The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Eamonnca1]

I used to think The Man in the High Castle was far-fetched.

[bennydorano]

I watched the Handmaid's Tale and genuinely thought this is not a million miles away from a possible future scenario.

[Muck Savage]

Try putting up a statue of Erwin Rommel in Germany and see how you get on.

I guess the Germans are "rewriting history" by not having any statues of Nazis.

Or something something.

Siddels, the statue the liberal scumbags tore down had stood for a hundred years  funnily enough until your smowflake friends showed up no one had a problem with it, the cops are going to be making arrests and stop these knackers from going taliban again and from destroying national monuments that have stood for more than a lifetime, go burn sone books siddels (

So what?

Loads of things which don't represent racism and slavery stand for 100 years and are demolished.

The statue represents racism and slavery, it's not wanted and a democratic decision was taken to remove it.

What's that line you right-wing weirdos loving trotting out, again?

Oh yeah, "you lost, get over it".

I'm pretty sure there was no democratic decision to remove this statue other than a group of protestors deciding they would march down and vandalize the statue.
The statue represented the confederate soldiers that died in the war, not all of them owned slaves and a lot of men off color died fighting for the confederate states.
Nazis and KKK walking down a street shouting some rotten chants is taking things deplorably low, the protestors pulling down statues is taking  their argument in the same direction and not helping matters.

[seafoid]

Try putting up a statue of Erwin Rommel in Germany and see how you get on.

I guess the Germans are "rewriting history" by not having any statues of Nazis.

Or something something.

Siddels, the statue the liberal scumbags tore down had stood for a hundred years  funnily enough until your smowflake friends showed up no one had a problem with it, the cops are going to be making arrests and stop these knackers from going taliban again and from destroying national monuments that have stood for more than a lifetime, go burn sone books siddels (

So what?

Loads of things which don't represent racism and slavery stand for 100 years and are demolished.

The statue represents racism and slavery, it's not wanted and a democratic decision was taken to remove it.

What's that line you right-wing weirdos loving trotting out, again?

Oh yeah, "you lost, get over it".

I'm pretty sure there was no democratic decision to remove this statue other than a group of protestors deciding they would march down and vandalize the statue.
The statue represented the confederate soldiers that died in the war, not all of them owned slaves and a lot of men off color died fighting for the confederate states.
Nazis and KKK walking down a street shouting some rotten chants is taking things deplorably low, the protestors pulling down statues is taking  their argument in the same direction and not helping matters.

the decision to remove the statue was made in a democratic vote. there is no comparison to that and Nazis marching with fire.

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."

is a Harriet Tubman quote from the age of slavery

[Muck Savage]

Try putting up a statue of Erwin Rommel in Germany and see how you get on.

I guess the Germans are "rewriting history" by not having any statues of Nazis.

Or something something.

Siddels, the statue the liberal scumbags tore down had stood for a hundred years  funnily enough until your smowflake friends showed up no one had a problem with it, the cops are going to be making arrests and stop these knackers from going taliban again and from destroying national monuments that have stood for more than a lifetime, go burn sone books siddels (

So what?

Loads of things which don't represent racism and slavery stand for 100 years and are demolished.

The statue represents racism and slavery, it's not wanted and a democratic decision was taken to remove it.

What's that line you right-wing weirdos loving trotting out, again?

Oh yeah, "you lost, get over it".

I'm pretty sure there was no democratic decision to remove this statue other than a group of protestors deciding they would march down and vandalize the statue.
The statue represented the confederate soldiers that died in the war, not all of them owned slaves and a lot of men off color died fighting for the confederate states.
Nazis and KKK walking down a street shouting some rotten chants is taking things deplorably low, the protestors pulling down statues is taking  their argument in the same direction and not helping matters.

the decision to remove the statue was made in a democratic vote. there is no comparison to that and Nazis marching with fire.

