White Supremacy, Terrorism, Wisdom, Many Sides, Charlottesville, Nazis

Many sides.

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

President Trump, in a prepared statement

  • Max’s Dad reacts pretty much as many of us did, after yesterday’s apparent terrorist attack by a white supremacist, at hearing my President’s neutral condemnation of hate and violence “on many sides”. My question: How many folks were in that car?
     
  • One right wing narrative casts Hitler’s Nazi movement as part of the political left. Green Eagle takes on the latest conservative book parroting this resurgent conservative meme.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged reviews CNN’s firing of Jeffrey Lord after his Seig Heil tweet. She is all in for free speech. She also holds that not everyone is entitled to all platforms. Perhaps CNN ought to have drawn the line before arriving at the doorstep of Hitler?
     
  • @bjork55 at Bjork Report sees evidence of an inverse relationship between conservatism and respect for democracy.
     
  • Every month or so, Infidel753 posts a group of random observations. They are pithy bits of what may be considered wisdom (okay, I consider them wisdom), depending somewhat on predisposition. August strikes me as especially thoughtful.
     
  • In MadMikesAmerica, Neil Bamforth looks into climate change and suggests that Britain’s devastating floods might soon be the new normal.
     
  • Just what does Vlad Putin have on Don Trump? At The Moderate Voice Joe Gandelman takes a look at the weak response to mass expulsion of diplomats as the latest bigly sign that this President is in that President’s pocket.
     
  • Jon Perr at PERRspectives looks at how “America First” came to mean America last.
     
  • Tommy Christopher, watches as Joe Scarborough plays a pre-election clip of a Hillary warning on nuclear responsibility and admits that it now seems prophetic.
     
  • Dave Dubya points to an underlying motivation for conservative hostility to health care.
     
  • My conservative friend T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense, is frustrated by the failure of health care repeal. So he attacks the idea of progressive taxation, that the rich should have a higher rate than the poor. He expresses his apprehension about the prospective failure of a proposed massive tax cut for the most wealthy.
     
    My friend posits a parable of sorts, comparing the social safety net to a group of guys buying beer. His conclusion is a warning. If we don’t stop our violent persecution of the top one percent, they might just retreat to more friendly shores overseas.
     
    Let’s see. The maximum tax rate here is a little under 40%. So perhaps the oppressed job creators will find sanctuary in some tax friendly haven such as Spain at 45%? Britain at 62%? The Netherlands at 52%? Luxembourg at 52%? Somalia might be a good bet with virtually no taxation, no roads, no healthcare, no police, no protection. Pirates, terrorists, lack of clean water and food safety are problems, but you can’t have everything.
     
  • Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post seems to think my President is less than credible. Actually, most of us have noticed that being pointed out before. It may seem repetitive, but it is worth repeating. With apologies to Mary McCarthy, every word Mr. Trump says or tweets is a lie, including “and” and “the”.
     
  • Andy Borowitz is on the scene as President Trump assures us that he just got a phone call from Robert Mueller telling him that he is “the most innocent person ever”. Okay, it’s satire, but it sounds like it could be tomorrow’s press conference.
     
  • Oh wow! Julian Sanchez, senior fellow of Cato fame, explains what reasonably can be surmised from the dark of the morning raid on the home of Paul Manafort, former chair of the Trump campaign.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives defends Martin Luther King from attack over what he calls a stray quote.

    “All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the womb a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born…We in the West must support these revolutions.”

    The quote is taken by an antagonist as an endorsement of “the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Rouge.” Mr. LaFerrara objects to an extrapolation of a brief quote spoken before the evils of those groups were known. Actually, his case is stronger than he thinks. He might also have gone to the speech in which Dr. King expands on his central theme, that a “positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism.” Not exactly what Mr. LaFerrara’s dishonest opponent alleges.
     

  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor and current atheist Bruce has developed a few insights into how religious authority provides leaders the opportunity to sexually abuse trusting parishoners.
     
  • Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass is skeptical about explanations by Kentucky’s governor for a sweetheart real estate deal.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is confused by adjoining headlines, one saying that malls and retail are being killed in the internet age, the other that a new local mall replacing an historic racetrack will bring in lots of revenue.
     
  • This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’, coming from The Baltimore Sun, dissects President Trump’s recent claim that he has personally updated the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He didn’t.
     

One thought on “White Supremacy, Terrorism, Wisdom, Many Sides, Charlottesville, Nazis”

  1. “But the incitement of hatred that got us here is as real and condemnable as the white supremacists in our streets”

    She should know. No one has been the target of far Right incitement of hate and demonization longer than Hillary. “Lock her up” is a sentiment shared by far more than a few white nationalists and neo-Nazis. It is a Republican/con-servative/Trumpist mantra. Ask any of them what crime she committed and you get a blank stare of anger. They don’t know anything, but hate.

    Charlotte is the beginning, as long Kim Jong Don spews his “many sides” false equivalence.

    Republicans and con-servatives are shocked, shocked that all their hateful rhetoric is bearing fetid fruit, as they dutifully fall in line behind the Trump agenda. This isn’t the first act of American Right wing terrorism and it won’t be the last.

    To hell with those fascists. Every time one of them demonizes a liberal, the ugly spirits of Hitler and Mussolini may as well cheer for the demise of their former enemy. This is the dark heart of American con-servatism.

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