Excerpt:
When it was over, questions about how this could happen centered on three groups: a meticulously organized, well coordinated and heavily armed company of white nationalists; a fiercely resistant and determined group of counterprotesters prepared to stop the Saturday rally; and state and local authorities who seemed caught off guard by the boldness and persistence of both groups.See, right here, there's a problem: We're not told what words and noises came from the counterprotesters. We're not told they were silent, only that the "white nationalists" got very ugly fast.
By 8:45 p.m. Friday, a column of about 250 mostly young white males, many wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts, began to stretch across the shadowy Nameless Field... and converged on a statue of Jefferson....
There they met their enemy. A group of about 30 U-Va. students — students of color and white students — had locked arms around the base of the statue to face down the hundreds of torchbearers. The marchers circled the statue. Some made monkey noises at the black counterprotesters. Then they began chanting, “White lives matter!”
Within moments, there was chaos. Shoves. Punches. Both groups sprayed chemical irritants. Many marchers threw their torches toward the statue and the students.I have to assume the police deliberately absented themselves. Was it because they knew or expected the counterprotesters to be the enforcers? And who started the punching and shoving? The WaPo report is a model of hiding the human agency: chaos, shoves, and punches seem to be acting on their own.
Other than one university police officer, there was no sign of law enforcement along the march, and it was several minutes before police intervened.
I'm not copying everything. Please go to the link for more detail. Let's skip to mid-morning on Saturday:
By 10:30 a.m., there had been a few small skirmishes, but the fury was building, and it became obvious that a brawl would be stopped only if police stepped in. They did not....The counterprotesters has "sticks" but the "white nationalists" had "long wooden clubs"? Are these weapons basically the same? (I'm picturing baseball bats.) Why withhold the details about the weapons on one side of a rumble? For that matter, why is one side given a label that characterizes its ideology — "white nationalists" — but the other side is not?
A few minutes before 11 a.m., a swelling group of white nationalists carrying large shields and long wooden clubs approached the park on Market Street. About two dozen counterprotesters formed a line across the street, blocking their path. With a roar, the marchers charged through the line, swinging sticks, punching and spraying chemicals.
Counterprotesters fought back, also swinging sticks, punching and spraying chemicals.
One answer is: Because the "white nationalists" had a planned rally, with public details about its message, and the other side were people who gathered to oppose that message. But didn't that other side have to plan its response and use social media to stir up participation?
I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home. I'm sure many people in the area who loathed their message did just that. But the counterprotesters came out. They must have communicated a get-out-the-counterprotest message.
Other[ counterprotesters] threw balloons filled with paint or ink at the white nationalists. Everywhere, it seemed violence was exploding. The police did not move to break up the fights....That's a dreadful interchange — offered, it seems, to represent other things people were yelling at each other.
Within minutes of the dispersal order, the right-wing groups began leaving the park, still exchanging taunts and insults with counterprotesters as they made their way toward McIntire Park, a mile from downtown....
“Go the f--- home!” a black woman yelled at the passing group.
“Go the f--- back to Africa,” one yelled back. “F--- you, n-----!” many also screamed. “Dylann Roof was a hero!” another yelled....
At McIntire, rallygoers were informed that a state of emergency had been declared. The rally would not go forward. Cars and vans with license plates from all over the country began to arrive and pick up the marchers....I'm looking back at the WaPo headline. I still don't really know "how a rally... turned into a 'tragic, tragic weekend.'" I see contributions from the "three groups": "white nationalists... counterprotesters... and state and local authorities...." I don't really know that the white nationalists were "meticulously organized" and "well coordinated" or how the counterprotesters became "fiercely resistant and determined" (was it entirely unorganized and uncoordinated?), and I just don't believe that the state and local authorities were simply "caught off guard."
At 1:14 p.m., the Charlottesville city Twitter account tweeted: “CPD & VSP respond to 3-vehicle crash at Water & 4th Streets. Several pedestrians struck. Multiple injuries.”
For those at McIntire, far from the scene, there wasn’t an immediate connection between the rally and what was at that point being called a crash.
Posts
120 comments:
This has all the indications of a staged event to inflame the lawless paid rioters on both sides like a goof WWF show. The Media had its narrative pre-prepared to spread the word that KKK crazies are a real problem. Why do we never see them in the South?
Friday, a column of about 250 mostly young white males, many wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts, began to stretch across the shadowy Nameless Field, a large expanse of grass behind Memorial Gymnasium at the University of Virginia. Their torches, filled with kerosene by workers at a nearby table, were still dark.
There they met their enemy. A group of about 30 U-Va. students — students of color and white students — had locked arms around the base of the statue to face down the hundreds of torchbearers.
So all this is because 280 idiots. No doubt, idiots are some of the most influential people in our modern society. Their antics can command 24 hours cable news for days and days. I wish we could set them all adrift on an ice flow.
Is this a story about the police protecting the peace?
Focusing on just Friday without looking at the months of antagonism on both sides is... not good journalism. There should be a nod in the timeline to all that's led up to this, otherwise you go away thinking that this erupted spontaneously instead of being a reaction.
In Trumps press conference a few minutes ago, the "journ-o-lists" in the room were SHOCKED that there are two sides of the story, and the ALT left is just as crazy and violent....they were shocked, and asked it over and over again!!! Tell me they never saw the violence and destruction that Antifa has done in the past?????? Yeah, rigggghhhhhhtttt.......
One glaring omission by the article.
Originally, the permit to march in Emancipation Park was denied by the City. The organizer, though, sued, and won in US District Court.
In other words, the so-called White Nationalists had every legal right to be there, but the City did not protect their rights to march by ordering the police to "stand down."
Also, did any of the Counter-Demonstrators, like Antifa, get a permit to march, ratified by a Federal Judge?
The more you look at this from different angles, the more it comes off as as exactly what happened to Milo at UC Berkeley.
1. Disfavored Group wants to speak
2. Favored Group tries to stop it, resorts to violence.
"Both sides thought the police should have intervened earlier to keep the peace. But both sides were claiming victory."
-- The counter protestors won, according to a Clauswitzian view of war. They got their political objective.
Althouse said "I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home. I'm sure many people in the area who loathed their message did just that. But the counterprotesters came out. They must have communicated a get-out-the-counterprotest message."
I 100% agree. It would just have taken all the air out of this rally/protest if all these idiots came out and had nothing to do but fist-bump each other and wave their stupid signs. If there'd been no news coverage, no locals coming out to yell at them, no counter-protesters bused in, they would have been terribly disappointed. It would have been a let-down for them, and they wouldn't have a big compelling reason to ever do it again. So boring, not worth the airfare, bro.
