USA, any news lately?
 

Racking my brain to come up with some 'Current Events' ... hmmm ... seemed like there was s o m e t h i n g

Well, probably better not to think too hard about it. I'm sure it will turn out okay, whatever it was. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Probably won't be much to talk about until the next ice age; or, nuclear winter, whichever comes first.

There is a chapter in the book I'm finalizing this month that is structured around the battle of Gettysburg. I am worried that if we actually break out into a second Civil War, I will have to cut the chapter and work around it, which will be a royal pain in my ass. So, purely from that perspective, I'm against it.

Not to worry, Trump's war will be very uncivil.

Nothing to see here/I'm too depressed to even

I think there was something about an eclipse somewhere.

Yeah - nothing happening in USA right now.

~Sheriff Bart at the end of Blazing Saddles

charlotte: spice for dat borin' gumbo
 

The talkin' head industry is makin' a big to-do about how there is no 'moral equivalence' between the two groups.

As usual, when 'reporters' decide to do sumthin' other than 'report' (that is: when they vomit up their own politics and pretend they're reportin') they get it dead wrong.

Consider...

On one side: race haters...folks who don't merely notice racial differences, but who despise others solely because of the differences.

On the other side: communists (full-blown, sympathizers, and dupes)...advocates of one of the most anti-individual, anti-human notions ever to fall out the backside of a philosopher.

Absolutely, the two groups are 'morally' equivalent...only group worse than the race haters and communists are the child rapers.

So: the only thing Trump got wrong is when he said there were good people on both sides of the fence.

If you race-hate: you are not a good person.

If you're communist (in action or by way of sympathy): you're not a good person.

#

Not a soul there, on either side gave, or gives, a rat ass about the *statue...the statue was just the excuse for two strains of jackasses to parade their stupid politics.

#

Charlotte fucked up royally here. The race-haters went got their permit to demonstrate and -- if Charlotte had down its job -- then the race-haters woulda speechified and placard-waved, they woulda got their 30 seconds of airtime, and that woulda been the end of it. When the communists showed up, they did so without permit and shoulda been been sent packin'. They weren't. Fine. If they weren't gonna be dispersed then the two groups shoulda been kept separate. They weren't.

So, what happened is not surprising: violence leading up to one one jackass runnin' other jackasses down with his car (killin' one deader than dead).

So: the real culprit here is the jackass who told the PD to 'stand down'.









*The simplest, most direct, most honest solution to them debbil statues is let the folks of relevant communities decide what to do with 'em.

Not the government (president, congress, governors, state legislatures, mayors, city councils [or outside agitators]) but the citizens of the relevant communitites...let them vote.

If the folks of a community vote to keep 'em, then boo-hoo for those who want them debbil statues gone.

If the folks of a community vote to rip 'em down, then boo-hoo for those who wanna keep 'em.

All this friggin' debate among folks who don't live in New Orleans or Charlotte or Richmond is an exercise in buttinskys not mindin' the own damned business.

Me: public statues are just places for birds to take a crap, so I don't give a flip what folks do with 'em: keep 'em, dump 'em, graffiti 'em up, make sweet love to 'em...just stop kvetchin' about it.

Communists?

Anyone standing up to a Nazi has to be a Communist, I guess.

Where people aren't interested in changing their narrative, or hearing others' narratives, there is no need for discussion.

I have a single sentence to throw out there:

If a single Confederate statue has to be removed because of connotations to slavery, (which is what I'm getting as the reason for the removal of Confederate statues in this political climate) then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have to come off Mt. Rushmore.

Posted again for clarity:

If a single Confederate statue is removed because of connotations to slavery, then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have to be removed from Mt. Rushmore.

Ok, that was more than one sentence.

I changed my opinion this week.

Robert E. Lee is probably the most famous Arlingtonian in history.

This is his house. The mansion on the hill overlooking Arlington National Cemetery.

Attachment 61529

The County Government uses his house in its official seal.
Attachment 61531

My children attend Washington-Lee high school, and they are called the Generals.

Some of my favorite stores and restaurants here are located along Lee Highway.

I never drive on it, but the stretch of Route 1 that runs through town is called Jefferson Davis Highway.

All this stuff seems as normal as breathing the air. It's part of the language that I use. I speak Lee's name hundreds of times a year as I talk about the places around town.

