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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/u...-virginia.html
"Late Friday night, several hundred torch-bearing men and women marched on the main quadrangle of the University of Virginia’s grounds, shouting, “You will not replace us,” and “Jew will not replace us.” "
Fuck that. They're Nazis. Discuss.
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The torchlight procession is the confirmation. The only things missing are white sheets or brown shirts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben in LA
Not needed anymore. They won't suffer many consequences for their actions. Hell, the cops weren't even in riot gear. They've been emboldened by the current administration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
For those who say that a man cannot control who supports him, listen very carefully to Trump's weak, vague condemnation of these white supremacists. Compare what he says about this disgrace to what he says about CNN or Mika Brzezinski or the news media as a whole.
He says "Charlottesville sad!" but what he doesn't say is "these white supremacists are a disgrace. They believe I am carrying out their will but no genuine supporter of mine promotes race hatred. I condemn without hesitation people who claim that diversity = genocide or that we are weakening this country by making it more inclusive. Making America great means making it great for everyone, including all minorities."
He is able to call the news media the enemy of the people. Would he say the same about people who carry torches and promote race hatred? How hard can that be?
And I'm sure some people think "well what does it matter if the President issues an effective condemnation, there will always be some racists?" There will always be racists, but they should be outliers and our government should speak with one voice when it comes to denouncing them. If people who are carrying the flag of men and women who committed treason are not "the enemy of the people" then who is? Oh yes, the fake news media.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
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How can this be happening in America ?
A) Neither Virginia nor Charlottesville needs a statue of Robert E. Lee to be reminded of the Civil War and what it represents in US history.
B) Charlottesville to most Americans ought to resonate with the Presidents who lived there or or close by -Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.
C) :
David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, hailed the rally as a sign of Mr Trump’s success. “This represents a turning point for the people of this country,”
“We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...o-nazis-bring/
D) Charlottesville is named after the consort of George III (the king who lost America), Queen Charlotte (born in what is now Germany), married at 17, mother of 15 children...attempts that have been made to 'prove' she was of African ancestry are weak, but it would be a hoot if the Queen after whom the city is named is claimed as 'their own' by racist cretins who can't spell or point to North Korea on a map of the world. I guess most of them only got to the place via GPS anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20.../race-monarchy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbfzjSxP064
Listen to what he says. "On many sides"....this is straight out of the playbook of every racist enabler in history. There was hatred and bigotry from only one side. If this isn't complicity nothing is. Even Bush Jr. would have the decency after a display like this to talk about the legacy of racism and make clear who he is condemning, instead of pretending like there are multiple sides worthy of condemnation.
Here is a link to an interesting article that argues that the statues of Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Charlottesville were deliberately placed on the fringes of Black neighbourhoods in the town-
What has been missing from this fight, though, is the specific history of Charlottesville’s Confederate statues. Intimately tied to Charlottesville’s city planning projects and its persistent displacement of black residents, that context is emblematic of the relationship in the South between urban renewal and gentrification, Confederate memorialization and Lost Cause white supremacy, and the town-and-gown dichotomy inherent in university communities.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...torically.html
It seems that the violence at the rally was worse than I thought initially. In addition to Heather Heyer being killed by a crazed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of people there were numerous assaults and in the age of social media many of them were captured on camera.
Several accounts on twitter have done an excellent job of breaking down the footage and putting out pictures of assailants who have been identified.
Where it gets more controversial, though not for me, is that pictures of the tiki torch mob who were not involved in crimes are also being disseminated. The people are being identified and at least a few have been fired from their jobs. This is one of the reasons that back in the day Klansmen covered their faces. These men in Charlottesville marched openly and promoted an unambiguous message of hatred. One of the things that shocked me when I went on twitter was the sheer number of stealth neo-nazis...some of them decided they had nothing to hide anymore.
There is the wider issue of public monuments, when and why they were erected, and whether or not the individuals turned into Bronze or Stone should now be removed. In the UK in 2015 there was a lot of controversy over an attempt to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford College, and many might be aware that a former MP (Ann Widdicombe) was amongst others who are offended by the statue of Oliver Cromwell that stands right outside the House of Commons an want it melted down or removed. Origins are important here, as the Cromwell statue was erected in 1895 to a fanfare of applause -and public hostility from Irish Catholics and Conservatives.
