The Herald Sun reports:
Sheriff’s deputies recorded the event but did not intervene as a protester climbed a ladder and slipped a yellow, bungie-like cord around the soldier’s head and arm and a group pulled the cord....Protesters are seen kicking the wrecked object, an image of the soldier, who doesn't seem to have been a particular individual but a generic example of — as the monument put it — “the boys who wore the gray.” The crowd — "more than 100 people" — is said to have circled the monument, chanting “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!”
The Herald Sun names 5 groups that it says took part: Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the antifa. It quotes a woman — Eva Panjwani — that it says is from the Workers World Party Durham:
“Tactics are changing, which means that our strategies need to change, our unity needs to escalate and our demands to fight back and resist domestic terror needs to escalate"...I think that's a terrible mistake. Just as violence on the right captures the headlines and great stress is put on the need to single out right-wing extremists and to criticize the President for condemning violence on "all sides," you think it's a good idea for the left to call attention to its willingness to get destructive?
Alissa Ellis, of the Workers World Party Durham branch that was a participant in the Charlottesville protest, said people need to embrace multiple tactics because that is what kept her safe. “We need to shun passive, white liberalism” that elevates whites voices over black and brown voices, she said.Do I understand that correctly? Is she saying the nonviolence approach to activism privileges white people and violent tactics are needed to be inclusive toward nonwhite people? Isn't that racist?
Most important: Why did law enforcement do nothing? ADDED: That is, nothing but make a video. It's as if they're journalists and have an ethic against becoming part of the news.
Posts
283 comments:
1 – 200 of 283 Newer› Newest»The left is not thinking this through clearly. Not surprising, though.
The people who did this better be found and arrested. If not, the mayor of Durham should get voted out.
Antifa ISIS fascists. On the move. Taking away scary history.
Do I understand that correctly? Is she saying the nonviolence approach to activism privileges white people and violent tactics are needed to be inclusive toward nonwhite people? Isn't that racist?
To ask the question is to answer it. I was around back in the 1960s, even participated in a few civil rights demonstrations, and I could have sworn that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not white.
I am surprised the parties involved were identified.
Thankfully the soldier statues at Camp Randall are Union ones, I guess, including the one that looks just like Bill Clinton.
Why do they pay police in Durham if they can't quell a destructive mob?
This is symbols being removed to get acceptance of lawlessness. The Marxists' goal has always been to remove the Bourgeoisie...to kill them.
It's as if they're journalists and have an ethic against becoming part of the news.
I think that's astute. If a riot is political, police want no part of it.
It's as if they're journalists and have an ethic...
LOL
I see what you did there!
From the article, quoting a destructive protester:
"...our unity needs to escalate "
How is that actually possible? If there's unity, that's it, you can't have more. It's like saying completely destroyed. If something is destroyed, like the statue, well, that's it.
Idiots who can't think.
This doesn't damage the left at all. If anything it's a smart move, taking action while the general public is too stunned by last weekend's events to react. This is just the 'victim' standing up for themselves, according to their narrative.
Remember, this is the right kind of mob, comrade.
Hitler had the rabble and the billionaires. The billionaires thought they could control Hitler and Hitler would control the rabble.
They were wrong on both counts.
Isn't that racist?
Most of what passes for leftist thought these days boils down to "it's not racist when we do it".
Lets destroy historical monuments because that hurts Trump.
Keep it up, Antifa fascists. This is how you get more Trump.
The destruction of the Democratic Party has begun.
I got a new strategy--an old one really. 4 Ga shotguns. And how about adding Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the antifa to the terrorist watch list.
Notions of races getting along with each other, and together solving their disagreements or issues with comity, are all tools of white oppression.
Is that what she is arguing?
Or is she arguing that to break a dozen eggs you first need to break a few eggs?
I can't really tell which.
This is how you get bloodletting civil war.
Particularly in the age of social media, the leftists are definitely not thinking through this clearly. This sort of thing is available to all:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/yesyouarearacist
Given the data easily compileable from social media - Hi! This is me! Here is the info you need to unequivocally determine exactly who I and all my family are and that I'm against you! - as well as local appraisal districts and other sources, each side can now readily target its enemies for attack and elimination at opportunities most convenient to them, respectively.
The whole anti-fa seems so Orwellian.
This new intolerance for inconvenient history is so isis, so destructive to the human record.
I say:
we need to keep our statues and our building names, if only for history.
I suggest those who find it repugnant put up a declaration plaque next to the art that explains the new context the city, or whoever, wants to illuminate about gen. Lee or whoever.
But let us not take down any statues, if anything let us put more up, with lots of explainer plaques.
Otherwise, I am much in mute prayer this week, most high Good bless each and every one of us.
"Why did law enforcement do nothing?"
For the same reason they did nothing in Charlottesville, and the same reason they did nothing in Baltimore, and the same reason they did nothing in Berkley.
This particular group of protesters, as well as those at those other cities, are hardcore lefties who make up the base of the Democrats who run these cities. They know that stepping on their violence and vandalism will hurt them politically so they sideline the police and let it occur.
It's much like their refusal to honor requests from ICE to hold onto illegals who were arrested.
Put simply the downside of allowing disorder and illegal activities is outweighed by the political fallout of enforcing the law.
"The destruction of the Democratic Party has begun."
These people are as representative of the Democratic Party as last weekends Nazis represent the Republican Party.
If you want to be the Nazi Party, keep it up with this labeling.
The police did nothing because they don't want to look like they support white nationalists. Again.
"Protesters are seen kicking the wrecked object, an image of the soldier, who doesn't seem to have been a particular individual but a generic example of — as the monument put it — “the boys who wore the gray.”
The boys who wore the gray were also victims of the slave system that was being perpetuated for the benefit of the Planter class. They were, as nearly all of us are at one time or another, overwhelmed by the grinding forces of history. The contemporary movement purporting to represent the powerless against the powerful has no sense of the historical position of most southerners. Attack the memorials to Davis and Lee if you must. The young men trampled by the Civil War on both sides deserve sympathy and understanding for their sacrifices.
I think that's a terrible mistake. Just as violence on the right captures the headlines and great stress is put on the need to single out right-wing extremists and to criticize the President for condemning violence on "all sides," you think it's a good idea for the left to call attention to its willingness to get destructive?
I agree with you. Violence is one of the problems...not an answer.
If Neo-Nazis were smashing down statutes of, say, Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, does anyone think the media would be silent or the police inert.. or that a group of blacks would not assemble and respond?
But these leftists get a pass because ...good intentions.
I do think it is a fair question whether or not to maintain statutes of Southern Civil War figures. Have a civilized vote on the issue.
But these Leftwing goons are bad actors. When are they going to be denounced?
Look, its going to make matters much worse, and divide our country further, to only criticize ugliness and violence of the alt-right while ignoring or even justifying the ugliness and violence on the far left.
Darrell said:
And how about adding Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the antifa to the terrorist watch list.
this.
Prof. Althouse,
"You think it's a good idea for the left...?"
I don't know: Do you think any blame will stick to the wider left? I don't think it does, generally.
I don't see a lot of soul-searching among Bernie fans because one of theirs attempted mass murder. I have nice white liberal neighbors with lawn signs proclaiming their support for Black Alice's Matter. I've heard a lot more about poor Heather Heyer than I have about that Republican (what was his name?) gunned down by his Trump-hating neighbor.
So what's the downside? The shock troops get to break shit, which is a big goal, and the wider left gets to mildly disapprove of their tactics, while blaming the right and Trump and our racist history that the activists are so upset.
Black Lives Matter. Don't know how we got Alice. Phone, clumsy thumbs.
CBS This Morning is trying to push the idea that the White Nationalists are daring to show their face because they have a friend in the white house. They are feeling emboldened.
They don't seem to consider that it seems they are daring to show their faces because CBS and other networks are happy to give them press. In order to push the idea that Trump (and really, all republicans) are white nationalists, they dug up David Duke and Richard Spencer and gave them a platform and attention.
Also-- if this idea that the rise of certain groups means they have a friend in the White House-- is that what the rise of ISIS attacks under Obama was all about? I think the narrative-makers need to think this through.
Desecrating historical monuments is against the law in North Carolina.
The left removes a statue. The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
Gee, I wonder which one middle America finds more troubling?
