Ed Dueling protests spark state of emergency in Virginia.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Trump claims to have seen "alt-left" protesters charging at peaceful white supremacists engaging in a legal demonstration : did anybody else see them?

Apparently, the writer of the article you just quoted saw them. You yourself quoted them:

"There was violence from some counter-protesters."​

You interpret that vague quote as support for Trump's specific claim that counter-protesters charged at "peaceful white supremacists engaging in a legal demonstration"?

 

[Childlike Empress]

You interpret that vague quote as support for Trump's specific claim that counter-protesters charged at "peaceful white supremacists engaging in a legal demonstration"?

You believe that what you put in quotation marks is a specific claim Trump made? I'll believe that only after you provided evidence.

 

[Checkmite]

One's bound to ask, given that Trump saw New Jersey Muslims clebrating 9/11 that nobody else saw. A pattern may be emerging.

FWIW he also claimed to be able to see the victims jumping from the upper floors of the WTC from his apartment - you know, up on 5th and 56th. Superhuman eyesight is doubtless another expression of those good genes he likes to talk about.

 

[CapelDodger]

And the protest seems in one regard to have backfired:Many citied across the Nation are removing monuments glorifying the Confederacy. The Lost Cause has Lost Again.
Note to the Neo Confederates: That is what happens when you make buddies with Nazis.......

It's served to illuminate the 1920's history of the US South, which is when most of these monuments were erected and the KKK had its Golden Age.

Ironically, the removal of these monuments with their explicit symbolism is presented by the likes of Trump as an attempt to erase History. History, of course, will survive in the books in which it's written. Those who wish to erase History burn books, become notorious in the process, and have so far failed.

 

[Childlike Empress]

ROAR

Pretty sure I'm not edgy. Also pretty sure I'm not a Trump supporter.

Also pretty sure I'm sick to death of identity politics, social justice warriors, and the presumed ends justifying the obviously bad means. Also really tired of the media circus and the complete suspension of disbelief in light of anything that lets the slavering masses of trump-haters get their daily fix of oh-so-arousing "righteous" hatred.

Seriously. Trump expressed disapproval of both white supremacists and antifa... and that somehow got spun as him showing support of white supremacists because he didn't call them out for being horrible. Great. But calling out only the white supremacists ;lends implicit support to antifa.
This is in an environment where the antifa goons have been enacting threats and violence to deny people of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.

Yes, white supremacists are jerks and I deplore their beliefs. I also deplore the beliefs of your average christian. But I absolutely do not support the use or threat of violence in order to deny horrible people their rights. That antifa is being lauded for their actions, that they are held up as "better than" the people their attacking because you don't like their beliefs is a bigger threat to democracy and freedom than any stupid ignorant racist turdball is. Hell - we all KNOW that the turdball is a turdball. But with antifa, they get shined up and presented as if that kitty-roca is a delectable treat instead of the pile of crap rolled in litter that they actually are.

But hey - I don't agree with the horde of 'everything Trump does is by definition bad because he's Trump' and I actually bother to try to find evidence rather than just drooling over the latest bit of speculative gossip and accepting it as confirmation of my bias. And that ends up making me... let's see... a Trump supporter, a racist, a deplorable, and oh yeah - let's not forget that I've obviously been 'conned' by the 'false narrative' and I've 'fallen for the scam' and I've 'swallowed the lies' or whatever the newest nose-in-the-air elitist virtue-signaling term is used as a replacement for 'you must be stupid for not believing the same thing as me'.

 

[Oystein]

You interpret that vague quote as support for Trump's specific claim that counter-protesters charged at "peaceful white supremacists engaging in a legal demonstration"?

See, that's why I wished there'd be more detail.
I can only imagine that the counter protestor violence was directed at the nazis - but of course I could be wrong and they beat up some grandma or kicked a cat.

Or did you mean to engage in full-blown semantic pedantery by insisting that only an extremely narrow reading of "to charge", "peaceful", "legal"? "White" perhaps? I'd grant that the nazis weren't white, they were more pinkish with a bit of a yellowish hue. So Trump was totally wrong. [/sarcasm]

 

[Checkmite]

The difference is, there's nothing wrong with being anti-fascist. There's nothing wrong with being anti-Nazi. I certainly consider myself anti-fascist and anti-nazi, and I would imagine that probably the bulk of Americans do. It's unfortunate when some people who are opposed to the nazis express themselves violently; but otherwise, there's nothing inherently wrong with them.