I ask myself what the statue or Robert E. Lee was supposed to commemorate and why it is in that place and not another. I am not an American so I ought not to care one way or another, but it does seem to me that a residual bitterness at the fact they lost the War, has enabled -for some people, and not all of them from the 'South'- a contemporary resentment at the reality of American life in Virginia and the 'South' to use the Civil War and its symbols as if the war never ended, even if neither 'States rights' nor slavery are the precise issue today. It appears to be some odd nostalgia for an America that maybe never existed, but which when cast in Stone or Bronze summons up what might have been as a replacement for what is.
Perhaps the most curious monument to an American is in Saratoga National Park, the 'Boot' monument that celebrates -but does not name or depict (other than his Boot, 'coz he broke his leg in the battle)- General Benedict Arnold, the man who defeated the British at the Battle of Saratoga before taking the King's gold and becoming one of 'the most hated' Americans of the revolutionary wars...
http://www.neatorama.com/2014/01/01/...nedict-Arnold/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35161671
I would think very few countries have dedicated statues and memorials to treasonous generals or have allowed the citizens to fly and celebrate the flag of a treasonous rebellion. Our public schools teach that both sides of the Civil War fought bravely and honorably and that each side had heros that deserve the recognition of the nation as a whole. That such memorials exist is testimony to the will to set aside the grievances that led to (and accumulated throughout) the war between the states and heal the rift between the two opposing sides. It is worth noting that this reduction, (designed to placate the ‘two sides’) to some extent, leaves aside the newly freed slaves and their descendants.
These symbols of the attempt to knit together and forget old wounds have been corrupted by neo-nazis, white-supremacists, the alt-right and various amateur militia who imagine that they’re being oppressed by current civil rights laws, current immigration policies, a non-existent censorship on free speech, unfair taxation and threats to the second amendment. Others of them even complain their natural supremacy is neither recognized nor respected. Long thriving in the backwaters of the internet, these pathetically ignorant entities have come into some prominence thanks to the fact that our toddler in chief is all but one of them.
So it is not surprising that the statue of General Lee in Charlottesville came to be seen as representing a kind of racism and white nationalism that is repugnant to this largely liberal place. And so the town voted to relocate General Lee to a less prominent venue. There is some question as to whether the Charlottesville the authority to do so, or whether the authority rests with the State of Virginia. This is now being settled in the courts.
Why neo-nazis from Ohio, Missouri and elsewhere care about where General Lee stands in the town of Charlottesville is a question that unveils the symbolism behind the the statue. General Lee is no longer symbolic of the healing process between the states. He is no longer the heroic general of a vast and tragic war. He now represents racial purity, white-supremacy, hatred of immigrants, of Muslims, of Jews__ of everyone who isn’t white and Christian.
This why we can no longer have nice things.
Correction: There is some question as to whether Charlottesville has the authority to do so, or whether the authority rests with the State of Virginia. This is now being settled in the courts.
I have not encountered a Trump supporter who has any reason to support him other than intense dislike for large segments of society. I could not say that about any other politician without feeling I was being unfair. But think of his torch-bearers on this site: one posted Pepe with a swastika in front of Auschwitz, one posted about Muslims as though they are subhuman and called Ruth Bader Ginsburg a hooknose, and one claims that while she doesn't support neo-nazism she finds Pepe cute and wants Trump to build that wall.
The phrase white supremacism is one that describes the most extreme form of racial bigotry. I did not used to think it existed on a continuum, but it cannot just refer to people who carry the confederate flag or who believe all non-white people are innately inferior. It must also refer to those people who hear someone providing cover for it and cannot condemn them. Who react with the same outrage to rowdy antifa supporters as they do to Nazis. Who want to see black people arrested for protesting but don't even shrug when they see openly armed white men in military fatigues carrying flags of treason or symbols of genocide. For an example of this, check out the disparity in the number of people arrested in Ferguson and Charlottesville.
The white house bears responsibility for this outbreak of white supremacism because they have not condemned these supporters with the requisite force. They bear responsibility because they employ racist ideologues, namely Steven Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Jeff Sessions. They bear responsibility because they allow their views to subtly appear in speeches asking us to cherish our history after a march about the continued prominence of confederate statues turned deadly. And they bear responsibility because they first considered the political cost of denouncing racists before they considered racism's victims.
