The Face of Terror in America

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1. Delawarelefty says:

   August 12, 2017 at 11:50 pm

   My father’s generation sacrificed all to defeat Nazis and now they are here and in the White House. WTF????

2. El Somnambulo says:

   August 13, 2017 at 7:45 am

   I think that yesterday was historic. The question is, how will this day be remembered in history. Will it be a day that finally caused people to recognize and band together to defeat this threat once and for all? Or will it be a day most remembered for the President giving a surreptitious thumbs-up to white nationalism?

   Will this be the red line that Rethugs decide Trump can’t cross? Or will they merely express concern and return to the business of dismantling our democracy?

3. bamboozer says:

   August 13, 2017 at 8:04 am

   The Republicans will hem and haw about “tragedy” but not address what happened and will not comment about Trump’s response, which has been greeted as an affirmation by the neo Nazi groups behind the rally. Hard not to notice the trolls are swarming at the political sites and seem to be formulating the latest Big Lie campaign based on “it’s everybody’s fault” and of course” Obama did it!”. Waiting to see what the “southern pride” people have to say other than condemning the violence, suspect their silence will speak volumes.

4. Paul Hayes says:

   August 13, 2017 at 1:18 pm

   The Charlottesville confrontation is about a statue of Robert E. Lee, and the city’s intention to remove it from Emancipation Park. The South was an odd political aggregate. Southerners did not favor a central federal government over the sovereinty of each individual state. The sensibility was more one of 13 separate countries, rather than one federal “South”. Accordingly, one could argue that if you live outside of Virginia, the fate of a statue of Lee really should not matter to you. Your general might have been AP Hill, or Johnston, or Jackson. Johnston was said to be a better general than Lee. He died at Shiloh in 1862. I suppose this comment may not be important relative to yesterday’s events in Charlottesville.
   I think it is, at best, ODD that the behavior of choice which resulted in many injuries and the loss of life is the consequence of using a car, like the four attacks in Europe: Germany, France, and England, perpetrated by ISIS confederates. It blunts the image of domestic hate groups that they can be compared to arguably the most despised organization in the world. The optics are terrible (the moral dimension is as well). It supports the idea that these groups are founded on the most loathsome impulses of some Americans. More to follow…

5. Liberal Elite says:

   August 13, 2017 at 4:38 pm

   @PH “Southerners did not favor a central federal government over the sovereinty of each individual state. The sensibility was more one of 13 separate countries, rather than one federal “South”.”

   That’s not true at all. The old South hated states rights. They were all for a strong central government with unified rules.

   What galled the antebellum Southerners most is that the Northern states didn’t have to recognize their “property” rights.

6. Paul Hayes says:

   August 13, 2017 at 7:39 pm

   @LE I want what you’re on…

7. Paul Hayes says:

   August 13, 2017 at 8:05 pm

   @LE While it could be true that antebellum oligarchs were enraged by any northerner discussing the property rights of the propertied, it is not logical to connect that idea to the idea that southerners advocated for a strong federal constitution. The idea was to set up separate “kingdoms” by geographic locale. Check out Ken Burn’s Civil War. Power was to be wielded at the state level. And yes, a frustrating result of such an idea is that a plantation owner is South Carolina would have precious little chance of getting “justice” in a New York courtroom. But they preferred that to having a “federal” potentate overrule the power structures of the elite in each state. Scholars in Burn’s Film said that the issue of State’s Rights came up all the time as the Confederacy tried to prosecute their side of the war. It was even considered to be a contributing cause of the loss of the war in the south.

8. Liberal Elite says:

   August 13, 2017 at 11:48 pm

   @PH
   It’s a complete misread of history to say that the South was somehow fighting for states rights. Just like today, they wanted states rights when it was convenient and no states rights when it wasn’t.

9. RE Vanella says:

   August 14, 2017 at 8:20 am

   “Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

   –Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, 21 March 1861

   It can’t be any fucking clearer. We no longer need to have deep philosophical conversations about it.

   These scum know exactly what these monuments and symbols represent.

10. mouse says:

    August 14, 2017 at 10:52 am

    Many of the monuments were put up after the 1964 voting rights act

11. RE Vanella says:

    August 14, 2017 at 11:00 am

    Quite so. Whether 1865 or 1964 the philosophy is identical. There’s no need to dissect it and consider its parts. It’s plain, consistent and vile.

12. Brian says:

    August 14, 2017 at 11:48 am

    “…after the Nazis seized power in 1933 they saw many things to admire in United States white supremacy.”
    “They debated whether they should bring Jim Crow type segregation to the Third Reich.”

    https://aeon.co/ideas/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-laws-for-inspiration

13. alby says:

    August 14, 2017 at 11:55 am

    At the time of secession, southern states were crystal clear about their reasons, as Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone” speech quoted above makes plain. So do the new constitutions of all the seceding states. The alternate explanations of “states’ rights” (in particular, the right to maintain slavery) and “high tariffs” (true enough, but never cited as a cause for war until 1862, when Southern diplomats in Europe learned that nobody there was interested in defending slavery) were developed when Southerners found out the rest of the world viewed them as barbaric — a slap in the face to a bunch of people who thought themselves some sort of aristocracy.

    Thought the Charlottesville contingent STILL claims the war wasn’t about slavery, the overwhelming evidence of contemporary accounts illustrates the contrary. Slavery’s supporters didn’t just want to keep that institution but to expand it into Cuba, Mexico and Central America.

14. Paul Hayes says:

    August 14, 2017 at 11:56 am

    When someone carries a Nazi flag in honor, I have only one response: shoot to kill.

15. mouse says:

    August 14, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    My dad fought in 5 major campaigns against the Nazis

16. Arthur says:

    August 14, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    Unfortunately, in America today the face of Terror could be driving in the car next to you

17. Paul Hayes says:

    August 14, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    Taurus makes a revolver that shoots 410 shotgun shells.