The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Sep 11, 2017 4:18 pm

A Biracial 8-Year-Old Was Hung By Group Of White Boys And Cops Refuse To Give Details

No words.

by Zahara Hill, September 11, 2017

A biracial 8-year-old boy was airlifted to a New Hampshire hospital after being hung from a tree by a group of White teens.

On Sunday, The Root reported that a child from Claremont, New Hampshire was racially taunted, hit with sticks and rocks and later hung from by a group of boys he’d been playing with in his neighborhood in late August.

The boy swung back and forth three times before being able to release himself during the incident which took place on the evening of August 28. The young child before , whose identity has not been released, with heinous rope marks around his neck. He was driven to Valley Regional Hospital by his mother before being flown to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Fortunately, he did not suffer any internal injuries.

The child’s grandmother Lori Slattery shared the recollection of events imparted to her by her 11-year-old granddaughter who was outside with her brother when he was hung.

“The (teenagers) said, ‘Look at this,’ supposedly putting the rope around their necks,” Slattery told Valley News who first reported on the story on Tuesday. “One boy said to (her grandson), ‘Let’s do this,’ and then pushed him off the picnic table and hung him.”

Slattery said her grandson has been emotionally distant and won’t talk about what took place that day.

A couple of hours after the incident, the boy’s mother Cassandra Merlin whom the sister sought after the hanging, posted a picture of her son’s injuries, which have since been removed, on Facebook. On Thursday, she clarified her intentions of posting about what happened to her son by saying that she wanted to demonstrate the reality of racism and plans on seeking justice for her son.

Cops are refusing to publicize any details on the case because the perpetrators are minors. Slattery said cops have informed that they are unable to punish the boys responsible for hanging the 8-year-old because they claimed it was an accident.

“If it was an accident, that boy or anybody there wouldn’t have left him,” she continued. “I believe it was intentional. I do believe he does not want to believe that he was being hurt purposefully. That is the kind of kid he is.”
Last edited by stillrobertpaulsen on Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Cordelia » Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:17 pm

Horrific crime for children (anyone) to commit and trauma for the little boy to endure. (Graphic images like that, especially of a child, shouldn't be posted publicly, imo)
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung

We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:33 pm

Cordelia » Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:17 pm wrote:Horrific crime for children (anyone) to commit and trauma for the little boy to endure. (Graphic images like that, especially of a child, shouldn't be posted publicly, imo)


My apologies, Cordelia. I removed the image, anyone who wants to see it can click the link.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby Cordelia » Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:02 pm

^^^ Many thanks Robert!

:praybow
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung

We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Sep 19, 2017 5:45 pm

Jews in Texas Already in Hiding From Neo-Nazis; Holiday Service Held at Secret Location

By Steve Russell On 9/19/17 at 8:00 AM

There's an apocryphal story from WWII that when the Nazis started requiring the Jews under their control to wear gold stars, the Danish King donned one himself and suggested his subjects do the same. It’s an inspiring story, and it ought to be true, but it is mere folklore in the service of the more mundane historical truth: the Danes saved most of their Jewish population from the Holocaust, but by more conventional methods.

Early warning of Germany’s intentions and a negotiated safe passage through Sweden were why nearly 90 percent of the Danish Jews survived the occupation of Denmark. But it is also true that siding with their Jews in 1943 carried substantial risk for the Danes, who had refused since the German invasion of Denmark in 1940—a “war” that took all of two hours—to enact anti-Jewish measures suggested by the occupying forces and gotten away with it because Danes were “Nordic Aryans,” considered capable of governing themselves and offering no threat.

In late 1942, Hitler reacted to what he took as a personal insult from the Danish King and increasing acts of violent resistance by Danish people by allowing one more round of elections to see if Danish Nazis would gain power. In March of 1943, the largest turnout in Danish history gave the Nazi Party of Denmark 2.1 percent of the vote—up from 1.8 percent in 1939.

Within months, the Germans dissolved the Danish government, declared martial law and moved directly to round up Danish Jews, finally using Germany’s formidable army to act on Hitler’s bizarre claims that Jews are a race, and that the Jewish race had to be exterminated. Fortunately for Danish Jews, the collapse of the Danish government happened in slow motion and a German diplomat leaked the coming order to remove all Jews from Denmark. Over a two-month period, most Danish Jews were ferried to neutral Sweden on fishing boats and pleasure craft.

