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Catskills in NYS

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The city of Charlottesville was engulfed by violence on Saturday as white nationalists and counterprotesters clashed in one of the bloodiest fights to date over the removal of Confederate monuments across the South.

White nationalists had long planned a demonstration over the city’s decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. But the rally quickly exploded into racial taunting, shoving and outright brawling, prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency and the National Guard to join the police in clearing the area.

Those skirmishes mostly resulted in cuts and bruises. But after the rally at a city park was dispersed, a car bearing Ohio license plates plowed into a crowd near the city’s downtown mall killing a 32-year-old woman. Some 34 others were injured; at least 19 in the car crash, according to a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia Medical Center. Several witnesses and video of the scene suggested that the crash might have been intentional.

Col. Martin Kumer, the superintendent of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, confirmed Saturday evening that an Ohio man, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, had been arrested and charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failing to stop at the scene of a crash that resulted in a death. But the authorities declined to say publicly that Mr. Fields was the driver of the car that plowed into the crowd.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE


Tempers Flare Over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans MAY 7, 2017

Confederate Monuments Come Down and Emotions Rise MAY 19, 2017

White Nationalists March on University of Virginia AUG. 11, 2017

Airbnb Cancels Accounts Linked to White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville AUG. 9, 2017

White Nationalists Wield Torches at Confederate Statue Rally MAY 14, 2017
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Later in the day, a Virginia State Police helicopter crashed near a golf course and burst into flames, leaving at least two people dead. The helicopter appeared to have been monitoring the protests.

Witnesses to the crash said a gray sports car accelerated into a crowd of counterdemonstrators, who were moving jubilantly near the mall after the white nationalists had left, hurling at least two people in the air.

“It was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Robert Armengol, who was at the scene reporting for a podcast he hosts with students at the University of Virginia. “After that it was pandemonium. The car hit reverse and sped and everybody who was up the street in my direction started running.”

The planned rally was promoted as “Unite the Right” and both its organizers and critics said they expected it to be one of the largest gathering of white nationalists in recent times, attracting groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis and movement leaders like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

Many of these groups have felt emboldened since the election of Donald J. Trump as president. Mr. Duke, a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, told reporters on Saturday that the protesters were “going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” to “take our country back.”

Saturday afternoon, President Trump, speaking at the start of a veterans’ event at his golf club in Bedminister, N.J., again addressed what he described as “the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

In his comments, President Trump condemned the bloody protests, but he did not specifically criticize the white nationalist rally and its neo-Nazi slogans beyond blaming “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

“It’s been going on for a long time in our country, it’s not Donald Trump, it’s not Barack Obama,” said Mr. Trump, adding that he had been in contact with Virginia officials. After calling for the “swift restoration of law and order,” he offered a call for unity among Americans of “all races, creeds and colors.”

The president came under criticism from some who said he had not responded strongly enough against racism and that he failed to condemn the white nationalists groups by name who were behind the rally.

Among the critics was the mayor of Charlottesville, Mike Signer. “I do hope that he looks himself in the mirror and thinks very deeply about who he consorted with during his campaign,” he said.

The turmoil in Charlottesville began with a march Friday night by white nationalists on the campus of the University of Virginia and escalated Saturday morning as demonstrators from both sides gathered in and around the park. Waving Confederate flags, chanting Nazi-era slogans, wearing helmets and carrying shields, the white nationalists converged on the Lee statue inside the park and began chanting phrases like “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.”

Hundreds of counterprotesters — religious leaders, Black Lives Matter activists and anti-fascist groups known as “antifa” — quickly surrounded the park, singing spirituals, chanting and carrying their own signs.

The morning started peacefully, with the white nationalists gathering in McIntire Park, outside downtown, and the counterdemonstrators — including Cornel R. West, the Harvard University professor and political activist — gathering at the First Baptist Church, a historically African-American church here. Professor West, who addressed the group at a sunrise prayer service, said he had come “bearing witness to love and justice in the face of white supremacy.”