If the counter-protesters had to do SOMETHING it would have been much better to just book the park for the next week and then throw a gigantic diverse party with more people, better signs, and good food. (You can't go wrong with good food. It's very persuasive.) You know, actually demonstrating that their message is better instead of just showing how much punching/beating/pepper-spraying they can do. But that would have been much less satisfying than punching Nazis, clearly.
I should set the example, I guess, by ignoring them myself and not commenting on blog posts on the subject. At least I've avoided doing a long, self-righteous FB post on the subject (thus far).
Bay Area Guy: They mention the court battle over moving the protest, but not where it belongs in the timeline (at the start), rather somewhere after the middle:
"Within minutes of the dispersal order, the right-wing groups began leaving the park, still exchanging taunts and insults with counterprotesters as they made their way toward McIntire Park, a mile from downtown. Citing public safety concerns, the city had tried to move the rally to McIntire earlier in the week. But rally organizer Jason Kessler, a Charlottesville resident, sued the city, saying his First Amendment rights were being violated. A federal judge ruled in Kessler’s favor Friday."
Why do they mention it after they've described the dispersal order? Because it is a terribly written article.
I know Unite the Right had a permit for the Saturday rally. Did they have one for the Friday night torch thing? If they didn't, that could explain the lack of police. Although the counter-protesters seemed to figure out they were there.
"What trust has been shot to hell in the last few years of journalism! "
At least they refer to the white nationalists as "white nationalists". I had expected they would prefer the "white supremacist" fantasy so popular with all their friends on the Left.
"a meticulously organized, well coordinated and heavily armed company of white nationalists;"
"a column of about 250 mostly young white males"
"There they met their enemy. A group of about 30 U-Va. students"
If it had been 250 well coordinated and heavily armed young white males" vs "30 U-Va. students", the students would have been tromped into the dust quickly.
So, just to start with, we know the WaPo is lying about something
"The rally on Saturday was scheduled to go from noon to 5 p.m., but by 8 a.m., the park was already beginning to fill. Rallygoers arrived in contingents, waving nationalist banners and chanting slogans. Many carried shields and clubs. A large number also carried pistols or long guns.
Counterprotesters had also gathered early. Members of anti-fascist groups yelled at the rallygoers. Many of them also carried sticks and shields. They were joined by local residents, members of church groups, civil rights leaders and onlookers."
-- Why do the counter protestors have "sticks" but rallygoers have "clubs?" Did not a single counter protestor have a pistol or long gun? Were there no local residents, church groups or onlookers among the rally-going side? Why don't we mention what kind of "banners" or slogans the counterprotestors had? It seems... odd that we're ignoring that half of the story. Also, this:
“The militia showed up with long rifles, and we were concerned to have that in the mix,” said Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran, who worried that the rallygoers and counterprotesters would mistake the militia for National Guard forces. “They seemed like they weren’t there to cause trouble, but it was a concern to have rifles in that kind of environment.”
-- Why was it a concern when the militia showed up if, as the timeline tells us, there were already numerous long guns and pistols on the scene?
"A few minutes before 11 a.m., a swelling group of white nationalists carrying large shields and long wooden clubs approached the park on Market Street. About two dozen counterprotesters formed a line across the street, blocking their path."
-- That seems pretty clear to me that both sides showed up to fight.
The police played their assigned role just like the WWF referees play an assigned role of men so inept they just cannot enforce rules. The Right Wingers were lead by a Soros Community organizer. The Antifa just attacked any cameramen to prevent a good film record. This was a fictional fight complete with good guys and bad guys.
And whoever thought up the night before's torch bearing Hitler Youth impersonation anyway? The Soros organizer did.
Rush agrees with my point of view, and he says it was probably put on for the Clinton's anointed Governor of Virginia to come to the rescue.
"Thomas said his officers were in their regular uniforms and needed to hurry into their armor."
-- Why aren't we told, "The officers were not in riot armor, and withdrew to wear the proper equipment." Thomas said that -- but these guys were there to see the free hugs guy. Tell us: Were the police you saw wearing their gear or not?
"I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home."
I feel very strongly that this would not have been a good response. The Neo-Nazis were not *merely* exercising their free speech rights; they were attempting to intimidate with their guns and horrible posters etc.
I believe that it is important to hold counter-demonstrations to show that people oppose these disgusting views. Please remember the historical significance of these demonstrations of hate in the American South.
"Rush agrees with my point of view, and he says it was probably put on for the Clinton's anointed Governor of Virginia to come to the rescue. "
-- Good luck winning the presidency when you're on record saying that it is impossible to stop attacks by people using vehicles. He's done at a national level, possibly even a state level mattering how this falls out.
I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home. I'm sure many people in the area who loathed their message did just that. But the counterprotesters came out. They must have communicated a get-out-the-counterprotest message.
@Althouse, I guess people have to be about our age to have this level of common sense. Sad!
'The Right Wingers were lead by a Soros Community organizer.'
Thats one hell of an unsourced claim, and based on other claims made by posters here suggests that both sides were Soros funded fakes.
How about documentation from trustworthy sources for that. Given the largest newspapers are suggested not to be trustwprthy without backup, I expect multiple sources.
Or is that just madeup bullshit?
The [class] diversitists deny individual dignity. The color supremacists want a color bloc. All of these groups are left of America's center. But you wouldn't know it if you were to visit the most densely populated population centers, where there is a clear separation of public and private spaces.
250 surrounded an opposing group of 30, many are armed with clubs, and no cops?
Sounds like it was a miracle a lot more people did not get hurt or killed. Actually a surprising level of restraint, for a while.
Wait. I had thought the statue the fight happened Friday was the one that was being torn down.
It was at a different one... so... who told the UVA students to go there to counter protest?
Honestly, I think you would get far better and far more objective coverage from the Wall Street Journal.
I think what happened in Charlottesville is the sort of people who randomly punch strangers got punched back. The counter protesters were actually shocked that these filthy, violent neo Nazis would defend themselves.
"When it was over, questions about how this could happen centered on three groups: a meticulously organized, well coordinated and heavily armed company of white nationalists; a fiercely resistant and determined group of counterprotesters prepared to stop the Saturday rally; "
-- Wait. So were the counter protesters NOT heavily armed or well-organized and coordinated? What is the point of the WaPo lying to us by pretending that they were just a bunch of scrappy people who happened to stumble together?