WWII ended badly for Hitler’s racial ideas, so those of us who are not Jewish might be excused for thinking that danger had passed.

Last month In Charlottesville, Virginia, there was a torchlight parade that passed in front of a college town synagogue, home of Congregation Beth Israel, with the marchers chanting "Jews will not replace us!" and "Blood and soil!" Some of the marchers had long guns. Those chants were recycled from Hitler’s original Nazis, as was the torchlight parade.

I mention now that I am American Indian because I know some people will be skeptical that one can “remember” happenings older than the person remembering. But we Natives know it’s a real phenomenon, perhaps brought on by the repetition of the story within a community over many years. We call such collective recollections “blood memories,” and those ugly chants in Charlottesville, combined with the ominous group of armed men who stood across the street from the synagogue as the torch-lit procession passed, had to spur a chilling memory for at least some members of that congregation to Berlin, November 9, 1938.

Kristallnacht. On the night of broken glass, 267 synagogues were destroyed.

Congregation Beth Israel, terrified and helpless the night of the procession and alarmed by the violence the next day, hired armed security guards to ward off the neo-Nazis after the local police department declined to provide a visible police presence. As a precaution against an American Kristallnacht, the Congregation also removed their Torah scrolls from the premises.

Denmark and Germany and Charlottesville, Virginia form the backdrop for a document circulating in a Jewish congregation in Texas whose name will be redacted to preserve what little safety there is in anonymity:

We are about one week away from the High Holy Days and would like to remind you all about the procedures to be followed for attending the Services.

[Name Redacted's] High Holy Day guest policy allows members to bring guests. The only requirement is that guests be accompanied by the member(s) who invited them or that prior arrangements be made. (Email holydays@[redacted] so a guest pass can be provided.) Guests will be asked to provide their names and addresses on a sign-in sheet.

Upon arrival, as you enter the corridor leading to the [redacted[ and [redacted] rooms on the 2nd floor of the [building], you will encounter a Greeting Table. Please be prepared to show your Name Tag or the High Holy Day Pass that you can access by Clicking Here. After printing the pass, be sure to enter your name(s) on the pass and the name(s) of any guest(s) accompanying you. If your guests arrive without you, please ensure that they have a Guest Pass.

If you arrive without either of the documents, the Greeter will ask your name and check it off on the roster. If you are accompanied by guests, please identify them to the Greeter so their names and address(es) can be recorded. This procedure will be repeated for each service. There will be a security guard positioned close to the Greeter's table.

[Effusive gratitude for cooperation redacted.]

[Name Redacted] does not publish the location of its services, just the schedule and an email address if more information is desired. If your guests will arrive separately, please be sure they know where the services are being held.


The instructions in the orginal email were augmented in subsequent email to add, "Unaccompanied guests will also be asked to provide a Picture ID." Members were further cautioned, "If you arrive without either of the documents (pass or name tag), and the greeter is not familiar with you, you will be asked to provide a Picture ID." This addition arrived with the explanation, "Safety is the number one item on our list, and we ask that you not bring any large bags or packages to the services."

These documents were not meant for the general public, but if these kinds of precautions are thought necessary for Jewish holiday worship services in America, then the public needs to know. Public display of swastikas and anti-Semitic chants are protected by the First Amendment, and in some states it is lawful to bring firearms to celebrations of Nazi nostalgia. All of this is lawful, but there are consequences.

The calendar claims this is 2017.

The history books claim the Allies defeated Hitler decisively in WWII.

The President of the United States claims it’s not possible to apportion the blame for deaths and injuries at a neo-Nazi rally between those neo-Nazis and the people who gathered to oppose the rebirth of Nazi ideology. That, too, has consequences.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Sep 26, 2017 4:43 pm

Infiltrator Goes Inside the Alt-Right, and What He Finds Is Disturbing
How a gay anti-fascist activist went under cover to infiltrate a group of white supremacists.
By Patrick Strickland / Al Jazeera
September 25, 2017

Patrik Hermansson, a gay anti-fascist activist, would seem like an obvious target for the white supremacists, far-right populists and neo-Nazis who make up the alt-right movement.