At McIntire Park, the white nationalists waved Confederate flags and other banners. As a photographer took pictures, one of them, who gave his name only as Ted because he said he might want to run for political office some day, said he was from Missouri, and added, “I’m tired of seeing white people pushed around.”

But by 11 a.m., after both sides had made their way to Emancipation Park, the scene had exploded into taunting, shoving and outright brawling.

Barricades encircling the park and separating the two sides began to come down, and the police temporarily retreated. People were seen clubbing one another in the streets, and pepper spray filled the air. One of the white nationalists left the park bleeding, his head wrapped in gauze.

Declaring the gathering an unlawful assembly, the police had cleared the area before noon, and the Virginia National Guard arrived as officers began arresting some who remained. But fears lingered that the altercation would start again nearby, as demonstrators dispersed in smaller groups.

Within an hour, politicians, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a Republican, had condemned the violence.

The first public response from the White House came from the first lady, Melania Trump, who wrote on Twitter: “Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let’s communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Justice Department agents would support local and state officials in an investigation of Saturday’s events.

“This kind of violence is totally contrary to American values and can never be tolerated,” Mr. Sessions said in a statement.

Former President Barack Obama responded to the violence sending three tweets with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion... People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love... For love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.”

After the rally was dispersed, its organizer, Jason Kessler, who calls himself a “white advocate,” complained in an interview that his group had been “forced into a very chaotic situation.” He added, “The police were supposed to be there protecting us and they stood down.”

Both Mr. Kessler and Spencer, a prominent white nationalist who was to speak on Saturday, are graduates of the University of Virginia. In an online video, titled “a message to Charlottesville,’’ Mr. Spencer vowed to return to the college town.

“You think that we’re going to back down to this kind of behavior to you and your little provincial town? No,’’ he said. “We are going to make Charlottesville the center of the universe.”

The Charlottesville street fights were the latest in a series of tense dramas unfolding across the United States over plans to remove statues and other historical markers of the Confederacy. The battles have been intensified by the election of Mr. Trump, who enjoys fervent support from white nationalists.

In New Orleans, tempers flared this spring when four Confederate-era monuments were taken down. Hundreds of far-right and liberal protesters squared off, with occasional bouts of violence, under a statue of General Robert E. Lee. There were fisticuffs and a lot of shouting, but nothing like the violence seen in Charlottesville.

In St. Louis, workers removed a confederate monument from Forest Park in June, ending a long drawn-out battle over its fate. In Frederick, Md., a bust of Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the notorious “Dred Scott” decision denying blacks citizenship, was removed in May from its spot near City Hall.

Here in Charlottesville, Saturday’s protest was the culmination of a year and a half of debate over the fate of the Lee statue. A movement to remove it began when an African-American high school student here started a petition. The City Council voted 3 to 2 in April to sell it, but a judge issued an injunction temporarily stopping the move.

The city had been bracing for a sea of demonstrators, and on Friday night, hundreds of them, carrying lit torches, marched on the picturesque grounds of the University of Virginia, founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson.

Many of the white nationalist protesters carried campaign signs for Mr. Trump.

University officials said one person was arrested and charged Friday night with assault and disorderly conduct, and several others were injured. Among those hurt was a university police officer injured while making the arrest, the school said in a statement.

Teresa A. Sullivan, the president of the university, strongly condemned the Friday demonstration in a statement, calling it “disturbing and unacceptable.”

Still, officials allowed the Saturday protest to go on — until the injuries began piling up.

The city of Charlottesville declared a state of emergency around 11 a.m., citing an “imminent threat of civil disturbance, unrest, potential injury to persons, and destruction of public and personal property.”

Governor McAuliffe followed with his own declaration an hour later.

“It is now clear that public safety cannot be safeguarded without additional powers, and that the mostly-out-of-state protesters have come to Virginia to endanger our citizens and property,” he said in a statement. “I am disgusted by the hatred, bigotry and violence these protesters have brought to our state over the past 24 hours.”

The Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, Ed Gillespie, issued his own statement denouncing the protests as “vile hate” that has “no place in our Commonwealth.”

Mr. Ryan agreed. “The views fueling the spectacle in Charlottesville are repugnant,” he said on Twitter. “Let it only serve to unite Americans against this kind of vile bigotry.”

