free speech only exists if your message is leftwing

Man accused of ramming protesters pictured with racist group



By SARAH RANKIN
From Associated Press
August 13, 2017 4:26 PM EST

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The man accused of plowing a car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in Virginia had been photographed hours earlier carrying the emblem of one of the hate groups that participated in the event.

Vanguard America on Sunday denied any association with the suspect, even as a separate hate group involved in Saturday's rally pledged on social media to organize future events that would be "bigger than Charlottesville."

The mayor of Charlottesville and political leaders of all political stripes vowed to combat the hate groups and urged President Donald Trump to forcefully denounce the organizations that had promoted the protest against the removal of a Confederate statue. Some of those groups specifically cited Trump's election after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric as validation of their beliefs.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced late Saturday that federal authorities would pursue a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash. The violence and deaths in Charlottesville "strike at the heart of American law and justice," Sessions wrote. "When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated."

Police charged James Alex Fields Jr. with second-degree murder and other counts after the silver Dodge Challenger they say he was driving barreled through a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and wounding at least 19 others. Hours later, two state troopers were killed when the helicopter they were flying in as part of a large-scale police effort at the rally crashed into a wooded area outside the city.

In a photo taken by the New York Daily News, the 20-year-old Fields was shown standing with a half-dozen other men, all wearing the Vanguard America uniform of khakis and white polo shirts. The men held white shields with Vanguard America's black-and-white logo of two crossed axes. The Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee was in the background.

The Daily News said the photo was taken about 10:30 a.m. Saturday just hours before authorities say Fields crashed his car into the crowd at 1:42 p.m. The Anti-Defamation League says Vanguard America believes the U.S. is an exclusively white nation, and uses propaganda to recruit young white men online and on college campuses.

In a Twitter post, the group said it had handed out the shields "to anyone in attendance who wanted them," and denied Fields was a member. "All our members are safe an (sic) accounted for, with no arrests or charges."

In blog posts after the violence, the Daily Stormer, a leading white nationalist website that promoted the Charlottesville event, pledged to hold more events "soon."

"We are going to start doing this nonstop," the post said. "We are going to go bigger than Charlottesville. We are going to go huge."

Saturday's chaos erupted as neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white supremacist groups arrived for the rally. Counter-protesters were also on hand, and the two sides clashed, with people throwing punches, hurling water bottles and unleashing chemical sprays. Some came prepared for a fight, with body armor and helmets. Videos that ricocheted around the world on social media showed people beating each other with sticks and shields.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, police in riot gear ordered people out of the streets, and helicopters circled overhead, including the one that later crashed. Both troopers onboard, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Berke M.M. Bates, one day shy of his 41st birthday, were killed.

Officials have not provided a crowd estimate but it appeared to number well over 1,000.

Later, as counter-protesters were marching through a part of downtown a few blocks from the statue, the Dodge Challenger tore through the crowd.

The impact hurled people into the air and blew off their shoes. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed as she crossed the street.

"It was a wave of people flying at me," said Sam Becker, 24, speaking in the emergency room where he was being treated for leg and hand injuries.

Those left standing scattered, screaming and running for safety. Video caught the car reversing, hitting more people, its windshield splintered from the collision and its bumper dragging on the pavement. Medics carried the injured, bloodied and crying, away as a police tank rolled down the street.

McAuliffe and Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer, both Democrats, lumped the blame squarely on the rancor that has seeped into American politics and the white supremacists who came from out of town into the city, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and home to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation.

Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press late Saturday that she knew her son, who had recently moved to Ohio from his hometown in Kentucky, was attending a rally in Virginia but didn't know it was a white supremacist rally.

"I thought it had something to do with Trump. Trump's not a white supremacist," Bloom said.

Trump criticized the violence in a tweet Saturday, followed by a press conference and a call for "a swift restoration of law and order."

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides," he said.

The "on many sides" ending of his statement drew the ire of his critics, who said he failed to specifically denounce white supremacy and equated those who came to protest racism with the white supremacists. The Rev. Jesse Jackson noted that Trump for years questioned President Barack Obama's citizenship and his legitimacy as the first black president, and said he has fanned the flames of white resentment.

"We are in a very dangerous place right now," Jackson said.

Speaking at a news conference on Saturday, McAuliffe said he spoke to Trump on the phone, and insisted that the president must work to combat hate.

On Sunday, he reiterated that the angry political rhetoric needs to stop.

