Transcript::If you walk beside them, you are a Nazi

So, I have been pondering for days, trying to make sense of it all.  Anger only partly in check.  Some days I can think, I hope objectively. Others not so much.  And lest we make a mistake, yes I am talking to Charlottesville and its aftermath.  And to be clear, it's not "just" Charlottesville.

Charlottesville is "a prescient warning that passiveness is indefensible. Confederate monuments are powerful symbols cloaked in antebellum familial pride, honor and heritage. Their very presence, however, conditions silence and emboldens ideologies that stain the pages of America's history."[6]

First off, and this bears repeating.  Please don't assume I (or anyone in a similiar circumstance) have no right to be upset by what transpired.  Besides being a human being I have extended (now passed) family and friends who where victims of the first Nazi fruitcake. So yes, I get a wee bit upset when I see fucknuts waving the swastika, walking armed down the streets of America. Enough said.

This is not about erasing history.  This is not about re-writing history in an Orwellian way. It is about hate.  To say, "Every country’s history has a dark spot in it."  Is ignoring the obvious, we have not as a nation gotten past the ideology that is commemorated in those statues.  We have not "made strides toward becoming better." If that were the case, then why are there Nazis marching in the streets?  I can only assume by your apologia, that you agree with their ideology and that makes you no better than them.

You cannot in one breath say you stand against the Nazis of WWII, then in the next breath stand with today's Nazis.  The underlying ideology is the same.  The degradation and dehumanizing of fellow citizens as inferior.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

No records are being destroyed or falsified.  No books are being rewritten.  What is happening, people are beginning to see our history for what it truly is.  Unlike you, I do not need some fucking monument to remember.  I remember Viet Nam, I remember Watergate, I remember some of the race riots (I have been to Watts (LA), I have been to 12th St in Detroit, and I have walked through the East Side neighborhoods in Buffalo that still to this day bare the scars of 1967). While I was only 3 when RFK and MLK were assassinated, I remember the tension even in my own home.  I even remember the outcry and angst that ensued, in the late 70s, when a black family moved into our neighborhood.  A very educated and successful family.

If you want to talk about rewriting history, let's talk about the history of the Confederate States of America and the seven decades of Jim Crow segregation and oppression that followed the Reconstruction era.  Let's talk about how the Confederacy was established upon the premise of white supremacy and that the South fought the Civil War to preserve its slave labor. Let's talk about how the Confederate flag was used extensively by the Ku Klux Klan as it waged a campaign of terror against African Americans during the civil rights movement and that segregationists raised it in defense of Jim Crow.  As the SPLC notes, "This deeply rooted but false narrative is the result of many decades of revisionism in the lore and even textbooks of the South that sought to create a more acceptable version of the region’s past. The Confederate monuments and other symbols that dot the South are very much a part of that effort."[1]

To the question of "why now" and the concern of Orwellian, revisionist history posed by a fellow podcaster, he received this reply, "Honestly - it was always a problem. We are noticing it now because the people hurt by the statues are finally being heard, and because divisive rhetoric is helpful to the right, so it's getting media attention in a very provocative way."

Second, While my heart applauds the vigilante vandalism and citizen removal of confederate statues and other symbols. I can not condone it.  That is not how this country is supposed to work and it makes us no better than the Nazi swine we oppose. 

Yes our system is a bit dinged up right now, and we have an prepubescent dicktator in charge.  Acting in any manner that resembles the current regime only feeds into their narrative. And by their, I mean Bannon (who has since resigned), Miller, Sessions and Gorka. Pense has his own agenda we also need to be leery of, but that is another story.

With those two points made, I will add this, whether you're a neo-confederate flag waving pussy that has to walk through the streets of America displaying your limp dick or you are part of the white supremacy movement or whatever you want to call it.  You are now all Nazis; you believe in the inherent inferiority of minorities. The day you decided to walk side by side, you did not Unite the Right, you united the Reich.  You can not disown that association not matter how hard you whine and cry.  I had family who fought asshole like you, and guess what you lost then, you will lose now.