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."

is a Harriet Tubman quote from the age of slavery

They passed a law in that state in 2015 that no historical monuments can be removed without the permission of the state. You may not like how this law was passed but it is there.

[Eamonnca1]

I'm pretty sure there was no democratic decision to remove this statue other than a group of protestors deciding they would march down and vandalize the statue.
The statue represented the confederate soldiers that died in the war, not all of them owned slaves and a lot of men off color died fighting for the confederate states.
Nazis and KKK walking down a street shouting some rotten chants is taking things deplorably low, the protestors pulling down statues is taking  their argument in the same direction and not helping matters.

They fought and died to defend slavery. F*** them.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

the decision to remove the statue was made in a democratic vote. there is no comparison to that and Nazis marching with fire.

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."

is a Harriet Tubman quote from the age of slavery

You are getting 2 incidents mixed up - the incident in Charlottesville - which was voted on

There was another incident in Durham, NC where a monument was just pulled down by protesters.

[Eamonnca1]

Whoever put those statues up should be arrested for treason.

[seafoid]

I think Trump has exposed it. He's not making people hold these views, but as you say he is probably facilitating and emboldening them.

In terms of racism, I think the US has undoubtedly come a long way from the Jim Crow laws etc, however in terms of race tension, I'm not sure it has.

Bannon backs the Nazis.  Trump is an appeaser as well as a fruitcake. 

[thejuice]

I'm posting this with a certain amount of trepidation given the tensions about what's going on but anyway here goes. In light of recent happenings I'd like to add a few words as to my observations and experience from getting some first hand (online) encounters with what is known as the Alt-right. This is from my own research, reading, infiltration and online engagement with members and affiliates. This is in order to give the long view of why Charlottesville happened the way it did. It is far from being as black and white as it seems to be portrayed in the media.

This is something I've been working on in my spare time for quite a while now which was going to be blog or something but I've abandoned it as real life commitments have taken over. The hope I had for the blog was to bring both sides together to have sensible and constructive debates on issues and hopefully deescalate things and hopefully find a new way forward. But unfortunately the time and effort to do this just beyond me with all the other commitments I have and I just hope that there is someone else out there doing it. I've still kept abreast of the situation and I feel compelled dive in again to put this out there in light of recent events and to give people a bit more detail.

The reason I became interested in this subject is because I always felt that despite what was being touted by many, nationalism hasn't died and race or group identity did still matter, despite what Amartya Sen wrote in his book Identity and Violence. It felt this new movement was bound to happen eventually (see Carol M Swains book from 2002 quite accurately predicted it) and the issues that surround it (immigration, multiculturalism and identity) will probably be the defining issue of mine and possibly the next generation if not the current century. I've always been skeptical of people who touted the line diversity and multiculturalism are unending gifts upon us benighted yokels. Nothing is ever that straight forward.

And so even if the Alt-right as we know it goes away or is taken apart, the issues that propelled it aren't going away. When people talk about the end of history or being on the right or wrong side of history, it's incredibly naive way of thinking and shows that they really haven't been paying attention to the details and looking down the line.

This isn't an endorsement of their ideas or a defence but rather to explain why this happened. I'm trying to put the causes and concerns AS THEY SEE IT in as plain and neutral terms as I can without picking through their ideas on race or whatever. I will add my own critique in as required. For the sake of clarity and detail I will only name those as fascist who would describe themselves as such.

I first came across the Alt-right largely by accident around 2011 while Obama was in power and no one could have foreseen a Trump presidency. Back then it was just a website being run by three figures, Richard Spencer, Colin Liddell and Andy Nowicki. Of course there were others like American Renaissance and Vdare going a lot longer and with much greyer and older audiences.

It was at that point the alternative right was non-existent outside of its own little corner of the internet. It had some critiques of modernity, liberalism and neo-conservatism that you wouldn't read anywhere else.  But from 2012 onwards saw the beginnings of a swell in numbers of visitors to their websites. This was largely set off by events like the Ferguson riots, Baltimore and Treyvon Martin. Not just the riots themselves but also the biases shown in the national media which often ignored or skewed events as they were being reported by local media or eyewitness accounts.

