Charlottesville: State of emergency over US far-right rally

[Alyrium Denryle]

That is not even remotely true. Not many countries have engaged in civil wars specifically for abolition, but to argue that somehow that makes the US unique in having political violence to enact social change is absurd. It outright ignores revolutions, riots, and even official military campaigns that have happened across the planet over the course of centuries of recorded history.

And neither is it true that social changes required violence. Gay marriage was passed in many parts of Europe without relying on any major acts of violence, same with laws regulating hate speech and etc.

Big difference. Western Europe washed itself in blood so deep that after the Nazis were annihilated, the continent lost its stomach for political violence (well... not france, notably, they riot at the drop of a hat but that is due to other cultural factors) and oppression of minority groups. They still do the latter to some extent, but doing so is not considered acceptable to the mainstream. Germany still has its far-right, but even their far right draws a line in the sand with what they are willing to do to people (and those who don't get arrested).

The US never had this wakeup call. Even the effect of our civil war has been muted by historical revisionism because our post-war reconstruction failed to de-confederatize the south.

Lets take gay rights as an example. In the US, we have pride parades every year. Pride is not the same as every other parade in the country. It is both a celebration and a warning. In 1969, just existing as LGBT was a crime, and those arrested even for minor "offenses" would be outed by the state and their addresses published in the local papers so as to invite hate crimes. Police would raid gay bars and do this to everyone inside after beating the patrons to a bloody pulp. In 1969, the LGBT community of NYC (starting at the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village) had enough, fought the police, won, and then rioted. Violently.

That kicked off our civil rights movement as we know it. Pride is on the anniversary every year, and is both a celebration and a warning. "There is a line in the sand you will not ever cross again, or you will find your cars on fire". Over the years it has transitioned to be more celebration and less warning, but that warning is still there. Lots of people died along the way to get us where we are right now, I easily could have and have the chipped teeth to prove it because someone threw rocks at my head. Transgender people still lack many of the basic rights we gays enjoy right now, and still get murdered frequently (sometimes by police, and almost never get justice).

Now, lets go to Europe. It is different there. Germany and France are where the global gay rights movement started in the fucking 19th century (and homosexuality was decriminalized in France in 1791). Being gay was already decriminalized in much of western europe prior to the rise of Nazis including Germany (though only just and the Nazis repealed that, and it is notable that American and British authorities kept gay people locked up after they liberated the fucking Konzentrationslager). It should not be surprising that LGBT rights move faster and with less violence there. To say nothing of the fact that the influence of religion on policy is more muted in western europe than it has ever been in the US.

[Flagg]

Since when is counter protest "violence". Violence is shits in armor with shields and clubs, not people holding signs.

I never said counter-protest itself is violent. I'm saying being solely dependent on counter-protest as a means to stop neo-nazis from threatening people means the risk of violence is higher because people are more desperate. Considering that some news are saying the state police were afraid of the neo-nazis because they carried weapons, I think the risk is extremely high on the people trying to stop neo-nazism.

Yeah. But do you see the Nazi's winning, asshole? We had brave people spill their blood and one brave woman give her life on Saturday and that bloodshed and loss of a person I'd personally kill a million Nazi shits with a rusty spoon to get back, led to the massive pushback you see now. Would I rather the cops equally shielded and armed be the ones to confront them? Hell yes. But at the same time I don't see a bunch of Nazi's with busted heads getting to whine about police oppression, so I might just be wrong.

And sorry sport, but sometimes social change does require violence. It's human nature. And nature always wins. Or would you prefer Japanese occupation?

Sometimes, certainly not all the time. And certainly not the sole means if other options do work. I'm not sure how is an actual war somehow the same as trying to enact social change.

So, you are retracting claim that the Civil War was an anomaly as opposed to the liberation of your country from the Japanese who were effectively enslaving your people?

You are from Singapore, yes? That's the country that had (and may still, frankly I don't give a shit so I'll give you "had") the punishment for something so fucking petty as a first offense of vandalism, caning the convicted, correct? That's such a violent punishment that the caned often have to be hospitalized, correct? Is that not "violence for social change"? Or are you going to say it's violence for social order?

I don't often defend my shithole of a country and the gigantic amount of assholes that live here, but you don't get to lord your high minded bullshit over us because of one stupid fucking part of our bill of rights that would require a massive change of the very bedrock of our system guaranteeing those rights that even dumbshits on the "left" refuse to change. People suck. Everywhere. Some more than others. But I'd rather live in this shithole than one so fucking oppressive its beats the shit out of children for doing dumb shit children do.

