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Post by jiminix on Aug 17, 2017 15:27:01 GMT -7
The invasion of Charlottesville by the promoters of a regression to racism is a disgrace, and the resultant deaths are a tragedy. An even bigger disgrace is Trump's reaction to it.
First he tried to put the blame on both sides. Two days later, he read a script intended to distance himself from racism, but he couldn't stay on that message even for a day, and now has gone out full steam ahead in support of the message of white supremacy.
As Trump continues to alienate more and more of his supporters, it causes a person to wonder how secure is his grasp on reality.
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Post by hoofie on Aug 17, 2017 15:52:53 GMT -7
There wasn't 2 sides?
KKK vs anti-KKK
Nazi vs anti-Nazi
Who in these riots are the stand up peaceful citizens?
Oh, there was a story broke today that the mayor may have told some LEOs to stand down. Stay tuned.
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Post by badman on Aug 17, 2017 17:01:29 GMT -7
And you, jiminix, wish for rational discussion. Can you think for yourself, or do you just repeat liberal talking points?
Can you clarify how Trump has gone full steam ahead in support of the message of white supremacy?
I and nobody that I know are alienated. We're just amused. The left-wing media is a joke.
On this particular assault attempt, the method seemed to be that if you didn't get the President's damning statement you were looking for.. just ask it again and again and again and again. Pathetic!
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Post by badman on Aug 17, 2017 17:08:23 GMT -7
BTW, nice to see you here again.
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Post by jiminix on Aug 17, 2017 18:26:06 GMT -7
There wasn't 2 sides? KKK vs anti-KKK Nazi vs anti-Nazi Who in these riots are the stand up peaceful citizens? Oh, there was a story broke today that the mayor may have told some LEOs to stand down. Stay tuned. There were two sides, but only one side was there for blood (their words) with intent to intimidate, only one side was to blame for the killing. My understanding of the events was that an army came to town, armed for battle and far outnumbering and outgunning the police. If these nazis, kkk, stormers, etc., show up somewhere else, the governor of the state should meet them with enough guns and enough boots on the ground that the invaders are the ones intimidated. Trump no doubt has an undying hatred of Charlottesville, because it voted for Hillary Clinton 80% to 20%. Trump does not forgive or forget something like that. It appears the counterprotesters were mostly residents of Charlottesville - a town that voted to move the Robert E. Lee statue, according to what I've read.
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Post by ranger06 on Aug 17, 2017 19:24:13 GMT -7
One side came to exercise their 1st amendment right, the other side came to prevent it. Both sides came looking for a fight and got their wish. A pox on both their houses.
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Post by jiminix on Aug 17, 2017 19:34:56 GMT -7
Can you clarify how Trump has gone full steam ahead in support of the message of white supremacy? In one belated statement that Trump read, and which he was clearly unfamiliar with as he read it, Trump condemned "all Nazis, KKK, etc." He didn't condemn the particular army of white supremacists at Charlottesville for being responsible for killing a Charlottesville resident. Now he has abandoned even that watered down disapproval. Now he is directing his condemnation toward those who want to remove those statues symbolizing white supremacy from their prominent public places. I and nobody that I know are alienated. We're just amused. I wasn't talking about you. I'm sure Trump doesn't care whether you or anybody you know is alienated. What he does care about is when the corporate CEOs he had appointed to secure the allegiance of Big Business condemn his actions and resign because of it from the Councils he had created and appointed them to. Six of them resigned, then one of the Councils decided it would entirely disband itself by its own volition. When Trump heard about the planned announcement, he upstaged them and announced by twitter that he was disbanding all his advisory CEO councils. Trump cares when One of those was the American Cancer Society, a Maralago client for 9 years. The issue is not the lost revenue, but the hit to the prestige of the Trump brand.