Correction: August 12, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated the age of a man arrested after the Charlottesville rally. James Alex Fields Jr. is 20, not 32.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/us/charlottesville-protest-white-nationalist.html?_r=0

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 kronk wrote:
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 sebster wrote:
Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
 BaronIveagh wrote:
Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
 
   
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Hyperspace

A Nazi has killed an American on American soil. How many of our ancestors died in Europe, Africa, and Asia to prevent that from happening?

And never forget.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/19/republican-lawmakers-in-five-states-propose-bills-to-criminalize-peaceful-protest/

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Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
 
   
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I'm not surprised. People in this part of Virginia are fething crazy. EDIT: Oh and they're terrible TERRIBLE drivers. When the young drive like the elderly, the elderly drive like this guy;

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/13 03:27:59


   
Made in us
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Curb stomping in the Eye of Terror!

From the vids that I've seen online, this could not have been an accident.

Hope they put this guy away for the rest of his life.

Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!


 
   
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Speaking as someone whose been following the issues behind this for a few years I find the entire debate stupid. Robert E Lee is part of American history, and so is glorification of the Antebellum and Civil War South. You can't really get rid of either by taking down a statue. But the response to the issue from politicians and advocates is probably even more stupid.

Case and point; they renamed Robert. E. Lee Park to Emancipation Park. See they wanted to remove the statue but turns out the city isn't legally allowed to do that cause of some kind of state law about historic monuments and some such. So some "genius" decided that renaming the park would appease those upset about the statue. So they named the park Emancipation Park... with a statue of Robert E. Lee (and a few other Confedreate monuments) still inside. And I'm fairly confident that you're never more than 50 feet from a Confederate flag around here. I find it funny that Charlottesville officials are acting like this wasn't invited by them. If they hadn't been playing political games with this issue for the past two years, this probably wouldn't have happened.

I cannot begin to fully detail the stupidity that has taken place every step of the way with this locally. It's like a slap stick comedy.

   
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Curb stomping in the Eye of Terror!

I, for one, thought it's silly to have "reverent" statues of Lee as he was a traitor.

I also think it's silly to get your panties wadded up right now and try to remove said statues.

However, instead, we learn more about our history and try not to repeat the same mistakes...eh?

I'm sure we'd all be a lot better for it...

Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!


 
   
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The Great State of Texas

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm not surprised. People in this part of Virginia are fething crazy. EDIT: Oh and they're terrible TERRIBLE drivers. When the young drive like the elderly, the elderly drive like this guy;

yes but the elderly ride to Valhalla shiny and chrome!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 whembly wrote:
I, for one, thought it's silly to have "reverent" statues of Lee as he was a traitor.

I also think it's silly to get your panties wadded up right now and try to remove said statues.

However, instead, we learn more about our history and try not to repeat the same mistakes...eh?

I'm sure we'd all be a lot better for it...
there is an easy answer. Just put in a statue of Sherman pissing on the Lee statue with the inscription " hah hah!" Problem solved and historically accurate.*

* I have made this suggestion on certain right wing boards and evidently it's not a popular idea. Nothing like internet death threats to start the morning off right.

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Hyperspace

Obligatory "Sherman didn't go far enough".

I'd rather have Grant pissing on Lee, as Sherman didn't have any major battles against Lee (as far as I know).



Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
 
   
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Pleasant Valley, Iowa

I look forward to the inevitable heckler's veto that will end this thread.

Until then: generally, I think the only place confederate statues and flags belong in is museums.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

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Regardless, you shouldn't remove monuments that tell of your history.

Yes, there is absolutely no doubt that the confederate flag was tied to slavery and racism and to deny otherwise is to be historically ignorant. However, the flag goes more beyond just that.

For some, its used as a cultural totem for southern heritage, it reminds them of where they are from and who they are as a people.

It is used to commemorate all those fallen soldiers who died in a war where brother fought brother on blood tainted soil, where young boys barely over the age of 10 were sent away from their mothers to play the drums out in the battlefield during the carnage and slaughter of battle where men died in the thousands by the hour.