So fuck off.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah... gonna have to agree with Flagg here. Come talk to me about what social change sometimes requires Ray, when your home country stops considering me a non-person. I don't really see ANY avenues for a change on that front in Singapore. Protesting will get people caned, the state has heavy control over the media, free expression is sharply curtailed and any public gathering of five or more requires a permit. Yes, you have a nice harmonious social order. One that is enforced by men with bamboo canes aggressively repressing public dissent.

Edited a bit of clarity:

Social change often requires an amount of violence. Either utter devastation and its aftermath that changes the way a population thinks, or public demonstrations that are almost never actually peaceful (either two-way, one-way, or peaceful with an obvious violent alternative). I am happy to be corrected here, but the only time in history where such change occurred without violence that I can recall is the British abolition of slavery. Every other historical emancipation required violence on a large scale either internally or externally imposed.

[ray245]

And neither is it true that social changes required violence. Gay marriage was passed in many parts of Europe without relying on any major acts of violence, same with laws regulating hate speech and etc.

Big difference. Western Europe washed itself in blood so deep that after the Nazis were annihilated, the continent lost its stomach for political violence (well... not france, notably, they riot at the drop of a hat but that is due to other cultural factors) and oppression of minority groups. They still do the latter to some extent, but doing so is not considered acceptable to the mainstream. Germany still has its far-right, but even their far right draws a line in the sand with what they are willing to do to people (and those who don't get arrested).

The US never had this wakeup call. Even the effect of our civil war has been muted by historical revisionism because our post-war reconstruction failed to de-confederatize the south.[/quote]

And that itself is kinda my point. Europe after a horrifying war decided quite firmly to reject and prevent such groups from ever gathering strength in whatever form. Post-war Europe, especially West Germany de-Nazified quite thoroughly.

Can the same be said about the US south after the civil war? Slavery is abolished, but life is still quite bad for many Blacks in the South. The difficulty for the US to end those problematic thinking in the South meant that violence is far more likely to break out as a result.

Lets take gay rights as an example. In the US, we have pride parades every year. Pride is not the same as every other parade in the country. It is both a celebration and a warning. In 1969, just existing as LGBT was a crime, and those arrested even for minor "offenses" would be outed by the state and their addresses published in the local papers so as to invite hate crimes. Police would raid gay bars and do this to everyone inside after beating the patrons to a bloody pulp. In 1969, the LGBT community of NYC (starting at the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village) had enough, fought the police, won, and then rioted. Violently.

That kicked off our civil rights movement as we know it. Pride is on the anniversary every year, and is both a celebration and a warning. "There is a line in the sand you will not ever cross again, or you will find your cars on fire". Over the years it has transitioned to be more celebration and less warning, but that warning is still there. Lots of people died along the way to get us where we are right now, I easily could have and have the chipped teeth to prove it because someone threw rocks at my head. Transgender people still lack many of the basic rights we gays enjoy right now, and still get murdered frequently (sometimes by police, and almost never get justice).

Now, lets go to Europe. It is different there. Germany and France are where the global gay rights movement started in the fucking 19th century (and homosexuality was decriminalized in France in 1791). Being gay was already decriminalized in much of western europe prior to the rise of Nazis including Germany (though only just and the Nazis repealed that, and it is notable that American and British authorities kept gay people locked up after they liberated the fucking Konzentrationslager). It should not be surprising that LGBT rights move faster and with less violence there. To say nothing of the fact that the influence of religion on policy is more muted in western europe than it has ever been in the US.

Well yeah. I think that US laws and society aren't really that helpful for minorities compared to European states. It's much harder to get away with hate speech and mobilise certain groups because of the laws already in place protecting minorities.

I mean if the only major people complaining about anti-hate speech laws are those that want to express hate speech themselves, I think it's working quite well. Not that people cannot do any counter-protest, but I will rather take counter-protest that ends with this kind of image:

Yeah. But do you see the Nazi's winning, asshole? We had brave people spill their blood and one brave woman give her life on Saturday and that bloodshed and loss of a person I'd personally kill a million Nazi shits with a rusty spoon to get back, led to the massive pushback you see now. Would I rather the cops equally shielded and armed be the ones to confront them? Hell yes. But at the same time I don't see a bunch of Nazi's with busted heads getting to whine about police oppression, so I might just be wrong.

I would rather have a place where the state police aren't frightened of neo-nazis as the reason why clashes broke out. One news source stated that the local police were afraid of stepping in because the milita had better guns.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/virgi ... 93151.html

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has said one of the reasons the police failed to control the violence during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was because militia members at the rally were armed with "better equipment" than the state police themselves.

“It’s easy to criticise, but I can tell you this, 80 per cent of the people here had semiautomatic weapons," Mr McAuliffe said.

I don't think you need a woman to die before Americans could take the threat seriously enough. Police being underprepared to face this kind of protest? That's quite a problem you guys have over there.

So, you are retracting claim that the Civil War was an anomaly as opposed to the liberation of your country from the Japanese who were effectively enslaving your people?