Yet the 25-year-old was able to successfully infiltrate the alt-right's ranks as part of a year-long undercover investigation for Hope Not Hate, a UK-based organisation that monitors hate groups.

Posing as a graduate student researching censorship of right-wing political speech, Hermansson documented the alt-right's growing influence in the US and Europe.

Patrik Hermansson, a gay anti-fascist activist, would seem like an obvious target for the white supremacists, far-right populists and neo-Nazis who make up the alt-right movement.

Yet the 25-year-old was able to successfully infiltrate the alt-right's ranks as part of a year-long undercover investigation for Hope Not Hate, a UK-based organisation that monitors hate groups.

Posing as a graduate student researching censorship of right-wing political speech, Hermansson documented the alt-right's growing influence in the US and Europe.

Al Jazeera spoke to Hermansson about his experiences and observations while embedded in the alt-right.

Al Jazeera: How did the alt-right evolve over the year that you were undercover? Patrik Hermansson: The broader far right developed in several ways. Brexit, Trump's election and terrorist attacks in Europe have all been significant drivers of recruitment for the broader far-right movement.

Trump's election has been the strongest driver for the alt-right. They really perceive themselves as having brought Trump into the White House and have been emboldened. Many of them feel that their ideas have been normalised.

They feel like their ideas are gaining influence in the mainstream. There is a range of different opinions towards Trump, and it is quite interesting. There are online forums that will call him Emperor Trump, but there have been periods in which he's fallen out of favour with many of them over the "deep state" or various conspiracies.

But after Charlottesville, he gained much more support again after he compared the "alt-left" (a widely disputed term the president used to characterise anti-fascists) to the alt-right. Generally, although they disagree with his policies at times, they usually blame the disagreements on outside influences.

Al Jazeera: How did your own perception of the alt-right change from the time you started your investigation? Hermansson: I learned a lot about them. I wasn't aware of how internationally connected they are. I'm more afraid of them now than when I started. Their opinions behind closed doors are genocidal in many cases. You can listen to YouTube or read their articles and they say very racist things, but I can promise you what they say behind closed doors is much worse.

Their perception of their opponents [leftists and anti-fascists] differs from person to person. They like to be victimised and portrayed as the underdog. They like to say that the left is there to repress their freedom of speech.

Al Jazeera: You mention in the investigation that an influential member of Sweden's alt-right was present in Charlottesville. How much do we know about the international connections of American alt-rightists? In different ways, we know that Nordic Resistance Movement [in Sweden and elsewhere] members go to some of the same conferences [as alt-rightists] and speak on the same podcasts and interview each other. I've met people in the US who know a lot about the Nordic Resistance Movement and follow them closely as well as their news. It is widely read by American far-right activists, who are not necessarily National Socialists [like the Nordic Resistance Movement, or NRM] themselves. They communicate regularly. National Action (a neo-Nazi outfit), which is labelled a terrorist group, in the UK is in direct contact with some of the people in the alt-right.

Al Jazeera: Were there any instances in which you thought your cover had been blown? Hermansson: I was using a fake name and filming undercover. It really put a lot of stress on me. I had a constant sense of paranoia that they would find me out, or that I would accidentally say my actual name. They are suspicious, and they've always been suspicious. You're sort of always afraid you'll be found out.

Actually, I accidentally once said my real name as instinct. I was afraid for a few days that they would kick me out, but I managed to get away with it through some creative explanations.

Al Jazeera: What was it like to be undercover and witness the violence during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville? Hermansson: I was standing there at a crossroad on a corner … I saw shoes flying in the air, people falling. You don't really understand what you're seeing in a situation like that. My immediate reaction was to wonder why the car came there, why shoes were flying in the air. It was terrifying, and the whole crowd panicked.

Yet, people came together and helped. They used protest banners to give shade to injured people. They were bringing water. Everybody did practical small things to support each other, and that was powerful to see.