Also as political correctness and "cultural Marxist" (for lack of a better term) ideas began to take hold in public discourse, in the workplace or in schools, people were looking for places to have more liberal discourse, in the true sense of the word. You have to remember that this was a generation that was brought up to think that there were no more taboos, no sacred cows and that nothing was off the table when it came to either serious discussion or humour. However it began to appear to them that that wasn't actually the case anymore. There were suddenly subjects that you couldn't discuss. They also found that if you were a "privileged white male" indeed none of your cows were sacred.

There is also 4chan culture which is an online forum where basically anything goes. I don't really anything about it myself but I think that was a sort of a seedbed for the use of internet memes to spread political dissent and ideas.

Roots
But going back to the root causes of this movement, it would be inaccurate to suggest this is solely a reaction to Obama being president. Many in the Alt-Right voted for Obama. Even Richard Spencer said he would take Obama over John McCain any day.

Largely it is down to the failure of the Neo-conservatives and Buckley-ite conservatives to stand up and be counted on the issues that they felt mattered. They appeared to continually back down on issues and in a decade or so would end up defending what was once a leftist position. That and also putting the interests big business or corporations ahead of the actual people on the ground.

The other big factor was disillusionment following the Iraq and Afghan wars. For many of those who came home from the war many ended up asking who was it really for and what good was it for America. There are a considerable number of war vets in the Alt-right but I don't know how many.

The first movement in this direction wasn't so much the Tea Party but the Libertarian party and Ron Paul. This was the first movement away from mainstream conservatism. However the short comings of Libertarianism was that it didn't address the issues that many young people were increasingly concerned about namely immigration and displacement. It was too highly individualistic and negated the commons almost entirely. Once again the mainstream medias treatment of Ron Paul including Fox News angered many. A growing resentment for the media was festering by this point. Slowly a left and right wing split emerged in Libertarianism and it seems to have dissipated as a cohesive movement. A large number on the right eventually moving into the Alt-Right.

There are also those who came straight across from the left or centre left. These would have been Obama and even Bernie supporters. Among these were people who had believed that race was a thing of the past once Obama was elected. However for these people it seemed race rather than going away became an everyday issue that was asking them to check their language for "micro-aggressions" or "privileges" and so forth. Not only that but in their view, there was an emerging double standard in both media representations and policies that treated other ethnic groups differently than equally.

In other words, some white people believed the political, commercial and cultural establishment had, for a whole myriad of reasons, saw them as something to be attacked, torn down and neutralised for short term financial, political and ideological gains. Of course with the internet now the monopoly over the narrative surrounding events has been broken for good or ill.

Alt-Right & New Right
The Alt-right is a very broad tent ideologically, and different people and groups stop at various points along the right. However one division within it that is worth noting is between the New-Right and Alt-Right. There isn't that much different between the two in terms of objectives or ideas but in the means they wish to go about it. In light of what just happened in Charlottesville its important to note the two personalities involved. One being Richard Spencer the other being Greg Johnson. Richard seems to be somewhat of the opinion that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Whether it's his own sense of himself or what but he pursues the spotlight even if it often makes him look stupid. He likes to create spectacles that grab the more than willing medias attention. Richard has a strange symbiotic relationship with the media even though they are adversaries because he plays into their hands and says inflammatory things and it gets spread round because that's what he wants. Greg on the other hand is a reclusive figure who wants to hold private events out of the public spotlight and disperse ideas online as well as publishing books.

