well, trump was supposed to free us from the tyrannical chains of pc culture. i guess he's arsed that up too.
Rioting at Charlottsville Va (UVA) by white nationalists and counter protesters
- Thread starter Bamaro
- Start date
- Status
if you read the article, it was "dozens" of demonstrators. besides, folks have been protesting columbus day for a long time, this is nothing new.
Been meaning to post on here but hadn't gotten the chance.
I have a very close friend who was actually there in C-ville protesting AGAINST the Nazis. He was about 15ft away from where the car plowed into the crowd (his friends literally jumped out of the way) and he was about 10 feet from where the car crashed and then began to back up.
I got a lot of interesting info from this guy. This dude is not political in the least - never has been, and he couldn't care less about the monuments or statues and showed up primarily to tell Nazis where they could stick it. I've known and worked with this guy for a long time (we were groomsmen in one another's weddings) and two things he is not is a liar or an embellisher, so I believe everything he told me about the events of the day.
#1: Antifa was a minor player in the broad scope of the rally. My friend (let's just call him Mike) is no large fan of Antifa. He's not thrilled about some of their other work. But on this particular day Mike made it clear that Antifa was HARDLY the aggressor. To put it in his words, "One side showed up in t-shirts with signs and the other side showed up with full riot-gear and firearms, who do you really think wanted confrontation?" He provided multiple anecdotes of Antifa OR counter-protesters showing grace or mercy in the face the White-Nationalist protesters - a grace that was not reciprocated in the least. Stories about how a white-nationalist lady tripped and fell and busted her head open and counter-protesters cleared the crowd and made a path for the ambulance. Or how, after the car plowed through the crowd a small group of Nazis started walked around the corner with flags and walked towards the hysteric mass of people. Counter-protesters stopped them with a genuine plea not to go towards the crowd for the risk of them getting hurt by a then VERY crazed and distressed hoard of people. The Nazis laughed at them and walked on.
#2: The police did not handle the day well. Mike is very much a Blue Line fellow. He has multiple family members in the force and can readily empathize with their side of things. On this particular day - emergency forces and police did not respond well. (C-ville's own police chief has admitted as much - and it's no surprise as most police in the city are more used to dealing with drunk frat boys, not Nazi rallies) Mike recounted that after the car plowed through the crowd it took at least 25 minutes for any emergency personnel to arrive. When they did arrive, Mike spied them exiting a hotel that was only a block away from where the incident took place. He couldn't understand what took them so long to respond when they were only a block away. This bewilderment has been echoed by others present at the rally.
#3: The counter-protesters mostly consisted of residents of C-ville. The common theme has become Nazis vs Antifa, but Antifa was a small element of the counter-protests. It was mostly local residents of Charlottesville who came out to make the Nazis and White-Nationalists feel unwelcome.
#4: The Vice piece on the events is an accurate depiction of what happened that day. Mike, who also works in film and television, had just wrapped work on a feature film in C-ville, which is why he was there, and for a majority of the protests was standing next to one of the camera girls shooting for Vice. Their experiences were very similar.
#5: This march had nothing to do with monuments, on either side. This issue has become more politicized and debated because of the monument angle, but Mike stressed that there was almost Zero rhetoric concerning the statues on the day of the protests. It was mostly Nazis shouting about being replaced by Jews and other racial rhetoric - and the counter protesters were generally just telling Nazis to...well, you can imagine.
#6: Mike was floored by the hate he started to receive from friends and family. He couldn't grasp how people could respond to his actions in such a way. He's actually lost a lot of sleep over it in the last week. He's been accused of being alt-left, of trying to rob people of their first-amendment rights, of trying to tear down monuments, of being brainwashed by the Left.
Mike is a guy WHO VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP. (though he now regrets it). He's a conservative through and through - though he doesn't often wade into political debate. It just seemed to him that the lines were pretty clear. Us protesting against Nazis - who can be against that? What American would defend Nazis? But because of the monument angle, many people have done just that.
Now listen, this is all anecdotal 2nd hand information from a guy on an internet forum. I have no way of legitimizing my words or Mike's story. These are just words on a screen for each and every one of you. But as one human being to another I'll tell you that I sat in my living room with a friend who has always been mild-mannered and even keeled, a friend known for his methodical and calculated nature, and a friend known for not betraying his religious beliefs or his own personal code of conduct. I sat with a friend who was EXTREMELY vexed by what he had seen - true hate - actual evil, and unthinkable violence.