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Post by jiminix on Aug 17, 2017 20:38:40 GMT -7
One side came to exercise their 1st amendment right, the other side came to prevent it. Both sides came looking for a fight and got their wish. A pox on both their houses. The side that came there wasn't there to exercise first amendment rights; they were there to intimidate. The other side didn't "come there", they live there, and they weren't looking for a fight. The outsiders came there to threaten the residents over the choice they had voted to carry out, to no longer allow a symbol of slavery to be the public face of their community. This attempt you and others are making, as private or public individuals, to claim an equivalence between the white supremacists and their opponents is the problem. Within the past month or so, maybe even on this forum, I have stated a couple of times that I had no objection to keeping some statues of Robert E. Lee, because I believe he was probably an honorable man, he opposed secession, he condemned the institution of slavery as a social evil even though he owned slaves, and he opposed putting up monuments afterwards to the Civil War and its leaders. But I said there can no longer be any excuse to keep statues of Davis, Stevens, Forrest, Early, Hood, etc., because of their intense advocacy of slavery. This violence at Charlottesville and the support or weak disapproval of white supremacists coming from conservatives has changed my mind. Now I am convinced that every monument to that abominable insurrection must be moved out of every prominent location, and wherever any historical reminder is publicly preserved, it must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the unacceptable nature of the Confederate cause. Whenever any future gathering is condoned that celebrates the memorials to the Confederacy, it will be a victory for white supremacists. Trump has made it acceptable again in our society to be a white supremacist. Our nation will regret that this violent creed has been unleashed again.
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Post by hoofie on Aug 18, 2017 6:00:04 GMT -7
The statues and monuments are reminders of our history. Taking them down will not change a thing. Anyone in New Orleans will tell you that Lee Circle will always be Lee Circle even though the statue is gone. The PC crowd thinks like an infant, If I cover my eyes, it doesn't exist. History will not change if you hide it.
The Trump haters will continue to find problems that aren't there. If he discovered the cure for cancer the haters would scream that he wants to put the research labs out of business.
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Post by ranger06 on Aug 18, 2017 9:04:10 GMT -7
This attempt you and others are making, as private or public individuals, to claim an equivalence between the white supremacists and their opponents is the problem. Some folks just have a problem with reality when it's their gore getting ox'd. This reminds me of the Freikorps vs the Rotfrontkämpferbun and the Blackshirts vs the Commies.
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Post by jiminix on Aug 18, 2017 10:24:44 GMT -7
The statues and monuments are reminders of our history. Taking them down will not change a thing. Anyone in New Orleans will tell you that Lee Circle will always be Lee Circle even though the statue is gone. The PC crowd thinks like an infant, If I cover my eyes, it doesn't exist. History will not change if you hide it. The Trump haters will continue to find problems that aren't there. If he discovered the cure for cancer the haters would scream that he wants to put the research labs out of business. I remember a incident when I was in about the 6th grade probably, still vivid for me because it was one of those childhood flashes of adult self-awareness. I was playing with a group of 5 or 10 boys, no structured game, just exuberant playing and yelling. Out of my mouth popped "The South will rise again." I knew I was repeating something I had heard; and I knew I didn't hear it at home or from a relative. I was aware I was taking a step outward, doing something independently as part of the world outside my family. To myself I thought "Why am I saying this? What does it even mean?" Texas in my childhood was not big on the Confederacy like the Deep South. But there was some of it - I remember a decrepit Confederate veteran honored like a hero at the county fair. But even with our minimal celebration of the Confederacy, I still picked it unconsciously up from the culture around me. You mentioned elsewhere that we need to stop creating division. The takeaway from this childhood memory, and from simple observation of today's southern states, is that the South is creating division by its clinging to the so called Civil War heritage. A large portion of Southerners believe it is tragic that the South lost that war, and still regard the North as the enemy; they hope that somehow the South can rise again and somehow defeat the North. It is a cultural failure that children in the South are still fed that poison. Imagine if the South had won that war. Brazil and the U.S. were the only significant nations that still allowed slavery within their national borders. At a time when the rest of the world had rejected slavery as a moral abomination, the Confederacy would have created a new, large and powerful nation, committed by the blood of 20%-25% of its white male population to "preserve the institution of slavery IN PERPETUITY", in the words of the founders of the Confederacy. I am grateful that I did grow up in that slaving nation. The defeat of the Confederacy was fortune's gift to all descendant Southerners. Mid 19th century Southern history is not glorious, just as 20th century German history is not glorious. Germany has no monuments to celebrate its war efforts, and we don’t need them either in the South. The problem in the South today is not that it went to war for slavery, but that it is proud that it did. Let's face the truth: our ancestors made a immense moral error. We don't have to bind our identity to that immorality, or delude ourselves into thinking it was glorious.
