Charlottesville: “I Think a Lot More People Are Going to Die Before We Are Done”

I am taking advantage of the shutdown of the comments section to run this video. One of the reasons I have done so is the reprehensible amount of low-level and in some cases explicit support for the neo Nazis from some members of the commentariat. And they are neo Nazis. The reporter from Vice, who was embedded in their ranks, did a remarkable job of keeping a poker face and getting them to speak on camera.

What was planned for Charlottesville was not an exercise in free speech. It was an exercise in intimidation of Jews, blacks, and other minorities by men who were armed with guns, bludgeons, and other weapons and bragged about their ability to engage in violence. The headline quote is a boast from the leader of the white supremacists. They used Nazi imagery and Nazi chants. If you can’t see the difference between this and the advocacy of views you have no powers of discernment.

As a US lawyer now living in France wrote:

Charlottesville was an incitement to riot. The Europeans I work with were blown away. Not only the neo-Nazi’s and KKK but also (and especially) the “militia.” They couldn’t believe that ordinary people could buy weapons and walk around like that. One said here in France you might be warned but would more likely be shot on sight by the police or army carrying an assault rifle like that. Considering how many fewer people they shoot on a per-capita basis that says something.

I just blasted off a comment, somewhere, that the “slippery slope” argument is bunk. 1) Germany and France have outlawed hate speech and there still exists lively debate, including hard-right and hard-left politicians; Marine LePen just came in second (she was clobbered in the final election, but even that had nothing to do with speech restrictions: she badly lost a debate), and 2) Inciting a riot is and remains a federal and state crime. I don’t like prohibitions on speech but that wasn’t “speech” – they were not trying to make a point. They were there to intimidate and incite violence.

This sort of thing has no business being tolerated in the US. At least 50 million people died in World War II in the war with the Third Reich and its allies, including over 400,000 US servicemen. One of my mother’s friends is a Battle of the Bulge survivor. The Holocaust was not limited to Jews, although they were its main target. The Nazis also slaughtered at least 200,000 handicapped people, 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles, one million Slavs, 100,000 homosexuals, 130,000 Roma, and 1000 members of the Roman Catholic clergy.

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8 comments

  1. Eustache de Saint Pierre

    I am in full agreement Yves & as an Englishman, I too find it hard to believe that such well armed Nazis are not perceived as a potential greater threat & evil. Europe’s Nazis after all in their beginnings only had the likes of clubs to achieve domination. Perhaps I am missing something, but all they appear to lack is the usual great leader.

    The fact that this place of usual high sensibility was so negatively effected by these events, is in itself I think an illustration of the madness & confusion that is so obviously out there.

    1. todde

      You seem to be ignoring the history of the freikorpz units.

      They were used in street battles in battalion strength to defeat the states communist enimies.

      I’ve seen photographs of freikorpz units with flamethrowers, artillery pieces and an amounted car.

  2. Foppe

    1. Hope you feel and get better soon, Yves.

    2. It is indeed — and long has been — a sorry fact that walking while black may get you killed because the police feels ‘threatened’, but organizing militias while “protesting” will get you approving nods from local police.

    Having said that, what is possibly even more worrisome is how the establishment is now trotting out all the usual warmongers to tut-tut “extremism”, and that they’re letting the governor/mayor get away with “we didn’t adequately prepare for this”. Bullshit. They wanted this to happen, they used the police to herd “demonstrators” and counter-demonstrators together, and the police sanctioned extreme-right violence by looking on, “helplessly”, while “both sides fought”, because they knew they would be able to use this as a “stark reminder” as to why further restrictions on “freedom of speech” would be necessary, etc..

  3. john

    These neo-Nazis are emboldened by Trump to take a more public stance: online and with rallies, marches, etc.
    But don’t forget this is a country with full police state capabilities. If the criminal elites didn’t want this to be taking place it wouldn’t be.

    Therefore one would have to conclude that their actions are being allowed by the criminal elites.
    They only need a handful of Charlottesvilles to take off the velvet glove and opening show this is a police state or to declare Martial law.

  4. funemployed

    Oh lord. That journalist should get a year of paid vacation and all the therapy she can eat. Y’all truth tellers are bonafide heroes.

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