The police did nothing because the vandals were the sons and daughters of "the powers that be."
When smashing monuments, save the pedestals – they always come in handy.
- Stanislaw Lec, advice for revolutionaries
AReasonableMan said...
The left removes a statue. The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
Gee, I wonder which one middle America finds more troubling?
WHich one led to an arrest and charges? There's your answer.
If you want to be the Nazi Party, keep it up with this labeling.
Want to be labeled as Nazis? You must have been absent yesterday.
If you have a note from the doctor, please put it on the Professor's desk.
The Dems/left has always been the home of racism and prejudice.
sunsong said...
I agree with you. Violence is one of the problems...not an answer.
I'm sure President Trump will be gracious while accepting the apologies from everyone who criticized his all sides remark.
"you think it's a good idea for the left to call attention to its willingness to get destructive?"
-- The point is to let people know "We will get destructive, so just stay out of our way."
Which the police obliged. Hopefully they took the video so they could arrest these people later. But, most likely, that's not what happened.
Violence is one of the problems...not an answer.
Really? The discussion yesterday was how violence was not the answer to free speech and the people you kept retweeting argued it was.
Getting in people's faces is an inherently violent act.
ARM said:
The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
The left celebrates vigilantism. Voting has not been working for the left for more than 6 years. Democrats are not in power, except for a few isolated confines, and those are now war zones. Since Democrats, ie, those that vote for Clinton's wife,and Bernie, and Elizabeth, are actively breaking they law and ignoring centuries of social rules, to advance their agenda, Safety of your physical self, and protection of your real property, are ignored by the DNC.
Read the co-chair of the DNC demands to embrace intersectionality.
Next somebody will pull down a Martin Luther King statue in the middle of the night and we'll argue about who did it.
When Al Qaeda tore the Buddhas down, it was ok because Buddha was no longer in favor in the area. His followers had been conquered..
Journalists are getting hurt at these "gatherings".
So nice to have backup like that.
I love it when destruction comes together.
CBS This Morning also had a big package on Trump's "violence" during the campaign. Brought up the stuff about David Duke. About a person in an audience roughing up a Black Lives Matter protester. As if they report that story one more time, he won't have been elected.
Eva Panjwani...ugh.
An(un)ReasonableMan said...The left removes a statue. The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
The left opened fire of congressmen playing baseball, with intent to kill
The left ambushed and killed policemen in Dallas
The mayor of Durham is a colored man, and the police chief is a colored woman. Not that it matters, right?
Pigeon habitat destruction. That's the EPA.
Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
ARM said:
The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
8/15/17, 7:54 AM
Hey ARM, Mark says labeling makes you a Nazi.
So cut it out, Nazi.
"AReasonableMan said...
The left removes a statue. The right murders an innocent woman in her home town."
The left also shot a congressman.
The left also shot five cops in Dallas, and in NYC.
The left burned the city of Ferguson to the ground.
ARM, what an asshole.
Blacks get legal slack because they're not very bright.
I lived in Durham for 30+ years and know exactly where this was. It was in a pretty safe location for this kind of behavior.
The city machinery of Durham has been controlled by an alliance between the black power structure and Duke liberals. Bill Bell has been mayor since 2001 and will be mayor until he cares not to.
This won't cause a ripple in Durham. Durham county is a different story.
This could easily happen to Silent Sam on the UNC/Chapel Hill campus, with similar policy lookon policy. Again, not a ripple in Chapel Hill, but Orange county is a different story.
It's all very sad.
-XC
-XC
Some conservative Japanese-Americans should get together to tear down the FDR monuments.
There is no law.
There is pretence at law, the rituals and mummery, just to keep order to a degree, but certainly not when it matters. It's always been restricted to petty things. But that's changing.
This is just an illustration of how little the PTB care these days. They don't bother even about petty things anymore.
CBS This Morning also had a big package on Trump's "violence" during the campaign. Brought up the stuff about David Duke. About a person in an audience roughing up a Black Lives Matter protester. As if they report that story one more time, he won't have been elected.
8/15/17, 8:01 AM
And yet the name Robert Creamer, has fell from the lefts memory. White House Visitors log show him scheduled to meet with Obama more than 30 times. We know from Creamers own words that is job was to recruit and train agitators to instigate violence.
When are we going to go the source of violence? Democrats.
Hey, did any corporate execs resign from Obama's boards after he refused to condemn the violence of BLM after the ambush and murder of the Dallas police?
Of course not, because violence on the left is *justified* and classified as *free speech*.
Watch the Amazing History Of Donald Trump Denouncing David Duke and the KKK.
http://710wor.iheart.com/featured/mark-simone/content/2017-08-14-watch-the-media-lie-about-donald-trump-and-david-duke-and-the-kkk/#ixzz4pmgNSLu9
In July of 2016, an avowed black nationalist murdered five police officers during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Dallas, Texas. The act of violence was well-planned and was motivated entirely by the hate-filled ideology of the shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson.
Barack Obama condemned the shootings, but he did not call out or even allude to Johnson’s hateful views. He did, however, blame “powerful weapons” for the violence.
Double standards
They will try to pull down the wrong statue in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shots will be fired. People hurt, people killed. And the new civil war starts.
Not every group of citizens in every town will allow their statues to be removed. There are a lot of towns in East Texas and the rest of the south where the response to the Antifa and their affiliated groups would be armed, and the po-po might not intercede. Lots of places like that.
Good discussion yesterday with lots of nice centrist people here telling me that Confederate monuments should come down since they're divisive hate symbols. I'll just assume those nice people are members of this mob tearing a monument down. I mean, they are, right? The mob just speeds things along--gets stuff done.
Why weren't they arrested? Are you joking Professor? They'd be arrested if we had rule of law--if the law applied equally to everyone and was enforced without bias. We very obviously don't have that, do we?
There's one set of laws and rules for good people and one set of laws and rules for ugly people. People who object to those monuments being removed are ugly people. They're bad people! They're hateful racist bigots and their views have no place in American discourse. So who cares if the good people break some laws just to stick it to the bad people? Your nice commenters here don't.
The police in Dem cities have time and time again decided to not separate the good protesters from the bad people holding their events, knowing the result will be violence. That's a good thing, see, because it's violence against bad people so the Left wins either way--they either get a consequence-free chance to beat on some ugly people or they get great headlines and Media narratives when the ugly people fight them (and get arrested, naturally).
Do you think if I went to a statue I don't like and pulled it down that the cops would stand there and watch it happen? No, see: I'm not a good person, I'm not part of a good person group. The laws actually apply to me so I have to follow the rules.
Anyway thanks to all the nice commenters from the last few days who told me I'm not a real American because I didn't fully agree with them and with the Left about removing confederate monuments. It's a good reminder of where everyone will be when the mob shows up.
One day I expect the City of San Francisco will start tearing down it's monuments, such as the Pioneer monument in front of City Hall, or the Statehood one on Market Street (It does celebrate the Bear Flag revolt vs Mexico, after all). It will take longer because the locals have a degree of secondhand nostalgia (They did buy all that 19th century architecture made by and meant for other people) but they will certainly go.
Darrell said...
Watch the Amazing History Of Donald Trump Denouncing David Duke and the KKK.
Trump has handled this badly from the beginning no question. But this really isn't about Trump - it was a problem long before Trump.
The violence predates Trump, the division predates Trump, even the mishandling of the problem predates Trump.
Matthew Sablan said...
Some conservative Japanese-Americans should get together to tear down the FDR monuments.
Genius
Trump has denounced Davis Duke, the KKK, etc. for decades. Watch the fucking video. He did not handle anything badly. The cocksuckers in the Media and on the Left just said he did. And you apparently fell for it.
Why stop there? George Washington owned slaves. Knock down the Washington Monument and remove him from the dollar bill. Tear down the White House. The Lincoln Monument can stay (maybe) but burn Monticello to the ground. Don't stop until there is nothing left of the country except a parking lot, a McDonalds, and one of George Clooney's mansions.
"From the article, quoting a destructive protester: "...our unity needs to escalate " How is that actually possible? If there's unity, that's it, you can't have more."
The united mass can get more aware of itself as an entity and activated. I think the proper term is: fascism.
Unless we're talking about atoms, any person or object, while being only one thing, is also composed of parts. When do you think of the parts and when do you think of the united entity. When it comes to human beings, this is an exceedingly important question!
