Sunday, August 13, 2017

I was having a nice summer laying low until Charlottesville.

I entered UVA in Charlottesville in 1967. Escape from the Bronx. Well, from the Bronx to Merrick LI in 1960, then the south. But an escape.
We wore jacket and tie every day. Tradition.
No women. Tradition
Merit based scholarships only. Tradition.
Honor system which let you take a test anywhere, under any conditions, and sign a pledge you took it fairly. After all, we are gentlemen. Tradition.
And the first place in my life I ran into racism. Specifically, antisemitism. This came from someone who was then my age now with a roman numeral after his name. To the everlasting credit of UVA, a dean promised me if I would control my reaction, he would ensure this other professor would never teach there again. As he said this I wondered if he thought he was looking at some New York Jew outside agitator. Later events proved that view to be correct.
He did as he promised at the end of the semester.
Gentlemen handle these things, you see. Even after Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, Even after the 16th Street Baptist church, AND OTHERS. It was possible.
But then, we had a Martin Luther King. Even though the REALITY at the time was organized sheriff departments in certain areas which WERE KKK, still the other side, THE ONLY SIDE, recognized not just the morally superior path, but the practically superior path.
Now, in reaction to the sick inner compulsions, and increased amplitude of FAR FEWER people worried about Americans, JUST LIKE THEM, NO LESS THAN THEM, who happen to be Black, Jewish, or some other (WTF does it matter), we have this.
Personally I see little difference in stupidity level between ANTIFA and BLM and the white supremacists. What they share is a sick intolerance. There are some people who cannot be reformed.
I am sure there are those who want america improved who also think that white people are now being singled out but reject both violence and white supremacism, just as I am sure there Americans who happen to be black who truly believe police (even black police) are trying to kill them, but THEY reject a BLM which demands the idea that ALL LIVES MATTER IS RACIST, is a truth.
These people need to reexamine THEMSELVES and abandon the movements which have now mutated into a malignant battle between cancerous lesions and fatal radiation.
At IBA, we've BEEN HERE. Vlaams Belang.
Instead of a peaceful but raucus Nazi march in Skokie to the jeers (verbal, people) of those who hated and despised them because of what they were, we had what appeared to be a battle of intolerances, which then degenerated from throwing bottles of water (I’ve been at worse..1969, hello?), and swinging fists, into a mini-NICE, courtesy of sickos.
Part of this was, no matter HOW you slice it, the fault of the police, mayor, governor, and state authorities. At all times there should have been police separation of these groups.
I don’t expect either side of this to change. White supremacism must be tolerated just as BLM’s sickening racism must be tolerated. Assholes abound. But given yesterday, FBI infiltration sounds pretty good to me.
Both sides brought TOGETHER from afar an organized battle, just as Jackson bought his men to Lee on the Peninsula in 1862, while McClellan straddled the Rapahannock. The organizers of THAT are the criminals. They are the organizers of disorder and violence. THAT is their purpose.
Lost now is the statue of a truly great general, who forever dishonored himself by functionally fighting for slavery, no matter what he thought he was doing.
In America we have manner of dealing with these things. You vote for the town council. They carry out the wishes of the majority of the voters. People can individually protest and take legal action to try to halt, review, or reverse these decisions so that the majority is not just a more civil version of mob rule. The courts can act or ignore. In this case the courts halted the removal of the statue pending some other action. If you don’t like all that, change the laws, stage a peaceful protest and stage a sit in, or do what they they did in Minnesota as a last resort.
What happened yesterday is just a snarling expression of a lot of other grievances in a culture now brought to see grievance as a legitimate cause for class, race, religious and group vilification,  FAR from that statue and made no difference to what happens to the statue.
Both sides should be infiltrated by authorities and ground down. They have proven to be unfit to change things in an America where we can all see them whenever they act.
Frog-Scorpion-River.
Extinguish them as a movement.

12 comments:

Pastorius said...

Epa,
That's an interesting story about Charlottesville and the anti-Semitic professor.

Could you clarify?

This is what I understand:

A professor treated you badly because you were a Jew.

The Dean guaranteed you that if you handled the situation with dignity, the Professor would be gone.

The Professor was indeed fired.

Now, here's where my understanding broke down.

Was it the Dean or the Professor whom gave you the feeling they believed you were an "outside agitator" "Jew from New York"?

And what do you mean that later events proved this to be correct?

Always On Watch said...