Just another day at Alt-Right-House - can't tell right from wrong.
"The Neo-Nazis were not *merely* exercising their free speech rights; they were attempting to intimidate with their guns and horrible posters etc."
"Horrible posters" are free speech.
250 surrounded an opposing group of 30, many are armed with clubs, and no cops?
The intent seems to be creation of a "kill zone", which would be framed by journolists to tell an opportunistic narrative. What's interesting is that they are willing to sacrifice Democratic officials in order to force this progression. This isn't the first time, but it seems since Obama's election, select Democratic factions have become nonviable. I suppose that they have their "color" replacements waiting in the wing.
"shadowy Nameless Field..."
Lost me right there. 'It was a dark and shadowy day when the bad guys spread ominously across the field.' Oooooh...
Adjectives are the tell in any media story.
"By 8:45 p.m. Friday, a column of about 250 mostly young white males, many wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts"
Omigosh! Preppies!!! No wonder they were attacked.
'The Right Wingers were lead by a Soros Community organizer.'
Thats one hell of an unsourced claim, and based on other claims made by posters here suggests that both sides were Soros funded fakes.
Jason Kessler? Occupy douchebag?
The mainstream left believes in [class] diversity (i.e. denying individual dignity), and the alt-left believes in "color" supremacy (e.g. "minority" factions, color blocs). The establishment of a Pro-Choice Church has clear and progressive consequences.
@Matthew, McAuliffe only narrowly won four years ago by running against a hardcore social conservative who expressed a desire to roll back Roe v Wade. After nearly four years of his shenanigans, I think McAuliffe would lose reelection running against a fence post. Not that it matters, because in Virginia a governor cannot succeed himself.
For that matter, why is one side given a label that characterizes its ideology — "white nationalists" — but the other side is not?
Because to do so requires renaming the ANTIFA as the PROTOFA?
Matthew Sablan said...
-- Wait. So were the counter protesters NOT heavily armed or well-organized and coordinated? What is the point of the WaPo lying to us by pretending that they were just a bunch of scrappy people who happened to stumble together?
Hasn't that always been the preferred narrative?
I heard an unsourced rumor that their collars were popped up, mockturtle!
Unite the Right rally had a Friday night surprise. They were going to march in a torchlight procession — a symbolic gathering meant to evoke similar marches of Hitler Youth and other ultraright nationalist organizations of the past century.
Does anyone believe this was the specific intent? Or is this the spin the media wants us to believe?
For an alt-right take from an attendee at Saturday's melee, try this piece by Pax Dickinson:
dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/heres-how-the-virginia-state-police-provoked-violence-at-charlottesville/
It would prove to be the catalyst for a horrific 24 hours in this usually quiet college
I thought it was a hotbed of rape culture. I think we need a second opinion.
For an alt-right take from an attendee at Saturday's melee, try this piece by Pax Dickinson:
Uh, no, I'm good.
"Oakland 2009, Akron 2009, Pittsburgh 2009, Santa Cruz 2010, Oakland 2010, Los Angeles 2010, Oakland 2011, Chicago 2012, Anaheim 2012, Brooklyn 2013, Ferguson 2014, New York City 2014, Baltimore 2015, Anaheim 2016, Chicago 2016, St Paul 2016, Milwaukee 2016, Charlotte 2016, Standing Rock 2016, Oakland 2016, Portland 2016, Washington DC 2017, Berkeley 2017, Anaheim 2017, Berkeley (again) 2017, Berkeley (again again) 2017, Olympia 2017, and Portland 2017. This is a list of overwhelmingly leftist protests. But those have a different standard in the press" - Ben Domenech
http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/14/the-reality-of-charlottesville/
Thankfully, the Tiki Torch brigade were wearing pants and not shorts
This is going to be tough for the leftists to explain.
Looks like "Unite the Right" is an Obama front organization.
Exurban Bourbon said...
For an alt-right take from an attendee at Saturday's melee, try this piece by Pax Dickinson:
dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/heres-how-the-virginia-state-police-provoked-violence-at-charlottesville/
8/15/17, 4:11 PM
Seems legit, guy has a map showing location of permited marchers, antifa gangsters, cops , and national guard.
Achilles said...
This is going to be tough for the leftists to explain.
Looks like "Unite the Right" is an Obama front organization.
Even the SPLC is admitting he was an Occupy Organizer.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jason-kessler
It's not news, it's narrative. You want the biggest audience possible, trading off interestedness and numbers for various narratives.
That's a dreadful interchange — offered, it seems, to represent other things people were yelling at each other.
If it actually happened.
If so, it's not really awful, just the worst thing they could think of to say to each other in the moment.
I'd go with my insult generator, which is much better for one-up fierceness
You fulsome saucepan of harmful Brussels griffon hemorrhage
You execrable dosser of teeming blind snake soot
You untasteful Boston bag of neuritic bush wren orts
You painful wineskin of wanton trout barf
You harrowing golf bag of impure kuvasz dejecta
You undesirable drawer of diseased black face Highland embers
You dolorous marsupium of cancerous prairie fox dingleberry
You unattractive tableware of nephritic goldfinch effluent
You mournful creel of freeloving chickaree vomit
You dolorific sheath of dropsical storm petrel ejecta
Given the largest newspapers are suggested not to be trustwprthy without backup
They are untrustworthy. Particularly the Washington Post. In fact, the only thing you can trust about them is that they will twist the facts to fit their predetermined narrative as they run their usual daily quota of ten or more anti-Trump stories.
"my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home." Well, that sounds very nice. Too bad that response would be politically ineffectual. Better to stage a fight, get the MSM to report it your way, tar the right as nazi, badger GOP pussies into denunciations, exploit it to delegitimate Trump, get execs to quit councils, spread the movement to tear down statues, buy sympathy for antifa anarchism, and oh yeah, attack Trump some more.
Brookzene said...
"For an alt-right take from an attendee at Saturday's melee, try this piece by Pax Dickinson:
Uh, no, I'm good."
Unintentionally revealing there, Brookzene. You've got your story straight already, the truth would only complicate things.
The truth you are carefully ignoring is that after the State Police declared the rally an unlawful assembly, they forced the attendees to leave through the mob of antifa/BLM thugs waiting for them on Market Street. Dickinson ends his account by noting that "Governor Terry McAuliffe and the Virginia State Police have blood on their hands".
