What Can This Odd SocioPolitical Wrinkle Mean?
 

I live in the mountains of Virginia and recently there have been a number of public rallies in the vein of the White Nationalists "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. In these rallies the proponents commonly chant,
How are those even connected? Do you think this is some odd amalgam of racism and Trump support or what? Are these people delusional or simply see trump as their champion giving them a shot at increased power and control?

Naah I'll stay out of this for now... ;)

Texas can be weird like that also. I try and not over think hillbilly logic. It is hard enough thinking like a linux using scooter tramp at times.

Most dangerous animal on the planet, enorbet, is a humiliated human being. I'd keep clear of the boys if I was you.

You are probably right. They feel safe coming out in the open. In their neighborhoods

Don't try that stuff in " Colonia Del Campo " or " Lawndale Chicago ".

Payback will be a medivac.

You know. The Ukrainians have a few things in common with these hillbillys also.

https://news.vice.com/topic/neo-nazi

Seems to be the latest fad.

Millions of Russians died in WW2 so Democrats could make fake news like this. There were no "white nationalists" there at all and the Nazis were socialists anyway, not alt-right.

It's kind of funny to me that the REAL left (anti-fascists) hates the progressive/centrist media as much as real conservatives. Next time al-Qaeda attacks they should target CNN headquarters... I don't think anyone in America will care. :D

Being the son of the above statement. You are talking out of your keister.

What CNN? What fake news? The streets in a town near me were cordoned off and SWAT snipers were on the roofs for all to see with their own eyes while Rebel Flags and Guns were marching down Main Street. The chant was audible throughout most of the town, which has only two main avenues and a few side streets. Like I said, I live in the boonies. This town of which I'm relating has a population of less than 750.

Just because they named the Party, National Socialists did not make it so. They took complete control over all commerce and corporations, the definition of Fascism. I find Left and Right to be rather silly, non-descriptive terms that are attempts at over simplification. A turd by any other name will stink accordingly.

Where do you get the idea that "The Media" is leftist/centrist? Most are for-profit corporations complete with CEOs, Boards of Directors and Stockholders. A few are owned by one wealthy, often rather typically WASP, man whose interests are aligned with what passes these days for Conservative.

Words fail me.

(Later) On second thought, my father was a veteran of World War II.

Anyone who would glorify Nazis, Nazism, Fascism, or any manifestation or permutation thereof is beneath contempt.

I understand the feeling, frankbell, as my father was a veteran of WW II as well, in fact of the Battle of the Bulge and the later push into Gernany. He told me many horrific stories about his experiences teaching me that in desperate, chaotic times poeple of every description can do desperate, chaotic things. He told me his best friend was shot and killed by a German lady who had been told Americans would rape and torture anyone caught alive. He told me that wasn't difficult to believe since the men in his platoon had heard screaming all day long and upon investigating found a German farmer's wife had literally been nailed to the wall of a barn and gang raped repeatedly. By the time his platoon got there he didn't know if she had died from her wounds or from starvation. He marched into a concentration camp and witnessed stacked bodies and emaciated prisoners and told me with disgust that the townspeople a few miles away claimed they had no idea what was happening there when the stench traveled to towns much further away.

So we can call it Right or Left and there may actually be fundamental differences in politics, religion, ancestry etc but the key element in savagery is harboring thoughts that some humans actually are not human but sub-human animals who can then be freely marginalized, enslaved, tortured or slaughtered without reproach. Just a few steps away are those enablers like those townspeople who didn't want to know or were too afraid to talk about it.

Make no mistake I am not some weak-kneed liberal who assumes everyone is good, even if they do all have good within them. I don't have any problem with actual self-defense even if employing deadly force but only in response to such force or clear and present threat of such force. I do have extreme problems with people who think they can generalize about groups of people whether what is common is gender, religion, skin color ... in fact anything other than principles and character, and those are individual traits of all humans.

In the case of the marching people I have seen and heard and reported in this thread, I don't yet assume any manner of threat nor harbor any hatred. I simply have yet to comprehend how White Supremacy in some Americans can also embrace what they perceive as Russia who AFAIK is still struggling with what appears to still be in transition from Communism to moderately free enterprise yet still threatens their neighbors with violence. I am quite certain that many of these marchers here were brought up in families where all Russians were (wrongly) characterized to be "godless commies". This is a puzzling change to me and I think one that bears some scrutiny.