Al Jazeera: Will the alt-right be able to recover from the backlash following the deadly attack in Charlottesville? Hermansson: I think that in the long term, Charlottesville won't have a [lasting negative] impact on the alt-right. Even though the divisions are clear between the alt-right and the alt-light … If you look at social movements, there is usually a more extreme radical side and a more moderate sense. They work together even though they may not do it in a formal sense. The moderate side helps normalise ideas. So, the alt-light is probably more dangerous because they are normalising these ideas and bringing them into the mainstream ... and they have the ear of politicians.

Al Jazeera: Do you expect to see them back in the streets of the US in large numbers? And should we expect more violence? Hermansson: Predicting the future is always difficult. I wouldn't be surprised by more violence. When you have these groups with young men and violent ideologies, the group dynamic means they need to prove themselves [to each other] and distance themselves from the left. It leads to dehumanisation of their opponents. There will always be people in the alt-right who will take that to its logical extreme like they did in Charlottesville.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Wed Oct 11, 2017 8:11 pm

File yet another one under the 'What Could Possibly Go Wrong' section:

Neo-Nazis planning ‘White Lives Matter’ rally in Tennessee following ‘stunning success’ of Charlottesville
Bob Brigham
11 Oct 2017

Image
White Nationalist Matthew Heimbach at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The white supremacist group the Traditionalist Worker Party helped organize the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that claimed the life of anti-fascism protester Heather Heyer. The group’s leader is following up by organizing a “White Lives Matter” rally in Tennessee.

Matthew Heimbach was a featured speaker in Charlottesville and told Mic journalist Jack Smith IV that he considered the white nationalist rally as a “stunning success in every regard.”

Now Heimbach is helping organize a “White Lives Matter” rally on October 28 in Shelbyville, Tennessee, Mic reported.

Other speakers at the rally include Dillon Hopper of Vanguard America and Jeff Schoep of the Nationalist Socialist Movement (NSM).

James Alex Fields, who was charged with the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, was photographed marching with Vanguard America prior to his attack.
Report Advertisement

“Schoep’s group is known for the crudeness of its propaganda, the violence it works hard to provoke, and the faux SS outfits that have caused many other neo-Nazis to deride NSM members as ‘Hollywood Nazis,'” the Southern Poverty Law Center said of the group it labels as neo-Nazi.

Heimbach is “the next David Duke,” Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, told the Indianapolis Star. “Matt Heimbach is the constant glad-hander of the radical right because there is not an organization that he is not associated with or rubs shoulders with or sought to build alliances with.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t the only anti-hate group that has been tracking Heimbach.

“He kind of bridges the gap between the intellectual racists and the neo-Nazis. And he’s done that for some time,” Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told the Indy Star.

When the Indy Star asked Heimlich about the murder of Heather Heyer, he lacked regret.

“It is, of course, tragic when anyone loses her life, but she was part of a crowd that was attacking nationalists for the past several hours. … No particular sympathy for her because she was part of a mob that was trying to kill us,” Heimbach told the newspaper.

Heimbach is taking a page out of the terrorist playbook in his efforts to build white supremacist support.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Heimbach was charged with assaulting a black woman at a Donald Trump campaign rally.

“I was called a n****r and a c*nt and got kicked out,” the victim explained. “They were pushing and shoving at me, cursing at me, yelling at me, called me every name in the book. They’re disgusting and dangerous.”

Heimbach pleaded guilty in July, receiving a $145 fine. The judge waived a 90 day jail sentence, which would have prevented Heimbach from participating in the “Unite the Right” rally.

Watch Matt Heimbach in Charlottesville:


Sorry couldn't embed video. It's at the link above.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby 82_28 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 1:00 pm

Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group’s Campaign of Menace

They train to fight. They post their beatings online. And so far, they have little reason to fear the authorities.

by A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham for ProPublica Oct. 19, 2:01 p.m. EDT

It was about 10 a.m. on Aug. 12 when the melee erupted just north of Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia.

About two dozen white supremacists — many equipped with helmets and wooden shields — were battling with a handful of counter-protesters, most of them African American. One white man dove into the violence with particular zeal. Using his fists and feet, the man attacked one person after another.

