Ed Dueling protests spark state of emergency in Virginia.

[Scopedog]

"How many men have you killed?"
"Not a man... fascists. 309."

Lyudmila Pavlichenko on freedom of speech for Nazis.

In 1967, Polish mercenary Rafal Ganowicz was asked what it felt like to take a human life. He replied: "I don't know, I've only ever killed communists."

 

[phiwum]

Trump expressed disapproval of both sides and also saif that there were good people on both sides.

That's saying that not all violent racists are bad.

No, it's not saying that.

After all, quite plausibly, what Trump meant is that not every protester was a violent racist. Heck, strictly speaking, that's almost certainly true (any decent sized crowd includes some chicken *****), but he was also implicitly claiming that not every protester was a racist at all. That's less plausibly true, but it's almost certainly how to understand Trump's claim.

So his claim wasn't about violent racists, except insofar as he was claiming this: not every protester was a violent racist. You and I could doubt that claim, but we shouldn't pretend he was saying something else.

 

[jimbob]

No, it's not saying that.

After all, quite plausibly, what Trump meant is that not every protester was a violent racist. Heck, strictly speaking, that's almost certainly true (any decent sized crowd includes some chicken *****), but he was also implicitly claiming that not every protester was a racist at all. That's less plausibly true, but it's almost certainly how to understand Trump's claim.

So his claim wasn't about violent racists, except insofar as he was claiming this: not every protester was a violent racist. You and I could doubt that claim, but we shouldn't pretend he was saying something else.

Except that he was talking about the protesters and anyone marching with a tooled-up group giving Nazi salutes is aligning themselves with the Nazis.

 

[quadraginta]

The right wing was always going to figure out that their ideal government is basicly modern Russia some day.

I would have thought they'd be more attracted to the Russia of a half century or so ago.

 

[Checkmite]

Oh good lord, now I'm seeing/hearing folks trying to find their local antifa or looking for others interested in starting one.

It's going to be difficult. There is no "antifa" group named as such; it's a blanket term the alt-right uses to describe all counter-protesters at their rallies.

 

[trustbutverify]

Are you obliquely defending Antifa (a distinct group completely separate from people who are against actual fascism)?

I'm directly defending people like the late Heather Heyern, who (from everything I've gathered) was a fine person who believed it was imperative to confront savagery at every juncture. I agree with her.

 

[uke2se]

Look at all the right wingers who popped into the thread to promote the alt right narrative about "both sides" being bad, and defend their Nazi chums. You know who you are. You are the enemy.

Nazis deserve nothing more than a boot to the head.

To those of you espousing "I condemn violence on all sides", ask yourself: at what point will you take a stance against the fascists? Now, when they are a growing movement supported by the president of the USA? Later, when they are more ensconced in the US political system? Even later, when they are running things? When will you stand up? The people who fought the Nazis as Charlotteville have their answer. What's yours?

 

[The Don]

More #FakeNews from the BBC.

Their reporter Joel Gunter (or maybe (((Joel Gunter))) )compares what he saw to what The President is claiming.

President Trump says a torch-lit rally in Charlottesville on Friday night was peaceful and insists that 'both sides' were to blame for violent clashes the following day.

The BBC's Joel Gunter was there and assesses what the president got right and wrong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-40952796/what-trump-said-versus-what-i-saw

tl;dw version - Donald Trump is a lying liar

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Hogwash.
The rally was called "Unite the Right"- nothing ambiguous about that.
It was explicitly about bringing different streams of the far-right together as a block US politics should reckon with.
No one uninvited Neo-Nazis or the KKK.

 

[The Don]

Some interesting insights into Trump's supporters....

A HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted after the Charlottesville unrest (but before Mr Trump's Tuesday press conference) could also give clues as to why conservatives are taking pause.

Fully 77% of Trump voters think the president "did enough" to condemn white nationalist violence in Charlottesville. Two-thirds of them had no problem with the president's delay in mentioning neo-Nazis and white supremacists by name.

Perhaps most remarkably, 48% of Trump voters think the Charlottesville white nationalists either "have a point" (37%) or were "mostly right" (11%). And 68% of Trump voters see "a lot of discrimination" against white people in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40952797

Gotta love today's GOP and Modern Presidential^TM behaviour

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Certainly the extreme left is as dogmatic as any group claiming to have a "Big Truth" on their side. All such narratives are, in principle, equally capable of spawning terror. In practice, in the US, it is the Christian right and the political extreme right who, on record, constitute the clear and present danger to innocent lives.

Atheists should have their antennae up and ready on the "antifa" charge, however, when arguing against Nazis in debate. Not subscribing to some political Big Truth is the same as not subscribing to religious dogma; that is, it is quite possible to simply be an a-Nazi, and reject Nazi dogma as being as completely stupid and myth-based as any religion.

Don't accept right-wing slander, be it in the form of "immoral atheist" BS, or "can't stop my Big Truth free speech, nya, nya! Me big-dude!" Nazis are reprehensible morons. Knuckle-dragging, fact-stomping dimwits, like any convinced Big Truther.

 

[Foolmewunz]

When you use "they" in that, did you have some particular group you think is going to preferentially use cars as weapons in protests? I've been thinking automobiles were equal access, disconnected from ideology and simply convenient.

Hmmm? Let's see? One of the two "dueling" sides just used a car to murder someone.

You can take it from there. Maybe you want to get into swimming pool deaths, next?

 

[Belz...]