Trump "needs to come out stronger" against the actions of white supremacists," McAuliffe told reporters at the First Baptist Church in Charlottesville. "They are Nazis and they are here to hurt American citizens, and he needs to call them out for what they are, no question."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched an online petition Sunday calling on Trump to denounce Saturday's white supremacist rally.

The violence prompted responses from around the country, including in West Virginia and Florida, where activists and others pledged to work to remove Confederate statues in their cities, staged protests against white supremacy, and planned candlelight vigils in support of Charlottesville and in honor of the victims.

___

A photo of white males who do not look like the brightest stars in the sky and probably have been chit on their entire life. Bullied, losers, and seeking to find fellow travelers to find a scapegoat for their condition. The driver's father was killed by a drunk driver before he was born, and the mother is paralyzed. This guy has had an angry life. So a drunk killed his father, and he runs over people he hates.......pain comes full circle. These losers are exactly like the loser who marched on Skokie and the ACLU defended their right to their first amendment rights as they were led by this little whimp called collins......he ended up being convicted for molesting a child. These losers are the same losers who are attracted to President Trump's make America great again which is dog whistle for Jim Crow is ok.

Word salad from the Emeritus himself. His generation did more to attack minorities and led the Dixiecrats from the Dems to the GOP and now he wants us to believe he has a soft heart for folks whom he oppressed himself.

The media is all over President Trump for not condemning the Charlottesville attack as a white supremacist attack. Where was that same media when Obama said nothing about Democrat leaders and Liberal leaders when they openly called for the deaths of Police officers.

Word salad from the Emeritus himself. His generation did more to attack minorities and led the Dixiecrats from the Dems to the GOP and now he wants us to believe he has a soft heart for folks whom he oppressed himself.


Come on buddy....you can do much better. sandlot.

I have not defended the man accused of running over people with his car. Your liberal minions have taken liberty to try and make the issue of free speech about his individual actions. I hope he rots in jail. He deserves as much. You have no moral high ground seaoat. Your generation has treated minorities terribly and your father's generation was worse installing JimCrow as a societal norm. Now you want to ignore your past and lay the bLame elsewhere. Nobody is fooled.

RealLindaL wrote:Chump knows that perfectly well by now, FT, but you won't find him retracting his misguided comments from when he initiated this thread on an entirely mistaken premise.  Easy to throw barbs; not so easy to admit when one is wrong.

Even easier to hide behind phony identities and keep posting total crapola.

"In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a 'state-sponsored system of segregation.'

"The government's efforts were 'primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families,' he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects."

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

Pretty much says it all.

And you're now taking up for Nazis, name-change-boy? You're a piece of shit.

It's going to be cool if you're attacked with the same vitriol... right?

Guest wrote: Show us repeatedly where white supremacists have been terrorizing people?

You sad, idiot moron.

All white supremacist marches are about is terrorizing people. If you march through a town, shouting "blood and soil" and waving flags of the enemies of the United States, it's nothing but an attempt to terrorize and intimidate American citizens.

And YOU are casting a blind eye to that.

You may not like Antifa, but Antifa only shows up to fight with fascists. When Hitler said "nly one thing could have stopped our movement – if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement," they took him at his word. And that's what has to be done.

These Nazi assholes aren't fucking peaceful. They laugh at being tolerated because it's something they can take advantage of. They showed up with weapons and riot gear, and a bunch of guys in military gear carrying automatic weapons.

You can laugh that off as "not terrorizing anyone" if you're sick enough to do so, but that's bullshit and you know it.

I'm happy to not be in your position, having to defend this shit. To their credit, a lot of Republicans aren't -- I'm not a fan of Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, but at least they made firm, non-wishy-washy statements against this shit and declared they don't want it in their party. You could do the same, but you are either too weak, or, worse, you sympathize with the racists... in which case, you're scum.

Trump is so pathetically needy for approval that he can't even dare say that he doesn't want the support of Nazis! And if we're playing political Bingo, motherfucker, that's the FREE space! That's about the least controversial thing anybody can say. But Trump knows what brought him to the dance, and he knows where the last dregs of his support are coming from, so he can't say their name. Oh, he can rail about people not being able to fight Islamic Extremism if they can't say it (and I can say it, and do), but he can't even say "white supremacy" or "white nationalism" and declare that to be the enemy of a country of free people. Because he's weak. He's not a leader.

Honestly, we don't have a president right now. A guy won the excutive branch... and then left it vacant because he doesn't want the job, he just wants the "win." He's incompetent. And every day you're a bigger joke for supporting him.

