White supremacists and counter protesters clash in Charlottesville

[Divinity]

The majority of Confederate soldiers did not own slaves nor did they come from a family that owned slaves.  Most of them fought because their home state was invaded.  Studies of surviving Confederate soldier diaries find slavery rarely mentioned.  Hatred toward invading "Yankees" was much more common.

This is part of the turning the Civil War into a comic book thing I was talking about.  Some did fight for slavery, but most did not.

So basically celebrating hatred for their fellow countrymen?   The country everyone is now a part of again? So much fucking better

[Aegon]

On the contrary, It is EVERYBODY'S fault. 

These people are NOT the fringe. These people live and work among us everywhere, always have. This is what we need to face.

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supremacists are a hate group. The BLM movement is a "please don't kill me for being black" group. 

My outrage at Trump's failure to denounce the hate has nothing to do with HIM. This is a fundamental wrong. This is not patriotism.

He denounced the hate! He denounced it on all sides. You weren't paying attention to his statement?

Yes. White Supremacists, far left anarchists, bamn, antifa, are all hate groups. If BLM is such a peaceful, "please don't shoot me for being black", movement, then why do they create an atmosphere of cop killing when they chant, "Pigs in a blanket, fry'em like bacon"?

Okay. Fill me in. Which side showed up with shields, bats, helmets, and a private militia with assault rifles? Which side rammed a car into the other side at almost 40 mph, killing 1 and injuring 19?

Not calling out the clearly incendiary side was pathetic. Acting like both sides were equally to blame. Disgusting.

[chimp3]

The Confederate flag and statues of Confederate Generals are symbols of white supremacy. It would be a great gesture to take them all down. Put them in a museum (Holocaust Museum) for the next generations. Never forget!

[Aegon]

Why Are Neo-Nazis on Twitter So Scared of Being Called Neo-Nazis?

Yesterday’s rally of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and so-called “alt-right” activists predictably devolved into violence. One anti-fascist protester and two police officers are dead, and dozens more were injured by neo-Nazis in a fascist rally at the University of Virginia. But after the streets were cleared, far right thugs who participated in the demonstration seemed only concerned with one thing: Not being called Nazis.

It’s a curious thing that I’ve seen happen since President Trump was elected. People of the “alt-right” are very concerned about being called Nazis, even when they promote ideas that are unquestionably aligned with Nazism. There were literally Nazi flags at yesterday’s rally, and ABC News even made the obvious comparison to Nazi rallies of the 1920s and 30s on TV last night. But high-profile people from the protests have been clutching their pearls on social media whenever people have dared called them Nazis.

One of the most interesting cases of far right activists taking issue with being called Nazis is a man who goes by the name of Baked Alaska. He has been documenting his trip to Virginia on Twitter over the past few days, and has taken issue with people who have called him a Nazi again and again.

Baked Alaska, whose given name is Anthime “Tim” Gionet, regularly tweets about the persecution of white people, has tweeted out the 14 Words (a famous neo-Nazi phrase about white children), and retweets videos of his friends saying that “Hitler did nothing wrong.” He’s even known for tweeting images of people in gas chambers.

But after the smoke cleared yesterday Baked Alaska seemed very, very concerned about not being called a Nazi. His tweet from Virginia last night whined about how people were labeling those at the rally as white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and domestic terrorists. His insinuation was the he’s not any of these things.

This, of course, was after one of the neo-Nazis, identified as 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., drove his car through a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one woman and injuring at least 30 others. The attack has been denounced by politicians (excluding President Trump, for some reason) as an act of domestic terror. But why would white supremacists online worry about the names people give them?

Baked Alaska was hit with pepper spray yesterday during the clashes between Nazis and counter-protesters (sometimes called Antifa, or anti-fascist). But even after he got sprayed with bear mace, his largest concern seemed to be the labels people were using for him. Which is curious, given all of the things he’s tweeted.

On Friday, Baked Alaska tweeted a video of the “14 Words,” coined by the late white supremacist David Lane. The 14 words read, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” It’s not exactly subtle and is unquestionably a neo-Nazi slogan.

And yet, earlier in the week Baked Alaska took issue with the website Barstool Sports, who called him a neo-Nazi in an article originally titled, “Neo-Nazi Leader Baked Alaska is Sad No One Will Rent Him an Airbnb.” The title has since been changed to, “Alt-Right Troll Named ‘Baked Alaska’ is Sad No One Will Rent Him an Airbnb.” Baked Alaska called the original headline slanderous on Twitter and asked if someone would be fired over the piece.