The other important side of things is the Right Stuff guys. These were by all accounts a bunch of Joe Soaps who started a Facebook group which later became a podcast and its popularity exploded to the point that eventually the main figures got exposed and had to leave their families and jobs. They didn't start out as radicals but as time went on they went further and further into verboten territory i.e. Holocaust denial and race/iq issues. They've now set themselves up as full time pod casters and political activists. They appear to have grown a network of groups around the country that now gather socially but also recently started to attend various rallies. The main person being Mike Enoch.

here's where the more extreme elements really begin to enter the picture. Because despite that they say they don't condone violence or encourage violence among their members, but they use a lot of violent memes and joke about violence on their show and on their Internet forums. Sure they can say it's a joke but when you put people into high pressure situations like in Charlottesville that's were the lines around jokes, satire and irony can get a bit blurred.

The reason that they say they are using nazi symbolism is the way blacks have claimed the N word. This is because they saw how in trying to have reasonable discussions with the left and they kept getting shut down by being called racist or fascist or nazi. And in political debates mainstream republicans such as Romney and McCain were all "nazis" no matter how reasonable they tried to be or how much they said they loved MLK. There was even a website dedicated to exposing David Cameron as a fascist. So instead of continually backing down the Alt-Right embraced the term. Now because of this they have attracted actual nazis. Mike Enoch even speaking to his own audience cant seem to decide if he's a fascist or not. Unlike the Traditional Workers Party who were in Charlottesville, make no bones about it, they are in their own words fascists. Mike Enoch might say that Unite the Right was about standing up for the rights of White people but if he can't see that not everybody can tell if you're being ironic or satirical when waving a nazi flag and the media and political opponents certainly aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt. So even though they asked and pleaded with Antifa to not show up at Charlottesville, if they can't decide if they're a fascist or not then they are just being naive or stupid. And tragically they're leading a lot of equally if not more naive young men and women with them into situations likes Charlottesville with them. So even if you don't like their ideas the difference in approach between Richard and Greg is worth noting in the sense that Richards approach is more likely to result in violent confrontation, whereas Greg would at least make every effort to avoid it.

Road to Charlottesville
The road to Charlottesville it could be said begins with the tactic of no platforming that was happening across college campuses in the US.  But also the stifling atmosphere that seems to have enveloped campuses and work places. Mild mannered middle aged controversial intellectuals such as Prof Jordan Peterson or Dr Charles Murray where shut down and harassed, people were fired from their jobs for having dissenting views on issues. So this was increasingly getting people pissed off with the left and drove more and more people to the right.

Things moved a stage further when a Milo Miannopolis(spelling) event at Berkeley was violently shut down by antifa. A young man who attending the event was beaten into a coma. We also saw at various Trump rallies and so forth a lot of violence against attendees, including a masked individual that beat an unsuspecting attendee over the head with a bikelock that almost killed him. The assailant turned out to be a university professor.

So for the now growing Alt-Right who were trying to move from the internet into the real world they were watching all this going on started taking measures to protect themselves, starting off with evasive measures and trickery to make sure antifa doesn't show up at the right venue. However that stopped working and things started to escalate as the alt-right grew and antifa became increasingly violent.

This was all going on when the exposing of Mike Enoch forced him into going full time into political activism. He and Richard and others started trying to take to the streets and making events and rallies which of course then antifa start showing up. Quite often these things passed off with few incidents as the police kept the groups apart. The Alt-Right were able to sue institutions for their constitutional right to free speech that had tried to shut them down. So they were feeling pretty confident ahead of the Unite The Right event at Charlottesville.

However some previous events were held  in more sympathetic towns and locations such as Pikeville in Kentucky.Charlottesville mayoral figures aren't so sympathetic, being Michael Signer and Wes Bellamy, the former a Clinton advocate and Bellamy who apparently holds a strong dislike of whites based on some tweets he made but I can't really comment on that. But there was a concerted effort to have the event called off or moved and the Alt-Right dug its heals in and got the ACLU to fight on their behalf to their right to stage a protest. Now at this point the Alt-Right had received through their informants that antifa were planning to use bottles of concrete and acid to attack them at Charlottesville. Mike Enoch and others then reiterated their message for Antifa to not show up but also advised their own members to remain peaceful but prepared to defend themselves, hence the shields, helmets and so forth which is as far as I can tell isn't illegal so long as you're defending yourself but American posters can fill me in on that. And that includes guns as well.