"Right-wing terrorism" doesn't have to be synonymous with "the right-wing" any more than "Islamic extremism" has to be synonymous with mainstream Islam. They aren't. Not all right-wingers are racists, and not all Muslims are jihadis. But, with people like you being fucking timid about kicking the Nazis out of your party because you don't even have the balls to admit they're a problem, you're only hurting yourself.

PkrBum wrote:It's going to be cool if you're attacked with the same vitriol... right?

You try it any time you like, bitch. Wouldn't be my first time. Or even second, third, fourth, fifth... tenth...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim_us_59902e7ee4b09071f69a41c0?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__BREAKING__%202017-08-13%20Heather%20Heyer%20Murdered%20While%20Protesting%20Against%20Hate%20In%20Charlottesville%20Friends%20Say&utm_content=__BREAKING__%202017-08-13%20Heather%20Heyer%20Murdered%20While%20Protesting%20Against%20Hate%20In%20Charlottesville%20Friends%20Say+CID_4ba45395d227acb8dc5bd410c467e905&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Read%20More&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__BREAKING__%202017-08-13%20Heather%20Heyer%20Murdered%20While%20Protesting%20Against%20Hate%20In%20Charlottesville%20Friends%20Say

Heather Heyer was 32. This is the result of stupidity on a mass scale. It appears we have neo-Nazi sympathizers on this forum. I am half German. YOU DISGUST ME!

Yet no outrage when occupy or blm terrorize... go figure.

Guest wrote:If the right has to stand by and watch the left vandalize and destroy
Cities in multiple locations, the left needs to at
Least allow the opposite to hold a peaceful demonstration of
their rights. You don't have to agree. You can dislike,
But your rights end when they (the left) decided to attack said idiotic protestors.

Your detractors make articulate and well-structured arguments. I wish to subscribe to their newsletters.

Unfortunately I can't read Nazi.

Yet no outrage when occupy or blm terrorize... go figure.


Criminal actions deserve outrage.

Actually the Alt right is a conservative political action group, as is the KKK , and the Nazis. None of those members vote for progressive policies and consistently vote for hate and bigotry which pursuant to Nixon's Southern Policy has captured the south. Other groups who cause violence should be prosecuted, but in Nazi Germany the brown shirts of Rohm were the same collection of losers and perverts which we saw in Virginia. Collins the head of the new Nazi party in the mid seventies was a convicted child predator and went to jail. Those persons migrating to the Republican party are overwhelming part of the Dixiecrat migration with Alt right no longer using dog whistle, and it is too funny to try to distance from the reality of hate in America. The President won by sweeping his Republican challengers out of the primary by getting the solid hate of the South. It started with Jeff Sessions support, but it really started with his hatred toward Mexicans and Muslims which is deeply embedded in the South as Jim Crow which would have rendered these people less than equal was only eliminated in my life time. None of my Southern family ever flew a Confederate flag, but they believed in separate but unequal, and had no use for Mexicans or Muslims. I loved them dearly, and I loved the culture of my childhood, but even as a child I could not reconcile the hate of the region with reality and christian beliefs.

Joanimaroni wrote:

#1 : david duke would disagree. Alt right is the politically correct term for Nazis I thought they  hated political correctness. NAZIS NAZIS NAZIS!

#2 : They are not people they are NAZIS. Kicking there teeth in should become a national pastime.

#3 : Who gave that order? Allegedly? Hillary or Obama?

#4 : You're walking down the street after a
KKK/NAZI " political rally " and you come across a hooded clansmen and an armband wearing Nazi and they're beating a pregnant woman. Is it okay to get violent with them? Never say never.

Are your comments suppose to make sense?

Joanimaroni wrote:

That's absolute horseshit from a apologist group desperate to keep their hands clean.

The alt-right is completely conservative. Trying to pretend they aren't is a laugh and a half!  They want everything progressive done away with.  Seriously, before you spread stuff like this, go look at some of their websites.  I believe in knowing my enemy, so I've spent time reading Stormfront, Daily Stormer, 4chan, Brietbart, etc.  They're conservative and Republican to the bone.  They're not always happy with Republicans because they aren't all extreme enough for them, but they hate Democrats with a crazed passion.  Being anti-leftist is all what they're about, and to them, everybody who votes Democrat counts as a "leftist," even though that's the only party still available for centrists.  So, sorry, but you own these creeps.  I don't blame you for not wanting to claim them, and I urge you to repudiate them and kick them out of your party if at all possible, but denial ain't gonna cut it.  These guys are on your side.  It's up to you if you're going to be on theirs or not.