You know, the Philippines is dotted with Japanese war memorials. I visited three some months ago (two on Bataan, one on Corregidor). They were built post-war, to honor the Japanese war dead. There are many others, everywhere significant numbers of Japanese died. There is even a monument to kamikaze pilots.
The Filipinos have never mentioned tearing them down.
That place may be full of sleazy politicians and the people are often feckless, but they are at least sane.
@Lilybart You have to laugh, The Under Armour CEO claimed he didn't want to be involved in "politics". The irony it burns.
The WaPo has choice quotes, too:
'“Charlottesville and racist monuments across the country are the result of centuries of white supremacy,” Alissa Ellis, a member of Workers World Party Durham branch that was a participant in the Charlottesville protests, told the Herald Sun...'
And from the linked article, this is such a splendiferously Current Year paragraph:
“This is a really an opportunity, this moment of Charlottesville to see what side of history we are choosing to side with,” Panjwani said. “This is not a call to make someone to feel guilty or ashamed. This is a call to say this is an ask from people of color to say which side are you on.”
Cue the conservative muddleheads to shuffle out and explain to us Nazis-by-Association how all decent Americans should assent to the sentiments expressed by Ms. Ellis and Ms. Panjwani, who after all are merely expressing sentiments and calling for actions that promote equality, civic peace, regional amity, and racial harmony (and those boys memorialized here were traitors, bigot).
I'm sure Ms. Ellis and Ms. Panjwani and the rest of the Workers World Party have the deepest reverence for Washington and Jefferson as representatives of the founding principles of Our Nation, and would never dream of goin' Red Guard on their monuments and memories.
The Left Tries To Politicize Charlottesville, And Exposes Its Own Double Standards
The united mass can get more aware of itself as an entity and activated. I think the proper term is: fascism.
Well, that can't be it because they are called anti-fascists.
Lucy White !!
Considering that the groups involved are all Marxist, their preference for violent revolution is not only expected but is more or less required.
I don't think Trump always handled the David Duke question well, but the story to me is why was he asked it so many times? It is an ongoing attempt to connect Trump to Duke, and to Richard Spencer. But there is no connection.
I mean, Trump could have said "he's just a guy in the neighborhood" and gotten rid of that question forever (ha!)
Is the DOJ going to investigate George Soros' role in all of this, including actual payments to protesters? Of course not.
Ann Althouse said...
I think the proper term is: fascism.
Althouse tries to reclaim a term. I think its a bit late. Stick with calling them commies.
Even that is tricky because the images remind you of the anti-communists tearing down statues in eastern Europe.
"I don't think Trump always handled the David Duke question well, but the story to me is why was he asked it so many times?"
-- Because it is part of the script. Was he asked about it during the primaries before he won the nomination?
"you think it's a good idea for the left to call attention to its willingness to get destructive?"
They aren't calling attention, how could they? No attention is being paid to their destruction by the media. No attention is going to get paid. If reporting it is unavoidable, they'll spin it to blame the right as always.
So where is the downside? If this call energizes the destructive elements of the left, it will make their movement stronger. Of course it's a good idea for them. Not for the country, of course... as if that mattered.
The right removes it's garbage. The left murders a bunch of police officers in their home town.
Gee, I wonder which one middle America finds more troubling?
I know I'm piling on here but the awesome stupidity of our resident Leftists is always a thing to be celebrated. Bat-shit lunacy has unquestionably been mainstreamed in the Democrat Party. Republicans have done so well in recent years because there's no one else left to vote for.
buwaya: You know, the Philippines is dotted with Japanese war memorials. I visited three some months ago (two on Bataan, one on Corregidor). They were built post-war, to honor the Japanese war dead. There are many others, everywhere significant numbers of Japanese died. There is even a monument to kamikaze pilots.
The Filipinos have never mentioned tearing them down.
That place may be full of sleazy politicians and the people are often feckless, but they are at least sane.
You often reference Unamuno here, buwaya. Sane cultures can maintain at once both clear rules of conduct, and a deep understanding of tragedy. War is gruesome and vicious, it always gruesome and vicious, but still peoples (even Americans, in the past) often maintain some variant of the concept of the belle ennemi. (This used to be very much the case for the Civil War.) Or, at the very least, a resumption of recognition of common humanity, after all the blood lust and hate has drained away.
Now we live under an insane social regime where an indulgent and mindless relativism (covering the conduct of one's in-group) rules alongside a ferociously ignorant and rigid moral certainty (regarding the Enemy). Maybe that's just because we're in the "blood lust and hate" stage of the game and haven't quite realized it.
Leftist scum kill cops in Dallas. ARM yawns.
Was he asked about it during the primaries before he won the nomination?
Yes. And years before. Watch the video. He says he has been denouncing thjs KKK since he was five years old. WaPo will probably do a story of him being a KKK supporter for five years now.
Isn't that racist?
Of course it's racist.
If you want to see real racism, accompanied by incredible mindless hypocrisy, just look to black socialists: University of San Francisco to host blacks-only student orientation
It's at least as funny as the antifa fascists pretending to be anti-what-they-actually-are.
I don't think it should be allowed for transphobic bigots to assert their hateful white idealogy as demonstrated by choosing an avatar of a photo of a white man. Literally made of white marble, which as we all know, is a dog whistle to white supremacy. Looking at you, AReasonableMan.
I think that a citizens counsel of Charlottesville residents with baseball bats need to investigate and apply the proper amount of "wokening."
"Sheriff’s deputies recorded the event but did not intervene ..."
A nation of tribes, not of laws.
David @7:40, Yes! That's my thought too. I spent a lot of time yesterday on the thread about the Lee statue. Lee is a symbol of Confederate leadership. The soldiers (and I have multiple Confederate soldiers in my direct heritage) represent something else. The images of antifa and others does bring to mind ISIS, and comes out of a similar outrage. They're not on the side of the people, they're on the side of outrage and indulging their anger in politically charged ways. Probably very similar to the guy who drove his car into the crowd.
That said, the difficulty of the South really isn't the Civil War, it's how the symbolism of the Civil War was used to justify horrifying racism since Reconstruction. I believe it when people say the new South is different, but that doesn't mean that things just move on and you tell people to get over it. The symbols being attacked weren't just representing people who fought in the 1860s, they were used as symbols of power and control through much of the 20th century.
Revenge and rage make sense, but they aren't easily contained once released. That's reflected in global world history. What Lincoln did in 1865, and MLK jr. argued for in mid-20th century was a new vision of the world and a new vision of response from both the oppressors and the oppressed. The response of the Allies after WW2 is the same approach.
They sought reconciliation, and that fed into a new kind of partnership together that didn't erase the past, didn't put the burden on the oppressors or the oppressed in isolation. MLK jr. wasn't naive and he wasn't dismissive of the present or the past, he had a vision of what is possible and knew that violence begets violence anger indulged is never ending.
Assassinating MLK jr. was like assassinating Lincoln. The people who stood in the middle between two unstoppable powers, who had a moral voice to both sides, were replaced by those with other motives and goals. It didn't take long after Lincoln to see Reconstruction turned nasty. It has taken longer after MLKjr., in public actions at least.
MLK jr himself is being rejected in all of this. The age of Franz Fanon has been growing and now is becoming the default. It's indulgent and it's exactly the same as what the Confederate leaders were doing.
Which is why we need to condemn wholly both sides, violence that never leads to peace either for society or for the victims, let alone the highly privileged who think they're representing the victims. Neither side represents hope or progress or peace. They're indulging death and embracing its promises.
"Even that is tricky because the images remind you of the anti-communists tearing down statues in eastern Europe."
The anti-communists were pulling down the statues erected by the regimes they had just suffered under. The Confederacy has not been in existence since 1865. (There is a statue of Lenin in Seattle. He was a far worse human being than Robert E. Lee. Yet Lenin's statue has not been pulled down.)
As lucy white points, where do you stop? Will they want to pull down the statues of Washington and Jefferson next?
The antifa has more in common with the Taliban blowing up statues of Buddha than they do with anti-communists.
The Workers World Party is a old Soviet front group. You know, the Soviet Union, the regime that killed way more people than Hitler? Yeah, that's who these "people" are.