The reason I posted about people being fired from their jobs for appearing at this rally is because leadership is not coming from the top. If people want to live in a civilized society, then they will have to actively ensure they do not employ barbarians. Germany deserves a lot of credit for their refusal to allow any commemoration of the Nazis. We cannot take quite as strict an approach to racism as they do because some of their laws would violate our first amendment, but we can say that if you march with a torch yelling racist slogans, you can be excluded from fraternizing with the civilized people.
http://www.inforum.com/opinion/lette...ic-and-actions
Thought this was in interesting letter from a father about his son stating that he's no longer welcome in his home as long as he's a white supremacist.
I have always had an interest in history. I constantly read and watch documentaries about it. When it comes to American history, you have to accept the good with the bad. I also believe that the great things that this country has accomplished should not be diminished by the ugliness that has been part of our history. At the same time, that bad shouldn't be rationalized or defended as "well that's the way things were done back then".
When it comes to the symbols associated with the Confederacy, I think they need to be taken into context. When the Confederate flag is being used by the Klan, White Nationalists, or Neo Nazis during a march, it becomes a symbol of hate. The flag decal on the General Lee on the Dukes of Hazard television show, was no big deal and is not a reason to have a show that ran over 30 years ago yanked from a cable network. While I wasn't personally offended by the Confederate flag being flown over the South Carolina statehouse, it was time for it to come down.
When it comes to the people that were associated with the Confederacy, I think you have to look at them with historical perspective. While obviously I'm glad that the Union won the war, I can understand why certain people fought for the other side. As a person who likes reading about military history, I can appreciate their brilliance and valor in battle. But since they did lose the war, they shouldn't have been celebrated with monuments or have parks named after them.
I agree with your other points, but I think you're presenting a rather rose-coloured view of US history here. Rather than being an honourable struggle fought in a gentlemanly fashion, the civil war was characterised by many atrocities, eg http://listverse.com/2013/03/17/10-w...-us-civil-war/. In particular, captured black Union troops were routinely executed by the confederates.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Setting aside of grievances after the civil war largely took the form of the North acquiescing in the continuation of institutionalised racial discrimination in the South for the best part of 90 years. In effect, there was a Faustian bargain - don't try to secede again and we'll give you a free hand in the treatment of blacks (short of bringing back slavery).
I'm not raising this for academic reasons, but because understanding the present requires understanding the history that led up to here. Too many well-intentioned Americans want to believe in a 'shining light on the hill' version of their history that minimises the darker aspects. I think this may have contributed to an overly-complacent view that overt racism is an aberration at the margins that would naturally face away over time.
A sequence of fascinating posts above. What occurs to me is that while I can see how the process of reconciliation may have dulled the ferocity of the division between the Union and the Confederacy and thus tended to reduce Confederate monuments to a benign status, in fact this obscures the latent hostility that appears to linger as a contemporary reflection on society rather than maintaining a direct link to the Civil War -I wonder how many of the alt-right activists who descended on Charlottesville have roots in the Confederate states. Critically, the Confederacy had more than one flag, and the flag the militants wave is the Battle Flag, which implies that the people waving it are prepared for 'war', and that is anything but benign, but a deliberate provocation to law and order and government.
At what point does free speech defend the right to display a flag of war, and at what point does waving the flag of war threaten free speech?
I know it's better to get it right than to get it first. I did not watch Trump's most recent statement but I'm sure whatever he said will be compiled into an article shortly to summarize. I only opened my twitter feed and rational people are aghast.
From what I can gather he compared statues of Robert Lee to George Washington, saying about their removal, "what's next we remove statues of Washington." Apparently he also said that he is sure there were good people on both sides and then blamed the "alt-left" for much of the violence. Let me remind you a white supremacist plowed a car into a crowd of people and an African-American man was beaten with heavy sticks by multiple assailants who had shields with fascist insignia on them.
Just based on this it must be a breaking point. The rally was very obviously a white nationalist rally. There were not good people on both sides as the rally was organized by white supremacist haters. There is no alt-left and since Charlottesville Trump has been retweeting alt-right figures saying stuff like "nobody is talking about shootings in Chicago", which is racist code in my opinion.
Any company that remains on his business council must be boycotted. We'll find out more.