The street fighter was in Virginia on that August morning for the “Unite the Right” rally, the largest public gathering of white supremacists in a generation, a chaotic and bloody event that would culminate, a few hours later, in the killing of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was there to protest the racist rally.

The violence in Charlottesville became national news. President Donald Trump’s response to it — he asserted there were “some very fine people on both sides” of the events that day — set off a wave of condemnations, from his allies as well as his critics.

But for many Americans, conservatives as well as liberals, there was shock and confusion at the sight of bands of white men bearing torches, chanting racist slogans and embracing the heroes of the Confederacy: Who were they? What are their numbers and aims?

There is, of course, no single answer. Some who were there that weekend in Charlottesville are hardened racists involved with long-running organizations like the League of the South. Many are fresh converts to white supremacist organizing, young people attracted to nativist and anti-Muslim ideas circulated on social media by leaders of the so-called alt-right, the newest branch of the white power movement. Some are paranoid characters thrilled to traffic in the symbols and coded language of vast global conspiracy theories. Others are sophisticated provocateurs who see the current political moment as a chance to push a “white agenda,” with angry positions on immigration, diversity and economic isolationism.

ProPublica spent weeks examining one distinctive group at the center of the violence in Charlottesville: an organization called the Rise Above Movement, one of whose members was the white man dispensing beatings near Emancipation Park Aug. 12.

The group, based in Southern California, claims more than 50 members and a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes. RAM’s members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have boasted publicly of their violence during protests in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley. Many of the altercations have been captured on video, and its members are not hard to spot.

Indeed, ProPublica has identified the group’s core members and interviewed one of its leaders at length. The man in the Charlottesville attacks — filmed by a documentary crew working with ProPublica — is 24-year-old Ben Daley, who runs a Southern California tree-trimming business.

Many of the organization’s core members, including Daley, have serious criminal histories, according to interviews and a review of court records. Before joining RAM, several members spent time in jail or state prison on serious felony charges including assault, robbery, and gun and knife offenses. Daley did seven days in jail for carrying a concealed snub-nosed revolver. Another RAM member served a prison term for stabbing a Latino man five times in a 2009 gang assault.

“Fundamentally, RAM operates like an alt-right street-fighting club,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.


Continues:
https://www.propublica.org/article/whit ... e-movement

There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby PufPuf93 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 1:10 pm

One would think folks could find something to do that was more pleasurable and less wasting of time than hate.
User avatar
PufPuf93
 
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:29 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:51 pm

PufPuf93 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 12:10 pm wrote:One would think folks could find something to do that was more pleasurable and less wasting of time than hate.


Some people don't want to solve their problems beyond finding the most convenient scapegoat.

There was a terror attack in Colorado last week — but no one is talking about it

Arun Gupta

08 Nov 2017 at 07:47 ET

Image
Accused gunman Scott Ostrem (Adams County Sheriff's Office)

Scott Ostrem, a 47-year-old, white man, walked into a Walmart north of Denver on Nov. 1 and opened fire. Eyewitnesses described him as “nonchalantly” shooting shoppers with a handgun, killing three.

Police captured Ostrem alive the next day. They said they had “no possible motive for the shooting other than to say there was nothing to suggest it was related to terrorism.”

The incident meets the FBI definition of a mass killing: Three or more people who died in a public place. But sandwiched between a Halloween day attack that killed eight in Manhattan and the slaughter of 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the Walmart killings have faded into the background.

That’s a mistake. Ostrem’s rampage deserves far more attention because it represents the foremost terrorist threat in America today: White supremacist violence unleashed and encouraged by President Donald J. Trump.

Ostrem killed three Hispanic people, Pam Marques, Victor Vasquez, and Carlos Moreno, all parents. In the apartment complex where Ostrem lived, neighbors described him as “a bizarre, angry man who lived alone in an apartment with a stack of Bibles and virtually no furniture.” He was a “loner who would walk around carrying weapons” like a shotgun or bow and arrows.
Report Advertisement

When it came to relations with neighbors, Ostrem “was very racist towards Hispanics.” Another said he was “verbally abusive towards Hispanics.”