Edmund Burke once said,

Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. *No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.[2]

Summarized, "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing."[3] 

And just to be clear, the US as a whole is not blameless for what has transpired throughout the course of history.

Third, I have lost count of how many articles/op ed pieces I have read.  I know it's well over 500 and may be closing in on 1000.  I have tried but have failed miserably to read from both sides, but the drek that is attempting to justify last weekends actions is just terrible. Sorry to say there is NO justification for racism or the subjugation of another human because of their religion or skin color.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country — not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America. [4]

I'm pretty sure y'all know who those words can be attributed to.

So riddle me this,,,

How can it be that in 2017, POTUS could not or would not bring himself to condemn Americans who
marched under the flag of the Third Reich?  While President Trump has since revised his statement, his first still
remains.  Sadly it is now part of our history.

The world is a complicated place. There are rarely simple, black and white answers to the problems that confront us. But sometimes, every once in a while, there are. And this is one such moment. If the President of the United States cannot condemn individuals who march under the flag of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, how can he possibly claim to represent America, its values, and all of its citizens? In perhaps the easiest test of his young presidency, Donald Trump has failed, and failed miserably.[5]

Fourth, Make no mistake, Charlottesville had nothing to do with preserving heritage but everything to do with hate. The rally was not about statues, and it wasn't really about free speech; it was about white supremacy.

This is about hate. It is about those who promote and venerate and exonerate hate, and those who fight against it.

And lest ye think I am against free speech, I am all for dumb asses spouting their shit.  But don't think for a minute that I and many others will not push back against such speech.  Just like you, I can say what is on my mind. I will say what is on my mind.

What we call "hate speech" is protected under the First Amendment.  What is not, murder.  Nor is "punching a Nazi".  My tolerance though ends when under the guise of "free speech" or "preserving our heritage" armed NAZIS march the streets of America.  I will say again, there is no justification for dehumanizing or subjugating another human being.

The Nazis, whether armed with rifles or clownishly clad in khakis, stand against our values —they stand for the proposition that some of us are less American than others by birth, and that America must be "preserved" to the tastes of a particular narrow ethnic prejudice. Nazis attacking and threatening our fellow Americans threaten not just their immediate targets but the foundations of everything we've built.

One final point,,,

Although this is a no brainer, it needs to be said: Maria Chappelle-Nadal, you area disgrace.  While I vehemently disagree with our current administration and think those aligned with the Nazis should be removed from office in the proper manner.  Calling for the assassination of our President is beyond despicable. I really don't know what to say!

And quit calling them alt right, call them for what they are NAZIS.
_____
As a we bit of an addendum, one point I was going to "stress" was that Nazi ideology was not socialism.  While that is my stance, I have discovered it's not so clear cut as I once thought.

One comment that has me pondering my position, ",,,slavery is the best and most common form of socialism." A statement attributed to George Fitzhugh.  While much more reading needs to be undertaken by self, it got me thinking when said comment included the following,

Socialism and fascism aren't "total opposites" any more than Crips and Bloods or Republicans and Democrats. They are fraternal twins, two ideologies with differences at the margins, but both with a core belief in the ascendancy of the collective over the individual.[7]

To add to the mix, we then have this statement, ",,,just because a government intervenes in a market, doesn't automatically make it "socialist". If that's the case, you may as well argue that every freaken monarchy and empire in the history of mankind were "socialist". Were the Pharoahs socialist? Was Genghis Khan socialist? Was Alexander the Great socialist? Were the Tudors socialist?"[8]

1] https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy
2] Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works
of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).
3] It is important to note that the summarized version often attributed to Burke may not be
accurate.  While not germain to this dicussion, just something to keep in mind. QI explains
more fully. quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/
4] POTUS statement
5] http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/a-professor-of-german-history-explains-the-true-horror-of-
trumps-response-to-charlottesville/
6] https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/18/dallas-overcome-confederate-battle-
symbols-removing-quietly
7] https://www.facebook.com/SkepticalLibertarian/posts/1820422724642195?comment_id=1820437584640709&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D
8] https://www.facebook.com/SkepticalLibertarian/posts/1820422724642195?comment_id=1820442867973514&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D