This is the full statement, most notable for the claim that the 'alt-left' came charging at the people in the rally with clubs. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...41662?lo=ap_b2
I guess the only positive is that Trump just ripped off the fig leaf put in place by his previous statement, so that mainstream Republicans can't just pretend the issue has been dealt with and try to put it behind them.
Unintentional duplicate - why do they let us edit posts, but not delete them?
Meanwhile, in the land of make believe, it's all the fault of Obama and George Soros. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...harlottesville
How did Trump miss that?
This is a maddening read. Hard to add anything to that. I can't believe people are so unevolved. These people are real dipshit fucking cretins.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I wonder how hard these people were to find and whether people who express views like this are openly racist with each other. Can't help but read this article and think we have a much bigger problem. Yuck.
Interesting article on the timing of construction of these confederate monuments. https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/...derate-statues
The big peaks were in the early 20th C, when the Jim Crow laws were being put in place in the South, and to a lesser extent in the 1950s and 60s when they were trying to defend these laws against the civil rights movement.
What's all this "alt" crap? Alternative to what? The right? The left? The somewhere in between? Honesty in general? Why can't we just call the Klan/Nazis what they are? Oh, that's right. They're not enemy combatants unless they're in uniform.
Now admittedly, i've been out of touch for a while. But I hadn't seen the term "alt left" before today. Who the hell are they supposed to be? Are they pink? Are they a bunch of spiteful thugs who attack poor defenseless stand-your-grounders for no discernable reason? Boo hoo. They're such meanies. Better tune up the car.
Huh? I don't get it. Does anybody really think that twisted language makes things better? That it justifies being an asshole and doing harm to those who may not agree with somebody's bullshit? I hope an epidemic of rational thought sweeps the country soon.
Welcome back, Hippifried, I hope your absence was not due to illness as it once was before, and if it was I hope you are in good shape. The 'alt-right' invented themselves with this moniker, they only have themselves to blame for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by hippifried
As for a rational discussion, on this specific event, the First Amendment rights of the Unite the Right rally are not at issue. The organizer, Jospeh Kessler, who blames law enforcement not the 'alt-left' for the breakdown on August 12th, applied for a permit to hold the rally in Emancipation Park where the statue of Robert E. Lee is situated, but Charlottesville wanted it to take place in another park, McIntrye Park so Kessler took the City to court and won his case, on the basis that the whole point of the rally was to protest against the removal of the equestrian statue of Lee -and Kessler was supported in his legal case by the ACLU.
I am not sure if the torchlit procession on the evening of the 11th through the University of Virginia had a permit, but the argument is that a couple of hours before the rally was due to be held on the 12th violent confrontations caused the City to declare a 'state of emergency' and thus shut down the rally, so I guess it could be argued this was a matter of 'public order' rather than a First Amendment issue, which is how Ann Coulter described in on BBC-2's Newsnight the other day, blaming the left for trying to 'shut down debate' and so on.
But the most rational response came from the President himself, who offered his first unscripted and thus honest feelings in New York some hours ago:
“I mean, I know a lot about Charlottesville,” Trump said, walking out of the press conference. “Charlottesville is a great place that's been very badly hurt over the last couple of days. I own, actually, one of the largest wineries in the United States; it's in Charlottesville.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ess-conference
So head off to your nearest liquor store and put more money into his pockets -why else is he President?
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics...e-documentary/
This is a documentary by vice. It follows a white supremacist through the torch lit rally. It is only 22 minutes but is extremely powerful...watching this puts the President's words in perspective. It's hard to watch and think there are good guys and bad guys equally on both sides.
I should put a warning with the vice documentary that at about 11 minutes in they show the car running into the crowd. If anyone wants to avoid that I just checked, the scene with the car in the crowd starts at 11 minutes 15 seconds and is over at 15 minutes in. I think it's worth watching even if it's disturbing but that's just my view.
I watched the video and I have no idea how you reached this conclusion. On the one side, we have a bunch of people spouting hateful bigotry and clearly setting out to intimidate and provoke. On the other, we have bunch of people trying to resist this, some of whom (understandably) lost their tempers and may have overreacted at times. Hating people because they do hateful things isn't morally equivalent to hating people simply because of their race or religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Also, the video is necessarily only a partial record and seems to have missed the violence instigated by the white nationalists, which has been widely reported elsewhere.
