IS IT TRUE AUGUST 17, 2017

1. You kinda failed to explain the twisted (and incorrect) logic that an act of vandalism to a Virgin Mary statue (a religious monument) to be similar or equal to the majority public desire to remove Confederate statues built in the 1920’s as a support mechanism for Jim Crow laws and the decline in Southern power and the erosion of support by Americans to Civil War traitors.

   We are also moving into the fifth day (and multiple Trump Twitter rants) where you have not called out Trump for not only utterly and completely failing to properly condemn the racism and Nazi worship over the weekend that caused the death of a woman and the injury of 19 more, and you have not mentioned (or condemned) the disgusting support Trump has extended to the alt-right and white power groups?

   (And before anyone goes there, there is a HUGE and VAST difference between protesters yelling support for white supremacy and chanting anti-Jewish epithets and the protestor against the Nazi’s and alt-right who were preaching hatred and using their private “militia” to intimidate)

   The current fight over Civil War statues is only partly about the true meaning of the Civil War and those statues. Those Confederate statues went up for other reasons, and the argument today is why (as a the reunited United States of America after the Civil War) anyone put those monuments up in our public spaces in the first place.

   The statues in Charlottesville were installed in the midst of a Confederate monument-building campaign that lasted for decades and took place long after the war it commemorated when the primary building of Civil War “memorials” started in the 1920’s. What Confederate statues offered, by framing their purpose as a “memorial” of war heroes, was a kind of white supremacism that everyone could rally around.

   The statues were a feeble to reframe the building of a triumphant American future on the ideas that had been defeated in the Civil War. At the Charlottesville statue’s dedication in 1924, one of the keynote speakers extolled Robert E. Lee as the “idol of every Southern heart, of every human heart” as the speaker looked up at a Confederate flag and hailed the treasonous rag as “that starry flag of the world’s heart and hope, that shall yet float in universal triumph over land and sea” while calling Lee an “ideal of a whole land who symbolized the future”

   Monuments mark public spaces like dogs mark trees by saying “this place is ours.” It is no accident that the Charlottesville statue (like so many others in county seats across the South) was installed in front of a courthouse, a place where sentences were decreed because that was the power structure the monument builders expected to endure. When one of the 1920’s Charlottesville speakers closed his address with an image of the statue’s enduring place among future generations by saying “here it shall stand during the ages at the center of our lives” he wasn’t talking about the 1860s. He was talking about us in the modern times of 2017.

   It is historical fact that towns and cities installed their Civil War monuments not during or directly after the Civil War, they did it when blacks were still barred from major league baseball, when new Jim Crow laws and voting disenfranchisement across the South was spreading like cancer, when white mobs in St. Louis lynched 40 African-Americans in one night (launching a six-year nationwide spree of race riots), and when Strom Thurmond’s “Dixiecrats” left the Democratic Party to form the “Grand Old Party” and nominated him for president.

   So nobody is surprised when Trump reflexively defends Confederate statues and suggests that Lee and Jackson are no different from Washington and Jefferson (mainly because he has no clue about American history) and when he does this he is ignoring the fact that two of those (Washington and Jefferson) built the nation, and the other two fought to rip it apart.

   The statues to the Confederate traitors have stayed up for so long because like so many other features of our everyday landscape, they became so familiar that we hardly even noticed they are there. Some might say the same thing happened with white supremacy: pervasive, familiar, and (at least to many whites) invisible.

   The current white supremacist defense of Confederate statues (and Trump’s support) will likely and hopefully hasten their demise. When neo-Nazis with torches rally around old statues, they highlight precisely the thing the statue builders in the 1920s were trying to veil with history. Suddenly those statues are no longer invisible features of the American landscape. Literally or figuratively, they suddenly become clearly seen against a backdrop of flames.

   Admit it, do anyone with any self-respect and decency for humanity want to take selfies alongside guys who led a massive pro-slavery insurrection against the United States, killing three-quarters of a million American citizens in the process?

   If toppling Confederate statues is indeed part of a long, super-slow-motion change and speeded-up racial awareness, that’s reason for optimism, no matter what Trump (or Bannon) mumbles.

   (Editor: I’ve copied and submitted this to see if you have the courage to post and/or respond)

2. Several years ago, when Little Russ Lloyd was our wanta’ be Mayor, Russ, Jr. decided to kick the Friends of Mesker Park Zoo out of the Zoo. The FOMPZ just hapoened to have a sizable endowment fund. Russ suggested that fund should be turned over to the City and placed into the City’s General Fund. “Oh, in will be in the General Fund but in a seperate dedicated account for only use at the Zoo.” Yeah, un-huh! Nope. Nada. City didn’t get the money transferred to them. Endowment fund still exists and once a year funds are dispersed from it directly to the zoo.

