far (but it should be gone into).
Your post is a jumping to conclusions. Just because I said that I have chosen to resist my own upbringing and my own indoctrination and have made an effort to see that these complex events cannot be interpreted through simplistic, black&white lenses? That to arrive at ‘truth’ in our present is a terribly complex issue? That people and entities fight for access to our minds and souls and deliberately manipulate us, and we in essence allow it, and defend their motivations?
These are the more internal aspects of the issues here. More of the arcana perhaps I can say. In order to have conversation with me though YOU will have to do the work of correcting and avoiding *hearing* what I say, interpreting it according to your own psychological poisition, and then reinterpreting me back to me as if you are the final arbiter.
My experience has been, so far, that very very few in our present dispensation can do this. There are all sorts of reasons why this is so. I can explain!
I appreciate your comment, Alizia. All of it. One question I have. IF there is a heaven (or some such similar construct) do you believe it is a multicultural heaven or a segregated heaven? Please, do not dodge my question. I want you to answer it with the presupposition that there is indeed a heaven (not that I necessarily believe in such).
To make matters more complicated, I suppose we must distinguish the idea of heaven from the concept of an afterlife.
I’m interested in what your response will be.
Cheers!
I appreciate your comment, Alizia. All of it. One question I have. IF there is a heaven (or some such similar construct) do you believe it is a multicultural heaven or a segregated heaven? Please, do not dodge my question. I want you to answer it with the presupposition that there is indeed a heaven (not that I necessarily believe in such).
Can I get to that answer after a moment?
What you are really asking is why is it that people — we — cannot live together as if we are in heaven. I will suggest that this is the message that is brought through in the near entirety of the Sixties ideological production. The Sixties message has antecedents in the Socialist’s message and they operated in the 20s and 30s. That is why, when I contributed here months ago, I often referred to the emotionalism through which many people interpret their world. It is linked to post-Christian praxis and is strong in people who are linked at the level of their psychology and personality to ‘the American civil religion’.
But allow me to say that these emotionalized-political sentiments are recently energized. Their antecedents can be found in Puritan religiosity but the social radialism of the 20s and 30s and then the sentments and ideas that energized the Sixties are a new development. My research has indicated that these ‘narratives’ have been used in social engineering projects. And the present engineering that has as its goal shifting the demographics of the country seems to me (and others I read and am in contact with) nefarious. Yet I do understand that people who see things more like Chris (a convenient reference-point but I have no reason to pick on him or judge his values), quite openly desire to ‘shift the demographics’. They will often speak of their dislike of Whites or of Whites who seek to preserve themselves as Whites. When you scratch the surface of their ‘informing ideology’ you will discover, often, the Communist-Socialist platform and also a post-Christianism. To me though (and I am working to be a practitioner of Catholicism) I am not a ‘believer’ in their ideological motivations. I question and I largely regect Sixties sentimentalism. I am even such a ‘sinner’ in this sense that I see MLK as being motivated less by Christian idealism and more by socialistic ideology. But how can I compete, how can my dry and non-emotional understanding be communicated to people who ‘sing in the Sixties choirs’? Once the personality has been inculcated in these ways, the ways become bonded to the psychology of the individual. Attempt to counter the idea and you will be understood as assaulting that very person at the most fundamental level! (I suggest that Sue responds from this *place* within her personality, and Valkygrrl does too. They look at me, they hear the notes, and I appear as a horrid toad and my song is ugly and discordant).
You are asking, really, a theological question. If the question is located within, say, Catholic theology it has to be an expression of Aquinan theology (Thomas Aquinas). And if that is so it links back to The Schoolmen and (I am having a deja vu) to the notion of hierarchy. So, if I answer you ‘traditionally’ I will have to say that certainly there are hierarchies that exist in the Universe. If such exist in the manifest world then yes, of course, such exist in all other possible worlds.
But you are now thinking and feeling: “Oh my God! Here it comes! The White Supremacists Manifesto!” I do not have such a position and view though. But I have one that can and does (ie I am allowed to) define a defensive posture. With certain caveats that have to be carefully explained I do feel that ethically and morally a ‘white nationalist’ position can be articulated. I have said it before: if it cannot be defended ethically it must be modified.
There is an assault, an open, recognizable, clear and intelligible assault being waged against ‘whiteness’ and ‘white identity’. As the demographic shifts more to that of ‘people of color’ the war against the former white population will come more clearly into view. It is quite visible now (in things people say and write) but you have to look and the MSM won’t present it. In the coming years as the present collusion between Antifa-like activism and the Government become more solid, and when the intelligence and military agencies get more involved in PR and social engineering projects in an attempt to break apart the New American Right, it will all become clearer. I would suggest that it is these conditions themselves that are producing the social ruptures which, in my view, are immanent.