I think there is some difference between having a war breaking out because some people refuse to accept the outcome of a political electoral defeat and a war of conquest. Is the US an anomaly? No exactly, but cases like this makes me think that it's basically similar to an unstable third world democracy.

You are from Singapore, yes? That's the country that had (and may still, frankly I don't give a shit so I'll give you "had") the punishment for something so fucking petty as a first offense of vandalism, caning the convicted, correct? That's such a violent punishment that the caned often have to be hospitalized, correct? Is that not "violence for social change"? Or are you going to say it's violence for social order?

I don't think we need caning in Singapore as a form of punishment, so what's your point? The caning law was originally meant to target communist and people who are "Flaunting the values of his ideology, he is quite prepared to make a martyr of himself and go to gaol." (The Prime Minister who advocated for the law).

And given how such ideologies failed in Singapore, so that would mean people who enact "violence for social change" failed to accomplish their goals. Is political violence somehow going to repeal such a law in Singapore? I don't think so.

I don't often defend my shithole of a country and the gigantic amount of assholes that live here, but you don't get to lord your high minded bullshit over us because of one stupid fucking part of our bill of rights that would require a massive change of the very bedrock of our system guaranteeing those rights that even dumbshits on the "left" refuse to change. People suck. Everywhere. Some more than others. But I'd rather live in this shithole than one so fucking oppressive its beats the shit out of children for doing dumb shit children do.

So fuck off.

I'm not the one trying to make a comparison between Singapore and the US, or how Singapore is somehow more superior. But the notion that someone from Singapore is somehow not able to make the laws in Europe vs the laws in Europe is rather strange to me.

[Elheru Aran]

An interesting development... I don't know how to hotlink the Twitter links but this just came up.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/watch-p ... durham-nc/

Protestors in Durham, N.C. toppled a statue honoring fallen confederate soldiers on Monday, following a weekend of violent protests in Charlottesville, VA.

ABC’s John Kaplan reports the memorial has stood outside the courthouse in downtown Durham since 1924.

“It needs to be removed,” Loan Tran, an organizer, told WNCN. “These Confederate statues in Durham, in North Carolina, all across the country.”

“When I see a confederate statue in downtown Durham, or really anywhere, it fills me with a lot of rage and frustration,” they said.

Watch video below:

BREAKING: Protesters tear down Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina, where it stood for nearly 100 years pic.twitter.com/EOpW4S91ib

— BNO News (@BNONews) August 14, 2017

BREAKING: Protestors storm Confederate statue outside @DurhamCounty Courthouse. @ABC11_WTVD pic.twitter.com/nkbYNUnfwR

— Jonah Kaplan (@KaplanABC11) August 14, 2017

Protesters in Durham topple confederate monument downtown pic.twitter.com/8Gi76UkOYN via @DerrickQLewis

— Ferguson Liveuamap (@fergusonlum) August 14, 2017

Protesters pull down Confederate statute in Durham. pic.twitter.com/zogHJrqohe

— Virginia Bridges (@VirginiaBridges) August 14, 2017

[Flagg]

In light of certain unforeseen circumstances I'm going to disengage from my disagreement with Ray. I don't feel right not acknowledging the end of that particular conversation and if the board considers it a concession so be it. For once in my life I'd rather be human than right.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In light of certain unforeseen circumstances I'm going to disengage from my disagreement with Ray. I don't feel right not acknowledging the end of that particular conversation and if the board considers it a concession so be it. For once in my life I'd rather be human than right.

Confirmed and approved. I too was being a bit of an ass.

[Joun_Lord]

As a white guy coming into this conversation and learning what happened, my own takeaway is "fuck, we need to stop laying down ANY damn kind of covering fire for these fuckers."

I mean, imagine that there is a battle for the future of America, and the battle is over whether the greatest problem in 21st century American political discourse is going to be Nazis, or Tumblr feminists going overboard. I don't know about you, but I'd rather deal with the angriest, craziest Tumblr feminists that ever tumbled while feminine, than have to deal with a bunch of actual-factual Nazis.

So just... no laying down covering fire for Nazis. No wasting time and mental energy trying to make excuses for actual Nazis. No supporting people who then shelter Nazis by saying "oh, it wasn't the Nazis' fault that a Nazi kid decided to run over twenty anti-Nazis with his car." Or "not all Nazis" or whatever.

It's just not worth it. There is no position that involves defending any part of this behavior that is worth my time and mental energy.

And as someone else noted, yeah, these actual-factual Nazis are the same people who go online and become the nastiest shitlords that the "SJW" crowd have been complaining about. They were in fact fighting these Nazis, at least online, well before anyone else noticed them. They may have been a bit indiscriminate or goofy at times, but they were fighting among other people a bunch of Nazis. And yep, those Nazis turned out to be real Nazis, not just imaginary Nazis that existed only in their minds.