3. Truthshallsetyoufree – Wow you do a darn good job of cutting and pasting someones else’s schlock. Which anti-fa/black lives matter/ socialist site did you copy your wildly unproven diatribe from? It’s amazing how someone in this day and age knows exactly what persons who lived over 100 years ago were thinking and feeling.

   You sir/madam, are part of the problem that is brewing in this country. You have no gray matter with which to make your own decisions. You were programmed to accept everything you see the so called news channels and believe it no matter how off the wall or outrageous it may be.

   If you look into the FACTS of the situation over the past weekend you will notice one group had a permit to be at said rally (despite their desire to promote constitutionally protected hate speech). The second group did not have a permit. The second group showed up disguised, carrying weapons to protest the rally. Said second group has posted on their social sites that they are going to start violence whenever and where ever they can to promote their beliefs.

   Confrontations occurred and a person from said from group one got scared or pissed (maybe he got hit with a balloon of urine one too many times) and decided to take the instigators of the violence out. A last from the second group was killed (unfortunate).

   Now which group is being blamed by the opinion broadcast that used to be news shows? The ones that were there legally. Not the ones that came looking for a fight, with weapons and statements that they were going to incite violence.

   • Brandumb

     You lack the intelligence to understand what was posted, you are parroting the vile and disgusting comments from the Nazi’s and white power sites. I bet you have all sorts of white power bookmarks to look at thru the eyeholes of your white hood. Be brave, post a picture. Yeah, right.

     America is waking to refute the ignorant lies you whine, like about who came with “weapons” to “incite violence” Virtually all reputable and independent news reports from the scene had video as well as photos of the Nazi militias marching down the street with semi-automatic rifles, sidearms, body armor, and dressed in military style camo fatigues. They are the repugnant and vile cowards who incited the protest against their vile, racist, and bigoted hatred and speech/

     You lack the intelligence or compassion that humanity and America needs, and I and others will not play your word games. You do not have the requirements for a war of wits. You stutter and stammer about “FACTS” while giving NOTHING!

     FACT: Hate speech of the type that incites violence against ethnic groups is NOT and has NEVER been a First Amendment activity. A freaking “permit” does NOT grant you utter dispensation to do and say as you want.

     FACT: You tried, but utterly failed in the attempt to gloss over the premeditated murder of a woman and 18 others when a Nazi sympathizer rocketed down a street for over a block with NOBODY near the car as he aimed a 3,000 pound lethal weapon to take out as many as he could. He and YOU are cowards.

     FACT: I spend hours carefully researching all I write and decide about a topic, and part of my decision making is based on being educated (which you sure as heck lack) and well-read on history, philosophy, and many other educated disciplines to arrive and logical conclusions based on evidence and facts, not the BS you copy and spew because folks like me are sick (and tired) of watching the hatred and racism from you and your ilk destroy America. You’ve been working on this with your right-wing haters, and guess what? Yes, the gentle folks you have attempted to stormtrooper over have decided we all be passive no more

     FACT: You are digusting with your reprobate views and your excuses for the actions of the Nazi’s and alt-right who got a precious “permit” to assemble for the sole purpose of spreading racism, bigotry, hatred, and scream about “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil” while marching at a local college, yet their precious “permit” was NOT for a nightime march at UVA, and screaming the above comments had ZERO in terms of the “permit” you think allowed this hatred and abuse. Their “permit” was for “saving” a statue because it was “history” and that claim alone proves your ignorance. “Saving history” does not need semi (or automatic) rifles, handguns, shields, and body armor, and claims by you otherwise put your IQ in double or single digits.

     FACTS: My ancestors fought in the World Wars AGAINST the Nazi hatred and bigotry and ignorance, and little racists and bigots like you are really just cowards in trying to justify the actions that these cretins did in Charlottesville. But guess what? The alt-right and right-wing, all the way to the WHite House and Trump, are being exposed with each and every disgusting thing they say and do. True Americans no longer are willing to stand silent and allow this hatred to slink and slide under the radar. The very technology your racists buddies have used (the Internet) has come full circle to bite you. We see you for the cowards you are, so run and hide, Uncle Sam will take care of you.