Just as in this world ‘birds of a feather flock together’ and different people work out their destinies, so too in the afterworld the same processes will continue. That is my answer. Someone up above (in this thread) wrote “Everyone should stay home in their communities and work on them and theirselves”. That is more my vision. I think this has been destroyed when identification with one’s state and region was dis-favored for identification with a National entity. If ‘there are many mansions in my Father’s hourse’ then that is another level of answer.
Once on has been stripped of one’s ‘body’ it sort of follows that one will too be stripped of all terrestrial identities. Even to one’s region. To one’s past, heritage, culture. But it is not a sound or jusfifiable object of culture (or government) to engineer the strip away of that which make a people a people. Shouldn’t that be decided by that people themself?
Thank you for your reply to my question. Alizia. I agree with some of what you say, and disagree with others. Neither here nor there. Just know I respect your views.
Kudos on being civil to Alicia.
I like Alizia. I try to be respectful to everyone but, by golly, sometimes someone here will be disrespectful to me and then I go off on a rage. I’ve done it on Medium a few times. I’m not proud of it, but I find it hard to take insults lying down.
Is the basic premise here that what is said, chanted, taunted, spewed, announced, or in any other way considered speech under the law is protected? If so then we need to allow both sides that right for the purposes of discussion.
That is, in fact, the basic premise of the First Amendment.
Exactly. So, comments about the content of the speech at the demonstration are not to the point.
For the record, I think the speech from both sides was beneath contempt, but the real issue is the violence and how it happened. And the reaction of the president was unusually measured and appropriate.
There are a few restrictions on Freedom of Speech. Defamation. Concrete threats. National Security sensitive matter. Suppression of matter such as minors’ names by courts. Child pornography. Confidential medical data under HIPAA. Publishing details of how to circumvent computer security or copyright protection. Terrorism. Criminal conspiracy. Protesting in a restricted area, such as near abortion clinics of courts. Taking and publishing photos of military or terrorist targets such as government buildings or railway stations, or, in the 11th Circuit, public places where the state has prohibited it. Giving false answers to the FBI. Perjury. False advertising involving medical claims. Fraud. Forgery.
That’s a partial list. I’m sure Jack, being a lawyer, could add to it.
Certain acts made with the primary purpose of “making a statement” such as burning flags are deemed speech. So is the anonymous donation of money in unlimited amounts, whether the statement being made is secret or not.
From a discussion on fb where I defended free speech and said the criminal laws of this country shouldn’t be suspended depending on who’s involved:
” The Nazis disregarded our laws by swarming a campus with torches chanting anti Jewish slogans illegally.
The Nazis violated the law taking a permit for a rally and showing up with guns, clubs, shields and pepper spray.
Fuck them.
Not all patriots rely on the state.”
The guy also said he was going to note me as a collaborator, but stepped back when I told him that was close enough to a threat that if he didn’t shut up I would report him to fb and get his account taken away.
At this point it should be clear that the “protest mythology” of America is a lie. You’re only allowed to protest for things the government already agrees with.
That’s what the news media and a lot of elected officials seem to think, anyway.
I tire of seeing my defenses of core American principles, Democracy 101, being treated as radical or controversial.
You’re indefatigable Jack. I admire it very much.
I have an idea. Everyone keep your butts at home, stop protesting, and work in your home, community, and everywhere you go to make the world a better place in which to live. HELLO – 100 years from now a statue standing or not standing makes no difference. Everything in this world is temporary and in the end, people and other living things are all that matter.
You did not actually provide any examples of anyone saying the Nazis did not have the right to protest in this blog post, Jack, which is strange, because I did see some lefties saying that. The most damning quote you provide is this:
“You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you….There is no place for you here. There is no place for you in America.”
But this statement does not say what you claim it says, it is in no way “fascist,” nor is it unethical in any way. McAuliffe did not say Nazis don’t have the right to protest for their views, he said they are not wanted in America. “There is no place for you here” refers to social ostracization, not legal prohibition. I highly doubt you believe that Nazis should not be socially ostracized, or that doing so is unethical.
It seems like you wanted to write a post about liberal intolerance to the first amendment, but since you didn’t see any real examples of that, unconsciously twisted what you did see to fit that narrative. This is no different than when liberals twist Trump’s statements to mean things that he clearly did not mean. (Though given how much he condemned Obama for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorist,” he really should have said “white supremacist” in his speech.)
