The fallout from Charlottesville and yesterday’s unhinged remarks from Trump has certainly been gratifying. For example, I have never seen such a broad consensus for taking down Confederate monuments. Even the bleeping National Review is running an op ed calling for moving all Confederate monuments to cemeteries or museums. So many CEOs resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council the last couple of days that Trump disbanded it. Congressional Republicans are lining up to declare their opposition to white supremacy in all its forms without falling back on “but both sides do it” rationalizations. Yes, there are some exceptions, they they are a minority.
I see this as validation of my “Bigger Asshole” rule. In brief, all public demonstrations should be viewed as public relations. Their purpose is to win the public’s sympathy and support for you and your cause. If, however, the demonstrators come across as bigger assholes than whatever they are protesting, this will backfire, and the public will side with the protestee and not the protesters. Likewise, if the institution or group being protested comes across as the bigger asshole, the public will side with the demonstrators. In brief, whoever is the bigger asshole loses.
And the Alt Right plus Trump definitely are the bigger assholes. I understand some of the counter-demonstrators did punch back and did swing some bats, but I’ve heard relatively little about that (although I don’t watch Fox News). Usually if a thousand lefties march peacefully for something and one guy breaks a window, it gets reported as a riot. But this time the focus and blame have fallen entirely on the righties.
This is why nonviolence wins in the long run. Let’s hope we can keep this up.
HBO has a great 20-minute documentary – they did extensive interviews of the organizers and live video on the spot at the university and the moved, then cancelled demonstrations and at the scene of the auto attack. From what I saw, many counter-demonstrators were prepared w/ mace. One of the speakers for the Nazis who was interviewed was maced twice. (My heart bleeds.) The counter demonstrators expected they would be charged and they let them have it with mace. Personally, I’d be happy if the authorities adopt a ‘”Stop & Frisk” policy. Return to the old west – you can recover your weapons at the Sheriffs office on your way out of town.
I have been advocating for the last two days – the First Amendment does not mix with the Second Amendment. You can’t bring weapons to a march, protest, rally, etc. Free Speech, yes. Freedom of Assembly, yes. Right to keep and bear arms at home for protection, yes. Bring weapons to a public place where you expect trouble or intend to start trouble – NO. If you don’t have the balls to demonstrate unarmed – keep your chicken-shit ass at home. (Maha, you will have to recover me from the twit filter, because I am not going to make that PC.) BTW HBO piece is here.
https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror
I like what is said here about non-violence, but I am not sorry to have a couple of Nazis shaken out of their protected space. They need to know that there is a real power ready to oppose them.
It’s hard to beat white supremacists and Fascists/Nazi’s to gain the completely non-complimentary “Biggest Asshole Award(s)!”
What makes my heart positively sing, tough, is that when a bunch of these Nazi douchey-dude-bro’s came into work on Monday, their employers had Security ready to meet them with cardboard boxes for them to clear out their desks/work areas:
THEY WERE FIRED!
There was a reason, KKKids, that earlier generations of bigoted assholes wore hoods!
Too late!
Sucks to be you – and hopefully, your miserable “lives” will only get worse!
Meanwhile, let’s watch the Asshole-Capo dei Asshole-Capi, twist in the media and political winds, like one of the “Strange Fruit” that the GREAT Billie Holidsy sang about – only t-RUMP ain’t literaly dead: Just politically!
(At least I hope so!).
What scares me, is that he may see attacking some other country, as his “Stay out of jail card!”
Oy…………..
Heil Cantwell? What else can you say in support of your comrade when he gets maced twice by the communists.
I know they should be taken seriously because it’s the same mindset and spiritual sickness that was responsible for the deaths of 55 million people 75 years ago, but I can’t help looking at them as a bunch of fucking clowns striving to fulfill some unattainable fantasy. How do you view a person who is walking around carrying a shield with the words — nog är nog — written on it. The best you can do to understand that mindset is to know that something ain’t right in that mind. According to my internet research nog är nog translates to mean enough is enough.. My point being, why not just write enough is enough on the shield so that English speaking people can readily understand what you are trying to convey. It’s the need for Viking speak that makes me think they have a loose screw in their head.
Well I never thought it would happen, but it has. One can be too conservative in this country or, if you will, too large of an ass hole.  I thought it was like too thin or too rich. The president took a right turn and lost a lot of followers and tag-alongs. Most of all he lost important and influential business leaders. When you read a business publication, and a noted commentator all but calls the POTUS a moral moron, you have a train wreck. When business leaders tender public resignations from influential panels the wheels are coming off. Â
Elitism is a near universal obsession, and ones social standing is paramount for many people. White supremacists define status in a way that is objectionable to a vast majority of us. That the business elite have rejected association with white supremacism, the bastard child of conservatism, is a watermark in history. Now if they could just save a bit of distain for the likes of weak economic thinkers like Milton Friedman. Ah but I best not set the bar too high. Â
I guess 90 years ago today Dumbo’s dirt-bag daddy got arrested in NY at a KKK rally. Bad tree; bad fruit.
