If you need to be told that Nazis are bad, you're part of the problem
I went camping a few days ago. I was in a blissful woodland wonderland, enjoying the sound of a perfect babbling creek, tending a little fire, sipping tea and coffee and watching the clouds and birds. It was serene and wonderful and perfect, and best of all, there was no WiFi and there was no cell signal. No phone calls, no notifications, no internet. Just me, my husband, and the glory of nature. It was perfect.
When it was time to pack up and go home, I knew there would be some news to catch up on, but I didn't realize that I was going to come home to find that we are apparently having to deal with freaking Nazis. The events that took place in Charlottesville, VA while I was away flooded my news feed and I struggled to get caught up. If you're out of the loop, here's what happened:
On Friday, August 11th, 2017, members of tow major white supremacy organizations gathered together in Charlottesville, VA in what they called a "Unite The Right" rally, meant to end division between white nationalists and white supremacists (I had no idea these were considered two different groups, let alone that those two groups had beef with each other. Seriously, what in the actual fuck is the difference between these idiots?).
The groups gathered together and marched in a "torchlight procession". Their torches were Tiki Torches usually employed by your mom to provide lighting for your parents crappy 4th of July Luau. they can be purchased at WalMart for basically nothing and are typically not an intimidating light source. However, when a bunch of psychotic white people with vague issues and serious rage gather in one place holding a bunch of them and start chanting angry, racist slogans, suddenly those torches look less like a poolside picnic and more like a lynch mob.
The group was made up of about 250 young white men, most of whom were wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts (I have always said you can't trust someone wearing khakis who isn't selling you a TV at Best Buy). They marched to a creepy place called Nameless Field and lit up their torches shouting weird shit like "Blood and soil!" and "You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!". Real quick, can anyone tell me just what the hell this means? Are Jews actually trying to replace us? Because I have never encountered this phenomena myself and I am pretty sure that's because it is entirely bogus bullshit.
The angry white dudes eventually reached a statue of Thomas Jefferson, which was apparently their target for this whole weird event. The statue was surrounding by a mere 30 counter-protesters, both people of color and white people, who had locked arms to peacefully face down the angry mob. The mob of torch bearers surrounded the 30 people at the base of the statue, many of them leering and making monkey noises at the block counter-protesters. Then they started yelling "White lives matter!"
I gatta stop right here folks. Let's make one thing clear. White lives have always mattered. Throughout the history of this country, white lives have mattered more than anyone else's. Black people make up less than 13% of the population, but account for more than 35% of people who are currently incarcerated. Blacks are shot and killed by police officers at a rate of more than 2.5 times that of white people. There are legitimate reasons for black people to fear for their lives anytime they encounter the very police officers who are supposed to be protecting our communities. These are horrific realities that we don;t have to deal with as white people, so before folks get all worked up and defensive about the BLM movement, you might want to ask yourself why they need one in the first place. But I digress.
Within minutes of the torch carrying Hitler-youth brigade encountering the counter-protesters, there was chaos. Both groups sprayed chemical irritants, and many torches were thrown at the statue and the counter-protesters. there were injuries on both sides.
The next day was worse. There was another rally scheduled in the area to go from noon to 5pm, but early in the morning the park was already beginning to fill up with more Nazi douche bags waving banners and shouting nationalist slogans. Counter-protesters had also begun to gather, this time many of the were carrying sticks and shields (and I would too after the incident with the freaking torches). At 9:30am members of local clergy groups joined hands and began singing "This little light of mine" while the nationalists screamed back at them "Our blood, our soil!". As if all of this wasn't tense and dangerous enough, a militia then showed up carrying long rifles and dressed in fatigues saying they were there to "keep the peace". It never fails to amaze me just how often people think they need major artillery to "keep the peace". Just how in the fuck does that work?
After a while the counter-protesters began shouting "Fuck you, Nazis!", a sentiment which I can always support. The Nazis yelled offensive things back. Tensions rose and while all of this was happening it became fairly obvious that if a serious fight was to be avoided police needed to step in. They did not. In all fairness, I am trying to put myself in the shoes of the police who were present that day. I don't think I would have known what to do either. Still, that is why I am not a cop. Cops are supposed to know when to put a stop to something and I feel like a gigantic gathering of Nazis met by a gathering of people who have serious problems with Nazis is a recipe for violence and you don;t have to graduate from the police academy to know that.
Shortly before 11am, the Nazis tried to move down nearby Market Street, but were met by a group of about 2 dozen counter-protesters who formed a line to block their path. The marchers ran at the counter-protesters swinging sticks and spraying chemicals. The counter-protesters also started swinging sticks and some of them threw balloons filled with ink or paint at the white supremacists. While all the violence was erupting, the police did not move in to break up the fights.