Again, defending Nazis, or supporting people who will predictably shelter Nazis? Not fucking worth it.

You feel what I'm saying here?

I'm not laying down covering fire for these punks, I'm laying down covering fire for everyone who enjoys free speech, even these cunts.

Living in a free and tolerant society atleast as far as I'm concerned means giving discourse and a voice to even the most reprehensible parts of society so as to guarantee everyone enjoys the same rights. Yes these are fucking Nazis but like everyone else until they start actually doing more then talking they are entitled to speak their disgusting piece same as I'm allowed to call them disgusting shitbags.

And lets not act like these are even real Nazis. These are inbred white trash cousin fucking retard Neo-Nazis who real Nazis would hate. They are no more real Nazis then then people opposed to them are real anti-facists. They are bunch of idiots protesting and having street fights. If they were actual Nazis then that'd be a different story but they aren't, they aren't enemy soldiers, we aren't at war with them, they aren't members of some hostile state, they are American citizens who believes in straight up bullshit. They still deserve the protection and enforcement of the law same as anyone else, same as their "SJW" opposition. They are just as allowed to protest and make their voices heard and just as responsible when someone commits a violent act. Guess what, I think the SJWs believe in some harmful shit too and commit harmful acts but I think they are just as entitled to spew their bullshit as Hanz Frankfarter waving his tiki torch.



I understand what you are saying (do not feel it, that would be impossible because they are words and cannot be felt unless I guess you print them out in brail ) but I wholeheartedly disagree. One cannot compromise the rights of others without compromising their own.

[Gandalf]

Guess what, I think the SJWs believe in some harmful shit too and commit harmful acts but I think they are just as entitled to spew their bullshit as Hanz Frankfarter waving his tiki torch.

I've been a bit out of the loop on things. What do "the SJWS" believe and what have "the SJWs" done which is so harmful?

[Joun_Lord]

I've been a bit out of the loop on things. What do "the SJWS" believe and what have "the SJWs" done which is so harmful?

Atleast some (with emphasis on that) believe in various toxic things about race, over reliance on identity politics that further divide people, and an emphasis on minor "micro aggression" rather then real injustice. And some (again emphasis) SJWs have been just a violent as Neo-Nazis at rallies. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of SJWs even when I agree with them but I'm also not putting them on the same level as Neo-Nazis other then to illustrate the importance of free speech.

[Ziggy Stardust]

And that itself is kinda my point. Europe after a horrifying war decided quite firmly to reject and prevent such groups from ever gathering strength in whatever form. Post-war Europe, especially West Germany de-Nazified quite thoroughly.

Can the same be said about the US south after the civil war? Slavery is abolished, but life is still quite bad for many Blacks in the South. The difficulty for the US to end those problematic thinking in the South meant that violence is far more likely to break out as a result.

I think you need to do a little bit more research on the historical events you are using to support your argument, because it would take too long to go into a thorough discussion of the differences between Reconstruction and post-war Europe.

For one thing, post-war Europe was not as peaceful as you make it out to be. Yes, modern Germany is pretty thoroughly de-Nazified. But this was not some magical process that happened overnight because the war was so bad; hundreds of thousands of Germans died in the years following the war due to campaigns of mass exportation and forced labor, and there were decades-long and systematic multinational campaigns dedicated solely to finding former Nazis to hold them responsible and thoroughly, brutally, and publicly destroy the institutions that supported the Nazi regime. And still, there were violent student protests in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s that were driven in part by the perception the government hadn't done enough to thoroughly de-Nazify. The so-called "Years of Lead" in Italy lasted into the 1980s, driven in no small part by neo-fascist terrorist groups that had formed around the remnants of Mussolini's regime. The point being that de-Nazification was a prolonged process that involved several different waves of violence, and it really wasn't until the end of and after the Cold War that this process began to really bear fruit in Western Europe (leaving aside the fact that it is still an issue in parts of Eastern Europe).

As for Reconstruction, the primary goals of the postwar government were to avoid continued violence and resistance to federal rule. There was far less violence in the U.S. (that is, violence specifically as a consequence of slavery/the Civil War, as opposed to the slaughter of native tribes, which is a separate problem), which meant that the cultural legacy and standing of the Confederacy was left essentially intact.

It's not nearly as simple as "this one violent thing solved a problem and this other violent thing didn't". It's "this one violent thing, in conjunction with both a series of systematic, decades-long international campaigns aimed solely at complete annihilation of the power structure responsible and a number of other related waves of violent action, eventually led to a de-facto solution of a problem; and this other violent thing, which aimed at reconciliation and reintegration of the power structure responsible, didn't solve the problem".