Althouse, I think this is the account you're looking for;
http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/heres-how-the-virginia-state-police-provoked-violence-at-charlottesville/
Dickinson does not mention that the incident in which a woman was killed and many others injured occurred in the midst of the riot which the State Police very carefully created.
Brookzene said...
"For an alt-right take from an attendee at Saturday's melee, try this piece by Pax Dickinson:
Uh, no, I'm good."
Perfect !! Avoid anything that might change your mind. SAD.
In the midst of the two groups, another force arrived. Dressed in full camouflage and outfitted with semiautomatic rifles and pistols, three dozen members of a self-styled militia walked onto the sidewalk. Christian Yingling, who described himself as the commander of the unit, said they were there to keep the peace.
Even though the author admits here the militia is a separate group remember the beginning where he divided the groups into protesters, counter protesters, and police. He combined the militia with the protesters in order to describe the protesters as armed. It's revealing even with a group as awful as this journalists can't play it straight. Shading reality based on political preference is simply too ingrained for them to not indulge themselves.
“At 11:22, we declared an unlawful assembly,” Moran said. “We quelled the disturbance at that point.”....“We unequivocally acted at the right time and with the appropriate response.”
This seems an admission stopping the violence was an option at every point.
The SOP in situations like this is for the police to keep the groups separated to minimize the chance of violence. For whatever reason, the Charlottesville police did nothing of the sort. And when violence inevitably did break out they took a "hands-off" attitude, saying it was "too dangerous" for them to intervene. The police can't handle a mob armed with sticks? Sounds pretty fishy to me.
Not only did the Charlottesville police fail to prevent violence, they managed to encourage it by directing foot traffic at the site so that the two groups came into direct contact. I'm not sure that this whole confrontation was engineered to turn violent or was an example of sheer incompetence. Whatever the case, the Charlottesville police did the exact opposite of what should have been done.
I think it can be argued that if things hadn't gotten so heated, the guy in the car might not have felt compelled to drive into the crowd. That girl died because the whole situation was so poorly handled. Those in charge need to be held accountable.
Ann Althouse said...I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention.
That sounds suspiciously like something a bad racism sympathizer fake liberal person of privilege would say, Professor. Are you suuuure you're one of the good people?
Insufficiently robust denunciations of, and willingness to commit violence against, bad people is what makes marginally good people turn into bad people themselves, you know.
Something to keep an eye on; I'd hate to have to denounce "ugly Althouse."
Finally, an opportunity!
YT - Offspring: Come Out and Play (Keep 'em Separated)
Kitty M said: "The Neo-Nazis were not *merely* exercising their free speech rights; they were attempting to intimidate with their guns and horrible posters etc."
Eyewitness accounts reported that stores in or near the area closed, neighborhood residents stayed indoors, and the rest of Charlottesville avoided the area. If the media and the counterprotestors hadn't shown up, who exactly would have been intimidated?
Ann is correct, of course, in that one cannot trust anything from WaPo (or most other outlets), so we who were not there will only get slanted views from both sides and never really be confident we know what went on.
As for the riot, itself, the obvious answer to all this was that any organized counter-demonstration also had to get a permit and the terms of the 2 permits would be such as to keep some reasonable separation between the two protests. Close enough for the counter-demonstrators to be seen as counter-demonstrating (essential to their purpose), but far enough apart that thrown objects would not be an issue---maybe 100 yards?
The police would enforce the separation, and deal with anyone who entered "no man's land" or used a mechanical device to shoot things at the other group.
Any group of more than about 3 people who showed up or coalesced not under the terms of one or the other permit would be considered a mob and the police (assisted and reinforced by State Police as necessary) would instantly arrest and remove them for the duration. I assume that Charlottesville, like most cities, or Virginia like most states, has a law defining a mob and mob action, and iirc those usually specify 3 people or maybe a bit more.
Requiring a permit by the demonstrators but just allowing unlimited numbers of counter-demonstrators, set on violence, to come and go with no control, openly invites disaster. While the ass in the car was not predictable, injuries and possible fatalities were VERY predictable given the way this was mis-handled.
Doing this right requires clarity and moral courage and a certain amount of intelligence and planning, but it is not rocket science and was all pretty well-understood back in the 1960s and 1970s, in the contexts of Civil Rights and Vietnam War marches, mostly. Much of the moral courage is needed to deal with the media, who will lie to make you look bad, but if you can't deal with the m,edia when matters of life and death are on the line, you don't belong in the job in the first place.
The same folks who saw violent racists at Tea Party events can't see masked marauders with baseball bats. natch!
Ms. Althouse I am inflicted with the Los Angeles as my local newspaper. It's slanted left so badly that when I eat breakfast---whilst reading the Times, the whole breakfast table tilts to one side. It's true even on the sports page--which should be apolitical.
As for Trump--he had it correct. Lots of blame to go around---I'm not fond of Nazis, I'm not fond of the KKK, and I'm not fond of progressives, anti-fa, BLM, La Raza or whatever. That said, as long as all they do is talk, you let them talk. But when they follow Obama's advice and bring a gun to a knife fight, a baseball bat to a fist fight, or a mini flamethrower, then it's time to call a halt to the "festivities". The police should intervene and restrain both sides--or at least keep them apart. And the Charlottesville police department and the mayor screwed the pooch rather badly this weekend.
I see a lot of different groups:
1. Counter Protesters
- Antifafa (basically anarchists, but organized and train with weapons and in groups, all in black)
- Communists (A+ at logistics - takes care of porta pottys, etc. at demonstrations)
- BLM
- Assorted Useful idiots
2. Some type of Militia that was doing open carry? That was doing the polices job.
3. Alt Right
- Alt Reich - Nazi Wannabees
- Alt White - White Nationalists
- Alt Light
- Other useful idiots
4. Reporters
5. Law Enforcement
I wish there was more good information out there on numbers, what each side did, why they were there, any outside funding, etc. I am surprised the acid attack on Baked Alaska, Alt Right Media person, has not gotten more attention. The head of one of the Alt White organizations being a person involved in Occupy is amazing. I have a feeling a lot of the groups on the alt right that were involved, their politics are a bit to the left. Nazi's were National Socialist German Workers' Party - Note the use of German, Socialist, and Workers. The enemy of both Communists and Nazi's were Capitalists.
And now Russia in Europe is buddies with both the far right and left.
The Neo-Nazis were not *merely* exercising their free speech rights; they were attempting to intimidate with their guns and horrible posters etc.