Remember, Hitler got power because the ruling and middle classes thought he was the only one who could effectively fight the Reds. Trump isn't Hitler. Trump is Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler comes later.
The police and the democrat governments are taking sides. All conservatives should arm themselves.
In Philippines, World War II’s Lesser-Known Sex Slaves Speak Out
"Japan is the Philippines’ largest trade partner and the country’s largest aid donor, providing more than $20 billion in development assistance since the 1960s, according to the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines."
There's a surprise, money trumps justice.
If we're going to be destroying statues of racist Democrats (is there any other kind?), could we please skip ahead to Wilson and FDR/?
Really, wasn't Truman the first major Democrat not to be horrifically racist?
ARM: The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
The unholy glee that you've been evincing non-stop over Heyer's murder has moved beyond the merely disgusting.
@Althouse, here's what Firefox gave me when you posted the image (or video):
The owner of www.heraldsun.com has configured their website improperly.
To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.
@Angel-Dyne, note that he keeps calling it a murder. He doesn't need any funny stuff with judges and juries and all that stuff. Just get a rope!
Doesn't make any difference if the left is violent. It won't be reported.
ARM,
Not when most of these were built - 1960s-70s.
And, btw, the Japan was the Phil's #2 trading partner (after the USA) in 1940-41.
"The Confederacy has not been in existence since 1865."
This is where you're wrong. Formally so, but symbolically, the Confederacy was used throughout the 20th century. We're only 50 years from Federally mandated integration of schools. The world of the mid-20th century is a living memory for Baby Boomers and older. The racism was itself a regime that told people where they could eat, where they could sleep, where they could go to the bathroom, enforcing demeaning language and treatment throughout society. If you think this is all about contemporary reactions to the Civil War, you must have been hiding in a bunker all your life.
It's about how Civil War heritage was used in preserving racial boundaries and distinctions. The Reconstruction approach that demeaned and ravaged the South after Lincoln's vision died way led into that pattern, and we see how rage begets rage and back again now. There could have been a path to racial healing in the late 1800s, but that wasn't taken, and we're still dealing with 20th century approaches in our day.
Everything you need to know: "The Herald Sun names 5 groups that it says took part: Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the antifa."
It's the same dipshits (just with later birthdays) who were handing out revolutionary newspapers when I was in college in the 70s.
Paddy O said... Lee is a symbol of Confederate leadership. The soldiers (and I have multiple Confederate soldiers in my direct heritage) represent something else
What a weird line to draw. Yesterday it was "don't forget who Lee killed, what flag he attacked, who he burned" and today it's "Lee was a leader and a symbol, but the soldiers themselves are ok to commemorate?" The soldiers themselves killed Americans, fought the American flag, etc. If its right to pull down Lee it's just as right to pull down statues of the soldiers. To deface the "Peace Statue" in Atlanta--depicting a confederate soldier surrendering--is OK too.
Which is why we need to condemn wholly both sides, violence that never leads to peace either for society or for the victims, let alone the highly privileged who think they're representing the victims.
Naaah. That's you in the mob in Durham, isn't it? You're not buying this "new South" stuff and anyway the monuments are an impediment to progress (towards racial harmony, etc). They ought to come down, all of 'em. If it happens through a legal process, fine, but if the legislature isn't moving fast enough we ought to tear 'em down ourselves. We're the good people! Extremism in defense of good people ideas is no vice. Only a racist Nazi could object.
If you've ever wondered what Obama had in mind when he said he'd fundamentally transform America, this is what he had in mind.
Angel-Dyne said...
Heyer's murder
There is no glee, just a deep frustration with the amoral idiots who have ginned up anti-left hatred for decades and their apologists who have stood by and tacitly approved. Those people are in no position to complain about the legitimate outrage that reasonable people can feel about the entirely avoidable events that occurred in Charlottesville this weekend.
The "love Trumps Hate" folks are putting their love on display for the world to see.
Pretty, isn't it?
I remember downtown St Paul MN in the 1950s maybe into the 1960s, where the water fountains said: white or colored. The Confederacy had nothing to do with it.
Paddy O said...This is where you're wrong. Formally so, but symbolically, the Confederacy was used throughout the 20th century. We're only 50 years from Federally mandated integration of schools. The world of the mid-20th century is a living memory for Baby Boomers and older. The racism was itself a regime that told people where they could eat, where they could sleep, where they could go to the bathroom, enforcing demeaning language and treatment throughout society. If you think this is all about contemporary reactions to the Civil War, you must have been hiding in a bunker all your life.
What can I do to cleanse myself, Paddy O? I'm going to help you tear down these monuments, of course, but that won't be enough. If I vote a straight Democrat ticket will that get me anything? I want to be forgiven, Paddy O--I didn't actually do any of those things myself but the sins are on my head, I understand that. I don't want to be ugly, Paddy; please help.
I remember the good old days when left wingers assured us the campus radicals were just a few isolated pockets with no impact on broader society and thus critics were hyperventilating over nothing.
Boy do I hate being right all the time.
ARM,
I could go triple or quadruple on anti-right, or anti-conservative hatred, which has been ubiquitous from every powerful messaging institution in the world, at least since I've been old enough to notice.
Whatever the right has been saying about the left is just a weak shadow.
After a lifetime of hammers on the head, one grows weary.
ARM: "Those people are in no position to complain about the legitimate outrage that reasonable people can feel about the entirely avoidable events that occurred in Charlottesville this weekend."
It has clearly become standard lefty political practice to have police officers stand down in the face of escalating violence, particularly lefty violence, thereby encouraging mayhem.
Further, the left wingers philosophy on free speech is that it should not be allowed for anyone who disagrees with the left.
Finally, lefties everywhere have allowed the idea that someones free speech is actually "hate speech" which the lefties claim is "actual violence" and that it is completely appropriate to meet that verbal speech "violence" with actual physical violence.
The violent physical suppression of ideas the leftists don't like only occurs everywhere the left takes over and only happens every single time they do.
It is inevitable under those circumstances, inevitable, that those on the fringe (the international socialist/fascists and the national socialist/fascists) would begin competing with each other in the streets just as they did in Spain/Italy/Germany and others in the 1930's.
Here's one more example of thousands: https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35485/
"Professors advised to treat racial microaggressions in classrooms like assault"
BTW, has anyone checked to see if ARM possesses a gun and has been checking the schedule of planned republican gatherings. 'Cuz Hodgkinson wont be the last would be democrat congressperson mass murderer.
AReasonableMan said...
The right murders an innocent woman in her home town.
Another winger who believes sides kill each other. Oops, I can't find him accepting responsibility for the BLM supporter's 5 murders of police. I'm shocked to see yet another winger openly admit their determination of guilt is solely based on politics. Whoever could have seen that coming?
charlottesville showed non-communists that fascists will always resort to violence against non-violence. that safely ignoring their rallies and rhetoric will put vulnerable people at risk. that allowing them to have a platform will influence the depoliticized to ally with them. that white supremacy, white nationalism, fascism, and racism isn’t dead, and is perpetuating and surviving through white people younger than 30 years old.
fascists are a people who respect and understand nothing but strength, supremacy, and violence, and who’ll be as deceitful and disgenuous as possible if it means making their talking points public in order to resonate with other like-minded people for the purpose of growing their numbers.
fascism is not to be debated. It is to be smashed.
They'll tear it down, they'll put their Leftist-approved monuments up, they'll fatally undermine the rule of law by selective enforcement, they'll successfully destroy the idea of "free speech" and narrow the range of acceptable discussion and debate (so that the only thing that can be argued is how left we should go right now), they'll complete their takeover of education/the Academy and thereby prevent any contrary ideas from ever gaining respectability...
But hey: they won't call you a racist, so really it's all ok. You're one of the good ones.
This past weekend is an omen that we are headed for another tragedy.
It appears that the Dems strategy is that in tacitly sanctioning violence and ratcheting up divisive rhetoric they will be swept to power on a tide of anger. Perhaps, or the more the left's dystopian message and violence fills the news cycle, the more decent people will be repelled.
They learned nothing from 2016.
ARM: "There is no glee,..."
There is nothing but glee.
And lies.
And the Deplorables have started paying close attention.
My recommendation: Move ahead with this brand new, never before seen and extraordinarily novel democrat tactic of accusing republican voters of being nazi/misogynist/bigoted/murderous/fascist/ types....while simultaneously vigorously and passionately defending radical islamists.