[Patroklos]

I would rather have a place where the state police aren't frightened of neo-nazis as the reason why clashes broke out. One news source stated that the local police were afraid of stepping in because the milita had better guns.

No. Just no. You need a better BS filter.

[Zaune]

A British perspective on this clusterfuck from New Statesman

Think Charlottesville couldn't happen in the UK? Then look at today's Sun

The sight of actual, real-life, flag-flying, gun-toting, "blood and soil" chanting Nazis and white supremacists marching through Charlottesville in the US this weekend was chilling, even before one of them drove into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring almost 20 more.

As is often the way for those in the UK, watching what happens to our English-speaking transatlantic partner prompts the question "could it happen here?".

History suggests it's unlikely. Britain has had its own racist movements – the English Defence League, Britain First, further back the National Front – but most of the population takes pride in the country's history of opposing fascism. Not only is the Second World War seen as our greatest moment, but the Battle of Cable Street, in which thousands of Jews, trade unions and communists fought and won street battles against Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, is celebrated right across the political spectrum.

Yes, we have the likes of Thomas Mair, the far-right murderer of MP Jo Cox, but we have no significant, organised groups espousing the kind of white supremacist ideology on display in the US this weekend.

That's what we reassure ourselves with at least.

Yet in what seems like an inadvertent masterstroke of timing, along comes Sun columnist Trevor Kavanagh to remind us how you get from civilised debate to goose-stepping in small, easy steps.

In Monday's Sun, Kavanagh has penned a column mostly about Chancellor Philip Hammond and Brexit, but with a few paragraphs dedicated to the conviction of a group of mainly British Asian men in Newcastle for running a sexual abuse ring.

There are obviously debates to be had about how this case and other instances of sexual abuse are carried out by groups with shared religious or cultural backgrounds (though maybe let's include the Catholic Church in that debate).

But Kavanagh, of course, went a lot further than that, linking the convictions to Brexit's promise of full control of immigration and asking: "What will we do about The Muslim Problem then?"

This isn't so much a political dog-whistle as a full on Wagner symphony. The Sun has been asked for a comment on whether it was a deliberate attempt to mirror the Nazis' second-favourite euphemism for hating Jews (the first, remember, has already been used by former Sun columnist Katie Hopkins after she'd left for the Mail.) It seems unlikely it was a mistake, given that Kavanagh's terrible views do not detract from his skill with words.

The other argument (as it was with Hopkins) is that Kavanagh is just voicing his opinion as an independent columnist. That argument is a little difficult to hold up when Kavanagh is the Sun's former political editor, as well as its current assistant editor (he also sits on the board of media regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation).

But even if you set aside Kavanagh's exalted position at the Sun and take it simply as one columnist saying something objectionable for attention, its is part of a broader pattern of writing across the tabloid press that seeks to dehumanise minorities, and these days that mostly means Muslims.

You will course see worse things on social media and the dark corners of the web. There is more explicit enthusiasm for applying Nazi tactics to minority groups in the UK on, for instance, the comments posted to Mail Online.

But while the right-wing tabloid press's statements, hints, and calls for serious debate in the face of oppressive "political correctness" are more subtle, their appearance in the supposedly mainstream media legitimises the most extreme of views.

And to see how that works you only have to turn back across the Atlantic.

Donald Trump's rise was backed by a drip drip of subtly-legitimatised hate from the likes of Breitbart and Fox News, augmented by the more crazy fringe of those like Alex Jones at Infowars, who talk of a white culture under threat. And there is a feedback loop running through Trump himself, where his comments and sometimes lack of comment boosts those messages. When he branded both sides in Charlottesville as equally violent, and refused to answer questions about support from white supremacists, it gave succour to the most openly fascist organisations on the internet.

The US example shows what years of this process results in. It softens up the public for even more vicious views, and pushes the Overton Window so being a Nazi seems just another viewpoint – one sympathised with by parts of the supposed mainstream and perhaps, even, at least a little, the president himself.

The US is perhaps a decade or two ahead of us down this path, but in Kavanagh and other writers like him, we have at least the beginnings of the same process. Maybe something like Charlottesville taking place here seems like a distant prospect. But we have plenty of people with huge media platforms doing their best to prepare the ground.

[Broomstick]

I would rather have a place where the state police aren't frightened of neo-nazis as the reason why clashes broke out. One news source stated that the local police were afraid of stepping in because the milita had better guns.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/virgi ... 93151.html[

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has said one of the reasons the police failed to control the violence during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was because militia members at the rally were armed with "better equipment" than the state police themselves.

“It’s easy to criticise, but I can tell you this, 80 per cent of the people here had semiautomatic weapons," Mr McAuliffe said.

I don't think you need a woman to die before Americans could take the threat seriously enough. Police being underprepared to face this kind of protest? That's quite a problem you guys have over there.