As for Black Lives Matter, the right likes to try to paint them as a "racist group," but they aren't anti-white.  They just want cops to stop devaluing their lives.  It's a mystery to me why "Black Lives Matter" is so threatening to some people.  They aren't out to get you, they're just trying to save themselves.  That's not a bad thing.  I don't agree with every method they use, but their goal is not sinister.

Now, for Antifa.  Antifa only attacks Nazis and other racists.  They are there entirely for resistance.  And they're there because -- as I've posted several times today -- even Hitler admitted that if people had kicked the shit out of his movement while it was still small and weak, it never would have gotten a foothold, and a whole lot of misery and death would have been avoided.  So, Antifa show up where Nazis show up, and they engage them physically.  That, also, is not a bad thing.  The right likes to try to make Antifa look like terrorists, but the only people Antifa are kicking the shit out of are Nazis.  Nobody else has anything to fear from them.  You might as well brand our military "terrorists" for killing off ISIS.  The people getting a damn good hiding are asking for one.  As far as I'm concerned, the more the white nationalist sKKKum get the shit kicked out of them, the better.  



Antifa are there only when fascists are there.  You want Antifa to go away?  It's easy -- keep Nazis from having rallies.  Otherwise, they're going to be there.  They are a resistance group, aimed at people who need resisting.

Now, the reason the police were told to stand down... I'm not sure about all of that, but I do know that the Alt-Right militia assholes showed up with automatic weapons stronger than the guns the police are issued, and they were wearing full military body armor.  Police wouldn't have had a chance if those bastards had opened fire on them, so they were kept on the perimeter.  These AltRight fucks want to mix it up with police, or anyone else.  They want martyrs for their movement, and they want an excuse to kill.  I repeat, go read their fucking websites before you take up for them.  See what their plans are.  If you're a decent person, I don't think you'll like them.

By the way, the White Nationalists laughed about the cops dying in the helicopter crash.  Here's a link if you'd like to see them call the cops "retards."

As for there being no excuse for political violence in America... well, ideally not.  Most protests are non-violent.  Trump rallies and Hillary rallies both had counter-protestors, but very little happened beyond people shouting at each other.  When they had the Women's March, that was huge, but there wasn't much violence.  Black Lives Matter have events all the time, and there's seldom violence.  TEA party groups had loads and loads of events, and there wasn't much violence.  And all of these things had counter-protestors.  Fortunately the violence on either side at those gatherings has been minimal... and it should be.  People of either side have a right to gather and express themselves.

The White Nationalists are a very different thing.  They're not there to just peacefully express themselves.  That's why they come bearing torches, carrying weapons - including automatic rifles -- and riot gear.  They show up for one reason only -- to make a show of force and try to intimidate people and provoke them.  And if they get violent, they should be met with violence.  Read up on their goals before you excuse them.   If people were getting violent with Trump rallies or whatever, I wouldn't excuse that... those are just gatherings of idiots who are wrong, but have a right to express themselves.  I put up with TEA Party bullshit for years, and I didn't like any of it but I didn't protest it.  They get to have their say.  But White Nationalists are a different thing entirely.  They are a fucking terrorist group, waving the flags of our nation's enemies.     And the resistance to them should include you, unless you'd like America run by racist fascists... which I'm giving you enough credit to assume you don't.

https://itsgoingdown.org/turning-point-usa-alt-rights-blackshirts/

Turning Point USA: The Alt-Right’s Blackshirts

By Anonymous Contributor - February 23, 2017

COUNTERING TURNING POINT USA

Turning Point USA has come to Denver, and the local radicals are taking notice.

TPUSA is an organization closely tied with the Alt-Right. Although they claim no affiliation, TPU’s founder, Charlie Kirk, is a contributor at Breitbart and spent two months of the election cycle working alongside the Trump campaign, helping to recruit millennial voters for the right. TPU has partnered with college republican groups to bring Milo Yiannopoulos to campuses in Colorado Springs and Boulder, financing his open parade of bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia (and encouraging students to attend). Even Charlie Kirk’s father, Robert W. Kirk, is the president of Group A Architects, and was the project manager for Trump Tower in NYC.

