It is interesting that the entire beginning of the piece holds a distinctive "anti-white" tone, before finally getting to the events that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a "Unite The Right" rally, protesting the removal of Confederate monuments, obtained a permit, and was met with counter-protesters with no permit, violence ensued as Antifa groups dressed in black, wearing masks and carrying sticks started attacking the original rally attendees. The resulting tragedy of a woman being killed when a member of the original rally allegedly got behind the wheel of a car and plowed through a group of people.
ALT-LEFT JUSTIFIES ANTIFA VIOLENCE
While I am going to break down some of the most egregious asserts made in the article, I do encourage readers to read the entire piece to get a flavor of the sheer arrogance and morally superior tone, as well as the one sided attempt to rewrite history, speaking of "white on black crime" while completely ignoring the "black on white" crime or the "black on black" crime, being seen across the nation today.
To say of those in the so-called “alt-right” who descended upon Charlottesville, that “not all” of them were white supremacists, and that there were “some very fine people” among them, as Trump claimed, is to miss the point by such a wide margin that it calls into question whether this man is even remotely in charge of his faculties. Even if one were to allow that some among them were not Nazis, not supporters of organizer Richard Spencer’s calls for the creation of a “white ethno-state,” and not enamored of the rabid anti-Semitism that characterized the event from beginning to end, it was, after all, a rally to “Unite the Right.” In other words, to put aside whatever picayune differences might separate mere opponents of economic globalism from those who openly joke about pushing Jews into ovens, all in the name of reactionary solidarity.
It was an event intended to blur the very distinctions that the erstwhile leader of the free world would now have us make. It was an event to say, loudly and proudly, that among the right there should be no infighting, no rancor, no division. In short, it was an event intended to convey the message that even the ones who aren’t neo-Nazis are willing to make common cause with those who are. As the Proud Boys — a mostly misogynistic group dedicated to “Western chauvinism” — have put it, there should be no “punching right,” among their side’s members. They are all one thing, not because I say so, but because they do.
Not fine people, let alone very fine people, but rather, rotten fruit from a poisoned tree.
If I were a fine person and found myself at a march where, to my shock and horror, neo-Nazis and other bigots were featured, and I could see them with their swastikas, and their National Socialist Movement banners, and I could hear them yelling “f**k you faggots” at clergy and other peaceful protesters and hurling racial slurs about blacks, and chanting “blood and soil” (the direct English translation of a Nazi slogan), I would immediately leave, taking with me my profound embarrassment at having been so misled, so duped into believing this was just going to be a nice rally for conservative principles. That is what a very fine person would do, and even then, only after having ripped the swastikas from the hands of those holding them in disgust.
Let us unpack that first before getting to the false choice the writer offers America.
President Trump's statement the Salon writer seems so upset about was a response to a question from a reporter about the "alt-right" and violence, so President Trump responded by highlighting how there were good and bad people on both sides of the rally and counter-protest groups, stating "What about the alt left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt right? Do they have any assemblage of guilt? What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. That was a horrible, horrible day. (Reporter tries in interrupt) Trump: Wait a minute. I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake news. That was a horrible day. I will tell you something. I watched that very closely, much more closely than you people watched it. You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I'll say it right now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent."
That is the part of the Charlottesville event that the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle absolutely refused to report, words that now, after the violence at Berkeley by Antifa after Charlottesville, has been proven 100% correct, as many in the media, and Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, and RINOs such as Paul Ryan, are finally speaking up against Antifa and condemning their violence, without once acknowledging that President Trump courageously did it first and caught major criticism from the same aforementioned groups and people.
Pelosi: "The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted."
Statement from Paul Ryan's spokesperson: "Speaker Ryan believes, as is obvious, these individuals are left-wing thugs, and those who are committing violence need to be arrested and prosecuted. Antifa is a scourge on our country."
Where were they when President Trump highlighted Antifa's violent role and attacks in Charlottesville?
Moving along, we see the arrogant moral superiority of the Salon writer when he asserts that a "fine" person would walk away from protesting the removal of Confederate monuments, simply because there were others, White supremacists, protesting the same thing.
Note the writer doesn't even address the flip side of that particular coin, doesn't say that once Antifa showed up with their black clothing, masks over their faces, clubs and sticks in their hands and started attacking people, that the "other side" those peacefully counter-protesting in support of removing the monuments, should have walked away in "profound embarrassment at having been so misled, so duped into believing this was just going to be a nice rally counter-protest for conservative liberal principles."
What the writer does do is attempt to justify the violence from Antifa groups, by saying it is justified because of the rhetoric on the part of neo-Nazi's, rhetoric, which I might add that while abhorrent, is protected by the U.S. Constitution as free speech.
In fact, you know what “very fine people” would do to neo-Nazis? They would yell at them. They would defend themselves if need be. And yes, they might even mace them or punch them in the mouth. Very fine people detest Nazis. In fact, detesting Nazis might be a bona fide requirement — the de minimus definition — for being considered a very fine person.
Get that? a "fine person" should mace or punch people because they do not like their rhetoric or ideology.