First of all, it was local, Charlottesville police. Not "state" police. Not that I expect someone from a city-state like Singapore to understand the multi-tiered police structure of a continent-spanning country. I have no idea how well equipped Charlottesville's police are equipped to handle a riot and there certainly are questions about how the police force handled the whole mess. Or rather, didn't handle it.

However, extrapolating from a city of 50,000 to the entire country of 300 million is whack. A city like Chicago or New York has easily handled these sorts of white supremacist rallies for decades in part because they have extensive training in crowd control and are also equipped with the tools to do the job. Also, if a bunch of asshats showed up in Chicago to a "peaceful" rally in body armor with guns, clubs, and shields they'd be arrested on the spot. Which is what should have happened in Charlottesville.

Yes, we do have police problems in the US, but not every police force is a bunch of chucklefucks.

[Zaune]

Given that the Department of Defence has been literally giving away surplus weapons, ammunition and other equipment to any police department that asks for it, if Charlottesville PD are under-equipped for the job it's not for lack of budget. And while I'm aware that police officers deploying military-style vehicles and equipment can create a bit of an image problem, I don't think any reasonable person would object to them breaking out the MRAPs and the long guns when a bunch of literal neo-Nazis are walking around with AR-15s of their own.

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.inforum.com/opinion/letters/ ... nd-actions

The father of one of the white supremacists publicly denounces his own son. It must have been painful to do.

Letter: Family denounces Tefft's racist rhetoric and actions
By Pearce Tefft on Aug 14, 2017 at 8:21 a.m.

My name is Pearce Tefft, and I am writing to all, with regards to my youngest son, Peter Tefft, an avowed white nationalist who has been featured in a number of local news stories over the last several months.

On Friday night, my son traveled to Charlottesville, Va., and was interviewed by a national news outlet while marching with reported white nationalists, who allegedly went on to kill a person.

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.

I have shared my home and hearth with friends and acquaintances of every race, gender and creed. I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his family’s heartbreak and distress. We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

Peter Tefft, my son, is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer. I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast.

His hateful opinions are bringing hateful rhetoric to his siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews as well as his parents. Why must we be guilty by association? Again, none of his beliefs were learned at home. We do not, never have, and never will, accept his twisted worldview.

He once joked, “The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven.”

Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.

Tefft lives in Fargo.

[mr friendly guy]

Very apt description of Trump's actions over Charlottesville.

[ray245]

First of all, it was local, Charlottesville police. Not "state" police. Not that I expect someone from a city-state like Singapore to understand the multi-tiered police structure of a continent-spanning country. I have no idea how well equipped Charlottesville's police are equipped to handle a riot and there certainly are questions about how the police force handled the whole mess. Or rather, didn't handle it.

To be honest, the news source isn't exactly making it clear whether it is the local city police or the state police. I do know the difference between local city police and state police. However, when I'm referring to local police, I'm referring to police within the state, as opposed to federal law enforcement.

Any rally where a police force, be it a city police or state police says that they are afraid of taking the right actions because they fear protestors with better guns and weapons is a scary thing. Because all it takes for certain groups to turn the event into something more violent is to threaten the local police assigned to handle a rally.

However, extrapolating from a city of 50,000 to the entire country of 300 million is whack. A city like Chicago or New York has easily handled these sorts of white supremacist rallies for decades in part because they have extensive training in crowd control and are also equipped with the tools to do the job. Also, if a bunch of asshats showed up in Chicago to a "peaceful" rally in body armor with guns, clubs, and shields they'd be arrested on the spot. Which is what should have happened in Charlottesville.

Yes, we do have police problems in the US, but not every police force is a bunch of chucklefucks.

And that's a problem, isn't it? We aren't talking about NY or other big cities in the US. If the far-right protesters aren't going to bully well-equipped police force in big cities, there is no stopping them from bullying smaller cities or towns with the more underequipped police force.

And if the solution towards far-right rallies bringing weapons to threaten the locals is for the police to have even bigger guns, then you are also going to run into problems of police brutality. It's just a mad arms race, isn't it? Far-right rally at a town? The counter-protestors needed a bigger crowd to have some form of safety. Far-right rallies carrying weapons as intimidation? Well, the police need better guns/armored trucks/riot gear.

[Flagg]

I would rather have a place where the state police aren't frightened of neo-nazis as the reason why clashes broke out. One news source stated that the local police were afraid of stepping in because the milita had better guns.

No. Just no. You need a better BS filter.

Yeah, I hate to be the broken record cop hating dickhead, but I suspect that the local cops and sheriff were likely just not that interested in preventing a bunch of anti-Nazi protesters from getting beat up by the Nazi's and figured they would just go in and do clean up when things "died down". Only people died so now they are saying they were outgunned which I don't believe for a second when even backwoods shithole counties have SWAT teams and armored vehicles. That said, I'd rather be wrong.

