POTUS Donald Trump

[jimmer]

Yes - look at the video ChiTown posted on the previous page - it is chilling. These were not "fine people".

 

The horror of his appeasing the white supremacists and Nazis aside, he is narcissist he still had to praise himself even while discussing this by bragging how Heather Heyer's Mother thanked him for his statement. He actually made the death of her daughter about him.

 

Throughout this whole domestic crisis he has be tweeting or retweeting tweets that praise him - usually by Fox New or by someone who is a known extreme right-winger.

 

He has no empathy, he has no shame, and he has no soul.

he also made sure to tell people he owns one of the largest wineries in that town.

 

so of course he knows the place and will visit.

 

And he probably never got that call from the ladies mom, like he never got the call from the boy scouts leader praising his speech.

 

He cant ever tell the truth.

[D. Hocking]

 

he also made sure to tell people he owns one of the largest wineries in that town.

so of course he knows the place and will visit.

And he probably never got that call from the ladies mom, like he never got the call from the boy scouts leader praising his speech.

He cant ever tell the truth.

 

He actually did lie about the winery -- they quickly disavowed any connection with him.  He lies about things great and small.  He is the text book of so many mental disorders.  If you did not know he was real, you think he would be some hypothetical in some psychology exam.

 

The mother did issue a tweet thanking Trump, but he most likely misrepresented as communication between the two of them.  I guess she gave a beautiful eulogy today.  Trump has probably already forgotten her name.  

 

[USAFChief]

 

I can get to Winnepeg non-stop in about 7 hours.

 

 

7:15 with beer pickup.

I figure that's 3 five-minute stops.  A twelve pack at each.  24 beers in 7 hrs of driving, roughly 3.5 per hour, with a 12 pack left over to present to 'north.

 

about right?

 

edit:  you might want to figure in relief stops.

[Willihammer]

The man is pure evil. Hitler reborn. It is rooted in him, thrives in him. He is evil. That is the only word to completely describe him. Evil.

Godwin's law in full effect I see. I appreciate that Trump could do some lasting damage to this country but its impossible for him to be a Hitler type dictator even if he wanted to be. The best comp I've heard for him so far is former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/if-berlusconi-is-like-trump-what-can-italy-teach-america

 

Here, then, are some warnings – and a few words of advice.

Political opposition: ‘Stop crying and try to understand his voters’

For years, Berlusconi’s boorish behaviour was a gift to political opponents and journalists who were free to ridicule him. But ultimately they did not prove an effective opposition.

“Berlusconi’s opponents had a very wide and open avenue and they couldn’t resist walking down that avenue. This brought them to a number of defeats. Because when he said: ‘The west is [superior]’, and opponents said: ‘How politically incorrect, white imperialist’, the reality is that a huge part of the Italian voters said in private: ‘He is right,” said Giovanni Orsina, author of Berlusconism and Italy, an exploration of how Berlusconi held on to power.

Opposing Berlusconi by ridiculing him, Orsina said, was a way to preach to the converted, as were attempts to warn that Berlusconi’s rule represented the end of Italian democracy.

“The most powerful way to oppose him, but it was never really done seriously, was to try and understand what his voters want and try to address the need of his voters. No jokes, stop shouting, stop crying, stop saying: ‘It is a horror and disaster’; try and seriously understand what his voters want, and the left was never really successful in doing that,” Orsina said.

[Willihammer]

Maybe everyone knows already that the Charlottesville protests were initially spurred by a free speech question regarding the taking down of the statue. Is anyone even a little bit conflicted about that?

[drjim]

 

Maybe everyone knows already that the Charlottesville protests were initially spurred by a free speech question regarding the taking down of the statue. Is anyone even a little bit conflicted about that?

 

I would add something to your previous point too. Probably the biggest reasons for his popularity is his position on immigration. Wanting rigorously enforced borders and immigration laws is a logical position to have and held by many, many, many people in this country. The current parties have not provided a great position on that issue. Combine that with some other factors such as a desire for cultural conservatism, a rural economy that is fading, and a vacuum caused by crumbling institutions, none of which are addressed by either party (the swamp), and here you go. 

[Vanimal46]

 

Maybe everyone knows already that the Charlottesville protests were initially spurred by a free speech question regarding the taking down of the statue. Is anyone even a little bit conflicted about that?

 

Conflicted about what? Removing the statue of a man who resigned from the Army and chose to fight for the Confederates/the rights for slavery? 

[Willihammer]

Conflicted about what? Removing the statue of a man who resigned from the Army and chose to fight for the Confederates/the rights for slavery?

From the article you posted above

 

 

The original purpose of the “Unite the Right” rally has been lost in the news cycle: It was organized as a response to the City of Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, and marketed by its promoters like Jason Kessler, a local white nationalist, as being about free speech, specifically the freedom to honor and support the history of the Confederacy.

I admit I'm not sure how the first amendment applies, but they seem to feel it does. Like most folks I think free speech is worth protecting, even if I don't like the message being protected.