Nazis, white nationalists, and fascists, on the other hand, are intrinsically wrong-headed. They're bad, whether they are engaging in violence or not - the very common violence they like to threaten and engage in just serves to make them worse rather than detract from any default neutrality, "goodness" or normalcy. They preach a message of hatred of difference; they deliberately confuse the mere reduction of wholesale dominance and precedence over other cultures with "destruction of white culture". Of even the ones who insist they are not hateful people, and who "only want to preserve white culture", as I've said before, the best that can be said about them is that they are willing to ally with and march side-by-side with nazis who openly espouse genocide.

There is no moral equivalence between white nationalist nazis and those opposed to them, even when both resort to violence. Once the like-terms of violence from each side are canceled out, what's left is that nazis still inherently suck and anti-nazis still do not. That's my take on things, at least.

 

[CapelDodger]

Apparently, the writer of the article you just quoted saw them. You yourself quoted them:

"There was violence from some counter-protesters."​

Did you not read your own quote?

I may be wrong but I seem to recall Trump claiming he saw an unprovoked charge by the alt-left on white supremecaist demonstrators exercising their lawful rights. As I say, I could be wrong because the sight and sound of the man makes my mind squirm.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

The difference is, there's nothing wrong with being anti-fascist.

Correct. But just because a group calls themselves "anti fascist" does not mean that they're anti fascist. Sort of like the fact that it's called the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea doesn't mean it's democratic.

 

[The Big Dog]

If you defend the Nazis, you are scum. End of discussion.

ACLU?

SCUM!

the death of free expression will come from the left

 

[johnny karate]

Correct. But just because a group calls themselves "anti fascist" does not mean that they're anti fascist.

But if they're going up against actual fascists, you might want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

I may be wrong but I seem to recall Trump claiming he saw an unprovoked charge by the alt-left on white supremecaist demonstrators exercising their lawful rights. As I say, I could be wrong because the sight and sound of the man makes my mind squirm.

You're probably thinking of one of these:

OK, what about the alt-left that came charging (inaudible)? Excuse me. What about the alt-left that came charging at the -- as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

Let me ask you this. What about the fact they came charging -- that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.

You had a group -- you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-charlottesville-transcript-20170815-story.html

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

But if they're going up against actual fascists, you might want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Then I guess we could say there were just two anti fascist groups going at each other.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You're probably thinking of one of these:



Source: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-charlottesville-transcript-20170815-story.html

Selective snippets are such fun!

I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.

And you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You've got -- you had a lot of bad -- you had a lot of bad people in the other group…

No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I'm sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know -- I don't know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit. So, I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country (sic).

The transcript in its entirety paints a somewhat different picture of Trump.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... And in the main, he [Trump] seems to have credibility when it comes to threatening military force, unlike his predecessor.

Did N Korea or Iran bomb anyone with nukes when Obama was in office?

Has either country stopped or slowed nuclear weapons development programs because of Trump's actions?

 

[xjx388]

How is that if you blame both sides in a violent clash of opposing viewpoints, you are somehow implicitly supporting one side?

The simple truth is the tired, old-but-apt cliche: It takes two to tango. Why is that wrong to say and how does it support the Nazis?

 

[The Big Dog]

Correct. But just because a group calls themselves "anti fascist" does not mean that they're anti fascist. Sort of like the fact that it's called the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea doesn't mean it's democratic.

there is also the black bloc anarchist scum, which... well they are scum.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

So yeah. Depending on which quotes you want to pick out, and which little snippets, it can be really easy to make sure Trump looks like he's totally saying that the antifa crowd are the only ones at fault. It's not really true, of course, but you can make it look like it if you try.

I agree and made a similar point a few pages back for which, of course, I was instantly called a racist.

But I thought I'd just provide the quotes CapelDodger was looking for.

 

[Checkmite]

Correct. But just because a group calls themselves "anti fascist" does not mean that they're anti fascist.

And just because a group, or an individual, claims to condemn "both sides", does not mean they are in fact neutral.

Take these gentlemen in Poland:

Despite whatever connotations that banner might claim, the group, called "All-Polish Youth", is a decidedly white nationalist and fascist organization that is particularly known for violently disrupting gay rights marches.

 

[Oystein]

I may be wrong but I seem to recall Trump claiming he saw an unprovoked charge by the alt-left on white supremecaist demonstrators exercising their lawful rights. As I say, I could be wrong because the sight and sound of the man makes my mind squirm.

That's why I wished I had a bit more detail on the violence that came from the left.