[Flagg]

Guess what, I think the SJWs believe in some harmful shit too and commit harmful acts but I think they are just as entitled to spew their bullshit as Hanz Frankfarter waving his tiki torch.

I've been a bit out of the loop on things. What do "the SJWS" believe and what have "the SJWs" done which is so harmful?

Don't bother with Cunt Lord. He still has not responded to being corrected on his totally bullshit statements about how "Both sides are just as bad" using Ruby Ridge (happened under a Republican President) and the Waco standoff (started a month into a Democratic Presidents first term, so basically a Republican ATF, plus not even comparable to Ruby Ridge) as examples.

[Broomstick]

First of all, it was local, Charlottesville police. Not "state" police. Not that I expect someone from a city-state like Singapore to understand the multi-tiered police structure of a continent-spanning country. I have no idea how well equipped Charlottesville's police are equipped to handle a riot and there certainly are questions about how the police force handled the whole mess. Or rather, didn't handle it.

To be honest, the news source isn't exactly making it clear whether it is the local city police or the state police. I do know the difference between local city police and state police. However, when I'm referring to local police, I'm referring to police within the state, as opposed to federal law enforcement.

Here's a handy primer for you:

Local police: either city/municipal police or the sheriff, which is the county-level police.
State police: the state wide police force - they patrol interstates, coordinate multi-jurisdictional investigations within the state, protect the state capital and governor (basically, the state-level equivalent of the Secret Service)
Federal police: Um... we don't really have them. There's the National Guard, but they aren't Federal, they're under the control of the state governor most of time, and certainly for in-state policing uses. The US military is specifically prohibited from acting as police except in cases of armed insurrection (which was the excuse used in 1967 in Detroit). The closest thing we have to that would be the FBI, but they work with state and local police as needed.

Much like most crime is seen as a state-level jurisdiction, policing is, too. We don't have Federal police in the sense I think you mean.

In the US "local police" are NOT the state police, they are the police of the city/town or county. "State police" patrol highways and interstates, NOT cities and NOT political demonstrations unless asked to do so by the state governor, which normally wouldn't do so in advance of an actual riot breaking out. If the guys running the city of Charlottesville had had half a brain as soon as they realized they were outgunned someone should have called the governor to ask if the state police could lend some help but that's not what happened.

So really, the guys in Charlottesville were city police, not state police. As I said, I understand that you would not be familiar with this sort of structure but your use of "state police" to refer to what are properly described as either "local police" or "city police" is confusing at best.

I don't doubt that possible local sympathy by the local police to their cause might have figured into the rally being held in Charlottesville. It certainly can't be ruled out.

[ray245]

Here's a handy primer for you:

Local police: either city/municipal police or the sheriff, which is the county-level police.
State police: the state wide police force - they patrol interstates, coordinate multi-jurisdictional investigations within the state, protect the state capital and governor (basically, the state-level equivalent of the Secret Service)
Federal police: Um... we don't really have them. There's the National Guard, but they aren't Federal, they're under the control of the state governor most of time, and certainly for in-state policing uses. The US military is specifically prohibited from acting as police except in cases of armed insurrection (which was the excuse used in 1967 in Detroit). The closest thing we have to that would be the FBI, but they work with state and local police as needed.

Much like most crime is seen as a state-level jurisdiction, policing is, too. We don't have Federal police in the sense I think you mean.

In the US "local police" are NOT the state police, they are the police of the city/town or county. "State police" patrol highways and interstates, NOT cities and NOT political demonstrations unless asked to do so by the state governor, which normally wouldn't do so in advance of an actual riot breaking out. If the guys running the city of Charlottesville had had half a brain as soon as they realized they were outgunned someone should have called the governor to ask if the state police could lend some help but that's not what happened.

I thought the state police were deployed quite early? The comments about the police being outgunned come from the state governor, so I'll naturally assume he's talking about both the local city police AND the state police.

When I'm referring to federal police, I'm talking about the FBI and etc.

So really, the guys in Charlottesville were city police, not state police. As I said, I understand that you would not be familiar with this sort of structure but your use of "state police" to refer to what are properly described as either "local police" or "city police" is confusing at best.

I assume people will assume that local police is referring to the local state police AND the city police. Apologies if there is any misunderstanding.

I don't doubt that possible local sympathy by the local police to their cause might have figured into the rally being held in Charlottesville. It certainly can't be ruled out.

And isn't Charlottesville considered a more liberal university city? If a more liberal city in the South is unable to rely on the city police for sufficient protection, then I dread to think what will happen if this breaks out in a more conservative city.