Fighting continued across the entire park in small groups and was clearly escalating. At 11:22am, the police declared it to be an unlawful assembly and finally moved in to put a stop to the violence. It took 22 minutes of screaming, spraying to pepper spray, clubbing and fighting before the police decided they had seen enough. 22 minutes seems like a long time to wait before declaring an emergency.
Very shortly after the dispersal order, the Nazis began leaving the park, still exchanging shouts and taunts with the counter-protesters. Very disturbing things were reported to have been screamed by the Nazis, such as "Dylan Roof was a hero!" Roof was the man who broke into a basement bible study and murdered nine black people in a church in 2015. I hope whoever yelled that particular remark gets battery acid enemas from Hitler in hell for all eternity. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?!
As the nationalists dispersed, they were not followed by the counter-protesters and for a time it seemed like a major tragedy had been averted. This was unfortunately not the case as the day did in fact get much worse.
At 1:14pm, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of pedestrians, injuring 19 and killing one, Heather Heyer. A state helicopter filmed the incident. The helicopter later crashed killing two state troopers, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates.
This is everything I was able to find out and piece together from multiple new sources. It was a shock to re-enter the world from the wilderness and find that our country has been plunged backward in time to the horrific images that we were shown in school while learning about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. We all saw those awful black and white photographs of white policemen blasting black people with fire hoses, the images of men with German Shepherds, commanding the dogs to attack people of color, the countless images of Dr. King being arrested, head held high, pride unhurt as he was led away in handcuffs for standing up for justice and goodness and equality. We were all raised with Dr. King and Rosa Parks as national heroes who helped drag us out of the dark and dirty past and into the light of the future where we might stand a chance to unite as a people regardless of color or creed. That was the dream. We understood as children that the men with the guns and the batons and the hoses and the dogs were on the wrong side of history, the losing side. We thought these bigoted, violent, ignorant men and women had gone the way of the dinosaur. I mean, how can that much ignorance still exist in the information age? How can racism actually survive the test of time after so long? What will it take for these kinds of things to stop happening? And why now? That is the question that bothers me most. Why now? Trump. that is why now.
See, it occurs to me that all those racist assholes never really died out, they just got driven underground and there they have been waiting and breeding and passing their hate down to the next generation of torch carrying psychos, building a legion of hate filled subhuman waste that has been waiting in the shadows for a leader to rise up and unite them. That leader is Trump. Trump made fascism fashionable again. And after 8 years with a black man as president, all these Nazi pieces of shit were all too eager to elect this madman to office, hoping to accomplish.....what exactly? I seriously don't understand the white nationalist, white supremacy end game. OK, so you want to get rid of everyone who isn't white? How is that actually going to solve/help/improve anything? As far as I can tell, no one has actually thought it through that far, and frankly if they have, I am not going to hunt through their literature or propaganda to find it. Yes this is obviously a biased piece of writing. And it should be. There are not two sides to this argument. Nazis are bad. Nationalism is bad. White supremacy is bad. We fought a whole World War about it and the Nazis lost for good reason. These are garbage ideas perpetuated by garbage people for garbage reasons. And then it came.
When the President of the United States of America was asked for a comment on the events that took place in Charlottesville over the weekend, he said there was blame on both sides and vocalized sympathy for the white supremacists while shaming the counter-protesters, citing their lack of permit to assemble as a reason that the white supremacists had the moral high ground. For me, this was the moment The Great American Experiment failed us all. The results of this experiment are final. We have elected a man into the presidential office who, apart from already blatantly expressing hatred and disgust for all women in general has now sympathized with and basically excused literal Nazis for attacking and killing those who would oppose them. Donald Trump does not want to "Make America Great Again", what ever that actually means in the first fucking place. Donald Trump wants to make himself wealthier, wants to grow his own fame, and wants to see minorities eradicated from the United States. Much of the time there are two sides to an argument, which I often hate to admit, but it is true. While I am obviously a liberal, I can admit that there are many traditional conservative views which do have merit and I can often understand the reasoning behind many conservative beliefs. This is not one of those times, however. There are two points of view which are equally valid and deserve equal consideration. Instead, there are a bunch of Nazi fuck heads who think that since there is a douche bag in office, they have the right to crawl out from under the rocks they have been hiding under and spew their hatred in the faces of ordinary citizens, subhuman scum who seek to intimidate and harm anyone who doesn't look like they do and who doesn't think like they think. And then there is everyone else.