Intimidate who? Illegal counter-protesters who could have just stayed home, but somehow feel they have the right to attack anybody who says things they don't like?
I am compelled to tell my European friends that they can't believe anything they hear or read from CNN, NYT, WaPo or MSNBC. Some of them simply don't understand why we elected Trump [or why I voted for him]. It's hard to explain to someone across the pond.
Even the SPLC is admitting [Kessler] was an Occupy Organizer.
Justine Tunney was an Occupy organizer, and is well to the right of most commenters here on some issues.
Intimidate who? Illegal counter-protesters who could have just stayed home, but somehow feel they have the right to attack anybody who says things they don't like?
Exactly, Bob. The most effective way to treat neo-Nazis/White Supremacists is to ignore them. Attacking them is giving them exactly what they want: A prelude to a full-fledged race war.
HoodlumDoodlum said: "Insufficiently robust denunciations of, and willingness to commit violence against, bad people is what makes marginally good people turn into bad people themselves."
And here I thought good folks denounced IDEAS and provided cogent counterarguments, not denounce PEOPLE and commit violence against them just because you think they're bad. Wasn't that the modus operandi of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and several other political systems of the 20th century?
Plus, I'm unconvinced that we can ever rid the country of bad ideas, so all we can hope for is to keep the worst ones, or most of them anyway, from being implemented by government. The couple hundred idiots--losers?--in Charlottesville chanting "You will not replace us" were unsuccessful in influencing our culture or laws. But thanks to 24/7 media coverage, they probably were successful in recruiting a couple hundred more idiots to their cause, whatever that is.
You can trust WaPo to not even try to be fair.
"If the counter-protesters had to do SOMETHING it would have been much better to.."
Bullshit. They didn't have to do ANYTHING. The protest, from what I have garnered from media accounts, was over the Lee statue. The left already won that fight-- the city has already decided to remove it. The protesters, whatever their political views, hateful or not (Who knows? They never seem to be able to hold a rally, or even give a speech without getting shouted down. Even more mainstream Nazis like Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannapoulos and David Horowitz routined get the heckler's veto) have a right to peaceably assemble and seek redress for what they perceive to be a wrong.
The crybullies were not there to counter-protest against the statue, or even to counter any arguments by Unite the Right, but to violently, and criminally shut them down, and deny their free speech rights. Antifa = Anti-First-Amendment. They violated not just the alt-right's rights and freedoms, but EVERYONE'S, yours and mine. We didn't get to hear them speak whether we wanted to or not, because the good people decided the deplorables have no rights.
I see the leftist fascists have a lot of support on this site. Here's a warning for you shitbags: If you fuck with my 1A rights, I will go 2A on your ass. I will gladly put a bullet where your brain ought to be. I'll watch with delight as the blood streams into your dead eyes. I will shoot you between the eyes IF YOU'RE LUCKY! I will give you a hot lead enema free of charge. I will rejoice in your suffering and death.
Achilles said...
"This is going to be tough for the leftists to explain.
Looks like "Unite the Right" is an Obama front organization."
Meh.
The source of *all* of that appears to be the SPLC stating that there are rumors that Kessler used to be an Occupy supporter.
Even if the rumors are true -- lots of people convert from the left to the right without being "plants" or false flags.
It looks more like Kessler was always into organizing and marching and that this became his cause during his interactions with the (apparently vile) town councilor in Charlottesville leading the effort to remove the Lee statue.
More generally... this was the single largest White Nationalist protest in a generation -- and they only got a few hundred people? And we're supposed to believe that this represents a major mass movement that's taking over our country? Give me a break.
I hate doing this (yes, I'm going to do it anyway), but I need help. I'm trying to remember the term for when someone uses a reverse-goalpost-moving tactic in a discussion. I thought I heard about it here, but it might have been at Insty, or Ace, or any other of a half-dozen blogs that I pop in on from time to time and it is driving me crazy that I can neither remember nor find it. The example of this tactic is when a person says something like, "Feminism is believing that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities." Then you agree to that, and then the person starts including a bunch of other stuff that you don't agree with in their exercise of "feminism," and when you object, they try to go back to the first thing they said: "But feminism is just believing in women having equal rights" and act shocked and appalled that you could be opposed to "feminism" when really the thing you opposed was all the extra baggage they attached to it. There is an official term for this, and the term is not reverse-goalpost-moving.
In other news, I only made it halfway through the WaPo article because the disconnect between the "How" headline and the "Selected What" content of the piece annoyed me too much.
CharCharBinks,
Get a grip man. You are fringe. It ain't healthy.
See Monday's post here: https://stiltonsplace.blogspot.com/
About half-way down there's a letter from a Charlottesville resident.
Thank you Althouse.
Removing Confederate monuments at Gettysburg would have little impact, there are only a handful. This is from Stone Sentinels web page:
"The first Confederate monument on the Gettysburg battlefield was dedicated in 1884 to the 1st Maryland Battalion. It took years for the next to follow. Southern states were impoverished after the war, Gettysburg was a Union victory fought on Union soil, and the battlefield commission was controlled by Union veterans whose rules discouraged the meaningful placement of Confederate monuments. An effort by the War Department after 1900 to mark the locations of Confederate regiments failed due to lack of participation and even active opposition by surviving Confederate veterans."
"As time went on the importance of the Battle of Gettysburg and a spirit of reconciliation combined to bring some southern monuments to this northern field. Many of the veterans who strongly associated with their regiments had passed on by then, and efforts were concentrated in state monuments. Virginia was the first in 1917, but the last Confederate state monument, that of Tennessee, was not dedicated until 1982, and Maryland, whose monument is dedicated to its troops who fought on both sides, until 1994."
I can't see the removal of any Confederate monuments at Gettysburg. The ones that are there were placed at the request of the NPS. There are 12 state markers and only 6 regiment/brigade markers. Can't see that ever changing much at this point in time. There is one individual monument, to James Longstreet, but it is the ugliest monument in the whole park. If it were removed I would't care.
If you really want to see a well-marked battlefield with extensive monuments marking positions of regiments and battalions of both sides then Chickamauga is the place to go. It is also a really beautiful park and very easy to get to. There are no monuments at all at Chickamauga to individuals, unlike Gettysburg, as they are not allowed under the terms of the park's creation by the War Department in 1890. Because of that rule, the statue commissioned and paid for by Union and Confederate veterans for its first commissioner, former CSA general A. P. Stewart, in appreciation of his nearly 20 years helping the park to become established, could not be placed in the park as was intended! It wound up instead on the grounds of the Hamilton County Courthouse in Chattanooga. The NAACP started an effort last week to have it removed. Ironically, Stewart did not believe in slavery and never owned any slaves. It would take action by the TN legislature and probably an act of Congress to have it moved to Chickamauga, where it really belongs. I hope that happens, it is really a nice statue and I would hate to see the idiot anarchists deface it.