Huh? Gee, Chris, I think when the governor of the state a group is planning to exercise its freedom of speech and assembly in says in a public statement, “You are not welcome here or in the country,” that’s pretty clearly an attempt to deny that they have the right to speak out.
Try again.
Wake me up when he actually tries to prohibit Nazis from assembling and speaking. Until then, “You’re not welcome here” strikes me as a statement of social approbation, not “You are legally prohibited from entering my state.”
Ugh. Chris, heads of government in the US may not publically declare that certain groups’ expressions and exercises of civil rights are not welcome. That is a representation of authority. It invokes, or can be fairly seen as carrying, the force of law. Do you really think if the Governor said “Gays are not welcome in this state. Go away!” that would be taken as just “social approbation”? The governor is siccing opposition on any group he declares is “not welcome in the state.” That is obviously an attempt to restrict speech.
“Gays are not welcome in this state” would be bigoted, but not in any way “fascist,” and barring any accompanied restrictions on their freedom, would not amount to legal oppression of gays.
“Nazis are not welcome in this state” is not bigoted, as there are obvious, needless-to-explain reasons why we should want Nazis to feel unwelcome. Barring any accompanied restrictions on their freedom, such a statement does not amount to legal oppression of gays, and is not “fascist.”
There is no contradiction here.
I hope you don’t teach civics. The elected executive speaks for the state, and official words designed to make citizens feel that they are not supported in their exercise of free speech is state action. It is oppressive, and it is chilling. And it is fascism from the left in this case.
He can make Nazis “feel” however badly he wants them to feel. Unless he is backing those bad feelings up with action, your “fascism” slur was just as over-the-top as it usually is when leftists apply the term to Trump.
May I interject, Chris and Jack? I was up at 3 this moring trying to get the words out. I do not infer that conversations here are worthless. I’m saying something else. A reminder, I guess.
The End and the Beginning 8/12/17 https://medium.com/geezer-speaks/the-end-and-the-beginning-8-12-17-d4346ce3302d
According to a major report published by the Government Accountability Office in April 2017, there were 62 fatal “far-right violent extremist-motivated attacks” leading to 106 deaths between 12 September 2001 and 31 December 2016. The most lethal of these, according to the report, was white supremacist Dylann Roof’s June 2015 shooting massacre at the American Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which killed nine people.
According to START (the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism), there were 81 fatal far-right extremist attacks in the U.S. between 12 September 2001 and 31 December 2014, leading to 131 deaths.
From Reuters Feb 2 2017
The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
Note : like many of the administration’s announcements, this has apparently not been acted on. The CVE remains the CVE even though the emphasis may have changed.
https://www.dhs.gov/countering-violent-extremism
To the knowledge of Daryl Johnson, the former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence analyst, there are no longer any DHS analysts monitoring domestic terrorism full time. (When asked about it, a DHS representative said: “This is a question for the FBI.”)
“The FBI is the only US government agency that still has full-time analysts assessing threats from the far right,” Johnson said, “and their analytical cadre could be measured in the dozens.”
The FBI declined to comment. An FBI press officer noted that holding extremist opinions was not a crime, and the FBI only investigated people suspected of breaking federal law.
Also worth noting:
Every terrorist attack on US soil since Trump’s inauguration has been committed by a white supremacist.
Not sure that’s true. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that accurately defining “terrorist attack” isn’t trivial.
http://www.snopes.com/2017/06/07/threat-extremists-more/
” …sorting through attacks and placing them in the categories of “terrorism”, “violent extremism” or “hate crimes” can sometimes be extremely complicated. ”
An apparent assassination attempt on GOP Rep Steve Scalise comes to mind.
You’re right–how could I have already forgotten Scalise? I hang my head in shame.
Even Jove nods.
The point is, when presented with data that contradicted what you believed, and what you wanted to believe – you changed your mind.
I’d call that inspirational, not shameful. Everyone, especially me, errs sometimes. I hope I follow your example.
The only reason I thought of it was that I too wanted to believe what you said was true – so alarm bells rang to warn me to check and double check. I can’t eliminate my own cognitive bias, but I can take steps to minimise it.
You are a treasure, Sue.