But why is Baked Alaska so concerned with being called a Nazi? Some insist, as evidenced by the Barstool Sports revision, that he’s merely a troll, or someone who simply says incendiary things to get a reaction out of people. He doesn’t really believe in the causes of Nazism, they say, and is merely being outrageous.

But how long does someone get to joke about endorsing Nazism before they’re officially a Nazi? Is there a magic number of times people get to “jokingly” say they’re a Nazi before we take them at their word?

Is three gas chamber jokes enough? Does tweeting out the 14 words without a hint of irony count? How about if you attend a rally with Klansmen and neo-Nazis who are chanting “Jews will not replace us”? Does society finally get to call you a neo-Nazi if you’re marching with other people holding Nazi flags?

As far as the “trolling defense” goes, people used to say the same thing about an infamous neo-Nazi hacker who goes by the name of Weev. The tech community rallied around Weev, whose real name is Andrew Auernheimer, back in 2013 when he was sentenced to 41 months in prison for exploiting an AT&T iPad security flaw. His comments about Jews and black people were dismissed as “trolling” in the early days of his notoriety.

But it slowly became clear to anyone was paying attention that Weev’s trolling wasn’t just a silly game of being politically incorrect. Weev was a full blow neo-Nazi. He got a tattoo of a swastika sometime around late 2014 and published anti-semitic and anti-black screeds constantly.

Weev writes for the Daily Stormer, arguably the most important and high-profile white supremacist website on Earth, and in early July, Weev had a message for CNN: “Kill yourselves, kike news fakers.” Amazingly, some people in tech still to this day refer to him as a troll rather than a neo-Nazi.

Again, one has to start questioning how we describe people on the internet who aren’t shy about saying things that obviously align with Nazism and yet blanch at being called Nazis.

Richard Spencer, one of the most newly famous neo-Nazis, is another great example of someone who has shied away from the neo-Nazi label while obviously holding beliefs that match perfect with those of old school Nazis. Spencer coined the term “alt-right,” and though words can change and evolve over time, he was pretty clear about his intentions with the word. The term “alt-right” was a way to make the white supremacist movement more palatable, especially online. And it gave racists and fascists cover. They could echo the exact thoughts of neo-Nazis while feigned offense that anyone dare call them one. They’re alt-right, they insist. Not neo-Nazi.

I reached out to Baked Alaska for comment through Twitter and have yet to hear back. I’ll update this post if he responds. I suspect that he and anyone else you might ask from yesterday’s rally will respond that they’re no more neo-Nazi than the president of the United States, who made it clear that he was denouncing “many sides” for the violence, not just the people holding Nazi flags. And that should fucking terrify every American.

[Divinity]

It's possible to be proud of what a person did and got right while simultaneously acknowledging what they did and got wrong.  The trouble only crops up when a person, for whatever reason™ is incapable of adequately identifying the latter.  All of us have ancestors that were on the wrong side of history in some x.  That much was, before the fact, an inevitability, and after the fact, an unfortunate consequence of that inevitability.

Sure we do.  I'm sure I have ancestors way back when that probably did some really shitty things.  I wouldn't know who they are because I can't trace my ancestry back very far.  But I'm sure they exist.  The thing is -- I'm not proud of them.  I don't see why i should be.  What, because their sperm met someone else's egg, and then that person produced a sperm or egg that met with another sperm or egg... process repeating itself until I'm born?

[Rahul]

So basically celebrating hatred for their fellow countrymen?   The country everyone is now a part of again? So much fucking better

No.  Celebrating the fact that their ancestors were willing to lay down their lives against invaders to protect their family and home.  Hatred was rampant on both sides.  The North exhibited a lot of hatred toward the South as well.  It was a horrible time in our nation's history.

The Northern soldiers, especially those with Sherman, laid waste to a lot of the South.  They not only took most of the food from Southern civilians, but they also tried to destroy any remaining food they couldn't carry.  The South to this day has an odd tradition that we are supposed to eat black eyed peas on the first day of the year.  This is because Northern soldiers didn't consider it food fit for humans during their destruction, so it was all a lot of what little was left that Southerners had to survive on.  Most Southerners don't even realize that's where that odd tradition comes from.

The South lost 25% of it's fighting age men dead, another 25% maimed, 40% of all livestock destroyed, most industry.  My ancestors were spread out all over the South when the Civil War happened.  But they all moved to east Texas after the war to escape the destruction.  It's odd to realize that if a certain war had not happened, you would have never existed.