“If you don’t have the balls to demonstrate unarmed – keep your chicken-shit ass at home”
Doug, I agree but unfortunately that’s not going to fly anymore, the NRA enabled by the GOP has at the state and local level been pushing open-carry laws so these pussies are allowed to carry their Ar-15’s with them, no questions asked, the cops certainly don’t seem to care? Curiously I see very little debate about the gun issue among pundits, it appears that armed Nazi’s are here to stay? It’s only a matter of time before we have a mass shootout at one of these rallies, oh and don’t count on the police stopping it, most of them appear to me to be on the side of the Nazis as well?
uncledad – the conservatives built two standards and methods to suppress minorities and liberals. Stop and Frisk was used against blacks in NYC and Free Speech Zones against liberals. Suppose state police and National Guard are authorized to use these tactics whenever these bastards come to town? The hypocrisy will be wonderful – people who thought these were sound policies used against their enemies will have a very different opinion when they are the target.
Not watching MSNBC?
They have been very kind to the antifas and their role while demanding all the blame for the violence go to the Nazis and broadly suggesting that pesky First Amendment doesn’t really protect white racists.
“They have been very kind to the antifas and their role while demanding all the blame for the violence go to the Nazis and broadly suggesting that pesky First Amendment doesn’t really protect white racists.”
The First Amendment doesn’t protect violence or the inciting of violence. I hear righties whine about antifa all the time, but as far as I’ve heard they’re just responding to right-wing aggression. The inciting of violence is entirely the fault of the Right, who can’t so much as visit a hardware store without being armed to the teeth.
Joseph – You cite “MSNBC” and what you want to think they suggest. You don’t offer a quote from a person or anything specific. What I have said, and others have also, is that Freedom of Speech must extend to repugnant groups. They should be allowed to demonstrate without weapons of any kind. I also think it is appropriate that Antifa – which is an anti-fascist groups, and decent Americans drive these clowns back into the holes they came out of. It’s appropriate that pictures of the Nazis be circulated on the web and the employers terminate them. It’s appropriate that their families know what pigs their sons and daughters have become so they can be shunned. From what I saw of the video, it was the Nazis who were armed with clubs helmets and shields. But I won’t pretend all the counter-protesters were angels I also don’t think it’s wrong, even if it was illegal to use force against groups whose history is rooted in violence. The neo-Nazis have declared on video their violent intent – and their goal to impose their racist views on the country. I have never suggested this before – but people who defend racists and Nazis should be banned on their first comment. You don’t have a place in decent society.
Scary times in the US now, I’m seeing more and more Americans moving to Canada.
If one of them maybe you check out my website: http://eric-smith.ca/
But they had a permit!
If you go to a public demonstration in NYC, not must you not be armed, the cops will not allow people to so much as carry signs on solid wood sticks. Signs have to be on those cardboard rolls that come with gift wrap.
“The hypocrisy will be wonderful”
The GOP and the right wing are immune to hypocrisy, that would require self-awareness, they have none! Just today within hours of a terror attack (vehicle used to run over innocents) in Spain Trump called it a terror attack, just days after he defended his 48+ hour wait to condone the white racists and Nazi’s (vehicle used to run over innocents) in VA so he could “gather all the facts”, they are immune to hypocrisy!
The tactical use of non-violence for those countering these violent right wing, white supremacist Nazis would be very effective, given the propensity for hate-driven violence for those on the right. It takes a lot more courage to be non-violent, and be prepared to take the blows of these cowards on the right, than it is to respond in kind. Even though the “bigger asshole” rule is in effect here, a non-violent approach would highlight that in crystal clarity for the nation and the world to see, and remove once and for all the basis for these phony “both sides” arguments being offered up by so called “good people” trying to justify Trump and/or his violent, racist supporters.
I’m worried that counter-protesters will be [seen as] the “bigger assholes” this Saturday at the “Free Speech Rally” in Boston. The organizers are trying hard to make/let that happen. Many of the more inflammatory (racist/Nazi) speakers who were originally scheduled have dropped out, so they might be able to get away with pretending to be reasonable.
How can we make sure that progressive groups understand that the “bigger assholes lose”?
How can you be a bigger asshole than a Nazi!? How?
How can you be a bigger asshole than a Nazi!? How?
By being a neo-Nazi. The original Nazis didn’t have the benefit of an example. They defined the perception and reality of what a Nazi is. So it would seem to me that knowing what values being a Nazi represents it would take a much bigger asshole to follow that example.
Dickylee,
By being a higher level/degree of Nazi.
Your average German felt – or actually was – forced to join the Nazi party.
But some jumped right in, enthusiastically.
Like the manimals they were, they ran to join the SS, Gestapo, and upper realms of the party.
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In the article I read in our local paper (good paper in small CT city, not some right-wing rag), the counter-protesters came across as the Bigger Assholes because…
1. the organizers were pretty careful to call it a “Free Speech Rally”, not a “White Power” thing, and they weren’t so obviously linked to real Nazi/KKK types.
2. SOME counter-protesters threw bottles, urine, etc, at them at cops, who asked them to stop.
Pretty much exactly what I feared.
YES, “we” are held to a higher standard than the right. Deal with it. Point it out, strongly but politely (one of Fox’s smartest propaganda “hooks” has always been lying about how “the MSM” does that to the Right) . Strident yelling doesn’t help; that always sounds like people who are either trying to block out alternative views and/or more interested in getting personal attention that changing things.