It is to remember the men who got struck down by relentless barrages of bullets and would later die in agony from dehydration due to lack of medical attention in the scolding hot summer fields while insects feasted on their bullet wounds.
It was used as a reminder that the war was for a lost cause in the sense that 290,000 mandatory conscripted young men died for a small 1.5% of wealthy land owners. Almost all these men who were sent out to the battlefield didn't own slaves, and instead fought and looked out for each other, brother and brother.

When you grow up in an area with such rich history and heritage, you can't feel but the need to become part of it, and I think that's when people begin to start waving those flags.
When all you're surrounded by are fields where historic battles took place and monuments are erected to commemorate those brave soldiers, there is this emotional connection that begins to take shape.

Then, when an outside group of people try to take that heritage away from you, we see events like the one we saw today happen. I am in no way trying to condone the violence that took the life of a young innocent protester, I'm trying to help explain to some people why they fly those flags and why people are passionate in preserving those historic monuments that the left so dearly want to take down.

"What does not kill me is not trying hard enough." _Roboute Guilliman

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 LordofHats wrote:
Speaking as someone whose been following the issues behind this for a few years I find the entire debate stupid. Robert E Lee is part of American history, and so is glorification of the Antebellum and Civil War South. You can't really get rid of either by taking down a statue. But the response to the issue from politicians and advocates is probably even more stupid.

Case and point; they renamed Robert. E. Lee Park to Emancipation Park. See they wanted to remove the statue but turns out the city isn't legally allowed to do that cause of some kind of state law about historic monuments and some such. So some "genius" decided that renaming the park would appease those upset about the statue. So they named the park Emancipation Park... with a statue of Robert E. Lee (and a few other Confedreate monuments) still inside. And I'm fairly confident that you're never more than 50 feet from a Confederate flag around here. I find it funny that Charlottesville officials are acting like this wasn't invited by them. If they hadn't been playing political games with this issue for the past two years, this probably wouldn't have happened.

I cannot begin to fully detail the stupidity that has taken place every step of the way with this locally. It's like a slap stick comedy.


50 feet from a confederate flag or a Nazi flag it seems. it's funny how those two flags always show up together. We don't have statues of hitler around, none of king henry, none of any of the leaders we've defeated over the centuries. so dump those confederate statues of losers and traitors, statues are for winners. the south lost, they need to get over it.

so you think the towns officials invited this Nazi to run over people? Might as well blame trump then as he seems to have stoked up the fires of racism again. How about we include all the dakka posters who've stated they'd run over protesters if they were in the streets. As this guy was a Nazi southerner, we can definitely blame all of them as his actions are a reflection on their mentality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Daemonhost Cherubael the American flag represents all of that as well, no need for the flag of the traitors.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/08/13 06:04:48


 
   
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USA

sirlynchmob wrote:
so you think the towns officials invited this Nazi to run over people?


I think it's a bit late to pretend to be the unwitting victim of political forces beyond their control as they are doing. They invited this kind of attention by making a spectacle of a trivial thing, and are now crying fowl that it's spiraled out of control.

Might as well blame trump then as he seems to have stoked up the fires of racism again.


I do blame Trump.

How about we include all the dakka posters who've stated they'd run over protesters if they were in the streets.


Them too

   
Made in us
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Hyperspace

Yes. Those who would run over protestors are dangerous to society, far more dangerous than a person who smokes weed harmlessly. They have no respect for the people's right to assemble, nor human life.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/08/13 06:28:53




Peregrine - If you like the army buy it, and don't worry about what one random person on the internet thinks.
 
   
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Pleasant Valley, Iowa

 Daemonhost Cherubael wrote:
Then, when an outside group of people try to take that heritage away from you, we see events like the one we saw today happen. I am in no way trying to condone the violence that took the life of a young innocent protester, I'm trying to help explain to some people why they fly those flags and why people are passionate in preserving those historic monuments that the left so dearly want to take down.


First, it wasn't an outside group of people trying to take them away today: the people that came in rioting were from out-of-state. The people in Charlottesville are some of the most liberal in the state. It was their city council that decided to remove the statue. Meanwhile, the man who drove his car into the crowd was from Ohio.