I may think of more later but a lot of the gray area began to disappear after Mike and I spoke.
One are where we disagreed was the violence. I felt that because the counter-protesters hit back, they blurred a lot of the lines in this conflict. If it had just been Nazis hitting people and them just getting hit then the tone would probably have been a lot different. But because the counter-protesters punched back, it then opened the door for others to turn it into an argument for suppression of free speech or Antifa spoiling for a fight. Mike isn't overly concerned with the violence, somewhat trivializing it as "a couple of fights" and believing that violence was always going to happen when you encounter a group that radical and that ready for a fight and put their backs against the way. Maybe there is a degree of truth to that, but by fighting back the counter-protesters opened themselves up to rebuke or to even have their motives called into question.
I have a very close friend who was actually there in C-ville protesting AGAINST the Nazis. He was about 15ft away from where the car plowed into the crowd (his friends literally jumped out of the way) and he was about 10 feet from where the car crashed and then began to back up.
I got a lot of interesting info from this guy. This dude is not political in the least - never has been, and he couldn't care less about the monuments or statues and showed up primarily to tell Nazis where they could stick it. I've known and worked with this guy for a long time (we were groomsmen in one another's weddings) and two things he is not is a liar or an embellisher, so I believe everything he told me about the events of the day.
#1: Antifa was a minor player in the broad scope of the rally. My friend (let's just call him Mike) is no large fan of Antifa. He's not thrilled about some of their other work. But on this particular day Mike made it clear that Antifa was HARDLY the aggressor. To put it in his words, "One side showed up in t-shirts with signs and the other side showed up with full riot-gear and firearms, who do you really think wanted confrontation?" He provided multiple anecdotes of Antifa OR counter-protesters showing grace or mercy in the face the White-Nationalist protesters - a grace that was not reciprocated in the least. Stories about how a white-nationalist lady tripped and fell and busted her head open and counter-protesters cleared the crowd and made a path for the ambulance. Or how, after the car plowed through the crowd a small group of Nazis started walked around the corner with flags and walked towards the hysteric mass of people. Counter-protesters stopped them with a genuine plea not to go towards the crowd for the risk of them getting hurt by a then VERY crazed and distressed hoard of people. The Nazis laughed at them and walked on.
#2: The police did not handle the day well. Mike is very much a Blue Line fellow. He has multiple family members in the force and can readily empathize with their side of things. On this particular day - emergency forces and police did not respond well. (C-ville's own police chief has admitted as much - and it's no surprise as most police in the city are more used to dealing with drunk frat boys, not Nazi rallies) Mike recounted that after the car plowed through the crowd it took at least 25 minutes for any emergency personnel to arrive. When they did arrive, Mike spied them exiting a hotel that was only a block away from where the incident took place. He couldn't understand what took them so long to respond when they were only a block away. This bewilderment has been echoed by others present at the rally.
#3: The counter-protesters mostly consisted of residents of C-ville. The common theme has become Nazis vs Antifa, but Antifa was a small element of the counter-protests. It was mostly local residents of Charlottesville who came out to make the Nazis and White-Nationalists feel unwelcome.
#4: The Vice piece on the events is an accurate depiction of what happened that day. Mike, who also works in film and television, had just wrapped work on a feature film in C-ville, which is why he was there, and for a majority of the protests was standing next to one of the camera girls shooting for Vice. Their experiences were very similar.
#5: This march had nothing to do with monuments, on either side. This issue has become more politicized and debated because of the monument angle, but Mike stressed that there was almost Zero rhetoric concerning the statues on the day of the protests. It was mostly Nazis shouting about being replaced by Jews and other racial rhetoric - and the counter protesters were generally just telling Nazis to...well, you can imagine.
#6: Mike was floored by the hate he started to receive from friends and family. He couldn't grasp how people could respond to his actions in such a way. He's actually lost a lot of sleep over it in the last week. He's been accused of being alt-left, of trying to rob people of their first-amendment rights, of trying to tear down monuments, of being brainwashed by the Left.
Mike is a guy WHO VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP. (though he now regrets it). He's a conservative through and through - though he doesn't often wade into political debate. It just seemed to him that the lines were pretty clear. Us protesting against Nazis - who can be against that? What American would defend Nazis? But because of the monument angle, many people have done just that.