Pingback: A Professional Ethicist Responds to Trump's Remarks About Charlottesville - Windypundit
Here is an ethics quote on this issue.
http://tinyurl.com/y7fc5pgv
“On Friday, August 11th, various skirmishes in Charlottesville, Virginia began when hundreds of alt-right protesters bearing torches marched onto the University of Virginia campus. Counter protesters assembled in response and fights between the two groups
broke out before the march disbanded. More violence followed on Saturday morning as the white supremacists gathered in
Emancipation Park to protest the planned removal of a Confederate statue. Protesters and counter protesters threw fists and
sprayed chemical irritants at each other; a car also plowed into a group of people, killing one person. The governor of Virginia then declared a state of emergency. This is part of a trend of glorying in one’s skin color that has been building for years in this
nation among many different groups. Taking pride in or shaming others for their color is abject silliness and exceedingly unscriptural and sinful. It is God who appoints your appearance. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”
(1 Corinthians 4:7) The only important distinction between humans is not what part of the world they or their ancestors are
from, but whether or not they believe on Christ by God’s grace – see John 3:16-18.”
(Emphasis in original)
Why would you link to the Westboro Baptist Church and then hide the url? I would not have clicked that had I known it was going to take me to “godhateafags.com.”
It shows how low the protestors are, that they are even worse than the Westboro Baptist Church.
Fair, though I wish you hadn’t hidden the link.
More grist for the mill… ”
EACH TIME HORRIFIC political violence is perpetrated that is deemed to be terrorism, a search is immediately conducted for culprits to blame other than those who actually perpetrated the violence or endorsed the group responsible for it. It’s usually only a matter of hours before the attack is exploited to declare one’s own political views vindicated, and to depict one’s political adversaries as responsible for, if not complicit in, the violence. Often accompanying this search for villains is a list of core civil liberties that we’re told ought to be curtailed in the name of preventing similar acts of violence in the future.”
The Misguided Attacks on ACLU for Defending Neo-Nazis’ Free Speech Rights in Charlottesville https://theintercept.com/2017/08/13/the-misguided-attacks-on-aclu-for-defending-neo-nazis-free-speech-rights-in-charlottesville/
Fallout! GoDaddy bans neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer for disparaging woman killed at Charlottesville rally https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/14/godaddy-bans-neo-nazi-site-daily-stormer-for-disparaging-woman-killed-at-charlottesville-rally/?utm_term=.c0e99972d24b
You don’t need no trigger warning cause we’re all grown ups here but this one is pretty disgusting. Read it now cause the site will soon be gone. Heather Heyer: Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident was a Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut https://www.dailystormer.com/heather-heyer-woman-killed-in-road-rage-incident-was-a-fat-childless-32-year-old-slut/
Perhaps that Daily Stormer piece is what Alizia had in mind when she suggested the MSM’s portrayal of the murder was inaccurate. If only we could get our news from such illustrious Nazi propaganda outlets as Alizia does, then we would know the Truth.
That statement, Chris, is deeply rhetorically contaminated.
For your information I keep it more simple. I do not know what happened there. Nor does anyone. I do know that the protestors were non-violent and that they were assaulted by people who desired to pick fights with them. I am 75% sure that this is so. I have heard (from those who know law enforcement and heard from them) that the kid had been assaulted by some of that aggressive crowd. And it has been suggested that he was scared and trying to get away. This is what some of the police have said to someone I trust. But no one knows.
But for your-plural purposes what actually happened, if it can be accurately attained, does not matter. The call has gone out in national media, among government officials, that a war must be waged to stop the ‘Alt-Right’ (however the ‘Alt-Right’ was just one group among numerous groups that desired to attend a rally).
There is a reaction to the present upsurge in right-leaning white identity politics that will be met with a full-on assault. It will involve intelligence agencies, government officials, various civil rights organizations like the ADL and the SPLC in conjunction with national media. This is all that should be important to you, Chris.
You are baiting me with the Daily Stormer reference, as if to say that those are my views, and that I must defend myself against your insinuation. My own way of seeing that sort of material is to attempt to understand the anger of those people. But I do the same with the so-called ‘Antifa’ crowd. It is a deeply psychological problem that has to do with all sorts of historical and social antecedents. Those antecedents can be brought out in the open and talked about. If one does that, one will begin to understand. If one does not, one will not understand and will misunderstand.
I do not read the Daily Stormer and have only looked in a couple of times to Stormfront. But I did remember reading a man there who wrote after the incident of the cop on video that shot the man in the back running away that “If you think that I desire in any way to be associated with cold-blooded murder and if you support that, then we are not on the same side at all’. He was a man defending his white nationalist views (or whatever they were). He made that comment to another — irresponsible — poster who seemed to celebrate the incident. His comment made sense to me.
You are going to make the mistake of *seeing* all the people who have links to the Identitarian movement as ‘Hitlerites’. No one can stop you. But it is just there that your great error will be made. It is a miscalculation that will not work to your advantage.
