Nazi Playbook in Action, Charlottesville, VA

Putputt said:

Yep. I would go so far as to say if you chose to vote 3rd party because "Clinton and Trump are as bad as each other", you allowed hate and racism and white supremacy to win.

Click to expand...

I agree. A republican I know who voted for Clinton said, "Clinton is what's wrong with politics. Trump is what's wrong with humanity."

GoDaddy bans neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer for disparaging woman killed at Charlottesville rally

GoDaddy’s announcement was in response to an appeal from a Twitter user who called attention late Sunday to an online post by Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin. The post disparaged Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman killed Saturday in Charlottesville, police say, after a man plowed into a crowd with his vehicle.

Click to expand...

I believe that Twitter user is Amy Siskind (she did report it, but others may have as well), someone I follow for. Among other things, she keeps a list of things that are "subtly changing, so you'll remember," as recommended by experts in authoritarianism. It's terrifying, but important.

In the Daily Stormer post, Angelin characterized Heyer as dying in a “road rage incident.” He said she was a “drain on society” and disparaged her appearance. “Most people are glad she is dead,” he wrote.

Click to expand...

I wasn't going to quote that bit but the more light shone on this kind of hate, the better. I can't, though, bring myself to put the entire, disgusting, misogynistic quote here, but Amy Siskind has a screenshot here.


In other news , Kenneth C Frazier,

The CEO of the nation's third largest pharmaceutical company is resigning from the President's American Manufacturing Council citing "a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism."

Click to expand...

His full statement includes this including is here. (It has been pointed out that while *45 still hasn't condemned white supremacists, it took him less than an hour to blast a black CEO).

America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy

Click to expand...

I know one who never, ever will. *45's response is in the first link:

Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!

Click to expand...

Yes, as was quoted above, *45 is "what's wrong with humanity."

Lyv said:

His full statement includes this including is here. (It has been pointed out that while *45 still hasn't condemned white supremacists, it took him less than an hour to blast a black CEO).

Click to expand...

Glad people noticed that. This entire thing has me sick.

The family of one of the UTR crowd has spoken out against their son's actions.

I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions. We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.

Click to expand...

http://www.inforum.com/opinion/lett...-denounces-teffts-racist-rhetoric-and-actions

I caught part of an interview with Heather Heyer's father this morning, and I'm humbled by his attitude. I agree that hating people back only makes things worse, but I don't know that I'd ever be able to forgive someone who killed a person I cared for.

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/54341...ille-victim-s-father-people-need-to-stop-hate

These aren't directly about Charlottesville, but are related:

Big crowd of protesters (including a dear friend of mine I hope stays safe) at Trump Tower in NYC.

Protesters in Durham, NC just took down a confederate statue.

(Not long after we married, my husband and I were looking to move out of Florida. He got a great job offer in the Raleigh-Durham area, and we spent a weekend there looking around. We liked a lot about NC, but I most remember being completely wigged out by the number and prominence of Confederate statues. One fewer now, and may that trend continue).

The Durham people need a tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destruction

What's interesting is how many of those "confederate era" statues were erected during the 20th century.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...lottesville-removal-race-civil-war/101870418/

Most were not erected as a memorial to their war dead in the years immediately following the war, but much later as a backlash against civil rights. Their appearance shows two spikes, one is in the years following the Plessy vs Ferguson ruling, and one during the later Civil Rights era.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...-persistence-of-confederate-monuments/479751/

Imagine if the Germans were allowed to erect monuments to the SS and Hitler and to other Nazis, or to incorporate the Nazi flag into their current flag design, as part of their "heritage." I'm not trying to Godwin the Confederacy, but slavery and the Civil war were atrocious things in their own right, and they killed and destroyed the lives of countless innocent people.

Helix said:

The Durham people need a tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destruction

Click to expand...

I dunno, that statue seemed pretty flimsy. See the way the shins bent? Cheapasses couldn't even build sturdy racist monuments.

Every once in a while I try to watch a little of FOXNews to see their take on things. And as obnoxious as Bill O'Reilly was, it was interesting to see the way FOXNews was thinking.

But now, with Tucker Carlson taking his place, about 15 seconds is all I can stand. The combination of frat boy smugness and faux reasonableness, coupled with perpetual whininess is simply too much to take.

But I did see him comment on the North Carolina statue coming down. Where were the police, he asks. If a bunch of people (leftists) can pull down a statue, what's to prevent them from burning down a house? Isn't that the logical next step?