Now listen, this is all anecdotal 2nd hand information from a guy on an internet forum. I have no way of legitimizing my words or Mike's story. These are just words on a screen for each and every one of you. But as one human being to another I'll tell you that I sat in my living room with a friend who has always been mild-mannered and even keeled, a friend known for his methodical and calculated nature, and a friend known for not betraying his religious beliefs or his own personal code of conduct. I sat with a friend who was EXTREMELY vexed by what he had seen - true hate - actual evil, and unthinkable violence.
I may think of more later but a lot of the gray area began to disappear after Mike and I spoke.
One are where we disagreed was the violence. I felt that because the counter-protesters hit back, they blurred a lot of the lines in this conflict. If it had just been Nazis hitting people and them just getting hit then the tone would probably have been a lot different. But because the counter-protesters punched back, it then opened the door for others to turn it into an argument for suppression of free speech or Antifa spoiling for a fight. Mike isn't overly concerned with the violence, somewhat trivializing it as "a couple of fights" and believing that violence was always going to happen when you encounter a group that radical and that ready for a fight and put their backs against the way. Maybe there is a degree of truth to that, but by fighting back the counter-protesters opened themselves up to rebuke or to even have their motives called into question.
Thanks for sharing his insight with us. I suspected much of this from the coverage I've seen/read, but it's more clarifying to hear the impression from someone trustworthy who was actually on the ground.
New York to remove subway tiles because it looks like a confederate flag
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ay-tiles-look-like-confederate-flags-altered/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ay-tiles-look-like-confederate-flags-altered/
For the record, I've never believed that the "slippery slope" that many people on the Right have clamored about doesn't exist. (There was a better way to say that, but I can't be bothered to use the delete key right now.) I am a member of the Right and don't think the Confederate flag or Confederate monuments belong in public places. But this is ridiculous. While making these changes that concern our past I do think it's important to still resist society's urge to indulge that "slippery slope." We have to be careful not to resist as a knee-jerk reaction but thoughtfully when we truly believe the subject matter warrants it.New York to remove subway tiles because it looks like a confederate flag
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ay-tiles-look-like-confederate-flags-altered/
This is silliness, and you really have to be looking for trouble to get triggered by some tile on wall. That emblem type is used in many different flag designs and general designs around the world.
Last edited:
that, and the world is full of a-holes who are just looking for an excuse to cause trouble.
Is this still the correct thread to post stories about confederate statues being vandalized?
This time going after Lt. Dick Dowling
This time going after Lt. Dick Dowling
Houston man charged with trying to plant bomb at Confederate statue in Hermann Park
Here's the story of why a statue of Dick Dowling's is in Houston.Is this still the correct thread to post stories about confederate statues being vandalized?
This time going after Lt. Dick Dowling
Houston man charged with trying to plant bomb at Confederate statue in Hermann Park
On September 8, 1863, LT Dick Dowling, a 26 year old immigrant from Ireland, commanded a force of 49 Confederate artillerymen with six cannons. They faced 5,000 infantry 4 gunboats, 18 transports. Yes, you read that right, 50 vs 5,000, and he won.
Dowling and the Davis Guards defeated the Union force, destroying two gunboats and taking 200 prisoners.
Dowling, as far as I could tell, did not own slaves, but he had been chased out of New Orleans by the anti-immigrant "Know Nothing" party, a precursor to the Republicans, and maybe he wanted to show his devotion to his new home, Houston, by joining the local militia unit.
Then on the other side, you have this:
This level of hate mixed with ignorance is a witch's brew.
- Status
Latest threads
-
Political Meme - Cartoon/Joke Thread...Part XX
- Started by Bazza
- Replies: 9
-
US Army replacing 5.56mm rifle with a 6.8mm for infantry
- Started by Tidewater
- Replies: 6
-
-
Game One of Alabama-Texas A&M Alabama Series Moved to Friday as Part of Doubleheader- Started by Diamond Tide
- Replies: 0
-
Bama Game Thread: Bama Gymnastics - NCAA Championship Semi-finals (ESPN2 | 4/18 @ 8pm CT)- Started by BamaNation
- Replies: 32
-
No. 1 Visits Tuscaloosa for Second Straight Week as Alabama Hosts Top-Ranked Texas A&M
- Started by Diamond Tide
- Replies: 0