You're either a Nazi shit head, or you're not. And if you find yourself rationalizing the actions of the Nazi shit heads, or sympathizing with them, then you're part of the problem and you need to promptly exit. You're on the wrong side of history and time will prove me right.
When it was time to pack up and go home, I knew there would be some news to catch up on, but I didn't realize that I was going to come home to find that we are apparently having to deal with freaking Nazis. The events that took place in Charlottesville, VA while I was away flooded my news feed and I struggled to get caught up. If you're out of the loop, here's what happened:
On Friday, August 11th, 2017, members of tow major white supremacy organizations gathered together in Charlottesville, VA in what they called a "Unite The Right" rally, meant to end division between white nationalists and white supremacists (I had no idea these were considered two different groups, let alone that those two groups had beef with each other. Seriously, what in the actual fuck is the difference between these idiots?).
The groups gathered together and marched in a "torchlight procession". Their torches were Tiki Torches usually employed by your mom to provide lighting for your parents crappy 4th of July Luau. they can be purchased at WalMart for basically nothing and are typically not an intimidating light source. However, when a bunch of psychotic white people with vague issues and serious rage gather in one place holding a bunch of them and start chanting angry, racist slogans, suddenly those torches look less like a poolside picnic and more like a lynch mob.
The group was made up of about 250 young white men, most of whom were wearing khaki pants and white polo shirts (I have always said you can't trust someone wearing khakis who isn't selling you a TV at Best Buy). They marched to a creepy place called Nameless Field and lit up their torches shouting weird shit like "Blood and soil!" and "You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!". Real quick, can anyone tell me just what the hell this means? Are Jews actually trying to replace us? Because I have never encountered this phenomena myself and I am pretty sure that's because it is entirely bogus bullshit.
The angry white dudes eventually reached a statue of Thomas Jefferson, which was apparently their target for this whole weird event. The statue was surrounding by a mere 30 counter-protesters, both people of color and white people, who had locked arms to peacefully face down the angry mob. The mob of torch bearers surrounded the 30 people at the base of the statue, many of them leering and making monkey noises at the block counter-protesters. Then they started yelling "White lives matter!"
I gatta stop right here folks. Let's make one thing clear. White lives have always mattered. Throughout the history of this country, white lives have mattered more than anyone else's. Black people make up less than 13% of the population, but account for more than 35% of people who are currently incarcerated. Blacks are shot and killed by police officers at a rate of more than 2.5 times that of white people. There are legitimate reasons for black people to fear for their lives anytime they encounter the very police officers who are supposed to be protecting our communities. These are horrific realities that we don;t have to deal with as white people, so before folks get all worked up and defensive about the BLM movement, you might want to ask yourself why they need one in the first place. But I digress.
Within minutes of the torch carrying Hitler-youth brigade encountering the counter-protesters, there was chaos. Both groups sprayed chemical irritants, and many torches were thrown at the statue and the counter-protesters. there were injuries on both sides.
The next day was worse. There was another rally scheduled in the area to go from noon to 5pm, but early in the morning the park was already beginning to fill up with more Nazi douche bags waving banners and shouting nationalist slogans. Counter-protesters had also begun to gather, this time many of the were carrying sticks and shields (and I would too after the incident with the freaking torches). At 9:30am members of local clergy groups joined hands and began singing "This little light of mine" while the nationalists screamed back at them "Our blood, our soil!". As if all of this wasn't tense and dangerous enough, a militia then showed up carrying long rifles and dressed in fatigues saying they were there to "keep the peace". It never fails to amaze me just how often people think they need major artillery to "keep the peace". Just how in the fuck does that work?
After a while the counter-protesters began shouting "Fuck you, Nazis!", a sentiment which I can always support. The Nazis yelled offensive things back. Tensions rose and while all of this was happening it became fairly obvious that if a serious fight was to be avoided police needed to step in. They did not. In all fairness, I am trying to put myself in the shoes of the police who were present that day. I don't think I would have known what to do either. Still, that is why I am not a cop. Cops are supposed to know when to put a stop to something and I feel like a gigantic gathering of Nazis met by a gathering of people who have serious problems with Nazis is a recipe for violence and you don;t have to graduate from the police academy to know that.
Shortly before 11am, the Nazis tried to move down nearby Market Street, but were met by a group of about 2 dozen counter-protesters who formed a line to block their path. The marchers ran at the counter-protesters swinging sticks and spraying chemicals. The counter-protesters also started swinging sticks and some of them threw balloons filled with ink or paint at the white supremacists. While all the violence was erupting, the police did not move in to break up the fights.