     So you better put your big boy diaper on, little boy, because a storm is coming, and the winds of change will gleefully sweep you into the trash dumpster of the failures of history, and true Americans will shed not a single tear for the failures of you and those like you

4. Part II – You claim that removing statues will help set up racial awareness in the country. That these historical artifacts are racist and promote an anti-black view. That they cause American-Africans to feel hurt and disrespected.
   First thing, there rate no living persons that were ever in slavery. So these objects do not affect them the way the left and its fascist groups claim. It does not bring up memories of the past, because they have no memories, they were not there. They did not experience any of the tragic situations of the past. All they have done is be told by someone else, (who wasn’t there either) how bad it was and how they should react.

   Second, if the mere presence of a statue or memorial cause american africans such pain, why do they continue to follow the lead of the political party that endorsed slavery? The party that introduced Jim Crow laws, the party that pushed for segregation, the party that voted against desegregation multiple times. The party that keeps feeding american-africans the lies about how they will help them succeed, while continuing to enslve them with welfare and food stamps (talk about taking ones self dignity). These same people who are protesting and rioting should also remove all vestiges of the Democrat party, as it is the source of their pain since its inception. A statue isn’t hurting them or controlling their life, but the Democrats have been doing so for decades upon decades.

   Try having a little initiative and researching what you want to spout off on, you may find that you aren’t as smart as you think you are.

   Good day.

   (awaiting all the liberals to start with the name calling and rascist chants now)

   • Brandon, well said. Very interesting article below:
     …………………

     “The tragedy in Charlottesville could have been an occasion to stop and consider how the tolerance for politically correct violence and politically correct hatred is leading the nation towards civil war. Instead, the media and the political left have turned this incident into the biggest fake news story of the summer, transforming its real lessons into a morality play that justifies war against the political right, and against white people generally.

     The organizers of the “Unite the Right” demonstration in Charlottesville were repellent racists. But they came to defend a historic monument honoring a complex man and cause, and not to attack it or presumably anyone else. They applied for a permit and were denied. They re-applied successfully in a petition supported by the local ACLU. If they had come to precipitate violence, why would they have gone to the tedious trouble of applying for a permit? Who knows what – if anything – would have happened if that had been the end of the story and no one had shown up to oppose them.

     What “Unite the Right” actually demonstrated was that the assortment of neo-Nazis, pro-Confederates, and assorted yahoos gathered under the banner of the “Alt-Right” is actually a negligible group. This was a national show of strength that actually attracted a couple hundred people. Compare that to the tens of the thousands who can readily be marshaled by two violent groups of the left – Black Lives Matter and Antifa – and you get an idea of how marginal “white supremacists” are to America’s political and cultural life. ”

     http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/16/horowitz-the-real-race-war/

     • Brandon M’s points today? The neo-nazis make the same arguments. They claim that Jews need to get over the holocaust, no differently than you saying black Americans need to get over slavery because they weren’t slaves. You are making their arguments Brandon.
       The nazis, who US Veterans Americans died and gave their lives to finally defeat their ideology, those nazis who write stupid crap like that Brandon M. And like some kind of subcreature, you seem to be saying if Americans don’t like this nazi talk, they must be liberals? You have a problem Brandon.

       • Bettis

         I like your style, wit, and reasoning more and more with each post you make

         Please keep writing!

     • JoeBidumb

       As usual, wrong, and anything from Breitbart, the cornerstone and birthplace under Steve Bannon and the alt-right who are domestic terrorists (per the Attorney General about the alt-right this weekend), a large number were ordinary residents of Charlottesville who wanted to show their disdain for white supremacist groups descended on this small college town, particularly after the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in the city in July . Ahead of the rally, an array of faith-based groups, civil rights organizations, local businesses, and faculty and students at the University of Virginia planned the counterprotests.

       There are dozens of videos and photos of ordained ministers in their clerical robes AT THE FRONT of the counterprotestors. The ecumenical and interfaith clergy group Congregate Charlottesville called for members of the clergy to counterprotest at the rally, which brought those groups that included representatives from the National Council of Churches. Counterprotests in opposition to the ralliers began with an interfaith, interracial group of clergy who linked arms, prayed, and sang songs of peace. If you want to assert that those men and women of God were leading violence, you really are as dumb as a bag of hammmers.

       The Virginia State Police told the Associated Press that the counterprotestors to the Nazi alt-right idiots were “approximately 1,000 protestors” in Charlotessville, numbers validated by the aerial survellience. Your assertion of “tens of the thousands” is laughable and not supported by facts (not that you ever deal with facts)

       You and Brandumb really have some mental issues. That explains a lot and why the alt-right allow you in.