The local CBS affiliate reported Ostrem “often expressed dislike for Hispanics to their faces.” A Hispanic employee at the building said, “If he saw a Hispanic person, he would tell them to get out of his way.” One neighbor said Ostrem would say, “’This is America. You shouldn’t be here.”

That sentiment could have come right out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Is there any doubt how Trump would have reacted if a Muslim carried around weapons, kept a stack of Korans in his apartment, verbally abused Christians, and then killed three people? Trump would have lit up Twitter, calling for “much tougher Extreme Vetting Procedures,” decrying Democrats who let the “terrorist” slip across our borders, and condemning the “truly evil” people coming in because of broken immigration policies.

Compare this to the Manhattan attack. Two hours after it happened, before the name of the perpetrator was released, officials designated it an act of terrorism. That assessment was apparently based on nothing more than the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, yelling “God is great” in Arabic after he mowed down cyclists and pedestrians with a truck. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called Saipov one of “these lone wolves who commit an act of terror,” linking him to ISIS. A day later, Saipov was hit with federal terrorism charges.

What officials said of Saipov — a lone wolf “consumed by hate and a twisted ideology” — applies as much to Scott Ostrem and the other white supremacists who have murdered at least nine people since Trump was elected.

The killers attack the same people Trump demonized during his campaign — Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants — and they are motivated by Trump’s words and ideology.

In February, U.S. Navy vet Adam Purinton confronted two Indian men in a bar in Kansas, asking if they were in the country legally, and yelled “Get out of my country,” before killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla and wounding two others. Purinton believed he had shot Iranians, another community scapegoated by Trump.

In May, Sean Urbanski, who liked “memes about Donald Trump, white supremacy, and the alt-right,” stabbed to death Richard Collins III, a black second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. The killing echoed a case in March when Army vet James Jackson stabbed to death Timothy Caughman. Jackson murdered the 66-year-old Black man because “The white race is being eroded. … No one cares about you. The Chinese don’t care about you, the Blacks don’t care about you.”

Also in May, Jeremy Christian stabbed to death Ricky John Best, father of four, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, a recent college graduate, on a train in Portland, Oregon, after they defended two black women, one wearing a hijab, being threatened by Christian. Weeks earlier, Christian had attended a pro-Trump alt-right rally in Portland where he yelled “Die Muslims.”

Most notorious is the neo-Nazi murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in August during an orgy of violence by white supremacists. Days later Trump praised the extremists as “very fine people.”

Many other white supremacist attacks have garnered little attention because the plots were busted, police looked the other way, or people were injured, sometimes severely, but not killed.

Because Trump hits the mute button following white supremacist violence, news outlets chastise him for turning a blind eye. That misses the real story. A recent FBI-DHS report determined white supremacists were the most dangerous domestic extremists.

Rather than counter right-wing terrorism, Trump is enabling it by reducing scrutiny and cutting funds to help “right-wing extremists move away from radical ideas.” Additionally, he’s engaged in a bait-and-switch to divert attention from his brand of terrorism. His administration has fabricated threats such as “Black Identity Extremists,” and he warns MS-13 gangs have “literally taken over” U.S. towns and cities, a notion completely undermined by FBI data.

Trump also hypes “Islamist terrorism” like the San Bernardino couple who killed 14 people in 2015. He exploited those deaths to call for a Muslim ban despite the fact police “never established the motive.” Trump portrays Saipov and Omar Mateen of the Pulse nightclub slaughter as super-soldiers in a global jihad that can only be stopped by bans on Muslims, refugees, and various immigrants. But each one was simply “an aspiring violent criminal searching for a larger justification for the acts he’s desperate to commit.” They are blood brothers with white mass murderers like Stephen Paddock.

Trump’s complicity with right-wing terrorism goes further. He’s courted white supremacists and propagated their beliefs for years. A former DHS intelligence official says Trump empowers white supremacists because they see “an administration in place today that is supportive of their ideological agenda.”

Those storm clouds were brewing before Trump’s election. In October 2016 the FBI foiled a plot by a Kansas militia called “the Crusaders” to wipe out a Somali-American community in Garden City. They called the immigrants “cockroaches” and planned to perpetrate an Oklahoma City-style massacre, the 1995 bombing by right-wing militiamen that killed 168 people and stands as deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in modern U.S. history.