Putputt said:

Yep. I would go so far as to say if you chose to vote 3rd party because "Clinton and Trump are as bad as each other", you allowed hate and racism and white supremacy to win.

Click to expand...

A lot of those protesting in Charlottesville were socialists. Some of them probably voted third party. Some of them probably viewed Clinton as the lesser of two evils. I think it's a bit unfair to blame them for allowing white supremacy to win, when they're out there on the frontlines holding it at bay.

rugcat said:

frat boy smugness and faux reasonableness

Click to expand...

This is the best description of Tucker Carlson I've ever seen. Thank you for boiling him down. I can't stomach the little twerp.

rugcat said:

Where were the police, he asks. If a bunch of people (leftists) can pull down a statue, what's to prevent them from burning down a house? Isn't that the logical next step?

Click to expand...

If the house were also erected as a monument to treason and slavery, maybe so.

Between 700 and 1000 people gathered today in front of the White House to oppose white supremacy. The event was organized by two people who had never organized anything like this before (the one holding the megaphones and the one to the left of the man in green). A couple of the witnesses to the attack in Charlottesville spoke (including the man in black speaking in the photo). Some things I didn’t know: Many people in Charlottesville sent out a call to host counterprotesters with free food and lodging so that the neo-Nazis wouldn’t take over their town. There were only about 70 Unite the Right folks and over 700 counterprotesters. The Unite rally started in Emancipation Park, but they were quickly overwhelmed and ran out by the large number of counterprotesters. Shortly before the attack, one of the speakers at today’s event witnessed an African American man being beaten, and it took five minutes of the speaker pleading with the police directly across the street to do anything. The attack happened after the Unite rally had broken up, and the driver aimed directly for the leading edge of the countermarch. The police and paramedics were slow to respond, and some openly derided and blamed the counterprotesters.

The event at the White House was moving. What surprised me was that Trump's response on Saturday and his second response today were not the subject of the rally, in fact were not even mentioned. The speakers consisted almost entirely of impromptu speakers who simply walked up and started talking. The focus was instead on the systemic racism of 500 years of American history, and how this has always been a dark, cancerous part of us. They more or less said that Trump, Bannon, Alt-Right, etc. are simply the result of what has been there all along. Nobody even said he encouraged it. Racism in general was being protested, not a convenient example of it. The hopeful part was when the man in the black shirt said that despite the tragedy it was a victory because the racists were routed, couldn't achieve their agenda, and all this based on the power of the people.

So now the alt right is playing the victim card in all this. This is an unfamiliar position for such staunchly pro-police people to be taking.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ncer-white-nationalists-police-victims-215489

“I have never felt like the government or police were against me,” said white nationalist leader Richard Spencer at a small press conference inside his home in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday afternoon. “There has never been a situation in my life when I’ve felt this way.”

Jason Kessler, the Charlottesville rally’s organizer, was also reeling. “This has changed everything,” he said. “I thought that the police would uphold constitutional law no matter what.”

Click to expand...

Spencer also doesn't believe Trump's eventual condemnation of Nazis and extremists.

Spencer said he was unimpressed by Trump’s Monday statement condemning Nazis and the KKK, calling it “nonsense” and “silliness.” He said he did not believe Trump — who explicitly condemned white supremacy only after days of criticism for his failure to do so — was making the statement sincerely and said he does not believe the president had condemned his movement, pointing out that he did not use the term “white nationalists.” White House advisers Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller may be “fellow travelers” of his movement, he said, even though most other members of the Trump administration, like U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were not.

Click to expand...

He also lambasted his critics on the right.

“The conservatives are a bunch of idiots,” he said. “I don’t care about them anymore.” Spencer said he believes conservatives resent him because he is more “intelligent” and “attractive” than they are.

Click to expand...

Intelligent and attractive. Mmmmm, right.

rugcat said:

Every once in a while I try to watch a little of FOXNews to see their take on things. And as obnoxious as Bill O'Reilly was, it was interesting to see the way FOXNews was thinking.

But now, with Tucker Carlson taking his place, about 15 seconds is all I can stand. The combination of frat boy smugness and faux reasonableness, coupled with perpetual whininess is simply too much to take.

But I did see him comment on the North Carolina statue coming down. Where were the police, he asks. If a bunch of people (leftists) can pull down a statue, what's to prevent them from burning down a house? Isn't that the logical next step?

Click to expand...

Nah. It's throwing tea overboard.