5. I wouldn’t worry about the State Board. Look who their local auditors are; a conga line of freaks. One of them has written up the County for several things without any substance. There is another one that looks like Sheldon Cooper, and one that looks like George Costanza, and one who sleeps all of the time at USI. None of them are CPA’s and they’re going to tell Russ a CPA and a MBA that they are right and he is not? It’s time we tell the legislatures to defund the State Board and let the CPA firms audit the City and County. It’s the only way that there will be quality audits in the future. These buffoons now don’t know what GAAP is, yet alone how to audit it.

6. All I know is my dad told me about how his ship had to zigzag constantly to keep from getting torpedoed by a U-Boat on his way to fight Nazis. My uncle the Nazis killed. My better half’s father was highly decorated fighting Nazis but never would say what he was highly decorated for.

   The unimaginable horror the Nazis inflicted on millions and millions of people boggles the mind.

   Maybe if Hitler would have gotten a permit it would have made it better.

   F__K Trump….

7. Since Brandon wanted “FACTS” there was a thought that maybe folks local to Charlottesville that were interviewed of how that dreaded alt-left were so dangerous and causing so many problems, and that the “tens of thousands” that Joe thought were there, it appears both of them are so sure those darn anarchists were the real cause of the trouble.

   Yeah…..NOT!!!!!!!

   After a weekend that included a white supremacist mowing down and killing a peaceful counter-protester in Charlottesville and Nazis marching on the University of Virginia with torches, the president of the United States stood in front of the American people and said, “What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, the alt-right? Let me ask you this: What about the fact they came charging, that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.”

   There were, as it turns out, a great number of Charlottesville locals present to witness the violence and lawlessness on display in Charlottesville during the Nazi incitement and riot. LOCAL witnesses, many in the faith community, every one of whom was on the streets of Charlottesville on Saturday, whether there was a violent, club-wielding mob threatening the “good people” on Team Nazi.

   We should see what the actual residents (not the Nazi imports) of Charlottesville have to say:

   ————————————————————————————————–
   Brandy Daniels, Postdoctoral at the Luce Project on Religion at UVA

   It was basically impossible to miss the antifa for the group of us who were on the steps of Emancipation Park in an effort to block the Nazis and alt-righters from entering. Soon after we got to the steps and linked arms, a group of white supremacists. I’m guessing somewhere between 20 to 45 of them, came up with their shields and batons and bats and shoved through us. We tried not to break the line, but they got through some of us. It was terrifying, to say the least, shoving forcefully with their shields and knocking a few of us over. We strengthened our resolve and committed to not break the line again. Some of the anarchists and anti-fascist folks came up to us and asked why we let them through and asked what they could do to help. Reverand Osagyefo Sekou talked with them for a bit, explaining what we were doing and our stance and asking them to not provoke the Nazis. They agreed quickly and stood right in front of us, offering their help and protection

   Less than 10 minutes later, a much larger group of the Nazi alt-righters come barreling up. My memory is again murky on the details. I was frankly focused on not bolting from the scene. I know hyperbole is common in recounting stories like these, but I was legitimately very worried for my well-being and safety, so I was trying to remember the training I had acquired as well as, for resolve, to remember why I was standing there. But it had to have been at least 100 of them this go around. I recall feeling like I was going to pass out and was thankful that I was locked arms with folks so that I wouldn’t fall to the ground before getting beaten. I knew that the five anarchists and antifa in front of us and the 20 or so of us were no match for the 100-plus of them, but at this point I wasn’t letting go

   At that point, more of the anarchists and antifa milling nearby saw the huge mob of the Nazis approach and stepped in. They were about 200-300 feet away from us and stepped between us (the clergy and faith leaders) and the Nazis. This enraged the Nazis, who indeed quickly responded violently. At this point, Reverand Sekou made a call that it was unsafe, it had gotten very violent very fast, and told us to disperse quickly

   While one obviously can’t objectively say what a kind of alternate reality or “sliding doors” type situation would have been, one can hypothesize or theorize. Based on what was happening all around, the looks on their faces, the sheer number of them, and the weapons they were wielding, my hypothesis or theory is that had the antifa not stepped in, those of us standing on the steps would definitely have been injured, very likely gravely so. Reverand Sekou said that he felt that the antifa saved his life. I didn’t roll my eyes at that statement or see it as an exaggeration, I saw it as a very reasonable hypothesis based on the facts we had.