I suspect that some of this is also simply opportunistic. Some people are violent, and they like to perceive that they represent a political cause – "the Right," "Russia," or whoever-it-might-be. Give them a bully pulpit and they will take it. But, I think that some bully pulpits should not be given.

Unfortunately, in Charlottesville specifically, the ACLU convinced a Federal Judge that they represented "a plaintiff," and that this "plaintiff" was being denied "freedom of speech" ... in order that they might then march into a public park (e.g.) bearing burning crosses and carrying swastikas. The judge unwisely ruled that the City could not forbid it, and we all know perfectly well what happened next. In the supposed name of "protected freedom," we got "domestic terrorism" and several innocent deaths. People were literally "running amok," in a melee that anyone could have foreseen, and did foresee, and that the officials responsible for granting or denying permits had sought to deny.

Had their prerogatives been upheld, instead of overturned by a trigger-happy judge, no one would have died. And the residents of Charlottesville could have enjoyed a nice day in their park.

The Germans, on the other hand, got it right: in that country, public displays of anything-Nazi are not allowed. Period.

Here in the USA we haven't quite realized that public "speech" which overtly references symbols of hatred – KKK crosses, Nazi stars – are in fact "domestic terrorism" and should be outlawed as such. It would occur to no one to wear a bed-sheet, or to carry around a four-pointed cross with tails, unless they were specifically making references that are intended to strike terror in the heart of negroes and Jews ... and, frankly, also in the heart of any other citizen who simply wanted to enjoy a walk in their park. It is a form of assault. Just as we haven't quite figured out that there should be pragmatic limits on firearms, e.g. "the arsenal in Las Vegas," we haven't figured out that there are some forms of public demonstration which constitute crimes against our collective rights to enjoy "domestic tranquility." A nice day in the park.

In society, sometimes you get what you tolerate, and there are certain things that simply should not be tolerated. At all. Ever. And the fact that "you disagree with a responsible official's decision" does not make you "a plaintiff with standing in Federal Court."

Single handwritten sentences that were inscribed upon a piece of vellum during a hot Philadelphia summer were not "writ by the flaming hand of God." We are to interpret and apply them, not worship them or venerate them. They are meant to protect us from society's and government's evils, not to make them inescapable. (And the document not-once uses nor even contemplates the word, "unconstitutional.")

To "peaceably assemble and petition the Government for the redress of grievances?" Sure, no problem. To bring back the worst hate-crimes and to shove them in front of other people's faces while proclaiming that you have Constitutional protection for doing so, such that those people aren't allowed to prevent you? Not so much.

Those people should have been – and now should be – arrested and charged with the crime of "domestic terrorism." Society should express the very-firm resolve that "we don't tolerate things like this around here anymore, whether or not they occurred in our past. Such that those who now publicly practice them, and who thereby seek to inflict them upon the rest of us, are criminals." And yes, we can do that.

Maybe it's just "enemy of my enemy"? I.e., "the Mainstream/Left" are currently anti-Russia, therefore Russia is a friend to the "Alt Right".

Honestly, I suspect that "the typical American image of Russia" is best summed up in this (hilarious) parody video:

Duck And Cover 2 – Life Is Over

If you were to ask them to locate "Russia" on a map . . . and then lay the map upside-down . . . they probably wouldn't even notice, let alone be actually able to do it.

Although he wasn't in my town, Richard Spencer was in Charlottesville a few times and apparently organized the most recent event and he recently stated his Russian wife and he are reconciled. That could be coincidence or could be at least a connection. It's still a conundrum how white supremacist groups who are notorious for also being or favoring neo-nazis when Nazis were and still are hated by Russians, can find any commonality but there does seem a serious push to attempt to consolidate the fractured so-called Right. Trump doesn't seem to mind at all.

It is worthy of note that although the local marchers were more typical including several obvious Klan and Neo-Nazi members Spencer's "torch vigil" of 50 in Charlottesville was completely hush-hush invite only affair that sought to wear a cleaner face by not inviting "the rabble" and appealing to freshly barbered, more educated professionals (not a tattoo in sight) in what seems to be an actual bid for money and power and reduced denunciation in the Press.

I know, right? --- Jack Nicholson's Classic Freedom Scene ---