[Raw Shark]

And isn't Charlottesville considered a more liberal university city? If a more liberal city in the South is unable to rely on the city police for sufficient protection, then I dread to think what will happen if this breaks out in a more conservative city.

There's really not much even well-armed police could do about a sudden car attack. Even the SWAT teams don't get RPGs. Short of putting dragon teeth or spike strips or something around the entire protest, Death By Challenger is kind of a trump (haha) card.

Also, the cops do not necessarily reflect the local culture, especially the college students. I went to one of the most liberal schools in the country, in one of the most liberal states in the country, and I still had a cop there draw down on me once for unaggressively carrying an apple in broad daylight. An entire semester of Cops Are Afraid of Apples / Assault With a Deadly Apple / Granny Smith: Public Enemy #1 jokes ensued, but still a little scary that Officer Friendly could've executed me for transporting fruit, even accidentally if he sneezed or something.

[Civil War Man]

I'm assuming you mean requiring violence to enact change ala Black Panther/Malcolm X. You're the one that talks about how MLK have his more violent counterparts and etc.

For the record, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers were/are not as violent as pop culture tends to portray them, nor was MLK as staunchly opposed to violence as he's portrayed. MLK famously called riots the "language of the unheard," owned several firearms to protect himself from white thugs (much like his more militant counterparts), and acknowledged that violent revolution is preferable to passive submission if all other options are removed. He had no patience for the white "moderate" who was more concerned with order than justice.

That being said, MLK did champion non-violent demonstrations, but much of the reason he was able to accomplish much with that is because a) much of the white power structure did not hesitate to employ violence against him, and images of racist police officers siccing German Shepherds on schoolchildren and beating marchers within an inch of their lives did not sit well with more liberal whites, and b) there was always the implicit threat that if the more peaceful protestors were ignored or silenced, then the more violent ones would fill the gap.

Generally, the amount of violence necessary to enact change is proportional to the resistance against that change. If there is little resistance against it, sometimes merely the possibility of violence is enough. On the other extreme, when the regime responds to peaceful demonstrations by massacring the protestors and murdering their families, violent revolution becomes the only viable option. Everything else falls somewhere in that spectrum.

I am happy to be corrected here, but the only time in history where such change occurred without violence that I can recall is the British abolition of slavery. Every other historical emancipation required violence on a large scale either internally or externally imposed.

One addition I will make to this is that even if the act of Britain abolishing slavery was relatively bloodless, the enforcement and expansion of that abolition was not. The UK shed a lot of blood and treasure over the course of decades working to shut down the transatlantic slave trade. One of the reasons they refused to intervene in the American Civil War was that many Confederate officials were openly advocating reopening the slave trade because it was cheaper to kidnap Africans and work them to death than it was to purchase slaves from the breeding plantations in states like Virginia and Maryland.

[Gaidin]

Texas A&M Cancels Rally

Texas A&M has canceled a white nationalist protest planned in September, citing safety concerns.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and other extremist groups had planned to hold a "white lives matter" rally at Texas A&M on September 11.

The school canceled the rally Monday evening "because of concerns about the safety of its students, faculty, staff, and the public."

Richard Spencer, the white supremacist who helped found the so-called alt-right movement, was set to speak at the event, according to the Battalion, Texas A&M's student newspaper.

The Battalion reports the organizer for the Texas event, Preston Wiginton, was inspired by the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. That protest drew a large number of counterprotesters and turned violent. One woman was killed and dozens injured when police say a man with views sympathetic to neo-Nazis deliberately drove his car into a crowd.

Unwelcome at school

Spencer spoke at Texas A&M in December, sparking outrage and protests on campus. The school eventually changed its campus speaker policy because of the controversy over his appearance. The new rules required outside groups or individuals to have sponsorship from a university-sanctioned group to reserve campus facilities.

The university cited that policy change in canceling the upcoming event.

"None of the 1,200-plus campus organizations invited Preston Wiginton nor did they agree to sponsor his events in December 2016 or on September 11 of this year," the school said in a statement.

Wiginton had planned to hold his event in Rudder Plaza -- an outdoor space in the middle of campus.

"Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus," the statement said.

During his December appearance, Spencer delivered his message of white supremacy for roughly two hours to a room of 400 people, the vast majority of whom were there in protest.

"At the end of the day, America belongs to white men," he said at the time.

Blocking the view

Students had been "planning a number of various [counter-] protests," Josh McCormack, editor in chief of the Battalion, told CNN. "The most popular protests seems to be a recreation of the 'maroon wall.'"

The maroon wall is essentially a human chain, McCormack said. In July 2012, members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church came to the area to protest a soldier's funeral at a local church. When they showed up, they were greeted by hundreds of students who linked together to block their view.

More: TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW TEXAS A&M was a press release. So it's not really a wonder why they canceled that one on them.