   ————————————————————————————————–
   Rebekah Menning, Charlottesville resident

   I stood with a group of interfaith clergy and other people of faith in a nonviolent direct action meant to keep the white nationalists from entering the park to their hate rally. We had far fewer people holding the line than we had hoped for, and frankly, it wasn’t enough. No police officers in sight that I could see from where I stood, and we were prepared to be beaten to show that while the state permitted white nationalists to rally in hate, in the many names of God, we did not. But we didn’t have to because the anarchists and anti-fascists got to them before they could get to us. I’ve never felt more grateful and more ashamed at the same time. The antifa were like angels to me in that moment.

   ————————————————————————————————–
   Mary Esselman, Charlottesville resident/Writer

   My 13-year-old son and I stood by ourselves on the corner down the street from the synagogue, in front of the Catholic Church, trying to walk back home but interrupted by a stream of white extremist marchers, with their signs and firearms and crazy regalia. I felt like an idiot but tried to look each in the eye and said “Peace” and “Peace be with you” with as much sincerity as I had in me, trying to reach some humanity in them, and they jeered and mocked me, called me what you might imagine, told my son, that his mom was a this and a that. And now I learn that my son and labradoodle and I, and our little “peace be with you” comments are apparently the “alt-left” by Trump

   Our path home was blocked by the white extremist marchers, and we had no choice but to face them. Just us alone on that street corner, and all of them menacing, streaming past us on their way to the rally. Later, when we were a block away from where everyone was clashing and considering going to the front steps of the public library, there was a big line of white supremacists, the leader wearing some kind of yellow spiked helmet, and as they tromped toward the rally, these lovely older women standing beside us wearing sky blue T-shirts that said “Quaker” kind of trotted alongside them gently, holding signs that said “Love” Alt-left for sure. I was armed with my iPhone and my dog’s leash. My son was armed with his acne and hormones.

   ————————————————————————————————–
   Rev. Seth Wispelwey, Directing minister of Restoration Village Arts

   I am a pastor in Charlottesville, and antifa saved my life twice on Saturday. Indeed, they saved many lives from psychological and physical violence. I believe the body count could have been much worse, as hard as that is to believe. Thankfully, we had a robust community standing up to white supremacist violence this past weekend. Incredibly brave students held space at the University of Virginia and stared down a torch-lit mob that vastly outnumbered them on Friday night. On Saturday, battalions of anti-fascist protesters came together on my city’s streets to thwart the tide of men carrying weapons, shields, and Trump flags and sporting MAGA hats and Hitler salutes and waving Nazi flags and the pro-slavery “stars and bars”

   Out of my faith calling, I feel led to pursue disciplined, nonviolent direct action and witness. I helped lead a group of clergy who were trained and committed to the same work: to hold space on the frontline of the park where the rally was to be held. And then some of us tried to take the steps to one of the entrances. God is not OK with white supremacy, and God is on the side of all those it tries to dehumanize. We feel a responsibility to visibly, bodily show our solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized.

   A phalanx of neo-Nazis shoved right through our human wall with 3-foot-wide wooden shields, screaming and spitting homophobic slurs and obscenities at us. It was then that antifa stepped in to thwart them. They have their tools to achieve their purposes, and they are not ones I will personally use, but let me stress that our purposes were the same: block this violent tide and do not let it take the pedestal.

   The white supremacists did not blink at violently plowing right through clergy, all of us dressed in full clerical garb, God’s representatives. White supremacy is violence. I didn’t see any racial justice protesters with weapons. As for antifa, anything they brought I would only categorize as community defense tools and nothing more. Pretty much everyone I talk to agrees, including the clergy that were there. My strong stance is that the weapon is and was white supremacy, and the white supremacists intentionally brought weapons to instigate violence.

   ————————————————————————————————–
   So there we have it. The personal testimony of the people IN Charlottesville, and many of them members of the clergy.

   So will Brandon and Joe still try and tell everyone that the anarchists and antifa were the violent ones?

   These stories, along with the countless videos and photos by bystanders not even involved, prove they are craven Trumpers, doing their masters bidding.

   Sad

8. TheTruthShallSetYouFree,
   Nice work.

9. the msm lies will keep you without a doubt as a ignorant liberal plantation slave………………………..President Trump MAGA 2017 and beyond………………………………………………….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAPuF9F3dXs

   • Your MAGA’s seem to be getting shorter bro.

     Believe me….

     • Debbie any more of your phony sons dads uncles that was mistreated by a GOP President……MAGA TRUMP more BIGGLY THAN EVER……….

       • Big mistake Ryan.

         Great big.

         Believe me….

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