Which is exactly what happened in Berkeley, when a group of masked thugs attacked a Hispanic man and his son, for no other reason that the 16 year old boy was wearing a MAGA hat. Would the Salon writer think the Antifa members beating and attacking this man and his son were just "defending themselves"...... because that MAGA hat was so dangerous?
Is Salon now saying it is okay now for any patriot, or conservative to go around and "mace" or "punch" any liberal they disagree with?
They seriously do not understand the type of slippery slope they are going down with that type of mentality.
The writer continues:
This is not to say I always find the tactics of Antifa to be helpful or strategic, because I don’t. But to suggest, as the president did, that they are in some way the moral equivalent of those they were protesting — or perhaps even worse because at least the neo-Nazis had a permit! — is an act of moral inversion so putrid as to boggle the imagination. Whatever one thinks of Antifa tactics, there is simply a difference, and not a small one, between people who call for the purging of people of color and Jews from a nation, and those who fight back against people who call for those things. And if we say there is no difference between advocating genocide and oppression and resisting those who advocate genocide and oppression, then we are headed quickly to a place that puts equal moral condemnation upon the leaders of the Warsaw ghetto uprising as with those they were fighting. We are suggesting that the enslaved, who often resisted their owners violently, were no better than those who held them in bondage. We are suggesting that the kidnapped who slits the throat of her captor in the middle of the night is no better than the one who took her. And this is a perversion.
I'll agree, there is a difference, one spews hateful rhetoric and the other uses violence to suppress the free speech of another. "Resistance" seems to the theme these days for liberals. Attacking a group of peaceful protesters because you do not like their rhetoric, is now "resistance," as he offers a false equivalence between Antifa's terrorist tactics to slaves fighting against slavery or victims of violence fight back against their attackers.
I would suggest that for the writer to claim that violence is justified against anyone utilizing their free speech rights, no matter how abhorrent the message, "is an act of moral inversion so putrid as to boggle the imagination," to use his own words.
Words are not violence. Free speech, no matter how horrifying and offensive, is not violence. Physically attacking people because you disagree with their ideology is violence. Using violence against people in order to suppress their speech, is fascism. Period.
THE FALSE CHOICE - 'CHOOSE A SIDE'
Then we come to the conclusion of the Salon piece:
Because see, now it is time for us to choose a side if we haven’t already, and to recommit to the fight. And by we, I mean those of us called white in this place. When David Duke and Matt Heimbach say that their movement is “speaking for white people,” they are trying to draft us into their army quite without our consent. When Andrew Anglin says this movement will “take over the country,” as he did this weekend, he is advocating the overthrow of the government. Yours. Mine. Ours. If you are white, and don’t resist this draft with every fiber of your being — if you don’t decide in fact to burn your draft card and insist that you will choose a different way to live in this skin — then you will have confirmed that they are right—that they do speak for you. And you will have revealed yourself as an enemy of all that is good about this land. Please know, history will not remember you well for it.
Emphasis mine.
Nowhere in that mind-numbing "fine person" logic do we see a reference to the actual plan to "overthrow the government," stated clearly by Antifa groups in their plan for nationwide terror attacks to begin on November 4, 2017, with the stated goal of taking "to the streets and public squares in cities and towns across the country continuing day after day and night after night—not stopping—until our DEMAND is met: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!"
THAT is a declaration of intent to violently" overthrow the duly elected government," not some rhetoric spewed by some white supremacist we have never even heard of.
The writer is attempting to give "white people" a false choice, either support Antifa violence against everyone that disagrees with them, or be labeled a "white supremacist."
Language warning on the video below, but one would have to wonder if the Salon writer would call the man below, trolling Antifa members, a "white supremacist," considering he is black and calling Antifa masked thugs "racist" because their are no blacks in the group.
THE RACE WAR THAT WASN'T
I highlighted the video above because the man brings up a very important point. Why are there few African Americans that are part of the Antifa groups, they have some figureheads, black women that go on camera defending Antifa and whining that the press is covering their violence, but the majority of these thugs, the most violent among them that have been arrested, are white.
Look at the mug shots of 11 of the 13 arrested in Berkeley:
In fact, we are seeing more and more instances of Antifa groups attacking black activists, such as BLM, as seen from the video from Dallas:
Isn't the whole argument made by the Salon writer about supposed racism, and how it is justified to violently attack, by punching them or macing them, a neo-nazi, simply because they are "racists."
Then how would he explain,the multiple examples of Antifa attacking blacks and Hispanics, if he even deigned to acknowledge the events?
Go to your local store or a mall anywhere in America.... are we seeing blacks and whites duking it out? No. Take a look at Texas right now, where blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians and everyone else are banding together to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.
I submit the only "race war" happening right now, is the one that Soro's funded Antifa and BLM groups are trying to start in order to kick off a "civil war" in America in an attempt to overthrow the duly elected government. I also submit that if the alt-left is going to encourage Antifa violence and demands Americans "choose a side," with Antifa being part of their side, they are in for a world of hurt when they get the civil war they are pushing for.
Excellent analysis below on the truth of Antifa, with some disturbing clips of Antifa attacking innocent people, including a disabled man in a wheelchair.