I mean, it's gotta work, right?
It's just gotta.
Hoodlum, I'm sorry I'm too nuanced for you. Dealing with complex social situations generally involves making distinctions rather than blanket statements.
I want to make things more agreeable between us. I know, let's talk about traffic laws.
Red means stop. Green means go.
vicari valdez said...charlottesville showed non-communists that fascists will always resort to violence against non-violence
If there's one thing Antifa is known for it's their commitment to non-violence. Yep.
This has to be a really stupid reporter. Of course, "stupid reporter" is pretty much redundant.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, what the hell is the reporter talking about with the "yellow, bungie-like cord"? While it was yellow, it was not bungie-like nor was it a cord. I guess that for reporters, 1 correct fact out of 3 is a pretty good batting average.
Why would anyone think of a "bungie-like" cord for this? First, it is unlikely that anyone would have one laying around of sufficient length and strength. Second, it is a big rubber band and if you tried to pull the statue over it would just stretch.
Typing this conjures up a Wile E Coyote image in my mind. 20-30 protesters hauling on the bungie cord, stretching it to the limits. Someone slips and the bungie (or "bungie like") cord snaps back and launches the rest of them into the statue.
So if a reporter, plus layers and layers of editors and fact checkers, can't be trusted to get something this simple correct, how can they be trusted to get anything else right?
Why should we trust any news account?
Classic Gell-Mann effect.
I just looked at the reporter's LinkedIn page. Perhaps I am expecting too much from her based on education, experience and credentials.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-toth-93594b42
John Henry
Rick: " I'm shocked to see yet another winger openly admit their determination of guilt is solely based on politics. Whoever could have seen that coming?"
Actually, Group Identity politics determines what is "true" to the leftists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvqFvCc5k_c
Of course, when you've spent decades pushing people to see themselves as specific and distinct groups based on skin color or your biological sex or "gender" or other, and ONLY that matters, you shouldn't be surprised that all subgroups start doing that.
And then, of course, predictably, you end up with the complete balkanization of society. Which the lefties clearly desire.
University of San Francisco to host blacks-only student orientation
My PC alma mater in NC started a black pre-orientation 20 years ago. I can't remember the wording of the justification, but it was incredibly condescending.
A sorry throng of misguided youth. It's like watching a two-year-old throw a temper tantrum. Even so, those responsible should be charged with destruction of public property and their doting parents made to pay for it.
The left burned the city of Ferguson to the ground.
I forgot about Ferguson. The left needs to be given room to destroy.
I think I pointed out last night that the Republican NC legislature passed a bill preventing removal or moving of public historical monuments without legislative approval.
I don't know if that means Durham must fix the monument.
ARM, of course there's glee about her death. That was the goal. That's the triumph, that's what can justify vicari's statements about the need to smash.
The police stood back. They politicians and political leaders wanted what happened.
Not everyone does. But when violence seeks violence, it's the expected and desired result.
Her death is seen as a victory by many on the Left. Own it. That's what the rhetoric is depending on and it is deepening the excuses for perpetuating more violence. They deserve it. It's evil to indulge, but it's very human. Martyrs for the cause are seen as celebrated tools for advancing the cause through any means necessary.
The world is full of fascists, or those who can very easily be construed that way. And I mean a great number of national governments of places one wouldn't quibble about visiting on holiday.
If one is to go about smashing fascists, that's quite an ambitious platform.
buwaya puti said...
Whatever the right has been saying about the left is just a weak shadow.
You know this is nonsense. Currently the right is ascendant politically throughout much of the US as well as controlling the house, senate and presidency. Playing victim is unconvincing, given the actual reality.
What has changed is who controls the big money. When the big money was reliably in the pockets of right-wing or flat-out fascist business people the right didn't have a problem with their big megaphone and influence. But, as making money has become less about exploiting people and natural resources and more about being smart the big money has shifted to the left and they now they have the big megaphone. That's how it works in this country.
Mannequins in NC department store give Nazi salute
It starts.
Mannequin III
ARM said, " Currently the right is ascendant politically throughout much of the US as well as controlling the house, senate and presidency. "
Why is this contrary to the point being made? The right can be ascendant AND the left can be actively promoting violent extremism as part of a response to electoral losses.
@ Paddy O
You make some good points, but I disagree with you. The kids leading this charge (and looking like ISIS while they're doing it) have NO sense of history and how the South HAS changed. What has struck me while watching all of this coverage is how everyone wants this to be their "Resistance" moment--"now we get a chance to show we would never have gone along with the Nazis" because WWII is probably the only thing they do have cursory knowledge of. For people in the South especially, the Civil War is another event that they've received a spotty education about. So they want to prove they're not in the Confederacy. But it's all hamfisted. These guys don't know what happened 20 years ago, let alone 50 years ago.
MLK jr.'s approach expected violence but returned non-violence. Fanon returns violence for violence. Fanon burns to the ground. MLK jr. builds and expands.
MLK jr. invites the victims into a new experience of life and fruition. Fanon calls for the victims to sacrifice yet more so as to indulge rage and revenge.
Cherchez la femme.
Follow the honey.
Why do people keep using the word "NAZI"? It is a made up word, pretty much never used in Germany or by Hitler of his henchmen and minions.
Why can't we call them by their correct name: National Socialists.
What we saw in Charlottesville was a battle between National and International Socialists. Two competing wings of the same ideology. To the extent that it was between them, I would be happy to have the police stand back and root for injuries. Maybe even bring a supply of baseball bats for anyone who forgot to bring their own.
The problem in Charlottesville was that many of the permitted demonstrators were not national socialists. They were just people who think enough bullshit is enough bullshit and are tired of it. They deserve police protection.
John Henry
ARM asks a question: "Gee, I wonder which one middle America finds more troubling?"
It is a question worthy of an answer.
Both are troubling, but troubling in different ways.
In the case of the Heyer's death:
--Death is troubling.
--The escalation of violence is troubling.
--Reports that the driver is a scary person is troubling.
--Racial Supremacists are troubling.
--The possibility that the driver may have reacted out of fear for his life is troubling, because we have witnessed past incidents where rioters have surrounded vehicles and threatened the occupants, indeed in some cases pulling out drivers and beating them.
--The actions of antifa are troubling.
--The actions (and inaction) of the city police is troubling.
In the case of the statue destruction:
--Destruction of public property is troubling.
--Destruction of art is troubling.
--The organizations involved are troubling.
--That the rioters acted with a sense of impunity is troubling.
Birches, I have no respect for these kids. They're fundamentalists with a political excuse. They're fascists, brown shirts, with a self-righteous cause. Sorry if I didn't make that more clear. They're the very example of that which they say they're resisting. They need to start with themselves. They're no different than the guy that rammed his car into the crowd. People without identity trying to give themselves meaning by indulging their rage.
But there's these kids and there's the national discussion that's happening everywhere. That's the tricky part and what a lot of the rational discussions are dealing with.
Vicari Valdez said: "fascism is not to be debated. It is to be smashed.
You just described fascism.
Paddy O said...Hoodlum, I'm sorry I'm too nuanced for you. Dealing with complex social situations generally involves making distinctions rather than blanket statements.
Oh not your fault, Paddy O, it's probably a regional thing, like you said. Anyway I'm just too stupid. I don't understand context and nuance so you really have to dumb things down for me. I want to be a good person like you but somehow I always end up being ugly.
I mean, I hate Nazis. I'm proud of the people in my family who successfully fought to defeat the Nazis in WWII. I've always considered myself to be a strong patriot! I've considered southern history part of US history and have seen myself as a proud American. The Left has had so much fun over the years calling even mainstream Republicans Nazis, though, that I think a lot of them actually believe it. I'd gotten pretty used to it, you know, but I am not yet used to it when people on the Right say or imply that I'm not a Nazi.
I found out yesterday that I'm not a real American because I have too much sympathy for Confederate monuments (or something like that). That stung, I guess, but it's better to understand just how ugly I am than to go on with the wrong impression about myself. I mean, I really thought that people on the Right were my allies in resisting the Left's push for cultural and political domination, but I found out that since I'm so ugly the Left and respectable Right agree that I don't have a legitimate place anywhere--they're both happy to fight against me and agree that my only possible motivation is racism (and of course sexism/homophobia/etc).