Sounding like Trump, the Kansas militiamen said the Somalis were “a threat to American society” and hoped a bloodbath would “wake up” a lot more people to “decide they want this country back.”

With a president who uses the Bully Pulpit as a recruiting tool for right-wing terrorism, it’s only a matter of time before some of his followers try a slaughter on this scale again. And no one can see we didn’t see it coming.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stickdog99 » Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:27 pm

stickdog99
 
Posts: 6303
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:42 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:22 pm



Thanks so much for this, stickdog99. The whole article is well worth the read and it explains the real reason Trump will probably never fall below 30% approval rating in America. It is in turns sad, heartbreaking, infuriating, chilling and ultimately not surprising. The last paragraph says it all about how his most loyal supporters think.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby SonicG » Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:00 pm

Everybody I talk to,” he said, “realizes it’s not Trump who’s dragging his feet. Trump’s probably the most diligent, hardest-working president we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. It’s not like he sleeps in till noon and goes golfing every weekend, like the last president did.”

I stopped him, informing him that, yes, Barack Obama liked to golf, but Trump in fact does golf a lot, too—more, in fact.

Del Signore was surprised to hear this.

“Does he?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He did not linger on this topic, smiling and changing the subject with a quip. “If I was married to his wife,” Del Signore said, “I don’t think I’d go anywhere.”



Well, Trump does seem to get up early to watch cable news and tweet...but damn...Once the Trump presidency gets further into the quagmire - no matter which way the Mueller ball bounces - this 20% is going to be very confused...
"a poiminint tidal wave in a notion of dynamite"
User avatar
SonicG
 
Posts: 1279
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:29 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby 82_28 » Thu Dec 07, 2017 4:34 am

Thanks, Donald Trump: Anti-Semitic Incidents in Colorado Double


Michael Roberts | December 6, 2017 | 6:40am

According to an analysis by the Anti-Defamation League, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Colorado doubled during the first nine months of 2017 as compared to the same period last year. And while an ADL representative doesn't directly blame President Donald Trump for mainstreaming such behavior, he makes it clear the Commander-in-Chief isn't helping the situation.

"When President Trump talks about the rally in Charlottesville and says there are good people on both sides, it doesn't send the direct and clear message we would want, that this type of bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism is just not acceptable," notes Scott Levin, the ADL's regional director.

The numbers are disturbing. From January 1 to September 30, 2016, the ADL counted 23 anti-Semitic occurrences in the state. Within that frame this year, there have been 46, or a 100 percent increase. And that's not to mention incidents targeting other groups, including refugees, immigrants, Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans and members of the LGBTQ community. ADL stats show 24 instances of harassment and threats in Colorado, 21 cases of vandalism, and one physical assault against a Jewish individual.

These increases haven't happened in a vacuum. "Unfortunately, we've experienced a pretty dramatic rise in anti-Semitism over the last few years," Levin acknowledges. "In 2014, we monitored ten incidents. In 2015, there were eighteen. Last year, there were 45, and it looks like we're well on our way to having seventy incidents just in Colorado this year."

The activities of William Scott Planer, which we've covered in this space, offer an example. In July, the Capitol Hill white supremacist was arrested for putting an anti-Semitic sticker on the door of Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Center in Colorado Springs — and after his arrest, authorities discovered that he'd been accused of assault with a deadly weapon in regard to a 2016 clash in California.

In August, we reported about hateful vandalism at a second synagogue in the Springs, Temple Beit Torah. More recently, a swastika was carved into the door of a Jewish couple living in Lafayette, swastikas appeared in three Durango subdivisions, and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights confirmed anti-Semitic activity at West Jefferson Middle School in Conifer.

This last issue is one Levin's noticed elsewhere. "We've seen a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic language that's happening in schools. I don't know if it's a rise in anti-Semitism or if it's students picking the meanest thing they can say to someone. But unfortunately, some of these anti-Semitic stereotypes are easily passed to school kids, who are using them against fellow students, teachers and the like."