[Squirrel]

 

From the article you posted above
 

I admit I'm not sure how the first amendment applies, but they seem to feel it does. Like most folks I think free speech is worth protecting, even if I don't like the message being protected.

There's a difference between disagreeing with and disliking the message and one that incites hate and violence and that is just wrong, and incites an ideology that seeks to not only discriminate but to remove sectors of the population by any means for not being white. I'm not sure how far, exactly, free speech protects their message. And, it doesn't mean that they are free from consequence. And I find this issue very different from the issues of genuine human struggle, white or black.

 

And these statues don't 'honor' the confederacy, if you understand their history ... and I'm not sure why we need to 'honor' the confederacy in the first place. We are still fighting that war ... the confederacy is DEAD and needs to remain so. People who want to 'honor' the confederacy do so because they want a tiered system that is not of equality. If you want these statues to exist, then put them in a properly contextualized surrounding with historical accuracy of how these statues represent the height of Jim Crow, of why the war was fought and what it represented, and not on pedestals surrounded by pretty parks and flowers. These are not some 'glory days' here that should be or need to be honored. I'm not suggesting removing them from our history, because they are part of the ugly side of it, but historical accuracy as to what they represent should be the story.

 

 

[Squirrel]

Here's something to consider about remembering/preserving an ugly history:

 

"Often the argument for preserving Confederate statues and allowing Confederate flags is that we should not forget our history. In Germany, Nazi buildings are extremely hard to come by — nearly all have been destroyed. Yet Germany certainly has not forgotten anything: There's just a recognition that remembering and memorializing are two different things."

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/08/16/543808019/the-view-of-charlottesville-from-berlin?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170816

 

And I don't think it's up to white supremacists from all over the country to descend on a community that they don't even live in and insist the statue stay ... that isn't free speech, imo, and I don't think these people should be allowed to hide behind it anymore when what they espouse is absolutely contradictory to what America stands for.

[stringer bell]

IMHO, the question is whether it is free speech or hate speech. The KKK, neo-Nazis and the rest spout hate speech freely and often. Maybe they could march and protest without calling for ethnic cleansing and calling non-whites anything from trash to animals, but I sincerely doubt it.

 

[jimmer]

I was wondering if/when some defending of alt-right (and Trump, though I'm pretty sure actually naming him is redundant) was going to happen.

[jimmer]

 

IMHO, the question is whether it is free speech or hate speech. The KKK, neo-Nazis and the rest spout hate speech freely and often. Maybe they could march and protest without calling for ethnic cleansing and calling non-whites anything from trash to animals, but I sincerely doubt it.

Exactly. That group going around yelling anti-semitism comments near the synagogue (which the police refused to defend against the armed neo-nazis) and then say, well, they had a right to be there doing it. That's HATE speech.  That's threatening speech.  That's INCITING violence.

[Willihammer]

 

Here's something to consider about remembering/preserving an ugly history:

 

"Often the argument for preserving Confederate statues and allowing Confederate flags is that we should not forget our history. In Germany, Nazi buildings are extremely hard to come by — nearly all have been destroyed. Yet Germany certainly has not forgotten anything: There's just a recognition that remembering and memorializing are two different things."

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/08/16/543808019/the-view-of-charlottesville-from-berlin?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170816

 

And I don't think it's up to white supremacists from all over the country to descend on a community that they don't even live in and insist the statue stay ... that isn't free speech, imo, and I don't think these people should be allowed to hide behind it anymore when what they espouse is absolutely contradictory to what America stands for.

I agree that the people coming from out of state to use the Gen. Lee statue as a platform for their own agendas are confusing things. They might still be protected by the first amendment, I don't know. The violence doesn't help. The irony is, the Charlottesville city council voted to remove the thing. Self determination and local government were pillars of the Confederacy, as I understand it. So by inflating it into a national thing, it seems they're undermining the wish of the locals.

 

As for confederate symbols in general, I learned a while ago that I'll probably never fully understand white southerners' attachments to them. I do know that there is more to these things than slavery and racism. For some people at least.

 

[snepp]

 

We'll be waiting, don't let the spelling throw you off  

 

I blame the browser's spell check.

 

 

*types Winnepeg*

 

 

*sees red squiggly*

 

 

@#$%

[snepp]

 

I figure that's 3 five-minute stops.  A twelve pack at each.  24 beers in 7 hrs of driving, roughly 3.5 per hour, with a 12 pack left over to present to 'north.

 

about right?

 

edit:  you might want to figure in relief stops.

 

Relief stops when you've got so many empty bottles?

[ashbury]

there is more to these things than slavery and racism.

Sorry, no. The Confederacy came into being in response to a perceived crisis in maintaining slavery. The southern antebellum before that, that people harken to as a genteel "way of life," was made possible on the backs of slaves. Looking to glorify either of these amounts to glorifying slavery. Period.

[Squirrel]

Sorry, no. The Confederacy came into being in response to a perceived crisis in maintaining slavery. The southern antebellum before that, that people harken to as a genteel "way of life," was made possible on the backs of slaves. Looking to glorify either of these amounts to glorifying slavery. Period.