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Post by hoofie on Aug 18, 2017 10:54:11 GMT -7
History, is just that: history. You can't change it but you can learn from it. There are photographs of me as a child that I would cringe if my friends saw them, but it is still part of my history. These monuments represent past mistakes and imagined glory. They represent an image that is different to each observer. I am indifferent, being born and raised in Northeast Ohio. To me, a Lee monument is 'the guy that lost' and/or 'this is a nice park'.
I understand culture driven behavior, but that's also what makes America different from any other country. We learn rivalries early in school, carried on through college, carried on as adults. We've all been to that Iron Bowl party where both sides talked smack, but also sat down together. That part of our culture is disappearing. The part where we disagree but still share a mutual respect. Remember in grade school if you got in a fight you had to shake hands? (usually before you got a few cracks of the paddle together)
You have to ask yourself why weren't these monuments "offensive" 10 or 20 years ago? Why now? What changed?
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Post by Entimos on Aug 18, 2017 15:01:42 GMT -7
You mentioned elsewhere that we need to stop creating division. The takeaway from this childhood memory, and from simple observation of today's southern states, is that the South is creating division by its clinging to the so called Civil War heritage. A large portion of Southerners believe it is tragic that the South lost that war, and still regard the North as the enemy; they hope that somehow the South can rise again and somehow defeat the North. It is a cultural failure that children in the South are still fed that poison. Imagine if the South had won that war. Brazil and the U.S. were the only significant nations that still allowed slavery within their national borders. At a time when the rest of the world had rejected slavery as a moral abomination, the Confederacy would have created a new, large and powerful nation, committed by the blood of 20%-25% of its white male population to "preserve the institution of slavery IN PERPETUITY", in the words of the founders of the Confederacy. I am grateful that I did grow up in that slaving nation. The defeat of the Confederacy was fortune's gift to all descendant Southerners. Mid 19th century Southern history is not glorious, just as 20th century German history is not glorious. Germany has no monuments to celebrate its war efforts, and we don’t need them either in the South. The problem in the South today is not that it went to war for slavery, but that it is proud that it did. Let's face the truth: our ancestors made a immense moral error. We don't have to bind our identity to that immorality, or delude ourselves into thinking it was glorious. I often imagine what it would have been like had the South won the war. The vile concept of today's all powerful federal government standing on our necks would have been discredited. The 94% of white Southerner men who owned no slaves before the war would take advantage of the flurry of new farming technology and soon would be competing with the larger farms, ending their slave advantage.The South would have ended slavery just as sure as Brazil did and just as quickly. The 5% of slave owners who only had a handful of slaves would work side by side with the now freed blacks, just as they had before manumission. The South wouldn't be subjected to the Northern lie that slavery was the cause of their struggle, nor would they have to listen to the lies that secession was illegal and their actions treasonous. History would have been about the truth, not the false Northern propaganda. You are exceedingly wrong about the South and the Confederacy, which is typical of liberals who still hate the actual Confederate cause of limited federal power and more state responsibility. That's what the despicable and evil purge of Confederate symbols is all about, not slavery. The real message is that we are no longer allowed to have any conservative thoughts or ideas. There have been two real conservative movements in this country: the colonial secession from tyrannical Great Britain and the Southern secession from the tyrannical federal government. Both were heroic and honorable efforts and should be held in equal reverence by anyone who cherishes the Founders' ideals. In other words, Lincoln was King George in the 19th century; additionally he was a racist tyrant and murderer. In the Lincoln Memorial is the statue glorifying evil, not any of these Confederate monuments. BTW, polls show that majorities of Americans, including blacks, say that the statues should remain and not be removed.
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Post by Entimos on Aug 18, 2017 15:16:16 GMT -7
There were two sides, but only one side was there for blood (their words) with intent to intimidate, only one side was to blame for the killing. My understanding of the events was that an army came to town, armed for battle and far outnumbering and outgunning the police. If these nazis, kkk, stormers, etc., show up somewhere else, the governor of the state should meet them with enough guns and enough boots on the ground that the invaders are the ones intimidated. Trump no doubt has an undying hatred of Charlottesville, because it voted for Hillary Clinton 80% to 20%. Trump does not forgive or forget something like that. It appears the counterprotesters were mostly residents of Charlottesville - a town that voted to move the Robert E. Lee statue, according to what I've read. Come on, jiminix, you know very well that antifa black block militants were there, and even a NYT reporter said that the counter protesters were violent. The number of protesters did not outnumber the counter protesters. New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, for one, attested: “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right,” she tweeted. “I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.” If there were any doubt as to whether the Left were committing violence that day, Stolberg later clarified: “ should have said violent, not hate-filled.”