Fighting continued across the entire park in small groups and was clearly escalating. At 11:22am, the police declared it to be an unlawful assembly and finally moved in to put a stop to the violence. It took 22 minutes of screaming, spraying to pepper spray, clubbing and fighting before the police decided they had seen enough. 22 minutes seems like a long time to wait before declaring an emergency.
Very shortly after the dispersal order, the Nazis began leaving the park, still exchanging shouts and taunts with the counter-protesters. Very disturbing things were reported to have been screamed by the Nazis, such as "Dylan Roof was a hero!" Roof was the man who broke into a basement bible study and murdered nine black people in a church in 2015. I hope whoever yelled that particular remark gets battery acid enemas from Hitler in hell for all eternity. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?!
As the nationalists dispersed, they were not followed by the counter-protesters and for a time it seemed like a major tragedy had been averted. This was unfortunately not the case as the day did in fact get much worse.
At 1:14pm, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of pedestrians, injuring 19 and killing one, Heather Heyer. A state helicopter filmed the incident. The helicopter later crashed killing two state troopers, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates.
This is everything I was able to find out and piece together from multiple new sources. It was a shock to re-enter the world from the wilderness and find that our country has been plunged backward in time to the horrific images that we were shown in school while learning about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. We all saw those awful black and white photographs of white policemen blasting black people with fire hoses, the images of men with German Shepherds, commanding the dogs to attack people of color, the countless images of Dr. King being arrested, head held high, pride unhurt as he was led away in handcuffs for standing up for justice and goodness and equality. We were all raised with Dr. King and Rosa Parks as national heroes who helped drag us out of the dark and dirty past and into the light of the future where we might stand a chance to unite as a people regardless of color or creed. That was the dream. We understood as children that the men with the guns and the batons and the hoses and the dogs were on the wrong side of history, the losing side. We thought these bigoted, violent, ignorant men and women had gone the way of the dinosaur. I mean, how can that much ignorance still exist in the information age? How can racism actually survive the test of time after so long? What will it take for these kinds of things to stop happening? And why now? That is the question that bothers me most. Why now? Trump. that is why now.
See, it occurs to me that all those racist assholes never really died out, they just got driven underground and there they have been waiting and breeding and passing their hate down to the next generation of torch carrying psychos, building a legion of hate filled subhuman waste that has been waiting in the shadows for a leader to rise up and unite them. That leader is Trump. Trump made fascism fashionable again. And after 8 years with a black man as president, all these Nazi pieces of shit were all too eager to elect this madman to office, hoping to accomplish.....what exactly? I seriously don't understand the white nationalist, white supremacy end game. OK, so you want to get rid of everyone who isn't white? How is that actually going to solve/help/improve anything? As far as I can tell, no one has actually thought it through that far, and frankly if they have, I am not going to hunt through their literature or propaganda to find it. Yes this is obviously a biased piece of writing. And it should be. There are not two sides to this argument. Nazis are bad. Nationalism is bad. White supremacy is bad. We fought a whole World War about it and the Nazis lost for good reason. These are garbage ideas perpetuated by garbage people for garbage reasons. And then it came.
When the President of the United States of America was asked for a comment on the events that took place in Charlottesville over the weekend, he said there was blame on both sides and vocalized sympathy for the white supremacists while shaming the counter-protesters, citing their lack of permit to assemble as a reason that the white supremacists had the moral high ground. For me, this was the moment The Great American Experiment failed us all. The results of this experiment are final. We have elected a man into the presidential office who, apart from already blatantly expressing hatred and disgust for all women in general has now sympathized with and basically excused literal Nazis for attacking and killing those who would oppose them. Donald Trump does not want to "Make America Great Again", what ever that actually means in the first fucking place. Donald Trump wants to make himself wealthier, wants to grow his own fame, and wants to see minorities eradicated from the United States. Much of the time there are two sides to an argument, which I often hate to admit, but it is true. While I am obviously a liberal, I can admit that there are many traditional conservative views which do have merit and I can often understand the reasoning behind many conservative beliefs. This is not one of those times, however. There are two points of view which are equally valid and deserve equal consideration. Instead, there are a bunch of Nazi fuck heads who think that since there is a douche bag in office, they have the right to crawl out from under the rocks they have been hiding under and spew their hatred in the faces of ordinary citizens, subhuman scum who seek to intimidate and harm anyone who doesn't look like they do and who doesn't think like they think. And then there is everyone else.
You're either a Nazi shit head, or you're not. And if you find yourself rationalizing the actions of the Nazi shit heads, or sympathizing with them, then you're part of the problem and you need to promptly exit. You're on the wrong side of history and time will prove me right.
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