Thank you.

[jimmer]

Sorry, no. The Confederacy came into being in response to a perceived crisis in maintaining slavery. The southern antebellum before that, that people harken to as a genteel "way of life," was made possible on the backs of slaves. Looking to glorify either of these amounts to glorifying slavery. Period.

this and thank you.

[drjim]

Of all the legacies that will flow from Trump's presidency, the hastening of tearing down Confederate statues strikes me as the most ironic.

[Willihammer]

 

Sorry, no. The Confederacy came into being in response to a perceived crisis in maintaining slavery. The southern antebellum before that, that people harken to as a genteel "way of life," was made possible on the backs of slaves. Looking to glorify either of these amounts to glorifying slavery. Period.

Don't you think your viewpoint could be colored growing up in the north? Its not a mistake to paint all southerners who embrace "southern pride" as glorifying slavery?

 

I can't do that.

[PseudoSABR]

It's not as if there isn't other ways to express 'southern pride' than celebrating that time the South succeeded and fought against the United States.  What is it about Confederate depictions that make them a better beacon of 'southern pride' than any other kind of depiction, if not it's relation to issues that were germane to civil war, namely slavery? 

 

If we need to remember that rebellion on a grand scale is awful part of our history, there's probably a better way than erecting statutes of generals that led that rebellion.   It's like erecting statutes of those who flew the planes to remember 9-11.  

 

The last thing we need is more normalization of these disaffected whites.  That their complaints of eroding privilege are somehow on par with real oppression felt by actual minorities.  Or that what's good for the poor working Blacks, and Latinos isn't also good for the poor working White.   Let's stop rationalizing this mob behavior and acknowledge it's a tribalism whose unifying feature is the (white male) race (which might be a legitimate definition of racism).  

[Bark's Lounge]

If the Hate Mongers come to my city. I will burn them down, along with everyone else who has there head screwed on straight. Absolute No Tolerance.

 

I have four nieces that are mixed race and I will not stand for these animals creating chaos and wreaking havoc on the lives of the innocent. They will not spread their disease of fear in my community.

 

They are weak and sick in the mind, they will decisively be destroyed. Case Closed.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

What about some southern white friends I have made. They of course appreciate and identify with the south in ways I cannot understand, and they probably like the statues, but they are not racists. Are they racists?

[PseudoSABR]

 

What about some southern white friends I have made. They of course appreciate and identify with the south in ways I cannot understand, and they probably like the statues, but they are not racists. Are they racists?

If they can't appreciate the reason behind tearing them down, and only like the statutes because of their own nostalgia (which is legitimate, but in no way overrides what these statutes communicate to nonwhites (and frankly a lot of whites)--yeah, they are abating racism (less morally culpable than actual racists?) Why hold onto, and fight for, statutes that celebrate the deadliest war in our history largely over individual state's abilities to keep slavery legal.  

 

What history these statutes often depict is one of them being erected during a time just preceding the civil rights movement--there perhaps was not to champion what was best about the South, but perhaps rather to continue to assert the white race's moral authority (if not superiority) in the face of expanded rights for non-whites. 

 

[Squirrel]

Don't you think your viewpoint could be colored growing up in the north? Its not a mistake to paint all southerners who embrace "southern pride" as glorifying slavery?

 

I can't do that.

Perhaps. And maybe what these statues once stood for has been forgotten as generations pass. It still doesn't change why they are there. They were erected by a past generation to remind whites and blacks of white supremacy. To me it doesn't matter how they are viewed today because why they are there in the first place is ugly. Again, the historical accuracy matters. They do not represent Southern pride even if some have adopted them to mean as much. But what we witnessed, it is clear that Southern pride is NOT what those statues mean to the groups of Nazis, white supremacists and white nationalists who descended on Charlottesville last weekend. And that level of vileness and hate should not be protected under any circumstances.

[twinsnorth49]

I'm sure lots of people in Germany were disappointed to see monuments to the Third Reich taken down, but they still had the sense to do it.

[gunnarthor]

A lot of people have romanticized this idea of the "Lost cause," a way to look at antebellum south as a good period that just happened to have had slavery.  That's the image that these monuments are trying to project and to protect. A view that, so happens, wasn't in line with the actually history.

[Mike Sixel]

There were no statues until the 1920s, when uppity women and blacks started demanding and getting more equal rights. They are not there to remember history, they are there out of fear of loss of white male power. There was no one that flew the confederate flag until the 1950s and 60s, and we all know why they reappeared during that time frame.

 

This isn't about history.

 

As for the ridiculous argument that you can't venerate Washington or Jefferson because they owned slaves......those men formed the Union, they didn't try to destroy it. One of the great changes of the last few decades  though, now, is that we actually do have conflicted feelings about them....and, IMO, it reminds us that no one is perfect, and no one should be idolized.

 

[Squirrel]

 

I'm sure lots of people in Germany were disappointed to see monuments to the Third Reich taken down, but they still had the sense to do it.

Yes ... you should read the article I posted about this a few posts ago.