@Sam L., thank you.
I keep coming back the gregq's comment wa-a-a-ay upthread. If the neo-Nazis were 250 individuals strong, and if they were bent on trouble, how could 30 college students -- neither a SEAL nor a Green Beret among them! -- successfully stand them off? Something really doesn't add up. Maybe the neo-Nazis intended to be provocative but peaceful? That would explain a lot.
It was at a different one... so... who told the UVA students to go there to counter protest?
The Friday march ended at the Jefferson statue on the original UVA quad in front of Jefferson's Rotunda.
The still photos I saw didn't show any white shirts. Saw two group insignia, one a half-exposed 88 tee shirt. No signs or flags on that side.
gregq @ 3:46,
My thought as well.
I worry about the future for my young relatives, we know from not too distant history that millions of people have been killed because of liberals/socialists, totalitarianism and it looks like it's coming to our country aided and abetted by the corrupt liberal media.
In May 1970 I was in my third year at UVA Law School, which was then on the main campus not far from The Green and the Rotunda. I was a anti Vietnam War protestor, actually a fairly conspicuous and well known one at the time in our little pond. I was seen as a "rebel," mainly because I did not wear a coat and tie to class, and had shoulder length hair plus a pathetic mustache that I now deeply regret. I was also a top student and something of a leader in the law school. From various other activities I had a good relationship with the President of the University. The Law School Dean not so much.
Then came Kent State and Jackson state. The campus went on strike, just like a lot of others, and everybody was out and about and there was a sense of danger. There had been 4 dead in O-Hi-O and 10 days later two were killed at Jackson State, by American soldiers and Mississippi police respectively. The state sent in riot police and there was a lot of tinder but still no fire. William Kunstler and Jerry Rubin arrived and spoke to a large crowd. I was on the Dias and accompanied them around. "Around" eventually meant the President's residence on the campus, where Kunstler and Rubin gave speeches from the front steps to a large and increasingly inebriated crowd. We didn't have demonstrators and counter demonstrators. It was the demonstrators vs. the authorities. It became very clear, to me at least, the Kunstler and Rubin were encouraging the crowd, without saying so, to rush the house, force their way in and then do who knows what. It would have been easy to set it afire and then all hell would break loose.
For some reason there were no police at President Shannon's house. He was a good man and very earnest and fair. A group of us law student, we called ourselves the Law School Marshalls, undertook to block the entrance to the house. I was wearing Dean Monrad Paulsen's academic robes, which I had borrowed without permission from his office. he actually had them on a hanger in there, in full view, in case he needed them on short notice I guess.
Anyone who wanted trouble could have gone around back of President Shannon's house and probably broken in, but I was learning that a mob wants to stay a mob, and they stuck together out front. I lost all respect (did I ever have any other than starstruck awe?) for Kunstler and Rubin than night. They were trying to use the crowd and make them into thugs. We had a lot of drunks and fools at UVA but apparently not so many thugs. There was a lot of pushing and surging but the crowed lacked the determination and the internal leadership to do the deed. One or two effective indigenous firebrands could have set them aflame, but none materialized, and Rubin and Kunstler were not enough.
My turn away from liberalism began that night, and I also learned how dangerous a crowd can feel. We were very lucky that things did not explode.
It's different now. The crowds are full of hate, and there are two crowds that hate each other. They have guns in their pocket and righteousness in their brains. It could get murderously ugly.
"Maybe the neo-Nazis intended to be provocative but peaceful? That would explain a lot."
Maybe they were not Nazis, Neo or otherwise.
@Mom2Es
It's called Motte and Bailey
Search Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex blog for his analysis
Vice had a nice little video on Charlottesville:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg
@Mom2Es: Are you thinking of the
motte and bailey doctrine or fallacy, which you may have run into at Slate Star Codex?
The reported numbers are rather wildly different from what the ACLUVA reported; the ACLUVA also reported -- and has video of -- (some of?) the LARP Nazis being herded into a much larger group of counter-protesters.
I'd say a grain of salt is needed.
Oh come on. You read this and still think WaPo is playing it straight?
a meticulously organized, well coordinated and heavily armed company of white nationalists; a fiercely resistant and determined group of counterprotesters prepared to stop the Saturday rally; and state and local authorities who seemed caught off guard by the boldness and persistence of both groups.
The bonds of citizenship are fraying.
There are people who have no interest in conversation except with those that agree.
Richard Fernandez, as usual, is not optimistic.
The asymmetry in the strategic goals of Red and Blue derives from the importance of the state to each. For progressives, survival means retaining ascendance over the state. For the Red or Populist side, the goal is merely to keep the state from being ascendant over them. This asymmetry is the great weakness of the Progressives. If they don't win they lose. For Rebels, if they don't lose they win. Consider Google's firing of James Damore for questioning the company's diversity policies. It wasn't about opinion, it was about control. Everyone can have an opinion but only one side can be in control. Damore had to be thrown out to "win". Glenn Reynolds writes:
This is the state of conversation these days.
If you take the White Nationalist, etc., groups out of the equation, but leave it at "group X with a legal license to speak publicly", the Charlottesville story is simply another in a line of "Far Left Democrat thugs illegally try to stop free speech". I.e., in actuality this is nothing new. And the media is desperately avoiding that part of the story.
Depressing reading althouse comments these days. These were not alt right protestors. They were f**king NAZIs. And more of them are crawling out of my their hole every day because they think the president is on their side. When total nutcases like Newton-was-a-hoax Alex Jones have regular phone conversations with trump, the nation is in big trouble.
"Maybe that were not nazis, neither or otherwise". Did you see them. Chanting anti black and Jew slogans. Carrying nazi flags. Let's take them at their word.
such a awful and typical article. I still don't know what happened.
Many liberal protests are organized by the far left (ANSWER, BAM, et cetera) and have socialist / communists involved (but they never make it into MSN photographs of the event). Is this the same in reverse? Is the MSM making it into a 'white nationalist' thing or was it really almost all creepy nazis? At this point I can't trust the MSM for the answer.
To me, Ann's most interesting comment is this one: "my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home."