Of course! And there is no difference between a willing Nazi sympathizer and a willing Nazi sympathizer sympathizer. And so on. The only people with clean hands are those who have no sympathy for anybody.

Hey, welcome back, Sunmaster.

 

[uke2se]

Those of you who want to blame Antifa for anything that happened in Charlottesville last saturday should read these eyewitness accounts:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ft_was_actually_doing_in_charlottesville.html

TL/DR: Antifa were bloody heroes, saving lives.

 

[Darat]

Hmmm? Let's see? One of the two "dueling" sides just used a car to murder someone.
You can take it from there. Maybe you want to get into swimming pool deaths, next?

And that is where the case for a moral equivalence falls down.

The only time when a moral equivalence could have been drawn is if something like:L the two groups where fighting each other and a person on one side was killed. Then you could say it was "but for the grace of god" that someone on the other side wasn't killed so the death wouldn't mean that one side was worse than the other - tragic events do happen.

But in this case that simply isn't the case we have one side that deliberately tried to hurt and/or kill members of the other side.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Here's what a reporter described about all those Anarchists and Communists.

* The counterprotesters, in contrast, represented a far broader spectrum of the American center and left. There were self-identified “anti-fascists”; Black Lives Matter activists from around the country; religious leaders, including around 100 Christian ministers wearing their clerical collars; furious Charlottesville residents; and garden-variety liberals from as far away as Seattle. A handful of the “anti-fascists” wore Black Bloc garb — black shirt, black pants, black balaclava — to conceal their identities from police, though most did not.

Yup, definitely a bunch of Anarchists and Communists there.

 

[uke2se]

Here's what a reporter described about all those Anarchists and Communists.



Yup, definitely a bunch of Anarchists and Communists there.

The only thing that unites Antifa is a hatred for fascism and fascists, and a willingness to take direct action to stop fascists wherever they poke their heads up. If you are against Antifa, you are for the fascists, because you are claiming unequivocally that you are not anti-fascist.

*You being the general you. Not directed at quoted post.*

 

[Sabrina]

I don't think anyone in this thread disagrees that violent acts occurred on both sides of the protest. The difference, I think, lies in that the majority (if not all) of the violent acts perpetrated by the "white nationalist" crowd was deliberately intended to injure and/or kill, while on the other side, probably two-thirds of the actions taken by so-called "antifa" counterprotestors were simply actions of self defense. I have yet to see a plausible account of someone on the counter-protest side who deliberately attacked any of the "white nationalists"; in most cases, all that can be claimed is that they stood in front of the original group and refused to let them pass, which is not an act of aggression as interpreted by the law as I understand it. I've seen one claim that Fields' car was hit with a baseball bat supposedly before he plowed into the counterprotestors, however I'm unable to view the video and I don't consider a single strike with a bat sufficient reason for his actions a few minutes after anyway. The correct response in that case would be to take a picture of the person who hit the car and leave to report it to the police and your insurance company, not plow into a group of people who had nothing to do with that one, relatively minor instance.

That being said, I find it hard to understand why anyone can defend these people. I understand and have even fought for the right to freedom of speech (medically retired Army Captain, thank you), but there is a difference between freedom of speech and instigating violent acts with said speech. It is very, VERY difficult to find a logical argument to support the notion that these "white nationalist" protestors did not intend to instigate violence. They arrived fully armed, many with weapons you can't even get in the military for pete's sake, and when they faced a peaceful counter-protest, their first reaction was not to either disperse or find another way around the counter-protest, it was to attack said counter-protest and force their way through.

I have participated in protests; I attended the Women's March on Washington the day after the inauguration, which in DC alone came close to a million people strong. No one fought; not a single person was arrested. I did not personally see any counter-protestors there, but if there were, clearly no one from the March attacked them simply because they were on the opposite side of the argument. No one was armed, except perhaps with witty sarcasm on many of the signs displayed, and after it was over we left with an overall feeling of goodwill. This protest, in contrast, was organized by individuals who clearly and unequivocally would want to either deport, hurt, or outright kill many of the men and women who attended the Women's March simply because they are not white men who aren't Jewish. To that I say; eff that. These white men who are butthurt because they aren't in power anymore need to grow the eff up and realize that we are ALL human, and we are ALL the same damned race, no matter the color of our skin or hair or eyes or what religion we follow (or don't follow, as the case may be). And I for one will not be one of the people who stands by and lets them get away with their hateful rhetoric. I support freedom of speech; I do NOT and will NEVER support that it means you can say whatever the hell you want to say without consequences. This has been argued in the Supreme Court to my satisfaction already; if you intend your words to cause physical harm to others, they are NOT protected. These... people, meant for their words to cause physical harm. That is fairly evident. Therefore, as a former member of the US Military, supported by the majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I believe there is no place for them in this country. The fact that our idiot of a President seems to think otherwise is immaterial to me. End rant; soapbox put away.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I agree. I am indeed a Trump supporter, and I still am. I hate Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and all those sleazeballs, but if the counter-protestors show up with baseball bats and start trying to physically kill the Neo-Nazis, then they have lost ALL of the "moral high ground" that they once had. Physical violence is much worse than hate speech. You know it and I know it.

Trump is right in what he said.

Did they? All the photo's I have seen of people showing up heavily armed to fight are those of the nazi's.

 

[ponderingturtle]

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. .

Except of course the nazi's found what he said to be very supportive. When the group supposedly being chastised feels vindicated it is not effective disapproval.

At least he has been consistent about all the nazi's who are good people.