Epa,
Part of this was, no matter HOW you slice it, the fault of the police, mayor, governor, and state authorities. At all times there should have been police separation of these groups.

Interesting point! This morning, I read on Facebook that the authorities in Charlottesville forced the Unite the Right people to march through lines of Anti-fa so as to get to their approved place of assembly. Is this true?

Always On Watch said...

At IBA, we've BEEN HERE. Vlaams Belang.

No shit.

And I've made my position clear.

Taking the position I've taken since I was much younger (late teens, early 20s) caused no end of family upheaval. A very painful time for me -- and for my family.

Yesterday, watching all that Charlottesville horror on TV took me back nearly 50 years. Now my back hurts like you can't believe. Stress!

Always On Watch said...

Great post, Epa!

Always On Watch said...

BTW, here's a conundrum....

The murderer sat there in his car for quite a long time before suddenly accelerating.

What was he waiting for? A signal?

A big enough crowd to gather within striking distance?

And just exactly who is that guy? I know his name but little more.

Always On Watch said...

About the mayor of Charlotesville:

Michael "Mike" Signer is the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia[1] and an author, advocate, political theorist, and attorney. He is a Virginia Democratic activist and former candidate for lieutenant governor. He is a lecturer at the University of Virginia.

He has worked for the Center for American Progress and worked with John Podesta on Barack Obama's State Department Transition Team.[2]

Always On Watch said...

So, of course we're hearing Signer this morning "laying the trouble at the steps of the White House."

thelastenglishprince said...

Lovely post, Epa.

One small area where I have degrees of separation is on the issue of a right to peaceful assembly and protest. The marchers with the permit should have their day in the sun. Even if their base is repugnant to me their right to protest removal of the War Memorials should not be abridged. It is a Constitutional Right. One permit. One protest. Our nation has big enough shoulders to shake it off.

Because it is "their party" all others should be under a right to observe, to speak out, but not to physically engage the marchers.

Some of those marching engaged their right to bear arms. They did it responsibly and not a shot was fired. It is my belief the protest could have been accomplished in peaceful manner by not allowing a cage-fight atmosphere. Adversaries in close proximity with flaring tempers, media present and a police presence? What could be better?!

Perhaps we need to re-examine the dynamic of such protests. I do not support a model of allowable conflict to give reason to investigate any one particular group. Find other means. But do not use antagonistic crowds to accomplish goals. The innocent and those out of their depth can be injured.

Epaminondas said...

On the Nazis marching in Skokie the lawyer for THEM who I bitched to ceaselessly in writing ...he was Jewish also, said this to me:

"In order to protect our own rights, we must protect the rights of the most obnoxious among us"

It left a mark as he shut me up and turned me around

Epaminondas said...

Pasto...the dean, but I was putting my paranoia int his head.

Later events ..working voter reg tables to register mostly black residents to vote in the south

Organizing anti vietnam protests in VA and running like hell the days after Nixon invaded cambodia (Kent State and protests that became uncontrolled right after)

Pastorius said...

Epa,
So, I guess what you're saying is, later you fit the bill of infiltrating Jew from New York.

Which may be a stereotype.

But it seems to me you were just a guy trying to do right. It didn't have to be Jews. But Jewish people are usually disproportionate in the ranks of those who are willing to step up.

Anonymous said...

Re AoW's post on mayor...more dots to connect:
Counterterrorism vs Anti-terrorism and Other Fun Word Plays (Aug 12 2017) (cued up to quote)
8:44
===>Jason Goodman: "....find out what's up somebody already actually sent me an email from WikiLeaks from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton about wanting to create a race kind of riot and I wanted to look at that. . ."<===
*****
The court issued a permit for the protest and the police showed up in riot gear and cancelled it as a "Unlawful Assembly". They attacked the protestors and pushed them into the ANTIFA thugs. The police said they were told not to protect any protestors. Terry McAuliffe, McCabe, Charlotte Mayor, Antifa and Soros had a great opportunity given to them to have a huge incident that they could blame on "The Right" & "White Supremacists

As an example, the ACLU of VA tweeted:
===>"Clash between protesters and counter protesters. Police says "We'll not intervene until given command to do so." #Charlottesville"<===
Here is an image of the tweet:
http://i.imgur.com/qXmzP8v.jpg

This is the day after the ACLU brought the city to court (and won) for trying to change the location of the approved and permitted protest/rally at the last minute.

The same tactics used by the City Council look awfully similar to the tactics used by Berkeley administration.