TPU’s primary tactic is college recruitment. It wasn’t two weeks ago they were tabling at Denver University, proudly displaying jingoistic merchandise. They appear with a slick corporate image, pamphlets extolling the virtues of American exceptionalism, bearing titles such as “10 Ways America is the Greatest Country in the History of the World!” These pieces of literature contain historically revisionist, pastel portraits of an imaginary country, where “immigrants” came together willingly to pursue total freedom and equality. Features like genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, voting restrictions, brutal union-busting, and internment camps are grouped into long-dead, long-corrected mistakes of the past.

Unsurprisingly, TPUSA is also responsible for the Professor Watchlist, which targets and harasses “leftist” professors for being “anti-American.” Their adulation of free speech, small government, and patriotism just barely veil a neo-fascist organization working hand-in-hand with a “soft white power” movement to recruit 18 to 22-year-olds — a well-worn tactic of early fascists from the Blackshirts to the Hitler Youth.

Unfortunately, Turning Point has already spread rapidly, constructing chapters in many states. However, Denver’s radicals refuse to let this group go unopposed.

ACTION AT THE DENVER HYATT

TPU is hosting their Western Conference on the 18th and 19th of March, at the Denver Grand Hyatt. Since this event was announced, the community has organized to shut down the conference early, first by making phone calls to the Hyatt’s management (303-295-1234), then by picketing the hotel itself. During the short demonstration, two groups of guests cancelled their reservations and demanded refunds, having learned the hotel was hosting an Alt-Right strategic committee.

The Hyatt’s General Manager – Mark Stiebling – has shown no signs of remorse or willingness to take a stand against white supremacy. While less aggressive tactics continue, such as phone calls, emails, speaking with the staff, and spreading awareness on social media, it seems likely that a large-scale confrontation is inevitable.

We consider TPU to be an unqualified threat to our city. By mainstreaming Alt-Right ideology, TPU has aligned themselves against feminism, internationalism, anti-capitalism, immigrant and refugee solidarity, workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, indigenous rights, and ecological responsibility. In short, they have come to OUR neighborhood wearing the colors of white, cishet, male superiority.



COUNTERING TPUSA IN YOUR TOWN

It is likely your state has a chapter of TPU already, or is constructing one. If you intend to counter them, do your homework first.

TPU’s chapter handbook provides a good look at their methodology, and their pamphlets are rife with the sort of ahistorical, whitewashed fabrications they spout to prospective members. They almost exclusively target college students, and have a large social media footprint, so following their twitter account can keep you up to date on their movement.

If you are a student, spread awareness; tell your friends, hand out flyers, and make posters decrying this masquerade of “free speech.” Educate yourself, expose misinformation, and demand that your chancellors expunge existing chapters for attempting to silence professors via the watchlist.

PULL UP THE WEEDS BEFORE THEY SPREAD

Moving forward, opposing Turning Point will be vital for the radical struggle. Although they paint themselves as patriotic, freedom-loving, hard-working Americans concerned with intellectual diversity, their actions and words have demonstrated a troubling pattern of fascist behavior.

Charlie Kirk himself rails against affirmative action because he believes he lost a position in a military academy to a “less qualified, non-white” individual. He has compared welfare to feeding stray animals. Despite being from an affluent white family, he insists there is no reason for anyone in America to be failing financially other than their own laziness and inadequacy. He is scheduled to speak at CPAC, where Milo would have stood beside him, had he not lost his conservative marketability.

This organization is copying classic tactics of “cleaning up” white supremacy, couching their language in meritocracy and liberty, while promoting a culture that has disenfranchised, abused, imprisoned, and killed countless innocent folk of color while elevating whiteness, capitalism, and jingoism as badges of honor. If this rhetoric is not confronted regularly, the Alt-Right will have a new pool of shock troops at their disposal, and Trump will have another foothold in our culture.

A MESSAGE TO YOU, CHARLIE

To the members and directors of TPUSA, be aware; we see you. From now on, every speaking event, every conference, and every table you set up on college campuses in Denver will be directly opposed. You have no fucking right to suddenly disengage from Milo, having invited him to tell your fellow students that rape culture is a myth, that feminism is a cancer, that trans folk are mentally ill sexual predators, and that Islam must be eradicated. Your insistence that you are not part of the Alt-Right is a brass-fronted lie, considering your co-action with their major players. Your long-winded love letters to capitalism and free speech are insufficient to obfuscate your racist, entitled posturing.

We see you, and we are watching you. You are not welcome in our city.

Not all Trump supporters are alt-right, but ALL of the alt-right supports Trump.