Anyway you wanted the statues down and they're coming down. They're being torn down by mobs, more-or-less as I said they would, but since they're coming down you win and should be happy. Love trumps hate, after all!
Paddy O, "It's about how Civil War heritage was used in preserving racial boundaries and distinctions."
So do tell what historical event was used in preserving racial boundaries and distinctions in the North?
BJM said...
Vicari Valdez said: "fascism is not to be debated. It is to be smashed.
You just described fascism.
It would have been a better sentiment if she didn't so clearly misunderstand who the fascists are.
Also, as long as I am being pedantic, why do so many insist on calling it the "Civil War"?
A civil war is defined as a war between 2 groups within a single country fighting for control of that country.
What we had in the 1860s was not that. The US was not a single state/country but a collection of states/countries. All they wanted was to leave the union.
If other European countries resorted to armed invasion of Britain to prevent it leaving the EU, would anyone call it a "civil war"?
We should call it what it was: "The War Between the States"
Or perhaps the War of the Northern Invasion.
John Henry
@Paddy,
What you say about the history of Jim Crow rings true, but, (& this is a very important "but"), the people who want to make political hay out of it are as morally compromised as any Jim Crow politician. And not just the hard lefties, who never saw a murderous regime they couldn't love, but also the main-line liberal proponents of integration.
It amazes me that people want to claim integration as a moral victory, as an example to use for other integrative movements (feminism, gay rights). It was a victory alright, like Antietam was a "victory" for the north. More "victories" like that & we won't have a society left.
At any time, one quarter of black males are in some part of the criminal justice system (jail, parole, etc). It's not until black families make more than $200K that the academic test scores of their children surpasses white & asian kids whose families make $20k or less. 36% of all abortions are black babies, for a group that's 12% of the population. I just heard on the radio last month (NPR) that there are six schools in Baltimore (5 high schools, 1 middle school) that do not have a single student who tests at grade level. The cost per pupil? $16k.
I live in the Balt-Wash corridor. Black politics here is basically the upper 1/4 of the black population getting their snouts in what used to be the "white-only" trough. The bottom 3/4 of the black population, especially the lower half? Who cares? No one, especially the black upper class. The lower classes are good to use as a stick to shake money of guilt-tripped white liberals or as muscle, but otherwise are best avoided by all involved.
The real reason for the rage is that NO ONE knows what to do about those numbers I quoted above. No one. The USA has, since the Johnson Admin, spent trillions on social programs. Black crime went up. Black literacy went down. On any level playing field other than sports, blacks lose out to whites, Asians, and even Hispanics. Blacks feel that anything that isn't rigged for them is rigged against them. It isn't Republicans. It isn't Trump. It's that it's sixty years later & the Dream is long time dead, & no one knows how to fill that hole of despair.
"A civil war is defined as a war between 2 groups within a single country fighting for control of that country.
What we had in the 1860s was not that. The US was not a single state/country but a collection of states/countries. All they wanted was to leave the union."
-- Actually, by the North winning the war it was decided that no, we were not two countries.
When the police refuse to enforce the law and protect people and property, eventually the people will. And since the people apparently no longer own the justice system, the justice meted out will be terminal and swift.
Only question: When and where will the tipping point be?
John Henry
Exactly, both sides literature and history is easily available for anyone to see. On one level I don't get upset over the enemies of Americanism killing one another.
@ Tree Joe...it's the same old canard, violence is necessary because conservatives.
Socialists have amassed hundreds of million dead in their pursuit of Utopia...but then some collateral damage is to be expected, n'est-ce pas?
Blogger YoungHegelian said...
What you say about the history of Jim Crow rings true, but, (& this is a very important "but"), the people who want to make political hay out of it are as morally compromised as any Jim Crow politician.
Let's not forget who the Jim Crow politicians were and still are. Democrats to a man. (and now women)
John Henry
Blogger Matthew Sablan said...
-- Actually, by the North winning the war it was decided that no, we were not two countries.
We were never 2 countries, Matthew. At the time of the war between the states, we were 20-30 countries in 2 groups or associations, USA and CSA.
And we still are not a single country in any meaningful way. We are still a collection of individual and sovereign "States" (synonymous with "country). Nothing in the Constitution has been changed to change that
John Henry
The Lincoln Monument can stay (maybe)
Only until they learn that Lincoln favored sending the freed slaves back to Africa.
"Only question: When and where will the tipping point be?"
-- I'd say with people being hospitalized and killed, we'd reached that point. Looking back on this, the early anti-Trump protests where the police hung back while Trump rally attendees were beaten, egged and threatened will be viewed as the tipping point.
What are we even talking about? You guys won! You're good people, you're winners, you won.
The statues are a horrible legacy of a racist past (distant and recent) and anyone who has any problem with tearing them all down immediately is a racist and/or Nazi.
The police don't have any more interest in protecting or siding with racist Nazis than the rest of us do, so of course they're not going to intervene when a mob of good people rip down a statue celebrating racism.
We're a nation of good people, but we have a few racist Nazis here too. Our Constitution is supposed to guarantee the individual, personal rights of every citizen, but we all know that doesn't really apply to the ugly people--certainly not to the racist Nazis who wrongly think they're real Americans.
Hate speech isn't free speech, and hate symbols aren't worthy of any kind of respect--much less legal protection. Neither, naturally, are actual racist Nazi people.
A mob of good people isn't really a mob--it's a group of Americans acting in the most American way possible.
Those of you carping about this particular episode need to take a wider view--sure you might find the method used here (a mob illegally tearing down a public monument) but you certainly agree with the RESULT--one less racist statue. Let's all agree this is, overall, a good thing and a great sign of things to come.
Hoodlum asks: Do you think if I went to a statue I don't like and pulled it down that the cops would stand there and watch it happen?
There are more than a few hideous 'sculptures' I would like to tear down. I don't like what they represent, which is a mockery of art and a mockery of the fools who fund these abominations with taxpayer's money.
@JH,
Let's not forget who the Jim Crow politicians were and still are. Democrats to a man.
I'll agree with the "were". I'm not sure about the "still are".
This formulation is too comforting to the Right, & so I tend to avoid it. But, the Democrats still have yet to really understand how important the Dixicrats were to the New Deal Coalition. Whatever collective guilt the history of racism brings, they have in a more structural fashion in the ideology of their party than the Repubs do. It's not clear that the presence of the majority of blacks in their party in any way changes that burden. After all, even when the party was openly segregationalist, they had the majority of the black vote.
Oh, & the "Southern Strategy", where all the Southern racists go Republican? What nonsense! It isn't until 2000 that there's a solid Republican South. Talk about a simplification that's "comforting"! To think that the racists went Republican lets the Left off the hook for the culture war they started that struck at the heart of what most Southerners valued most (e.g. their faith). That's why the South turned on the Democrats.
YH, yes.
There's two particularly wrong ways of dealing with history.
We can obsess over it and never leave it and justify all sorts of continuing evils as an excuse to dealing with it.
Or we can forget it and just say everyone needs to move on.
Ignoring Jim Crow for blacks is like erasing Civil War monuments for those with white Southern Heritage. It is a reality that can't just be ignored or erased. The trouble is that when one side thinks their real claims are being ignored or dismissed they cling to people that may be corrupt but at least are acknowledging the problem.
The Church does this too, with far too many corrupt leaders taking advantage of real concerns about morality or whatever.
Others are trying to obsess over history and never leave it behind convincing people who were never there how our context today is not different than 50 or 100 years ago. They instill a sense of misplaced rage, and use this rage to build their own power.
Both paths are wrong and lead to continued division.
"Blacks feel that anything that isn't rigged for them is rigged against them. It isn't Republicans. It isn't Trump. It's that it's sixty years later & the Dream is long time dead, & no one knows how to fill that hole of despair."
Blacks had for far too long the experience of people in the Eastern Bloc of Europe, institutional resistance that undermined possibilities. It's a generational reality that is going to take a lot of time of healing. The challenge is not to give into those who profit from fanning the flames of old angers and denying the directions of change and progress.
Most people in our country are pursuing a better way, eager to do what is right and treat people right, I'm convinced of it, even and especially in the South.
But that's easily overlooked when the media fans the flames and victimizers on all sides grab the national discussions.