.....raw footage shows counterprotesters hurling objects at white supremacists and neo-Nazis while the latter simply stand there a good distance apart from the crowd.
Ciambotti also claims to have witnessed “another man from the white supremacist crowd being chased and beaten.” Additionally she saw “a much older man, also with the alt-right group, [who] got pushed to the ground in the commotion. Someone raised a stick over his head and beat the man with it.” Ciambotti claims to have intervened before the beating could continue further.
thefederalist.com/2017/08/17/trump-spoke-truth-sides-charlottesville-media-lost-minds/
Yes, there were clearly two sides to blame, just as Trump said. But in this PC world we conservatives are not allowed to point out the alt left's rabid hatred and violence, are we? The left's bias is deplorable and frankly, evil. So is removing these statues because the extremely ignorant people in that place voted to do so. If a majority in DC voted to take a wreaking ball to that Mao like MLK monstrosity on the National Mall, would you be so willing?
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Post by jiminix on Aug 18, 2017 16:01:49 GMT -7
History, is just that: history. You can't change it but you can learn from it. There are photographs of me as a child that I would cringe if my friends saw them, but it is still part of my history. These monuments represent past mistakes and imagined glory. They represent an image that is different to each observer. I am indifferent, being born and raised in Northeast Ohio. To me, a Lee monument is 'the guy that lost' and/or 'this is a nice park'. I understand culture driven behavior, but that's also what makes America different from any other country. We learn rivalries early in school, carried on through college, carried on as adults. We've all been to that Iron Bowl party where both sides talked smack, but also sat down together. That part of our culture is disappearing. The part where we disagree but still share a mutual respect. Remember in grade school if you got in a fight you had to shake hands? (usually before you got a few cracks of the paddle together) I would agree that you can’t change the past, but history is not quite the same as the past. History is what we accept as the truth about the past, and that varies to a degree as time goes by, and as you said, from observer to observer. If the monuments represented the courage and sacrifice of confederate soldiers and also represented the grievous moral error of the Confederate leaders in their evaluation of slavery, the present controversy would not have arisen. There is a controversy because what the monuments represent is the “Lost Cause” propaganda fervently preached on tours around the country by Jefferson Davis, Jubal Early, etc., for decades after the war ended. You have to ask yourself why weren't these monuments "offensive" 10 or 20 years ago? Why now? What changed? The perceived meanings of things change. When I was in college and first heard the full "Lost Cause" version from my white supremacist acquaintances, I delved into history for the first time to try to find out what version was true. At that time, segregation was the pressing issue, so nobody gave any thought to the historical statues. I forgot about studying history for a while, and then in the 1980s, picked it up again for a time. By then civil rights was expanding to gay issues, and I began to notice more how non-objective factors affected how we perceive different groups in society. At that time in my life I traveled quite a bit, and I noticed a feeling of discomfort in myself around these statues in the South, and about the assumptions the local Southerners made about them. But still, not a big deal, I just wished they weren't there. The third time I looked into Civil War history was somewhere around 10 to 15 years ago. I think there may have been some controversy at the time about some state flags. This was when I really began to see the key role the flags and statues play in perpetuating the regional divisions and supporting the racist creeds that never seem to die out. I didn't feel an urgency to get rid of these symbols like some were beginning to feel, but I started to think that the symbols were a real problem. The events of the past week seem to have been the last step in my thinking about the Confederate symbols. This was the culmination of the past year's re-emergence of overt white supremacy. The symbols now unmistakably are the roots from which hatred repeatedly springs up, and the flashpoints of dangerous violence that could rip the country apart. And of course, this is exactly what the white supremacists want, and what they have been working for all along. They think this is their moment, the moment when the South will rise again, and whites will have to take sides against the blacks. So, that's what has changed, at least for one person, me. I expect for most people, it wasn't quite so spread out over time, or measured by steps of intellectual knowledge of the history. But the point is, it's a process.
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