Secession was most assuredly about slavery.  The war on the Southern side, though, was mostly about defense from invasion.  One idea that keeps popping up in my head when studing the war is that the war was much more popular among the South than secession was.  The county I was born in voted to remain in the Union.  But they fought like hell against the Union when they invaded.

All of this is really beside the point of this thread.  The problem now is that white supremacists are using Confederate monuments as lightning rods for hatred and violence.  So I am forced to agree that we need to start taking them down.

[Kosh]

The Confederate flag and statues of Confederate Generals are symbols of white supremacy. It would be a great gesture to take them all down. Put them in a museum (Holocaust Museum) for the next generations. Never forget!

They are also treasonous symbol of traitors.  I've always wondered how history of the Civil War was taught in the south.

[chimp3]

White supremacists are using the word "white" loosely. They do not mean "caucasian". If they ever gain power then Slavs, Portugese, Chechnyans, etc.,  will be next on their list.

[A Theist]

He denounced the hate! He denounced it on all sides. You weren't paying attention to his statement?

Yes. White Supremacists, far left anarchists, bamn, antifa, are all hate groups. If BLM is such a peaceful, "please don't shoot me for being black", movement, then why do they create an atmosphere of cop killing when they chant, "Pigs in a blanket, fry'em like bacon"?

Okay. Fill me in. Which side showed up with shields, bats, helmets, and a private militia with assault rifles? Which side rammed a car into the other side at almost 40 mph, killing 1 and injuring 19?

Not calling out the clearly incendiary side was pathetic. Acting like both sides were equally to blame. Disgusting.

These guys?






BLM, "Dead Cops"




You have the far left antifa and bamn radicals rioting and committing arson, assault, destroying public and private property and the BLM protestors calling for dead cops. White Nationalists rioting and committing murder, yes, I think the president was justified calling out the hatred on all sides.

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So basically celebrating hatred for their fellow countrymen?   The country everyone is now a part of again? So much fucking better

No.  Celebrating the fact that their ancestors were willing to lay down their lives against invaders to protect their family and home.  Hatred was rampant on both sides.  The North exhibited a lot of hatred toward the South as well.  It was a horrible time in our nation's history.

The Northern soldiers, especially those with Sherman, laid waste to a lot of the South.  They not only took most of the food from Southern civilians, but they also tried to destroy any remaining food they couldn't carry.  The South to this day has an odd tradition that we are supposed to eat black eyed peas on the first day of the year.  This is because Northern soldiers didn't consider it food fit for humans during their destruction, so it was all a lot of what little was left that Southerners had to survive on.  Most Southerners don't even realize that's where that odd tradition comes from.

The South lost 25% of it's fighting age men dead, another 25% maimed, 40% of all livestock destroyed, most industry.  My ancestors were spread out all over the South when the Civil War happened.  But they all moved to east Texas after the war to escape the destruction.  It's odd to realize that if a certain war had not happened, you would have never existed.

Secession was most assuredly about slavery.  The war on the Southern side, though, was mostly about defense from invasion.  One idea that keeps popping up in my head when studing the war is that the war was much more popular among the South than secession was.  The county I was born in voted to remain in the Union.  But they fought like hell against the Union when they invaded.

All of this is really beside the point of this thread.  The problem now is that white supremacists are using Confederate monuments as lightning rods for hatred and violence.  So I am forced to agree that we need to start taking them down.

One of my Great Grandfathers, four generations back, was a Corporal in the Union Army manning artillery under General William Tecumseh Sherman. He was part of Sherman's march into the South burning and laying waste to everything they came across. The focus of Sherman's march was not only to destroy the Southern army's supply lines, but also to compromise the will of Southerners to continue fighting. I don't think Lee liked the idea of succession but fought for the South in defense of his home state, Virginia.

If Lee's statue and other Confederate monuments would have remained in place where they were do you think the White Supremacists would have come to riot in Charlottesville?

[Mr.wizard]

But those situations are not this situation, the violence in those protests has been called out and Trump has had no problem calling out "Black Lives Matter". The difference in this situation is he had the opportunity to call out known hate groups and condemn their actions , instead he he tried to make it seem like it was everybody was being equally violent, which isn't the case.

Also Black Lives Matter is not a hate group, the movement isn't about violence, supremacy, and segregation, it is about addressing policy issues that impact the black community. Have there been some violent protesters, yes and they are wrong, but trying to equate the motivations of Black Lives Matter and a group like the KKK is just idiotic.