Second, most of these statues are actually of relatively recent vintage - the status in question was erected nearly 70 years after the war ended. Tons of these statues and monuments went up from the 1930s through the 1960s. They're still building them - Arizona put one up in 2010, Tennessee put one up in 2011, and is building another now.

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 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
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The Civil War monuments that currently liter the South have a lot more to do with Civil Rights era rejection of equality and affirmation of white superiority than war memorial, but I'd put forth that is still part of American history.

   
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RVA

White supremacists know they are not sympathetic. They also know that the media loves to cover them. I believe their strategy isn't about gaining direct support but rather to draw out their opposite numbers on the far left in front of national news coverage cameras, which creates room for criticizing "many sides," to quote the President. The car incident today has badly sidetracked that plan - although it was (and has been) successful enough for the President to use exactly those words - "many sides" - in responding.

@LoH - your analysis of the long-on-rhetoric-short-on-wisdom maneuvering in Cville is 100% accurate (as a former resident).

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/08/13 06:49:59


   
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And I haven't even been here that long XD

   
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 Manchu wrote:
White supremacists know they are not sympathetic. They also know that the media loves to cover them. I believe their strategy isn't about gaining direct support but rather to draw out their opposite numbers on the far left in front of national news coverage cameras, which creates room for criticizing "many sides," to quote the President.


Remember the monocle popping back then? The good old days.

I don't blame Trump for racism in the US, which is what we might call a pre-existing condition. I do feel like his dog whistles during the campaign, and his weasel words even now, have greatly normalized, or maybe emboldened, white nationalism in the US.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/08/13 06:51:38


 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
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Solahma






RVA

LoH - I will add to what you've said that Spencer has outmaneuvered local government in Charlottesville at every turn, which I guess is no surprise. That is the entire theme of his strategy. When you read what he says, he is very careful to use the vocabulary of identity politics, such that if he was an other-than-white person and talking about other-than-white people, his statements would be par for the course. Again, this is aimed at centrists who are not going to be sympathetic to white supremacy but who will note the (somewhat superficial) irony that black pride and hispanic pride are okay, whereas white pride is so utterly taboo that as a phrase it is equated with racism (notwithstanidng that nobody but the white supremacists themselves chose to dress up as KKK and neo-Nazis). The Powers That Be in Cville and at UVA, by contrast, have very little room to be creative and take risks. Spencer has nothing to lose whereas they stand to lose a lot over even little things. Spencer has a flair for asymetric media warfare, I will give him that.

Ouze - white pride (or nationalism or supremacy, we just don't have the vocabulary to objectively deal with this) is sort of the logical consequence of many decades of talking about race in one way for other-than-white people and another way for white people.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/08/13 07:04:53


   
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 Verviedi wrote:
A Nazi has killed an American on American soil. How many of our ancestors died in Europe, Africa, and Asia to prevent that from happening?

And never forget.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/19/republican-lawmakers-in-five-states-propose-bills-to-criminalize-peaceful-protest/




Truck done peacefully burned itself/?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I really have to question the propaganda of calling civil distruption 'peaceful'

If you picket a highway and get hit by a car, its really what you deserve.

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Made in gb
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-

I'm obviously a neutral observer on this, and as I've said many a time before, I love American history

but I can never understand why there are statues of a man who was, after all, a traitor to the USA, and responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans.

Yes, you should never forget one of the most important chapters of American history, but these flags and statues belong in a museum and the history books, or brought out for historical re-enactment.

By their logic, you should be building statues of British generals of the American revolution: Howe, Cornwallis, Gage, etc etc


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
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Solahma






RVA

Many loyalists left the nascent US for Canada after the AWI. Naturally, their political sympathies didn't play a role in the dveloping self-understanding of American history and identity. The opposite is true of the population of the CSA.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/13 07:27:26


   
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-

 Manchu wrote:
Many loyalists left the nascent US for Canada after the AWI. Naturally, their political sympathies didn't play a role in the dveloping self-understanding of American history and identity. The opposite is true of the population of the CSA.