Alizia, you said, The call has gone out in national media, among government officials, that a war must be waged to stop the ‘Alt-Right’ (however the ‘Alt-Right’ was just one group among numerous groups that desired to attend a rally). And I reply that the national media and those government officials are fucked in the head if they truly believe a war on facisim will succeed. Another war on drugs, huh?
My way is the MLK way to fuck up the fascists and the social engineers. It worked in Pulaski, Tennessee. I was a witness. I was part of the crowd as the marchers passed by to the beat of a military drum. We stood silently, watching. The marchers did their thing and soon it was over. No confrontations. No incidents. No bloodshed. No deaths.
There was no counterdemonstration, although after Louis Beam of the Aryan Nations led the marchers in three chants of “Hail Sam Davis,” someone in the crowd of about 100 spectators responded with: “The hail with you.”
More than 180 businesses, virtually every one in Pulaski, agreed to close Saturday. Residents were asked to stay home, and churches planned activities to keep teen-agers occupied.
“There’s not a soul out anywhere,” Police Chief Stanley Newton said Saturday morning, a few hours before the supremacists arrived. “You’d think it was a ghost town.”
Town leaders adopted orange as the color of brotherhood, and orange ribbons festooned storefronts and flew from sign posts and car radio antennas. Protest petitions bearing 4,000 signatures were mailed to the Idaho headquarters of the Aryan Nations.
“We’re preaching nonviolence in the face of violence and brotherhood and love in the face of hatred and racism,” said Gregory McDonald, author of the Fletch mystery novels who lives on a farm outside Pulaski.
In my view, and perhaps in the eyes of many, a new civil war kicked off on 8/12/17 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Time to choose sides. I continue to work for Trump’s removal from office by hook or by crook.
FM wrote: “My way is the MLK way to fuck up the fascists and the social engineers. It worked in Pulaski, Tennessee. I was a witness. I was part of the crowd as the marchers passed by to the beat of a military drum. We stood silently, watching. The marchers did their thing and soon it was over. No confrontations. No incidents. No bloodshed. No deaths.”
All that I might suggest to you, to better understand what is going on in the Present, is to read more of the writing of those who are influencing people to see things differently. If calling them ‘fascists’ helps you in some way then don’t let up. But I do not see how you could equate the social engineers of the postwar with those same ‘fascists’. I think we need better nomenclatura!
I would suggest a better understanding of the European Interwar period. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interwar_period) I have been reading up on Charles Maurras and ‘Action Francaise’. I suggest that what we are now witnessing, in a crude proto- form in America, is a similar reactionary movement. At the very least the more that you (or ‘one’) understands it and them the better position to reason with them.
I also suggest that you (‘one’) has to understand better the religious impulse if you want to understand those groups and persons you might call ‘fascists’. The people in the identity movements often define their link through their spiritual and religious understanding. If you understand the metaphysical difference-in-view between someone like me (for example) and that of Chris, you will have a tremendous insight (in my opinion).
Thanks, Alizia, I’ll check that out.
So was GoDaddy completely cool with the Daily Stormer before this?
What changed?
Guessing the site considered the trashing of the woman killed by car over the top? http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/08/daily-stormer-not-hacked-by-anonymous-loses-godaddy-domain.html
Some excerpts:
Finally, here is the opposing view.
The “Marketplace of Ideas” really means “If you have more money, you can buy more Free Speech”. All that remains for disenfranchised groups to exercise their Free Speech is through illegal means like vandalism. But then we’re told we’re ‘sinking to their level’.
I womnder if these illegal means include running over people with cars.
On a whim this morning I Googled skinhead march Pulaski, Tennessee and hit the jackpot. I’m going to refernce it in a post I’ll write later today for Medium. Before I post the link, I will state my memory sucks. The march occurred in 1989, not the 1970’s as I previously wrote. I was no longer a journalist, but an elementary school teacher. My wife’s father was visiting us at our home in Athens, AL, and we decided to drive up to Pulaski to witness events. Because I was no longer a journalist, I didn’t bother taking my camera, hence I have no photos of the event. But it’s burned into my mind’s eye, pretty much as the article describes it. This, imo, is the best way to combat the rising tide of fascism under Donald Trump… Town Closes Shops to Protest Neo-Nazi March http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-08/news/mn-357_1_aryan-nations
Whoo hoo! Just found some pictures from above rally. Will use them in Medium article.
OK, here’s today’s magnum opus… Forget counter demonstrations! This is how you stem the rising tide of white fascism https://medium.com/@FarkleUp/forget-counter-demonstrations-this-is-how-you-stem-the-rising-tide-of-white-fascism-c04bc00b72cf