This is plain common sense. No one protesting the white nationalists could possibly believe they represent anything other than a tiny and reviled cult that decided to march in order to get exactly the response the protestors and the media gave them. Both sides apparently WANT the attention knowing full well most people paying attention will be disgusted by BOTH sides. Neither side could believe its behavior would win it greater public approval. But that still meets their needs as they see them. Is it merely because displays of powerfulness are all they crave even at the price of continuing to be powerless? Or do the protestors understand that media attention will compensate and to some degree counteract their powerlessness and win they support via outrage? In other words, are the protestors acting expressively and irrationally, or are they being practical and effective. I lean toward the first of these views.
"Other[ counterprotesters] threw balloons filled with paint or ink at the white nationalists." Since when do peaceful counterprotestors prepare paint and ink balloons and take them to their peaceful protest? Somehow...somehow...that seems counterfactual.
I think of these so-called "Nazis" as play-actors, like people who wear pirate costumes and say, "Arrgh!" Their play acting can be destructive--perhaps it can be--unless everyone ignores them, when it's just play-acting. Violence is destructive, but pretending to be a member of a German political movement that ended in 1945 is, in my book, mostly silly, like pretending to be a crew member on the Starship Enterprise. It's not a crime to utter statements about one's superiority over other people--just stupid and unconvincing. As a free country, we do not interfere with other people's speech, because we are all better when we know what other people believe, and we really need to know what the dumb and uninformed think. Only in the very rare case when speech will cause immediate loss of human life (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater with few exits) do we impede it.
Ann Althouse is right not to trust the Post in this reporting, for various reasons. First, they haven't earned the trust in the past few years. Second, the language of the story she's talking about is slanted; the comparisons are not even-handed. The story talks about the organization of one side, and doesn't talk about the organization of the other side. If we are talking about how organized X is, we should also talk about how organized Y is--but the Post doesn't do it. That's a glaring omission. By that fact alone we can see the Post is not being even-handed, and therefore is not worthy of trust.
ignoring actual nazis and white supremacists used to be what we did... they're are not that many of them btw... but looking at the coordinated dem and msm politicking of this it seems they've found a use for them. To try to associate everyone that doesn't think like them with the klan.
It's a bullshit report, for starters because it refers to antifa as "counterprotestors."
Pax Dickinson participated via Unite the Right so take it fwiw, but it sure does raise some questions.
Here’s How Virginia State Police Facilitated Violence At Charlottesville
I also came across a video from rightie I don't know on Twitter that included a clip that records what definitely sounds like a gunshot--I shoot, it could be a gun, and there's reaction on the video. The commenter suggests it could have been a blank fired by antifa to get the armed righties to react. Something that is antifa 101.
one claim is that the state police coordinated with the much larger crowd of Antifa combatants by driving the demonstrators into the club-wielding attackers.
I am disgusted by both group of assholes. but if the state police did what is alleged here....
https://kek.gg/i/6C6t5p.jpeg
Thanks for linking that, Christopher, I'd seen it earlier but forgot where. I can't believe the VSP can be that incompetent. Someone thought first not separating them, then cancelling the rally and pushing one side into the other were good moves, and he should lose his job. I'm not usually a conspiracist but something stinks, probably McAwful.
I am sure this has been said before, but when you look at this "remove all Confederacy related statues" theme, you see a culture war against America. This is what the Taliban and ISIS do--they tear down monuments, towers, statues--the more ancient, well-known and respected, the better. They destroy culture as a mode of warfare.
It's murderous behavior to tear down a civilization's monuments. You cut the ground out from underneath people, and you deprive them of the context in which their lives had had meaning. If their ancestors put up statues honoring Robert E Lee, you insult and demean and stain their ancestors. There's no gain, no improvement that will happen. It's an act of cultural murder--meant to be intimidating and disorientating to people trying to live good lives--and for that reason it's reasonable to call it evil.
Ralph, of course, that's the allegation of the march organizers--that the police, courtesy of the mayor and ultimately our hideous governor, were hoping to provoke a violent reaction with the help of antifa. I don't know enough to say--but I do think we're gonna learn a lot. The linked piece notes the police (VSP I believe) had video rolling from a great vantage point to prove or disprove much of what he claims. If we never get to see it, I'm gonna assume this account is legit.
Orwell46, that there is what we call Year Zero. They're already going after Teddy Roosevelt,and Trump is right that Washington and Jefferson are simply lower on the list--there is no logical stopping point.
Year Zero had its first great triumph in the French Revolution, if you consider the guillotine a triumph. You can't dissolve a nation's symbols and stories without generating chaos at best and violent disfiguring chaos at worst.
I kinda think that's going to happen though. Someone on Twitter guesses a Northern Ireland IRA scenario will break out in some state, somewhere, within a half year. I hope not but it wouldn't surprise me at this point.
They should have had video running during the encounter with the police. I don't want to believe they're that incompetent, but it sounds exactly like other people have described. He's got every reason to lie though.
Well. Release the police videos. Put an end to the speculation.
It's odd that with so many sources reporting and commenting on the events in Virginia, no one knows who or what to believe, who or what to trust. Not likely to change anytime soon, either.
"What trust has been shot to hell in the last few years of journalism!"
It begs the philosophy of many questions and there are answers,...
The trust at any given time amongst an individual could of course change, c.f. or cf or whatever the pros do, see for reference that quote Churchill talked about a guy or gal or dames making far-as-I-know namely the lackheart double-decader vis a vis the brainless ceterus parabus quadly-decked. THIS IS NOT FREUD, THIS IS NOT FREUD.
That change in trust, not some static, most-unmathematic although I respect our posting knowledgeable mathematic elders to not to prefer stasis in mathematic mass movements moreing by boring hatred because of, truthful, superiority.
Moreing is spelling right, my way.
But if things were, like Gram said back in the day, really tough, he's seen troubled time before and he knows it's gonna work out right.
"Though this time it really,
hurts me bad, I've been through similarities, it's not the worst break I've had, and I just can't get it bring me down too low.
Though I,
tried so hard,
to please her,
She said she really had to go."
year zero aside they're trying to make people look like nazi supporters for being against destroying monuments and beating up protesters (re: your supporting white supremacists for being against 'counterprotesters').
Just beware of the setup.
Althouse used a breathtaking use of "hell" instead of Hell.
"hell" is precisely where other-than-human-being, natch, idioms are shot to. Idioms, although certainly containing what the Bard called brevicious wit, soulfully play second fiddle.