I had always heard that he was reluctant about his involvement in the Civil War. That he opposed slavery. That he was a very honorable, pious man. I knew he owned slaves, but had heard that he freed his slaves and those slaves founded a church that I used to attend here in Arlington. I viewed him as a human being who was a product of his times. That he was doing his very best in the times that he lived.

Then a couple of days ago, a friend of mine posted on FB that she was going to ask the School Board to change the name of my kid's school. She was looking for people to join her. I was tempted to respond that I would be opposing her, because these names are part of our history here. But instead I remained silent and actually started reading up about Lee so I could explain things to her.

Turns out he was a fucking prick.

He didn't say much about slavery. There is one letter he wrote where he says slavery is evil. That is quoted a lot by people who want to make him out to be the nice guy. But the quote is taken out of context. The whole quote has him saying basically that slavery is evil, but that its good for blacks and that they are lucky to have whites taking care of them. And slavery should end when God decides it should end. I'm paraphrasing.

He married Mary Custis, and when her dad died, he got that big plantation in Arlington where the house is. Lee was named the executor of the estate. The will dictated that all the slaves working at the Custis estate be freed upon the death of Mary's dad. It used some legal phrase that basically meant "as soon as possible" upon death. But the estate was in debt and was not profitable. Lee felt that he had to make the estate profitable before he could honor that instruction in the will. So he didn't free them. Instead, he split up the slave families, against the precedent set my Mary Custis's dad when he ran the place. Lee rented out the slaves to various other plantations in the area. At one point, two slaves who believed they were supposed to be free upon the death of their former master escaped. They made it to northern Maryland before they were captured and returned to Lee. Lee ordered them both (a bother and sister) stripped to the waist and tied to a pole in the barn. The overseer bound them, but refused to obey Lee's command to whip them. So Lee got a local constable to come in and do the whipping. (There is a receipt of this payment to the constable.) The constable whipped them both so bad their skin was broken, and then Lee (this is where I lost any empathy for him) ordered that salt be pour on their open wounds. He felt he had to make an example of them to the other slaves who thought they were free. Here.

So then a couple years go by, and Virginia secedes from the Union. Lee didn't want there to be a Civil War. He thought the South would lose. But he broke his solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of the US, and took up arms against his country. He felt it was too important to defend Virginia. (Which only wanted the ability to hold human beings in slavery.)

He "defended" Virginia by invading the North and attacking Pennsylvania and killing thousands of people.

So I changed my mind. Lee was literally a traitor who took up arms against his country. He was a racist who thought whites needed to beat the slaves to help them improve. He was an unusually cruel slave owner who meted out punishment more severe than the overseer thought was appropriate.

I don't think the school, streets, and seal should have anything to do with him. There are hundreds of books about him and he won't be lost to history, but he doesn't deserve to be mentioned in every day conversation when I talk about schools and streets.

Should any statues of Lee be removed?

I don't feel very strongly about statues because I figure you don't have to look at one if you don't want to. You do have to go to the school and use the roads.

Regarding your one sentence in the post above. I understand where you are coming from. Jefferson and Washington were slave owners from the South. For me, the difference with them is that they never took up arms against the United States.

What if your tax dollar is used to maintain the statue?

I still don't care if my tax dollar is being spent. Statues don't cost much to maintain. But I wouldn't lift a finger to protect a statue of Lee.

"Communists?"

Oh, I'm sorry, 'communist' has too much baggage attached.

'Marxists' is what *'they' prefer to be called.









*Black Lives Matter, Antifa, etc., the folks who *ahem* 'opposed' the race-haters in Charlotte(sville)

"Anyone standing up to a Nazi has to be a Communist, I guess."

As the race-haters weren't gonna do anything of consequence ('cept speak freely), only three groups of folks were gonna show up to counter 'em: Marxists (tryin' to be 'correct' in my descriptors) who don't give two shits about the statue, folks with way too much time on their hands and too little life to fill that time, and the lethally thin-skinned.

You know as well as me who showed up (this time).

"wouldn't lift a finger to protect a statue of Lee"

You aren't obligated to. What you are obligated to do is leave it alone. And what the mayors and city councils of relevant communities ought to be obligated to do is put the question to folks who live in those communities.

If, for example, the question had been put to the people of New Orleans or Orleans Parish, those four statues removed by decree probably would be standing today.

Yes, take them all down and replace them with statues of naked women.

That's news to me, I hadn't heard any of them describe themselves as Marxist. They prefer to be called, or what you prefer to call them?

They are not equivalent.