It doesn't help to take sides, because the whole framework is wrong. The whole white supremacist movement is evil, and those who took violence to them, got the violence they wanted. They want fire and they want ruin, both sides do, or at least the leaders on both side who take advantage of the broken and outcast and defeated.
White supremacists do this. Gang leaders do this. Politicians do this. The media does this. The powerful profit on the back of the desperates.
We have to say there's a better way, but if we're not trustworthy, if we are just as reactive and side-choosing as the media wants us to be, then we can't hear and can't be heard. There's no convincing the people who have hardened their hearts on either side. But most people really are seeking a better life and want to find ways to hope.
We have to not let ourselves be manipulated by the media and work in our communities, with real people, to show there's a better way of life. Then the extremists become ever more marginalized. Hope not violence, wins.
I think I pointed out last night that the Republican NC legislature passed a bill preventing removal or moving of public historical monuments without legislative approval.
I don't know if that means Durham must fix the monument.
Durham is a sanctuary city.
"Hate speech isn't free speech"
It's a good thing we have Hoodlums to decide what we can an can't say. Not having to decide for myself what to say is a load off my mind!
@ Paddy O
If we can agree that almost no one understands the history behind the statues or the context of the Jim Crow South, why should we be discussing taking the statues down because of what they symbolized in the 20th Century?
Paddy O: It's about how Civil War heritage was used in preserving racial boundaries and distinctions. The Reconstruction approach that demeaned and ravaged the South after Lincoln's vision died way led into that pattern, and we see how rage begets rage and back again now.
What's going on here isn't your Boomer-nostalgic civil rights struggle, and to persist in seeing everything in that "frame" is perversely woolly-minded. The contemporary ginned-up crusade against the Evil Confederacy is merely a tactic in a larger strategy, and the crusaders absolutely don't give a damn about your fussy little distinctions about what Lee represents and what confederate soldiers represent.
And by the way, Lincoln had decidedly incorrect views on race and racial equality, which I'm sure you're aware of. Everyone is "complicated and problematic", and at present he is still allowed to be a hero, and his "problematic" side, if acknowledged at all (not really) is slotted into the "flawed but still representative of something we should be honoring" side of your previously posited distinction.
That is useful and meaningful for your agenda (and I don't mean "agenda" pejoratively here), but your agenda is not the agenda of the cultural crusaders on the move now. He is useful to them as a foil. But in the end he's another Dead White Man, an icon from a history they want to memory-hole and a culture they want to replace, so they'll be coming for him, too, eventually.
Paddy O said...Ignoring Jim Crow for blacks is like erasing Civil War monuments for those with white Southern Heritage.
...in that you advocate for both? Just kidding, just kidding--just having some fun. Of course you'd never ask blacks, or anyone, to ignore Jim Crow. No one should!
You do advocate erasing Civil War monuments (well, confederate-venerating monuments), though, so you may want to rethink this formulation.
These children hopping up and down with joy, bouncing up and down with happiness. They will be broke and drunk in twenty years, their brave assault on the evil statuary a distant and melancholy memory. Their boyfriend kicked the statue with his romantic mask on. Sad and stupid. What will happen when all the evil statues are down, when all the evil names are scrubbed from the walls, when all the pictures of the evil men are removed? Will the little black school children begin to read at home? Will motherfucker disappear from the lyrics of the put upon black people? What will be the splendid outcome?
CharCharBinks
I think you are misunderstanding what Hoodlum is writing and writing well,
@Paddy,
We have to not let ourselves be manipulated by the media and work in our communities, with real people, to show there's a better way of life. Then the extremists become ever more marginalized. Hope not violence, wins.
By doing what? What haven't we as a nation tried over & over again with more money than any nation on the planet has ever thrown at a social problem? And it hasn't worked! What in God's name do we do?
I understand the despair. I understand the attempt to posit a "systemic & pervasive racism" that essentially takes the place of Marxist class struggle as an engine of history, because otherwise, blacks have to face up to a level of community fuck-uppedness that is essentially that the racists were right. And even if the whole country sat down & all, even the blacks, agreed that yes, the racists were right, what then?
De Tocqueville told the racist de Gobineau that he didn't think that a liberal form of government could survive the presence of any sort of biological determinism. I agree with Alex on that matter. I just, for the life of me, have no idea what to do.
It's a good thing we have Hoodlums to decide what we can an can't say. Not having to decide for myself what to say is a load off my mind!
I believe Hoodlum was being ironic.
Birches said...If we can agree that almost no one understands the history behind the statues or the context of the Jim Crow South, why should we be discussing taking the statues down because of what they symbolized in the 20th Century?
Can I answer that one? It's easy, really.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
We care about the feelings of some people but not of other people.
The people get to decide what a symbol means. The people, obviously, have decided that these symbols represent hatred--racism, etc. That is therefore what they mean. It is altogether right and proper for real Americans to rid themselves of public symbols of hatred, so the people in this mob are the real patriots and ought to be celebrated.
Just as our founders pulled down the statue of George III in NY and used the lead from it to make 40,000 bullets, so ought we to melt down these racist hate symbols and fashion from their metal weapons with which to continue to beat the racist Nazi rightwing scum in the streets. Who could object? Only a Nazi.
Maybe this statue could be replaced with Fearless Girl carrying a baseball bat.
YoungHegelian
You ask what do we do after these decades of failure? Why, we tear down the statues that offend. That has been the problem all along, these monuments to dead Confederates. We have wondered why the black underclass has grown and grown when billions have been thrown at trying to mitigate their problems. And the answer was right in front of some of us: monuments to Confederates. How could we have been so blind walking as we have past these bronzes for nearly a hundred years without recognizing that their poison was making it impossible for little black children to have fathers or to be able to read and write after years of the white man's schools?
you think it's a good idea for the left to call attention to its willingness to get destructive
Is it a good idea for the scorpion to sting the frog half-way across the river?
They are what they are.
Michael said of the antifas: "They will be broke and drunk in twenty years, their brave assault on the evil statuary a distant and melancholy memory. '
Maybe. Then again, they could be bureaucrats in the Ministry of Truth, ensuring that Wrong Thinkers are punished and erasing NonPersons from history. Or they could be teaching your children and grandchildren to hate America. Bill Ayres taught at a university.
"Bill Ayres taught at a university."
-- I would have always thought when his ideology killed his friends because they accidentally blew themselves up, he would have come to realize the error of his nihilistic murder fantasies.
But, nope. Instead, he's celebrated for them.
I'm not mad today. I was angry yesterday and I still don't like when non-Leftists go after me using the same methods the Left does, but I get it; I understand.
Some people who oppose the removal of these monuments are racists and oppose the removal for racist reasons. Good people must do everything they can to prove they're not racist--that's especially true for good people on the Right, since the Left will always assume you're a racist no matter what. Good people therefore must do all they can to distinguish themselves from the ugly people on this particular topic, up to and including standing by while other good people brazenly break the law. That's just the price you pay for ensuring everyone understand you're on the correct side--you're a good person.
It's funny that people in this thread talk about how we have to avoid "us vs. them" thinking or allowing the Media to divide us up into groups/set us against one another. We're already there! We've already decided that certain ideas or causes or beliefs are too associated with ugly people and therefore cannot be defended. The fact that the guilt-by-association game that makes that true will 100% apply to most other beliefs and ideas held by the Right doesn't matter--the mob may come for you good Right people one day, but they're not coming now: for now you get to be part of the mob. And that's fine, that's understandable--the people have spoken, after all.
Look: symbols mean whatever we decide they mean. We voted and decided they're hateful racist statues; I disagreed but I lost the vote. I get that, I hear you; so tear 'em down.
Certain views and opinions and beliefs are simply outside the bounds of respectable opinion. That's true of actual Nazis, of course, and since it's now true that anyone who objects to the will of the people (vis a vis tearing down statues) is a Nazi, well...let's just say we shouldn't have to hear too much of that anymore, ok? I understand.
Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in nonviolence, and accepted that he would be arrested for breaking the law (Letter from Birmingham Jail ought to be mandatory reading in every university). Then came the notion that one should be able to engage in nonviolent but illegal activities without suffering any legal consequences because one's motives are pure. And now pretty much the same people, calling themselves "antifa" and IWW and other shadowy, hate-filled organizations want to be able to engage in violent activities because their hearts are pure. How does this get fixed if the police won't do their job? Do they think their job consists solely of ticketing parked cars and setting up speed traps?