Yes I agree with you. I didn't express myself very well. I have no idea why I said the video puts his words into perspective when I meant showed them to be incorrect. A mystery except that I probably wasn't thinking while I was typing and just wanted to say something before I put the link up.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
I meant the video shows how wrong Trump's comments are. Trump seemed to say that on each side there were both good and bad people. I think the video makes it very clear that one side is very bad and the other side was just there to express their opposition to extreme bigotry. In other words, there were not any innocent Nazis and there weren't any bigoted anti-Nazis.
This is especially true and has been lost on Trump. The white nationalists came with a message of hate while the counter-protesters were there to express their opposition to bigotry.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
The video shows that no innocent person would have happened to find themselves among the white supremacist protesters. Nobody would have walked into that rally on Friday night to protest a statue and thought to themselves "I wonder why some people think this was about white supremacism?". The video did show some counter-protesters losing their temper as you said but the entire confrontation should be blamed on the people who came out to assert their ethnic superiority, not those who opposed them.
Edit: The premise that someone could be innocently protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue is debatable. I personally think the idea of such a protest is probably premised on racist nostalgia. But even if it were possible, the people were chanting like a bunch of unhinged racist idiots.
Okay, I see what you meant now. I think I read the bit about putting Trump's words into perspective and subconsciously assumed there was a missing word in the next sentence.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Just an aside: Before the advent of graphical interface web-browsers people navigated the internet using a language known as UNIX. Back in those days (pretty much before my time) people interacted with each other on the web in discussion groups which were known as use-groups and/or newsgroups. These appeared in a menu with names like alt.music, alt.astronomy, alt.transsexuals, etc. One group that was dominated by neo-nazis and white supremacists appeared in the listing as alt.right. I'm guessing the current 'movement' can trace it's origin directly to this use-group. What the alt means-I don't know (I suspect it has more to do with UNIX than anything else). Was there an alt.left? Probably, I don't know - but if so I doubt it was populated by militant commies. Alt.left is certainly not a thing in modern politics. I'm guessing there are some people here who are old enough to confirm or correct my fuzzy view of ancient internet history.
I don't think there is an official alt.left. I think it's pretty clear what the pouting imbecile refers to is the Antifa movement.Hard to believe he's that stupid, especially since we know damn well that folks like Bannon probably know all the proper terminology (because of his work with Breitbart...and because of his fevered mutterings to himself in the dead of night). It's far more likely that he calls it an alt.left movement to create a moral equivalence, which of course is ludicrous because, although they can sometimes be a massive thorn in law enforcement's side, the Antifa movement is mostly reactive. With the usual inclusion of anarchists there may be some violence (and certainly property damage) but it is not anywhere near the organizational level of the proactive alt.right hate groups.
You can't compare a loosely organized group of counter protestors, usually well intentioned, mostly non-violent...with this massive alliance of race hate groups.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/u...act-check.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...antifa/537048/
Thanks fred.
___________________
Just read the Vox piece on “Barack Obama is to Blame” (linked above in post #22)
I blame myself for the violence in Charlotte. I blame myself for being identifiably brown while performing well and holding down a well paying job in a competitive field. White-supremacists shouldn’t be forced to live in a world where so few people seem to notice how superior they are. Nor should they have to face the evidence that all people have pretty much the same natural potential to think, thrive, work and and love regardless of skin color, facial features or ethnic origins.
The violence was not Obama’s fault in particular: he just happened to be president eight months ago. Any black president could’ve and would have been sited as the spark the lit the tiki-torches in Charlotte last weekend. Of course, it doesn’t help that Obama is a Christian, goes to church and was born an American citizen in the state of Hawaii thereby collapsing the bizarre quantum-superposition of impossible realities in which alt-right groups attempt to build their castles of purist fantasy.
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I wanted to say earlier (partially in answer to filghy2‘s post#17) that I don’t particularly subscribe to the logic of memorializing and celebrating the confederacy in order to placate the ‘two-sides” to promote healing. I’m not even sure that is the actual logic behind the placing of statues and memorials. The “two-sides” reduction, as I said, leaves out a significant third party. But it is a logic that is out there. It’s taught in schools (or at least it was when I went to public school). And to some extent it does have that effect.