The left/liberals are often accused of engaging in moral equivalency when they try to understand the root of something like islamic terrorism.

An alt right terrorist just drove a vehicle into a crowd of protestors, killing a young woman.

The protestors are arguing against racism, and against the glorification of historical figures who led a bitter and bloody fight against the rest of the country to defend their right to own human beings.

The people attending the alt right rally were marching along shouting racist slogans ("The Jews will not replace us") giving nazi salutes and waving swastikas and confederate flags - expressing a moral and ideological loyalty to fascism.

On one side a fairly disparate group, with multiple viewpoints, united by a desire to draw a line between the society America currently has and a former, though not that distant age, in which white people could own and brutalise black people.

On the other side, a tooled up mini-militia waving nazi flags and shouting nazi slogans. Prepared to kill to protect their image of the South.


I am sickened. Truly sickened. How many of our grandparents fought, suffered, or died, in the war against the nazi butchers?

Not sickened by the fact that this could happen - it can happen, it does happen - here and in Europe, and in the US - these marches and rallies spring up and there is violence. A right wing nationalist murdered an MP not so long ago and so far from where I live.

I am sickened to hear the president of the USA struggle to condemn them, and then cast equal blame onto the other side.

Yup my dad went to Korea to fight the Commu-- ah shit.

Well my great great great grandad fought on the Union side. Fuck Lee!

One other point:

We talk about 'statues' as part of our 'history' -


But the atrocity of slave ownership is so recent that the last generation of slaves are close enough to us to have been recorded speaking.

These former slaves were recorded in the 1930s - when my father was a small child, and my grandma a vibrant woman in her 20s.

Yes. But that is not what was facing off against the alt right rally. The protest march was a disparate collection of variously left wing people. And some who probably wouldn't even consider themselves particularly left-wing - just anti-fascism.

The alt right rally was a large congregation of (mainly) men from white supremacist and neo nazi groups, with many chanting nazi slogans - chants about the danger of Jews.

This was not communists versus nazis.

Man In Center Of Political Spectrum Under Impression He Less Obnoxious

Hahahaha. That really made me laugh. Like, a full on snort that startled the dog.

Oh hell, that entire page is hysterical.

I love this one:

That is some funny shit.

That is teh funneh.


I cannot help but think that that part of his statement makes a certain kind sense.

I HATE when this type of crap gets posted as fact and forces me to defend the Orange Cheeto....
He did not struggle at all. He has repeatedly denounced them for well over a decade. PLEASE STOP WITH THIS CRAP.

Awww, man. Fake news, right here in the Cellar.

DanaC:turd: nonetheless!

What the, I don't even.

Bummer.

:p:

"I hadn't heard any of them describe themselves as Marxist."

Yeah, rapists, child molesters, and serial killers generally don't advertise themselves as such, so why would an equally vile group (da commies) do any different?

Look here...

http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/

...and see for yourself.

As for what I like to call 'em: intentionally paintin' with a broad brush, I call 'em 'communitarians', a grouping that includes all democrats, all progressives, most republicans, most conservatives, a great many libertarians, and a few others I'm too lazy to list...pretty much any group, or person, promoting many over one, 'we' over 'I', is -- one way or another -- in cahoots with the commies.

"They are not equivalent."

Absolutely they are...race-haters vs commies...two tribes of rabid chimps tossin' crap at each other.

Only the child-rapers are worst (and not by much).

#

"An alt right terrorist just drove a vehicle into a crowd of protestors, killing a young woman."

A racist ran down a commie dupe: cry me a river.

Trump condemned the good people; people who confronted hate and hate promoters. But our wacko extremists here deny it. Complete with associating shit and DanaC. A child response from one who is suppose to be an adult. Trump sympathizers and supporters cannot reply logically - will resort to cheap shots - this time shit.

Trump is doing exactly what wacko extremists love. Even the most conservative business leaders are now leaving him in droves for good reason. Even my most conservative friends, who never voted anything but Republican, voted for Hilary. But then these are better educated people - saw what was obvious long ago.

Rise of hate groups was openly encouraged by Trump in many campaign rallies. Anyone who thinks logically saw Timothy McVeigh types encouraged by Trump.

Wacko extremists in the Trump administration are being removed. Bannon this time. Apparently their arrogance and ignorance (that justified their wacko extremist views) was too much even for Trump.