Helix said:

Nah. It's throwing tea overboard.

Click to expand...

Tea's so Hamilton. I think you mean avocado toast.

Roxxsmom said:

I caught part of an interview with Heather Heyer's father this morning, and I'm humbled by his attitude. I agree that hating people back only makes things worse, but I don't know that I'd ever be able to forgive someone who killed a person I cared for.

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/54341...ille-victim-s-father-people-need-to-stop-hate

Click to expand...

Her mother is taking the same stand. Lawrence O'Donnell is giving her a bit of airtime tonight and she started out saying her daughter was all about not hating and that's what her mother will carry on doing.

Roxxsmom said:

Intelligent and attractive. Mmmmm, right.

Click to expand...

Suppose it is going to be harder to maintain his chiseled physique now that he can't work out in his local Gold's Gym.

JetFueledCar said:

Not necessarily directed at Roxxsmom, but does anyone know how one might go about finding activist organizations in one's area? I would like to be involved, in the process rather than the individual events, but my Google-fu is entirely geared toward finding out information. It's rather lacking when it comes to finding things I might want to be a part of. (Not limited to activism, either. I had the same problem when I started looking for jobs.)

Click to expand...

You got questions. We got answers. I won't put the whole thing here, but for those so motivated, here are Six Things You Can Do in the Wake of the White Supremacist Attacks in Charlottesville:

Here are six actions to take regarding the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend.

1. Donate to one or more of the following:

• C-ville Victim Relief GoFundMe for the medical and other expenses of the victims of James Alex Fields, who killed Heather Heyer and injured around 20 others with his car
• GoFundMe for the medical expenses of Dre Harris, the black man brutally beaten by white supremacists
• the Charlottesville chapter of the NAACP
• the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter
• the Charlottesville chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
• IMPACT Cville (an interfaith pro–social justice org)

2. Attend any anti-racist/solidarity rallies in your area. To find them, check Indivisible’s website, or Google “Charlottesville solidarity rally [your city].”

3. Be ready to protest any upcoming neo-Nazi/white-supremacist/alt-right rallies in your area. Check the websites of organizations like Indivisible, SURJ, and the DSA for information on counterprotests.

Albedo said:

A lot of those protesting in Charlottesville were socialists. Some of them probably voted third party. Some of them probably viewed Clinton as the lesser of two evils. I think it's a bit unfair to blame them for allowing white supremacy to win, when they're out there on the frontlines holding it at bay.

Click to expand...

Who did they vote, or not vote for? What would their actions now have to do with voting for Trump then? Or voting for Johnson or Stein as some sort of 'stick-it-to-the-establishment' vote. This is what happens. How are they not to blame for that?

More red flags:

The Hill: Justice demands 1.3M IP addresses related to Trump resistance site

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.
“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.” ...

“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” the company’s general counsel, Chris Ghazarian, said in a legal argument opposing the request....

This includes “names, addresses, telephone numbers and other identifiers, e-mail addresses, business information, the length of service (including start date), means and source of payment for services (including any credit card or bank account number), and information about any domain name registration.”

The warrant, dated July 12, says that authorities will seize any information constituting violations of D.C. code governing riots that involve individuals connected to the protests on Inauguration Day.

More than 200 people were indicted on felony rioting charges in connection with the protests in Washington on Jan. 20. ...

Click to expand...

cornflake said:

Who did they vote, or not vote for? What would their actions now have to do with voting for Trump then? Or voting for Johnson or Stein as some sort of 'stick-it-to-the-establishment' vote. This is what happens. How are they not to blame for that?

Click to expand...

The ones responsible for Trump are the ones who voted for Trump. If a vote for a third party candidate helped elect Trump that's a moral failing of the American electoral system, not of third party voters.

Meanwhile, the Australian radio station Triple J, with sterling commitment to impartiality, decided they'd respond to the Charlottesville killing by inviting on a ringleader of the Nazis to give their point of view.

ETA: And I listened to the follow-up interview, where they had on a member of the counter-protest. Tom Tilley spent the whole interview regurgitating the previous night's Nazi talking points at her, (with the calibre of questions like "Unite the Right says that it was the antifascists who caused all the violence" and "the driver of the car might argue that he was acting in self defence"), and bless her she had infinite patience with him, countering each point with "that's complete nonsense". I'm convinced that Tom Tilley is either the world's worst interviewer, or an actual alt-righty. Fucking Triple J.