Paddy O: MLK jr.'s approach expected violence but returned non-violence. Fanon returns violence for violence. Fanon burns to the ground. MLK jr. builds and expands.
MLK jr. invites the victims into a new experience of life and fruition. Fanon calls for the victims to sacrifice yet more so as to indulge rage and revenge.
MLK jr. (also a member of the very crowded "complicated and problematic" pantheon of icons) was assassinated at an early age, at the height of his leadership charisma, becoming a martyr and a symbol of a noble cause. Like the Kennedy brothers, we have no idea what he we would have evolved into politically as a flesh-and-blood leader. Conservatives(tm) just love invoking Saint Martin as a sort of protective culture war evil-eye, but conservatives(tm) are always a bit slow in understanding the nature of the conflicts swirling around them.
"Why did law enforcement do nothing?"
For the same reason they did nothing in Charlottesville, and the same reason they did nothing in Baltimore, and the same reason they did nothing in Berkley. . . . They know that stepping on their violence and vandalism will hurt them politically so they sideline the police and let it occur.
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It's more than that -- they and the MSM and academia and many others are blind to the evil and hate from certain people and groups. A person from this PC group could say the most vile and malicious things and do horrible things, and they will not see it or recognize anything wrong with it.
Why stop with the Confederacy?
Why not go after all the monuments, libraries and post offices named after KKK Grand Kleagel Robert Byrd, or Virginia's Harry Byrd, leader of the "Massive Resistance" against the passage and implementation of the Civil Rights Acts?
I mean, if you're an antifa or BLM type "triggered" by statutes of Confederates, shouldn't any memory of these two notorious "segs" also be expunged??
Oh wait---doing that that would only remind Americans that the Democrats---not the eeevil, racist GOP--- were proponents of Jim Crow laws.
Can't let that happen.
Mockturtle said,"There are more than a few hideous 'sculptures' I would like to tear down. I don't like what they represent, which is a mockery of art and a mockery of the fools who fund these abominations with taxpayer's money."
And Chicago has more than its share.
So you find statues of confederate civil war veterans offensive. What about Thomas Jefferson? George Washington? Lincoln? Custer? Anybody want to tear down a statue of that loser?
You know that there are an awful lot of books that express sympathetic views of individual Confederates? Books sitting in our public, yes public, libraries? Do you think that because they sit unopened in our publicly funded libraries that it is okeydokey? You probably do if you are wrong-think and believe statues that have stood in place for a century are okeydokey.
Pull those books down and fucking burn them if you believe what you claim to believe about those evil statues. Do not stop. Proceed.
"Let's not forget who the Jim Crow politicians were and still are. Democrats to a man.
I'll agree with the "were". I'm not sure about the "still are".
How many of the "Jim Crow politicians" are still alive? Thurmond and Helms became Republicans, Byrd remained a Democrat but they are all in their graves. Orville Faubus died in the '90's.
That generation of Southern pols mainly belonged to the WWII generation. How many of them are left and how much power do those very old men now wield?
"Why did law enforcement do nothing?"
Because, in the words of the late ,great, Richard J. Daley, "The police aren't here to create disorder, the police are here to preserve disorder."
An Alt Right person, Baked Alaska, got acid thrown in his eyes at the rally. He may lose his eye sight.
http://100percentfedup.com/watch-conservative-pro-speech-activist-may-go-blind-leftist-agitators-throw-acid-eyes-charlottesville-rally-leftists-tweet-hope-go-blind/
I wish he could sue the police and assorted politicians on their failure to not do anything, but my understanding of the law is they don't need too.
The left seems to do lawfare really well. The right, no.
And the San Jose Lawsuit by Trump supporters moves forward:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/15/judge-wont-throw-out-trump-supporters-negligence-suit-over-rally-melee/
I appreciate the ACLU doing what they did in Charlotsville to allow the march. It follows the tradition they did in Skokie Illinois to allow the march of Nazi's. Part of what makes America great is the 1st amendment. It's blind to politics.
"The destruction of the Democratic Party has begun."
These people are as representative of the Democratic Party as last weekends Nazis represent the Republican Party.
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Actually, the Dems wholly embrace them and encourage them and fund them. Actually, these groups are becoming less and less "extremist" and more and more mainstream in the Democrat Party.
The Republicans, spineless worms that they are, have on the other hand been quite vocal rejecting and repudiating extremist hate groups.
And by the way, National Socialism is much further to the left than to any conservative philosophy.
Then came the notion that one should be able to engage in nonviolent but illegal activities without suffering any legal consequences because one's motives are pure
I love this. People want to appear like they care but don't want to suffer negative consequences. That's pretty half assed I think. It's the same way I feel about the leakers in DC.
Michael said...
"You know that there are an awful lot of books that express sympathetic views of individual Confederates? Books sitting in our public, yes public, libraries?"
Remember "The Civil War" miniseries by Ken Burns? Burns is a lefty and so will undoubtedly agree to remove all the scenes featuring Southern historian Shelby Foote, because Foote had nice things to say about Lee and Jackson. Reviewers gushed about "The Civil War" when it came out, but clearly, in these enlightened times, it's far too nuanced for the likes of PBS.
"Pull those books down and fucking burn them if you believe what you claim to believe about those evil statues. Do not stop. Proceed."
-- The worst part is, there are probably people who will, unironically, get on board with burning Mein Kampf and other books, then be shocked when someone burns Mark Twain.
BJM:
Vicari Valdez said: "fascism is not to be debated. It is to be smashed."
You just described fascism.
I always appreciate it when VV drops in with her distinctive brand of bubble-headed bad-ass SJW hot-takes.
Kevin,
Really? The discussion yesterday was how violence was not the answer to free speech and the people you kept retweeting argued it was.
Which people is that? Not the politicians, which is pretty much who I was quoting.
I do not advocate for violence!
Remember when people yesterday were talking about "using ISIS" tactics about the car running down citizens? Who throws acid in people's faces, again?
@Mock Turtle How about replacing it with the Durham Bull from the flick?
And Joseph Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer for a long time. Can we please change the name of the Kennedy Center? It causes me pain.
It's not just about the mob's lawless use of force to impose themselves and tear down things and inflict physical violence and malign and coerce others all as part acquiring and wielding power.
It is about destruction, pure and simple. Destruction of everything. Tearing it all down -- from statutes to laws to innocent people to marriage and family to reason and truth themselves to the concept of the human person. Destroy it all.
It is not an exaggeration to see them and their actions in such apocalyptic terms.
I always appreciate it when VV drops in with her distinctive brand of bubble-headed bad-ass SJW hot-takes.
8/15/17, 11:00 AM
I think she's in competition with Vicky from Pasadena.
"That generation of Southern pols mainly belonged to the WWII generation. How many of them are left and how much power do those very old men now wield?"
*****************
How much power does Robert E Lee wield?
And part of that destroy it all mentality of the modern left is to turn inward against themselves. Not just the self-hate. But one sub-group trying to devour another. Take a look at the clash between the radical feminists with their purported emphasis on women's rights, and the agenda of the trans crowd who insist that a person is not inherently and objectively "woman" and that even someone "who was assigned male at birth," even a person with a penis can be a woman.
Why stop there? George Washington owned slaves. Knock down the Washington Monument and remove him from the dollar bill. Tear down the White House. The Lincoln Monument can stay (maybe)
Certainly near the top of the list is Memorial Bridge, between the memorial dedicated to President Lincoln and the estate and house owned by Robert E. Lee, a symbol of reconciliation and the restoration of peace.
"White supremacists 'were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016…more than any other domestic extremist movement'."
buwaya puti said...
And, btw, the Japan was the Phil's #2 trading partner (after the USA) in 1940-41.
If the Chinese incinerated Japan with their nukes, my bet is that the statues come down the next day.
sunsong said...
"White supremacists 'were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016…more than any other domestic extremist movement'."
Where does that piece of dreck come from? The SPLC? The wellspring of fake hate crime reports, most of which have been completely discredited?
http://fakehatecrimes.org/
Rick said...
Another winger who believes sides kill each other. Oops
No, I simply mirrored Althouse's wacky take on how the country perceives things at the moment.
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