Accurately stated: the president of the USA struggled to condemn them, and then cast equal blame onto the other side. Only those brainwashed by fake news and their emotions would deny that. Trump blames everyone else (even his staff) rather than himself. Amazing that any president could be worse than George Jr.

"the good people"
 

There were none there, just race-haters and commies.

By golly you're right. Under empathy they say; There it is in black and white, "comrades". Everybody knows that's commie talk, so they must be closet Marxists. :yesnod:

"comrades"
 

Yep...that's it...nuthin' else to see there...don't bother...just be wastin' your time.

Dunno - but I consider myself a Marxist. And I am happy to say so. As are most marxists I know.

Mind you it doesn't carry the same stigma over ere.

Not a communist mind - a Marxist and socialist.

"I consider myself a Marxist. And I am happy to say so. As are most marxists I know."

Yeah, universities here are lousy with commies too.

#

"Not a communist mind - a Marxist and socialist."

All the same to me.

But.. books exist.

*snort*

My point is that your claim that people who are marxists are going to shy away from naming themselves as such may not hold water. Given that most people don't consider them on a par with child rapists.

Unlike self-avowed nazis.

Well, anyone who's a fan of The Marx Brothers can't be all bad.

Hey, Jerry Lewis was a Marxist, so SHOW SOME RESPECT, you rapscallions.

Well, this thread went from fun to a bucket of shit quick enough, didn't it?

Oh I dunno. It dipped into the shit bucket for a spell, but then the Marx Brothers showed and things started to look up.

Better is to throw pies into faces - not shit.

Now if Trump will only say, "Good pie."

No shit, Sherlock.

"It dipped into the shit bucket for a spell"

Yep...the lowest point was this...

"I am sickened. Truly sickened."

...melodramatic manure.

"My point is that your claim that people who are marxists are going to shy away from naming themselves as such may not hold water."

And my point is: university -- where (currently) up is down and in is out -- is not the best measure of things.

"books exist"

Indeed they do.

Here's one: The Communist Manifesto...ignore all addendum...Marx and Engels wrote a tiny thing...you should be able to digest it in an lazy afternoon.

Read and see 'socialism' and 'communism' differ only in degree, not content.

That is: socialism is slidin' the ten inch blade into the belly only half-way and communism is pushing the blade in to the hilt.

Gutting is gutting done fast or slow, deep or shallow.

The problem is the pigs will always be more equal than others.

Socialism and communism is only same when one failed to learn from books. Animal Farm is only 112 pages. Anyone can read it.

"Animal Farm is only 112 pages. Anyone can read it."

Marx and Engel's work is shorter...read 'that'...go the source of the disease.

If I get y'all some sharp sticks will you promise to poke each others eyes out?

Fuck that.

Gimme a sharp stick and I'm gonna kill sumthin'

Well past the point of 'blinding'.

Well- the people who were protesting the nazi rally in Charlottesville weren't all university students - the removal of the statue had been voted on by the people of Charlottesville and a bunch of white supremacists from all over the country descended on their town to hold a rally. Many of those protesting their presence there were just ordinary citizens of the town.

Also as a former member of the Labour party I knew plenty of old-Labour socialists who had never been near a university - I know lots of union members at my work place, many of whom would consider themselves on the socialist side of things - and not many of them have more than a high-school education (in terms of formal education, they are of course mostly highly trained and experienced in their field)

This notion that socialism (or marxism) is the province of a university educated, middle-class, intelligentsia just doesn't cut it. They may be the ones who dig into it at an academic level but the labour movement has also generally been one of the streams of socialism.

"the people who were protesting the nazi rally in Charlottesville weren't all university students"

And not a one would call themselves 'communist' or 'marxist' even though the organizations they align with are, which goes some way as evidence that -- outside of university -- most folks steer clear of those labels, even when they agree, cuz they know most folks frown, rightfully, on such things.

#

"the removal of the statue had been voted on by the people of Charlottesville"

No, the city council did, not the voters, and that city council decision is being disputed in court.

#

"Many of those protesting their presence there were just ordinary citizens of the town.

No, most of the race-haters and commies were outsiders.

#

"the labour movement has also generally been one of the streams of socialism."

Yes, I'm sure those folks sincerely believe their 'socialism' is the 'good' kind. They don't recognize that half the blade in the belly, instead of the whole blade, is still a bad thing.

Henry - you and I are never going to agree. There is so little common ground between our world views, there isn't even a vantage point from which to view each other's world.

Let's agree to disagree and leave it at that :p