Well, I hope everything calms down, and that nobody else gets hurt.

I've always wanted to visit Virginia, for as a student of military history, it has both Civil War history, and Revolutionary history with Yorktown. Two birds with one stone

"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
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Denison, Iowa

 whembly wrote:
I, for one, thought it's silly to have "reverent" statues of Lee as he was a traitor.

...


Technically, Lee was not a traitor. In order to be a traitor, you have to betray your country by doing something illegal. Secession was actually legal until 1869, four years after the war ended. Proof being that no Southern Soldier was ever tried, let along convicted, of treasonous acts.

(note, this is just for historical accuracy, and in no way should be interpreted as cuda1179 endorsing or supporting the Confederacy or Robert E. Lee. )
   
Made in us
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Solahma






RVA

As a Virginian, I heartily commend our Commonwealth to you!

It's quite important to understand that this incident is not especially a "Virginia thing."

Spencer went to the University of Virginia. He and his people probably targeted Charlottesville for this campaign because he is very familiar with the city and the university being in a tight spot regarding history and race. It's a liberal bastion in a rural Republican region - but it also turns on and trades in adulation of Thomas Jefferson, founder of UVA and Charlottesville's most famous resident.

History is endlessly complex. The news cycle is asymptotically superficial. It's oil and water.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/13 08:03:40


   
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Pleasant Valley, Iowa

 cuda1179 wrote:
 whembly wrote:
I, for one, thought it's silly to have "reverent" statues of Lee as he was a traitor.

...


Technically, Lee was not a traitor. In order to be a traitor, you have to betray your country by doing something illegal. Secession was actually legal until 1869, four years after the war ended. Proof being that no Southern Soldier was ever tried, let along convicted, of treasonous acts.


The idea that secession was legal has no basis in fact. The fact no one was prosecuted for treason was probably because amnesty was negotiated as part of the surrender, and there was a formal blanket pardon given in 1868 specifically for their treasonous acts.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Denison, Iowa

Outlawing secession was brought up in 1790 when they were drawing up the Constitution. May thought outlawing it wasn't right at the time.
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

Ouze -

That's a tough one for a nation of defecting colonies! The sovereignty of a state precedes its legal system. I think the legality of seccession is therefore more a political (and military) than legal issue. But in the wake of the ACW, state sovereignty in the federal context was assuredly more of a legal technicality than a political reality, at least relative to previously. It was of course imperative to formally charge the people of the CSA with treason, if only via pardon.

For me, growing up in the ruins of the Confederacy, there was no contradiction between being a patriotic American and honoring CSA generals. I think that is a distinction foreigners (by which term I am also including Northerners) key into because for them the CSA itself is some would-be foreign land, whereas for us Southerners the USA and CSA are overlapping realities, in part. The CSA never totally went away, just as it had in some political sense always been a reality. Robert E. Lee is for us undoubtedly an American war hero, notwithstanding having fought against the United States and, had he been victorious, not even a US citizen. It's weird but history is more complex than Pepsi versus Coke.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/13 08:45:47


   
Made in gb
Lord Commander in a Plush Chair





Beijing

I don't think it helps that Antifa turn up in hoodies and rags over their faces (the white supremacists just walk around bold as brass) looking to stir up trouble. People on both sides were involved with pepper spraying the other, and both claim to be the victims. Why are chemical sprays being brought by anyone to a 'peaceful demo'? Lots of left wing people on twitter seem to support punching nazis, but that's just justifying starting violence. You can't cheer on hitting nazis and then complain when they hit back.

I'm also a bit concerned by the number of people asking why they are allowed to march, fly certain flags, say certain things. The price of having freedom of speech is that some people say stuff you really don't like.

Overall, I'm quite confused by the messages the left wing opposition to these demos want to promote, because it's seems like violence and censorship is bad... except when it comes to the far right. Well, that's not really in the spirit of free speech and seems hypocritical. If anything, these demos being counter protested and resulting in violence feeds exactly into the belief that they're being aggressively persecuted and censored by the left wing and authorities.
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

Yep, that's the strategy.

   
 
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