Now of course, depending entirely on your preferred news source, the story changes as to who was to blame for the violence. Judging on previous form Antifa and BLM have started violence and rioting without any clear provocation or opponents so it's not a huge leap to suggest it was them. Secondly the far right are always a hair trigger away from being clamped down on by the state and the media would never take their side so I don't see what they would have had to gain from instigating violence, since these are people who want to normalise their views. Of course, I wasn't there and some of their members could easily have broke ranks and started attacking but any non msm eyewitness reports suggest otherwise. But you know, there could be biases in there too.

What happened with the car appears to be murder based on what I saw. Some people including Mike Enoch have claimed to have video evidence of the guys car being attacked right before the incident and has shared it with the media but I haven't seen it anywhere. What will become of that incident will be decided in court I guess.

The Alt-Right guys are now shaping up to file lawsuits against Charlottesville and the police while Charlottesville have already filed theirs.

The Road Ahead
whatever happens in the coming weeks ahead even if the alt-right are all locked up, the issues that propelled them into existence haven't gone away and Trump going away won't solve that either.

My closing statement is that I plea with people to take a step back from the extremes. Take time to listen and talk to each other, put the facts above everything else, give each other a fair hearing, don't put words in each other's mouths, be respectful to everyone. Either agree to compromise or agree to disagree but you have to accept that not everyone shares your ideas or wants to live according to your utopian vision. Be humble enough to admit when you are wrong. But you have to talk to each other and debate debate debate and if the other person disagrees with you it doesn't make them a 'nazi' or a 'commie'. These words have become useless and just muddy the truth, please try look past these labels. The primary thing to call out is actual totalitarianism and murderousness. If people want to be different we have to allow them space to be different.

And don't depend on only one side of the aisle for your news. Seek out other arguments and points of view and not just the ones you agree with. Go to the source material if you can, remember every newspaper and blog has in built biases and preferential editing.

A young girl is dead now and other lives destroyed or about to be because of a lack of proper discourse. It all didn't begin or end in Charlottesville. We either have free speech or violence as one wise man once man said. Otherwise we'll have more young people in their prime being lead astray by fools and more bloodshed.

[seafoid]

Juice

Ithink it is driven ultimately by the economic situation. Stagnation. Young people especially have no visible future
Polarisation is everywhere. Look at Brexit.  Things are breaking down. In some country in Europe support for the 2 main parties is 30%. It is a decade since the start of the financial crisis and we are going nowhere. A small cohort of parasites own half of everything. It is worse than Scooby do. The system is controlled by debt holders. The last such system ended in WW2 and the holocaust. And people get used.
When resources are scarce and things are polarised groups get pitched against each other. We need a different system. Things otherwise will just get worse.

[screenexile]

Watch it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg&sns=em

[sid waddell]

But you have to talk to each other and debate debate debate and if the other person disagrees with you it doesn't make them a 'nazi' or a 'commie'.

A person disagreeing with you doesn't make them a Nazi.

But being a Nazi does make them a Nazi.

[trileacman]

But you have to talk to each other and debate debate debate and if the other person disagrees with you it doesn't make them a 'nazi' or a 'commie'.

A person disagreeing with you doesn't make them a Nazi.

But being a Nazi does make them a Nazi.

Membership still open then so? 

[sid waddell]

But you have to talk to each other and debate debate debate and if the other person disagrees with you it doesn't make them a 'nazi' or a 'commie'.

A person disagreeing with you doesn't make them a Nazi.

But being a Nazi does make them a Nazi.

Membership still open then so? 

I must say it would be a strange reading on current events to say there is no such a thing as a Nazi, present tense.