There are places (I think) where confederate statues and memorials are appropriate. I grew up very close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battlefields there are stuffed with both Union and Confederate memorials celebrating the troops who fought there. When I walk through the place and stand exactly where a Confederate sharpshooter had stationed himself more than a century before, I don’t admire him. I don’t despise him either. I’m filled with a kind of incredulity, a creeping sadness, a profound sense of deep causality and utter chaos. I weep inside for the ghosts that have not yet been laid to rest. It’s a worthwhile experience. Of course the place is always filled with tourists and many from the south (judging by their The South Shall Rise Again bumper stickers) take away an experience that’s entirely different.
______________________
What I don’t need is a statue to remind me of my proper place every time I walk down to my local coffee shop.
‘Should we tear down the statues of George Washington?’ our toddler in chief asks. No, but let’s not erect any more statues of anybody on town squares or in city parks. They’re fucking boring. And for Pete’s sake let’s especially not erect any statues in honor or 45, the fat man is just too disgusting. Who could possibly eat their lunch on a park bench next to that?
Of the counter-protesters you see mostly students and well-intentioned people. But the two groups are not only separated by their objectives but also by the way they conduct themselves away from the protest. The white supremacists frequently talk about the violence of their enemies while they call them savages and use other terms meant to dehumanize them. They say this while they are wearing military clothing and talking about how they might have to use deadly force. To me it's clear that their end game is to bait people into a confrontation and use a disproportionate amount of force, more than is required for self-defense so that they can satisfy their blood-lust.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
Before WWII the Nazis constantly discussed how they were more civilized than the Bolsheviks and would never resort to exterminating people. They frequently spoke of how their hand was being forced, and that they would reluctantly use violence if the other side continued to threaten them. They justified Kristallnacht by a single violent act on the other side and used it to commit violent acts against hundreds. You can hear echoes of it in Christopher Cantwell's statements about how he will "kill these people if he has to". What are the chances that his definition of necessity is not strict necessity?
So I guess what I must reluctantly acknowledge is something I consider noise, but which is worth saying. There are a few violent antifa people who come to rallies with their faces covered and try to get in fights with Nazis. If you look at the footage of the rallies, they are probably less than one or two percent of the people there. The other people are students of every ethnic background, religion, and sexual orientation trying to show they will stand against the menace of bigotry. On the side of the Nazis, every single individual was a bigot, used a language that contained inherent violence, used symbols meant to convey violence, and were looking for the opportunity to say violence was necessary.
A) My recollection is that most rallies and marches have taken place in the US without incident, or with minor incidents. Louis Farrakhan is to many people an extremist, yet I don't recall much violence during his 'Million Man March' a few years ago. Many causes arrange rallies and marches to Washington DC that don't descend into violence, even the Westboro Baptists ridicule and abuse people in public but do not appear to provoke a violent response.
The KKK, and the various small groups associated with that kind of white supremacist politics relish violence, in the case of the KKK because that was their modus operandi in the past. They use violence to provoke but in the case of those seriously intending to take over the state, violence becomes part of a 'strategy of tension' as it was used by both the Red Brigades and the Fascist right in Italy in the 1970s-80s, the intention being to provoke so great a crisis that the Italian state would suspend parliament and rule as a dictatorship. A long term intention of the alt-right could be to make the USA ungovernable in some if not all areas, to provoke precisely the kind of breakdown in conventional politics that Bannon has hinted at, that would polarise Americans into an 'us and them' where the definition of who an American is, and who belongs in America would be at the core of the debate, the assumption being that White Christians made America for themselves, and nobody else.
Thank you, Black people, for the cotton, the music and the sports, but it is now time for you to go home to Africa.
B) The concept of 'left and right' emerged in the period just before and after the French Revolution when supporters of the Monarchy sat on the Right of the National Assembly and the Republicans on the left.
So there you are, George Washington was a lefty.
It's bizarre watching from the outside. I mean sure, we have some oddballs and some crackpots in the British political system too but Trump is literally a raving fucking lunatic.
I can't imagine any other political regime in the free world where the combined members of his own party would not have said "right, enoughs enough".
After Comrade Trump fucks off/gets impeached/resignes in a fit of indignation the members of the Republican Party are still going to be career politicians who will need to justify allowing this freak show to continue.
I don't know if the USA's standing on the world stage will ever be viewed the same again.
This graph from the Southern Poverty Law Center (reprinted by Mother Jones) tells us something of the original and current intent behind all those confederate memorials.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...erate-statues/