I frankly don't understand why more people don't know or talk about this fact but am ultro-mega happy Althouse has used this properly.
"and I just can't get it" ought read per the artist Gram Parsons "and I just can't let it" and I offer my humble apologies for my misquoting this legend of legend, and others I might have maybe unintentionablly not acknowledge, which looking at my fucking damn posts means every damn joke I ever tried to tell on this blog, here.
I didn't tell 'em right.
I gonna try, try and try again and then, ha, HA, you'll see, I will tell those damn jokes damn right and make all the richies laugh.
"You got a Bentley, wow.
I've got jets with wet bars, and trucks with gold plows." Kid Rock
"Money money money ain't shit to me..." Kid Rock
"An acre" of wood in Rush's library/reading room/ whatever with that much wood around you want to call it.
"It's not that our Liberal friend's are ignorant, it's that so much of what they know just isn't so." Ronald Reagan
"I paid for this microphone." Ronald Reagan
The left and lefty stooges show up at a political rally and it turns violent - virtually every time. The leftmedia covers for them - virtually every time.
Other accounts put the disciplined, well armed number at about 30 who called themselves "militia," claimed they were there to keep the peace, but backed off when the numbers got too large and the police did nothing. Their leader denied that they were white supremacists.
WaPo cannot be trusted.
You dolorific sheath of dropsical storm petrel ejecta
Dropsicle
This is a link more alien than Elien Gonzales. More dated than [note to self: figure out and remember where dates the fruit come from]. More mocked than dude I used to know whose last name was ACTSURPRISED.
It is no accident that human agency vanished from much of the WaPo article. It is part of the modern style guide for reporting conflicts between a Favored and a Disfavored Side. Here are some tips I have picked up from 25 years of reading the media on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict:
The violence of the Disfavored (Israeli) Side is mentioned first in the active voice, e.g. "Israelis kill 3 Palestinians". It doesn't matter if the Palestinians started shooting and the Israelis acted in self-defense. So read to the end, then try to reconstruct the order of events which the article deliberately obscures.
When the article finally mentions the violence of the Favored (Palestinian) Side, human agency is scrubbed as far as possible. E.g. "a bomb exploded" "there was gunfire" "came under attack", "rocks were thrown" etc. The purpose is to make Palestinian violence sound like bad weather, something that just happens naturally. So if you assign all violence w/o human agency to the Favored Side, you won't go far wrong.
The journalists (I use the term loosely) lie with abandon, as they are rewarded for plugging "facts" into prewritten narrative templates, not for actual reporting. Their sources know this and routinely set up staged conflicts and wailing victims to plug into the narrative, should reality prove lacking in these details.
Favored side violence is always minimized or ignored altogether if it can't be fit into the "bad weather" model. If they must mention it, the media will make it clear that the Disfavored Side had it coming.
If the "journalists" ever report a real fact that goes against the Narrative, they soon apologize and delete it.
Yes, Dave and Clark! I can sleep now (literally. I couldn't shut my brain off trying to remember). I knew it was something that sounded like a pub.
Thank You!
"McLEAN, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man says police failed to come to his aid as he was beaten by white supremacists during Saturday’s violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to three deaths."
http://wtop.com/virginia/2017/08/man-beaten-at-protest-says-police-were-indifferent-to-attack/
KittyM said...
"I mean, my response to the "white nationalists," with their free speech rights and their grasping at attention, would have been to withhold attention. Let them speak and go home."
I feel very strongly that this would not have been a good response. The Neo-Nazis were not *merely* exercising their free speech rights; they were attempting to intimidate with their guns and horrible posters etc.
I believe that it is important to hold counter-demonstrations to show that people oppose these disgusting views. Please remember the historical significance of these demonstrations of hate in the American South.
What a steaming pile. First, the signs are "speech" and it really doesn't matter how horrible. Second, the didn't counter-demonstrate. The used violence to quelch.
You made such a big deal yesterday about how everyone on the left unequivocally believes in free speech. Let me tell you, they don't. They think responding with violence to "Hate speech" is perfectly fine.
Day before yesterday the Unite the Right organizer was a Wall Street Occupying Obama-boy. Wha happen? Why it happen?
http://dcwhispers.com/tag/jason-kessler/#ALSF3oq1svsw3618.97
Looks like CNN's Jason Kessler would have stood up and denied being a white nationalist by now.
The violence of the Disfavored (Israeli) Side is mentioned first in the active voice, e.g. "Israelis kill 3 Palestinians". It doesn't matter if the Palestinians started shooting and the Israelis acted in self-defense. So read to the end, then try to reconstruct the order of events which the article deliberately obscures.
When the article finally mentions the violence of the Favored (Palestinian) Side, human agency is scrubbed as far as possible. E.g. "a bomb exploded" "there was gunfire" "came under attack", "rocks were thrown" etc. The purpose is to make Palestinian violence sound like bad weather, something that just happens naturally. So if you assign all violence w/o human agency to the Favored Side, you won't go far wrong.
This is an outstanding reminder. Another example would be the suddenly alarming agency of cars--crowds in Europe get attacked by cars all the time now for some reason.
Needless to say the same locution wasn't applied to Charlottesville (nor should it have been, but it never should be.
Well, I haven't sprung for one of those magical (nearly $150k) one-year Masters in Journalism degrees but: Isn't the First Question in reporting supposed to be "Who?"
All once again proving the adage to choose your enemies well, for they are the ones you'll become most like.
There are pictures on Twitter showing that the Dodge Challenger license plate GVF-1111 -- which rammed a crowd of ANTIFA and killed one -- had just prior to the ramming been surrounded by several baseball bat wielded by Antifa who had been whacking the hell out of it.
See:
https://twitter.com/LucidHurricaneX/status/897131880734240769/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com%2F2017%2F08%2F14%2Fthe-anti-establishment-right%2F
This is pretty solid evidence that the ramming by the driver _was not_ a premeditated attack.
The fear of being pulled from your car and beaten by a mob like Reginald Denny by a driver that was 1. Mentally ill and 2. Possibly on psych meds, will be a good self-defense case in Virginia criminal court against a murder or manslaughter charge.
And the discovery motions by the driver's defense attorney are going to spotlight actions by Virginia authorities leading to this tragedy.
For which see:
TITLE: ACLU of Virginia Response to Governor’s Allegations that ACLU is Responsible for Violence in Charlottesville
https://acluva.org/20108/aclu-of-virginia-response-to-governors-allegations-that-aclu-is-responsible-for-violence-in-charlottesville/
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