Other scenarios tracked by the ADL "can be everything from a hate crime, where there's actually some form of direct harassment or violence against someone or vandalism of a property, to being a non-criminal-type event where someone uses fairly dramatic hate speech based on anti-Semitic tropes." Levin adds, "I've seen more swastikas this year than I've ever noticed before, and I've been the director of this region for seven years."

What's changed? Levin has a theory.

"From our perspective, the general discourse that's going on out there in the country has lowered the common levels of decency and respect," he maintains. "I think it has become all too easy to pick on a person's religion or race or whether they're documented, or perceived to be documented, in this country. All of these things have lowered the level of discourse, and unfortunately, the modeling that's going on nationally trickles down."

Levin understands "that anti-Semitism has been around for a very long time. But it's a bit of a bellwether, because things like this are not just happening with Jewish people. These incidents are also happening to people with other religions — Muslims, in particular — and people of color in general. And empowering people to express themselves in the worst way starts at the top. We really need our leaders, starting with the President of the United States, to speak out about this."

Presumably, Levin isn't holding his breath.


http://www.westword.com/news/anti-semit ... 17-9679192
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
User avatar
82_28
 
Posts: 11194
Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:34 am
Location: North of Queen Anne
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Rise of Bigot America Thread

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:27 pm

I found this piece interesting in the context of this thread. In the culture of bigotry that Trump's rise has stoked, now we have Evangelicals threatening death to Evangelicals for not being Evangelical enough because they stand in opposition to a President whose character they find the antithesis of Evangelical precepts. Interesting times.


Evangelical Leader Who Criticized Trump Is Swamped with Death Threats from the 'Christian Machine'
They turned on her when she went public with her views.
By Tom Boggioni / Raw Story
December 17, 2017

Image
Jen Hatmaker
Photo Credit: By Roger Mommaerts [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons


A popular evangelical speaker with a string of best-selling books and a home renovation show on HGTV revealed that she has been flooded with death threats because she has been critical of President Donald Trump and supported same-sex marriage.

In an interview with Politico, Jen Hatmaker said the “Christian Machine” has turned on her since she went public with her views, with retailing giant LifeWay Christian Stores pulling her books from the shelves and former fans burning them

According to Hatmaker, she was part of the “never Trump” faction of conservatives who were appalled by the rise of Trump during the 2016 campaign, telling her followers he made her “sad and horrified and despondent.” Following the release of the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape, she went after male Evangelical leaders who defended Trump’s actions, tweeting: “We will not forget. Nor will we forget the Christian leaders that betrayed their sisters in Christ for power.”

Adding to her problems was an interview with Religion News Service where she came out and stated that she supports same-sex marriage.

That was the final straw for what she called the “Christian Machine,” saying her children were accosted in the tiny Texas town where she lives, the death threats started pouring in and her fans turned on her.

“The way people spoke about us, it was as if I had never loved Jesus a day in my life,” she said in a recent speech.

Writing on her blog, she stated: “This year I became painfully aware of the machine, the Christian Machine. I saw with clear eyes the systems and alliances and coded language and brand protection that poison the simple, beautiful body of Christ. I saw how it all works, not as an insider where I’ve enjoyed protection and favor for two decades, but from the outside where I was no longer welcome. The burn of mob mentality scorched my heart into ashes, and it is still struggling to function, no matter how darling and funny I ever appear; the internet makes that charade easy.”

“Simultaneously, other things died during the election season. Much ink has been spilled here and I won’t belabor the point, but I know I’m not the only one holding a pile of tattered threads in her hands, wondering what on earth just happened to our supposed holy common ground,” she added. “The Christian Machine malfunctioned, and we are all still staring at each other, trying our damnedest to figure out how we understand the gospel so differently, unsure if we will ever find our way back to each other.”

According to the evangelist, she is refusing to back down and still delivers sermons pushing non-conservative views such as supporting gun control, Black Lives Matter and immigrant refugees.

“For me,” Hatmaker explained, “it’s not as base as, ‘I’m just going to keep being political for the sake of it,’ so much as it is that all of this policy, all of this rhetoric, all of this leadership, it affects real live human people. That, for me, is where I am no longer comfortable remaining silent.”

You can read her whole story here.
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Belligerent Savant and 39 guests